The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
I grew up with a passion for the worlds of ancient Greece and Rome, and fondly remember drawing my first Roman chariot with wax crayons on old computer print out paper aged about five! That love of all things ancient translated into something of an obsession as an...
Friends! Brothers and sisters! Comrades! Fellow citizens! Your majesties and highnesses! My countrymen! My children! Fellow soldiers! Ladies and gentlemen! You can tell much by the opening of a speech. Elizabeth I begins hers majestically, ‘My loving people’. Mandela...
Voices of History: Speeches that Changed the World As we have discovered in January 2020, words matter. They matter even more when spoken by powerful men and women. I write this in the context of the dying days of Donald Trump’s presidency, when his words have incited...
Gordon Corrigan, what first attracted you to the period or periods you work in? Inspirational history tutors both at school and at Sandhurst gave me a lifelong fascination with history, and my service in the army sharpened the focus to specialise in military history....
Summer Reads from Aspects of HistoryPaul BernardiTaking a well-earned break from the adventures of Beobrand in his much-loved Bernicia Chronicles series, Matthew Harffy moves forward the best part of one hundred and fifty years in this, his most recent and...
When starting any historical fiction, I always wonder where it stacks up when compared with Sharpe, Patrick O’Brian, Hornblower and Flashman. It's fortunate, therefore, with Protector by Conn Iggulden, that one is in the hands of a master storyteller. Set in ancient...
The Wolfson History Prize 2021 Rebecca Clifford Rebecca, congratulations on your nomination for the Wolfson History Prize of 2021 from Aspects of History. Why did you choose your particular subject? This is a two-pronged answer. Most important prong, I’ve worked with...
Adrian Goldsworthy has been known until now as a bestselling historian of ancient Rome. Having written acclaimed biographies of Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar, it is refreshing to see him enter the world of ancient Greece, and take on the challenge of perhaps its...
In Peter Tonkin’s new novel, the third instalment of The Trojan Murders series, Odysseus greets King Euenos and asks, “Do you remember me?” The answer is yes. This is a world we are familiar with, a well-trod path through history and literature. But using this beloved...
Richard ForemanRobert Tombs produced one of the finest history books of the last five years, in the form of The English and their History. I am suitably looking forward to his new book, This Sovereign Isle: Britain In and Out of Europe. It will no doubt be full of...
