The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Ian Gentles, The New Model Army: Agent of Revolution is an updated edition of your earlier title, but it’s almost a different book – just how much has changed? The first edition has been condensed to about half its original length. It assimilates much new research,...
I wish I could remember which German chancellor it was who said that the Russians’ idea of a secure frontier is one with Russian soldiers on both sides of it. The present war, and indeed all the sabre-rattling along the Russia’s frontier with the Baltic republics over...
Simon Medhurst, congratulations on the new book, which I think is your first. There’s an interesting story behind it, can you tell us about your grandfather Robert Hichens? First thank you for the kind words, yes my first book. It has been 6 years in the making. I...
John Rastell: Renaissance Man and Bookseller Around the year 1500 Wynkyn de Worde moved his printing press from the precinct of Westminster Abbey to premises in Fleet Street. De Worde was the Dutch assistant of William Caxton, who had introduced printing to England,...
It was 14 April 1912. Charles Joughin had finally fallen asleep after a hard day’s work in the ship’s kitchens. Suddenly, he was woken by a tremendous jolt. He felt the vessel shudder violently beneath him. Then, after a momentary pause, it continued moving forward....
Mission France Was it worth it? In 1941 Hitler issued an order, Nacht und Nebel Erlass, the Night and Fog Decree. This ordered political activists to be ‘disappeared.’ On 6 July, 1944, Sonia Olschanesky, Vera Leigh, Diana Rowden, and Andree Borrell, female SOE...
During World War Two, 39 women were specially selected to work in a secretive, clandestine and mainly male domain: the Special Operations Executive, French Section (SOE F). Ranging from housewives and mothers to shop assistants and countesses, these women were put...
The New Model Army takes on board a great deal of new research – by Phil Baker, Rachel Foxley and John Rees among others -- on the Leveller movement, with whom the New Model was in close contact throughout its fifteen-year history. When in the 1650s the soldiers...
I would like to start by asking a question. What triggered your journey with Titanic? Was it the the 1956 black and white film A Night To Remember or the discovery of the Titanic in 1985 Was it the James Cameron film Titanic in 1997 maybe a Titanic exhibition or maybe...
On a Saturday in 2012, journalist Simon Kuper had the highly sought-after opportunity to interview the last surviving traitor of the Cold War, George Blake, in his dacha (home) outside Moscow. As it turned out, Kuper is believed to have been the last Western...
