The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
S.G.MacLean, The ‘Damian Seeker’ series marked a departure from your other novels in that you tackle the aftermath of the wars between the kingdoms. What drew you to the Cromwellian period? I came to it by accident. My first series was set in Scotland in the years...
The soldier that graces the cover of Immortal Valor, Sergeant Edward A Carter, epitomized the courageous warrior. His look of iron-willed determination was not forged during the battles of the Second World War but from an early age. Little did he know when he returned...
The Midlands was hotly contested in the English Civil War, and in 1643 it was a region more vital than ever to the Royalists. Boatloads of royal supplies had been shipped, against all odds, from Holland to Bridlington, escaping Parliament’s patrolling navy. Six...
The Yasukuni Shrine is an island of calm in an otherwise bustling city. Mature pines and cypress trees surround it, screening it from Tokyo’s relentless traffic noise. Shady walkways, sacred ponds and dozens of cherry trees make it a haven for those who come here to...
Vladislav Zubok, Collapse is a brilliant book and incredibly comprehensive, but there are polar opposite narratives about this historical period which focus (for example) on the nefarious actions of the KGB in Eastern Europe. Did you deliberately avoid exploring the...
A History of Love & Hate in 21 Statues The furore over statues from both sides of the political spectrum can be alienating. There are often legitimate reasons as to why a statue is problematic. Edward Colston’s had gone through a long-running process of...
Nadine Akkerman, when first approaching this project, what was your understanding of Elizabeth Stuart and what, as a biographer, drew you to her? My first tussle with Elizabeth Stuart came about when I heard of her love for the theatre – I teach English literature,...
Who ordered the hit on Franz Ferdinand? There are two basic schools of thought about the origins of the plot to assassinate Franz Ferdinand. The first is that it was ordered by Colonel ‘Apis’ Dimitrijevic, the head of Serbian Intelligence, to stop Austro-Hungarian...
The summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous one, and full of horrible phenomena, wrote the parson-naturalist Gilbert White: “…for besides the alarming meteors and tremendous thunder‐storms that affrighted and distressed the different counties of this...
Hidden in Plain Sight Michael Carter, a properties historian at English Heritage and the man who oversees, among others, the ruins of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, is troubled by the effect that Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy has had on the public imagination. The...
