David Crane 
The Young Titan, by Michael Shelden; Churchill’s First War, by Con Coughlin - review
One evening in 1906, shortly after the election that brought Campbell-Bannerman’s Liberals into power, an understandably nervous Eddie Marsh, a middle-ranking civil servant in the Colonial Office, paid a social… Read more
'1913: The World Beforethe Great War', by Charles Emmerson
In May 1913 a British delegation visited the United States to discuss plans for celebrating 100 years of Anglo-American peace. At their final meeting in New York’s Plaza Hotel, the… Read more
'Deserter: The Last Untold Story of the Second World War', by Charles Glass - review
On the morning of 31 January 1945, a private soldier in the United States army, a minor ex-con with a juvenile record for theft, called Eddie Slovik was put to… Read more
Carve their names with pride
On a ridge high above the River Ancre, four miles to the north of the town of Albert, stands the greatest of all Britain’s memorials to its dead. For some… Read more
Another doomed youth
It is very possible that unless you are a Bulgarian or a Wykehamist or an SOE buff or ideally all three you will not have heard of Frank Thompson. Somewhere… Read more
Against all odds
For more than 40 years now Clive Brittain has enjoyed a unique position in British racing. There are plenty of other trainers who could match his record in top races,… Read more
Titanic mistakes
There is nothing quite like a good centenary to remind us how surprising it is that anyone got out of the 20th century in one piece. In the space of… Read more
Ugly old Europe
There are moments and places in history that one would have paid good money to avoid, and wartime Lisbon was one of them. For those rich enough to afford the… Read more
An intemperate zone
Two years before the outbreak of the first world war, a Royal Navy officer, addressing an Admiralty enquiry into the disturbing question of lower-deck commissions, ventured the cautionary opinion that… Read more
What was it like at the time?
At midday on Thursday, 8 June 1933 — Erik Larson is very keen on his times — the newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a call put through to… Read more
The price of victory
In the patriotic mythology of British arms 1759 may be the one true annus mirabilis, the ‘year of victories’, the year of Minden, Quebec and Quiberon Bay, but has there… Read more
Consummate con artist
‘Taylor, I dreamt of your lecture last night,’ the polar explorer Captain Scott was once heard to exclaim, after sitting through a paper on icebergs by the expedition physiographer, Griffith… Read more
A lore unto himself
Barry Hills has never been an easy man to love but I don’t suppose he would have it any other way. Barry Hills has never been an easy man to… Read more
Thoroughly hooked
On the southern edge of Kensal Green cemetery, beneath the wall that separates the graves from the Grand Union Canal, is a memorial inscription that would stop a Duns Scotus… Read more
Behind the white face
Has there ever been a more compelling period in London’s history than the first years of the 19th century? Has there ever been a more compelling period in London’s history… Read more
His own best biographer
Byron in Love, by Edna O’Brien ‘We would entreat him to believe that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to constitute a poem,’ wrote Henry Brougham… Read more
The spice of danger
From the Front Line: Family Letters & Diaries, 1900 to the Falklands & Afghanistan, by Hew Pike ‘Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier,’ reckoned… Read more
A genius but not a hero
If anyone ever wondered why Marlborough has so seldom enjoyed the reputation his abilities warrant he could do a lot worse than start with Richard Holmes’s new biography. England’s Fragile… Read more
Always employ a slow bowler
It would be hard to imagine a worse title for a book, or one more likely to unite the sceptics of every camp. For those poor souls who think the… Read more
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