Conservative History Journal

There will be further postings on the subject of dates and, Tory Historian hopes, further discussions before some kind of an agreed list is produced. The suspicion is that we might have to have a list of 100 or, at least, 75. It is obvious that 50 is an inadequate number.In the meantime, Tory Historian has been reading various books, including Amanda Vickery's fascinating account of a number of Georgian families and their womenfolk in Lancashire....

Tory Historian is delighted by the response to the "Dates, dates, dates" posting and is very aware of not having responded to several suggestions. Ça ira, ça ira ... There will be more on dates and other matters. Please keep posting those suggestions.In the meantime, a happy Christmas to all readers of this bl...

Over on The New Culture Forum Peter Whittle has a posting about the need to learn dates if one is to understand history at all. Readers of this blog know that Tory Historian is very much in favour of dates and marks as many of them as possible. Without knowing when things happened it is impossible to have anything but the most superficial and gooey idea of historical development.Mr Whittle’s challenge to his readers is to put together a list of 50 dates that would be essential learning for everyone who wants to know anything...

There is nothing so mortifying for an editor as to be told after an issue of the relevant journal has come out that there is a major mistake in it, particularly as said editor has not yet had her copies. (Ahem, hint.) The mistake is in not crediting a co-author.In the latest issue of the Conservative History Journal (available from the Conservative History Group) there is an article about the now almost forgotten but in his day very important Conservative politician, Ernest Marples.Its author is given as Professor David Dutton,...

In what might be the last major book-buying spree for some time Tory Historian acquired a review copy of a highly recommended (here and here, for instance, though you have to read a fair way in the second one) book, Kevin Phillips’s “The Cousins’ War”.The book looks most interesting and is clearly a vital text for all true Anglospherists but what caught Tory Historian’s attention immediately were the maps. Maps, as has been pointed out...

As promised in that editorial, the discussion about conservatism in other countries is about to start. Tory Historian is hoping for many learned contributions. There will be more said about Richard Pipes’s “Russian Conservatism and Its Critics” but this post concentrates on Professor Pipes’s chapter in which he defines and elucidates Russian autocracy and its historic development.To the frequently asked question “why does it keep going...

Part of Tory Historian's reading matter is Alan Ebenstein's biography of Friedrich Hayek, not a Tory, not even a conservative, strictly speaking but one of the greatest and most inspiring thinkers of the twentieth century, inspiring for the right in general.Almost immediately, TH found an interesting quotation about Hayek's influence on opponents of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, first published in Time Magazine on April 6, 1972: Tomas Jezek, who became Czech minister of privatization after the collapse of the communist...

And with another report from that wonderful institution, the National Portrait Gallery. TH’s interest was caught by the room that had some of the portraits, painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of the Kit-Cat Club, admittedly a Whig institution. The name is particularly attractive as, in Tory Historian’s opinion, Kit is preferable to Chris as the shortened form and the Club’s name comes from the name Christopher Catling (Kit Catling) the owner...

As promised, here is the Editorial of the new Conservative History Journal, which is now with the printer so can be considered to be in existence. It outlines plans for the future and our readers might be interested to read it on the blog as well. When the Journal is actually visible in hard copy the table of contents will go up as well.“The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/Gang aft agley”. So said Robert Burns and, though he was hardly a conservative in the usual sense of the word, one cannot really argue with him. The plan...

Proofs of the Conservative History Journal have been signed off and gone to the printer. Further news of their progression will be reported. Meanwhile, normal service (and a bit better) will resume on this bl...

The next issue of the Conservative History Journal has been set up in page-proofs and is being proof-read today. Which means it will be out within a week. The joyful news of its actual appearance will be heralded on this blog and bells shall be rung across the country.The editorial includes a number of plans for the future of the Journal and this blog. Once the Journal is in existence I shall put the Editorial up here as well (together with the table of contents to whet everyone's appetite) for readers to start a discussion...

There are a few anniversaries this week that need to be remembered, apart from Remembrance Day (known as Veterans’ Day in the United States). Keeping with the American theme, let us recall that November 10 saw the US Marine Corps’ 233rd birthday. What can one say but Semper Fi?Now to a darker anniversary: the night of November 9 – 10, 1938 is known as Kristallnacht. It all started on November 7, when the 19 year old Hershel Freible Grynszpan...

It is ninety years since that fateful hour when the guns fell silent and the hopes of peace, never realized, were born. The last British veteran of the Great War died just a few days ago and, it would seem, that we have lost all direct link with that conflict.The 1914 - 1918 war changed the world in a way we have not yet fully managed to deal with. The years before 1939, the Second World War, the subsequent battle with Communism, were all...

All American presidential elections are historic and some turn out to be far more important than anyone had expected. While I find the hype around the newly elected 44th President somewhat ridiculous (he is not the Messiah but another politician with very dubious connections and next to no experience) it is undoubtedly of historic importance. Barack Obama is not black but of mixed race and is not the descendant of slaves though, possibly, through his East African Arab ancestry of slave-traders. But it is, undoubtedly, of great...

There seems to be something irresistible about making priests, bishops, nuns, deacons and all sorts of clerics into detectives. It makes a certain amount of sense in that clerics have the right to go to many places others would be excluded from and enquire in a way that would be considered insolent in anybody else. Also, they are supposed to be able to understand human nature (this is a little dodgy, really) and to have divine guidance.Detective...

The next meeting of the Conservative History Group will take place on November 24. The speaker will be Andrew Roberts who will talk about his new book, "Masters and Commanders", which sounds extremely good. I have heard Roberts talk about it but have not got round to reading it. One more on the list.The meeting will start at 6.30 and will take place in the Wilson Room in Portcullis House. Please remember that security might take longer than you expe...

In the post a new book by Professor Jeremy Black, an historian who wears the label "conservative" as a badge of honour (as, indeed, he should). This one is a slight departure for him but one that many historians make from time to time. One of them was Andrew Roberts, the dedicatee of the book.Black's book is entitled "What If? - Counterfactualism and the problem of history". Tory Historian has no doubt that this is a suitably learned discourse and is looking forward to reading it. (The book is published by the Social Affairs...

Anniversaries Tory Historian did not mention in late October:The greatest of all is on October 21, Battle of Trafalgar. A great battle, a great victory and a great tragedy with the death of the Admiral, Lord Nelson. And on the left readers can see a chart of how the battle lines were drawn up.October 22 was a bleak day in 1962 as President Kennedy, comprehensively outwitted by Nikita Khrushchev, announced that there were Soviet missiles...

Well, one cat at the moment. One cat at a time. Tory Historian decided to spend some time in the British Museum this afternoon but the place was just a little packed. Saturday in half term may not be the best time for museum visits. And when, may we ask, will those long-promised European galleries be open?A quick trip round some of the favourites and some mooching in the Enlightenment Gallery - full of surprises as ever - and a photograph...

Tory Historian loves maps. Maps of any kind – black and white or coloured; political or geographical; historical or up-to-date ones. One of the most wonderful events in Tory Historian’s life was being allowed by that great personage, the librarian of the Royal Geographical Society, to handle and examine the first atlases ever made in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Bliss!History books need maps, travellers’ accounts need maps, biographies...

Browsing through the November edition (November? Where has the year gone to?) of History Today Tory Historian came across an article by Trea Martyn, who teaches history of gardening and has just published a book called “Elizabeth in the Garden”.At the heart of the book is the horticultural rivalry for Queen Elizabeth’s favour between William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, whose chief gardener was the great herbalist John Gerard (c.1545 – 1612) and...

Tory Historian is greatly taken by Niall Ferguson's "Empire - How Britain Made the Modern World" and has already done a posting on the somewhat ramshackle beginning of the Empire. (Interestingly, the American edition's subtitle is different: "The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Power".)Moving along historically, this is what Professor Ferguson has to say at the end of his long chapter, entitled "Why Britain?",...

This blog has not been forgotten. It's just that Tory Historian has been living in a series of rushes. There will be postings in a few hou...

… even though it has become very difficult to find copies without pictures of actors either from the 1981 TV series or the recent film on the cover. The film, “Brideshead Revisited”, has had more or less uniformly bad reviews on both sides of the Pond, comparison being made with the TV series that had started the careers of Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews and Diana Quick and featured such luminaries as Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Claire...

Tory Historian has launched into Niall Ferguson’s highly praised “Empire” and found a fascinating analysis of how the British Empire began. Of course, the role of the privateers (pirates as far as the Spanish and the Portuguese were concerned) is well known.English and Scottish explorers arrived in the New World a little late and could not find what they wanted – large amounts of gold that was enriching the King of Spain. Therefore, they...

Last Tuesday saw the seventieth anniversary of Neville Chamberlain’s return from the Berchtersgarten negotiations with the infamous “piece of paper” in his hands. A good deal of ink has been spent over the years in discussions of the Munich agreement with surprisingly little in the way of new thinking rather than repetition of the old myth, started by Churchill, who was quite conscious of doing “poor old Neville” down and by the Labour...

Tory Historian finds that re-reading George Orwell's essays is a remarkably useful exercise as one always finds something new and something appropriate. It is also interesting to look out for Orwell's weak points in politics and literature.Writing about propaganda, for instance, he rightly compares Soviet films about the Civil War in which the evil Whites are vanquished by the heroic Reds after a great deal of fighting and with many losses...

Tory Historian found another interesting mini-exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, this time a collection of drawings and prints by Richard George Mathews. In the introduction to the exhibition there is an unnecessarily snide comment about the pictures being of idle Edwardians who seemed to find a great deal of pleasure in just travelling.As the drawings are of writers like Kipling, Hardy and Jerome K. Jerome, of the Manager of...

More from Diane Urquhart's book on the formidable Londonderry ladies. This quote is singularly relevant to certain developments in the American presidential election, where the "second-wave feminists" have found themselves on the back foot: There is no question that the marchionesses formed part of a small coterie of political confidantes and hosteses who worked by distinctly personal means in high society to promote their family, direct careers and impact change while their marriage and widowhood would respectively facilitate...

The glamour of the Duchess of Devonshire has eclipsed a very important historical fact. She was not the only lady to have become involved in politics long before female suffrage had become a political fact. Nor were the Whigs the only ones to have powerful and influential political hostesses.Tory Historian is reading Diane Urquhart's "The Ladies of Londonderry", a history of that powerful family through the distaff side. The book follows the story for 150 years, from 1800 to 1959, by which time the role of the political hostess...

The Rosenbergs were really spies? Well, colour me surprised, as they say on the other side of the Pond. It seems that Morton Sobell, who was convicted of espionage with the notorious pair, has now admitted that yes, indeed, he and Julius Rosenberg with the help of his wife Ethel, spied for the Soviet Union.As it happens, the Venona documents and more recent finds in the KGB archives before they were closed to the public again have shown some time ago that there was not the slightest doubt on the subject. But, as the Rosenbergs...

A phone call from the Birmingham Council Leader’s office alerted me to the fact that this is not the first time the Conservative Party has decided to hold its annual conference in Birmingham. The Tory Council Leader wanted to know exactly when and in what circumstances did the previous events take place.Well, naturally, my first port of call was John Barnes, who is a mine of information about the Conservative Party and its history. He knew,...