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Simon Heffer

It’s easy to forget how undemocratic Europe was 50 years ago

Simon Heffer 5 October 2019 9:00 am

The subtitle of Simon Reid-Henry’s substantial work indicates its thesis: ‘The remaking of the West since the Cold War, 1971–2017.’…

Diary

Simon Heffer 21 September 2019 9:00 am

When a few months ago my friend Tom Switzer – former editor of this magazine and now director of the…

There’s no place quite like Excellent Essex

Simon Heffer 14 September 2019 9:00 am

Those who think Essex is boring, or a human waste bin into which only the most meretricious people find themselves…

Demonstration of right-wing ‘patriots’ in Lower Saxony, 2019. Credit: Rex Features

Where is the rise of neo-Nazism around Europe leading?

Simon Heffer 30 March 2019 9:00 am

‘Why would anyone write a historical study of it?’ asks Gavriel Rosenfeld about the Fourth Reich at the start of…

Adam Smith circa 1775; medallion by Tassie

Adam Smith analysed human behaviour, not economics, says Simon Heffer

Simon Heffer 21 July 2018 9:00 am

Jesse Norman unpicks the many myths of Adam Smith – a ‘behavioural scientist’ even more than an economist, says Simon Heffer

The best single-volume history of the Great War yet written

Simon Heffer 5 May 2018 9:00 am

The historiography of the Great War is stupendous, the effects of the conflict being so far-reaching that even today historians…

One of the famous victory tapestries shows John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, at the battle of Blenheim

Peter Ackroyd keeps his revolutions under control

Simon Heffer 19 November 2016 9:00 am

To write, and indeed to read, a history of considerable range, both in terms of chronology and of subject matter,…

Published in France during the Siege of Paris, a caricature shows Wilhelm I carving up Europe with a knife inscribed ‘Bismarck’

A century of violence — from Waterloo to the Great War

Simon Heffer 3 September 2016 9:00 am

The Penguin History of Europe reaches its seventh volume (out of nine) with Richard J. Evans’s thorough and wide-ranging work…

HMS Agamemnon lays the first Atlantic telegraph cable between Trinity Bay and Valentia Island

The 1850s: a dizzying decade of boom and bust

Simon Heffer 26 March 2016 9:00 am

We can all identify decades in which the world moved forward. Wars are not entirely negative experiences: the social and…

A Horrible History of English Hymns

Simon Heffer 12 December 2015 9:00 am

Given that for much of English history the country’s main musical tradition was that connected with the church, it is…

The ‘art’ of stealing presented as English heritage

Simon Heffer 13 June 2015 9:00 am

The publicity blurb about the two unpleasant criminals whom this dismal book romanticises says that they are ‘continuing their ancestors’…

The art of political biography remains in intensive care if Giles Radice’s latest book is anything to go by, says Simon Heffer

Simon Heffer 21 March 2015 9:00 am

With the odd exception — I think principally of Charles Moore’s life of Margaret Thatcher — the genre of political…

From ‘The Temptation of Eve’: detail of glass from Ely Cathedral designed by Pugin, 1858

Cambridge, showcase for modernism (and how costly it is to fix)

Simon Heffer 13 December 2014 9:00 am

The Pevsner architectural guides are around halfway through their revisions — though it is like the Forth Bridge, and soon…

What will it take for us to stop doing business with Qatar?

Simon Heffer 4 October 2014 9:00 am

Qatari money has flooded into London – but also into much less savoury places

Who’s afraid of Vladimir Putin?

Stand up to a bully

Simon Heffer 26 July 2014 9:00 am

If only European leaders were more like Tony Abbott

Vote yes, Scots – and set the English free

Simon Heffer 5 July 2014 9:00 am

Scottish independence would indeed be a disaster – but only for the Scots

Rolf Harris CBE, child abuser

Be grateful this criminal left your lucky country

Simon Heffer 5 July 2014 9:00 am

On the list of trusted Australians, ‘Rolfie’ would be several thousand rungs below Ned Kelly

Little Scotlanders

Simon Heffer 7 June 2014 9:00 am

If  Scotland votes for independence on 18 September, it will be the end of Great Britain. And thanks to Pommie cynicism, selfishness and comic incompetence, it could happen

Why we love the Cambridges

Simon Heffer 26 April 2014 9:00 am

The visiting Royals are more like film stars than royalty, following the template set by the Duke’s late mother

More British than Britain

Simon Heffer 8 March 2014 9:00 am

In the interests of a more civilised world, let the Commonwealth leaders trump democratic values

Tony is soft on crime

Simon Heffer 18 January 2014 9:00 am

The only way to stop aggressive drunks is for the state to become even more aggressive with them

Psychological victory: Mitchell Johnson and team-mates

Hubris and humiliation

Simon Heffer 11 January 2014 9:00 am

How to account for the collapse of the English cricket team? Hint: it has little to do with Aussie brilliance

Grand delusions?

Simon Heffer 16 November 2013 9:00 am

So what is the point of the Commonwealth in this day and age?

In praise of our future King

Simon Heffer 9 November 2013 9:00 am

Far from being agitated, restless and frustrated, the 65-year-old heir to the throne is ready for prime time

Pass the torch

Simon Heffer 5 October 2013 9:00 am

If only Britain had sound conservatives such as John Howard and Tony Abbott

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