Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2019 i History Extra

It was one of the most radical rebellions in European history. In the mid-13th century a group of noblemen, led by Simon de Montfort, took control of England, held King Henry III captive, and introduced dramatic reforms including, most famously, a representative parliament. In this month’s cover feature, historian Sophie Thérèse Ambler revisits this medieval revolution and the bloody conflict that accompanied it, arguing that this was a holy war, inspired by the zeal and brutality of the crusades. You’ll find her piece on page 24. Revolution was also in the air 100 years ago this month, as Britain – and indeed many other countries – struggled to cope with the aftermath of the First World War. In the Red Summer of 1919 the UK was beset with race riots,…

Britain’s uneasy relationship with its colonial past continues to create headlines, with universities now sharply in focus. Following the announcement of a two-year investigation to determine the extent to which the university “contributed to, benefited from or challenged” slavery and the slave trade, Cambridge has been in the eye of the storm. Many took news that the inquiry will be chaired by a white man, classics professor Martin Millett, as evidence of disingenuous tokenism. Kehinde Andrews (@kehinde_ andrews) tweeted to say that the fact the investigation is to be run by “an almost exclusively white centre for ‘African’ studies” means the initiative is “at best, a publicity stunt”. He added that: “The worst outcome of ‘decolonising’ is that the university is recreating inequalities by giving white scholars more topics to…

I recently attended a Holocaust memorial event in Manchester. In a packed auditorium you could hear a pin drop as survivors told stories of the Łódź ghetto and the ‘Voyage of the Damned’ of 1939, when more than 900 Jewish refugees aboard MS St Louis were refused entry to Cuba, the US and Canada, and instead had to seek safety in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. It was a poignant evening. Afterwards, I found myself thinking about Manchester’s role in Jewish history. People often forget that Winston Churchill started his political career in the area. He was Conservative MP for Oldham from 1900–04, but split with the party over the Aliens Act of 1905, which was specifically designed to curb Jewish immigration. Churchill argued the act would “appeal to…

By the summer of 1690, the war for control of Ireland was reaching the moment of truth. More than a year earlier, the Protestant William of Orange had deposed his Catholic father-in-law, James II and VII, in the Glorious Revolution. But in heavily Catholic Ireland, loyalty to James died hard, and it was no surprise when, in March 1689, he landed from France and raised his standard. William sent troops to suppress him, but they got nowhere. So in June 1690, William himself landed near Belfast to crush the old king once and for all. Among William’s soldiers was a Huguenot called Gédéon Bonnivert, who caught his first glimpse of the enemy on the last day of June. As Bonnivert recorded, James had drawn up his army on the river…

The best-remembered date in the whole story of postwar migration to Britain is 22 June 1948, the day 492 men and women from the Caribbean disembarked from the Empire Windrush and stepped ashore at Tilbury. Obscured behind that famous event is a hidden history – one that can be found in formerly classified documents in the vaults of the National Archives at Kew, in London. One key date in that other history came six weeks before the arrival of the Windrush. On 11 May 1948, the British governor in Jamaica sent a telegram to Arthur Creech Jones, colonial secretary in the Labour government of Clement Attlee. It read: “I regret to inform you that more than 350 troop-deck passages by EMPIRE WINDRUSH… have been booked by men who hope to…

As the darkness seeped away into the dawn, the army reached the crest of the hill and the men put down their packs. Each of them wore on his chest and shoulder an insignia: the cross. They were crucesignati, crusaders. Before they set out on their march through the early hours, a bishop had promised them remission of their sins if they fought hard in the hours to come. Now, as they readied for battle, they turned to listen to their leader. They were fighting today, he told them, for the honour of God, the saints and the church. May the Lord, he prayed, grant them the strength to do his work and overcome the wickedness of all enemies. Finally, he commended to God their bodies, and their souls. Then…

FEUDS Scratching Fanny’s quest for revenge The 18th century may be known as the Age of Enlightenment but that doesn’t mean that Britons’ fear of the supernatural had passed into history. On the contrary, many of our Georgian ancestors regarded the threat of the paranormal as real and terrifying – and that left them vulnerable to the ghost hoax. Such hoaxes saw people pretending to be ghosts – or fabricating ghost stories – in order to advance their own interests. Those interests included spreading religious hate, securing the dream marriage… and, in the case of a London clerk called Richard Parsons, exacting revenge. In 1759, Parsons let a room in a house in Cock Lane to a widower called William Kent, who was accompanied by Fanny Lynes, his dead wife’s…

As the Second World War engulfed Europe, an isolated Britain desperately searched for a way to turn the tide. The Special Operations Executive planted agents behind enemy lines to spy, subvert and sabotage, and to organise resistance to overthrow occupying forces. In 1941, the SOE took a chance on a tall, red-haired American woman, recently returned from France. Defying expectations, Virginia Hall proved to be a remarkable and effective agent, and became legendary among the French Resistance. Her achievements were even more outstanding given that, following a hunting accident before the war, she had a prosthetic leg, and also had to overcome prejudices against women in the warzone. Sonia Purnell tells Hall’s story in this focused and fully immersive narrative, packed with heart-in-mouth moments. Hall hardly spoke of her wartime…

Like Churchill, whom he cites approvingly, author Harry Potter considers that “the treatment of criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country”. Drawing on his experience as a prison chaplain and barrister, it is a test he believes our current system has flunked. Overcrowding and underfunding mean today’s prisons are warehouses for what’s been termed the “bad, mad and sad”, of which the bad are the smallest group by far. In his view, this was not always the case and need not be the case today. The book surveys the practice and experience of imprisonment in Britain from AD 600 to 2018. From the seventh century to the 19th, the prison was not the principal means of punishment. For most inmates, prison was a…

FICTION The Devil’s Slave by Tracy Borman (Hodder & Stoughton, 432 pages, £16.99) Courtly dramas James VI & I’s royal court simmers with political conspiracies and clandestine romances in this sequel to Borman’s debut novel The King’s Witch. We pick up the story in the spring of 1603, with our heroine Frances Gorges pregnant and in hiding. She is offered a chance to return to court, but is she willing to sacrifice her freedom for the opportunity? One for fans of Philippa Gregory and Alison Weir. ILLUSTRATED Manga ed. by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere and Matsuba Ryoko (Thames & Hudson with the British Museum, 256 pages, £29.95) Graphic content Few forms of art are as instantly recognisable as Manga. Translated as ‘art run riot’, this dynamic Japanese graphic style has spread…

From 18th-century oil paintings to the rural idyll epitomised by Queen Victoria’s Balmoral estate, the National Museum of Scotland’s latest exhibition reveals how Romantic interpretations of Scottish culture helped shape the country’s identity. The display also looks at the beginnings of the Scottish tourism industry, and the reasons that tartan and bagpipes came to symbolise the nation for the rest of the word. Wild & Majestic: Romantic Visions of Scotland National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh / 26 June–10 November / nms.ac.uk…

It wasn’t just the crew of Apollo 13 who faced difficulties in space. On 20 July 1969, as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were entering the final stage of Apollo 11’s journey to the lunar surface, communication with Mission Control was breaking down, technology was starting to fail and fuel was running low. These 13 dramatic minutes give their name to a new BBC World Service podcast series. This doesn’t mean it has a narrow focus, though. Just the opposite: 13 Minutes to the Moon jumps back from specific moments during the astronauts’ descent to tell the wider story of the Apollo programme. The first episode, for example, looks at how and why the Americans turned to V2 designer Wernher von Braun to fulfil John F Kennedy’s 1961 promise to…

The fabled connection between Jewish people and money has long been used to stoke anti-Semitic prejudice, as seen in Nazi propaganda and Shakespeare’s villainous creation Shylock. Drawing upon more than 2,000 years of history, a new exhibition at Jewish Museum London explores the origins of the stereotype, using a wide collection of manuscripts, art, film and literature to separate fact from fiction. From the experiences of wealthy financiers to poor economic migrants, the exhibition looks at the role of money in Jewish life, and how damaging tropes have been used to suit a variety of political agendas. Among the items on display is Rembrandt’s rarely seen painting Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver, as well as a new commission by artist Jeremy Deller, based on historic archive footage. Other…

For anyone missing Downton Abbey, here’s a fillip: Julian Fellowes has penned a new drama, Belgravia. It begins when the social-climbing Trenchards are invited to a ball hosted by the Duchess of Richmond, which takes place on the eve of the battle of Waterloo. Events that will play out over decades begin. A project that started out as an app-cum-novel promises to be considerably grander when it eventually reaches TV screens. Starring Tamsin Greig, Philip Glenister, Harriet Walter and Tara Fitzgerald.…

When did you first hear about Ashe? As a girl of 12, growing up and passionate about tennis, I first became aware of him when he won the final against Jimmy Connors at Wimbledon in 1975. Arthur played a thoughtful, tactical match: it wasn’t so much about power as about backhand slices, hitting the ball low and not allowing Jimmy his rhythm. I’ll always remember everyone at my tennis club sitting around and watching the game, aware that history was being made. What kind of person was he? By the time I was making my way in the tennis world, he was already well established and had won a number of titles. I was lucky to get to know him, in part because we had the same agent, and he…

AC Grayling We’ve lost momentum in considering questions such as how we think about things like death and love. I hope that getting people interested in the larger story of philosophy will bring those questions back into focus. AG Grayling discusses his new book on the history of philosophy, on page 70 Sophie Thérèse Ambler My research investigates the relationship between politics, war and faith in the Middle Ages – including England’s first revolution, when Simon de Montfort seized power from the king. Sophie tells the story of the barons’ revolt against Henry III, on page 24 Leanda de Lisle Charles I was born into an era of regicide, with fanatics claiming the right to kill rulers of the wrong religion. When Charles lost the argument against this, he also…

The origins of western Europe’s relationship with imported intoxicants is set to be the focus of a new research project. The two-year study, led by the University of Sheffield in partnership with historians in Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, will explore the ways in which nations were first introduced to substances such as opium, tobacco, tea, coffee, sugar and chocolate. Using Amsterdam, Hamburg, London and Stockholm as case studies, the project will also try to shed light on how the consumption of these substances affected people’s diets and lifestyles, leading to the creation of new public spaces such as coffeehouses. In London, for example, researchers will chart the volume of intoxicants coming into the capital, from the first decades of traffic in tobacco (c1600) to the start of the Opium…

On the afternoon of 5 July 1942, the Frank family had the news they dreaded. For more than two years, they had been living under Nazi rule in German-occupied Amsterdam. Now, as their 13-year-old daughter Anne recorded in her diary, her 16-year-old sister, Margot, had been called up for transportation to a German labour camp. “A call-up: everyone knows what that means,” Anne wrote. “Visions of concentration camps and lonely cells raced through my head.” That night, their parents made their final preparations for their flight. “Everything was very strange,” wrote Anne. At 5.30 the next morning, Mrs Frank woke the girls. Two hours later, wearing as many layers of clothes as they could, the Franks closed their front door for the last time, and walked through the morning rain…

A genius whose influence endures I was overjoyed to read your article about Leonardo da Vinci (Da Vinci’s Vision of the Future, May). A few years ago I studied a three-month-long module with the Open University dedicated entirely to the great man. I remember reading some astonishing news items on Leonardo. Among them was a BBC News report from September 2005, which stated that a UK surgeon had pioneered a way to repair damaged hearts after looking at Leonardo’s drawings. Doctor Francis Wells from Papworth Hospital in Cambridge successfully treated more than 80 patients after being inspired by Leonardo’s sketches. The drawings allowed the heart expert to work out how to better restore normal opening and closing function of the mitral valve (one of the four valves in the heart).…

The Painted Chamber in the Palace of Westminster was a wonder of the 13th century. But the faded images were now obscured by tapestries; the medieval world barely intruded into the new on 8 January 1649, when men in military buff coats or plain Puritan suits sat at trestle tables and debated the fate of their king. Two days earlier a high court had been established that would for the first time try a king of England. Six years into a series of civil wars between forces loyal to the king and their parliamentary enemies, this was justified on the practical grounds of preventing Charles from raising further “commotions, rebellions and invasions”. It was also a matter of principle: that the king should have no impunity from the law. The…

PALESTINE Having driven the Ottomans from Palestine in 1918, Britain received a League of Nations mandate to govern the country after the First World War. There, it sat on top of a tinderbox of rival Palestinian and Zionist nationalisms. In the event of an Axis-aligned invasion from Lebanon or Iraq, British military observers saw no hope of defending or evacuating Palestine’s Jewish population of roughly 400,000, including around 60,000 recent émigrés from Hitler’s Germany. TRANSJORDAN Transjordan came into existence in 1922 as part of a post-First World War League of Nations mandate to Britain. Britain, in turn, handed it as a protectorate to the al-Hussein family, its allies in the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans. Transjordan’s emir, Abdullah I, immediately declared for his old ally in 1939. But Transjordan joined…

1920 WAR DIVIDEND Following a surge in interest in women’s football during the First World War (when many male players were away at the front), the Dick, Kerr Ladies factory team play St Helen’s Ladies at Goodison Park on Boxing Day in front of a crowd of 55,000. 1881 THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL Teams from Scotland and England meet at Hibernian’s Easter Road ground in Edinburgh. Scotland run out 3-0 winners in front of a crowd of around 2,000. It is the first recorded women’s football international. 1895 NORTH HAMMERS SOUTH Nettie Honeyball forms the British Ladies’ Football Club. ‘The North’ beats ‘The South’ 7-1 before a crowd of 10,000 in Crouch End. Press coverage chiefly focuses on the women’s looks and attire. 1984 ON TOP OF THE WORLD England finish…

The Sixties by Jenny Diski (Profile, 2010) Was the 1960s really all acid trips, peace protests and free love? Diski interrogates some of the myths surrounding a decade that was rife with contradictions. The Sixties: Social and Cultural Transformation in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, 1958-74 by Arthur Marwick (Oxford, 1999) From feminism and civil rights to youth and art movements, Marwick compares Cultural change across Europe and the US from 1958 to 1974: a ‘decade’ of transition that, in his reading, encompasses more than just 10 years. Promise of a Dream: Remembering the Sixties by Sheila Rowbotham (Verso, 2001) Historian Sheila Rowbotham turns an analytical eye on her own generation in this memoir, recounting her experience of an era of activism and thrilling opportunity. White Heat: A…

Usually written by architects or historians, books about cities and urban development often provide only a cursory reflection on the emergence of human settlements. As an archaeologist and anthropologist, Monica L Smith brings a refreshing and original perspective to understanding the origins and benefits of the city in this short book with a big history. Her aim is not to praise or condemn our modern cities, but understand why as a species we are drawn to them as the ultimate form of settlement. Smith begins with her archaeological excavation of an “ancient trash dump” in central Rome. For her, it is the act of discarding that provides the most enduring evidence of urban activity, from the broken ceramics of ancient Rome to the discarded plastic crates in the fish markets…

This is proving a bumper year for books dealing with appeasement and the run-up to the Second World War, the latest of which is this penetrating, well-written study of the period. Robert Crowcroft interrogates some of our orthodox assumptions about that era, and comes up with convincingly argued conclusions. Churchill, the central figure in the drama, emerges as more of an opportunist politician than a great statesman. Crowcroft concentrates on his often-overlooked opposition to the National Government’s proposals for limited Indian self-rule, highlighting that he devoted the same formidable energy to this lost cause as he did to opposing the appeasement of Nazi Germany. Churchill was an unashamed imperialist, but his personal ambitions played a part too. Kept out of office by his Conservative colleagues, he calculated that he could…

Despite being thousands of miles apart, Manchester Museum has collaborated with India’s Partition Museum to curate a joint display marking the centenary of the Amritsar Massacre, in which British soldiers opened fire on unarmed civilians, killing hundreds. Using eyewitness accounts, photographs and official documents, the exhibition revisits the massacre in detail, exploring the findings of subsequent inquiries and the role the events played in the quest for Indian independence. Other items on display include Punjabi textiles from the nearby Whitworth Art Gallery, plus a new triptych by artists the Singh Twins (pictured). Jallianwala Bagh 1919: Punjab Under Siege Manchester Museum / Until 2 October / Free entry / museum.manchester.ac.uk WEEKLY TV & RADIO Visit historyextra.com for weekly updates on upcoming TV and radio programmes…

Why does the Ministry of Defence require archaeologists? The Ministry of Defence owns a great deal of land, about 1 per cent of the British mainland, for its training. This includes a lot of the nation’s heritage, including 777 scheduled monuments and six registered battlefields. As senior archaeologist at the MoD’s Defence Infrastructure Organisation, which looks after the military estate both in the UK and overseas, it’s my job to ensure this heritage is protected. How do soldiers get involved? It started with the Rifles, who in 2011 had quite a bad tour in Afghanistan, and had several people in barracks who needed to get out and do things. One of the guys was passionate about archaeology, and so his medical sergeant came and had a chat with me. We…

Two major history festivals open their gates early this summer, bringing an array of talks, demonstra- tions and hands-on activities to rural locations in Cambridgeshire and Wiltshire. Taking place from 20–23 June, the Wimpole History Festival line-up boasts a diverse collection of speakers, including Antony Beevor, Lucy Worsley and Melvyn Bragg, as well as screenwrit- er Sally Wainwright, who will explore the true story behind BBC One drama Gentleman Jack . The festival, held in the grounds of the National Trust’s Wimpole Estate, will also mark several prominent anniversaries, including the bicentenary of the Peterloo massacre, which will be examined by historian Jacqueline Riding. Then, from 24–30 June, visitors to the Chalke Valley History Festival near Salisbury will be treated to a similarly varied programme, with talks featuring the likes…

Arthur Ashe was an American tennis player who won three Grand Slam singles titles, and is still the only black man to have won the men’s singles title at Wimbledon, the US Open and the Australian Open. He was also the first black player to be selected for the US Davis Cup team. Ashe, who became known for his social activism after retiring, is believed to have contracted HIV from a blood transfusion he received during heart bypass surgery. He died from Aids-related pneumonia in New York aged 49.…

Dozens of Anglo-Saxon treasures found inside a burial chamber hailed as the “UK’s equivalent of Tutankhamun’s tomb” have gone on public display. The seventh-century artefacts, including this glass beaker, were unearthed in Prittlewell, Essex in 2003. After years of analysis, the objects can now be viewed at Southend Central Museum as part of a new gallery devoted to the discovery. Experts believe the tomb belonged to Seaxa, brother of King Saebert of Essex, who was the first East Saxon king to convert to Christianity. Have a story? Please email Jon Bauckham at jon.bauckham@immediate.co.uk…

LILY PARR A statue of trailblazing footballer Lily Parr is set to be unveiled at the National Football Museum in Manchester. Parr, who scored more than 900 goals between 1919 and 1951, spent the majority of her career at Dick, Kerr Ladies FC (see page 60 for more on women’s football). STONEHENGE A ‘missing’ piece of Stonehenge is back in Wiltshire more than 60 years after it was first taken. The metre-long core of sarsen stone was returned by Robert Phillips, who kept the fragment after it was drilled out during repairs in 1958. Experts hope it will aid research into the stones’ origins.…

Third century BC Buddhism is said to have arrived in Sri Lanka through an embassy from the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in India. AD 1070 The capital shifts from Anuradhapura to the city of Polonnaruwa, which also has a strong connection with Hinduism. 1506 The Portuguese arrive and begin to influence Sri Lanka’s affairs, eventually conquering the lowlands. Some inhabitants convert to Catholicism. 1815 The British assume control of the whole of the island, having taken the lowlands in 1802. 1948 Sri Lanka achieves independence from the British. 1983 After years of growing ethnic tensions, civil war breaks out between the Sri Lankan state and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). 2009 The civil war is brought to an end through a brutal military campaign, which leads to the death…

On 20 July 1944, Colonel Claus Schenk Count von Stauffenberg attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, an act for which he has long been honoured in his homeland, first in West Germany and later in the unified nation. Yet while Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators, who planned to establish a new regime, were undoubtedly brave, this was hardly the act of democrats. Rather, this was an unsuccessful plot hatched by conservative nationalist aristocrats, pragmatists who feared impending defeat and harked back to older authoritarian traditions. Why, we might well ask, should we celebrate their actions? “Why were those in elite positions so slow to act?” In answering that question, we should of course recognise the conspirators’ bravery. Stauffenberg, a man disabled by war wounds (blind in one eye, missing his right…

We welcome your letters, while reserving the right to edit them. We may publish your letters on our website. Please include a daytime phone number and, if emailing, a postal address (not for publication). Letters should be no longer than 250 words. email: letters@historyextra.com Post: Letters, BBC History Magazine, Immediate Media Company Bristol Ltd, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN The opinions expressed by our commentators are their own and may not represent the views of BBC History Magazine or the Immediate Media Company…

America’s red scare The United States experienced a year of civil, social and racial turmoil, which saw Seattle brought to a standstill by a general strike, dozens dying in brutal race riots and letter bombs being sent to public figures. One of those figures, Attorney General A Mitchell Palmer, launched raids on anarchists and communists, which resulted in more than 20,000 people being deported to the Soviet Union. The raids were part of the first Red Scare in the US and brought J Edgar Hoover – future FBI director – to public consciousness. Big trouble in China In May 1919, 3,000 students marched to Beijing’s Gate of Heavenly Peace to protest the Paris treaty that set the peace terms following the First World War, which saw the nation largely snubbed…

August 1642 Charles raises his standard at Nottingham. The commission for parliament’s leading general, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, calls for the “preservation of the king’s person”. He is to be rescued from evil counsellors. March/ April 1645 Sir Thomas Fairfax replaces Essex as the leading general of a reformed army – the New Model Army. The phrase calling for “the preservation of the king’s person” in Essex’s commission is removed. May 1646 Charles accepts military defeat and orders his armies to lay down their arms. Negotiations for the terms of Charles’s restoration to his thrones in Scotland and in England begin. October 1647 Radical elements in the New Model Army are frustrated by parliament’s failure to persuade Charles to agree terms, and by the king’s willingness to play his…

Ellie Cawthorne: Your book covers more than two millennia of philosophical thought. What are the biggest conundrums that philosophers have had to grapple with in that time? AC Grayling: You can ultimately reduce philosophy down to two great questions: what is reality, and what is of value in the world? These two questions have driven the whole history of thought. From the very beginning of western philosophy, before Plato even, people were contemplating the nature of reality and of value, just as they are in philosophy today. Now, these two questions are obviously too big to be answered just by themselves, so you have to break them down. And it’s in that breaking down that you get to the more particular questions, such as: what is knowledge and how do…

By the time he died in battle in c229 BC, the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca had expanded his power base and established “not a Carthaginian state in Spain, but rather a Spanish state run by Carthaginians”, as David Potter puts it in his expansive new history of Rome. The book opens with the Romans making the crossing into Sicily that led them to engage directly with Carthage. This crossing, says Potter, was the Romans’ “first step in the acquisition of their empire”. The ensuing Punic wars, which Rome waged against Carthage between 264 and 146 BC, were fraught with difficulties. Hamilcar’s son, Hannibal, fostered a hatred of the Romans and violent ambition for his people to defeat and replace them as leaders of the world. He also had at his…

John Woolf on Victorian ‘freak’ performers “If you were a person of short stature in the 19th century, opportunities were limited. You were facing a precarious life of hardship. Joining a  ‘freak show’ could offer you a chance to become an independent economic agent in a world stacked against you. That could be an appealing prospect. So what you find in the freak show is this really complex dynamic between exploitation and empowerment.” Rachel Reeves on the first female MPs in Westminster “When Nancy Astor became the first woman to take her seat in parliament in 1919, she said her male colleagues would have rather had a rattlesnake in the chamber. And  I think she was right – they didn’t like the change that was coming. Churchill even told Astor…

As an Egyptologist fascinated by the ways ancient Egypt still permeates the modern world, this book was a total revelation when I first read it 30 years ago. Its author, the classical scholar Reginald Witt, creates a compelling account of how the relatively minor goddess Aset rose from a supporting role among Egypt’s numerous deities to take over the identities of every other goddess. As ‘Myrionymos’ – ‘She of Countless Names’ – she was claimed to be “more clever than a million gods”. The cult of this all-pow- erful mother figure then spread across the Mediterranean world, with the Greeks rendering Aset’s Egyptian name as ‘Isis’. This rebranding was enthusiastically promoted by Egypt’s Ptolemaic-Greek rulers, whose female pharaohs (including Cleopatra) were regarded as ‘Isis Incarnate’. When the Romans took control…

We think of exhaustion as a modern phenomenon, caused by busy work and family lives, and the complications that come from living in a world in which digital technology means we never fully disconnect from the office. But if this is true, writer Philip Ball asks in a new documentary, why do successive generations think they are more exhausted than their predecessors? Could it be that the history of exhaustion is really a history of what it’s like to live in a changing world – that every generation experiences a new version of modernity? Exhaustion: A History Scheduled for Monday 1 July / BBC Radio 4…

On 28 June 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, eight months after the end of the First World War. As victors, Britain, France and the USA faced the challenge of crafting an enduring peace. Instead, argues this five-part series hosted by Bridget Kendall, the new post-conflict order that emerged from the Versailles Peace Conference fuelled future tension and conflict. The partition of the Ottoman empire, for example, created an inherently unstable state south of Turkey, Iraq. Versailles in Five Future Wars Scheduled for Monday 24 June / BBC Radio 4…

When, on 14 July, the players walk out onto Lord’s’ impeccably manicured turf to contest the final of the 2019 World Cup – bringing the curtain down on a six-week extravaganza of towering sixes, toe-crunching yorkers and brilliant catches – cricket will feel very much like a game for the here and now. Yet of all the world’s leading sports, perhaps none is more in thrall to its past than England’s summer game, and nowhere is this more evident than at Lord’s. In fact, from the moment I arrived at cricket’s most storied venue – stopping to admire the Grace Gates, the cast-iron tribute to WG, one of the most famous of all Victorians – I could almost feel history hurtling towards me like a well-directed bouncer. And it’s a…

1. LEIGHTON HOUSE MUSEUM Leighton House Museum is the former studio-house of Victorian artist Frederic Leighton, featuring the magnificent Arab Hall and its extraordinary display of Islamic tiles and handcrafted mosaics. Also not to be missed is Leighton’s grand studio. leightonhouse.co.uk | museums@rbkc.gov.uk 2. DERBY MUSEUMS Visit our beautiful World Collections gallery, featuring over 1400 objects.Co-produced with thousands of people, this vibrant space is designed to encourage interesting encounters and new perspectives. derbymuseums.org | 01332 641 901 3. KELMSCOTT MANOR The inspirational country home of William Morris: designer, craftsman and father of the Arts and Crafts movement. The Manor House, barns and surrounding area inspired many of Morris’ important designs. kelmscottmanor.org.uk | 01367 252486 4. NEWARK TOWN HALL MUSEUM & ART GALLERY Fascinating architectural gem designed in 1774 by John Carr. A working…