Quotes from Saul David

The first Romanov ruler was just 16 when he was crowned Tsar Michael I in Moscow in 1613, thus ending the 'Time of Troubles' sparked by Ivan the Terrible's death.

Historians turning their hands to fiction are all the rage. Since Alison Weir led the way in 2006, an ever-growing number of established non-fiction writers - Giles Milton, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Harry Sidebottom, Patrick Bishop, Ian Mortimer and myself included - have written historical novels.

Ever since World War I, superior force is no longer measured in terms of men or horses, but in the means to wreak destruction.

Henry Kissinger is perhaps the best-known American statesman of the 20th century.

I was brought up with a whole bunch of cousins in the Wye Valley during the hippy days of the 1970s.

There were about 30 children at one stage, running around like savages at a place called Callow Hill, near Monmouth, which was owned by my grandparents. They lived in the big house, but my dad had five brothers and a sister, and they all lived in various houses scattered on the hill.

By Vietnam, the Jeep had given way to the helicopter, and it is hard to imagine a modern army fighting a war without this supremely adaptable workhorse.