Category Archives: History

Womanland

THERE can be few myths as ingrained in our consciousness as that of the Amazons, an ancient caste of warrior women whose marksmanship struck fear into the hearts of their enemies, who chose sexual partners freely and who sacrificed their male offspring to preserve the matriarchy…

This article first appeared in New Scientist on 9 February 2022. To continue reading, click here.

 

Can history teach us anything about the future of war – and peace?

TEN years ago, the psychologist Steven Pinker published The Better Angels of Our Nature, in which he argued that violence in almost all its forms – including war – was declining. The book was ecstatically received in many quarters, but then came the backlash, which shows no signs of abating. In September, 17 historians published a riposte to Pinker, suitably entitled The Darker Angels of Our Nature, in which they attacked his “fake history” to “debunk the myth of non-violent modernity”. Some may see this as a storm in an intellectual teacup, but the central question – can we learn anything about the future of warfare from the ancient past? – remains an important one…

This article first appeared in The Observer on 7 November 2021. To continue reading, click here.

On pandemic time

LAST week, 15 volunteers descended into a cave in south west France, where they will remain for 40 days and 40 nights, without sunlight or watches, in an experiment designed to probe the dislocation in time that has characterised life with Covid…

This article first appeared in The Telegraph on 23 March 2021. To continue reading, click here.

Memorialising Covid

JUST over two years ago, my friend Janet came over to commiserate with my husband, whose leg was in plaster after a road accident. We immediately noticed a change in her. This sharp, funny woman in her mid-60s, who had nothing good to say about men (with the exception of her three beloved sons, whom she had raised almost single-handedly) had softened…

This article first appeared in The Guardian on 18 March 2021. To continue reading, click here.

 

The first urbanites

AROUND 6200 years ago, farmers living on the eastern fringes of Europe, in what is now Ukraine, did something inexplicable. They left their neolithic villages and moved into a sparsely inhabited area of forest and steppe. There, in an area roughly the size of Belgium between the modern cities of Kiev and Odessa, they congregated at new settlements up to 20 times the size of their old ones…

This article first appeared in New Scientist on 27 February 2021. To continue reading, click here (paywall).