History
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…
Escape to victory
Will politics take second place the day after the election?
Beyond the Wall’s
I think Rowley’s is the perfect restaurant; but I am really a gay man. Rowley’s is at 113 Jermyn Street…
Fez
Fez is one of the seven medieval wonders of the world. An intact Islamic city defined by its circuit of…
Likely
What, asks Christian Major of Bromley, Kent, do I think of ‘this new, I assume American, fad for using the…
Letters
In defence of Oxfam Sir: Mary Wakefield rightly praises Médecins sans Frontières but makes many misinformed claims about Oxfam and…
Daring to think the unthinkable
Tony Judt was not only a great historian, he was also a great essayist and commentator on international politics. Few…
Making history
In a recent interview, the celebrity historian and Tudor expert David Starkey described Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall as a ‘deliberate…
Building Jerusalem in Bow
This is the tale of Muriel Lester, once famous pacifist and social reformer, and Nellie Dowell, her invisible friend. Nellie…
Diary
As weather bombs brew in the north Atlantic, I’m roughing it by heading off to Rajasthan, and the literary festival…
At the start of a long war, would we remember our sense of duty?
Reading Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, as I have recently, you cannot help but be struck by what a perfectly…
Between the floods
As the climate changes, will we? The story of the little ice age suggests that adaptation will take years of suffering
Barometer
Teen queens The Duke of York denied allegations in court papers that he had had sexual relations with a girl…
The defence never rests
Sir Ivan Lawrence QC on the Krays, Dennis Nilsen – and Chris Grayling
A cold coming
You can tell a lot about a book from its bibliography. It’s the non-fiction equivalent of skipping to the final…
Long to reign over us
This year the Queen will become the longest-serving monarch in British history. Her rule defines our era
Time out of mind
Bob Dylan and the illusion of ‘your era’
Barometer
A fatal shot The sad death of Australian batsman Philip Hughes was a reminder that a cricket ball can kill.…
Staring into the abyss
The first interaction between two men recorded in the Bible involves a murder. In the earliest classic of English literature,…
All that jazz
This is a big book, a monumental text with 800 illustrations, 400 of them in colour, to be contemplated more…
Yesterday’s hero
The unforgettable moment a quarter of a century ago when the Berlin Wall came down was the most vivid drama…
Suicide
There was a marvellous man in Shakespeare’s day known as John Smyth the Sebaptist. ‘In an act so deeply shocking…
Why are kids making posters for their GCSEs?
My niece, Lara, 15, has a mind like a surgical blade. On any subject, from calculus to The X Factor,…
