Think of the Gunpowder Plot and you think of the men involved. Yet, as Nicola Cornick explains, that’s a mistakenly narrow view; we need to take into account the role and influence of the women in the family networks which bound the plotters together just as much as their Catholic faith did. The Gunpowder Plot […]
The Perfect Sword: Forging the Dark Ages by Edoardo Albert and Paul Gething
This is the story of the Bamburgh Sword — one of the finest swords ever made. Alongside that, it gives a fascinating insight into the world of experimental archaeology — where archaeologists attempt to recreate an artefact or structure of the past using only the technologies and materials available at the time. The Perfect Sword: […]
Domitian, an unlikely emperor
Nobody expected Domitian to become Emperor of Rome in AD81, least of all him. And though he was murdered (an occupational hazard of the role) and condemned to oblivion, he left Rome unified and stable. SJA (Simon) Turney writes about this unlikely emperor, the subject of the third in his Damned Emperors series of novels. […]
The Adventures of a Black Edwardian Intellectual by Pamela Roberts
Scholar, reverend, politician, and perhaps aristocrat… James Arthur Stanley Harley was certainly a polymath. Born in a poor village in the Caribbean island of Antigua, he went on to attend Howard, Harvard, Yale and Oxford universities, was ordained a priest in Canterbury Cathedral and was elected to Leicestershire County Council. He was a choirmaster, a […]
Historia giveaway: The World by Simon Sebag Montefiore
We’re giving away a stunning book this month: one copy of The World by Simon Sebag Montefiore, described as “the story of humanity from prehistory to the present day, told through the one thing all humans have in common: family.” The giveaway is open until 11.59pm on Monday, 7 November, 2022. The winner will get […]
HWA Crown Awards 2022: the shortlists
We’re delighted to announce the HWA Crown Awards shortlists for 2022, with 18 books celebrating the best in historical writing, fiction and non-fiction, published in 2021-2022. There are three awards categories: HWA Gold Crown, HWA Non-fiction Crown, and HWA Debut Crown. The books shortlisted for the HWA Crown Awards for 2022 are: Gold Crown Award […]
The adventures of a Black Edwardian intellectual
Pamela Roberts tells Historia the remarkable story of a man, born in poverty on Antigua, who overcame prejudice and racism to win places at some of the world’s most prestigious universities and become first a priest and then a local politician. He’s the subject of her new biography, The Adventures of a Black Edwardian Intellectual […]
Why I write about the ‘obscure’ third century AD
Harry Sidebottom, the novelist and lecturer in Ancient History, explains why he writes both fiction and history relating to a period of Roman history which is so little known about that he describes it as obscure. What is it about the third century AD that makes it a goldmine for scholars and for novelists? Why […]