In the years between World War I and World War II, aviation fever was everywhere, including among Black Americans. But what hope did a Black person have of learning to fly in a country constricted by prejudice and Jim Crow laws, where some previous Black aviators like Bessie Coleman had to move to France to […]
Women of the Anarchy by Sharon Bennett Connolly
In 1135, Stephen of Blois usurped the throne, stealing it from his cousin Empress Matilda and sparking a 19-year civil war that would become known as the Anarchy, one of the bloodiest periods in English history. On the one side is Empress Matilda. The sole surviving legitimate child of Henry I, she is fighting for […]
The Anarchy: a true cousins’ war
The 19 years of civil war between Henry I’s daughter, Matilda, and her cousin, Stephen of Blois, were so destructive they came to be known as the Anarchy. Sharon Bennett Connolly, author of a new book about the women of the Anarchy, explains how the conflict began and why it could be called a true […]
Historical books to look out for in 2024
Welcome to Historia’s most popular regular feature, our round-up of books published by members of the Historical Writers’ Association (HWA) to look out for during the coming year. For 2024, there are more than 200 books covering history, biography, and historical fiction and spanning eras from Ancient Greece and Egypt to the 1980s. They sweep […]
Ovid the policeman
The poet Ovid spent some time as one of Rome’s tresviri, the men who supervised activities such as policing. Could he have been involved in solving crimes? For Fiona Forsyth, this is “one of those gaps in history that it is my job as a historical novelist to fill”. Here she writes about how she […]
Edinburgh’s New Town and the 200-year history of 10 Scotland Street
Leslie Hills looks back at what intrigued her about her house, and how it set her off on a decades-long search for the history of 10 Scotland Street in Edinburgh’s New Town — the subject of her newly-published book. When finally I paid off the mortgage on my home, number 10 Scotland Street, a Georgian […]
10 Scotland Street by Leslie Hills
10 Scotland Street – the story of an Edinburgh home and its cast of booksellers, silk merchants, sailors, preachers, politicians, cholera and coincidence and its widespread connections over two centuries across the globe. 10 Scotland Street by Leslie Hills is published on 1 December, 2023. With a foreword by Val McDermid, this is her first […]
Ancient Rome’s Worst Emperors by LJ Trafford
Between 27BC and AD476 a series of men became Roman Emperor, ruling a domain that stretched across Europe, North Africa and the Near East. Some of them did this rather well, expanding Rome’s territories further, installing just laws and maintaining order within the city. Others, however, were distinctly less successful at the job. Ancient Rome’s […]