On the Spot: Catherine Fletcher
What will future generations judge us most harshly for? Abandoning the rule that truth matters in public life.
Why are you a historian of the Renaissance?
I went on holiday to Florence and needed an excuse to go back.
What’s the most important lesson history has taught you?
People are complicated.
Which history book has had the greatest influence on you?
Garrett Mattingly’s Renaissance Diplomacy (1955), a foundational text in its field but also written for a general readership.
What book in your field should everyone read?
Lois Schwoerer’s Gun Culture in Early Modern England (2016): a study of the origins of the debates about gun control still taxing the US today.
Which moment would you most like to go back to?
The fall of the Berlin Wall.
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