The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Hi James – your book, The Big Little War, was published just over three years ago. It seems apt that this month marks the 85th anniversary of the coup which led to the extraordinary events that you recount in the book, and you have a new, extended edition of the book...
King of Kings begins the Brunanburh series, which recreates the events that led to the mighty battle of Brunanburh, and it’s aftermath. Why was this story so appealing? There are rare moments in the history of Saxon England where we seem to have a lot of information...
The 10th century sees the creation of what we would recognise as ‘England’ – the combining of the Saxon kingdoms of Wessex with Mercia, with the additions of Kent, the kingdom of the East Angles, the Danish Five Boroughs, and the kingdom of York, and also the...
We used to joke at Staff College when the command appointments for exercises were being handed out that at least we couldn’t be asked to command the rear guard on Napoleon’s 1812 retreat from Moscow. Of all the military operations in history, it is hard to think of...
“Her efforts did not produce definitive change or unqualified success, but in helping to shape the events of a pivotal century, she left legible traces of a consequential life.” With typical precision, Bruce Chilton ends Berenice: Queen in Roman Judaea. Throughout...
From 9pm on Tuesday 1 May 1945, the programming on North German radio underwent an abrupt tonal shift. Light, uplifting tunes gave way to sombre music, interspersed with urgent instructions to ‘stand by’ for an important government message. 90 minutes later, three...
It is telling just how few mainstream films have tackled ancient Rome in the 21st century, with two notable exceptions… you know the ones I mean. Gladiators and the arches of the Colosseum are two of the most iconic images we have of the Romans and the Eternal City’s...
“Soldiers, when I give the command to fire, fire straight at my heart. Wait for the order. It will be my last to you. I have fought a hundred battles for France and not one against her…. Soldiers! Fire!” The oft-quoted last words of Michel Ney, Marshal of France,...
Can you first tell us about the genesis of the podcast and book – Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee? It all started for me at an old-fashioned, very minor, prep school in the 1960s. I’m probably from the last generation of British children who was taught a straightforward,...
