The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Michael Livingston, congratulations on the new book, Crécy. We have a few questions. Jonathan Sumption called Crécy a political catastrophe for the French. Just how big a defeat was it, after all the 100 Yrs War had only begun in 1337, and would continue to be fought...
By the close of 1943, the tides of the global war at sea had turned significantly in favour of the Allies. In the North Atlantic Doenitz’s wolf-packs were increasingly pulling back, relieving the pressure on Allied convoy lines. In the Mediterranean most of the inland...
In the 1570s Thomas Whythorne, a musician and composer, wrote an account of his life. It’s an extraordinary document, not least since the term and concept of ‘autobiography’ didn’t yet exist. Whythorne charts his changing mental states through the different phases and...
On the morning of the 19th November 1978 I entered my classroom at the Alliance Française in Paris, where I was attending a course in advanced French. A few minutes later our teacher, M. Beaulieu, strode in. Instead of his usual jovial ‘Bonjour, bonjour tout le monde’...
In one of Lin Manuel Miranda’s catchiest tunes in the musical Hamilton, Hamilton’s doppelganger Aaron Burr sings longingly about being in “the room where it happens,” on the inside, shaping momentous actions. Anyone who has spent time around political types will...
The Flame of Resistance is part biography of Josephine Baker and part history of the British and French Secret Services in World War Two. The book focuses on the intelligence war fought across French North Africa, painting both a romantic and brutal portrait of the...
Tony Shaw, many congrats on the new book. First off, Selection. There are TV shows about this now, but asking for a friend, if one keeps themselves fit in the gym and running regularly (perhaps with the odd marathon), surely, as long as you don’t give up, passing...
By April 1917 the Allies and the Central Powers had been locked in the stalemate of trench warfare for nearly three years. Numerous offensives had failed to break through at a terrible cost in men. New tactical and technological innovations were developed with some...
Three years ago, while standing at the urinal in The Gallery pub in Pimlico, it suddenly struck me that if I didn’t see a nightingale or a turtledove soon, I probably never would. It isn’t the sort of place I usually have revelations but three pints in, I was hung up...
The War on the West by Douglas Murray is not necessarily a history book, but it is one of the most important books that any historian should read this year. Historians (and students of history) are well placed to show that the story of the West is not just a litany of...
