The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Having joined The Royal Marines as a musician to play in the band, when the Argentines invaded The Falkland Island in 1982, I was surprised to find myself being sent as part of the task force to retake the islands. Having few military skills like the Royal Marines...
John Hardman, who was Antoine Barnave? Barnave (1761-93) was a young barrister from Grenoble who gained national recognition in 1788 with pamphlets attacking the government. At the age of 27 he was elected to the estates-general and played a prominent radical role...
One of the delusions of civilisation is that boundaries, barriers and walls offer protection against collapse. It’s not surprising, then, that Tom Holland’s masterful and engaging history of the Pax Romana, covering the Golden Age of Rome from the end of the reign of...
Operation Codicil, is the first instalment of The Manner of Men series – which is to be a three-part series based on the Parachute Regiment in the Second World War. The series will follow a group of elite pathfinders from D-Day until war’s end, where they see action...
"The atomic clock ticked faster and faster. We may anticipate a state of affairs in which two great powers will each be in a position to put an end to the civilisation and life of the other, though not without risking its own. We may be likened to two scorpions in a...
It is estimated that one in six people in England have Huguenot ancestry. Yet the Huguenots (Protestants who were largely artisans and professionals) integrated so seamlessly into their adopted countries that, generations on, it is easy to forget the circumstances...
As we are being reminded by the public enquiry into the pandemic, that period in recent history was a nightmare for many. But for some of us lockdown provided the time and peace to write. In this case the subject is the decade beginning 2010: a period which included...
I first came across the story of Frank Foley while researching a book on British intelligence. One of the former MI6 officers I met told me about a wartime British spy whose skills as a agent handler were so good that they were still held up as an example to new spies...
Michael Smith, what first attracted you to the period you work in? I was in military intelligence before becoming a journalist in the 1980s, so I was acutely aware of how much the reporting of intelligence matters in that period was based on conspiracy theory rather...
The so-called Special Relationship with America is frequently dismissed by both politicians and the media as a myth, even a joke. Yet the basic truth is that Britain and America are bound together more closely than either is to any other ally, with the two countries...
