Philip Mansel

1 month ago | thespectator.com | Ian Buruma |Philip Mansel |Lee Langley |David J. Garrow

At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber called Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” over Hiroshima. The thermal radiation from the atom bomb was 900 times more searing than the sun. An estimated 118,661 civilians died, horribly. Survivors staggered about with their skin in shreds, their intestines hanging out and their blacked and bleeding faces grotesquely disfigured.

1 month ago | thespectator.com | Philip Mansel |Freddy Gray |Gavin Mortimer |David J. Garrow

The role of personality and charm in running a state is one theme of Richard Bassett’s superb book, Maria Theresa: Empress, the first English biography of Maria Theresa since Edward Crankshaw’s in 1969. The different parts of the Habsburg monarchy — Austria, Tyrol, Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia and Milan — had little in common except dynasty, geography and Catholicism. Yet, partly owing to Maria Theresa’s force of character, this complex tapestry of nationalities remained a great power.

Jan 8, 2025 | spectator.com.au | Philip Mansel

Versailles was a palace of science, as Anna Ferrari shows in this stimulating and innovative study, accompanying a dazzling exhibition of the same title at the Science Museum, London (until 21 April). Soldiers were subjected to electricity experiments in the Galerie des Glaces. The king watched the dissection of an elephant or a horse in the Menagerie.

Jan 7, 2025 | spectator.co.uk | Philip Mansel

Text size Small Medium Large Line Spacing Compact Normal Spacious Comments Versailles was a palace of science, as Anna Ferrari shows in this stimulating and innovative study, accompanying a dazzling exhibition of the same title at the Science Museum, London (until 21 April). Soldiers were subjected to electricity experiments in the Galerie des Glaces. The king watched the dissection of an elephant or a horse in the Menagerie. The latest globes and clocks, microscopes and barometers, miracles...

Mar 20, 2024 | spectator.com.au | Philip Mansel

Queen Victoria and Her Prime Ministers William Collins, pp.576, 30 Monarchy was as characteristic of the 19th century as nationalism and revolution. The Almanach de Gotha was a better guide to power than the Communist Manifesto. Constitutional monarchy, in particular, was considered the panacea of the age.