Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2020 i History Extra

“If there’s one thing people know about Henry V, it’s that he was a great warrior king, who crushed the French at Agincourt in 1415. But while his military prowess was certainly formidable, his lesser-known achievements in diplomacy and peacemaking were equally impressive. In this month’s cover feature on page 20, Anne Curry reveals how Henry secured astonishing concessions from the king of France 600 years ago with the Treaty of Troyes. One of the most contested historical terms in recent years has been ‘Dark Ages’, used to describe the centuries following the end of Roman Britain. Many historians seek to avoid using a phrase that they feel unfairly defines the era as one of obscurity or backwardness. Not everyone agrees though, and, on page 47, Thomas Williams seeks to…

While Sam Mendes’ latest blockbuster, war epic 1917 , has wowed audiences, won critical plaudits and looks set for Oscar success, some were less convinced. The columnist Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah), for instance, described the film as “unhistorical, lightweight piffle”. Yet it was when the outspoken actor Laurence Fox took issue with the inclusion of a Sikh soldier that Twitter erupted, and many historians stepped up to set the record straight and educate him on the vital role that Sikhs played in the war and the many who fought and died. Others critiqued the film in a rather more informed manner than Fox, discussing its merits and the research underpinning it. In a long and nuanced thread that has been widely commended, Selena Daly (@selenadaly) applauded how well the film “reflected…

“Could Brexit spell an end to Britain’s history of soft power?” On 17 July 1897, shortly after Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee, The Times published an extraordinary poem, on the same page as the queen’s letter to the people expressing gratitude for the surge of public affection. The poem was written by Rudyard Kipling. Its title was Recessional, referring to the hymn sung at the end of a church service, when clergy and choir withdraw. With its intimations of imperial decline, the mood was hardly triumphant: Far-called our navies melt away; On dune and headland sinks the fire: Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! In his covering letter to The Times, Kipling had written: “We’ve been blowing up the trumpets… a little too much for…

“Titus Salt saw some wool rotting in a corner. It would make his fortune” On 20 September 1853, Titus Salt threw a party to celebrate his 50th birthday. He invited more than 3,500 guests and laid on special trains to transport them to the event. There they feasted on four hindquarters of beef, 120 legs of mutton, 60 grouse, 320 plum puddings and 100 jellies, among other delights. The venue for this enormous party was a textile mill, and 2,440 of the guests were Titus Salt’s employees. This was because the party was also the grand opening of ‘Saltaire’, the new mill that Salt had constructed on the banks of the river Aire, a few miles north of Bradford. It was then the largest factory in Europe, having been built…

One of the less obvious contributions to the 1982 Falklands War was made by the British Antarctic Survey, which provided detailed knowledge of the terrain the British Task Force would encounter. Margaret Thatcher didn’t forget her friends and in future years ensured the organisation was properly funded. The prime minister also took a keen interest in its research and, as a trained scientist, recognised the importance of its warnings about climate change and the depletion of the ozone layer. Without her, the world would have been even slower to react. Her work in forcing global environmental concerns onto the political agenda may well prove to be Thatcher’s greatest achievement, but there was a personal cost. “Do you find,” she lamented, “that ever since we banned those ozone depleters, it’s been…

Popular history writing has not kept pace with the continuing public interest in Nazi Germany. Readers willing to face the long haul have a couple of options. They can still pick up William Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960). Its heroic length (1,250 pages) is at least less than the more recent and far more authoritative Third Reich Trilogy by Richard J Evans, which weighs in at almost 2,500 pages. The market for a less daunting account seems obvious. But whether Frank McDonough’s book, the first of two volumes that will cover 1933–45, will fill this space may depend more on one’s literary than historical taste. All historians have to balance the demands of chronology and structure, even if the two are in principle not mutually exclusive.…

“As winter starts receding, I'm sure some of you will be thinking about your 2020 travel plans. In case you’re looking for inspiration, we’ve teamed up with Lonely Planet’s editorial director, Tom Hall, to highlight this year’s best history destinations. His selections take us across the globe, from Alpine heritage in Switzerland, to colonial architecture in Kolkata, Japan’s blend of ancient and modern, and Napoleon's remote island prison, St Helena. Plus, if you’re feeling bold, then you might want to take up his suggestion and visit the frozen continent of Antarctica, 200 years after it was first sighted. I hope that you enjoy this supplement and any historical adventures that may spring from it.…

The German capital is a heavyweight on the European city-break scene. A visit can take history enthusiasts on a whirlwind tour through the grand palaces of the 18th century, the social changes of the 19th century and the dramatic events of two world wars, division and Germany’s eventual reunification. But this is only part of the story. Berlin is a modern and multicultural city, a place of varied districts in a constant process of restless reinvention and creative expression. The big names jump out from the pages of any guidebook. It’s home to the Reichstag and Brandenberg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall – fragments of which remain as the open-air East Side Gallery. Then there are cultural big-hitters on Museumsinsel (Museum Island), and the vast and hugely moving…

Allan Kennedy The late 17th century was a tumultuous time across Britain and Ireland, and I have long been fascinated with the impact of these grand events on the marginalised and much-maligned people of the Scottish Highlands. Allan investigates how the 1692 Glencoe massacre unfolded on page 54 Eloise Moss Cat burglars were seen to be both sexy and sinister: “feline fellows” climbing over rooftops by night. I was intrigued by the way they changed people’s feelings about safety in their homes and policing in interwar London. Eloise examines how cat burglars stole the nation’s hearts on page 61 Andrew Ziminski Everywhere you go, you can see that foreign people have had a role to play in the building of Britain. From the Romans to the Normans, the people who…

An ancient Egyptian priest has ‘spoken’ for the first time in 3,000 years thanks to a team of archaeologists and engineers. Researchers from York and Royal Holloway universities managed to synthesise a vowel sound once made by Nesyamun, a mummy preserved at Leeds City Museum, after printing a 3D model of his vocal tract. The breakthrough, described in the journal Scientific Reports, is the result of a seven-year project. After exploring ways in which technology can be used to create vocal sounds for patients who have lost speech function, researchers realised that similar methods could be applied to mummified remains such as those of Nesyamun, who lived during the reign of Ramses XI (c1104–c1075). Leeds City Museum arranged for the mummy to undergo a CT scan, allowing experts to create…

• 13th century: Edward’s conquest Until the 1270s, Wales is ruled by Anglo-Norman ‘marcher lords’ (rulers of the borders) and native Welsh princes. But then, in 1277, Edward I of England leads a campaign to crush rebellion. Wales is brought under English law and Edward installs his son as the first English Prince of Wales in 1301. • 15th century: The rise of Glyndŵr In 1400, native resentment explodes into a rebellion under a descendant of the princes of northern Powys, Owain Glyndŵr. Any hope stirred by this short-lived movement is crushed by 1408, resulting in violent retaliations across Wales. • 16th century: Acts of union Two acts of union in 1536 and 1542 Ð 43, during the reign of Henry VIII, abolish any legal difference between Wales and England.…

“Cat burglar who holds women fascinated!” On 20 December 1934, this headline announced to readers of the Daily Mirror that one Robert Delaney had been sent to prison for burglary and a string of other crimes. For centuries, newspapers had filled their pages with tales of opportunistic thieves preying ruthlessly on unsuspecting victims. But Delaney was somehow different. Gone was the contempt with which reporters often treated the perpetrators. It was replaced by intrigue, even admiration. Delaney’s multiple escapades, clambering up the edifices of several wealthy Mayfair mansions to purloin jewellery from the bedrooms of the nobility, had earned him the moniker, the ‘king of cat burglars’. The News of the World positively swooned in its depiction of “an auburn-haired, debonair young fellow, who has given Scotland Yard more to…

George Morton-Jack on Indian soldiers during the First World War “World War One was a global conflict. It really was something that affected the whole world, not just Europe. All the fronts were linked together, and the fighting involved Indians just as much as it did British people – and, equally, their stories are just as much a part of British history.” Francesca Wade on pioneering women of interwar London “These houses and squares developed at a time when a lot of women were about to get the vote, and after some universities had opened to women in the second half of the 19th century. It was a time of change and new possibility for women who might not want to move from their family home and into a marital…

This was the first book of modern Chinese history that I ever read, back when I was just 16 years old. Although I must have read hundreds more since then, I still think that this is one of the most influential and important books on Chinese history that I have encountered. More than 30 years later, as a historian of China myself, I still go back to it. The Gate of Heavenly Peace tells the story of the reformers and revolutionaries who shaped modern China between the final years of the Qing dynasty at the end of the 19th century and the early years of the post-Mao period. Extraordinary characters walk through its pages, including tragic figures such as the communist revolutionary Qu Qiubai and the poet Xu Zhimo, both…

“The idea that you can go west with nothing and make your fortune in California is rooted in the gold rush” Your series tells the cultural story of California through 10 different people. Why did you take this approach? I was interested in getting a sense of this trajectory from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, the dynamics and forces that have enabled those world-changing industries to emerge. The 10 characters take us through the last 100 years chronologically, but also thematically because in different ways they embody the kinds of values and forces that are at work in California. How much of contemporary Californian culture can be traced back to its early history? A huge amount, because its pioneering history is ever-present – the idea that you can go west with…

Sylvia Pankhurst 1882–1960 When did you first hear about Pankhurst? I’ve always known her name, as I went to the same school as her and her sisters. Much was made of the suffragette girls being part of our school heritage in Manchester. But I didn’t know very much about Sylvia and her work until I went to a show a few years ago featuring her beautiful drawings and paintings. Understandably, history tends to focus more on her mother, the suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst. What kind of person was she? The Pankhurst women were trailblazers in fighting for women to have a voice. But Sylvia took her fight in a different direction, leading her to go against her mother’s wishes (no mean feat if your mother is Emmeline Pankhurst). In her…

If the past isn't the first thing that springs to mind when thinking of Dubai, you’d be forgiven. This, after all, is the home of the luxurious Burj al Arab hotel, as well as the world’s tallest building and its largest shopping mall. Look closer, though, and you’ll discover a quiet reverence for traditional culture and the Emirate’s past as a fishing and pearling outpost. The best way to explore Dubai’s history is to aim for the Al Fahidi Historical District, whose traditional buildings and wandering alleyways evoke another era. You can eat, shop and even stay in guest-houses in this part of town, which offers a contrast to the high-rise accommodation elsewhere. Inside Dubai Museum, found in the fort that is the city’s oldest building, you can hear more…

Sydney’s breathtaking harbourside setting might grab the headlines but it’s also home to some of Australia’s most fascinating history. This is, of course, where European colonisation of Australia began in earnest with the founding of Port Jackson on aboriginal land. It was where convict transportation gave way to settlement, and eventually to Sydney’s emergence as one of Australia’s economic powerhouses. Today, a visit offers the opportunity to explore one of the world’s great cities. For somewhere at the heart of a relatively young nation, there’s a vast amount of history to pick through, from the smuggler-era pubs of The Rocks to tours of the Opera House, or an exhilarating climb up the Harbour Bridge. Meanwhile, the waterfront Royal Botanic Gardens offer some respite from the Circular Quay crowds. Diving into…

The restoration of a prized 15th-century artwork has unexpectedly revealed the face of a lamb with human-like features. Conservationists restoring an altarpiece (known as the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb) from St Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium made the discovery while stripping away layers of subsequent ‘overpainting’ on a central panel. Rather than resembling a real-life sheep as it did prior to the restoration, the face of the animal now possesses close-set eyes, plump lips and flared nostrils. Experts say the altarpiece now more accurately depicts the work of the original artists, brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Have a story? Please email Jon Bauckham at jon.bauckham@immediate.co.uk…

Fifty years ago , on 19 March 1970 at 7.31am, West Germany’s chancellor, Willy Brandt, crossed the ‘death-zone’ at the German-German border on a special train, en route to Erfurt for a one-day conference with the East German prime minister, Willi Stoph. It was the first-ever meeting of East and West German heads of government. From 9.30am until 10.25pm, the two men and their large delegations faced off, listening tensely and silently to each other’s declarations, which differed radically on virtually every point. During the breaks, Stoph and Brandt made courteous efforts to sustain a stilted conversation. To the embarrassment of the hosts, outside an enthusiastic East German crowd spontaneously chanted Brandt’s name and dispersed only after the West German guest acknowledged them at a window. The formalities concluded with…

It is disappointing that Lucy Worsley’s enjoyable article on the myths surrounding the Spanish Armada (The Great Armada Myth, February) had to include a headline including that lazy cliché of “forget everything you learned at school”. It’s very disrespectful to school history teachers, past and present, who have taught a far more nuanced and sophisticated story of the Armada than this suggests. Even in the 1970s my own secondary school history teacher invited us to analyse some of the myths about a so-called great English victory against all the odds. Later, I used a similar approach myself while teaching history in schools. In recent years as a teacher educator I have observed several trainee teachers doing an excellent job of exploring different interpretations about whether the defeat of the Armada…

Ellie Cawthorne: Your new book chronicles your hands-on work on some of Britain’s most significant stone structures. What has that work involved, and why did it inspire you to write a book? Andrew Ziminski: Over the course of my career as a stonemason, I’ve worked across the scope and spectrum of history. From parish churches to Georgian townhouses, Roman baths and medieval cathedrals, I’ve worked on all sorts of buildings, spanning 2,000 years of history. When restoring or conserving historic structures, my main concern is to discover why a building has started to fail. Then it’s a case of cutting out and replacing anything that’s decaying, while maintaining as much of the original fabric as possible. You could say that stonemasonry is basically a case of large-scale dentistry. But it’s…

London’s Grub Street has gone down in history as a semi-mythical place where hacks could be hired to write to order, or where they churned out scurrilous and satirical prose. This new book examines the history of the British press during the Grub Street era – documenting its first decades, from the Civil War to the early 18th century. Herman offers a lively set of snapshots and stories that together illustrate the nature of the early modern British press – and of life more generally in Britain in this period, with all its carnivalesque chaos and diversity. Ruth Herman explains how the rich news environment and starkly drawn ideological conflicts of the Civil War stimulated the rapid growth of the embryonic newspaper industry. An earlier world of pamphlets and ballads…

In early January 49 BC, Rome’s fate hung in the balance. Caesar’s long war with Gaul was over. The pressing question now was what would happen next? For his part, Caesar wanted to lead his army in triumph through the city, and from there to embark immediately upon a second consulship – the most powerful political post in Rome. This seamless transition from military command to consulship would render Caesar untouchable: holders of imperium were uniquely immune to prosecution. But his enemies had other plans: they demanded that he give up his command and return to Rome as a private citizen. Realising that to do so would spell doom for his career, if not his life, Caesar took a bold decision and crossed the Rubicon – the small river that…

VIKINGS Inspector Norse Part history, part journalistic account, this is a lively investigation of the Icelandic Sagas – histories of the region compiled in the Middle Ages. The cast of characters, set out at the beginning of the book, is a good indication of its tone, incorporating historical figures, demonic and divine creations from folklore, and the authors themselves. The result is a compelling overview of a land and its people. WW2 Remembering the resistance Justus Rosenberg was just 16 when his parents sent him from Danzig to Paris to escape the rise of anti-Semitism. Moving to Toulouse as the Second World War broke out, he joined the Emergency Rescue Committee, a group that went on to help 2,000 people escape Nazi persecution. Now 98 years old, Rosenberg offers a…

Born in Manchester, Sylvia Pankhurst trained as an artist but became an activist for women’s suffrage alongside her mother, Emmeline, and sister Christabel. She was force-fed repeatedly in prison after going on hunger strike. A pacifist, she diverged from her family during the First World War because of their support for the British effort. After the war, she helped found the British Communist party, and supported Ethiopian independence after the Italians invaded in 1935. She lived in the African nation from 1956 until her death.…

While the promise of exploring Kolkata’s colonial past may be what springs to mind for many would-be visitors, the city also offers an up-to-date taste of the way the subcontinent is changing. Kolkata is less of an obvious destination than Mumbai and the Golden Triangle, but it’s one that deserves more attention than it receives. Visitors will discover several days’ worth of fascinating sights. Begin by ticking off the classic things to do in the city: on foot you can explore the iconic Victoria Memorial , the Maidan urban park – which includes the famous Eden Gardens cricket ground – and the Raj-era buildings clustered around BBD Bagh, once Dalhousie Square. The Indian Museum and St Paul’s Cathedral are two more unmissable highlights, as is the house inhabited by the…

A distant speck in the south Atlantic Ocean, St Helena has a unique past which has never been easier to explore. After years of delays and false starts, the island has since 2017 been connected with Johannesburg, South Africa, and therefore the rest of the world, via weekly flights. In fact, over the festive season, flights go from Cape Town too. This means that St Helena’s former lifeline of a Royal Mail ship is a thing of the past; it also means it is now much easier to reach this remote British overseas territory. Ironically, it is St Helena’s most reluctant resident, Napoleon Bonaparte, who put the island on the map during his exile and eventual death here. You can still visit his original tomb, though his body was returned…

Nestled within its famed Alpine landscapes, Switzerland’s cities, towns and villages offer a unique slice of European history. In some ways, Switzerland is several countries in one, blending linguistic and culinary traditions from French, German and Italian neighbours, together with some that are uniquely Swiss. The best way to explore Switzerland’s historic gems is via a series of train trips that will also showcase the wonderful scenery on offer. Starting in Geneva, a city of grand institutions and lakeside charm, the journey to Bern winds its way along the lake of the same name and passes through the idyllic Lavaux wine-growing region. In Bern, one of Europe’s most charming capitals, there are medieval streets galore, the Federal Assembly’s towering parliament and the deep-blue Aare river to reward a stopover. At…

Layer upon layer of history awaits in Israel. There’s nowhere quite like here to demonstrate how the deep past impacts right through to the present. From Haifa in the north to Eilat in the south, via the beaches and nightlife of Tel Aviv, pretty much every dot on the map offers something of significance. The holy, and much-disputed Old City of Jerusalem, meanwhile, cannot help but render visitors humble. Once through one of the walled city’s gates, cobbled streets lead from one massively significant sight to another, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Temple Mount complex, alongside noisy souqs and bustling street stalls. Downtown Jerusalem offers modern amenities, less touristy places to eat and the city’s breadbasket, bustling Mahane Yehuda Market. Half-days are required at the huge…