History
I’m a fighter, not a quitter
‘Ring out the old, ring in the new…’ This was the year I discovered that one of my ancestors had…
Stuff of legends: the surprising truth about old myths
I visited Mycenae for the first time this autumn. While the ruins of classical Athens can seem almost familiar, the…
How pagan is Christmas?
Many people today feel an ambivalence towards the history of the Christmas festival. They sense that it has deep pre-Christian…
How Aesop’s fables apply to today’s politics
Aesop’s animal fables, as Robin Waterfield points out in his new translation, were certainly not written for children: the animals…
The Roman roots of the Dulwich Wood Penis Gang
If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise… in Dulwich Wood – a charming…
There was more to real-life gladiators than fighting
Many commentators have criticised the film Gladiator II on technical aspects of the fighting. But there was so much more…
What Kemi Badenoch can learn from her enemies
Kemi Badenoch, in an act of unusual awareness for an MP, intends to learn from her own party’s mistakes as…
Does ‘tummy’ turn your stomach?
‘How old does he think you are?’ asked my husband when I told him my GP had asked me if…
‘I like it when my pupils run the world’: a celebration of Jeremy Catto
The convivial Oxford don who died in 2018 is remembered by his many devoted students, who include bankers, barristers, diplomats and politicians as well as other distinguished historians
What would the Romans have made of Keir Starmer’s freebies?
An ancient Greek, counting up the value of the gifts that Sir Keir Starmer had received over his spotless political…
Is now the most exciting point in human history?
Since today’s computers can process information beyond human capabilities, we are on a precipice never faced before, says Yuval Noah Harari, in another sweeping narrative
The ancients knew the value of practical education
The welfare state was designed to serve everyone’s needs. But those needs were defined by the state. So schools teach…
The lessons of Grenfell
We have been told that committees will meet, urgent discussions will be held, the guilty will be punished, and steps…
A historical abomination: Firebrand reviewed
Firebrand is a period drama about Henry VIII’s sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr. It is sumptuously photographed – it’s…
The British Empire’s latest crime – to have ended the Enlightenment
Richard Whatmore sees trade and colonisation in the 19th century as the great threat to Enlightenment ideals, and British imperialism as an unremitting force of darkness
The balance of power between humans and machines
Robert Skidelsky dismisses the possibility of our annihilation by a superintelligent computer system, since ‘science tells us that we cannot create such a being’. But does it?
George Osborne’s midlife crisis
There should be a term in anthropology for what happens to a certain type of Tory male in middle age.…
Our great art institutions have reduced British history to a scrapheap of shame
Calvin Po laments the pious distortions of history at two of Britain’s best-known galleries
The rise of conspiracy history
Canada’s determination to believe the worst about its past
Rumour-mongers
The ancients were as fascinated by rumour as, to judge by recent events in Russia and the BBC, we are.…
What, if anything, have dictators over the centuries had in common?
Simon Kuper finds little to connect the strongmen of the past and present apart from their contempt for their own supporters
