The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
If you ask someone to describe Henry VIII’s appearance, they will likely be quick to supply an answer: the king was tall, fat, leonine, with a spade-shaped face, piggy eyes, hands insolently on his hips, and gargantuan legs spread wide. They might not, however, know...
Nicholas Crane, welcome to Aspects of History. Many congratulations on the book. We had a few questions for you. Why did you decide to write Latitude now? It’s an irresistible mix of human fortitude, science and exploration, a story for our times. To what extent could...
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I’m drawn to writing about people who disappear. Perhaps it’s because as a historical novelist I look for the gaps in the historical record that can be filled by the imagination. One such historical figure is Francis, Viscount Lovell, close friend and advisor to King...
Trade between Great Britain and America is currently an important political and economic issue. When Donald Trump visited the UK in June 2019, preliminary discussions about a potential 'Post-Brexit' trade deal between the two nations was headline news. More recently...
Franny Moyle, welcome to Aspects of History. You’ve written a fantastic book, The King's Painter: The Life and Times of Hans Holbein, but when did you first “discover” Holbein, and what encouraged you to write biography of him? I have been aware of Holbein for as long...
5. Trajan’s Kiosk One of the most surprising of all Roman temples lies on an island in Lake Nasser, upper Egypt. At Philae a complex of temples had grown for half a millennium before Rome controlled the land, but under the emperors the complex was expanded, rebuilt...
“The Navy had always regarded the island as the keystone of victory in the Mediterranean...it should be held at all costs.” Admiral A.B. Cunningham, commander-in-chief Mediterranean Fleet during Operation Pedestal. In the summer of 1942, a small island in the heart of...
First let’s deal with the elelphant in the room. Nicholas Crane’s Latitude will inevitably draw comparison with Dava Sobel’s surprise runaway best-seller Longitude, which was published over a quarter of a century ago in 1993 and has remained in print ever since. Sobel...
The Search for Latitude Antonio de Ulloa y de la Torre-Guiral lay unconscious on the mountainside. ‘I fell down’, he wrote later, ‘and remained a long time without sense or motion; and, as I was told, with all the appearances of death.’ The year was 1737 and the...
