Nigel Jones

What was behind Colonel Thomas Blood’s failed attempt to steal the Crown Jewels during the cash-strapped reign of Charles II and how did he survive such a treasonable act? 

The innocence of France’s Captain Dreyfus – a Jewish officer incarcerated on Devil’s Island after he was accused of spying for Germany – has long been established. But was there a real traitor? And what part did Oscar Wilde play in the murky affair?

Nigel Jones celebrates a great humanitarian who navigated the perilous paths between good and evil, a mission that was to cost him his life.

As Europe polarised between Right and Left in the 1930s, many artists and authors nailed their reputations to either extreme. Others, says Nigel Jones, took refuge in the ‘inner emigration’ of silence. Even in stable Britain, writers felt compelled to take a stand – often in the service of the secret state.

Why is the sordid murder of Horst Wessel, a young Nazi storm troop leader in Berlin in early 1930, so important? Nigel Jones recalls his death and the black legend that sprang from it.