The direct experience of the gunners has long been a neglected aspect of World War II history. We have had plenty on life in a tank unit, or a fighter squadron, but there is a sense in which the role…
Just over halfway through her excellent new book on Germany between the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War, Katja Hoyer tells the story of the ‘Captain of Köpenick’ incident. In 1906, an petty criminal called Wilhelm Voigt went around…
Despite depictions of the Battle of Britain as a campaign waged by grown-up men and women, the average age of an RAF fighter pilot at the height of the Second World War was just 20 – with those involved in…
This is a fine, deeply researched book, with Frank Whittle’s story beginning with a lad of humble origin who, aged just 16, entered the RAF as an apprentice fitter, already with strong views about the viability of gas-turbine aero engines…
A crisis over a small island south of the mainland United States in the autumn of 1962 was the closest the world ever came to a devastating nuclear war. Award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy, who recently chronicled the 1986 Chernobyl disaster,…
In 1982, Britain went to war in the Falklands, relying for the last time on an aircraft that was entirely made within the country: the Harrier Jump Jet. Not only this, but the head of the department that produced the…
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor of 80 years ago not only brought the United States into a war, but provoked a wave of hostility to Japanese immigrants and their children across America. Daniel James Brown here explores the lives…
‘I trust no one, not even myself.’ So the merciless dictator of the Soviet Union reportedly once said. In this new book, Sean McMeekin explores the Second World War from Joseph Stalin’s perspective. From his complex relations with both Winston…
What did the leaders of the ‘Big Three’ superpowers during the Second World War have in common? Well, Franklin Roosevelt’s five children went through 19 marriages between them. Meanwhile, Stalin laughed off his son’s suicide attempt and chronically neglected his…
From slings and arrows to cyberwarfare, conflict is innate to human nature despite the peace much of the modern world now enjoys. In the latest addition to the bestselling ‘shortest history’ series, historian Gwynne Dyer summarises the story of conflict…
The Eastern Front remains the forgotten child of Western histories of the Second World War. Even the phrase ‘Eastern Front’ is a reflection of a Western-centric view that sees the struggle between the USSR and Germany as an afterthought compared…
Symonds provides a particularly accessible and entertaining overview of this complex monument, including the history of its construction and the role of the Wall in later history.
Assembling an extensive patchwork of evidence, Livingston tries to recreate the ‘facts’ of the Battle of Brunanburh – the major battle between King Æthelstan’s English forces and an alliance of Vikings and Scots in AD 937. While he makes some…
This new publication, which draws on discussions at the 2017 European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) conference and the work of the EAA Urban Archaeology Community, explores the complexities of carrying out archaeology in urban spaces across Europe. Urban centres are…
Relationships between contemporary Pagan groups and those who work in the fields of archaeology and heritage management have been strained for many years due to disagreements over ancient sites and human remains. Inspired by Francis Pryor’s assertion that both groups…
It all began with a bead: a small piece of carnelian recovered during the excavation of a Viking Great Army mass grave at Repton in 1982. Thirty-five years later, it fascinated Cat Jarman, who was examining artefact archives for the…
Searching the beaches of the River Thames for artefacts has grown enormously in popularity over the last decade or so, with hundreds of enthusiasts now engaged in this activity and a thriving online community using social media to share discoveries.…
When, in 1908, Julius von Schlosser published Art and Curiosity Cabinets of the Late Renaissance (originally Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance), he had been working for more than 15 years in what is now the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna,…
The cross is ubiquitous in medieval Christian iconography. As it was on the cross that Jesus died, bringing believers salvation, it is a critical component of the religion. But, despite the ubiquity and apparent simplicity of the instantly recognisable form,…
A leading handbook of scripts and writing that runs to almost a thousand pages, The World’s Writing Systems (1996), edited by Peter Daniels and William Bright, contains scarcely any reference to the Aztec writing system of Mesoamerica. Wikipedia’s entry on…
Famously (or infamously), the Roman Ninth Legion is believed to have disappeared around the end of the 1st century AD, a view made popular by Rosemary Sutcliff in her fictionalised account of the story in The Eagle of the Ninth.…
The Neolithic is that pivotal point in prehistory where community changes, from dependence on hunting, fishing, gathering strategies based on seasonal availability to seasonal harvesting, animal husbandry, food procurement, and storage. Until recently, archaeologists took a broad-brush approach, sometimes ignoring…
Caves can be portals to otherworlds, and Covesea Cave on Scotland’s Moray Firth is no exception. Armit and Büster’s handsomely produced volume transports us back in time to both the late Bronze Age and Roman Iron Age, revealing exciting new…
A few days ago I saw a notice that said ‘BeGambleAware’. It warned of the dangers of addiction, but it could have referred to the author of this book. Readers of Current Archaeology will already be aware that Clive Gamble,…
It has been more than two decades since Sam Lucy’s seminal book The Anglo-Saxon Way of Death, and in the intervening years new cemeteries, methodologies, and mortuary archaeology theory have advanced to the point that we are due a sequel.…
The film The Dig has shown that public interest can be engaged by a vintage excavation, and this book likewise recounts the results and evokes the mood of three seasons of digging, in this case in the 1960s. We cannot…
Bringing together case studies from across Europe and beyond, this volume highlights the challenges shared by many archaeologists working in urban centres.
This short book in connection with a project at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, looking at its own forgotten ‘Ancient Europe’ collection, which was dispersed in the 1950s.
We, as modern humans, tend to look at ancient art with a 21st-century mindset. It is all too easy to stare (in wonder) at Palaeolithic rock art and conceive some idea, however complex, and consider it to be a plausible interpretation.
The primary aim of this volume is to address the issue of bioarchaeological age assessment and the different social responses to ages and maturing within past societies
It is one of the great ‘what ifs?’ of World War II. What would have happened had the Nazis acquired a nuclear weapon? The consequences are unthinkable. The sabotaging of the Nazi nuclear programme was therefore one of the most…
The story of Alexander the Great, the dashing young prince who conquered vast swathes of the world before his mysterious death at the age of just 32, is a familiar one. It has fascinated historians for over two millennia, but…
The author is a renowned scholar of the Roman Army and has written many books, both on this topic and related Roman subjects. The present work will be an absolute delight for those who are fascinated by the life and…
The precise number is uncertain, but around 35,000 foreign fighters may have served in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. Of these, perhaps one in five died, becoming, in the words of Ernest Hemingway, ‘part of the earth…
The Korean War was the first serious clash of the Cold War, but it also witnessed a small and often-overlooked revolution in airpower. During the conflict, the last generation of piston-engined fighters gave way to new state-of-the-art jet- powered replacements.…
Despite the deserved praise for Special Operations Executive members Violette Szabo and Noor Inayat Khan, many of its other agents are forgotten. Kate Vigurs here attempts to redress the balance, looking at the widely varying experiences of all 39 women…