History
Facing their Waterloo
The French would still prefer to think of Napoleon’s last defeat as a moral victory
From ambrosia to zabaglione
This Oxford Companion ranges from the sweet to the decidedly salty, while being the most politically correct reference book you will ever consult, says Paul Levy
Barometer
First test The driving test celebrated its 80th anniversary. The first person to take the test, R.E.L. Beene of Kensington,…
Barometer
Steam privatisation Cunard celebrated its 175th birthday by sailing three liners down the Mersey. The formation of the Cunard Line…
Living history
It has been a while since the BBC really pushed the boat out on the epic history documentary front. Perhaps…
Demob unhappy
The ex-officers left behind after VE day
Children of Gomorrah
The carpet-bombing of Hamburg killed 40,000 people. It also did good
The devil’s devoted disciple
It is ironic that this weighty biography of Hitler’s evil genius of a propaganda minister is published on the day…
The British public is about to make a big mistake
On the weekend of 25 April 2015 I started to believe that the party I supported might not win an…
Letters
Enemies within Sir: I thought Matthew Parris was typically incisive in his last column, but perhaps not quite as much…
The boy David
Lunch with a young Cameron on polling day, 1992
Remembering Raymond
Laughter, bird-watching and erudition with Raymond Carr
Passionate pioneers
If Mary Wollstonecraft, as she once declared, ‘was not born to tred in the beaten track’, the same with even…
Some watcher of the skies
We live in an age of astronomical marvels. Last year Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft made a daring rendezvous with the comet…
A rum encounter
For many years, the Central American republic of Guatemala had a grievance against the United Kingdom. It claimed sovereignty over…
‘You are always close to me’
Hitler’s adoring notes to Unity Mitford – and her family’s campaign to stop my book
Public man, lover, connoisseur
To the 21st-century right, especially in the United States, John Maynard Keynes has become a much-hated figure whose name is…
Scobberlotcher
Hilary Spurling found a certain blunting of the irregularities of John Aubrey’s language in Ruth Scurr’s vicarious autobiography of the…
Barometer
Deadly to dogs An Irish setter was allegedly poisoned at Crufts, using beef containing slug pellets. Some other substances with which dog-show rivals…
A lone Crusader declares holy war
In 2011, Anders Breivik murdered 69 teenagers in a socialist summer camp outside the Norwegian capital of Oslo, and eight…
Rescuing the past from the teeth of time
John Aubrey investigated everything from the workings of the brain, the causation of winds and the origins of Stonehenge to…
Anniversary
‘You must promise to be with us for our silver wedding D.V. which will be in four years,’ wrote Queen…
The American tradition
Making up traditions
My dad saved the pound
If you’re grateful not to be in the euro, it’s James Goldsmith and his ‘rebel army’ you should thank
Fame and scandal in the family
The first Marquess of Dufferin and Ava is largely forgotten today — rotten luck for the great diplomat of the…
