Rosalind K. Marshall’s (http://www.debretts.com/people/biographies/browse/m/20165/Rosalind%20Kay+MARSHALL.aspx) Queen of Scots, first published in 1986, quickly established itself as a popular account of Mary, the most romantic and tragic of all Scotland’s monarchs. Her dramatic tale owes its immediacy and power to the fact that it is closely based throughout on the original sixteenth-century sources, and tells the story using, wherever […]
The successor to Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_Enlai), made a famous remark when asked what he considered to be the consequences of The French Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_Enlai). He replied – ‘It’s too early to say’. I think we can safely say that the consequences have been deep and widespread. There is a huge industry of historical
The Oxford History of The French Revolution Read More »
The story of The American War of Independence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_war_of_independence) has usually been told in terms of a conflict between blundering British generals and their rigidly disciplined red-coated troops on the one side, and heroic American patriots in their homespun shirts and coonskin caps on the other. In this fresh, compelling narrative, Christopher Hibbert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hibbert and http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/27/obituary-christopher-hibbert-historian) portrays the
Redcoats and Rebels Read More »
This is the definitive biography of one of the Christian Church’s most prominent figures. St. Augustine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Augustine) was born in A.D. 354 in the town of Thagaste in North Africa to a pagan father and a Christian mother. From these inauspicious beginnings, he would eventually become one of the most influential thinkers in the history of the
Augustine of Hippo by Peter Brown Read More »
Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at Cambridge, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Beard_(classicist)) wrote the following at the time of the major exhibition about Pompeii at The British Museum (http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/past_exhibitions/2013/pompeii_and_herculaneum.aspx, ran from 28 March – 29 September 2013 ) and the publication of her book Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town. ‘Natural disasters create household names. If it wasn’t for the eruption of
E. H. Gombrich’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._H._Gombrich) bestselling history of the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Little_History_of_the_World) for young readers tells the story of mankind from the Stone Age to the atomic bomb, focusing not on small detail but on the sweep of human experience, the extent of human achievement, and the depth of its frailty. The product of a generous and humane sensibility,
A Little History of the World Read More »
The pattern of European development since 1789 can be understood only by study of all those all-embracing forces that have affected the whole Continent, from the British Isles to the Balkans. David Thomson (Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge 1957-1970, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Thomson_(historian) first published this magisterial and acclaimed history in 1957. The book deals with all those grand
Europe Since Napoleon Read More »
Chris Harman (http://www.marxists.org/archive/harman/index.htm, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Harman) offers us this magisterial volume on the history of humans from the Stone Age to the present day. Originally published in 1999, Harman has had the heroic ambition to tackle the entire sweep of our past. Bombarded with daily news of international events as we are, it might be understandable that
A People’s History of the World Read More »
50 million dead. Western civilization shattered. The Second World War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_world_war) boggles the mind on every level. Of the hundreds of histories on either the whole, parts, or aspects of this recent conflict which should you choose? This is one that I really ‘enjoyed’ if that term is appropriate. Roberts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Roberts_(historian)) sheds great illumination. His style
