The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
What a difficult decision - to pick my five favourite of Tudor histories! I am not an avid reader but have decided to concentrate on the more modern books which have had a significant influence on my own efforts, covering the period of Mary Queen of Scots and...
Having recently appreciated Tucker-Jones’ book about Churchill, his book, Hitler's Winter, about the German perspective of The Battle of Bulge did not disappoint. Tucker-Jones has a great knack of being able to blend fact into a compelling narrative, such that this...
What's My Poison? ‘It is clear that the “favourite” poison with us is arsenic.’ So wrote Charles Dickens in his journal, Household Words, in December 1851. Dickens argues for the enforcement of laws regulating the sale of medicines. Dickens refers to the Sale of...
Agatha Christie's Greatest Mystery At shortly after 9.30 p.m. on Friday 3 December 1926, Agatha Christie got up from her armchair and climbed the stairs of her Berkshire home. She kissed her sleeping daughter Rosalind, aged seven, good- night and made her way back...
With so many books written on the Second World War you’d be hard pressed to find one that does not ask a question that has already been answered and debated at length, but Hitler’s American Gamble is one such book. Why on earth would Japan and Germany dare to declare...
Five Questions on War: 1. Does our biology explain why we have war? I say No: war is not engrained in us (but feel free to disagree with me and lots will). Biology might explain why we sometimes lash out violently when we are angry or afraid, but not why we have...
A gripping work covering the siege of Constantinople 1453, Roger Crowley’s history of this momentous event was published in 2011. Both a critical and commercial success, it was described as “hugely readable, well-written and informative” by the Daily Telegraph and the...
There have been many accounts of the disasters followed by the triumph of the Burma campaign in the Far East war, but few with the detail and perceptive analysis of A War of Empires. Robert Lyman is of course a noted authority on the history of the region, and his...
Anthony Tucker-Jones, the Battle of the Bulge (or Ardennes Offensive) is one of the most famous clashes of the Second World War, and you’ve chosen to write about it from the German perspective. Why do you think we’ve not heard Germany’s side of the story? Well, I...
When asked by a young Reginald Bosanquet from ITN what he feared most, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously replied, ‘Events dear boy, events.’ We have all become aware in the last 18 months of the broad range of events which can cause political crises, as a...
