
Books by William St Clair
William St Clair, FBA, FRSL is a British historian, and senior research fellow at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. He is also the chairman of Open Book Publishers.
“As William St Clair began to do his research, he discovered the things I’ve been telling you about: the mass violence, what happened to these poor philhellenes, who arrived thinking they were going to see people in togas and sandals standing for lofty philosophical ideals. What they found it what you’d expect to find—peasants, bandits, landowners, tax collectors, etc. It was pretty prosaic stuff and ugly too.” Read more...
The best books on Modern Greek History
Yanni Kotsonis, Historian
The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period
by William St Clair
St Clair looks not just at what was written, but how it was published and marketed and sold, who had access to it, how much it cost and who read it
Interviews with William St Clair
Reading the Romantics, recommended by William St Clair
Who read Byron in his time? How much did a copy of Wordsworth cost? The scholar guides us through the astonishing history of reading in the Romantic period of English literature
Interviews where books by William St Clair were recommended
The best books on Life in the Victorian Age, recommended by Judith Flanders
History books often focus on big political or economic events, wars and leaders. But there’s much to learn from studying the way people lived, and what made the Victorian age both like and unlike our own, as Judith Flanders explains.
The best books on Modern Greek History, recommended by Yanni Kotsonis
If you’re heading to Greece this summer, it might be worth learning more about the modern history of the country you’re visiting. Yanni Kotsonis, a professor of history at NYU and author of The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism, recommends a variety of books to get you started, from a short history of Greece to a novel by one of the country’s greatest writers.