David French is professor of history emeritus at University College London. His most recent book is The British Way in Counter-Insurgency, 1945-67.
There is nothing novel about British forces being involved in Afghanistan. Britain was deeply concerned with Afghanistan from the early 19th century right up until the moment it relinquished its empire in India in 1947, and at times actively engaged in its affairs. Diana Preston’s book focuses on one particular episode, the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1838-42. She shows how the expansion...
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Chuck him out, the brute!’, But it’s ‘Saviour of ’is country’ when the guns begin to shoot. ...
The Great War of 1914-1918 is at last a respectable field of study for British professional historians. There has been no lack of monographs on specialised aspects of that gigantic tragedy: what...
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