WELCOME

JULY 2022

THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS

Lindsey Fitzharris “A lot of disfigured soldiers during

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY

NEWS COMMENT ANNIVERSARIES HIDDEN HISTORIES

Weaponising history

A recent opinion piece by Simon Schama on

Anglo-Saxon kings were “mostly vegetarian”

A banquet shown in an 11th-century manuscript. Meat

HISTORY IN THE NEWS

A selection of the stories hitting the history headlines

"From the Babylonian captivity, Iraq became a centre of Jewish culture"

MICHAEL WOOD ON… THE LONG HISTORICAL MEMORY

ANNIVERSARIES

HELEN CARR highlights events that took place in July in history

"Many south Asian diasporic families don’t know of their First World War links"

In 2021, when my daughter was studying the First World War in her final year of primary school, every week I asked her if she had learned about the contribution of soldiers from the British empire.

LETTERS

LETTER OF THE MONTH A contemporary engraving of

Q&A

A selection of historical conundrums answered by experts

BOOKS

NOMADS “Sattin shows how nomads connected with nature

“This was a time when losing a limb made you a hero, but losing a face made you a monster”

LINDSEY FITZHARRIS talks to Rhiannon Davies about her book on a pioneering plastic surgeon who rebuilt men’s shattered faces during the First World War

A yearning process

HELEN CARR applauds a timely examination of the great British obsession with venerating the past, and its impact on our understanding of the challenges we face in the present

AUTHORS ON THE PODCAST

Annabel Abbs on Eliza Acton’s pivotal role in inventing

A global revolution

JOHN HARRIS is impressed by a wide-ranging and clear-eyed work exploring the mechanisms of the slave trade and its enduring legacy in shaping the modern world order

Wandering stars

DAVID ABULAFIA enjoys a novel synthesis of history and travel-writing that ranges across the vast Eurasian steppes

Rose between thorns

Alison Weir discusses her novel about Elizabeth of York (below), a pivotal figure in the Wars of the Roses and queen of Henry VII

What price peace?

TESSA DUNLOP commends an examination of pacifism in the Second World War that explores how following their consciences affected the lives of people who refused to fight

Broadcast views

This is the BBC: Entertaining the Nation, Speaking

Cold comfort

Snow Widows: Scott’s Fatal Antarctic Expedition Through the

ALSO ON THE BOOKSHELF

GLOBAL Berlin by Sinclair McKay (Viking, 464 pages,

ENCOUNTERS

VISIT Grave secrets Death in miniature These mysterious

“Naturalists proposed the world’s longest wildlife reserve along the line of the former Iron Curtain”

Anthropologist MARY-ANN OCHOTA tells us about her new radio series exploring the European Green Belt, and explains how nature has become intertwined with postwar history along its course

The houses of Stuart

From Stirling Castle’s forbidding fortifications to the high fashion of Kensington Palace, SIMON THURLEY takes us on a tour of seven buildings that played a critical role in the Stuart era

Spain’s hilltop Moorish marvel

Green dream The Generalife gardens provide a calm

PRIZE CROSSWORD

Book worth £40 for 3 winners GETTY IMAGES

NEXT MONTH

August issue on sale 7 July 2022

MY HISTORY HERO

Chef, restaurateur and author Nisha Katona chooses

THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN SCANDAL

Fifty years ago, the US government was embroiled in a conspiracy that became a constitutional crisis – eventually toppling a president. Clifford Williamson char ts the fallout from the 1972 Watergate affair

Snuffers, scrapers and murder-holes

From medieval portcullises to the Regency craze for “Wellington” knockers, the evolution of the front door offers a unique entry point to British history. Rachel Hurdley looks at six ways in which doors reflect our desire to avert danger, and impress our neighbours

NORMAN ADVENTURES IN AFRICA

Less than a century after William the Conqueror’s invasion of England, his compatriots embarked on another ambitious military assault – on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Levi Roach tells the story of the Norman kingdom of north Africa

New light on the Dark Ages

The past 40 years have witnessed a revolution in our understanding of early English history, which has inspired Michael Wood to update his landmark book In Search of the Dark Ages. Here, Michael chronicles the great leaps forward that have lit up this thrilling era

RUSSIA’S DOOMED REVOLUTION

With the world’s attention fixed firmly on the invasion of Ukraine, Antony Beevor’s new history of Russia’s 1917 revolutions and subsequent civil war is especially timely. He explains to Rob Attar how the fall of the last tsar launched a chain of events leading to millions of deaths and one of history’s most brutal dictatorships

REVOLUTION AND CIVIL WAR

The Russian Revolution was actually two revolutions. The

Into the wild

From its earliest days, the BBC set out to chronicle the natural world – an ambition that, as DAVID HENDY explores, reached new heights from the late 1970s with David ON THE Attenborough’s string of wildlife blockbusters

The woodpeckers that sparked a sensation

Beak performance Woodpeckers such as these attracted a

Accessorising thepast

We’ve added accoutrements to our outfits for centuries, from buckles to buttons – but they aren’t just important for fashion’s sake. Cordula van Wyhe and Susan Vincent reveal what six accessories can tell us about historical attitudes to gender, empire and more