Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2025 i History Extra

“My dear friends, this is your hour.” These were the words of Winston Churchill, broadcast to the nation from Downing Street on the afternoon of VE Day. After six long years, the war in Europe was over and a wave of celebration engulfed Britain. For some the joy was tempered with thoughts of those who had been lost or were still fighting or imprisoned in the far east. But for anyone who was there, it was a day that would live long in the memory. Sixty years later the BBC tapped into those memories through its vast oral history project, the WW2 People’s War, which compiled the wartime testimonies of 47,000 people. And for our cover feature this month, John Willis has drawn on this archive to explore how Britons…

“Social taboos are violated: a parent must decide which child to feed” DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR, DEATHS related to hunger matched or outnumbered military losses. Famines afflicted regions including the Soviet Union, China, India, Vietnam and Greece. Yet those who perished are rarely remembered in the same way as fallen soldiers. Starvation is not relegated to the past. The latest UN Hunger Hotspots report identifies places of highest concern as Haiti, Mali, Sudan, South Sudan and Palestine. Sadly, the list of countries where hunger persists is much longer, with violence and conflict the key drivers. Professor Alex de Waal, research professor at Tufts University and a leading expert on famine, explains that part of the reason famines are not remembered and memorialised is that the experience is so painful…

EMPIRE Places of plunder? Should we stop treating museums as colonial crime scenes? Historian Justin M Jacobs explains why he believes that calls for artefacts to be repatriated to their countries of origin often overlook the wishes of the people who made them in the first place. ROMAN Rome’s rule-breaker She super-charged Mark Antony’s rise to power, whipped up gang violence, went to war with Octavian – and may (just may) have abused Cicero’s decapitated head with a hair pin. Jane Draycott separates fact from fiction in the story of Fulvia – one of Rome’s most fascinating women. MEDIEVAL Making a martyr Thomas Becket is best known for his bloody death in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. But what about the life that led him there? Michael Staunton reveals how the…

Rob Attar: In 1998, the former dictator of Chile, Augusto Pinochet, was arrested in London. How seismic a moment was this? Philippe Sands: I remember the moment of learning of Pinochet’s arrest. It was a Saturday afternoon. It happened to be my birthday, and I was settling down to watch the football results at five o’clock when the news came on and they announced that Augusto Pinochet had been arrested for murder and crimes against humanity. It was huge. It was the first time that a former head of state, while travelling abroad, had been arrested on international crimes. Someone not familiar with the story might wonder why this was happening in London, not Santiago. What can you tell us about the geography of these events? By way of background,…

What is history, and how do we think about our past on a societal scale? How do we recall and reflect on events of long ago? Our beliefs about the past – down to the origin of the universe and humankind – are more than just theories of what came before us. They are beliefs that actively shape our future, because origin is tied in our mind to present purpose. The past gives form to and serves to justify or critique current reality. The oldest substantial body of historical writing comes from ancient Mesopotamia, the region of the Tigris and Euphrates river basins. Because its inhabitants wrote on durable clay, they left a broad and vigorous spectrum of writings on a vast range of topics. It is from this astounding…

In 1524–25, hundreds of thousands of countryfolk rose up in arms across the German lands. Forming large groups – themselves agglomerations of many smaller bands, each representing an individual Gemeinde, or village community – the protesters threw off the authority of their lords. They launched a series of attacks upon the monasteries and castles that dominated the local landscape, plundering these imposing buildings and often burning them to the ground. The devastation wrought by the peasant bands was utterly unprecedented: 200 castles were destroyed in a single month in the region of Bamberg alone, and it has been calculated that no fewer than 530 monastic institutions had been attacked by the time the disturbances came to an end. As Lyndal Roper notes in her fine new study, these popular protests…

Explosive details On the night of 29–30 December 1940, the Luftwaffe dropped around 100,000 bombs on London. One area hit badly was Paternoster Row, a locale associated with the publishing industry, where as many as 5 million books were destroyed. The Essay: Books for Brighter Blackouts (BBC Radio 3, Monday 5–Friday 9 May), presented by Professor Emma Smith as part of programming to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, considers how the war impacted books and publishing. Eight-parter Half-Life (BBC Radio 4, Wednesday 7 May) follows writer Joe Dunthorne as he researches his great-grandfather Siegfried, a German-Jewish chemist who made radioactive toothpaste in the 1920s (pictured). Covering some of the same ground as Dunthorne’s acclaimed book Children of Radium, it details how he stumbled on a disturbing confession. Among…

Mac ‘n’ cheese is an American classic. It’s the ultimate comfort food: cheesy, gooey, warming. One persistent myth maintains that Thomas Jefferson brought James Hemings, an enslaved man, to France to train as a chef; he then brought back a pasta machine and a recipe for macaroni and cheese to serve to the American elite. In fact, it wasn’t until the Great Depression of the 1930s that macaroni cheese became widespread in American culture. Canadian-American businessman James Lewis Kraft had pioneered the production of processed cheese during the First World War. Then Grant Leslie, a salesman from St Louis, Missouri, combined dried processed cheese with industrially dried pasta. And in 1937, Kraft introduced the Kraft Dinner – a mass-produced macaroni and cheese mix sold at a very low price that…

1. You look familiar I was intrigued to read in this month’s Anniversaries that Marie Antoinette’s marriage to the future Louis XVI took place by proxy with her own brother standing in for the groom (page 9). 2. Wine for a dime In Islam Issa’s article on ancient Egypt’s love of wine, I was interested to learn that the vending machine was invented in the first or second century AD by Heron of Alexandria (page 67). 3. Timeless lovers The medieval romance of Abélard and Héloïse continues to fascinate people into the modern day. In Yvonne Seale’s article on the couple she reveals how it was referenced in both The Sopranos and Being John Malkovich (page 44).…

ORIGINS & TRADE Fermenting change Today we associate it with relaxation and refinement, ritual and religion, even industry and investment. And the varied uses of wine are nothing new. After grapes arrived in Egypt, over 5,000 years ago, wine made major, lasting – and often surprising – impacts on its society and culture. The earliest vineyard remains in Egypt date from the fourth millennium BC. The oldest wine jar yet discovered was made c3000 BC – and jars continue to be found. Following the introduction of grape cultivation from the Levant sometime before 3000 BC, grapes became the main ingredient fermented to make irep (wine), which was typically red. For lengthy periods, wine made from the fruit (dates) or sap of palm trees was more affordable, and other fruits such…

In 1980, Ronald Reagan, campaigning for the American presidency, promised that, if elected, he would “unleash” the CIA, making it central to his aggressive new anti-Soviet foreign policy. But few imagined that this might include the smuggling of books by Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt – even Agatha Christie. The CIA Book Club reveals the remarkable story of the ambitious “books program”, developed during the turbulent last 10 years of the Cold War, which involved moving large numbers of forbidden texts into Poland – millions of items were dispatched, in fact. The CIA had been engaged in these sorts of projects all the way across eastern Europe for decades, but now this accelerated activity converged with the ‘Third Wave’ of democracy. Propelled by burgeoning information flows,…

What springs to mind when you picture a Victorian mill town? Probably not the green parks, neoclassical architecture and Turkish bath of Saltaire – the model village built by Sir Titus Salt for his workers in the mid-19th century. Today, Saltaire – just outside Bradford, the 2025 UK City of Culture – is characterised by its charming terraced houses and quirky independent shops. Thanks to information boards dotted around the streets and a free heritage trail, anyone can explore the story of this trailblazing industrial-age project. In 1851, when building commenced at Saltaire, Bradford’s population had ballooned to more than 103,000. It was the UK’s fastest-growing city, and its crowded, unsanitary streets told a particularly Dickensian tale. Seeing these problems, Titus Salt – a self-made Bradford industrialist – had a…

Philippe Sands “It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, and nothing I have experienced since. Everyone who was in the room understood that this was something of huge significance.” Philippe discusses his involvement in the trial of Augusto Pinochet in 1998 on page 70 Islam Issa “One of the reasons ancient Egyptians remain so supremely fascinating is that ordinary, everyday life – actions as simple as pouring or drinking some wine – seems always to go hand in hand with a marvellous mythology.” Islam explores ancient Egypt’s love affair with wine on page 63 Martha McGill “The Scottish witch-hunts were far bloodier than their English counterparts. Exploring why teaches us about law, religion and the lives of those women and men persecuted for an imaginary crime.” Martha tells the…

“Globalism is ironing out the fabulous texture and diversity of the old world” COMING FROM INDUSTRIAL MANCHESTER IN the cold, rainy north of England, I have loved the Mediterranean all my life. The wondrous diversity of landscapes, cultures and histories, and the peoples around its shores – all are an inexhaustible delight. Recently, I’ve gone back to an old favourite book, A Mediterranean Society by Shelomo Dov Goitein. Published from 1967, it’s never included in those ‘great historians’ debates, but it is a masterpiece. A portrait of medieval merchant communities in the eastern Mediterranean, its canvas is huge, stretching across Europe to India, and from Morocco to Crimea. It centres on one of the world’s most amazing historical archives: the Cairo Geniza (‘storeroom’ in Hebrew) of the Ben Ezra synagogue…

EARLY MODERN “The devastation wrought by the peasant bands was utterly unprecedented” Mark Stoyle appraises a new account of a dramatic 16th-century uprising ➤ page 78 ANCIENT “Cosmology itself constitutes a form of history that interweaves past and present” Gojko Barjamovic is impressed by a book examining how history was recorded and perceived in ancient Mesopotamia ➤ page 76 WWII “The Americans were determined to make the defeat of Japan their own project” Aaron William Moore hails a new take on the US bombing of Japanese civilians ➤ page 74 COLD WAR “In the last 10 years of the Cold War, large numbers of forbidden texts were smuggled into Poland” Richard J Aldrich enjoys an account of the CIA’s covert cultural campaign ➤ page 77 INTERVIEW Philippe Sands on former…

Judgment and reckoning The Tokyo Trial was the overlooked yet no less fateful counterpart to the proceedings conducted at Nuremberg in which, following their capitulation, Japan’s wartime leaders were tried for war crimes by the Allies. Gary Bass discusses the significance of this case for international law and for Japan as it prepared to chart a new course. historyextra.com/tokyo-trial-pod Seeds of hope The sacrifice made by Catholic priest Maximilian Kolbe (left) at Auschwitz inspired two Japanese men. Tomei Ozaki, a Nagasaki bombing survivor, became a friar, while Masatoshi Asari propagated ideals of peace by gifting cherry trees around the world. Journalist Naoko Abe explains how Kolbe’s example helped postwar Japan rebound from its nadir. historyextra.com/naoko-abe-pod Atomic collateral When the second atomic bomb obliterated the Japanese city of Nagasaki on 9…

This powerful book opens with the line: “A white foot stepped on a black hand.” It’s a simple sentence describing a simple act but, from there, the story erupts. Arrested after fighting white boys on a train near Scottsboro, Alabama in spring 1931, nine black teenagers were accused of raping two white women also discovered aboard. Within days, eight of the ‘Scottsboro Boys’ had been sentenced to death and were on their way to becoming an international cause celebre. Communists and mainstream civil rights organisations vied to champion them, carrying their cases to the US Supreme Court. Moving across multiple perspectives, Stories of Scottsboro insists that narratives are neither singular nor neutral. Black agrarian radicalism, gender and Jim Crow, the defendants’ lives – all are presented as stories of Scottsboro.…

A Very Respectable Company: Jane Austen and Her Southampton Circle SeaCity Museum, Southampton / Until October 2025 / seacitymuseum.co.uk Step into Jane Austen’s world at this new exhibition displaying rarely seen letters, portraits and personal items belonging to members of her Hampshire circle. The lives of these women, ranging from a mixed-race heiress to a Jamaican plantation owner, echo in novels such as Emma and Mansfield Park, and intertwine with the author’s own experiences. Arnish Moor Man Kinloch Historical Society, Lewis / Until March 2026 / kinlochhistoricalsociety.co.uk This intriguing exhibition explores the case of an unidentified young man whose remains were found in a peat bank on Arnish Moor, Isle of Lewis in 1964. On loan from National Museums Scotland, his remarkably well-preserved indigo-dyed bonnet, quills and wooden comb offer…

Across 6 Papal edict, name derived from the lead seal traditionally affixed to such a document (4) 7 14th-century BC queen of Egypt, chief wife of Akhenaten (9) 9 Soviet leader whose 18-year tenure encompassed an era of economic and social stagnation (8) 11 Unit of weight used by ancient Hebrews, Greeks and Romans (6) 12 Edward ____, British pioneer of the science of immunology, who developed a smallpox vaccine (6) 14 This city became the capital of the Confederate States of America early in the American Civil War (8) 16 Third-century Christian martyr after whom a Hertfordshire town is named (2,5) 18 Karl ____, naval commander who, for a few days in 1945, succeeded Hitler as German head of state (6) 21 Either of two major Palestinian uprisings against…

IN PROFILE Robert FitzRoy was an officer in the Royal Navy, best known for being the captain of HMS Beagle during Darwin’s famous voyage. FitzRoy, later promoted to vice-admiral, was also a pioneering meteorologist and in 1854 founded what would later be called the Met Office. He served as governor of New Zealand from 1843–45. The father of five struggled with depression and died by suicide, aged 59. “At just 23, FitzRoy sailed a small ship, the Beagle, on landmark voyages, one of which changed our entire perception of human beings’ place in nature” When did you first hear about FitzRoy? Several years ago, while making a programme about Darwin, because as captain of HMS Beagle, FitzRoy was integral to the story. He first made a big impression on me…