The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Richmond and Molyneux Prizefighting began as a sport in Britain in 1719, when James Figg (1684–1734) became widely recognised as the first English bare-knuckle boxing champion. A cruel and unforgiving sport, a test of mental and physical endurance, fights would not...
Scotland had a profound impact on Winston Churchill – practically, politically and personally. Practically, it provided the young Liberal politician with a constituency for almost 15 years, five election victories and a platform from which he could launch his cabinet...
The 'miracle of Dunkirk' is lauded in British history and folklore as a victory of human endeavor, celebrated each year with a profusion of TV documentary veteran accounts and memorial services. German soldiers constantly referred to the wunder or miracle of reaching...
The Huxleys. I like to think of nineteenth-century biologist Thomas Henry Huxley and his twentieth-century zoologist grandson Julian as one very long-lived man. This Huxley lived from 1825–1975. Controversial exponent and explainer of evolution by natural selection,...
A Short History of War is indeed short at 240 pages, however I have learnt that it is extremely challenging putting a big story into few words and in this Jeremy Black has succeeded with distinction. He writes in a snappy style with an abundance of facts to cover the...
Queens of the Wild comes with two intentions: to introduce general readers to some striking and often neglected superhuman female figures from medieval and early modern Europe, and to make an intervention in a major current scholarly debate. That debate concerns the...
The primary lesson of War is that it has shaped human history since the mark of Cain condemned us to endless cycles of conflict and the gods urged champions onto victory from the vantage point of Mount Olympus. The tangled roots of warfare are so densely packed it’s...
George Washington - Commander-in-Chief As he entered Philadelphia on May 9, 1775, to attend the American colonies’ Second Continental Congress, Washington brought his Virginia militia uniform and six copies of the British Army’s standard drill manual to help him train...
In 1936, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra embarked on a controversial tour of Germany. On the morning of 10 November, the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham and members of the orchestra arrived at the Leipzig Gewandhaus to lay a wreath at the base of a statue of the...
On Wednesday 14th September, and again for the funeral, we saw the Queen’s Company, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards form the Bearer Party, in a highly emotive scene as the monarch was carried into Westminster Hall to lie in state, to the sound of Psalm 139 sung by the...
