2018 has been an exciting year for historical writing, both fiction and non-fiction. With the holidays coming up, Elizabeth Fremantle asked fellow HWA members to choose three outstanding books each to recommend as the year’s highlights (and a few older favourites have popped up as well). We hope this selection inspires you, whether you’re looking […]
Writing popular history: Three lessons learned
Read everything you can. Get to know the place you’re writing about. Know when to stop researching and start writing. Those are three of the lessons I have learned in the last quarter century as a writer of popular history. My first book was an oral history of the Vietnam war based on interviews with […]
Historia interviews: Diarmaid MacCulloch
Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of the new biography Thomas Cromwell: A Life, is speaking at the Yorkshire Museum, York, on Friday, 14 December 2018. Tickets are £12 and available on their website. The event is presented by friends of the HWA, the York Literature Festival. Imogen Robertson, Chair of the HWA, spoke to him last week. I’ve […]
2018 HWA Crown winners giveaway!
Historia’s latest giveaway is the three remarkable books that won HWA Crowns earlier this month. We’re giving To Die in Spring, White King and Estoril to one winner. Follow the instructions below to enter. You’ve got four chances to win and can enter using any or all of the options: 1. Sign up to the Historia mailing list. […]
Historia interviews: Leanda de Lisle
White King, Leanda de Lisle’s biography of Charles I, won the 2018 Historical Writers’ Association Non-fiction Crown at an awards ceremony earlier this month. Historia talks to the author of this “quietly revolutionary” book.
The HWA Non-fiction Crown celebrates the best in historical non-fiction writing.
Review: Outlaw King
Netflix’s latest foray into original drama shines a spotlight on three crucial years (1304-1307) in the life of Robert the Bruce, the king who would eventually win independence for Scotland at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. We first meet Bruce two years before his 1306 coronation as he surrenders to King Edward I at […]
The 2018 HWA Crown Awards winners!
At last the waiting’s over and the winners have been announced. At an awards party held at the Swedenborg Centre in London on 7 November, 2018, and hosted by historian Kate Williams, HWA members and colleagues celebrated the winners of the three HWA Crown awards and the HWA / Dorothy Dunnett short story competition. The Sharpe […]
The fight for our battlefields
“Have you forgotten yet?” (Aftermath, Siegfried Sassoon) Even before the guns fell silent across the Western Front a century ago, staff at the Michelin Touring Office in London were busy preparing guidebooks for motorists intending to go see the trenches for themselves (see images above and below). By the early 1920s battlefield tourism had become big […]