Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2022 i History Extra

NEWS COMMENT ANNIVERSARIES HIDDEN HISTORIES EYE-OPENER Lost and found The reappearance of a ghost village in northern Spain, submerged for three decades beneath a reservoir, was just one result of this year’s droughts that was of interest to historians and the wider public. The village of Aceredo, in Galicia, was submerged in 1992 when the land it stands on was flooded to create the Alto Lindoso reservoir on the Portuguese border. In February, waters dwindled to just 15 per cent of normal levels, and crowds of tourists – and some former residents – visited Aceredo to experience the eerie sensation of walking among buildings submerged for 30 years. Elsewhere, much older sites, monuments, carvings and vessels were revealed as the waters of waterways and lakes receded. Sobering examples include “hunger…

″Even highly educated people can adjust to unreason and violence″ In 1950, The New Yorker magazine reviewed an anthology by the German novelist and Nobel laureate Thomas Mann, then at the summit of his fame and living in exile in the US. The book, it said, gave the impression of “a major writer – but perhaps not all that major”. Mann, needless to say, was phlegmatic – as well he might have been, being the world’s most famous novelist. But the review carried the suggestion that he was a literary monolith who had outlived his proper time – a relic of the pre-First World War German bourgeoisie, no longer relevant in the age of rock’n'roll and the Beat poets. In Europe, though, Mann was still received with deep seriousness, not…

“Mikhail Gorbachev started an avalanche he could not control DAVID REYNOLDS Gorbachev was a classic example of a reformer who unwittingly precipitated a revolution. When, aged 54, he took over as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in March 1985, he seemed a breath of fresh air after the wheezing old leaders of the past. But rather like France’s Ancien Régime in the 1780s, his bid to modernise party and state brought down the whole house of cards and then spawned an imperialist dictator. Initially, Gorbachev’s buzzword was uskoreniye, or acceleration – getting things moving but still within the framework of the government-run command economy. Yet lack of progress pushed him into a more radical restructuring of industry and the party (perestroika), which required greater…

In your new book you discuss a myth of Colditz that needs to be challenged. What is this myth and how did it come about? Those of us of a certain age grew up with the great BBC TV series about Colditz and, also, in my case, the board game Escape from Colditz. So Colditz was steeped into our childhoods, but often the story followed a very particular pattern. It was brave British men outwitting the Germans and tunnelling out of this vast Gothic castle in a way that continued the war by other means. It dignified the whole prisoner-of-war experience as an extension of a gallant, rather old-fashioned war. And of course, that is true of Colditz, but only partly so. Like all myths, the reality is much more…

If you’re looking for an example of how a falsehood can flourish for millennia, transforming popular perceptions of a historical event, then look no further than the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (c484—c420 BC). Herodotus is considered the “father of history”, yet he passed on many dubious “facts”. Few of these have been more enduring than the idea that the pyramids of Giza in northern Egypt were erected (c2575—c2465 BC) by a vast army of maltreated slaves. According to Book II of his Histories, in building the “Great Pyramid” the pharaoh Khufu (called Cheops by the Greeks) “compelled all the Egyptians to work for him”, “in gangs of a hundred thousand men, each gang for three months” for 20 years. This, we are told, “brought the people to utter misery”. Egyptologists…

Curious collection An 18th-century Chelsea coffee-house had on display, among many more curious items, “an elf’s arrow”, “a sea-horse’s pizzle”, “a piece of a nun’s skin”, “Queen Elizabeth’s work-basket” and “a pair of drawers of a Chinese lady”. The coffee-house, Don Saltero’s, was run by James Salter, ex-valet to the great collector Sir Hans Sloane, who shared his former master’s interest in curios. Not everything may have been what he claimed, but Don Saltero’s collection became one of the sights of London. Lifelong commitment Jean I, king of France, ascended the throne the moment he was born on 15 November 1316 and reigned for five days, dying on the 20th of the same month. He thus became the only French king to hold the title for his entire life. Known…

Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley (Hodder & Stoughton, 432 pages, £25) Rhiannon Davies: Why have you decided to write about Agatha Christie for your new book? Lucy Worsley: I have a bit of an obsession with detective fiction, and I’m also really interested in female writers, so I thought it would be fascinating to view Agatha’s life through the eyes of a historian. And it was such a long life: she was born in 1890 and died in 1976. To me, her books aren’t just entertainment – they’re a record of the social history of the 20th century. So she’s a genius, she’s an artist, she’s a creative – but she’s also a representative woman of her time. A lot of the things that happened to…

Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self by Andrea Wulf John Murray, 512 pages, £25 In the final years of the 18th century, the German town of Jena became, for a brief period, the meeting place for a group of men and women whose ideas about the self would shape the modern world. Jena’s governance was shared among four different duchies, with the result that rules determining what could and couldn’t be taught at its university were rarely enforced. “There was,” writes Andrea Wulf in Magnificent Rebels, “no university like it in Europe.” In the two decades following 1790, Jena became the home of a group that included the philosophers Johann Fichte, Georg Hegel and Friedrich Schelling, the writers August and Friedrich Schlegel, and the playwright…

China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower by Frank Dikötter Bloomsbury, 416 pages, £25 When I arrived in China for the first time in summer 1985, I was astonished at what I found. “People people people dust dust dust,” I wrote in a letter home. Compared with Taiwan – a foodie paradise – there seemed to be nowhere to eat; worse, often there seemed to be nothing to eat. I had gone from one China, which worked, to another, which did not. The new book by Frank Dikötter, who also first arrived in 1985, is a sequel to his three previous volumes chronicling the history of the People’s Republic of China since its establishment in 1949. In it, he outlines the trajectory of China’s politics after the death of…

ASIA India: A History in Objects by T Richard Blurton (Thames & Hudson, 320 pages, £30) Cultural currents Spanning more than a million years and an area that now comprises India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, this elegant visual history tells the region’s story via a diverse array of artefacts. From ancient wall paintings and early representations of divine figures to the artistic developments wrought by waves of religious and political upheaval, it’s a fascinating overview of centuries of cultural change. BIOGRAPHY The Boleyns: From the Tudors to the Windsors by Amanda Harvey Purse (Amberley, 288 pages, £22.99) The other Boleyns What happened to the Boleyn family after Anne and her brother George were executed in 1536? That’s the question at the heart of this book, which traces the…

Nestled in the Eden Valley south-east of Penrith is Brougham Castle (pronounced “broom”). Approach across a sheep-grazed lawn, with the river Eamont (“yammon”) on your right, and you’ll see Brougham’s keep rising from the red-stoned complex, square and elegantly Romanesque. Begun in the second decade of the 13th century, when castle builders favoured circular structures, it seems older than its years. This picturesque scene belies Brougham’s history. Exploring Brougham’s keep, you’ll realise the castle was built upon an ancient military site. On the second floor, you’ll find a Roman tombstone reused in the ceiling, while stretching beyond the curtain wall and moat are the earthworks of a Roman fort, Brocavum. It guarded the road to Carlisle, and its particular strategic importance becomes clear as you turn north and see, beside…

Across 1 Object of historical, often religious interest (5) 4 Turkish defeat in this naval battle of October 1827 consolidated Greek independence (8) 10 Side stalls and entertainment held on a frozen river in the early modern period (5,4) 11 The_______ Valley Civilisation on the Indian subcontinent was unknown to historians until the discovery of a city at Harappa in 1829 (5) 12 Alice________, on whom Lewis Carroll based the title character of Alice in Wonderland (7) 13/30 Famous picture of Elizabeth I, named after the bird pendant she’s wearing (7,8) 14 Anglicised name of the southern African people who, under Sobhuza I and his son Mswati II, established a nation now known as Eswatini in the early 19th century (5) 16 Important road that connected ancient Rome with the…

1. A vote for change In our interview with Paterson Joseph for My History Hero, he reveals that the Georgian writer Ignatius Sancho was the first black Briton to vote in an election (page 98). 2. Join the club Many fascinating details emerged from my conversation with Ben Macintyre about Colditz, including the fact that there was a Bullingdon Club at the notorious PoW camp (page 34). 3. Disney’s history lesson History often informs TV dramas, but I hadn’t been aware that the recent Disney+ series Ms Marvel contained a storyline drawing on the 1947 partition of India (page 17). I’ll have to check it out.…

Amid countless economic – and meteorological – comparisons to the 1970s, Jim Pickard (@PickardJE) of the Financial Times asked Twitter: “was there *anything* good about the 1970s?” Laura Marcus (@MissLauraMarcus) responded immediately: “It really was a fantastic time to be young… Much less pressure than young people face today. The music was incredibly varied and gigs were cheap. As were rents. Jobs were well paid and plentiful…” Richard Taylor (@Flub1957) agreed: “It was far better balanced, more social mobility existed, people were less aggressive, and social services did generally work. Sufficient GPs, ambulances came on time, sheltered housing and council houses were adequate.” Broadcaster Jon Sopel (@jonsopel) dismissed it as a “ridiculous question: David Bowie singing Starman on TOTP. Summer of 76 (ladybirds a bit annoying). My Honda 400/4 motorbike.…

The Chief: The Life of Lord Northcliffe by Andrew Roberts Simon & Schuster, 560 pages, £25 Any British newspaper you pick up today – local or national, tabloid or broadsheet – has been influenced by a man who died 100 years ago. Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe, founded the Daily Mirror and his greatest creation, the Daily Mail. He later owned The Times, The Observer and the Evening News as well – 40 per cent of the newspaper market, at a time when papers were the only sources of news. Northcliffe has been written about often, but Andrew Roberts’ latest biography is surely definitive. With access to the Harmsworth family’s papers, he has produced a detailed and convincing portrait of the great man who signed memos to staff as “the Chief”.…

Tourists: How the British Went Abroad to Find Themselves by Lucy Lethbridge Bloomsbury, 320 pages, £20 For over 10 years, the Napoleonic Wars prevented Brits from travelling abroad – an imposed isolation that resonates with our own recent experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. Lucy Lethbridge’s new book, Tourists, begins in 1815 – the year when Europe opened up again after Napoleon’s defeat – and charts the steady rise of tourism over the two centuries that followed. More a whirlwind sightseeing trip than a leisurely Grand Tour, this jam-packed volume introduces us to a dizzying cast of memorable characters who all played a role in creating the concept of modern tourism. Her dramatis personae range from the indefatigable Thomas Cook, who democratised foreign travel, to the “celebrated hydropathy guru” Victor Preissnitz,…

WATCH A battle for survival Europeans who encountered the Agojie – fearsome female warriors who protected Dahomey, a kingdom that flourished in what’s now Benin c1600-1904 – dubbed them “Amazons”. Their story, which provided inspiration for the all-female fighting group Dora Milaje in the superhero film Black Panther, is both remarkable and – considering how few women have served as front-line troops down the years – highly unusual. It’s accordingly worth celebrating, which is precisely what big-budget epic The Woman King does. Set in the 19th century, it stars Academy Award-winner Viola Davis as General Nanisca, who’s charged with training a new generation of recruits – fighters who will face an enemy intent on destroying Dahomey’s way of life. Keen to ensure authenticity, director Gina Prince-Bythewood had her cast preparing…

Every day, many thousands of us pour into museums across Europe to gawp at corpses. These mummies have been hauled from their resting places and placed into glass cases for our education (and, let’s be honest, for our entertainment, too). I hadn’t really thought too deeply about this until I spoke to Dr Angela Stienne for our podcast. Her book Mummified (Manchester University Press, 2022) challenges our complacency about the presence of Egyptian mummies in European museums, and grapples with some thorny issues around their procurement and display. First, and fundamentally: should we think of mummies merely as historical artefacts or as human remains? “Mummies have been commodified and objectified by the fact they’ve been acquired by museums but, first and foremost, they are bodies,” says Stienne. “In fact, I…

c1729-80 "Sancho became a musician of such quality that he was able to write a book on the theory of music and dedicate it to Princess Charlotte" When did you first hear about Sancho? I was chatting to Tilda Swinton while filming The Beach in Thailand and mentioned that I’d always wanted to find out more about the black Britons who lived in the UK before the Windrush generation – my parents’ generation. That led me to Gretchen Gerzina’s book Black England and it was there I learnt about him. He was a strange, amazing figure and needed to be written about, hence my novel. What kind of man was he? He was physically obese and referred to himself as “Sancho the Fat”. He also suffered from gout. But despite…

Rob Blackmore “Historical facts are slippery things. Our evidence for the past is imperfect, and interpretations vary. People pass on lies and mistakes. But, I argue, we can – and should – still try to find them.” Rob considers the challenges of sticking to the facts in history on page 41 Kristina Spohr “Gorbachev’s aim was not to turn to capitalism or social democracy, but instead to reinvigorate the Soviet Union from ‘within the system’. The problem was that the more he restructured, the more he lost control of the processes he set in motion.” Kristina reflects on the pivotal role of the USSR’s last leader on page 18 Pamela Roberts “My rediscovery of James Arthur Harley’s archive led me on a five-year journey, visiting Antigua, Barbuda, America and Kentish…

"Mainstream drama can expose wider audiences to little-known history" I have recently been in the strange position of seeing my book Partition Voices adapted for the theatre. Based on eyewitness accounts marking the 70th anniversary of independence and partition, it tells the story of partition and its legacy on people who now live all around us in Britain. In my day job I deal in facts and evidence, so to impart these precious testimonies (with the interviewees’ blessing) to be interpreted and dramatised by four writers was an entry into an unknown world. But the possibility that this relatively little-known history – particularly the lived experience of partition and its enduring effects in Britain – could reach a wider audience through a different medium was very appealing. So, too, was…

“What began as a dispute over a single interview rapidly became a debilitating conflict over journalistic standards” In the entrance to the BBC’s London headquarters, Broadcasting House, there’s an interesting Latin inscription that refers to broadcasting in the original biblical sense of scattering seed: “And they pray that good seed sown may bring forth good harvest, and that all things foul or hostile to peace may be banished thence, and that the people inclining their ear to whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, may tread the path of virtue and wisdom.” In the years since those words were inscribed, “things foul or hostile” have proved frustratingly hard to erase. And the BBC has been rocked by a number of scandals erupting from…

What prompted you to write about the regicides? I saw a tweet referring to the greatest manhunt of the 17th century. The conjunction of “manhunt” and “17th century” intrigued me. And the more I read about it, the more intrigued I became, because it seemed that this extraordinary manhunt lacked a man hunter. Someone must have drawn up the list of regicides and interrogated people, but that person didn’t exist in the sources. So I began to create this character, Richard Nayler, who would be my hunter. Other than creating that character, how close to the historical record did you stay with Act of Oblivion? Very close indeed. I followed two regicides, Colonel Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, Colonel William Goffe, who fled together to New England. And wherever the…

Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence by Michael Rocke (OUP, 1996) Michael Rocke’s Forbidden Friendships is a rare history book that transforms your understanding both of the society it portrays and of the world more widely. Writing in the 1990s, and taking a significant career risk to do so, Rocke set out to study sex between men in Renaissance Florence, using the records of the city’s Office of the Night. Between 1432 and 1502, this magistracy policed homosexual behaviour. Its records led Rocke to an astonishing conclusion: in the later 15th century, “the majority of local males at least once during their lifetimes were officially incriminated for engaging in homosexual relations”. Read that again: most men in Florence were at least trying out bisexuality. This was a…

A History of Water by Edward Wilson-Lee William Collins, 352 pages, £25 This is a wonderfully entertaining and intelligent account of two loosely connected lives that, like streams, meander until they converge to form something larger. Both were 16th-century Portuguese men, and both died in obscurity, though one acquired international fame soon after his death. Damiāo de Góis was a scholar, traveller, translator, royal archivist and author of a history of the reign of Portuguese king Manuel I. His later years were plagued by accusations of heresy, and the Inquisition sentenced him to perpetual confinement in a monastery. In 1574 he died in a fire, clutching a half-burned piece of paper; he had apparently been released from confinement, though one report suggests he was strangled before the fire. Luis de…

Theatre director ANTON PHILLIPS (left) tells us about a new documentary celebrating the BBC’s first black producer, Una Marson You’re a consultant on the new programme about Una Marson (1905-65), the Jamaican activist and writer who worked for the BBC. How did you meet her? It was when she was writing a short story about someone who had come to the US – a youth who was unhappy and wanted to return to Jamaica. As it happened, I had only recently come to the US as a teenager [Phillips’ mother, part of the same intellectual and literary set to which Marson belonged, was a diplomat in Washington DC], and I was very unhappy. So off we went round to her house, where we had a chat – although I don’t…