The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
What first attracted you to the period you work in? I came to it after quite a long ramble through other periods, beginning with a childhood fascination with Ancient Rome (I loved the helmets), followed by Medieval Europe (knights in armour, castles, cathedrals), the...
June 2017 You are primarily a Russian historian and in 2016 published your book ‘The Romanovs’, the story of twenty tsars and tsarinas who were the most successful dynasty of modern times. Why did you write ‘Jerusalem: The Biography’ when all your other work is on...
How did your experience as a war correspondent influence your work as a historian? A lot. It’s been a real help. It has been a great way to see the scene on the ground. The armies moving and empires falling. The espionage that comes with a sort of breakup of power....
What first attracted you to the period or periods you work in? I have always been interested in history – inspired from a charismatic and quirky history teacher at school. As a teenager I loved to read historical fiction from the Tudor period. I was obsessed with...
What first attracted you to the period or periods you work in? I write mostly about World War Two and immediately post war history. The attraction for me is that World War Two is generally speaking one of the only modern day conflicts in which survival of modern...
What prompted you to chose the period you wrote your first book in? My first historical novel, The Point of Death, was set in the Elizabethan period because my MA thesis was about Shakespeare, who also influenced my second series of Roman spy stories because I was...
What first attracted you to the period or periods you work in? It’s much harder getting into the motivations and mindsets of pre-Enlightenment people, and often requires a higher level of theology than I have. The Enlightenment was the first period in history that the...
What first attracted you to the period or periods you work in? It’s a whole host of intersecting fascinations, actually. I started off studying Central European history in the aftermath of 1989, then gravitated to Germany – specifically Nazi Germany – which I still...
What first attracted you to the period or periods you work in? I remember, as a child, hearing tales of military derring-do round the dinner table. My Dad loves reading military history, and often discusses the great battles and commanders with friends and family. I...
Russian Roulette is the first biography of Graham Greene in a generation. “At last Graham Greene as the biographer he deserves.” The Evening Standard. Richard Greene (no relation) was born in Newfoundland, educated at Oxford, and is a professor of English at the...
