Niall Ferguson is one of my favourite historians so almost as soon as I saw he'd published this 99 pence, 30-odd page opinion piece about the late Margaret Thatcher, I downloaded a copy to my Kindle.
Taking a similar - though more balanced - stance as Martin Durkin's recent TV documentary for Britain's Channel 4, "Margaret: Death of a Revolutionary", Ferguson argues in clear and simple language that Margaret Thatcher was a political, economic and social revolutionary who shook a decrepit and increasingly left-wing British establishment to its foundations.
The title itself is somewhat deceptive as Ferguson admits early on that Thatcher was certainly not "always right"… Read more
Starting in July 2014 and continuing until 11 November 2018 the world will remember The Great War. During that period, right across the globe, numerous memorial services will take place, books will be published, documentaries will be aired and films will be shown as the world remembers the more than nine million, mostly young men, who lost their lives in that terrible conflict. However, because the events of the First World War were so appalling and overshadowed everything which came after, there is a tendency for us to overlook what came before. What was the world like… Read more
Published in 1977, this long-forgotten but nevertheless fascinating book contains over 200 photographs taken during the last years of the Imperial Russian Empire. The collection, carefully selected by Tatiana Browning, provides an important historical record of both the vast ethnic and cultural diversity of Tsarist Russia and the enormous disparity of wealth which existed in the country at that time.
The wonderful black-and-white pictures are supplemented by some excellent commentary from Kyril Fitzlyon [who grew up in revolutionary Russia] and his fifty page introductory text to the photographs is as insightful and comprehensive a summary of the social framework of Russia during… Read more
