History Archives - Page 67 of 261

The Rise of Cyrus the Great

The Achaemenid Empire was the greatest the world had ever seen, spanning from the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor to the mountains of Afghanistan. Its founder was Cyrus, a ruler whose achievements made him truly ‘Great’.

Matt Waters

Shortly after Cyrus the Great conquered the Babylonian Empire in 539 BC, he dedicated inscriptions commemorating his achievements, to wit: “The great gods have delivered into my hands all the lands, and I caused the land to live in peace.” With much of the known world...

Episode 105

Homer and the Iliad with Robin Lane Fox | RSS.com

Crassus: The First Tycoon

The eternally recurring madness of money, ambition and power is captured brilliantly in this riveting book.

Peter Hughes

Plutarch observed that the “many virtues” of the Roman general and triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus “were obscured by one vice, avarice.” Peter Stothard’s life of Crassus is the story of that vice. The book opens by laying bare the contradiction at the heart of the...

How the Russians See Themselves

With Putin’s pronouncements on his nuclear threat, this is consistent with previous rulers’ sabre rattling, and speaks to Russia’s pride in how it sees itself. Sir Rodric Braithwaite, British Ambassador in Moscow from 1989 to 1992, describes the Russian mindset.

Rodric Braithwaite

How the Russians See Themselves If you want to work out what your opponent is likely to do next, you need to understand how he sees himself. During the Cold War our judgement of Soviet behaviour was often distorted by prejudice, ignorance, and wishful thinking....

The Assyrian Homeland

What were the borders of the Assyrians?

Mark Healy

The Assyrian Homeland To the Assyrians, the ‘Land of Ashur’, the mat Ashur – a term first employed in the Middle Assyrian kingdom – embraced not just the Assyrian triangle but also the lands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that had been conquered in the 13th...

Mark Healy on The Ancient Assyrians

The Ancient Assyrians are given a new appraisal which highlights their military and imperial achievements.

Mark Healy

Mark Healy, many congratulations on your new title, The Ancient Assyrians: Empire and Army. Who were the Assyrians? We would locate Assyria in the northern half of modern Iraq. The name Assyria derives from that of its chief god, Ashur. Assyria = ’the land of Ashur’....

The Fight for Parry’s Jerusalem

William Blake’s great poem, along with Hubert Parry’s rousing music, has become an unofficial anthem but it has a complex back story.

Jason Whitaker

The Fight for Parry’s Jerusalem On March 11, 1916, Sir Hubert Parry handed a manuscript that would transform how the English saw themselves to his friend, Henry Walford Davies, with the rather casual words: “Here’s a tune for you, old chap. Do what you like with it.”...

Guidl

The advent of a new way of consuming the history – and architecture, and much else – all around us.

Robert Lyman

Have you ever wondered about the history of a building or a place as you rush past, busy with life, and have never had the opportunity to stop and investigate it further? Millions of people walking through the U.K.’s towns, cities and landscapes every single day of...

Episode 104

Tom Holland on Ancient Rome | RSS.com

Roger Moorhouse on The Forgers

Sara Hughes discusses Roger Moorhouse's new book - the story of a group of Polish diplomats who saved hundreds of Jews from the Holocaust.

Roger Moorhouse

Roger, firstly, can you tell us a little bit about the origins of your latest book? Who were the forgers and how did you find out about their story? The forgers were a group of Polish diplomats and Jewish activists – known as the Ładoś Group – who were illegally...