The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
The Chalke Valley History Festival has been running since 2011. How has the festival evolved over the years? The festival began in June 2011 on a small scale and as a fundraiser for the local cricket club. I think the first year we had just 12 talks across one...
Rory Clements, the crash which killed the Duke of Kent in 1942 was a tragic event, with only one survivor, how did you come across it and why did you write the story? I have known about the crash for many years, but I was aware that most people had no idea that the...
What The Greeks Did For Us, by Tony Spawforth. Any academic standing up for Classics (Latin and Greek, no definite article) in 2023 does so knowingly entering a minefield of epic proportions. Since the Renaissance the appreciation of Classics has been a mark of...
In his new book, The Story of the World in 100 Moments, Neil Oliver has chosen events covering a million years to understand how human history is linked. Justin Doherty met up with Neil recently, and they discussed the new book, what inspired it, and the subject of...
The Bin Laden Papers, by Nelly Lahoud Some years ago a wise Saudi friend implored me to read Amin Malouf’s brilliant The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. Malouf’s use of primary Arab sources cast a corrective and insightful gaze on the Arab defenders, a classic piece of...
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...
The seeds of the German nation, nursed into being by the wily statesman Bismarck, were sown in Prussia’s humiliation in the Napoleonic Wars. By the time the fragmented German states got their act together, fought back and won at Leipzig in 1813, the journey to...
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