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Chalke Daily: Operation Torch to Dancing Queen

Chalke Daily: Operation Torch to Dancing Queen

Cooler, breezier, busier – the biggest day so far

The passing of time has a strange way in these parts. As the carnyces sound around site, WW2 jeeps swing by, Celts mingle with civil war militia, Neolithic outfits juxtaposed with band members of the much-loved ABBA tribute, you’d be forgiven for a certain amount of...

Chalke Daily: Heat and Hard Truths

Chalke Daily: Heat and Hard Truths

Attendees are enduring record-breaking heat with characteristic resilience, but conditions still fall short of the grizzly existence of a U-Boat crew.

Roger Moorhouse is a prolific historian specialising in the Nazis and World War Two and his recently published Wolfpack: Inside Hitler’s U-Boat War is a corrective to the common perception that U-Boats were terrifying and effective silent killers from the deep. The...

Chalke Daily: Shrugging Off the States for the Stage

Chalke Daily: Shrugging Off the States for the Stage

The Editor-at-large gives his report of talks and Shakespearean tragedy from the second day.

Chalke goers are a stoic breed and the 40 degree heat (and humidity) did not put a dampener on the day.  Top of the billing was America 250: The Continuing Revolution: What Next for American Democracy with luminaries including Anne Applebaum (Gulag, Iron Curtain) and...

The World’s Reformation: How Protestantism Became a Global Religion, by Alec Ryrie

The World’s Reformation: How Protestantism Became a Global Religion, by Alec Ryrie

A nuanced and globe-spanning examination of how Protestantism’s often chaotic missionary efforts helped shape the early modern world.

In a secular age, religious history can feel slightly tangential and recondite, particularly when set against the commercial and colonial designs of fledgling empires in the early modern age. Very well, except that is missing the point. Reformation Europe remains a...

The World’s Reformation

The World’s Reformation

An exploration of the forgotten global ambitions of Protestantism, showing how missionaries sought to spread their faith far and wide, their patchy success an indication of the imaginative limits of early modern Europeans.
Alec Ryrie

In April 1521, three famous subjects of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V were risking their lives on three different continents. Martin Luther was standing before the emperor in person at the Diet of Worms, where he defied all the powers of Europe in the name of...

Building Britannia: A History of Britain in 25 Buildings, by Steven Parissien

Building Britannia: A History of Britain in 25 Buildings, by Steven Parissien

British history is traced through 25 iconic buildings – from Maiden Castle to 30 St Mary Axe – in this blend of architectural perusal and cultural insight.

Dr. Steven Parissien’s latest retelling of history through architecture, Building Britannia: A History of Britain in Twenty-Five Buildings, begins with Maiden Castle in Dorset, which dates from around 600 BC. In the words of John Cooper Powys, this resembles ‘the...

Building Britannia: A Conversation with Steven Parissien

Building Britannia: A Conversation with Steven Parissien

The historian explains his use of architecture and landmarks in telling the story of Britain’s social and political history to author Paul Strathern.
Steven Parissien

Welcome, Steven, to Aspects of History. What was it that first led you into the study of architecture and cultural history? Which came first? I was always fascinated by British history and British architecture from my earliest years, though I’m not sure why: no-one in...

Shadow of a Queen, by Peter Tonkin

Shadow of a Queen, by Peter Tonkin

Robert Poley returns amid the intrigue surrounding Mary, Queen of Scots’s captivity in another of Peter Tonkin's depiction of plots and political tension in Elizabethan England.

Peter Tonkin continues his deep dive into the sometimes grim and sometimes fabulously opulent world of sixteenth-century Europe as he returns to spymaster Robert Poley’s adventures. In this novel, spanning Paris, London, Eyemouth, Sheffield, and more, he brings to...

Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee, by Charlie Higson

Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee, by Charlie Higson

A lively survey of English and British monarchs that combines humour with a broadly informative narrative of the nation’s past.

Whether you are interested in being introduced to British history, or you are familiar with it, Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee, will prove to be a find. Borne out of a successful podcast of the same name, Charlie Higson has written a book which entertains and educates in...