Historical Fiction

Adolf Hitler understood that persuasion was everything and was the prime mover in the propaganda regime of the Third Reich. For Hitler, everything was a propaganda medium – from typography to architecture, from film to the design of uniforms. Hitler’s mastery of his own image has resonance in today’s ‘post-truth’ era of fake news. History Hit’s Rob Weinberg talks to Nicholas O'Shaughnessy, Professor of communication at Queen Mary University of London about his books, Selling Hitler: Propaganda and the Nazi Brand and Marketing the Third Reich: Persuasion, Packaging and Propaganda.

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In 2019 four novels that had long been out of print were re-published in the Imperial War Museum Wartime Classics series. It aims to give forgotten novels set in the Second World War a new lease of life. Two more have now been published, novels that take the reader right into the heart of the conflict. Rob Weinberg has been finding out more from Alan Jeffreys, Senior Curator at the Imperial War Museum.

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Once a senior British diplomat in Kiev, Simon Davey lost everything after a lurid scandal. Back in London, still struggling with the aftermath of his disgrace, he is travelling on the Tube when he sees the woman he holds responsible for his downfall. Set against the 2004 Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, Independence Square is an exceptional political thriller from A.D. Miller, the bestselling author of Booker-shortlisted Snowdrops. Rob Weinberg talks to A.D. Miller about his first-hand experience of reporting from the Ukraine for The Economist and the inspiration behind his novel.

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In September 1940, as Britain faced an imminent Nazi invasion, handpicked groups of ordinary men – known as scallywags – were trained in top secret to act as saboteurs and assassins. In a new series of wartime thrillers, author V.M. Knox has created the character of vicar Clement Wisdom, called upon to lead a local team of scallywags, creating a tension between his faith and his patriotic duty. V.M. Knox talks to Rob Weinberg about her novels, in which historical fact meets crime fiction and the murky world of espionage.

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Few historical figures have made as much of an impact on the arts and popular culture as Napoleon Bonaparte, portrayed at times as a heroic visionary, and at others as comically short and bossy. But how does the Napoleon of novels, plays and films, compare with the real man? And how did he control his image and use the theatre for personal propaganda. Rob Weinberg talks to Dr. Clare Siviter, author of Tragedy and Nation in the Age of Napoleon. 

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In 1940, the thoughts of a captured prisoner of war return to the isolated Scottish island of St Kilda – where he once took a summer job – and to the island woman he can’t forget. Alice Loxton talks to novelist Elisabeth Gifford about her new book The Lost Lights of St Kilda, a moving portrait of two lovers, a desolate island and the extraordinary power of hope in the face of darkness. 

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Sarah Churchill – Duchess of Marlborough – was the politically influential intimate and then, blackmailer of Queen Anne. Sarah Churchill was vividly brought to life in the film The Favourite, in which she was played by Rachel Weisz. But does the film do Sarah Churchill and Queen Anne justice? How close was it to the truth of this remarkable woman? In this edition of Historical Fiction, Alice Loxton talks to Ophelia Field whose 2002 biography of Sarah Churchill, also titled The Favourite, has recently been updated and re-published in paperback.

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As the threat of war with Germany hung over Britain, Winston Churchill gathered the country’s brightest minds at a remote gothic mansion in Suffolk to work together on an invention that could help the Allies to victory – the Chain Home radar system. The episode has inspired a new novel of courage, belonging and hope, Under a Wartime Sky. In this edition of Historical Fiction, Malin Hay talks to its author Liz Trenow.

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The new film Radioactive charts the life and career of double Nobel Prize-winning physicist/chemist Marie Curie, woven together with the scientific developments and disasters that emerged from her discovery of radioactivity. In this edition of Historical Fiction, Radioactive’s director Marjane Satrapi and Marie Curie’s biographer Diana Preston discuss the film, and the life and achievements of this formidable scientist.

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In July 1553, 16-year-old Lady Jane Grey became de facto Queen of England and Ireland for just nine days. In a new novel Before the Reign Falls, a group of friends renovating an old barn chance upon a stash of manuscripts that reveal clues to a mystery going back more than four centuries. In this edition of Historical Fiction, Alice Loxton talks to author David Black about his story of mystery, intrigue, politics and love.

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