The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
We don’t think of ‘the Harrimans’ as we think of, say, the Kennedys. But maybe we should. For serious students of Anglo-American relations there’s W. Averell Harriman, the diplomat (politician, financier; himself the son of a famous railroad baron) tasked with...
Our Smolensk excursion was quite an event for me – being my first trip out of Moscow… We were first going down there by car, but then plans were changed and a private train was provided – for us, two Foreign Office press officials and a bevy of N.K.V.D. The train was...
Geoffrey – welcome to Aspects of History. Talk us through the story that led to you compiling and editing this collection of Kathleen Harriman’s letters together. As the tragedy of the 9/11 terror attacks unfolded, I was in the Library of Congress, combing through the...
Why did you choose the SOE as a subject for a novel?The SOE occupies a special niche in Second World history. How could it not? The brilliance of its founders who conceived and wrestled into it into being, its personnel, the agents and exploits, both successful and...
After writing a novel about the French Revolution, my appetite for research had been whetted. Apart from family anecdotes – my father was at Dunkirk and fought in the desert and Italy - I knew shamingly little about the Second World War and decided to do something...
Britain at War is a magazine that “does exactly what it says on the tin,” focusing on Britain’s wartime experience. What, for you, defines the magazine’s core identity and mission? On the face of it, it’s rather simple. Britain at War is a tribute to this nation’s –...
There has been, historically, a dearth of books in the English language written specifically about the Maginot Line. Many accounts have been written about the German invasion of the Low Countries, in which the Maginot Line has featured as an ancillary part of that...
"It is with heavy heart that I tell you we have to cease fighting. Last night, I asked our adversary whether he was prepared, between soldiers, after the struggle and in honour, to seek a way to end hostilities." These were the words of France’s new prime minister,...
John – your book, General Hastings 'Pug' Ismay: Soldier, Statesman, Diplomat was published nearly two years ago. Can you give us an outline of the life of ‘Pug’ Ismay, a man you describe as ‘an unusual subject for a biography’? Who was he, and provide us with some...
At a time when when India's independence narrative centres on either the much acclaimed (especially by PM Modi) courage and vision of Britain’s implacable enemy, Subhas Chandra Bose, or else Gandhi's non-violence and eloquence, writers and readers alike owe Gautam...
