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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Derek WilsonJacqueline Rose|title=Calamities and Catastrophes: The Ten Absolutely Worst Years Women in HistoryDark Times

|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=As Wilson rightly points out, history is generally written by the winners. This book turns the tables by looking at ten ''The world of the worst episodes from unconscious is not the point antagonist of view of those who were on the losing sidepolitical life, from the sixth to the late twentieth centuries. Starting with the plague and war of 541-2 which accelerated the collapse of the Roman Empirebut its steadfast companion, to the recent Rwandan genocide in which the death toll over just a few months probably exceeded a million, history has had an uncomfortable habit of repeating itself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907595457</amazonuk>}}hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…''

{{newreview|author=Roger Moorhouse|title=Berlin at War: Life and Death Women in HitlerDark Times is Jacqueline Rose's Capitalhomage to courageous women throughout history, particularly women of the 21st, 1939-45|rating=420th and 19th centuries.5|genre=History|summary=Berlin at War Her historical and political backdrop is , thus, expansive, yet she navigates it with intelligence and an account of the day acknowledgment that feminism's lengthy mission is a testament to day lives of the ordinary people of Berlin, the then capital of Nazi Germany, during the Second World War. Berlin was heavily bombed throughout much of the warits successes, and suffered greatly as not its failures: ''the symbolic target ongoing force of Allied forces at the endfeminism''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099551896</amazonuk>1804271713

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jacqueline PercivalMary McCarthy|title=Elbow Grease: How our Grandmothers and Great-Grandmothers Kept HouseMemories of a Catholic Girlhood|rating=3.54|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary=Sometimes I look at Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', obsessively digging into the housework that needs past to be done and it seems like a mountain that has to be climbedpiece together the broken mosaic of her life. ItShe attributes her 's not until I look back at 'burning interest in the work that my motherpast'' to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her mother and even my great grandmother had to do to keep parents, who died in the house clean and free of pests as well as doing all 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the laundry that I realise that my problems are more harsh guardianship of a molehill her late father's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and a lot less strenuous than their daily grind ever wasAunt Margaret. Jacqueline Percival has taken Later, she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a look back at the way that things really were for the women who went before us – and in those days housework generally was down to the woman in the housedifferent kind of upbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956559530</amazonuk>1804271659

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laura Schwartz1785633457|title=A Serious EndeavourCharging Around: Gender, Education and Community at St Hugh's, 1886-2011|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary='A Serious Endeavour' is an account of Exploring the role Edges of one Oxford college in the history of higher education for women. When it was first founded in 1886 there were very different views on what such education should be, even among its supporters. The university would not even grant female students degrees until 1920, and students were allowed to choose their own course of study and whether they would take formal exams or not before this. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668515X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewEngland by Electric Car|author=Elizabeth Cooke|title=The Damnation of John Donellan: A Mysterious Case of Death and Scandal in Georgian EnglandClive Wilkinson

|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=Truth is stranger than fiction - but it is not always this gripping. The Boughtons of Lawford Hall, Warwickshire, have Clive Wilkinson has a colourful history, including the ghost of One-Handed Boughton, who haunted their land long before this new misfortune befell themtravelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. With marriages creating more branches As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of family, delicate relationships abound and help to shape exploring the complex events detailed edges of England in the bookan electric car was not totally outrageous. We begin with Sir Theodosius BoughtonIn fact, heir to the estate when he comes of age, suffering from venereal disease. He is obliged to take medication it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and is well known for neglecting the recommendations of physicians. One fateful morninghis wife, he takes a new medicineJoan, and dies in agony.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668482X</amazonuk>shouldn't it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stacy SchiffB09BLBP3P8|title=CleopatraNeville Chamberlain's War: A LifeHow Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager

|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=Stacey Schiff's biography starts more of less from Cleopatra's infamous meeting with Caesar, where she sneaks into his rooms in a sackReceived wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. This One such is one of the most scrubbing from the popular images imagination of Cleopatra in the public consciousness and Schiff happily refutes the image early days of her emerging World War II from 1939-40, known as a well polished seductressthe ''Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, pointing war breaking out that anyone who had been carried , and Churchill coming in a sack for a considerable period of to save the day. Very little time will more likely be fairly dishevelled. Schiff takes us through from is spent on this moment up to Cleopatra's much dramatised deathperiod in cultural reflections and yet, and beyondas Frederic Seager argues in this book, to the end it was of vital significance in how the Ptolemaic dynastywar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075353956X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirin Ebadi3756228711|title=CDC: The Golden Cage: Three Brothers, Three Choices, One Destinyhappy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer

|summary=I'm no military historian; I'm not really interested in war. In the Second World War, if push came to shove, I would probably have claimed pacificism. But when this paperback version The history of the recently published hardback came up, by prolific and highly-esteemed historian Frank McLynn, I just had to read it. The subject is very special in our family, because “Grandad was there”. Grandad fought over the tennis court at Kohima, and he has carried the trauma in his head to this day. Frank McLynn describes that particular battle as “... a scene from Hieronymus Bosch out development of Passchendaele”. I knew I had to steel myself to read this book, and was very pleased that the author wrote sensitively about the reality IT could fill books of close combat for lily livers like mineseveral hundred pages.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551780</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Nathaniel Philbrick|title=The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull and the Battle of the Little Big Horn|rating=4Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that.5|genre=History|summary=I have He has chosen to admit that I was rather underinformed tell us about Custer before reading this book; I knew that he was killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn and that opinion seemed to be split on whether he was an arrogant and over-confident commander or a dashing and brilliant one. From reading this admirably even-handed accountshort, not just of his famous Last Stand but also explosive, history of the events leading up to itControl Data Company, CDC, for whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, I found out told in a huge amount about him mixture of technological summary and the other personalities involved in his defeatwry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521245</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert KnappJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Invisible Romans: Prostitutes, Outlaws, Slaves, Gladiators, Ordinary Men Fritz and Women … the Romans that History ForgotKurt

|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=This academic title by Robert KnappWe start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, Professor Emeritus at helping the University of Californianeighbours, will be welcomed by serious students of being dutiful when it comes to the Roman Empiresynagogue choir and at a vocational school. It goes without saying that this research provides a valuable supplement Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the existing academic literatureSabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. From But this is the time just before the meticulous attention Austrian leader is going to cave to detailHitler's will, I suspect that amassing the material was a labour and instead of love over having a lifetime national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of analysing more prominent Roman citizensJews. Clues have been inferred from classical literature These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the US, culled from epitaphs while Fritz and deduced from archaeological finds (particularly Pompeii)his father are, unknown initially to each other, since hardly any evidence packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of ordinary folks' lives has otherwise survived. all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846684013</amazonuk>024156574X

 {{newreview|author=Kevin Mitchell|title=Jacobs Beach: The Mob, the Garden, and the Golden Age of Boxing|rating=5|genre=Sport|summary=Despite not being a particular fan of the sport of boxing, Kevin Mitchell's compelling knowledge of the personalities involved in the fight game in the 20th century, coupled with a staccato writing style which got my attention quickly and kept it to the very last page, meant this book actually rose far above my expectations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224075098</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John DickieHenry Phillips|title=Blood Brotherhoods: The Rise of the Italian MafiasSearch

|summary=There can Archaeology cannot be few people who are unaware of the child'mafias play, when you' particularly as re scraping in the word dirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. This book is used a case of the latter, as a catch-all our author promises to cover locate the Italian criminal fraternity – and by extension topic of the off-shoots which have spread throughout the world titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – but the south of Italy has three major mafias. Sicily search area is a wide one, the birthplace of target might not exist any more – oh, and home to Cosa Nostrait's underwater, whilst Naples and its hinterland hosts the camorrawhen he cannot dive. In Calabria, possibly Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the poorest region of Italyheroic old man's visit back to France, you'll our author has promised to find the 'ndrangheta. There are plenty of myths landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and legends about the birth of the criminal organisations, but Professor John Dickie has looked at their early history that he was lucky to survive when it sank from 1851 through beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the liberation vast majority of Italy at the end of the Second World Warwhom perished. He looks at their rituals and Who else would make such promises to someone in their methods and much of what you will read has been a secret until now.nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340963921</amazonuk>1472146182

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alex KershawB09F4CTKJR|title=To Save a PeopleFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat of Jewish ancestry, was without doubt one of It's the heroes later stages of the Second World War. This book, by one of I and the war's foremost modern historians, tells United States has just entered the story of his humanitarian work which began with his posting to Budapest in July 1944.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539136</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andrew Wheen|title=Dot-Dash To Dotconflict.Com|rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary=You know exactly what you're getting when you read the summary of Andrew Wheen's ''Dot-Dash To Dot.Com''. ''How Modern Telecommunications Evolved from the Telegraph to the Internet'' sums it up perfectly. This Petrol Petronus is a history of technology young American who has signed up and joined the people involved in creating that technology17 Aero Squadron. It serves as a primer for anyone with an interest or need to know about telecommunications.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441967591</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nigel Hamilton|title=American Caesars: Lives of This company was the first US PresidentsAero Squadron to be trained in Canada, from Franklin D Roosevelt the first to be attached to George W Bush|rating=5|genre=History|summary=The Premise is simple: take twelve men (the RAF and unfortunately they are all men, but that's not the author's fault) who have achieved high office and look at each of them. Firstly, take a look at first to be sent into the road skies to fight the high officeGermans in active combat. But before that can happen, then how they performed once they reached their goal and finally a look at their private life. Suetonius did it first when he wrote ''The Twelve Caesars'' and now Nigel Hamilton Petrol has taken to master flying the same journey with ''American Caesars'', a remarkably in-depth look at twelve consecutive American presidents from the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, starting with Franklin D Roosevelt and finishing with George W Bushnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520419</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ciaran O Murchadha0578761718|title=The Great Famine: Ireland's Agony 1845-1852 Inspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver

|summary=In August 1845, reports began to circulate The church of the destruction of growing potatoes St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the south City of EnglandLondon from at least 1181, killed by a mysterious and so far unknown plant diseasewhen it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, As yet, the scientific aspects of what original church was given destroyed in the name Great Fire of 'blight' were not fully recognised, let alone understoodLondon in 1666. At the end of the month, small instances of failure It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the potato crop in Ireland were reported, but there seemed to be no cause fire and then survived for alarm centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the main crop was dug out in OctoberBlitz. Only then did it become apparent But that an wasn'awful plaguet the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church' had appeared in several areass walls were transported to Fulton, with decomposing vegetables producing a strongMissouri. There, foul stench that assailed in the nostrils grounds of cultivators Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and passers-by aliketoday serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847252176</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Holmes1784385166|title=Churchill's Bunker: The Secret Headquarters at the Heart of Britain's Victory|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Nowadays, when there is a security threat it seems to be mandatory to whisk the leader and other important personages off to a secret location deep inside a mountain or in a distant forest, but Churchill fought his war – our war – from a series of basement rooms right in the heart of London and within sight of Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament. The Cabinet War Rooms didn't have their own air supply, were infested with vermin and lacked proper toilet facilities, but they were Churchill's choice. He spent a few nights down Third Reich in the CWR but usually lived in the No 10 Annex upstairs – throughout the worst of the bombing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682312</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Russia100 Objects: A 1,000-Year Chronicle Material History of the Wild EastNazi Germany|author=Martin SixsmithRoger Moorhouse

|summary=As a former BBC correspondent in Moscow at What is the time first image that comes to mind when you think of the Cold War was ending, Sixsmith is in a unique position Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to write a history concentration camp? None of Russia, based partly on research these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and partly on his own experiencesimages from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, after having witnessed at first hand some Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the upheavals in recent years which play such an important part in the storyThird Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849900728</amazonuk> 

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ben ShephardLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=The Long Road HomeTiananmen 1989: The Aftermath of the Second World WarOur Shattered Hopes|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=In I never really followed the immediate aftermath events of the Second World War Europe Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in tatters, and millions of its citizens were stranded far from home. How to cope with these Displaced Persons was one of the biggest issues second half of the immediate post-war periodtheir teens has other priorities, you know. In I certainly didn'The Long Road Home' Ben Shephard tells their story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712600590</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Karen Blixen|title=Out Of Africa|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=It's more than a quarter t know of a century since I first saw the film ''Out weeks of Africa'' protests and it's one of the few that have stayed with me over the intervening years. It wasn't just hunger strikes from the story, but students before the personality of Karen Blixen massacre and the wonderful landscape birth of the Ngong HillsTank Man image, south of Nairobi, in KenyaI didn's Rift Valley. I remember looking t know how the area had long been a venue for this book at the timepolitical protest, but being unable to find it, so the opportunity to read it now was too good to miss.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951437</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Addison and Jeremy A Crang|title=Listening to Britain: Home Intelligence Reports on BritainI didn's Finest Hour, May-September 1940|rating=4|genre=History|summary=The Home Intelligence Department had been set up by t know more than a spit about the government to assess home morale by studying immediate reactions to specific events and to find out public opinion people involved on important issues, including pacifismeither side. One reason for this was This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser'to provide a basis s context for publicity', that is, to plan propaganda and test its effectiveness. The reports drew on various sources, including Mass Observation, a market research style Wartime Social Survey, staff listening to conversations on the way to work, and visiting pubs and other places where lots whole season of people went and talked to each otherprotests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099548747</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Betty Lussier0648684806|title=Intrepid WomanClara Colby: Betty Lussier's Secret War, 1942-1945The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|summary=Do we all have it The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in us? and out of school. Would you as a Pole She was the only child in 1940s Polandthe household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, who like as not her family had been 'educated' become pioneer farmers in the horrendous evil mid-west of Jews by your church - the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would you ignore Nazi death threats and countless opportunities only know her mother for a few months: she was married for the wrong thing to be saidfifteen years, had ten pregnancies, for seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the truth to be let outeldest girl, for betrayal - a heavy burden would you help fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a Jewish life survive?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1550280554</amazonuk>rude awakening.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bernard Porter1783784350|title=The Battle of the StylesThis Golden Fleece: Society, Culture and the Design of a new Foreign Office, 1855 - 61A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating=3.5

|summary=Back It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in the 1850s it was mooted that Whitehall required some new public buildingsher office job, primarily in the form of a new Foreign Officewriting to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. Such matters are never quite so simple as deciding on the need The job frustrated her and arranging the construction and completion: there even her knitting did not soothe her mind. January was going to be debatea time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, occasionally about discovering and telling the need for a new building but primarily about the form story of wool's history and how it should take had made and changed the style in which it should be builtlandscape. This proved She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the farm'' - and learned to be acrimonious spin, knit and devious weave from her mother and came to be known as 'The Battle of the Stylesher mother's friend. This was in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441167390</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Lucas1789017977|title=Axis SallyRonnie and Hilda's Romance: The American Voice of Nazi GermanyTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|summary=Take one personable failed actress, embittered by lack Ronnie Williams was the son of success at home Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in the USA1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and conspire he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while the family was quite well-to land her living -do but disaster struck in Germany as WW2 breaks outthe 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. What chance her becoming an American, female Lord HawOne thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-Haw, being paid by Germany to broadcast entertaining, dissuasive propaganda worldwide on shortwave radio? out and this would stay with him throughout his life. Anybody could guess it would take innumerable factors, circumstances and events, and they're all here He joined the army at eighteen in this entertaining, eye-opening and educational biography1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1935149431</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Bunker1980891117|title=Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their WorldG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A New History|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Using hundreds of previously overlooked documents, British historian Nick Bunker tells the story of the Pilgrim Fathers, starting from the religious climate in England which led to them leaving the country, and continuing through to show how they settled year in America, trading beaver skins to let them settle in New England.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951182</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alison Weir, Kate Williams, Sarah Gristwood and Tracy Borman|title=The Ring and the Crown: A History life of Royal Weddings 1066-2011|rating=4|genre=History|summary=The Ring and the Crown is a look at almost a thousand years of royal weddings, at how they've changed and how, in many ways, they've remained the same. Generally the weddings are of kings, queens or heirs to the throne but sometimes there's a glimpse of how the minor royals have managed their nuptials. The book is lavishly illustrated and is probably as un-put-downable as anything which is basically a history book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091943779</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewGeorge Engleheart|author=Shrabani Basu|title=Victoria and Abdul: The True Story of the Queen's Closest ConfidantJohn Webley

|genre=HistoryArt|summary=Abdul Karim George Engleheart was a 24-year-old assistant clerk at Agra Jail when he was granted one of the opportunity leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a lifetime – to leave India, travel to England and find employment as personal attendant to career lasting from the great Empress herself, Queen Victoria. Within a year of her employing him and his introducing her 1770s to the delights of curry, she promoted himRegency era. He would no longer be a mere servant, and henceforth he was now her teacher and clerkalso one of the most prolific, or Munshipainting nearly 5, with responsibility for instructing her in Indian affairs and the Urdu language000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). To Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the dismay and ill-concealed anger names of each of nearly all her family his clients, and household, he suddenly became one of the most conspicuous figures in the royal entouragesubsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752458531</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=1789016304|title=Keith Hopkins War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and Mary Bearddevotion in occupied Amsterdam|titleauthor=The ColosseumMelanie Martin|rating=4.5

|summary=Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Colosseum is Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the most famous war years, but only five thousand survived and instantly recognisable monument Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to have survived from the classical worldGerman occupation. Most readily associated with people believed that the gladiatorial games and contests between occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Christians and Germans might reach the lions so beloved by imperial Romecity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it originally held over 50,000 spectatorsdid, a number now completely dwarfed by but initial protests melted away as the four million or organisers became more visitors who come each yearcircumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684706</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Jenkyns1908745819|title=Westminster Abbey: A Thousand Years of National Pageantry|rating=4.5|genre=HistorySurfacing|summary=Few if any buildings in Britain personify history, and are steeped in so much, as Westminster Abbey. As the author says in his introduction, it is the most complex church in the world in terms of not only history but also functions and memories, perhaps the most complex building of any kind. In this compact paperback history, an updated edition of a hardback first published in 2004, he tells the story very readably from its foundation by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century to the preparations for the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William in 2011.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685346</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alan Titchmarsh|title=When I Was A NipperKathleen Jamie|rating=45

|summary=ThereSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it's something about Alan Titchmarsh '. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that you canwe didn't help likinglike the book. HeThat's got a wry sense of humourrare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, seems unfailingly positive andrarely get it wrong. In this case, best I was told why. The blurb speaks of allthe author considering ''an older, was born in my home town less tethered sense of Ilkleyherself. You really can't get much better than that, now can you? ' Older. Less tethered. That'When s not a bad description of where I Was A Nipper' is a look not just at his life in am. Add to that my love of the fifties (although there ''is'' a lot about him) but about natural world, of those aspects of the way poetic and lyrical that things were then. There's an unspoken question are about what we can learn from how we lived then style not form, and how we can apply substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to our lives todayme eventually. It's pure nostalgia only lightly seasoned with the reality of outside privies and harsh working conditionsI am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184990152X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rodric Braithwaite0857058320|title=Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-89Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=In 1979, ''Lord Of All the Soviet Union decided Dead'' is a journey to move into Afghanistan, uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and special forces killed the Afghan presidentdeath. What was initially planned as a fairly modest expedition which would see them stabilise Cercas is searching for the government, train up meaning behind his great uncle's death in the army and policeSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, and then withdraw within a yearCercas' great uncle, turned into a war lasting nearly a decade which left both is the Russian army and figure who looms large over the Afghan civilians counting the cost of the intervention and with their lives changed foreverbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. What went wrong, and Cercas ruminates on why has Afghanistan proved such a difficult place his uncle fought for foreign powers – ranging from this dictator. The question at the British in the 19th century, to the Russians in centre of this book, is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the current armies engaged in the country – to get any sort of foothold?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680549</amazonuk>wrong side.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephanie Williams0008294011|title=Running the ShowHow to Lose a Country: Governors of the British Empire 1857-1912The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran

|summary=For some, the glory days of the British Empire A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were the closing living through what in years of to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the Victorian era and question ''Discuss the 19th centuryfactors which led to... '' Government ministers in London, I agreed that she was right and doubtless Queen Victoria herself, would glance at wasn't certain whether it was a map good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to. I think now that I do know. We are in danger of the world losing democracy and bask in reflected glory at the generous expanses whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of land coloured reda better one, particularly as the 'the empire where the sun never setsbenevolent dictator' is as rare as hen', to use the old clichés teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918040</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Duff Hart-Davis1788037812|title=The War That Never WasFraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=45

|summary=In the 1960'sOriginally passed in 1885, an Egyptian general with delusions of grandeur is trying to conquer the Arab worldlaw that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, starting with Yemenrestrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. The new ImamBetween 1891 and 1908, having previously disobeyed three books on the general's orders to assassinate his own fathernature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, has fled to as well as the hillsheterosexual Havelock Ellis. The British are wary Exploring the margins of getting officially involved so turn to more subtle channels. Jim Johnsonsociety and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, an underwriter at Lloyd's who claims to have been arrested for attempted murder at but barely talked about in the tender age of 8 when he attacked an Italian maid abusing a catUK, is so the man asked publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to run a secret operation. His response? 'I've nothing particular to do in the next few days. I might have a go.' Putting together a team scientific understanding of mercenarieshomosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, he sends them leading to Yemen to fight what will become, as the subtitle milestone legalisation of the book states, Britain's most secret battlesame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846058252</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Tinniswood1910593508|title=Pirates Of Barbary: CorsairsApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Conquests Chris Baker and Captivity in the 17th-Century MediterraneanMike Collins

|summary=In This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the early 17th century Moon landings and the passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and because of this, the North African coast was authors take a particularly dangerous place to sail near due few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to the prevalence book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of pirates a film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that there ready to plunder the cargo of shipsare scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. In this truly captivating account author Adrian Tinnisworth looks at these corsairs – focusing on Englishmen such This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as John Ward, who became so renowned that plays about him long and Dutchman Simon Danseker managed to outsellKing Lear!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523868</amazonuk>still felt too short.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charles Emmerson1786331047|title=The Future History of Race to Save the ArcticRomanovs: How climate, resources and geopolitics are reshaping The Truth Behind the north, and why it matters Secret Plans to the worldRescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport|rating=45

|summary=Charles Emmerson examines The basic facts about the past history deaths of Arctic explorationNicholas and Alexandra, economic exploitation and development and the policies of governments some of countries which include Arctic territory (and others)were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, with have long since been established. For the aim last few months of understanding their lives in Russia the present former Tsar and predicting the future betterTsarina, their children and few remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. He explains To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the apparently contradictory title revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in some detail in the Introduction. While history is about the pastcircumstances which, 'ideas about once the future have changed over time'. Alsonews was confirmed beyond all doubt, the future of the Arctic will be shaped by its historyhorrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523531</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Alex Butterworth|title=The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Agents|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=In deciding Move on to write about political upheaval across Europe, including Russia, Alex Butterworth has chosen a massive topic for this entertaining book. So massive, in fact, that when I tried reading it without first looking through the pen pictures at the start of the main players I was quickly completely lost. My mistake – the short, sharp, pen pictures, which cover sixteen pages and detail all the major anarchists and secret agents are completely invaluable [[Newest Home and helped my reading of the book enormously.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551926</amazonuk>}}Family Reviews]]