The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Mary, Queen of Scots has traditionally been perceived as a queen who let her emotions overcome her reason, as someone who let her heart rule her head. It’s a dismissive attitude that is often used to compare her, unfavourably, to Queen Elizabeth I, who is seen instead...
AoH Book Club: Roger Moorhouse on Killing Hitler How many plots were there against Hitler? A book came out a long time ago that talked about 42 plots against Hitler. That book didn't even include some of the ones that I talked about. I talk about 15. They vary in...
Ghosts of the English Civil War Open the pages of almost any anthology of English ghost stories and, sooner rather than later, you will encounter the figure of a grim-faced Roundhead, a forlorn Cavalier or a pretty maid ravished by some rambling soldier, or...
Views on age and life’s milestones have changed over time. In the last century average life expectancy exceeded what we would call middle age for the first time and in the process changed perspectives. Empress Matilda, one of the subjects of Eighteen, married Henry V...
Not every distinguished historian announces his arrival by the roar of a V8 engine, but Robin Prior is no ordinary historian and - for me at least - this was to be no ordinary lunch. I was planning a new book, the final volume in my Finest Hour trilogy about Britain...
Cicero, the greatest public speaker of the Roman Republic, started life with a handicap. The name “Cicero” was obscure. While Rome was a republic, with all of its magistrates selected in annual elections, a hereditary nobility dominated politics. To be a Scipio, a...
The Great Siege of Malta, by Marcus Bull The military phenomenon of the siege, Marcus Bull reminds us, has a long history in the western literary tradition. And yet, despite their famous literary instances, such as the siege of Jericho as detailed in the Old Testament...
Keith Lowe has built a well-deserved reputation in recent years as a chronicler of the interface between military operations and civil society, especially once the fighting on a battlefield has ended. For instance, his ‘Savage Continent’ tracked the long, wearying...
Damien Lewis's third instalment of his SAS 'greatest escapes of World War II series is a corker. It has all the elements Lewis 'readers have come to expect, painstaking research carefully blended with firsthand accounts that allow the men concerned to tell their...
