History
An education to know: remembering Raymond Carr
Laughter, bird-watching and erudition with Raymond Carr
There’s something about Mary (Wollstonecraft and Shelley)
If Mary Wollstonecraft, as she once declared, ‘was not born to tred in the beaten track’, the same with even…
Moving heaven and earth: Galileo’s subversive spyglass
We live in an age of astronomical marvels. Last year Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft made a daring rendezvous with the comet…
The triumph of Guatemalan rum (and a disaster for a Guatemalan ambassador)
For many years, the Central American republic of Guatemala had a grievance against the United Kingdom. It claimed sovereignty over…
‘You are always close to me’: Unity Mitford’s souvenirs of Hitler
Hitler’s adoring notes to Unity Mitford – and her family’s campaign to stop my book
John Maynard Keynes: transforming global economy while reading Virginia Woolf
To the 21st-century right, especially in the United States, John Maynard Keynes has become a much-hated figure whose name is…
The lost words of John Aubrey, from apricate to scobberlotcher
Hilary Spurling found a certain blunting of the irregularities of John Aubrey’s language in Ruth Scurr’s vicarious autobiography of the…
How (not) to poison a dog
Deadly to dogs An Irish setter was allegedly poisoned at Crufts, using beef containing slug pellets. Some other substances with which dog-show rivals…
Anders Brievik: lonely computer-gamer on a killing spree
In 2011, Anders Breivik murdered 69 teenagers in a socialist summer camp outside the Norwegian capital of Oslo, and eight…
John Aubrey and his circle: those magnificent men and their flying machines
John Aubrey investigated everything from the workings of the brain, the causation of winds and the origins of Stonehenge to…
How long is it since anniversaries stopped being measured in years?
‘You must promise to be with us for our silver wedding D.V. which will be in four years,’ wrote Queen…
America’s greatest tradition: inventing spurious traditions
Making up traditions
Zac Goldsmith: How my dad saved Britain
If you’re grateful not to be in the euro, it’s James Goldsmith and his ‘rebel army’ you should thank
The first Lord Dufferin: the eclipse of a most eminent Victorian
The first Marquess of Dufferin and Ava is largely forgotten today — rotten luck for the great diplomat of the…
VE day anniversary: why politics will take second place the day after the election
Will politics take second place the day after the election?
Rowleys is Did Mummy Love Me Really? food – and it’s perfect
I think Rowley’s is the perfect restaurant; but I am really a gay man. Rowley’s is at 113 Jermyn Street…
A walk through Fez is the closest thing to visiting ancient Rome
Fez is one of the seven medieval wonders of the world. An intact Islamic city defined by its circuit of…
That annoying ‘likely’ is more old-fashioned than American
What, asks Christian Major of Bromley, Kent, do I think of ‘this new, I assume American, fad for using the…
Spectator letters: Oxfam’s Ebola appeal; what Cumberbatch should have said; and why Prince Charles is right and wrong
In defence of Oxfam Sir: Mary Wakefield rightly praises Médecins sans Frontières but makes many misinformed claims about Oxfam and…
Tony Judt: a man of paradox who made perfect sense
Tony Judt was not only a great historian, he was also a great essayist and commentator on international politics. Few…
History is the art of making things up. Why pretend otherwise?
In a recent interview, the celebrity historian and Tudor expert David Starkey described Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall as a ‘deliberate…
Muriel and Nellie: two radical Christians build Jerusalem in London’s East End
This is the tale of Muriel Lester, once famous pacifist and social reformer, and Nellie Dowell, her invisible friend. Nellie…
Tom Holland’s diary: Fighting jihadism with Mohammed, and bowling the Crown Prince of Udaipur
As weather bombs brew in the north Atlantic, I’m roughing it by heading off to Rajasthan, and the literary festival…
Standing firm is the price of civilisation. Are we still ready to pay it?
Reading Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, as I have recently, you cannot help but be struck by what a perfectly…
How long will it be before the climate forces us to change?
As the climate changes, will we? The story of the little ice age suggests that adaptation will take years of suffering
