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A Spy Amongst Us: Daniel Defoe’s Secret Service and the Plot to End Scottish Independence
Barely a pistol shot from my house on the Isle of Skye is Flora MacDonald’s grave. I’ve had reason to study her, the ‘Preserver of Prince Charles Edward Stuart’ (Bonnie Prince Charlie)
The Two Hundred Years War: The bloody crowns of England and France, 1292-1492
The sheer length of the Anglo-French conflict known as the ‘Hundred Years War’ – which actually lasted 116 years – has long invited debate about the label. Contemporaries, of course, did not
Allies at War: The Politics of Defeating Hitler
REVIEW BY CALUM HENDERSON When Tim Bouverie’s first book Appeasing Hitler appeared in 2019, it was generally considered to be something of a stunning debut: an eloquent and well-researched history of one
Lest We Forget: War and Peace in 100 British Monuments
REVIEW BY NICK HEWITT Historian and broadcaster Tessa Dunlop has energetically breathed life into the ‘history in a hundred’ format with her enthralling new book, which should be essential reading not just
Into the Reich: The Red Army’s Advance to the Oder in 1945
REVIEW BY DAVID PORTER In January 1945, the Red Army launched a powerful operation that was intended to go all the way to Berlin. The Vistula–Oder Offensive, as it was known, is
Myth and Reality: military art in the age of Queen Victoria
Reviewing the best military history exhibitions with Peter Popham.
Jewry Wall Museum: A real Roman experience, Leicester
Closed since 2017 for a major refurbishment, Leicester’s Jewry Wall Museum has recently reopened with new interactive displays shedding vivid light on the city’s Roman past. Carly Hilts reports.
Current Archaeology’s September Listings: exhibitions, events, and heritage from home
There are lots of great ways to get involved with history and archaeology over the next few months, including exhibitions, lectures, and conferences exploring a wide range of subjects. If you would prefer to get your heritage fix from the comfort of your sofa, though, there is a variety of resources on offer online, too, from virtual site tours and digital offerings by museums to podcasts, TV shows, and more. Kathryn Krakowka has put together a selection of some of the options available.
Norwich Castle & Art Gallery
Norwich’s imposing Norman keep has reopened after a five-year transformation project, boasting an interior restored to 12th-century finery and an atmospheric new medieval gallery. Carly Hilts reports.
The Trimontium Experience
The Trimontium Museum in Melrose is using Virtual Reality technology to vividly evoke a Roman assault on a hillfort community. Carly Hilts visited to learn more.
Medieval Warhorse: Equestrian landscapes, material culture, and zooarchaeology in Britain, AD 800-1550
REVIEW BY SUNNY HARRISON The mounted knight remains one of the iconic images of England in the Middle Ages, evoking King Arthur, massed charges, and the very notion of chivalry – all
Late Iron Age to Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon Settlement at Barton Seagrave, Northamptonshire
REVIEW BY ANDY CHAPMAN This monograph does everything that it says on the packaging in the quoted book review. It contains, ‘high quality data with extensive and thorough reporting by artefact/ecofact specialists’.
The Watermills and Landscape of the River Great Ouse, Cambridgeshire
REVIEW BY MAGNUS ALEXANDER This is a fascinating landscape history of a medieval ‘watermilling powerhouse’, which demonstrates that over 1,000 years of watermilling has had a huge impact on an apparently natural
The Trading and Consumption of Roman Glass in Britain 43-500 CE
REVIEW BY RACHEL TYSON This study analyses the glass from 29 sites across Roman Britain to provide us with a picture of its consumption within different socio-economic groups and gain a better
Cotton ‘Henge’ to Craft: Neolithic to Anglo-Saxon remains at Warth Park, Raunds, Northamptonshire
REVIEW BY ADAM SUTTON Thanks to the Raunds Area Project of the 1980s and 1990s, the site discussed in this volume is located in one of central England’s most intensively studied archaeological
Life in the Viking Great Army: Raiders, traders, and settlers
REVIEW BY COLLEEN BATEY The arrival of the Great Army on the shores of East Anglia in AD 865 was a seminal moment in English history. This marked the move away from
The temple of Qasr el-Sagha
Geoffrey Lenox-Smith visits an isolated temple in the desert north of the Fayum.
Current Research in Egyptology 2023: Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Symposium, University of Basel, 10-14 September 2023
REVIEW BY ROGER FORSHAW The 23rd Current Research in Egyptology (CRE) conference was held at the University of Basel in 2023. Bringing together an engaged community of mainly early career researchers, the
The Decline and Fall of the Ptolemies: Ptolemaic Egypt 146-30 BC
REVIEW BY SARAH GRIFFITHS In the third and final instalment of his Ptolemaic series, Grainger presents what he describes as a ‘deeply unpleasant and murderous succession of barely competent kings and queens’,
Amelia B Edwards: The ‘Queen of Egyptology’
REVIEW BY HILARY FORREST Most Egyptology enthusiasts will be familiar with the name of Amelia B Edwards. This new biography sets out to reveal aspects of her life that have, although sometimes