History
Anything to do with History
Marie
@Marie -
about 1 year ago
Historical Omertà | History Today
Katherine of Aragon, by Lucas Horenbout, c.1525 © Philip Mould Ltd, London/Bridgeman Images.Mariella Frostrup, Kate Codrington, Davina McCall and others have recently been on a mission to end present-day silence around the menopause. But the omertà is deeply historical. T...continued
4 minutes read
Oren
@Oren -
about 4 years ago
The Devil by the Deep Blue Sea
Do all cities have individual characters? Or do only the greatest ones grow a personality? Accost a few pedestrians on the Canebière, the now-shabby thoroughfare that runs up from Marseille’s Vieux Port, and the mean temperature of chat is bluff, hearty, a little cynical....continued
4 minutes read
Raoul
@Raoul -
6 months ago
‘The Bone Chest’ by Cat Jarman review
A nursing mother in ‘The Third Class Carriage’ by Honoré Daumier, c. 1862-64. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain.Most people who have studied 19th-century Britain will be familiar with the stratospheric rise in the nation’s population in this period. Between 18...continued
4 minutes read
Ericka
@Ericka -
7 months ago
‘Empires of the Steppes’ by Kenneth W. Harl review
A Mughal depiction of the Siege of Arbela in the era of Hulagu Khan, c. 1596. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Public Domain.Absorbed in Kenneth Harl’s Empires of the Steppes I was aware that less than a tithe of what I was reading would be remembered by the end of a week. Th...continued
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Elaina
@Elaina -
over 4 years ago
The Great Divide | History Today
‘Despotism tempered by assassination’ was Richard Burton’s definition of governance in Syria and the Levant under Ottoman rule. Burton was British consul in Aleppo from 1869 to 1871 and saw communal tensions at first hand. A noted Arabic scholar, he travelled to Mecca and...continued
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Muriel
@Muriel -
almost 4 years ago
A Man at War | History Today
Writing to his brother in the penultimate year of the American Civil War, the Union soldier Eb Allison observed that ‘Warfare, to be successful, is a thing that does not admit of any dilly-dallying about it.’ This comment might well serve as a summation of William T. Sher...continued
4 minutes read
Elaina
@Elaina -
over 1 year ago
Personality Flaws | History Today
Winston Churchill with Joseph Stalin onboard a warship during the Crimean Conferences at Yalta, Russia, February 1945. U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.According to Karl Marx, ‘Men make their own history, but not as they please, in con...continued
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Elaina
@Elaina -
about 4 years ago
Ralegh in his Time | History Today
Allan Gallay’s comprehensively researched but above all profound biography of Walter Ralegh makes it unlikely another will be published anytime soon, if ever. It is ambitious in scope and if it perhaps over-reaches in attributing to Ralegh the guiding spirit of British im...continued
4 minutes read
Roger
@Roger -
about 2 years ago
The Continuity of Community | History Today
Life in the Countryside, by Jan Brueghel the Elder, 17th century. Bridgeman Images.I recently moved into a village and a strange thing happened: after six months, I know my neighbours; I’ve been to the houses of people in the village; I regularly chat to the owner of the ...continued
4 minutes read
Rahsaan
@Rahsaan -
over 1 year ago
Christmas with the Tudors | History Today
‘Christmas entertainment’ illustration from A Book of Roxburghe Ballads, 1847. Bridgeman Images.In Tudor England, the festive season was a tale of contrasts. It began with a period of spiritual preparation for the coming of Christ. Its name, Advent, came from the Latin, a...continued
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Marie
@Marie -
about 4 years ago
Siberia’s Surprising Musical History | History Today
When Sergei Volkonsky was exiled to Siberia in December 1825, his wife Maria volunteered to go with him. Her devotion was matched only by her strong will, as she insisted on taking her clavichord with her, the cumbersome instrument lugged over 4,000 miles by sledge. First...continued
4 minutes read
Emmie
@Emmie -
10 months ago
Gone with the Wall | History Today
A poster of the Stalinist era with the inscription: 'The whole world will be ours!', 1935. Wikimedia CommonsIt isn’t easy to write about ‘Eastern Europe’. Many countries described as such now prefer the more civilised designation ‘Central European’. Others can more accura...continued
4 minutes read
Jarod
@Jarod -
11 months ago
Banking On It | History Today
Dividend Day at the Bank of England, 1770. Wikimedia Commons.Virtue is not a characteristic always associated with banks these days. But in Virtuous Bankers, Anne Murphy tells the important story of how, in the 18th century, the Bank of England won public confidence as th...continued
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Geovany
@Geovany -
11 months ago
Bleak Weather | History Today
The Reichstag on fire, Berlin, February 1933. Wikimedia Commons.On Saturday 28 January 1933, Carl Zuckmayer was getting ready for a party in Berlin. He would have preferred not to go but it wasn’t just any party. It was the Press Ball and his invitation marked him out as ...continued
4 minutes read
Eleanora
@Eleanora -
over 1 year ago
Think About It | History Today
Spectators on Nixon's motorcade route in China, February 1972. The sign reads ‘Long live the great, glorious and correct Communist Party of China!’ Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum/Wiki Commons.In 1963, Penguin published an arresting paperback, Techniques of ...continued
3 minutes read
Zackery
@Zackery -
almost 2 years ago
Return of the Marcos | History Today
Dionisio Magbuelas (centre), known as ‘Papa Isio’, with two followers. Photographed in prison, Bacolod City, 1907. Isio, a religious leader, led anti-colonial uprisings on the island of Negros in 1896, and again in 1899-1907. Wiki Commons/Harry H. Bandholtz.The Philippine...continued
3 minutes read
Patrick
@Patrick -
over 1 year ago
The USSR in Afghanistan | History Today
Withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, 15 February 1989. Wiki Commons/RIA Novosti archive.‘The pursuit of modernity is often violent’, Elisabeth Leake writes in Afghan Crucible, her impressive new account of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. For re...continued
4 minutes read
Adelia
@Adelia -
almost 4 years ago
Foreign Stones | History Today
Most modern accounts of church monuments for a general readership find space somewhere for Philip Larkin’s ‘An Arundel Tomb’: Our almost-instinct almost true:What will survive of us is love. The poem duly appears in Nigel Andrew’s exploration of English church monuments. ...continued
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Muriel
@Muriel -
over 1 year ago
Shut Up and Eat! | History Today
Benito Mussolini, during the march on Rome with, from left, Emilio De Bono, Italo Balbo and Cesare Maria De Vecchi. Wiki Commons.John Foot opens his book on fascist Italy with a family anecdote: a convivial mealtime discussion in which his great-grandmother reminisced fon...continued
4 minutes read
Jany
@Jany -
over 4 years ago
The Unrefined Regency | History Today
One wonders what more can be added to a rich seam of Regency history already well-mined. However, Robert Morrison manages to make an enjoyable book full of anecdotes and scenarios of both the rich and famous, the poor and exploited alike. Most of his primary sources are ...continued
4 minutes read
Kraig
@Kraig -
almost 2 years ago
Broad Church | History Today
Chichester Cathedral by Joseph Francis Gilbert, c.1833. Yale Center for British Art.1904 was a big year for H.D.M. Spence, the Dean of Gloucester. It marked the mid-point of his campaign against the composer Edward Elgar, whose work ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ he sought to h...continued
4 minutes read
Americo
@Americo -
about 1 year ago
American Moppets | History Today
‘The ‘Belarus-5’ in an ordinary Soviet house,’ photographed in the 1960s. Wiki Commons/Карпенко Микола Михайлович.In the 1990s, a version of the satirical puppet show Spitting Image arrived on Russian television. A Muscovite once told the story of his father, who took gr...continued
4 minutes read
Felicita
@Felicita -
over 1 year ago
The Whole Truth? | History Today
Section from a Qur'an Manuscript, c.1300. Marginalia indicate that this Qur'an once belonged to the library of a ribat (hostel) in the holy city of Medina accommodating Moroccan residents. Metropolitan Museum of Art.Westerners have long been fascinated by the Prophet Muha...continued
4 minutes read
Jerrold
@Jerrold -
over 1 year ago
Main Man | History Today
Harold Wilson, photographed in his study at home in Westminster, in 1986. Allan Warren/Wiki Commons.Nick Thomas-Symonds has previously written two very good biographies of Labour titans – Clement Attlee and Nye Bevan; now he has turned his attention to Harold Wilson. It i...continued
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Casper
@Casper -
about 4 years ago
Heavy History | History Today
Academics who sought to broaden the appeal of the Classics at the start of the 21st century by relaxing its focus were probably only trying to sneak opera and a few novels on to the curriculum. Those pushing the burgeoning field of Classical Reception Studies – looking ...continued
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