Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2022 i History Extra

EYE-OPENER Moving monument A family of three cast in bronze, standing proud on a pile of suitcases, has been installed in London’s Waterloo station as the National Windrush Monument. The statue – designed by Jamaican sculptor Basil Watson, and unveiled by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on Windrush Day, 22 June – commemorates the thousands of people from the Caribbean who arrived in the UK during the decades following the Second World War. The so-called Windrush Generation – named after the ship that carried an early tranche of Caribbean people to Britain in 1948 – and their descendants helped rebuild the UK’s war-ravaged economy and infrastructure, as well as contributing to its culture and healthcare, among other areas. Yet, as Prince William acknowledged, many encountered resentment and racism. Some…

Boris Johnson’s fall as prime minister early in July was spectacular. It was forced, not by any formal vote, but instead by the resignation of dozens of ministers and aides following a series of damaging political scandals. Indeed, the number of resignations was so great that, had Johnson not quickly reversed his refusal to step down, the business of government might have ground to a halt. In keeping with Johnson’s taboo-breaking career, the cascade of ministerial departures was unprecedented – but history shows us that the enforced termination of a premier’s occupancy of Downing Street is a much more commonplace occurrence. Of the 20 men and women who have held the keys to Number 10 since the First World War and the dawn of the era of mass enfranchisement, only…

15 Length of the city of Stalingrad in miles, stretched along the banks of the river Volga 25 million Rounds of small arms ammunition fired by the Sixth Army in just one month, when it also expended 500,000 anti-tank rounds, 752,000 artillery shells and 178,000 hand grenades More than 41,000 Houses and buildings reduced to rubble in Stalingrad during the battle More than 1.1 million Red Army casualties of the battle, which also saw the loss of 4,300 Soviet tanks, 15,728 artillery pieces and 2,769 aircraft 187 The number of combat-worthy men left standing in the 71st Infantry Division by the surrender on 31 January 1943. More than 15,000 had marched into the Soviet Union at the start of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 5,000 Men of the Sixth Army…

1 The religious pioneer The Yorkshire soil has ottered up tantalising glimpses of a “princess” who straddled England’s pagan and Christian ages A few beads and pendants was all they found. It wasn’t much to go on, but these diminutive treasures nestled in the soil threw up some tantalising clues about an influential woman who died in the seventh century. That woman lived during a period of huge cultural change in England. Known as the Loftus Princess, her burial alongside a series of remarkable treasures, overlooking the cliffs of North Yorkshire, testifies that she was honoured by the people who placed her in the earth. The rest of her story – what she achieved, how she lived, who she encountered – can only be surmised. Should we stop asking questions…

Kristen Green on the story of Mary Lumpkin “After the jail holding Lumpkin was demolished in 1888, her story was hidden from view. Those who managed slave jails didn’t record in mates’ names, to ensure they would be almost impossible to find. But the uncovering of remnants of that jail in 2008 proved a unique opportunity. Richmond, Virginia is now considering ways to memorialise that history – to finally acknowledge its role in the slave trade and to consider the subsequent generational harm.” Matthew Kelly on the impact of four fascinating women on the British countryside “Octavia Hill and Beatrix Potter brought land under ownership that guaranteed public right of access in perpetuity. Pauline Dower and Sylvia Sayer created statutory frameworks that ensured this public access and prevented harmful developments…

How did this story arise? It had its beginnings in something my mother told me when I was a child – about an ancestor, a prince [in west Africa] who disappeared. His disappearance a long time ago still haunts her people. No one ever found out what happened to him. The trauma of disappearance lingers in families, in stories passed down. This novel sprang from an inexplicable loss, which resolved itself into one of the ways in which the slave trade impacted on the lives of ordinary families. Did you take inspiration from any real-life historical figures? The prince was real: he was my ancestor. He did not come to me with any name, and occupies the realm of fairy tales, because that was how it sounded when mum began…

Budapest: Between East and West by Victor Sebestyen Orion, 432 pages, £25 Television promotions for European river cruises often feature a boat sailing along the Danube with the Hungarian parliament building as a backdrop. An extraordinary blend of London’s neo-Gothic Palace of Westminster and St Paul’s Cathedral, this edifice is probably the most spectacular piece of architecture in central Europe – but it has not always been to everyone’s taste. As Victor Sebestyen reminds us in his new history of Budapest, whereas Hans Christian Andersen celebrated its “fantastical… unreal beauty”, the Hungarian writer Gyula Illyés dismissed it as “a Turkish bath crossed with a Gothic chapel”. Either way, Sebestyen judiciously concludes, it begs to be noticed. The parliament building is a late-19th- century confection. So is Budapest, which became a…

1. Not getting things straight The Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the most unusual heritage attractions I’ve ever seen up close, and I was interested to read that the slant dates right back to its construction in the late 12th century (page 36). 2. Four-legged fiends Daniel Ogden’s feature on dragons is full of fascinating details, including the fact that it wasn’t until the medieval period that western dragons were depicted with four legs rather than two (page 65). 3. Lighting up the world In Helen Carr’s Anniversaries she describes how the 1859 solar storm known as the Carrington Event was so powerful that it meant the Northern Lights could be seen as far south as the Caribbean (page 18).…

Writing in The Times, the History Reclaimed (@History_Reclaim) group of scholars made the case for creating “a prominent national monument” remembering “our many forebears, both celebrated and unknown, who fought tirelessly against slavery, sometimes at the cost of their lives. Among them would be William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, Olaudah Equiano, Hannah More and thousands of men of the Royal Navy, politicians, missionaries, imperial and colonial administrators…” Among very many Twitter responses, Rich C (@RCownie) commented – with faintly disguised irony – “it’s going to be puzzling for future generations to find out that there was such a long and heroic and difficult struggle to end slavery when apparently no one started it, no one was in favour of it, and no one was doing it, and there weren’t any slaves…

“What we did before in ignorance, we now do in full knowledge” On 24 March 1768, Gilbert White, an English country vicar at Selborne in Hampshire, made an ominous note in his diary. It was the first intimation (apparently in world literature) of what is now the greatest crisis for all life on the planet: the climate crisis. White recorded an occurrence already well known to local farmers of a stinking airborne pollution known as “the Blue Smoke” or the “London Smoke”. These mists, he commented, “have a strong smell and are supposed to occasion blights in crops… They have the smell of coal smoke and therefore are supposed to come from London as they always come to us with a NE wind.” Sometimes White notes the presence of “smut”…

In September 1942, German lieutenant colonel Friedrich Roske declared himself “the master of the centre of Stalingrad” after his troops had smashed their way into the heart of the city. But with thousands of Soviet guardsmen poised to launch a furious counter-attack, his triumph was to be short-lived. Roske’s previously unpublished testimonies reveal, in unsparing detail, the grim fate of the German troops holed up in Stalingrad as the Red Army began to tighten its grip… Winters in Russia can be brutal. By November 1942, temperatures along the Volga river had plummeted towards -20°C. And the remaining troops of the German Sixth Army, pinned down by Soviet forces in and around Stalingrad (now Volgograd) amid the fractured ruins, factories and other buildings they’d captured earlier that autumn, were experiencing the…

1 Slithering into infamy Forget wings and legs, the earliest western dragons resembled massive snakes Every small child of the modern west can describe a dragon: it is a broadly serpentine creature (colour of choice: green); it has an animalian head; between its longish neck and longish tail it has a fattish body; it has four legs; it has a pair of wings; it can be somewhat spiky. Adults might add a further observation: that the dragon of this shape is a thing of beauty. The internet is awash with contemporary fantasy-images of the creatures, lovingly tricked out in elaborate detail. And this points up a paradox: although the function of dragons is to be creatures of ultimate terror, we just love them. Who cares about St George and his…

Henrietta Maria: Conspirator, Warrior, Phoenix Queen by Leanda de Lisle (Vintage, 496 pages, £25) Emily Briffett: Your new book tells the fascinating story of Henrietta Maria, challenging the myths surrounding her life. To begin with, can you please introduce her to us? Leanda de Lisle: Henrietta Maria was a Bourbon princess. She was the daughter of King Henry IV (“the Great”), a warrior king assassinated by a Catholic fanatic when she was just a baby. Her mother, Marie de Medici, ruled France as regent for many years. At the age of 15, Henrietta Maria married Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland, later becoming the mother of Charles II and James II. An important aspect of Henrietta Maria to address is her legacy. How has the Stuart queen been seen…

The Flame of Resistance: American Beauty. French Hero. British Spy by Damien Lewis Quercus, 496 pages, £20 Josephine Baker was “a chameleon, a rebel, a warrior, a rule-breaker at heart”, according to biographer Damien Lewis. “She was undeniably at her best when she had a cause to fight for. For that… she could prove tireless, resolute, unbreakable.” Baker, an American-born dancer and singer, worked as a spy in the Second World War. In his new book, Lewis takes the reader on an epic journey of discovery, from Baker’s early life in the slums of St Louis, with its brutal poverty and segregation, to the lights of the Parisian nightclubs and cabaret where she danced “until her shins bled”. We are also transported to the cultural and political melting pot of…

A Question of Standing: The History of the CIA by Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones OUR 320 pages, £20 Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, a leading authority on US intelligence, has crafted an excellent history of the CIA – erudite but fluent and accessible. It engages with important issues of interpretation while at the same time driving forward a compelling narrative of events. It is concise yet wide-ranging, tracing the history of US intelligence from its beginnings to the Biden presidency. After explaining the origins of US intelligence, notably the establishment of a clandestine unit during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency and the creation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the Second World War, the author examines the formation of the CIA in the context of an ever-intensifying Cold War. It had, he argues, “instant authority…

Thelonious Monk 1917-82 “Monk would sit down at rehearsals and social gatherings and not say a word for hours on end. I have a sense of a mysterious force of a man” When did you first hear about Monk? When I was around 11 or 12. My Dad was a huge jazz head and, like Monk, a passionate improviser on the piano. Being the man of the house he dictated what music was played and it was always things like Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. When I first heard Monk, I was initially scared of his music because it was so different to anything else that I’d heard up to that point. What kind of person was he? He was eccentric and bold, something of a risk taker…

Leanda de Lisle “Henrietta Maria is the most reviled queen consort since the union of the crowns, but I believe that behind the myths, she was one of the most remarkable in her intelligence, courage and love.” Leanda argues that the Stuart queen is undeserving of her rotten reputation on page 78 Kavita Puri The 75th anniversary of independence and partition is significant because the number of eyewitnesses are dwindling – and both in Britain and on the Indian subcontinent, we are still only starting to grapple with its complex legacy, individually and nationally.” Kavita explores partition’s traumatic legacy on page 50 Victor Stater “I’m fascinated by a crucial moment in British history: the ‘Popish Plot’, an alleged – but utterly fictitious – assassination plot aimed at Charles II. The…

28 June 1942 Germany launches the offensive codenamed Case Blue in southern Russia. 23 July Hitler orders simultaneous offensives aimed at Stalingrad and the Caucasus. 28 July Stalin demands that Soviet troops retreating across the steppe should take “Not One Step Back!” 23-24 August The Luftwaffe begins carpet-bombing Stalingrad, and German forces enter the city’s northern suburbs. 13 September The battle for Stalingrad city centre begins. 8 November Hitler announces in Munich that Stalingrad is in his hands. 19-24 November The Soviets launch a counter-offensive that encircles the Sixth Army and its Axis allies. Hitler orders German forces to stand and fight. 25 November The Luftwaffe launches an airlift to supply besieged German forces in Stalingrad. 12-23 December The Germans launch Operation Winter Storm, dispatching the Fourth Panzer Army to…

“Executives were warned privately that Anthony Eden had ordered a legal instrument to be drawn up allowing his government to take over the BBC” In November 1956, a 14-minute televised address to the nation by the British prime minister Anthony Eden triggered possibly the single biggest Cold War-era clash between government and the BBC. It stripped bare the intimate, if awkward, relationship between professional broadcasters and the worlds of Westminster and Whitehall. But behind the row lurked another battle between sharply different views on the proper role of television in reporting politics. The broadcast, on the evening of Saturday 3 November, represented Eden’s hurried attempt to justify a botched and ill-judged military adventure of his own making. In the wake of Egypt’s recent nationalisation of the Suez Canal, Israeli forces…

Whigs: Catholic-fearing Exclusionists The Whig Party coalesced during the 1679–81 struggle over the exclusion of James, Duke of York from the succession. The party’s name originated as a term of abuse: a “Whigga-more” (later shortened to “Whig”) was a Scottish Presbyterian extremist. Opponents of exclusion aimed to identify its supporters as the kind of radicals they held responsible for the Civil War and regicide of the mid-17th century. Whigs feared Catholics, sympathised with Protestant dissenters, and opposed what they described as “arbitrary government”. They fervently believed (or in some cases pretended to believe) in the reality of Titus Oates’s hoax. They wanted to ensure a Protestant succession to the throne and to place limits on royal power. They failed to prevent James II and VII from taking the throne, but…

On 27 February 1962, hundreds of people crammed into Winchester Guildhall for a public meeting. It was, in many ways, not such an unusual event: the foundation of a local committee, in this case the Winchester Excavations Committee. The meeting was, though, to have profound impacts, because it signalled, as The Times later said, the start of “one of the most important excavations worldwide of the 20th century” – nothing less than the beginnings of urban archaeology in Britain, and the recovery of a key to the pre-Conquest English past. It had all begun – as some of the best archaeological stories do – with a rescue dig under a car park. At the turn of the 1960s, Trust Houses had announced plans to build a new hotel in the…

Disgrace: Global Reflections on Sexual Violence by Joanna Bourke Reaktion Books, 352 pages, £20 There are some books that should not have to be written. In our deeply flawed world, though, they are often the ones that are most urgently needed. So it is with Joanna Bourke’s new book, Disgrace, exploring the global history of sexual violence. The disgrace is, clearly, not the victims’ but belongs to the ideologies, institutions, legal frameworks and power structures that have allowed this type of harm to be inflicted on so many people for so long. It is a type of harm that traverses time periods and national borders. This is a book written in fury: a call to action – and rightly so. There are many terrible stories here, among them those of…

Am I Normal? The 200-Year Search for Normal People (and Why They Don’t Exist) by Sarah Chaney Profile, 336 pages, £16.99 Paraphrasing The Handmaid’s Tale, “Normal is what you’re used to.” As Sarah Chaney notes, this sentiment is as true in present-day society as in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian Gilead. Here, Chaney explores the history of normality in relation to human bodies, minds, emotions and societies. Drawing on an impressively broad range of scholarship, she confidently and fluently covers topics ranging from obesity, parenthood, life expectancy and IQ to the mass production of clothes, historic US “ugly laws” (restricting public appearance for disabled or poor people), gender-nonconforming “Mollies” (gay and cross-dressing men in Georgian and Victorian England), and the case of the man who stopped taking psychotic drugs in order to…

Your new series is about fashion, but why was the name Torn chosen? The word is an allusion to fabric, but also to history. The series tells the stories of some of the most iconic, beloved and well-worn fashions seen throughout the centuries and around the world: the sorts of items that many of us can feel a personal connection to, but, like a lot of fashion, we might end up taking a bit for granted. Fashion is such a gloriously important art form, but it so rarely gets the attention and acknowledgement it deserves. We talk about the reasons why we love clothes and how they came into being, with the help of the designers and experts and by investigating the materials used to make them. More than that,…