The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
How did the Industrial Revolution come about? And why did it start in Britain? Professor Edmond Smith examines these fundamental questions in compelling fashion, from the founding of the Royal Society in 1660 to the onset of imperial glory at the turn of the 19th...
Fitzpatrick, or “Fitz” as he was known, was commissioned into South Staffordshire Regt in 1914, serving with the 3rd Battalion during World War One. Transferred to the Indian Army’s 14th Punjab Regiment after the war, subsequent to its return from Palestine in 1923,...
The Second World War saw a desperate conflict between Allied and Axis scientists, who were locked in a deadly arms race to develop new technology - in what Winston Churchill called the Wizard War. To gain the upper hand in this secret war, the Royal Navy formed a...
The Hundred Years War is a label coined in 1823 as a chapter heading for a French textbook. It was both a matter of convenience and a way of furthering our understanding of the past: we name things to talk about them, so creating a label for this turbulent period of...
Almost as feted a family as the Tudors, the name conjures images of decadent royal Russia, of grizzled Siberian sorcerers and beautiful princesses (or grand duchesses), bejewelled palaces and icy, splendid St Petersburg. Although their reign spanned some several...
My memoir is a remarkable true story about how my family and I escaped communist rule in Czechoslovakia - one set against today’s conversations around freedom, communism, socialism, and legal vs. illegal immigration. The book is called Escaping the Grip of Eastern...
Matthew, we are a couple of years on from the release of your book, One Fine Day: Britain’s Empire on the Brink. It is, perhaps, a rare thing for a history book to focus on a single day – in this case 29 September 1923 – but could you, first, give us a bit of context...
Welcome Alice, and congratulations on a third book in as many years. This latest release puts a spotlight on the life of Eleanor of Castile, Queen of England and wife of Edward I. Unlike your previous books, Uproar and Eighteen, you have built up the story of her life...
Many if not all readers will at least know the basic facts about the so-called PQ17 disaster. PQ17 was the World War Two Arctic convoy whose merchant ships on 4 July 1942 were ordered to scatter while carrying arms and other aid to Russia because it was thought...
