Interview

What’s the most important lesson history has taught me? That we learn nothing from it.

Which moment would I most like to go back to? Berlin at the end of the First World War.

What will future generations judge us most harshly for? Complacency.

‘What’s the most important lesson history has taught me? It’s not about you.’

‘What will future generations judge us most harshly for? Losing the Second Cold War to China.’

‘We can’t see our own blindspots, so, as we anatomise those of our predecessors, we perpetuate our own.’

‘What’s the most important lesson history has taught me? That the same arguments come around again and again.’

‘I’d be disappointed if I didn’t meet Emperor Claudius in the afterlife.’

‘Humans change very little over time. We love, worry and hope today in much the same way as we did 5,000 years ago.’

‘The most common misconception about my field is that classicists study a past that no longer impacts on our world today.’