We would understand more if the work of historian Tyler Stovall were better known‘For me, history is the record not only of how things change, but how people make things change, how they act individually and collectively to create a better world.” So w…
The Secret of Life by Howard Markel review – science and misogyny
A cinematic account of toxic masculinity among 1950s DNA researchers – and a celebration of scientist Rosalind FranklinThe first page of Howard Markel’s comprehensive history The Secret of Life reads like the opening scene of a movie. “On February 28, …
Born in Blackness by Howard W French review – dehumanised in the age of discovery
The scale of the west’s exploitation of Africa and Africans in the pursuit of economic power is laid bare in this painful, passionate retelling of Eurocentric historyThe way we think about history is entirely wrong, says Howard W French at the start of…
The Secret Royals by Richard Aldrich and Rory Cormac review – spying and the crown
Bizarre and disturbing episodes are revealed in this excellent history of the royal family’s relationship with espionageOn a March evening in 1974, having shot and wounded Princess Anne’s protection officer and driver, Ian Ball began remonstrating with…
On my radar: Sam Fender’s cultural highlights
The Tyneside rocker on his favourite bath time podcast, a second world war memoir and where to get the best breakfast kippersSam Fender was born in 1994 and raised in North Shields. He began writing songs aged 14, building on an affinity with Bruce Spr…
How to Be an Antiracist author Ibram X Kendi awarded MacArthur ‘genius grant’
Writers Daniel Alarcón and Reginald Dwayne Betts have also been named on the list of 25 new fellows to receive $625,000 from the foundationThe bestselling historian Ibram X Kendi has been awarded a $625,000 (£460,000) MacArthur “genius grant” for his w…
We Don’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole review – sweeping account of Ireland’s evolutions
The veteran journalist and author delves behind the myths of change and boom to give a rich, nuanced picture of Irish life as he and others lived it“For all my life until about 1980,” Fintan O’Toole writes, “I had been told to think of myself as the en…
Mary Beard: ‘If we want to understand the pandemic, we need the arts’
The Cambridge classicist on owning her TV image, dealing with internet trolls, and why her new book on Roman emperors sheds light on our preoccupation with statuesIn her new book, Twelve Caesars, Mary Beard touches enticingly on the life of Elagabalus,…
Index, a History of the by Dennis Duncan review – a delightfully readable A to Z
Can a good index be compiled by computer software, or is there an art to this overlooked endeavour?It may be a sign of the joylessness of contemporary academia, or simply of inattentiveness to detail, but I have never paid much attention to the indexes…
On the Cusp: Days of ’62 by David Kynaston review – dizzyingly varied
Kynaston’s impressive history of Britain comes to the year 1962, when Harold Macmillan pulled out the long knives and the Beatles released ‘Love Me Do’In Whitehall, prime minister Harold Macmillan unexpectedly sacked a third of his cabinet; in a North …