Patrick Bishop
The First City To Be Coventried
The Coventry raid has stuck in the collective memory for a variety of reasons
A Putrid Pact between Devils
An excellent book on the deal between Hitler and Stalin that shocked the world 75 years ago
Hard Lessons of Afghan History
Two new histories of separate conflicts in Afghanistan show that both the Victorians and a young Churchill struggled at the North-Western Frontier
Boffins and other Backroom Boys
Highlighting the importance of scientists and engineers in defeating Germany is the noble aim of Paul Kennedy’s new book, but ultimately he goes too far
No Life Was Untouched
Christy Campbell’s focused, meticulous account of the V-weapon campaign of 1944 provides a neat counterpoint to the magisterial grand narrative of Antony Beevor’s The Second World War
Remembered Ernestly
Book review of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway Volume 1, 1907-1922, edited by Sandra Spanier and Robert W. Trogdon
The Greatest and Most Terrible
Book review of All Hell Let Loose: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings
Tolerating the intolerant
“For those who thought that a global pandemic would sound the death knell for identity politics, think again”
How to prevent the next pandemic
‘I have been reporting as a science journalist for years that the world is at increasing risk of pandemics like this; that this was predicted; that we know what we need to do to prepare and we simply haven’t done it; and that more and worse pandemics are coming so we need to do that, now’
D’où parles-tu? The post-truth world
Power, illusion and the open society: how postmodernism undermines our foundational concepts