From Samuel Pepys to Sir Henry “Chips” Channon, Tony Benn, Alan Clark and even Sasha Swire, political diarists are often credited with providing valuable or at least entertaining insights into the political world they inhabit and observe. But are the best diarists really those who are secondary figures in the events they describe and how many of them actually provide meaningful substance to our understanding of past events?

In this edition of Black’s History Week, Professor Jeremy Black talks to The Critic’s political editor, Graham Stewart, about the craft and value of the political diarist.

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