History
Twitter has taken the place of the ancient curse-tablet
Twitter and other easily accessible means of online communication have encouraged the public to believe that Their Voice Will Be…
Rhodes, Columbus and the next heritage battle
On 12 October this year, Columbus Day, a statue of the Italian in Belgrave Square was vandalised by activists from…
What James Bond and Aristophanes have in common
So James Bond is back, doing exactly what he always does, inviting the audience into a fantasy world for the…
No, America couldn’t have been Canada
What if William Howe, the dithering British commander, hadn’t let the American army escape in the Battle of Long Island…
Most people who call themselves Caucasian know nothing about the Caucasus
A magnificent new history of the Caucasus earns Peter Frankopan’s highest praise
How the ancients showed their true colours
In the 18th century, art historians’ admiration for the beauty of white-ish ancient Greek marble statuary led people to draw…
My roots burnt with Greece
On 11 March this year my father passed away from prostate cancer after several weeks in a hospital in central…
Our need to get drunk in company may be innate
It was once a favourite theory of optimistic drunkards that a suitably ‘moderate’ level of alcohol consumption provided covert health…
The disgraceful decision to remove Liverpool’s heritage status
Unesco has cancelled the ‘World Heritage Status’ of the Necropolis at Memphis and the Giza Pyramid because a Radisson Blu…
How the ancients kept people behaving responsibly
The Prime Minister is urging citizens not to throw caution to the winds when lockdown ends on 19 July but…
Tacitus and the hypocrisy of cancel culture
The delicious hypocrisy at the heart of today’s cancel fraternity is that it is strongly opposed to censorship. Romans grappled…
Not so dryasdust: how 18th-century antiquarians proved the first ‘modern’ historians
Antiquaries have had a bad press. If mentioned at all today, they are often derided as reclusive pedants poring over…
Journey to the end of the world: the full horror of the Belgica’s Antarctic expedition
The epic story of the Antarctic voyage of the Belgica (1897-9) has all the ingredients of a truly glorious misadventure:…
What the EU could learn from the Athenian Empire
The EU has regularly been likened to the Roman Empire. But its current direction suggests that the Athenian Empire (478-404…
What Dominic Cummings could learn from Xenophon
On the subject of leadership, the Athenian soldier, historian, biographer and essayist Xenophon (c. 430-354 BC) had much to say,…
An orange or an egg? Determining the shape of the world
Simon Winchester follows the volatile French mission to Ecuador in 1735 to determine the shape of the Earth
Animal sentience law has finally caught up with Plutarch’s thinking
Almost no ancients cared whether animals felt pain or not. The classical Stoic belief that man’s reasoning capacity elevated him…
Virgil understood the great power of nature
‘Georgics’ are an ancient form of poetry about agriculture and the land. The term derives from Greek gê ‘land’ +…
Studying history isn't what it used to be
Is history in danger of becoming a thing of the past on campus? In recent weeks, Aston in Birmingham announced a consultation on…
What should we put in our time capsule of the plague year?
What to include in a memory box of the plague year?
Do spelling and grammar still matter?
Some universities have announced that spelling and grammar (i.e. morphology and syntax) are not all that important, but quality of…
Models of obedience: how to make people obey the law
Protests are being staged against the proposed bill to change the laws on protest. But there is a bigger issue…
University challenge: conservatives are now the radicals on campus
Conservatives are now the radicals on campus
The ancient Greek approach to mediation
Divorcing couples are being given vouchers worth £500 to settle their problems by mediation rather than going to court. It…
Malice and back-stabbing behind Vogue’s glossy exterior
‘What job do you want here?’ asked the editor of Vogue, interviewing a young hopeful. From behind her black sunglasses…
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