The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Books of 2021 from Aspects of HistoryTimothy Ashby Author of Elizabethan Secret AgentAt the top of my favourites list of recent historical books is Leanda de Lisle´s Henrietta Maria. Although non-fiction, the book reads like a historical novel, with fascinating...
How the Redcoat Learnt the Art of War By May 1779, the American Revolutionary War had transformed from a regional civil conflict into a global war, and Britain faced French aggression in the West Indies and India. The British government was forced to redistribute its...
A Short History of War is indeed short at 240 pages, however I have learnt that it is extremely challenging putting a big story into few words and in this Jeremy Black has succeeded with distinction. He writes in a snappy style with an abundance of facts to cover the...
Summer Reads from Aspects of HistoryTimothy Ashby Author of Elizabethan Secret Agent: The Untold Story of William Ashby (1536-1593)At the top of my favourites list of recent historical books is Leanda de Lisle´s The White King. Although non-fiction, the book reads...
CVHF Highlights So Far Monday 20th June Power & Privilege: A Recent History Simon Kuper (author of Chums) & Richard Beard (Sad Little Men) discussed the corrosive impact of public schools and Oxford University on recent British political life. Their discussion...
Kissinger on Ukraine In his doctoral thesis, published in 1957 as A World Restored. Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812-1822, Henry Kissinger put up a strong defence of the settlement reached at the Congress of Vienna. He argued that as there could...
I wish I could remember which German chancellor it was who said that the Russians’ idea of a secure frontier is one with Russian soldiers on both sides of it. The present war, and indeed all the sabre-rattling along the Russia’s frontier with the Baltic republics over...
Charles Cornwallis, Lord Cornwallis, is remembered as one of the salient military leaders of the American Revolution, blamed for the British defeat at Yorktown that marked the beginning of the end of the Revolution. Yet as Richard Middleton´s masterful new biography...
Penelope Corfield clearly has a knowledge of - and love for - her subject. The Georgians: The Deeds and Misdeeds of 18th Century Britain provides a comprehensive overview of the period, whilst garnishing the account with plenty of insight and detail. What is...
Timothy Ashby, what first attracted you to the period or periods you work in? I have been fascinated by the Elizabethan era since reading that a distant relative was a top “intelligencer” and English ambassador to Scotland. I lived on the island of Grenada as a young...
