Interview

‘People can surprise you. They often don’t fit into the categories we impose on them.’

‘Ideas don’t do things; people do.’

‘What is the most common misconception about my field? That it is ‘great man’ history.’

‘People don't learn from others’ mistakes. We have a need to make our own.’

‘What will future generations judge us most harshly for? That we allowed Donald Trump to violate the US constitution.’

‘The generalship at the top in the First World War was as bad as Liddell Hart said it was’.

‘People think curators sit about in armchairs drinking tea while occasionally peering at an object. It’s a little more high octane than that.’

The historian of Roman literature on Augustus’ funeral and the world’s best museum.

The historian on her love for Mary Wollstonecraft, Locke’s manuscripts and why you should wash your hands.

The historian of Russia on Dostoevsky, Foucault and sympathy for the Bolsheviks.