Tom Williams considers whether historical fiction could be the most effective way to engage people in re-examining the history of the British Empire. September brought the re-publication of my novel Cawnpore, set during the events of 1857 known variously as the Indian Mutiny, the First Indian War of Independence, and the Indian Rebellion. (That’s far […]
Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking
Our guest this month, historian Deborah Cadbury, on the royal dynasty that ruled Europe. While researching extensively in the royal archives at Windsor Castle for my latest book, Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking, I was struck by the resonance between late-nineteenth-century Europe and today’s world. Reading accounts of the inflammatory rhetoric of the German Kaiser, the incidents of […]