Sara Wheeler
Tales of Derring-Do
John Barrow has been called the father of Arctic exploration. ‘In fact,’ says Fergus Fleming firmly in his jolly new book, ‘he was the father of global exploration.’ Barrow was appointed Second Secretary to the Admiralty in 1804, and except for a brief hiatus between 1806 and 1807, he remained at his post until 1845. The First Secretary was an MP. The Second made things happen. Barrow dispatched volleys of ships ‘to every blank on the map that caught his fancy’.
A no-nonsense Lancastrian, Barrow ‘carved out a niche for himself as a geographer’ as a young man. Unfortunately he wasn’t a very good one. ‘He had no original views,’ says Fleming. ‘When he held a geographical opinion it was frequently the wrong one.’ After a spell in South Africa, where
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Foreign-policy pundits, then as now, tended to lack subtlety, even if they could be highly articulate about a nation they did not like very much.'
Read Lucy Wooding's review of Clare Jackson's 'Devil-Land', which has won the @WolfsonHistory prize.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-view-from-across-the-channel
From the First World War to Evelyn Waugh: @DaisyfDunn takes us into the world of Oxford between the wars.
Generously supported by @Lit_Review
#CVHF #AmazingHistory #UniversityofOxford
'That they signify something is not in question. Yet how to interpret the symbols of a long-vanished society? What would the inhabitants of the 50th century make of the ubiquity of crosses in Europe?'
Hilary Davies on the art of the Lascaux caves.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/poems-of-the-underground