The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
There are two stories that Jeremy Paxman tells in his new book, Black Gold: The History of How Coal Made Britain. The first is the national story, how coal was the driver behind the Industrial Revolution and the British Empire. The country’s hunger for this black rock...
On Wednesday 14th September, and again for the funeral, we saw the Queen’s Company, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards form the Bearer Party, in a highly emotive scene as the monarch was carried into Westminster Hall to lie in state, to the sound of Psalm 139 sung by the...
CVHF Highlights So Far Monday 20th June Power & Privilege: A Recent History Simon Kuper (author of Chums) & Richard Beard (Sad Little Men) discussed the corrosive impact of public schools and Oxford University on recent British political life. Their discussion...
As a 6-year-old at the time, my memory of the Falklands War is vague and seen through the prism of national newspaper headlines and the 6 o’clock news. With my father in the army, I was all for The Sun’s portrayal of the British Army as supermen, and it seemed a fait...
Money for Nothing: The South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism, by Thomas Levenson After the 1707 Act of Union, the new Kingdom of Great Britain was experiencing a number of firsts; Isaac Newton had already brought ground-breaking understanding with...
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...
Churchill's Cocktails Winston Churchill has been the inspiration for many gift manufacturers over the years. Book ends, tea towels, mugs and key-rings are just some of the Churchill branded items out there. I'm unconvinced he would have any use for them, and I'm also...
Simon Elliott is a busy man. When he's not appearing in documentaries, working as an archaeologist and lecturing in Pompeii, he is a prolific writer of ancient Roman history, most recently with an account of the IX Hispania (Roman Britain's Missing Legion). He's now...
The Imperial War Museum has just opened an exhibition by Wim Wenders, Photographing Ground Zero, to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. For such a huge event, 20 years ago, the free-to-enter display of his work is measured, thought-provoking, and highly...
Harry S. Truman’s decision to drop the bomb on Japan is inevitably controversial. The events of 6th August 1945, as ‘Little Boy’ was unleashed on Hiroshima, are brilliantly and tragically described by Saul David in Crucible of Hell. It is unpleasant to read of the...
