History

Anything to do with History

Wilmer @Wilmer - 8 months ago

‘How Finland Survived Stalin’ by Kimmo Rentola review

During the Second World War, Anthony Eden reportedly had an illuminating conversation with Joseph Stalin. ‘Hitler is a genius’, Stalin told Eden, ‘but he does not know when to stop.’ ‘Does anyone know when to stop?’ Eden asked. Yes, said Stalin: ‘Me.’One place where Stali...continued

6 minutes read

Cyril @Cyril - 4 months ago

The Powers of Soviet Puppetry

In 1941 the Alma-Ata government puppet theatre of Kazakhstan had a problem with Lilliputians. Nadezhda Pavlovna Amori, director of the recently formed theatre in the young Soviet capital, wrote a letter to the Management of Artistic Affairs of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist ...continued

6 minutes read

Jimmy @Jimmy - 5 months ago

‘Spice’ by Roger Crowley review

As we slide towards Earth’s sixth extinction event and look covetously towards planets endowed with precious rare metals, Roger Crowley’s new book should be required reading for those commanding future conquests of resource extraction. Written with the verve of a detectiv...continued

5 minutes read

Elvie @Elvie - 3 months ago

‘Hitler’s People’ by Richard Evans review

There is a deliberate echo in Richard Evans’ new study of actors and perpetrators in the Third Reich of the classic book written by the German journalist Joachim C. Fest, The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership, now more than 60 years ago. Like Fest,...continued

6 minutes read

Eleanora @Eleanora - about 5 years ago

Virgin Islands of the Atlantic

Oceanic history is as much concerned with the shores of the oceans that interacted with one another as with the watery spaces in between, but there is a third type of space that also needs attention: islands in mid-ocean. Early maps of the Atlantic often exaggerated the s...continued

1 minute read

Rahsaan @Rahsaan - about 3 years ago

Contrabands of War | History Today

The day after Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, three enslaved men – Frank Baker, James Townsend and Shepard Mallory – commandeered a boat and rowed across the James River from Hampton to Fortress Monroe. There they asked Federal troops manning the fort to grant th...continued

5 minutes read

Muriel @Muriel - over 3 years ago

Marketing the Menace | History Today

It is 70 years since Dennis the Menace’s first appearance in the Beano. His evolution since 1951 reflects a changing historical landscape, as he has adapted to match the shifts in attitude and preference that have accompanied the comic’s long history. The Beano, an overlo...continued

6 minutes read

Ericka @Ericka - 12 months ago

Why the Oracle of Delphi Still Beguiles

Phoebus Apollo, the sun god, had a good eye for an inspiring location. According to the Homeric Hymn to him (not by Homer and probably dating from the sixth century BC) Apollo himself chose Delphi as the dwelling for his oracle. In order to establish it there, he first sl...continued

6 minutes read

Ryleigh @Ryleigh - over 3 years ago

Future Leaders or Social Outcasts?

IQ testing using a ‘form board’, US, 1955 © Hulton Getty Images.Debates about ‘gifted’ children are fundamentally about human flourishing and enhancement. They also reflect broader concerns about the future and about the roles and responsibilities of governments, parents,...continued

1 minute read

Hannah @Hannah - 5 months ago

‘Habsburgs on the Rio Grande’ by Raymond Jonas review

In 1863 Napoleon III received a letter from an adviser outlining a terrifying future. The population of the United States was 32 million; by 1963, the adviser warned, with a suspiciously exact figure, it would reach 512 million. Washington would need more land, annexing M...continued

5 minutes read

Alexie @Alexie - almost 4 years ago

Love Sick | History Today

In 1796, Matthew ‘the Monk’ Lewis published a four-stanza poem telling the tragic tale of his ill-fated heroine, ‘Crazy Jane’. By 1799, Lewis’ words had been put to music and Jane’s story of heartbreak and mental collapse was shared across the country in music halls, asse...continued

6 minutes read

Webster @Webster - almost 4 years ago

After Me, Conquest | History Today

Godwine, a man who had risen to become Earl of Wessex during the reign of Cnut (d. 1035), sailed up the Thames in 1052. Having paused in Southwark to recruit Londoners, Godwine took advantage of a rising tide to continue upriver, his ships sticking to the southern bank. A...continued

6 minutes read

George @George - 8 months ago

‘Remembering Peasants’ by Patrick Joyce review

If like me you are a baby boomer of European extraction, then odds are that some of your grandparents were peasants. One of my grandmothers was born in a sod cabin of her father’s own construction on the Nebraska plains. One of my grandfathers made his living buying hides...continued

6 minutes read

Anderson @Anderson - 9 months ago

‘Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe’ by Noel Malcolm review

Regular users of social media may be aware that the peach emoji is used to indicate not only the fruit in question but also the buttocks. This metaphor is not new. It was used in the middle of the 16th century by Francesco Berni, a Florentine poet, who assured his readers...continued

6 minutes read

Priscilla @Priscilla - over 3 years ago

Life after Death in Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt is commonly believed to have been a society enthralled by the notion of eternal life. Shelley’s Ozymandias, describing an inscription on a shattered, ancient statue, captures this in its coda:Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!Nothing beside remains. R...continued

6 minutes read

Garnet @Garnet - 5 months ago

Moving With the Times? | History Today

This year marks the tercentenary of George I’s foundation of the Regius Chairs of Modern (i.e. post-antique) History at Oxford and Cambridge. Undergraduate degree courses in the subject are, however, a much more recent innovation. Oxford established its School of Modern H...continued

5 minutes read

Jany @Jany - 9 months ago

Ancient Rome’s Failed Building Projects

Troubled construction projects are perennially in the news. When looking for historical parallels of grand and wasteful infrastructure schemes, journalists and political commentators often reach for absurdities and failures that were occasionally undertaken by 20th-centur...continued

5 minutes read

Monserrat @Monserrat - 4 months ago

Why is Constitutional History Back in Fashion?

Over the last 50 years or so historians have experienced so many turns – linguistic, material, cultural, spatial, emotional, oceanic, global – that they might understandably feel a little dizzy. And anxious: there has been no fate worse than to find oneself on the wrong s...continued

5 minutes read

Rose @Rose - almost 4 years ago

The Politics of Pancakes | History Today

On Shrove Tuesday 1270, the monks of Beaulieu Abbey in the New Forest rewarded their lay manorial workers with pancakes, with the youngest employees also receiving a feast of beef, cheese and ale in the great hall of the abbey’s infirmary. This is the earliest known evide...continued

5 minutes read

Zetta @Zetta - over 3 years ago

The Morality of Medicine | History Today

‘Modern medical science has given us a choice where there was once none.’ So said John Simon at the International Medical Congress in London in 1881. Simon, who had been the UK’s first Chief Medical Officer, was speaking about the purpose and value of state medicine, the ...continued

6 minutes read

Muriel @Muriel - about 4 years ago

William Cecil’s Perilous Year | History Today

William Cecil served as Elizabeth I’s senior minister from her accession in 1558 to his death in 1598. He ceaselessly counselled, planned and manoeuvred, the solid foil to a brilliant and complex woman. In 1571, the queen rewarded him with a peerage, creating him Baron Bu...continued

6 minutes read

Manley @Manley - 6 months ago

‘The Undesirables’ by Sarah Wise review

In 1919 ‘Bessie B.’, aged 24, was committed to Abingdon Workhouse, known locally as ‘the Grubber’, under the Mental Deficiency Act (MDA) of 1913. She was unmarried, had given birth to four children each with a different father, had syphilis and appeared to be destitute ev...continued

5 minutes read

Zetta @Zetta - about 2 months ago

‘The Scapegoat’ by Lucy Hughes-Hallett review

In spring 1622 King James VI & I’s favourite, George Villiers, then marquess of Buckingham, toured Fontainebleau Palace with the Flemish artist and diplomat Peter Paul Rubens. Admiring Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, the Englishman ‘asked if he might have it’ but was firmly reb...continued

5 minutes read

Alexie @Alexie - 7 months ago

‘The Emperor and the Elephant’ by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby review

The elephant in the title of Sam Ottewill-Soulsby’s study of diplomatic relations between Christians and Muslims in the Carolingian period (800-887) is Abul-Abbas, who having arrived in Aachen in 802 as a gift to Charlemagne from the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid thereaf...continued

5 minutes read

Leda @Leda - 7 months ago

‘The Picnic’ by Matthew Longo review

It is a curious fact that Hungary – which has always possessed a deeply conservative culture – continues to avidly celebrate a number of its revolutionary moments, especially those that caught the world’s attention. The first of these came in March 1848 when Hungarians re...continued

6 minutes read