Category: Reviews
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TV Review: ‘Julius Caesar Revealed’
Written by Daniel Sharp The BBC’s recent documentary about Julius Caesar was a lively and entertaining re-evaluation of one of the classical world’s most famous figures. With Professor (and now Dame) Mary Beard as our guide, we are invited to consider the many ways in which Caesar, his achievements, and his actions have…
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Historical attraction review: ‘The Real Mary King’s Close’
Written by Daniel Sharp In the 1990s, a Japanese medium visited Mary King’s Close in Edinburgh’s Old Town. She sensed nothing at all until she entered a perfectly preserved seventeenth-century house and felt a despairing presence in the room. Turning to leave, the medium felt a tug on her trouser leg and turned…
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Book review: Peter Clarke’s ‘Hope and Glory: Britain 1900-2000’
Written by Daniel Sharp Peter Clarke’s history of twentieth-century Britain was first published in 1996 before being updated and republished under a new subtitle in 2004. It is this latter version which is under review here and which – as I read it recently in my spare time – astonished me with its…
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A Review of ‘Napoleon the great? A debate with Andrew Roberts, Adam Zamoyski and Jeremy Paxman’ from Intelligence Squared
Written by Daniel Sharp In 2014, the historian Andrew Roberts published Napoleon the Great, a biography of the Emperor of the French which argued forcefully that he deserves the appellation Roberts gives him in the book’s title. This is, of course, a controversial position – Napoleon Bonaparte is one of the most divisive figures…
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Film review: The Death of Stalin
Written by Scarlett Butler The film The Death of Stalin, adapted from a French comic of the same name, considers the power struggle which follows Stalin’s (Adrian McLoughlin) death and which rages whilst the Soviet high-ups are arranging the dictator’s funeral. The main rivals are the Minister for Internal Affairs, Lavrenti Beria, convincingly…
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Russia Strikes Back: A Postscript to ‘Is Stalin Really Dead?’
EDITORIAL NOTE: In our printed ‘Individuals and Communities’ edition of last year (no. 21) Deana Davis wrote a review of the film The Death of Stalin. Deana wrote a postscript to her review not long after for publication on our website concerning then-recent developments to the film’s status in Russia, which slipped through the cracks earlier this…
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Seminar review: ‘Franciscan Women as Architects of the ‘Heavenly Courts’ in Bohemia and the Polish Duchies, c.1234–1320’ by Dr. Kirsty Day
Written by Candice Maharaj On 31 October 2017, Dr. Kirsty Day, a teaching Fellow in Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh, conducted a seminar on her current work – Franciscan Women as Architects of the ‘Heavenly Courts’ in Bohemia and the Polish Duchies, c.1234–1320. Dr. Day’s research on this topic explores the close…
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A review of ‘The Whiskey Rebellion: Trump: One Year On’, a live podcast recording
Written by Daniel Sharp If you have never listened to The Whiskey Rebellion I can highly recommend it. Hosted by Dr David Silkenat and Professor Frank Cogliano of the University of Edinburgh – specialists in nineteenth and eighteenth-century American history respectively – it is a podcast which tries to put current developments in…
Retrospect Journal 