Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2023 i History Extra

"When I was six years old I took part in a school adaptation of the Exodus story, in which I played the pharaoh who was so reluctant to let the Israelites go. My historical knowledge was significantly more limited at that age, but one thing I knew even then was the name of that pharaoh: Ramesses. Of all the dozens of rulers of ancient Egypt, Ramesses II’s name has endured more than any other. He’s been lionised by everyone from Herodotus to Percy Shelley, and is the only pharaoh to be known as ‘the Great’. But does he deserve this exalted reputation? In our cover feature this month, Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson revisits Ramesses’ extraordinary reign to determine whether he was a brilliant leader or simply a master of propaganda. Turn…

Your book charts the current war, and the ways in which it’s informed by the past. How did the origin stories Russia tells about itself feed into this conflict? History is written all over this war, starting with the way it was justified by Russian president, Vladimir Putin. In summer 2021, he published his article ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’, pushing an argument that goes way back to the Kyivan Rus’ [the Slavic state that dominated north-eastern Europe from the 10th century, with its capital in Kyiv, and from which both Russia and Ukraine claim descent]. So when I was writing my book, it was important for me to start with the origin myth that links Russia to Kyiv. Much of the current conflict, and wider Russian-Ukrainian…

"These men are a key part of our story. Their portrait should be seen" WHEN THE RENOWNED ANGLO-HUNGARIAN painter Philip de László died in 1937, an unusual double portrait was found in his private collection. It depicts two Indian men in military uniform, standing in a dignified pose, both wearing khaki turbans. The piece – pictured below – clearly stood apart from much of his work, which chiefly involved painting the most wealthy and powerful in European society, including monarchs and nobles. Today the importance of this painting is being recognised – and not just by art historians. On 14 April this year, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport posted a plea on its Instagram page: “This rare… painting is valued at £650,000… It is at risk of leaving…

THE FATHER OF THE PYRAMID AGE Djoser (reigned c2650–2620 BC) Succeeding to the throne after a period of instability, Djoser was the first king of the third dynasty. Presiding over a peaceful and prosperous kingdom, he surrounded himself with a glittering court whose members included the architect and sage Imhotep, later venerated as a god of wisdom and healing. Djoser was the first great builder in pharaonic history, and commissioned Egypt’s first large-scale stone monument, the Step Pyramid complex at Saqqara. Later historians regarded Djoser’s reign as marking the start of a new era. In art, architecture and administration, he inaugurated the first flowering of Egyptian civilisation, the Pyramid Age. THE METICULOUS DESPOT Khufu (reigned c2545–2525 BC) Famous as the builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza, Khufu reigned over…

Shakespearean souvenirs When future US presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams visited Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1786, they were shown a chair that had reputedly belonged to Shakespeare – and carved off a chip of wood to take home as a souvenir. Having visited the playwright’s birthplace (shown right), Adams noted in his diary that it was “as small and mean as you can conceive”. The chip of wood can still be seen at Monticello, Jefferson’s house in Virginia. Creature features Ladislas Starevich, Polish-Russian pioneer of stop-motion animation, used dead insects as protagonists in his films. In the years before the First World War, Starevich created tiny puppets by removing the legs from insect corpses and replacing them with wires attached by sealing wax. He then moved the puppets and photographed…

Britain and slavery / Children against the slave trade Young boys can be notoriously untidy - dirty, even. So perhaps it should have come as no surprise to Shropshire diarist Katherine Plymley when, in 1792, she noticed that her sevenyear- old nephew Panton’s shoes were “looking very brown”. What raised her eyebrows was the reason, discovered by questioning the servants, why he’d refused to have his shoes shined. He had heard that the polish contained sugar produced on plantations worked by enslaved people. Panton’s scruffiness wasn’t due to indolence or carelessness, but - as he saw it - a moral stand against slavery. And he was far from alone among his peers. Long before Greta Thunberg first raised her head above the climate change parapet, children and younger teenagers were…

Ellie Cawthorne: Why did you want to write a biography of Lamb? What was it about her that intrigued you? Lady Antonia Fraser: During lockdown, I dusted a room that I haven’t dusted for years, which is full of books, like every room in this house. A book fell on my foot, and it was a biography of Lady Caroline Lamb. You hear about all that stuff with Byron, and how William Lamb, the man she married, became prime minister. And I thought: I wonder what she was like, really And as it turned out, she was a real rulebreaker. Yes, it seems that she had that reputation as a rulebreaker even from childhood. Can you tell us a bit about her upbringing? Caroline [born in 1785] grew up as…

On a hot, sunny day in late June 1559, the king of France rode out in full armour, his horse trimmed with black and white, to participate in a joust. The preceding week had been spent celebrating the wedding of his daughter to the king of Spain and the hard-won treaty that their marriage represented. Fatigued, overheated and suffering from occasional bouts of vertigo, Henry II demanded one more run at the lists. He and his opponent thundered towards each other and struck. A lance splintered, and a large piece of wood became embedded in the king’s skull, just above his eye. He died in agony two weeks later. The story told by Leah Redmond Chang, however, is not about kings, their wars, their deaths or their rivalries. Young Queens…

Following your Six Tudor Queens series, which is written from the perspective of Henry’s wives, how different was it to narrate from Henry VIII’s point of view? It’s always a challenge to write a novel about an iconic personage, but I’ve studied Henry VIII for many decades, and I feel I know him to a certain extent. I knew where I was going with the novel. Writing in the third person worked better than writing in the first to make the male voice sound authentic. How do you view Henry VIII? I feel some sympathy for him. He started his reign with everything going for him – and then, as he saw it, God denied him the one thing he needed most: a son to succeed him. That’s when things…

The year is AD 627. I pass through a door flanked by spears: no one must wield a weapon in the king’s hall, decree the ancient laws. A soft glow illuminates the room, revealing interlaced carvings that snake around the wooden pillars. Taking my place on a bench, I await the royal party. King Edwin is in residence, along with Bishop Paulinus, who will baptise many in the nearby river. Amid song and story I am made welcome in the Great Hall of Ad Gefrin. This is not a scene from my historian’s imagination. Rather, it’s what awaits visitors to the new Ad Gefrin Anglo-Saxon Museum and Distillery in Wooler, Northumberland, named after the seventh-century palace that stood less than five miles up the road at Yeavering. That site features…

1. Out of pocket 1. In our piece on the history of timekeeping, I was interested to read that wristwatches were almost exclusively worn by women until the First World War, which encouraged men to switch away from less convenient pocketwatches (page 82). 2. Stratford sneakery This month’s Q&A section is full of fascinating tidbits, such as the fact that two future US presidents broke off part of one of Shakespeare’s chairs to take home as a souvenir on a visit to Stratford-uponAvon (page 37). 3. Mass movement In our feature on children who campaigned against slavery, I was intrigued to discover that some 300,000 Britons boycotted goods produced by enslaved people in the 1790s (page 54).…

What challenges are there in charting the experiences of LGBTQ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer] people in the periods you study? Florence Scott: I work on England in the early medieval period, and the biggest challenge I have is a lack of evidence. There are very few surviving written sources for this time compared with other periods, and those that exist tend to be religious documents. As the church was very wealthy, it was the biggest producer of written material at this time, so most documents pertain to the elites in society, and have a religious focus. Hence individual people’s lives, and their experiences of gender and sexuality, are captured only very rarely in the written source record. That’s a huge pitfall with studying LGBTQ people in this period,…

LETTER OF THE MONTH Message from above Robin Ashcroft’s excellent account of the 1953 conquest of Everest (June) reminded me of how the happy news eventually found its way back to London. The Times newspaper had acquired the rights to reports on the expedition’s progress, but was unsure about the safest way to receive their exclusive reports. For reasons both political and practical, they rejected the idea of using carrier pigeons or beacon fires, and opted instead to use Sherpa runners. These runners would carry messages carefully encoded to protect them from the eyes of rival news agencies. When James Morris, the newspaper’s expedition correspondent, first learned that the climb had been successful, he dispatched a Sherpa with a coded message to the village of Namche, from where a radio…

The most active juvenile abolitionists were, unsurprisingly, enslaved children. Though British abolitionists often depicted these children as passive victims, in fact they commonly resisted their enslavement. Abolitionist and black British radical Ottobah Cugoano recalled participating in a failed plot to blow up the ship on which he was transported to the Americas when he was around 13 years old. “It was the women and boys which were to burn the ship,” he recalled, “with the approbation and groans of the rest.” In the British West Indies, children frequently got into trouble with the colonial authorities for insubordination, stealing supplies and alcohol from plantation stores, and using “violent and indecent language” toward enslavers in the streets. It’s worth remembering that colonial legislatures often gave no fixed definition of a ‘child’ for…

News media, political pundits and even presidents have often explained away the contemporary political climate in the Middle East as the natural consequence of centuries of deeply rooted sectarian conflicts. The truth is, of course, far more complicated. In his new study, Toby Matthiesen embraces this complex history and argues that the prevailing narratives about the relationship between Sunni and Shia Islam – a sectarian division frequently cited as a major contributor to political instability in the region – has hindered our comprehension of the real issues at play. Only by delving deeply into the history of the schism, Matthiesen argues, can we gain a more nuanced picture of the Middle East’s complex political, cultural and religious history. To this end, the book begins with an ambitious 400-page history of…

Across 1 McCarthy 5 Malta 9 Zenobia 10 Rapu Nui 11/26 Paul Revere 12 Cuman 14 Eva 16 Fisher 17 Nineveh 20 Hussars 22 Crest 24 SOS 27 Elba 29 OKeeffe 31 Ipswich 32 Mary I 33 Ramesses Down 1 Mazepa 2 Confucius 3 Ruby 4 Huascar 5 Mop 6 Lange 7 Ali Pasha 8 Truman 13 Nansen 15 E H Carr 18 Vitellius 19 Chisholm 21 Soviet 22 Corsica 23 Paphos 25 Speer 28 Aske 30 FBI Three winners of A History of the World in 500 Maps E Maple, Wareham; A Lucas, Devon; D Duck, Berkshire…

Simon Schama “When the pandemic happened, I decided to tell a story about the history of medicine. And it converged with a long interest of mine about the perils of excessive national defensiveness.” Simon introduces some of the early pioneers of lifesaving vaccines on page 31 Channing Joseph “Where possible, I think it’s crucial to describe people in the way in which they thought of themselves, and using the terminology that was used in the period and place in which they lived.” Channing considers how we can share the stories of LGBTQ people from the past on page 11 Christienna Fryar “Perhaps the continuing reluctance to discuss Britain’s slavery history beyond the work of British abolitionists has created a tendency to separate Windrush from the centuries that preceded it.” Christienna…

Florence Scott is completing a PhD on gender and queenship at the University of Leeds and is the author of the Substack newsletter and podcast Ælfgif-who? Tim Wingard is a lecturer in late medieval history at the University of York, whose work focuses on nature, gender and sexuality in medieval England and north-western Europe Channing Gerard Joseph is a journalist and queer historian whose work focuses on sexuality and gender identity from the American slavery era to the early 20th century Fleur MacInnes is a third-year history PhD student at the University of Oxford looking into trans-feminine experiences of the women’s liberation movement in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s Anthony Delaney is honorary research fellow at the University of Exeter. His work explores gender and sexuality, particularly same-sex households,…

"The coronation felt like a watershed in our relationship with the crown" SO THE CORONATION IS OVER, AND WE ENTER a new era for the monarchy and the nation. What struck me first was how religious the ceremony was – conducted by the archbishop of Canterbury and entirely framed in the language of the church. An Anglo-Saxon time traveller would have felt perfectly at home with the core of the service – though back then, of course, it was conducted in Latin, with the coupling of royal law with ‘the law of god’. But I had a lingering sense of a cognitive dissonance (as the psychoanalysts call it). Britain is now, we are told, among the world’s least religious societies. In a time of crisis, can an archaic religious service…

Among so many general histories of Egypt’s ancient past, Toby Wilkinson’s book is hugely readable yet thought-provoking, explaining things that others fail to mention and containing some real gems within its finer detail. This is the perfect introduction to the unique landscape that produced Egypt’s ancient culture, forming its history and explaining its relationship with the rest of the ancient world. Despite its small size, this slim volume is packed with some of Egypt’s biggest names, male and female, rulers and workers, each described with a lightness of touch underpinned by serious scholarship.…

In the 1770s and 1780s, ‘economical reform’ was a potentially dangerous combination of parliamentary reform with demands for greater efficiency in public administration. In 1780, Lord North responded by setting up a Commission for Examining the Public Accounts, a pre-emptive strike to show that the state could mend its ways without parliamentary reform. Scrutiny also extended to the activities of the East India Company. In 1781, a secret committee was established to investigate the affairs of the company, and in February 1783 its chairman introduced a bill to establish a Board of Control. Economical reform was also a potential challenge to the Bank of England, another private company with public functions. Its charter came up for renewal in 1781, and critics complained that the bank’s monopoly corrupted politics and led…

Your new documentary deals with the baby boomers. What’s your take on your own generation? It’s a topic where, the more you get into it, the more complicated it becomes. One of the things about baby boomers is that younger people have disliked them for a long time. Part of this is because boomers colonise everything. If you have coffee houses, boomers take them over. If a car company designs cars for young people, boomers buy them. And there are just so many boomers. Now, though, baby boomers are old. The question that arises is whether younger people dislike boomers because of particular things boomers do, or just because they’re old. One idea you touch on is the ‘boomerocracy’ – a notion that society is organised for boomers. Is that…

Genius of the Greeks “The ancient Greeks constantly questioned, contemplated and debated the world around them, and they sought logical, often mathematical explanations for its workings.” Science Museum curator Jane Desborough joined me last year to discuss some spectacular artefacts (from celestial globes to golden earrings) that reveal how Greek thinkers sought to understand everything from the oceans and animals to the cosmos and the human body. historyextra.com/greek-thinking-pod Medieval marvels In the popular imagination, the Middle Ages is generally a time of mud, blood and turnips. But in many ways, it was an era of startling innovation and ingenious thinking. Back in 2020, historian Seb Falk joined us to discuss his book The Light Ages, which reveals the surprising sophistication of medieval scientific thinking – from astronomy to medicine –…

IN PROFILE Eleanor Roosevelt was First Lady of the United States during her husband Franklin D Roosevelt’s four terms in office between 1933 and 1945. A mother of six, she was also a diplomat and campaigner who served as the US delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1946 to 1952, playing a leading role in drawing up the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "Understanding how universal values such as human dignity and respect can shape politics was central to her way of thinking" When did you first hear about Eleanor Roosevelt? While studying law at Leeds University in the 1980s I became completely absorbed by the work of the United Nations in the years after the Second World War, when the world came to understand the horrors…