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Angus Konstam on The Pirate Menace

Angus Konstam on The Pirate Menace

The naval historian discusses the Golden Age of Piracy, and the fiction it inspired.
Angus Konstam

Angus Konstam, many congratulations on the new book. Before the prologue we see wonderful maps that evoke the romantic locations of the period: the Caribbean, West Africa, the eastern seaboard of the American colonies, the Florida keys and of course the Bahamas. What...

Little Boney and the Satirist

Little Boney and the Satirist

The Corsican Ogre was short wasn’t he?
Alice Loxton

It’s one of history’s greatest myths: Napoleon Bonaparte was short. This is not quite true. In 1815 an English captain described him as “a remarkably strong, well-built man, about five feet seven inches high”. He was above average height of the time, and would have...

Renegade’s Tale: John Sayles Interview

Renegade’s Tale: John Sayles Interview

Our editor met John Sayles to discuss his recent novel, its history and Hollywood today.
Oliver Webb-Carter

John Sayles Interview I first watched Lone Star soon after it came out in 1996. This atmospheric film, centred on a small-town grappling with its past, is both a whodunnit and a social commentary. The town in question was in Texas and where three communities, White...

Review: Ockham’s Razor’s Tess

Review: Ockham’s Razor’s Tess

A mesmerising spectacle that not only does the novel justice, but itself deserves genuine applause.
Amie Bawa

Ockham’s Razor’s Tess Ockham’s Razor is unbounded in its imagination as it tells the story of Tess of the D’Ubervilles through a circus-adaptation, sweeping you away with its unparalleled brilliance. Directed by Alex Harvey and Charlotte Mooney, an ensemble of seven...

Volcanic, by John Brewer

Volcanic, by John Brewer

A fascinating portrayal of a dangerous and breath-taking spectacle
Amy Chandler

John Brewer’s historically rich Volcanic: Vesuvius in the Age of Revolution takes readers on a fascinating journey through the history of Mount Vesuvius. Brewer carefully plots the changing attitudes towards Naples and Mount Vesuvius through the lens of the Sublime...

Vesuvius in the Age of Revolution

Vesuvius in the Age of Revolution

Mt Vesuvius has been an object of fascination for many years.
John Brewer

Vesuvius in the Age of Revolution Volcanic is the first and only book I have written not focused on Britain, the only one that concerns the history of science, and the only one centred on Italy. So why the departure, the urge to explore something new? Restlessness...

Historians & Hollywood

Historians & Hollywood

Historians have been keen to give their opinions on the latest Napoleon movie.

Yet another film on Napoleon and, inevitably it seems, yet more myths are added to the old. As Simon Schama nicely observed, Ridley Scott and his ilk are not content with ‘just making films about Napoleon so much as climbing into his saddle, beguiled by the siren song...

London’s Pirates

London’s Pirates

Julie Walker has brought to life two female pirates, and here she writes about London’s connection piracy.
Julie Walker

London is full of stories, and the River Thames is at the heart of some of its most interesting tales. We’re a seafaring nation, so it’s perhaps no surprise how many adventures started and ended here. My novel Bonny & Read, based on the real life pirates Anne...

AoH Book Club: Paul Strathern on Napoleon in Egypt

AoH Book Club: Paul Strathern on Napoleon in Egypt

With Napoleon's adventures in Egypt part of the new Ridley Scott film, we spoke to Paul Strathern to find out what really happened.

Paul, your book was published 15 years ago to great acclaim. Why did you write it, after all it’s the only book you’ve written on the Napoleonic period. First and foremost I wrote Napoleon in Egypt because it was such an gripping story - one which included everything...

Historians & Hollywood

Film Review: Napoleon

The Ridley Scott blockbuster may be a historical car crash, but is it a good movie?
Oliver Webb-Carter

There was a point, early on in Napoleon, when Marie Antoinette is taken out to be executed in front of the mob, that I realised I should relax, not quibble over inaccuracies, and simply enjoy the show. The camera cuts to a man in the crowd, and that man is Napoleon...