The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
The Victorians were good at what we might call ‘spin’. En masse, they’ve been remembered as prudish, reserved, industrious, God-fearing. Their political leaders, William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli, seen as giants, fighting battles to modernise the state, to...
When writing my second Alexander Baxby mystery Naming the Dead, I tried to imagine what life was like for ordinary people in the early seventeenth century. A murder-solving physician such as Baxby would have witnessed much suffering and death. Average life expectancy...
The 1920s and 30s were a golden age for American foreign correspondents in Europe. Until 1920, American newspapers had taken most of their international news from press agencies such as Associated Press. But during the 1920s, American papers started relying on their...
For 14 years, Gabriele Tadino had faithfully served the Republic of Venice. One of the new breed of soldier, the military engineers, Tadino had done well in service of the Republic. The son of a doctor from Martinengo, a small town that was part of Venice’s Stato da...
Who was Edith Tudor-Hart? For a long time, and especially after the revelation of her crucial role in the creation of modern Britain's most notorious spy ring – the Cambridge Five – she existed more as a cipher than as a real person. I first encountered her name well...
The 10th century sees the creation of what we would recognise as ‘England’ – the combining of the Saxon kingdoms of Wessex with Mercia, with the additions of Kent, the kingdom of the East Angles, the Danish Five Boroughs, and the kingdom of York, and also the...
From 9pm on Tuesday 1 May 1945, the programming on North German radio underwent an abrupt tonal shift. Light, uplifting tunes gave way to sombre music, interspersed with urgent instructions to ‘stand by’ for an important government message. 90 minutes later, three...
It is telling just how few mainstream films have tackled ancient Rome in the 21st century, with two notable exceptions… you know the ones I mean. Gladiators and the arches of the Colosseum are two of the most iconic images we have of the Romans and the Eternal City’s...
“Soldiers, when I give the command to fire, fire straight at my heart. Wait for the order. It will be my last to you. I have fought a hundred battles for France and not one against her…. Soldiers! Fire!” The oft-quoted last words of Michel Ney, Marshal of France,...
If the question posed above were possible, states have already pushed assassination even further to the fore since the publication of Death to Order: A Modern History of Assassination in the summer of 2025. However, if we look underneath the headlines, then the trends...
