Treasure trove

WELCOME

JANUARY 2022

Attention to detail

A new Beatles documentary prompted Twitter users to ask whether other histories could benefit from adopting its focus on small human details. ANNA WHITELOCK followed the debate

Nazis were “inspired by top British schools”

Pupils at a Nazi-run school in Germany, c1941.

HISTORY IN THE NEWS

A selection of the stories hitting the history headlines

MICHAEL WOOD ON…

THE FUTURE OF THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

Pride and Prejudice is published

Jane Austen’s masterpiece finally reaches the booksellers’ shelves

Henry VIII meets his bride-to-be, Anne of Cleves

The rambunctious king discovers a fatal incompatibility

A monk tackles the gladiators

Telemachus intervenes in an attempt to halt Rome’s bloody public games

Tosca premieres in Rome

Puccini’s dramatic opera wows the audience – despite threats from anarchists

“Bloody Sunday was a defining moment in the Troubles. As well as generating huge emotion, it also screamed a political challenge”

As we approach the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, DIARMAID FERRITER speaks to Rhiannon Davies about the destructive legacy of the events of 30 January 1972

A tragic end

Readers who wish to learn more about the

LETTERS

A contemporary portrait of Olaudah Equiano, whose faith

Q&A

As election of historical conundrums answered by experts

DID YOU KNOW…?

When bunnies beat Boney Napoleon Bonaparte was once

BOOKS

WOMEN BRIDGEMAN/CHRISTIAN JUNGEBLODT/ALAMY “Generations of Rothschild women claimed

“The suppression of the Demerara uprising is a stain on British history”

THOMAS HARDING speaks to Ellie Cawthorne about his new account of a rebellion of enslaved people in 1823, which elicited a brutal response from the colonial authorities

Battle of wills

MARK WHITE commends a wide-ranging investigation into the psychological dimensions of the Cold War and the crucial role fear played in shaping American and Soviet strategies

AUTHORS ON THE PODCAST

Islam Issa on Shakespeare’s complex relationship with the Confederacy

Fight for a nation

COSTAS DOUZINAS on a study of the revolution by which Greece freed itself from the Ottoman empire and was transformed into a self-ruling nation state

Looting history

DAVID OLUSOGA praises a stark exploration of the bloodsoaked British raid that plundered the treasures of Benin

YOU RECOMMEND

We asked our Twitter followers which books they would recommend for people whose new year’s resolution is to learn more about history…

Leading ladies

SARAH CROOK enjoys an introduction to the women of the Rothschild family that reveals how they overcame patriarchal ideas and anti-Semitic attitudes to help secure the family’s future

Out of the shadows

Spymaster: The Man Who Saved MI6 by Helen

Hunting monsters

HELEN FRY Basilisks and Beowulf: Monsters in the

ALSO ON THE BOOKSHELF

TRUE CRIME The Dublin Railway Murder by Thomas

ENCOUNTERS

DIARY: VISIT / WATCH / LISTEN / TASTE By Jonathan Wright, Samantha Nott and Rhiannon Davies 94 EXPLORE… Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire

“The show captures the excitement of archaeology – we see those authentic moments of discovery”

The anatomist and anthropologist ALICE ROBERTS (left) looks back on more than a decade of presenting the BBC’s flagship archaeology series Digging For Britain, and reveals what surprises the latest shows have in store

HISTORY COOKBOOK

TASTE Norfolk plough pudding This pork-filled suet pastry

Rich in royal history

Burgeoning from an Anglo-Saxon manor house into a magnificent Tudor residence, Sudeley Castle hosted successive monarchs before being ravaged during the Civil War. CLEMENTINE BERESFORD explores the evocative ruins and rich royal history of this hidden gem in the Cotswolds

PRIZE CROSSWORD

Across 7 Members of Jewish sect that died

The Golden Age of Piracy

Here’s a selection of the exciting content that’s coming up on our website historyextra.com

NEXT MONTH

February issue on sale 20 January 2022

Edward Jenner

1749–1823

Queen of spies

Victoria controlled an extensive network of intelligence sources that fed explosive revelations to the British government – or direct to her. Rory Cormac and Richard J Aldrich investigate her adventures in espionage

THE DOWNFALL OF THE QUEEN’S 007

How Vicky’s battle of wits with Bismarck ended in failure for the British agent

A KING OF FIRE AND LIGHT

French ruler Louis IX was a Catholic hero and a vicious anti-Semite, a patron of exquisite art and a fervent burner of books. Matthew Gabriele and David M Perry consider the tangled legacy of a man who embodies both the horrors and beauty of medieval Europe

1921 A BRAVE NEW WORLD?

Could a nation traumatised by war truly let its hair down and embrace the possibilities of peace? With the 1921 census of England and Wales due to be released this month, SARAH HELL AWELL takes Britain’s temperature at the dawn of the “roaring” twenties

The BBC begins

A century ago, a group of idealistic radio pioneers launched one of Britain’s most famous institutions: the BBC. In the first instalment of our new 13-part series charting how the corporation shaped the nation, DAVID HENDY looks back at its earliest days

The microphone that struck fear into the hearts of seasoned performers

Negative feedback Arthur Burrows at the “Magnetophone”, 1922.

Enemies of the state

From William Wallace to Lord Haw-Haw, over the past seven centuries the authorities have repeatedly sought to secure treason convictions against people accused of betraying the nation. Mark Cornwall examines what 10 high-profile treason cases can tell us about the evolving relationship between individual rights and the power of the state

1 William Wallace’s watershed case

The Scot’s trial proved there was little to prevent kings from using treason laws to pursue vendettas

2 The talk of the Tower

Words, not deeds, sent Thomas More to the block in 1535

3 The making of a martyr

In 1581, the Jesuit priest Edmund Campion denied that Catholicism equalled treason. The authorities disagreed

4 Guy Fawkes’ “greatest treason”

The gunpowder plot was cast as the ultimate act of Catholic treachery

5 A king at war with his people

To secure the conviction of Charles I, his accusers had to turn to the ancient traditions of Roman law

6 Rough justice for a regicide’s wife

The fate of Alice Lisle in 1685 shone a harsh light on biased, bullying judges

7 Revolutionary jitters

In 1794, the government – spooked by turmoil in France – embarked on an ill-fated attempt to prosecute a political radical

8 Dying for Ireland

The trial of Roger Casement, hanged in 1916 for seeking German aid, raised the issue of citizens with divided loyalties

9 Haw-Haw’s fatal lies

A passport proved crucial in sending Nazi propagandist William Joyce to the gallows

10 The era of the traitor-spy

The Cold War saw the emergence of a new security threat, headed by Britons working for the Soviet Union

The Cultural Revolution

Kim Gordon (front) in Beijing in the mid-1960s,

Emily Soldene Actress, writer, rebel

As the darling of London’s opera scene, and then as a journalist printing scandalous revelations about the cream of society, Emily Soldene thrived in the limelight. HELEN BATTEN explains why this trendsetting, rule-breaking, genre-hopping Victorian celebrity deserves to take centre stage once more

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