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Trauma or nostalgia? What does history mean in the USA 🇺🇸 and the UK 🇬🇧?
Posted on: 19 September 2021
I have lived all my life in the UK and have a certain idea about what history is. But history can mean different things to different people. How is my UK perspective on the subject different from a...
opinion
Augustine - review
Posted on: 10 September 2021
Introduction The tagline for this book could be ‘a biography of an autobiography’ – it conveys a sense of what Robin Lane Fox manages to achieve in his award winning book, an analysis of how one of...
★★★★☆ (2015)
review
About Time - review
Posted on: 10 September 2021
Clocks are about more than just telling the time. At one level this is a statement of the obvious: we all know that the watch you wear is not chosen purely for its practicality as a time-keeping...
★★★★☆ (2021)
review
Thebes - review
Posted on: 2 September 2021
In 371 BCE the Thebans achieved one of the most shocking victories in the history of warfare, by trouncing the previously invincible Spartans at the battle of Luectra despite being outnumbered almost...
★★★★☆ (2020)
review
In Defence of History - review
Posted on: 25 August 2021
I have never knowingly met a post-modernist. Perhaps I have been going to the wrong parties – back in the days when I went to parties. I am keen to meet one. If you are one or can introduce one get in...
★★★★☆ (1997)
review
Castlereagh - review
Posted on: 14 August 2021
Why Bew why now? John Bew’s biography of Robert Stewart (generally known as Viscount Castlereagh, the courtesy title he held most of his adult life) was published ten years ago, which raises the very...
★★★★☆ (2011)
review
Dictators - review
Posted on: 8 August 2021
Frank Dikotter’s ‘Dictators: the Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century’ is a highly readable potted history of eight twentieth century dictators, charting the rise and (more often than not) the...
★★★☆☆ (2019)
review
Making Deep History - review
Posted on: 6 August 2021
How do you envisage a million years? Clive Gamble in “Making Deep History: Zeal, Perseverance and the Time Revolution of 1859” tell us that Charles Darwin was advised in 1868 to try this exercise:...
★★★☆☆ (2021)
review
Why new history books? What's wrong with the old ones?
Posted on: 6 August 2021
“Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell, agreeing with me that new history books are important, in his recent...
opinion
What Is History? - review
Posted on: 31 July 2021
There is something about the theory of history or historiography – ie how and why the study of history is conducted – that can inflame passions among professional historians. Seemingly mild mannered...
★★★★★ (1961)
review
Ten Caesars - review
Posted on: 24 July 2021
A week ago I went to see a blockbuster exhibition about an accused arsonist who murdered his wife and his mum. The star of the show (running until October 2021 at the British Museum in London) is of...
★★★☆☆ (2019)
review
The Last Embassy - review
Posted on: 16 July 2021
The Dutch present ships have arrived at the Tiger’s Mouth, like tall inns on the oyster-shell mirror of the water, a joyful noise ringing out. They’re filled with precious offerings, but first they...
★★★★☆ (2021)
review