History
Why does Max Hastings have such a hatred for the British military?
David Crane is taken aback by the particular contempt Max Hastings appears to reserve for the British at the outbreak of the first world war
The Prince of medicine, by Susan P. Mattern - review
In the first draft of the screenplay for the film Gladiator, the character to be played by Russell Crowe (‘father…
Noble Endeavours, by Miranda Seymour - review
Like Miranda Seymour, the author of this considerable work on Anglo-German relations, I was raised in a Germanophile home. I…
Narcoland, by Anabel Hernandez - review
It is by now surely beyond doubt that those governments committed to fighting the war on drugs — and on…
The Tragedy of Liberation, by Frank Dikötter - review
The historian of China Frank Dikötter has taken a sledgehammer to demolish perhaps the last remaining shibboleth of modern Chinese…
Uncle Bill, by Russell Miller - review
Given the outcome of recent military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is pertinent to look for one particular quality…
Danubia, by Simon Winder - review
The inbred Habsburg monarchs, who for centuries ruled without method over a vast, ramshackle empire, managed to leave an indelible mark on modern Europe, says Sam Leith
The Downfall of Money, by Frederick Taylor - review
In Germany in 1923 money was losing its value so fast that the state printing works could not keep up.…
Dot Wordsworth: We've been self-whipping since 1672
Isabel Hardman of this parish explained after last week’s government defeat that a deluded theory among the party leadership had…
The Rocks Don’t Lie, by David R. Montgomery - review
James McConnachie finds that theology and geology have been unlikely bedfellows for centuries
Russian Roulette, by Giles Milton - review
Had Onan not spilled his seed upon the ground, he might have invented invisible ink. The possibility had not occurred…
The Huguenots, by Geoffrey Treasure - review
There could be no backsliding while preparing the next plot, murder or battle in the French Wars of Religion, says Hywel Williams
A Classless Society, by Alwyn W. Turner - review
The title of Alwyn W. Turner’s book could deter readers. Even the Hollywood film The Secret Lives of Dentists promised…
The Good Nurse, by Charles Graeber - review
Charles Cullen, an American nurse, murdered several hundred patients by the administration in overdose of restricted drugs. Hospitals should be…
The Rainborowes, by Adrian Tinniswood - review
Adrian Tinniswood, so gifted and spirited a communicator of serious history to a wide readership, here brings a number of…
Anne Boleyn’s last secret
Why was the queen executed with a sword, rather than an axe?
The Coronation Chair and the Stone of Scone, by Warwick Rodwell - review
The Coronation Chair currently stands all spruced up, following last year’s conservation, under a crimson canopy, by the west entrance…
Sorry – the Vikings really were that bad
Forget that guff about peaceful farmers with an interest in travel
Tudor, by Leanda de Lisle - review
The Tudors, England’s most glamorous ruling dynasty, were self-invented parvenus, with ‘vile and barbarous’ origins, Anne Somerset reminds us
Island, by J. Edward Chamberlin - review
‘Tom Island’ — that was the name I was given once by a girl I met on an island in…
The Life and Death of the Spanish Republic, by Henry Buckley - review
With Spain’s economic crisis in the forefront of global news, it would be fascinating to see what a reporter of…
A secret sperm donor service in post-first world war London
The strange tale of how 500 women were helped to conceive after the first world war
The Ghosts of Happy Valley, by Juliet Barnes - review
Rift Valley, Kenya The other day when I told the headmaster of a top British public school that I came…
Magic, by Ricky Jay - review
People, they say, want different things from a book over the summer than they do the rest of the year.…
Edwardian Opulence, edited by Angus Trumble - review
Margaret MacMillan says that the ostentation of the Edwardian Age focuses the mind painfully on the horror that was so quickly to follow
