The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
CVHF 2023: Day 1 Ashes Heroes - Mike Brearley, Gideon Haigh, Simon Hughes The Ship beneath the Ice, The Discovery of Shackleton’s Endurance – Mensun Bound How to Be: Life Lessons from the Early Greeks – Adam Nicolson Bazball This year’s opener was a crowd-pleaser, the...
Directed by acclaimed playwright Samuel Rees, Snakehead is a palatable piece of gig-theatre, offering a refreshing re-examination of the Greek mythology tale, Medusa. Over the generations, the story of Medusa depicts the snake-haired woman as a monster, with a...
Summer Reads from Aspects of HistoryAlan Bardos Author of The Dardanelles ConspiracyQueen High by CJ Carey is the sequel to Widow Land and a counter factual/dystopian novel; in a similar vein to 1984, Fatherland and Brave New World. It is set in a 1950s Britain that...
Persia to Greece: Luxury & Power at the British Museum When the Spartan general Pausanias came across Xerxes’ tent, leant to the commander Mardonius, after the victory over the Persians at Plataea in 479BC, according to Herodotus: He commanded the bakers and chefs...
What The Greeks Did For Us, by Tony Spawforth. Any academic standing up for Classics (Latin and Greek, no definite article) in 2023 does so knowingly entering a minefield of epic proportions. Since the Renaissance the appreciation of Classics has been a mark of...
Tony Spawforth, surely the impact on our world today by the Greeks is significantly limited - after all the Romans would surely claim the ancient influence, if there is any? In many ways the Romans were simply conduits for the older and greater Greek civilisation that...
Stephen P. Kershaw’s new book has been published at the right time, what with an autocratic ruler recently invading a European democracy with overwhelming odds. There are always problems with direct comparisons, but one can’t help thinking of Ukraine when reading...
When visiting the Royal Tombs of the Argead dynasty at Aigai, Vergina in northern Greece, one descends a slight declining ramp, in bright sunlight with multi-coloured oleander on either side, towards a doorway at the end that is cloaked in darkness. On entering the...
Medea @Soho Place - Review Euripides' Medea is one of the more affecting tragedies emanating from 5th century Athens. For those unfamiliar, it's a sequel to Jason and the Argonauts - but if you're thinking it's in the style of the Hollywood version with Todd Armstrong...
As we all celebrate Aspects of History Day – I thought I’d reflect on where AoH is after two years. The whole project: magazine, website and podcast has been hugely rewarding. After all, for the four years previously I’d worked in an obscure office at a large American...
