I am very grateful to the lay preachers at Frenchgate Chapel in the nineteen sixties for being just about the worst advocates for their religion I can imagine.  They not only failed to convince me, at about age 7, that I should believe in God.  They failed to persuade me that they did either. Looking

I have just looked and to my amazement History Books Review is on the new and noteworthy page for history podcasts on iTunes.  Blimey.

Its a mini-book so this is a mini-review.  Leo the Wise was the founder of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire.  His life was fairly eventful, but it isn’t obvious from this account that anything he did was particularly wise, though he did just about manage to get the dynasty off on fairly firm

I was saddened to hear of the death of the great Benoit Mandelbrot today.  Although this is a history blog, I am a scientist. My love of history comes from the same place as my love of science, both help us understand the way the world around us is.  I don’t think anybody in the

I am not going to make a habit of posting updates on what I am up to, but I thought a bit of explanation of what is going on might be of interest to my small but perfectly formed band of followers.  First off, I am writing new stuff for this blog faster than I

If you want to follow this series it starts with the reign of the first Roman emperor Augustus.  The previous episode is about the most eccentric emperor of  Rome, Elagabalus. With the body of his cousin bobbing down the Tiber in disgrace, Alexander was instantly acclaimed the emperor and acquired the huge list of titles