It could have gone horribly wrong, but she pulled it off. Her last book was a life of John Aubrey, which was half related to historical sources, half imagined, with a real understanding of Aubrey and his times. You always think it could be a catastrophe, that she won’t pull it off. So, when I saw that Ruth Scurr was writing a biography of Napoleon by focusing on his interest in gardening, I knew it was going to be fascinating. She’s also a fantastic writer whose historical works are real works of literature. She is one of the most original, brilliant historians there is. But if there’s one person who can bring new angles to this subject, then it would be Ruth Scurr.

When the anniversary of a great man like Napoleon comes around, I tend to think, what more can you tell me? Napoleon’s life has been extraordinarily well documented. Tell me about the first one: Napoleon: A Life in Gardens and Shadows by Ruth Scurr. So Napoleon died 200 years ago this year and you’ve got a couple of books on him, neither of which is a traditional biography. These are important questions and there are obviously lessons to learn, but I think we’re still a long way off from really understanding what this is about. I don’t think any of us really appreciate exactly why there are spikes and why there are drops and why societies seem to be doing well one moment and not doing well another. At one moment the UK was doing catastrophically badly, and now the EU is having its moment. You have this febrile social media so prominent, making immediate judgments about things. There are a lot of historical parallels being drawn, but I think it’s going to take a long while for us to really appreciate what happened. Are we about to have a slew of pandemic history books coming down the track? Or are they already being published?Īn awful lot has already been published of one kind or another on the pandemic.

It was the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s death, which is reflected in your choices.

Foreign Policy & International Relationsīefore we get to your selection of the best history books of 2021, I wondered if you have seen any trends in history publishing this year.

Grand ages rome editor