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Watching History

Like your history on stage or screen? Our team reviews film, theatre and TV drama with a historical slant.

Review: 1917

28 January 2020 By Elizabeth Fremantle

With its immersive cinematic techniques, the film 1917 conveys the relentless horror of war in a manner that is “profoundly moving”, author Elizabeth Fremantle tells Historia. Sam Mendes’s film 1917, inspired by the stories told by his grandfather of fighting in the First World War, has divided both critics and viewers. Some have deemed it […]

TV review: The Windermere Children

27 January 2020 By James Burge

The Windermere Children (BBC 2, 27 January, 2020) follows the true story of a group of children, recently freed from concentration camps who, in 1945, were brought to Windermere for four months of rehabilitation under the auspices of child psychologist Oscar Friedmann (Thomas Kretschmann) and philanthropist Leonard Montefiore (Tim McInnerny). Made to be transmitted on […]

TV review: The Crown, season 3

23 November 2019 By James Burge

The timing couldn’t be better. The Crown(season 3)returns to TV screens in a week when the Royal Family is back in the headlines and the role of its members is once again being questioned. And with Olivia Colman in the title role, playing a very different kind of queen from the one she gave us […]

Review: The Name of the Rose: TV series

21 October 2019 By Jean Goodhind

John Turturro’s TV adaptation of The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco’s dark murder mystery set in a Benedictine abbey in 14th-century Italy, began screening on BBC2 in October, 2019. Author Jean Goodhind has read the book and seen the film; how will this version compare? The moment I saw this in my TV schedule […]

Review: Downton Abbey: the film

13 October 2019 By LJ Trafford

Does Downton Abbey work as a film? Should you take your non-DA-addict friend or partner to see it? Will there be posh frocks and implausible plots? These and many other important questions are answered in LJ Trafford’s Historia review. The world is neatly divided into those who have never seen Downton Abbey and those who […]

Review: World on Fire

4 October 2019 By Elizabeth Buchan

Screening a Second World War drama series so soon after the 80th anniversary commemorations could be a bold decision – or a predictable one. Elizabeth Buchan has watched the first episode of World on Fire (BBC One, Sundays, 9pm) and tells Historia whether the gamble has paid off. A world war with the best tourist […]

Review: D-Day: The Last Heroes

9 June 2019 By AL Berridge

Best-selling author AL Berridge reviews D-Day: The Last Heroes, shown on BBC One on Saturday, 8 June, 2019

Review: Les Miserables

3 January 2019 By Kate Griffin

Les Miserables - main characters

Everything about Les Miserables is built on an epic scale. At around 1500 pages, depending on which edition is making your bookshelf sag, Victor Hugo’s novel (published in 1862) is not only physically enormous, but also it deals with MASSIVE themes: love, obsession, redemption, justice, fate and the nature of good and evil. It’s human […]

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Latest Releases

The Lying Dutchman by Graham Brack

20 May 2022

Dead in the Water by Mark Ellis

19 May 2022

Widows of the Ice by Anne Fletcher

15 May 2022

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Editor’s Picks

From the Mill to Monte Carlo by Anne Fletcher

15 June 2021

William of Orange's army arrives in England

Why the Glorious Revolution was . . . well, neither

4 November 2018

Historia Q&A: Ben Kane

15 May 2018

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Historia Magazine is published by the Historical Writers’ Association. We are authors, publishers and agents of historical writing, both fiction and non-fiction. For information about membership and profiles of our member authors, please visit our website.

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