Daniel Snowman
Only Connect
Sometimes I think I’m a jack of many trades and master of none. But on a good day I tell myself that, as a historian, there may be some merit in this. History – of all disciplines – surely invites cross-fertilisation with others. Yet I sense that much historical research continues to be specialist and, in general, to marginalise the arts (especially ‘classical’ music), historians preferring to leave them to the experts. For its part, much arts history continues to be largely preoccupied with its own often esoteric subject matter.
Things used to be a lot worse. When I was at Cambridge half a century ago, ‘history’ concentrated on great public trends and events and the men responsible for them. By the later 1960s and 1970s, the historiographical barometer was swinging towards the story of ‘ordinary’ people. This
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In 1524, hundreds of thousands of peasants across Germany took up arms against their social superiors.
Peter Marshall investigates the causes and consequences of the German Peasants’ War, the largest uprising in Europe before the French Revolution.
Peter Marshall - Down with the Ox Tax!
Peter Marshall: Down with the Ox Tax! - Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War by Lyndal Roper
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The Soviet double agent Oleg Gordievsky, who died yesterday, reviewed many books on Russia & spying for our pages. As he lived under threat of assassination, books had to be sent to him under ever-changing pseudonyms. Here are a selection of his pieces:
Literary Review - For People Who Devour Books
Book reviews by Oleg Gordievsky
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The Soviet Union might seem the last place that the art duo Gilbert & George would achieve success. Yet as the communist regime collapsed, that’s precisely what happened.
@StephenSmithWDS wonders how two East End gadflies infiltrated the Eastern Bloc.
Stephen Smith - From Russia with Lucre
Stephen Smith: From Russia with Lucre - Gilbert & George and the Communists by James Birch
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