How Mexico Fought Franco
#How Mexico Fought Franco In 1937 a boat carrying 450 Spanish children, aged between five and 15, docked at the sultry tropical port of Veracruz on Mexico’s Atlantic coast. The children – not, in most cases, orphans, but refugees whose…
Political Graffiti in Georgian Britain
#Political Graffiti in Georgian Britain In December 1731 an anonymous author was preparing for the publication of the third edition of an odd little book that had already taken Britain by storm. The Merry thought, or Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany…
The Death of Einhard the Historian
#The Death of Einhard the Historian They must have looked odd together, the Frankish king and the courtier who later memorialised him. Charlemagne was tall for the period, around six foot three. Einhard meanwhile, his friend Walahfrid Strabo wrote, was…
Reforming England’s Divorce Law
#Reforming England’s Divorce Law On 6 April the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 that removed all fault from divorce in England and Wales will have been operational for two years. Critics have argued that it was enacted without principle…
‘Sparta and the Commemoration of War’ and ‘The Killing Ground’ review
#‘Sparta and the Commemoration of War’ and ‘The Killing Ground’ review These are books of very different kinds, not exactly chalk and cheese, but certainly apples and oranges. All three authors are military historians, if of dissimilar stripes and with…
‘The World at War’ and the Holocaust at 50
#‘The World at War’ and the Holocaust at 50 Less than a minute into the 20th episode of The World at War the first interviewee appears. He is an old man, impeccably dressed in a black suit jacket with a…
Keeping Blinded Veterans in View
#Keeping Blinded Veterans in View During the First World War thousands of charities were established in Britain to support servicemen. These organisations needed to be ‘seen’ by the public in order to secure donations. Thanks to the creative methods it…
‘Revolusi’ by David Van Reybrouck review
#‘Revolusi’ by David Van Reybrouck review ‘The apologies for the history of slavery and the police actions, as made by the king, will be withdrawn.’ So promised the Netherlands’ right-wing firebrand lawmaker Geert Wilders ahead of the country’s 2023 election….
Was the Trojan Horse Real?
#Was the Trojan Horse Real? Ever since 1873 when the German businessman and archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, following the evidence of Homer’s Iliad, found the remnants of a grand metropolis – now Hisarlik in modern Turkey – the existence of the…
Beware the Lides of March
#Beware the Lides of March March is the month which proverbially ‘comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb’. That proverb, which dates back to the 17th century, is just one of many traditional sayings about the…