Conservative History Journal

Jesse Norman's book on Edmund Burke was published last year but I have only just managed to read it and found it very interesting. Last year or this, the subject and the author are suitable topics for this blog and Edmund Burke - Philosopher, Politician, Prophet is a book that many readers of this blog would find of importance and interest. Burke comes into that category of people about whom we all seem to know a little but few...

100 years ago today, on June 28, 1914 the shots that ushered in the disaster of the twentieth century were fired in Sarajevo by a Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip at the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. I need not go through all the subsequent events that eventually led to the First World War which, in turn, led to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, and of Europe in general, pushed Britain and the British Empire closer to the bankruptcy and dissolution of the second half of the century and unleashed...

Barbarossa Day. The German invasion of the Soviet Union begins. Not of Russia or of what was then Ukraine but of the Soviet Union or, in other words, eastern Poland that the Red Army had invaded in 1939. Did Hitler make a mistake by the invasion itself? It did not look like it at first as the Wehrmacht rolled ahead and Stalin and his gang were caught "unawares" despite the many warnings. Nevertheless, it was his big mistake or, to be...

Tory Historian has been ignoring THAT anniversary though THAT date (of THOSE shots) is coming. However, the time has come, TH thinks to read something around the subject and this new book about the Habsburgs by Paula Sutter Fichtner, who has written a great deal on the subject before, seems to be the right way to start. The book starts with some discussion of Usage, that is of names, both geographic and personal, a matter of huge contention...

People seem to be interested in E. R. Punshon, a shamefully neglected writer of the Golden  Age period and beyond. He was not in the top bracket though interesting and popular enough in his day. Let's face it, too many of those writers, male and female, have been forgotten for no good reason. Readers of classic detective fiction will be very glad to be able to get hold of more than just novels by the "four Queens", good though they...

The greatest sea-borne invasion force sets out to liberate western Europe from Nazi occupation. "Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers in arms on other...

Review copies of two books have been received, both seem interesting and will, in due course, be written about. One is by Timothy Heppell, called The Tories and subtitled From Winston Churchill to David Cameron, "a comprehensive and accessible study of the electoral strategies, governing approaches and ideological thought of the British Conservative Party from Winston Churchill to David Cameron". This is not, perhaps, the most exciting of all topics and the book is academic in its language and approach but it has the makings...

The history of food in its various aspects is of great interest (or ought to be) to anyone who finds social history of importance. I have no desire to argue about the relative importance of political, diplomatic, social or economic history as they all contribute to our knowledge and understanding of the societies we study. The idea that there is something inferior or, heaven forfend, unmasculine about social history has always puzzled...

The death of Lady Soames, née Mary Churchill, at the age of 91 has been announced. While she lived to a very good age and achieved a good many things, there is always a slight sadness as the country loses (inevitably) another link with the past, particularly events of the Second World War during which she had a far more interesting time than most members of the ATS as she often accompanied her father on his many trips abroad. She was...