Chalke Talk

First Confession

Lord Patten, one of the most distinguished Tory ‘Wets’ of the 1980s and 1990s, talks about his time in office in the Conservative Party, as the last Governor of Hong Kong, European Commissioner, Chairman of the BBC and Chancellor of Oxford University. From Northern Ireland to Asia, he shows us unexpected sides of many of the great figures of the day.

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George Osborne: Politics and History

The former Chancellor looks at politics historically and divulges the historical antecedents which inspired him and his close friend David Cameron during their six years in government together. In conversation with Tim Bouverie, this is a rare insight into politics at the very highest level from the man Andrew Marr once called the smartest politician he had ever met. 

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Last Hope Island: Britain, Occupied Europe and the Brotherhood that Helped Turn the Tide of War

In the early days of World War II, London became the base of operations for the exiled leaders of occupied Europe. In their struggles against the mightiest military force in history, Britain become known as “Last Hope Island’. Acclaimed historian Lynne Olson describes how the British and their European guests joined forces to restore order to a broken continent.

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Hidden Histories: A Spotter's Guide to the British Landscape

From pathways, bridges and old houses, to hedges, churches, graveyards and field patterns left behind by medieval ploughmen, Mary-Ann Ochota helps decipher the story of our environment through the features we see around us and arms the amateur explorer with the crucial information needed to ‘read’ the landscape and spot the human activities that have shaped our green and pleasant land.

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Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsession Which Forged Modern Europe

The late lamented John Julius Norwich weaves a colourful story of four great princes who were born within a single decade. Henry VIII, Francis I of France, Charles V of Spain and Suleiman the Magnificent were sometimes friends, but more often enemies. From the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Francis and Henry’s extravagant pageant, to Suleiman’s celebratory pyramid of 2000 human heads, this is history at its most vivid.

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The Women Who Flew for Hitler: The True Story of Hitler's Valkyries

Hanna Reitsch and Melitta von Stauffenberg were talented and courageous women who fought convention to make their names in the male dominated world of flight and both were awarded the Iron Cross for service to the Third Reich. Acclaimed biographer Clare Mulley gives an exciting – and as yet largely unknown - account of Nazi Germany’s most highly decorated women test pilots.

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The Map of Knowledge: How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found

Violet Moller traces the journey taken by the ideas of three of the greatest scientists of antiquity – Euclid, Galen and Ptolemy – through seven cities and over a thousand years. In tracing these fragile strands of knowledge, Moller reveals the web of connections between the Islamic world and Christendom, connections that would both preserve and transform astronomy, mathematics and medicine from the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

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Robert Graves: From Great War Poet to Good-bye to All That

Robert Graves as war poet, and the poems he suppressed in an effort to put the war behind him, have been largely neglected – until now. Jean Moorcroft Wilson traces not only Graves’s compelling life, but also the development of his poetry during the First World War, his thinking about the conflict and his talents as a master prose writer and author of the revealing memoir Good-bye to All That.

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Don McCullin: Irreconcilable Truths

Legendary photographer Don McCullin first met Max Hastings in Cambodia in 1970. Here they discuss Sir Don’s long career from his time as a war photographer to his recent work in Syria, as well as some of the themes with which they are both familiar: fear, suffering and the terrible cost of war.

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A Hero for High Times: A Guide to the Beats, Hippies, Freaks, Punks, Ravers, New-Age Travellers and Dog-on-a-rope Brew Crew Crusties of the British Isles 1956-1994

A free spirit who embraced the post-war counter-culture, Ian Marchant takes us on a splendid journey through some of his personal highs from the age of the Beats to the protests of Swampy.

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