The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Marek, many congratulations on the new book, The Stories Old Towns Tell. Why did you choose the seven cities (Frankfurt; Würzburg; Rothenburg ; Prague; Warsaw; Lublin and Vilnius) – did you use a set of criteria, or was it your own experiences of visiting them? Thank...
Europe’s Old Towns, the historic quarters at the heart of cities across the continent, tell stories about European history that date back to the Middle Ages. Some are epic narratives; some are fairy-tale fantasies. But some of the most powerful stories they tell are...
Helen, Women in Intelligence was very well received when first published. Is this an area of espionage history that is under-developed? Most definitely. It is an area where historians still need to research deeply in declassified files and record what the women did in...
Churchill’s Citadel, by Katherine Carter You may have read all 911 pages, excluding notes or index, of Roy Jenkin’s magisterial biography of Winston Churchill, which after 20 years remains incredibly sound. There is also a good chance that you’ve read Andrew Robert’s...
Churchill’s Citadel When Winston Churchill saw a house on a hill called Chartwell, it was love at first sight, but not with the house itself. It was the landscape, first seen by him on a beautiful summer’s day in 1921, that captivated him. Its situation on a hillside,...
Recent years have seen a welcome recognition of the many women who worked in top secret roles with the intelligence services, particularly during the Second World War. Helen Fry’s highly impressive new book on Women in Intelligence goes even further, describing how...
I was not completely sure, when asked to review this book, whether 300 pages or so on Love and Marriage in the Age of Jane Austen would be my sort of thing. I am interested in Georgian and Regency History but that interest tends more towards the political and the...
The final months of England’s only republic, from 1658 to 1660, may be the most consequential yet least understood in its past. For a nation obsessed with the long history of its monarchy this is no coincidence. The Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 cast the...
Supremacy at Sea The Second World War can be seen as a succession of phases, or campaign events, each of which in terms of timeline and effect had its own impact on the course and outcome of the war. The two big turning points in the Second World War both occurred in...
Evan Mawdsley, by mid-44 in what state was the Imperial Japanese Navy? In May 1944, the commanders of the American Pacific Fleet thought that it was unlikely that the IJN would sortie from the Philippines to defend the Marianas Islands. This was due to their estimate...
