History
Which monarchs have had the longest reigns?
Long to reign over us The Queen is the world’s current longest-serving monarch, but two in history have had longer…
30,000 gallons of wine, 2,000 golden bulls and a three-month party: how the ancients celebrated
The ancients certainly knew how to put on a celebration. Let us hope the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee comes up to…
Putin is repeating Emperor Vitellius’s mistakes
Given Putin’s less than triumphant operation in Chechnya, where the Russian army suffered catastrophic losses, it is hardly surprising that…
The ancient Greek ship that was too big for any harbour
The biggest cruise ship yet builthas just been launched, but in like-for-like terms, it comes nowhere near the Syracusia,built c.…
The rise and fall of the Tsarist legal system
St. Petersburg University in Russia is (desperately?) inviting scholars worldwide to a conference in September celebrating Mikhail Speransky. It was…
The Russians aren’t the first to rewrite history
Historians in Russia have a long and craven record, now going back centuries, of being economical with the truth about…
Patriarch Kirill, Archbishop Ambrose and a lesson for Putin
Patriarch Kirill is Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus’ and Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church; and one of his…
A history lesson for those calling Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe 'ungrateful'
In the latest installment from the idiot age of Twitter, #ungratefulcow has been trending. The reason? Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had expressed, mildly and politely,…
What Tacitus knew about tyrants
Last week Aristotle offered a lesson in tyrant theory. This week Tacitus (ad 56-c.120) offers one in tyrant practice. Tacitus…
Graham Robb deserves to be a French national treasure
Philip Hensher is enthralled by Graham Robb’s evocative new history of France
Does Putin pass Aristotle’s tyrant test?
Is Putin a tyrant? Aristotle (384-322 bc) might well have thought so. Seeing the turannos as a deviant type of…
The moral courage of P.J. O’Rourke
Was it Socrates who said that chaos was the natural state of mankind, and tyranny the usual remedy? Actually it…
A toast to Victorian Britain
Across oceans and continents, less favoured nations produce more history than they can consume. In these islands, the English —…
The ancient problem of unscrupulous ‘doctors’
Yet again ‘doctors’ with no qualifications have been found advertising dodgy but expensive products and treatments, in this case, injections…
Claudius, Messalina and how not to choose political advisers
The Prime Minister has been having some trouble with his inner circle of advisers. Tacitus supplies fine examples of how…
The irresistible lure of classified ads
The seduction of back-page ads
The ancients knew they couldn’t turn back time
The singer Cher, now 75, has announced that, because she refuses to appear old, she is not going to allow…
Boris wouldn’t be the first to be brought down by a party
Whatever the result of Sue Gray’s report on ‘gatherings’ in Downing Street, there is a political lesson to be learned:…
Our growing unwillingness to understand the past
I was recently reading the works of the 17th-century antiquary John Aubrey, who at one point mentions a ghost craze…
Make History Great Again!
Why don’t today’s children know more about history? In an age when information has never been easier to access, it’s…
Why has medicine been so slow to improve over the centuries?
Medicine was founded by Hippocrates in the 5th century BC. Doctors continued to study the Hippocratic texts into the 19th…
Can the fiasco of the Dieppe Raid really be excused?
In my mother’s final days we had a long conversation about the second world war. I asked if she’d ever…
Use it or lose it: has the public library had its day?
I write this in a garret a few doors down from the public library in Muswell Hill, north London. It…
The Globe, Plato and the corrupting force of art
The Globe theatre’s project to ‘decolonise’ Shakespeare, as if that would make plays like The Tempest ‘acceptable’ to them and…
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…
