Amanda Foreman

“Southern politicians who have tried to rise above the passionate rhetoric surrounding the Civil War have frequently found themselves dragged back into the mire. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, a Republican, was forced to apologise when his proclamation declaring April Confederate History Month failed to make any reference to slavery.”

“Every now and then, a writer emerges who just gets better and better. These are the really exciting ones to encounter. Their novels carry the promise of so much more to come. Warwick Collins is one such writer.”

“From Lady Carlisle's trip to Moscow in 1663 to Veronica Atkinson's tour of duty during the 1989 Romanian revolution, it is clear that very little has changed. Four hundred years of innovation, liberation, and improvement clearly bypassed the Foreign Office while making its rounds through Westminster.”

“Today, we are fortunate that the historical novel has reached such extraordinary heights of technical mastery. The ability of society to connect with the past holds out the greatest hope for it being able to embrace the future.”

“In 1874, Mary Fraser accompanied her husband Hugh to Hong Kong, arriving hours after a typhoon had wrecked the island. Some 10,000 boat families had drowned in the harbour. There was no way to avoid the bloated bodies, and when Mary disembarked, she felt her foot land on something soft.”

“The American war of 1861-65 is recent enough to be embedded still in cultural memory.”

“When I read the news that Wonder Woman was going to be resurrected for a blockbuster movie in 2016, 'Batman vs. Superman', it made me excited - and anxious. Would the producers give her a role as fierce as her origins - and maybe some shoulder straps - or would she just be cartoon eye candy?”

“As her life became more unhappy, acting attracted Marie-Antoinette because it fulfilled unmet emotional needs. By all accounts, she was quite good in her little private theatricals. But her desire to be a heroine, both literally and figuratively, was shocking to the French.”

“The historian Linda Colley has analysed how and why George III transformed himself from being a figure of 'perfect hatred' to the father of the country.”

“We need to feminise history because we are 50 per cent of the population, and our story is just as interesting.”

“What if everything you were told about the female was wrong?”

“A small foot in China, no different from a tiny waist in Victorian England, represented the height of female refinement. For families with marriageable daughters, foot size translated into its own form of currency and a means of achieving upward mobility. The most desirable bride possessed a three-inch foot, known as a 'golden lotus.'”

“I would like to say a few things about that photo in 'Tatler'. I have no regrets. The article was about the 20 cleverest people in England, covered up only by the thing that makes them clever. A saxophonist, for example, had only his saxophone, and an artist, his easel. So I was covered by books.”

“I go into the local chemist, and I can hear people saying, 'Oh my Gaaahd - it's Lisa Kudrow!' And there's a famous Amanda Foreman, an actress two years older than me, who appears in 'Private Practice'.”

“I was there for the making of Young Winston, but guns kept going off. I went 'Waaaaah,' and someone said, 'Please get the child off the set.'”

“For America, Britain has never been more than a strategic player, and when it suits them to use us, then there's been a rapprochement. But if it doesn't suit them, you're kicked out the door. In 1860, America was like a big, spoilt teenager trying to get away from its parent.”

“It is our lack of will that lies behind the continued denial of justice to Jean McConville. Yet there is something that we can do now for her and for ourselves before our silence turns us from spectators into passive accomplices. We can remember her.”

“Teach her story to future generations, and at least the moral debt owed to Jean McConville can be repaid. Jean McConville. Jean McConville. Jean McConville.”

“For a country that makes such a fuss about love on the 14th of February, America has a funny way of showing it on the other 364 days of the year.”

“It isn't enough for a book to be transporting or entertaining; it must also come from a place of knowledge and an understanding of aesthetics. Even where a longlisted book wears its craftsmanship lightly, the power of the writing shines through.”