Habs welcomes historian and broadcaster Dominic Sandbrook

The Junior History Club was delighted to welcome historian and broadcaster, Dominic Sandbrook to speak on Thursday 11 November about his new series of History books for children, Adventures in Time. Speaking via Zoom, Mr Sandbrook’s talk focused on his recent book on the First World War. He explained how the war has been reinterpreted as a global conflict and how he sought to bring the story of the First World War to life through using memoirs and the accounts of those who lived through the war. One of the individuals who features in Adventures in Time: The First World War, a Hungarian artist called Bela Moldovan, was the great-grandfather of a current HABS student. Another person who appears, Walter Tull, had played football for Tottenham Hotspur.  There is also a dramatic account of the sinking of the Lusitania and the stories of Flora Sandes, a young woman who served in the Serbian army and became a national hero.

During the discussions after the talk, we examined why the First World War broke out, whether Germany could have won, the role of troops from outside Europe played in the war, why the war ended in the manner in which it did. how the First World led to the collapse of European Empires and the sparked the Russian Revolution, as well as the differences in writing History for adults and History for children.

We would like to thank Mr Sandbrook for giving generously of his time to speak to our students about his work. The books in his Adventures in Time series are available from online retailers and from good, local bookshops: 

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320/320011/adventures-in-time–the-first-world-war/9780241469668.html