Labels in History, or Why Historians don’t Complete Arguments with ‘QED’
When this post goes ‘live’, I’ll be heading north to spend a week shut away on my own, brainstorming the plot of ‘Quinton 6’. (The first draft of book 5, The Battle of All The Ages, is currently out with its critical readers, and after I’ve made the inevitable revisions and redrafts, it should be on […]
Mr Stark and Mr Staring
Just when you’re starting to think ‘what shall I blog about this week?’, along comes good old David Starkey and solves the problem. (Actually, in true London bus fashion his intellectual soulmate Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Eton – sorry, Education – then came along too, but more of him anon.) For those […]
Endless Poetry
‘…this damned war: the mud, the noise, the endless poetry.’ (Lord Flashheart, Blackadder Goes Forth) There are very, very few similarities between the First World War and the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-7). One of them, arguably, is that both wars generated a substantial amount of memorable poetry, albeit of very different kinds. Having known and loved […]
Of Kings, Car Parks and Bandwagons
After the discovery of the remains of King Richard III, it seems to be obligatory for every history blogger, Tweeter and Facebooker to have their say on the matter, so for what it’s worth, here are a few of my thoughts. First, bouquets to Leicester University’s archaeologists for a stunning piece of work; second, brickbats […]
Stasis
A strange thing happens to me in secondhand bookshops these days. Time was when I couldn’t go into one without leaving laden down with books. Now, though, I invariably browse the shelves and think ‘got that…got that…don’t need that…got that…’. I used to have a lengthy ‘wants list’ on Abebooks, but now it’s virtually empty. […]
The End
It’s good to be back after a two week break, although ‘break’ is probably the wrong word – most of that time having been spent frantically finishing off Britannia’s Dragon, which has now gone off to the publisher! This is my fourth non-fiction historical book, so I think I’m now probably qualified to pass on some of […]
