The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Ben Kane we're here to talk about your new book, Napoleon’s Spy, and the Napoleonic era, and actually it's very timely because there's the Ridley Scott movie. Firstly, Scott has said that people who complain about his film being historically inaccurate ‘need to get a...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
Six of the Best: Books on Napoleon With Ridley Scott’s new movie, Napoleon, out soon and starring Joaquin Phoenix as Bonaparte and Vanessa Kirby as Josephine, much discussion has been prompted over its historical accuracy. If your interest is peaked then you must...
Books of 2023 from Aspects of HistoryAlan Bardos Author of The Dardanelles ConspiracyMy book of the year is SAS Forged in Hell. The next instalment of Damien Lewis’ WW II odyssey with the men of 1 SAS, as they become the ‘tip of the spear’ in the invasion of Sicily...
William, your new book The Romantic is drawn on a very broad historical and geographical canvas. How did you go about researching it? Did the pandemic make some research difficult? One of the reasons I set the book in the nineteenth century is that I have this great,...
Leading historian of the French Revolution John Hardman provides a compelling new biography of Antoine Barnave, the influential statesman who advocated for a constitutional monarchy in early revolutionary France. Frequently described as being politically two-faced,...
