TALKING POINTS Write here, write now

Public historian Greg Jenner (@greg_jenner) challenged Twitter with a really interesting question that he had been asked by a friend: “Were any popular histories of major wars and/or catastrophes written while the war [or] catastrophe was still ongoing and the outcome unknown?”

It was (@DrSKBarker) was quick off the blocks, saying: “Several histories of the [16th-century] French Wars of Religion were composed as they were still ongoing – but those wars were so fragmented, no one quite knew how or when they might end.” (@rachel_gibbons) suggested “Jean Froissart’s chronicle of the 14th-century phases of the Hundred Years’ War,” while (@Weegie_Graeme) noted, interestingly, that “Colonel Robert [Monro’s] memoir of a Scottish Regiment during the Thirty Years’ War didn’t have a hugely successful print run, but it was fairly influential on 17th-century military memoirists and published while the war was ongoing. It may also have been the first regimental history.”