World War One
Britain is finally remembering the forgotten soldiers of empire
Each year, flowers of remembrance are left on the tomb of the unknown soldier in Westminster Abbey. The memorial marks…
Our shameful failure to commemorate black Great War heroes
A report by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) has this week concluded that ‘pervasive racism’ was to blame for the failure…
The Atlantic twists the truth
The Atlantic has stunk up an otherwise beautiful Labor Day weekend with a uniquely ugly story. Anti-Trump editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg claims that…
Does COVID-19 mean socialism or social collapse?
Inequality is the price we pay for civilization. Property rights, inheritance customs and unequal gains from technological innovation have long…
Gripping, immersive and powerful: 1917 reviewed
Sam Mendes’s 1917 is the first world war drama that this week won the Golden Globe for best film and…
‘I don’t know how ever Jerry stands it’: diary of a world war one artillery man
My sister’s boyfriend is a solitary man and easily overwhelmed by another’s presence. On his rare visits he flits in…
‘We’re using the same Aga and Belfast sink as Jill Archer’: how Radio 4 made Home Front
It feels like a long time since the launch of Home Front on Radio 4 back in June 2014, retracing…
Was there pleasure at Passchendaele?
At ten to eleven we filed outside the church and assembled in the graveyard around a small cenotaph commemorating the…
London calling
What is the Edinburgh Fringe? It’s a sabbatical, a pit stop, a pause-and-check-the-map opportunity for actors who don’t quite know…
From the archives: the liberty of the battlefield
From ‘Soldiers for the land’, The Spectator, 13 November 1915: It is certain that, when the war is over, tens of…
Does history provide the answer to what happened in Tunisia?
There’s a part of me that thinks OK, we’ve heard enough now, one year on from the beginning of the…
Without Gallipoli, we’d have no Page 3
Some years ago I paid a visit to the site of the Gallipoli landings because I was mildly obsessed with…
Shirley Williams: Saving my mother from the scriptwriters
Jasper Rees talks to Shirley Williams about the forthcoming screen portrayal of her mother
The Imperial War Museum finds a deadly place to display first world war masterpieces
The Imperial War Museum has reopened after a major refit and looks pretty dapper, even though it was overrun by…
