Digging for Britain
I recently watched The Dig, the Netflix film about the discovery of the Sutton Hoo ship burial. This has garnered plenty of rave reviews from professional critics and on social media, and I’ve got nothing really to add to the comments others have already made. The acting is first rate; top marks to Ralph Fiennes for […]
On Tour: the Kronan
Time to belatedly post my first blog of 2021. Once again I’m going to avoid all reference to The Thing and will instead provide some blatant escapism, which I think is what we all need. (Think of this blog as the Bridgerton of naval history, if you like.) I can’t quite believe that it’s coming up to […]
Moving Swiftly On
Season’s greetings from the Dante-esque dystopia that is England’s new Covid Tier 4 (twinned with Purgatory and Niflheim; other afterlives are available), and yes, it’s time for my inevitable Review of the Year. So here it is. Enough of all that 24/7 excitement and non-stop global travel, so let’s […]
The Joy of Shelf
Libraries closed…repositories inaccessible…research trips impossible. OK, let’s keep things in perspective – none of this is remotely as important as people’s lives and wellbeing. But there’s no doubt that the pandemic has played havoc with historians’ and authors’ work, and I really feel for those with deadlines for theses or books and no way of […]
In Memoriam: Gijs Rommelse 1977-2020
It’s become something of a cliche to say that 2020 has been a year of tragedies on a global scale. Amid such horrors, it’s perhaps possible for individual losses to be diminished and to have less impact than would usually be the case. Last week, though, I learned the shocking news that my friend, the […]
Casting Off
Happy Trafalgar Day, everybody! This is, of course, always an auspicious day in the field of maritime history, but it’s especially so today. I’m proud and very happy to announce that the Society for Nautical Research, which I chair, is today launching The Mariner’s Mirror Podcast, which shares the name of our flagship journal, founded […]
