This is the incredible story of Elżbieta Zawacka, the WW2 female resistance fighter known as Agent Zo, told here for the first time. Agent Zo was the only woman to reach London from Warsaw during the Second World War as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command. In Britain she became the only woman […]
Historia interview: Clare Mulley
Acclaimed biographer Clare Mulley’s latest book, Agent Zo: the Untold Story of Fearless WW2 Resistance Fighter Elżbieta Zawacka, is published on 16 May, 2024. Clare talks to novelist Carolyn Kirby about the long and remarkable life of Elżbieta Zawacka, or Agent Zo, Polish freedom fighter and one of most successful female spies of the Second […]
The English Führer by Rory Clements
Autumn 1945, and off the east coast of England a Japanese sub surfaces, unloads its mysterious cargo, then blows itself to pieces. Former spy Professor Tom Wilde is enjoying peacetime in Cambridge, settling back into teaching and family life. Until a call from senior MI5 boss Lord Templeman brings him out of retirement. A nearby […]
National Treasures by Caroline Shenton
As Hitler prepared to invade Poland during the sweltering summer of 1939, men and women from across London’s museums, galleries and archives formulated ingenious plans to send the nation’s highest prized objects to safety. Using stately homes, tube tunnels, slate mines, castles, prisons, stone quarries and even their own homes, a dedicated bunch of unlikely […]
The French Resistance: shadier than you think
Chris Lloyd, author of the HWA Gold Crown Award-winning The Unwanted Dead, talks about his fascination with the German occupation of France and the concepts of resistance and collaboration; topics in which, he says, “the grey areas become shadier” the deeper you look. His novel was selected as Waterstones Welsh Book of the Month for […]
Concentration camps and the politics of memory
The preservation and interpretation of Second World War memorials of the Holocaust, such as concentration camps, varies across Europe, Catherine Hokin tells Historia. Decisions on what – and how – to preserve depended on the politics and beliefs of those in power at the time. I have spent much of the last two years researching […]
Summer of the Three Pagodas by Jean Moran
Hong Kong, 1950. Now the war is over, Dr Rowena Rossiter is ready to plan a new life with her great love, Connor O’Connor. But before they can, bad news arrives. A female doctor is urgently needed in Seoul and the powers that be want Rowena to go. She refuses – until rumours begin to […]
The Lost Lights of St Kilda by Elisabeth Gifford
1927: when Fred Lawson takes a summer job on St Kilda, little does he realise that he has joined the last community to ever live on that beautiful, isolated island. Only three years later, St Kilda will be evacuated, the islanders near-dead from starvation. But for Fred, that summer – and the island woman, Chrissie, […]