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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Phillip Thomas TuckerEdward W Said|title=Exodus From the Alamo|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=Remember the Alamo! The war-cry Representations of generations of Americans is based upon the idea of the hugely outnumbered defenders of the Texan mission against the marauding Mexicans standing in defence of an ideal until death.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1612000762</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Louise Foxcroft|title=Calories and Corsets: A history of dieting over two thousand yearsIntellectual
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=We’re in that post-Christmas period when all Edward Said's ''Representations of the socialising and indulging is over and all you’re left with Intellectual'' is less a pasty, bloated, over-fed but under-nourished complexion, a wardrobe full strict theory of clothes just a little too tight what intellectuals are and more a new year’s resolution to Get Healthypassionate argument for what they should be. So it’s Said clearly rejects the perfect time for comfortable image of the intellectual as a new diet book detached expert speaking only to hit the shelvesother specialists. The title of this one might make you think it’s going to be full of useful tipsInstead, and he insists on the cover does little to dispel this ideaintellectual as a public figure, often awkward, groaning as it is with the weight of plump jelliesabrasive, lavish cupcakes and unpopular, who speaks truth to power even a decadent lobster when it is inconvenient or two, but take a moment to note the subtitle, if you will: '''a history of dieting over 2000 years'''risky.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846684250</amazonuk>1804272248
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=As a biographer who has previously written substantial biographies ''The world of the unconscious is not the antagonist of political life, but its steadfast companion, the Queen (published hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…'' Women in 1996)Dark Times is Jacqueline Rose's homage to courageous women throughout history, particularly women of her father George VIthe 21st, 20th and her daughter-in-law Diana19th centuries. Her historical and political backdrop is, thus, Sarah Bradford needs little introduction. At around 260 pages of textexpansive, this yet she navigates it with intelligence and an acknowledgment that feminism's lengthy mission is barely half the length of her other titlesa testament to its successes, and probably aimed more at not its failures: ''the general reader with an eye on the Diamond Jubilee marketongoing force of feminism''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>067091911X</amazonuk>1804271713
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Denise KiernanMary McCarthy|title=Signing Their Rights AwayMemories of a Catholic Girlhood
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary=Many Americans believe that Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', obsessively digging into the Declaration of Independence is past to piece together the cornerstone broken mosaic of her life. She attributes her ''burning interest in the American democracypast'' to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who died in the fountain-head of 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the American Way harsh guardianship of Life her late father's Irish Catholic parents and the American Dreamher abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. The 4th Later, she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a different kind of July is the national holiday and often thought to be the single most important date in American historyupbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>159474520X</amazonuk>1804271659
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Toby Lester1785633457|title=Da Vinci's GhostCharging Around: The untold story Exploring the Edges of Vitruvian ManEngland by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=45|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the number idea of popular non-fiction titles grows, exploring the authors on the hunt for new-book material often use a ''concept'' approach, trying to come up with edges of England in an USP for a new titleelectric car was not totally outrageous. This uniqueness is often achieved by adopting an obscure subjectIn fact, or an unusual perspective from which to view it should be a popular theme. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684544</amazonuk>pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neil MonneryB09BLBP3P8|title=Safe As Houses? A Historical Analysis of Property PricesNeville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Neil Monnery was asked Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to become a trustee misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of a local charity with most the early days of its assets World War II from 1939-40, known as the ''Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in local residential propertyto save the day. Over the years Very little time is spent on this had yielded good results period in cultural reflections and the charity was concerned yet, as to whether or not they should continue on the same basis or diversify and Monnery said that he would look into Frederic Seager argues in this. That discussion book, it was the genesis for this book as he began to research the history of house prices – vital significance in how the UK and elsewhere – for as far back as he could go to establish whether or not house were, well, as safe as houseswar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907994017</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Wilson3756228711|title=Shadow of the TitanicCDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Lesson one in writing non-fiction articles and journalism seems to be to find out what is topical. April 2012 is the centenary ''The history of the sinking development of the Titanic, and there are going to be hoards IT could fill books of people finding it topical to celebrate that. Lesson two seems to be to find your own unique angle on the story. Wilson approaches the Titanic disaster by sinking her at the end of chapter one, for he looks more at the lives of the people on board, and how they took the calamity and dealt with itseveral hundred pages.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377300</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul OppenheimerJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Machiavelli: A Life Beyond Ideology Fritz and Kurt
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyConfident Readers|summary=MachiavelliWe 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 first philosopher to define politics as treachery'empty market place, has probably been better known as an adjectivehelping the neighbours, Machiavellian being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a synonym vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for duplicity in statecraft, than using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a historical personlight switch. InterestinglyBut this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and instead of having a national vote to keep the term Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. ''Kristallnacht'Machiavel' became common happened in English usage Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an adjective evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and noun around 1570his father are, unknown initially to each other, although none of his works were translated into packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the language titular event for another seventy years or so after that.the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847252214</amazonuk>024156574X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clarissa Dickson WrightJohn Henry Phillips|title=A History of English FoodThe Search
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Writing a history of English foodArchaeology cannot be child's play, and when you're scraping in the dirt looking to some extent drinkfind what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a daunting taskfair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. This book is a case of the latter, but as an experienced TV presenter (as one our author promises to locate the topic of the titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, the target might not exist any more – oh, and it'Two Fat Ladiess underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the heroic old man'' with s visit back to France, our author has promised to find the late Jennifer Paterson) landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and as one who that he was born in the post-war rationing world in 1947, Clarissa Dickson Wright lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is well placed to do soerect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of whom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905211856</amazonuk>1472146182
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Art SpiegelmanB09F4CTKJR|title=MetaMAUSFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic NovelsHistorical Fiction|summary=Before It's the later stages of World War I and the Holocaust was turned into [[The Boy in United States has just entered the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne|conflict. Petrol Petronus is a child-like near-fable for all]], young American who has signed up and before it joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the focus of superb history books such as [[Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and Stalin by Timothy Snyder|this]], it became a family saga of a father relating his experiences the first to be sent into the skies to a son, who then drew it all - featuring animals not humans - [[Maus by Art Spiegelman|Maus]]fight the Germans in active combat. To celebrate the twenty-five years since thenBut before that can happen, we have this brilliant look back at Petrol has to master flying the creation of an equally brilliant volumenotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916838</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Ardagh0578761718|title=Philip Ardagh's Book of Kings, Queens, Emperors and Rotten Wart-Nosed Commoners|rating=3.5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=If you deem a good children's historical trivia book to be one that tells you, the adult, something they didn't know about historical trivia, then this is a good example. I didn't know George V broke his pelvis when his horse fell on him, startled by some post-WWI huzzahs. I didn't know Charles VI of France nearly got torched in some drunken bacchanal. The length Inspiring History of time Charlemagne sat on a throne (over 400 whole years (even if he wasn't wholly whole all that time)) was news to me, as was the raffle that was held (more or less) for being the unknown soldier. Therefore this is a good book for children and the adults willing to instill some historical trivia into them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330471732</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSpecial Relationship|author=Timothy Snyder|title=Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and StalinNancy Carver|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at least 1181, when it was first chapter is enoughmentioned in records. Sadly, I don't mean the preface, or introduction, that mean you start reading chapter one about an hour original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt inPortland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, but chapter one itself, detailing as when it does was again ruined by bombs during the way Stalin blatantly enforced collectivization on UkraineBlitz. But that wasn's farmst the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, thus killing off millions of local civilians. The seed stock ended up being taken away as part of the grain quota stones from the church's walls were transported to feed the rest of the Soviet UnionFulton, and hardly anybody failed to go without at some point as a resultMissouri. The first chapter here, thenThere, is more than enough in telling us what we didn't know, explaining perfectly lucidly yet academically how and why what happened happened, and at times the grounds of quite gruesome anecdote and contemporary reportageWestminster College, churning our stomachs the church was rebuilt and making us have second thoughts about reading ontoday serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551799</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Paxman1784385166|title=EmpireThe Third Reich in 100 Objects: What Ruling the World Did to the British|rating=5|genre=A Material History|summary=In the 21st century, the British Empire may be an anachronism, something for which hand-wringing politicians and church leaders may be ever ready to apologise. Many of us have grown up just as the last imperial remnants were crumbling away. Yet its legacy is everywhere, and for better or worse will always be part of the very fabric of Britain. As Jeremy Paxman demonstrates in this excellent overview, published as a curtain-raiser to his series on the subject, it is never very far away from us. After a period of trying to distance ourselves from it, we seem to be on the verge of coming to terms with the simple truth that it was not so bad as it has sometimes been painted. Moreover, it should be remembered that even if Britain emerged from the Second World War battered and broke, it still possessed sufficient imperial presence to become one of the Permanent Five on the United Nations Security Council.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919578</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNazi Germany|author=Sam Willis|title=The Glorious First of June: Fleet Battle in the Reign of TerrorRoger Moorhouse
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=To be frank, I was not expecting a lot from this account What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a famous maritime battle. Marine warfare histories can be rather dull, with lists concentration camp? None of ships and mind-numbing detail that may appeal if you have an intimate knowledge these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of a warshipthe Third Reich's anatomy, but quite deathly for the rest of usfascist regime in all its iniquity. But I was gripped some objects and images from the first page that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the last by this really insightful account not just period of the battle but Third Reich through one hundred of the whole political and historical events which inspired itits material artefacts. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849160384</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Julius NorwichLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=A History of England in 100 PlacesTiananmen 1989: From Stonehenge to the GherkinOur Shattered Hopes
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=There are many different ways I never really followed the events of telling Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the history second half of England (indeed just Englandtheir teens has other priorities, not Wales you know. I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and Scotlandthe birth of the Tank Man image, as I didn't know how the author makes clear). This takes area had long been a very simple venue for political protest, and very effective approach to I didn't know more than a spit about the matter, by focusing people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a hundred specific places which somehow illustrate the nationgeneral browser's progress from prehistoric times to today, context for the whole season of protests back in chronological order1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848546068</amazonuk>1684056993
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nancy Mitford0648684806|title=Clara Colby: The Sun KingInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=Nancy Mitford assumes that youThe path of Clara Dorothy Bewick'll need no introduction s life was probably determined when her family emigrated to Louis XIV, who ascended the throne when he USA. At the time she was four just three-years -old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and reigned for well over seventy two yearsthree brothers. To put him Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in context his reign began before Charles I and out of school. She was executed the only child in Whitehallthe household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, lasted through her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell's CommonwealthUnited States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the reigns of Charles Ifamily. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, James IIhad ten pregnancies, William III seven surviving children and into the beginning of the reign of Queen Annedied in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. He bridged As the gap between the middle ages eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and the early modern eraWisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099528886</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen O'Shea1783784350|title=The Friar of CarcassonneThis Golden Fleece: Revolt Against the Inquisition in the Last Days of the Cathars|rating=4|genre=A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|summary=It starts with a painting. The painting isn't the point: the subject is. In the Autumn of 1319 a Franciscan Friar stands before his accusers. Entitled ''L'Agitateur du Languedoc'' the artwork portrays the trial of Bernard Délicieux, the eponymous Friar of Carcassonne. Although O'Shea veers clear of telling us the outcome of the trial, one cannot help feeling that it wasn't an acquittal. Such things tended not to go down in history quite so resoundingly. Not in those days.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668319X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matthew Kelly|title=Finding PolandEsther Rutter
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Looking at any historical map of Poland anyone may see how its borders have changed over the centuries. Where will you find the Polish home? One answer must be that it is founded deep It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in the hearts of the Polish her office job, writing to people who fought for the liberty she'd never met and the integrity of the Polish homelandpreparing spreadsheets. Now consider the promontory of land around Vilnius, or Wilno as it was then known, which was contained inside Poland in 1921 The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. It January was an area in which the small market town of Hruzdowa, comprising some 52 buildings and just large enough going to warrant be a town hall, was situated. These wild borderlands – known as the Kresy - were fought over time for centuries by Austrians, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians making changes and Lithuanians. It was here she decided that Matthew Kelly's great-grandfather, who had imbibed she would travel the values length and élan breadth of the dashing officer class, Rafal Ryzewscy, came to teach British Isles with his clever young wifeoccasional forays abroad, Hannadiscovering and telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the landscape. They were deeply committed to progress through education She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the farm'' - and learned to peaceably raising their two little daughters. Howeverspin, the dreadful knit and weave from her mother and calamitous year of 1939, her mother's friend. This was approaching when Hitler and Stalin partitioned Poland in the most cynical pacther blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515997</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mick Conefrey1789017977|title=How to Climb Mont Blanc in Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a Skirt: A Handbook for the Lady AdventurerNew Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Operation Market Garden, September 1944 is encapsulated for most people in Ronnie Williams was the Hollywood movie "A Bridge Too Far" which, like most movies, gets some son of it right Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some of it wrong. Such anyway is Bennettdoubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's assessmentbirthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. So what is For a while the true story of what one Major Norton called a magnificent family was quite well-to-do but disaster, perhaps consciously echoing that judgement on struck in the charge of 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the Light Brigade army at eighteen in a far earlier conflict "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre"?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>193514989X</amazonuk>1942.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lynn Peril1980891117|title=Swimming in the Steno PoolG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A Retro Guide to Making It year in the Officelife of George Engleheart|author=John Webley
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryArt|summary=The subtitle George Engleheart was one of this book suggests the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a survival guide career lasting from the 1770s to secretarial workthe Regency era. HoweverHe was also one of the most prolific, this is definitely not a handbookpainting nearly 5, but an examination 000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the portrayal names of each of the job and those who do it in the media his clients, and in handbooks over the last 100 years. It subsequently transcribed them into what is an American book and all the references are referred to handbooks, media, popular fiction and advertising from the US, but as a secretary in Britain, I still found it relevant, interesting and very entertaininghis fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393338541</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Niall McCrae1789016304|title=The Moon War and Madness|rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary=Love: A book entitled family''The Moon and Madness'' has the potential to be a pile s testament of New Age hokum. This learned and academic treatise by Niall McCrae is very far from hokumanguish, endurance and there is not a whiff of New Age hanging over it. We probably all have an old folklore image in our minds of lunatics devotion in the asylum howling at the full moon. Of course, the very word 'lunatic' has its origins in the moon. McCrae tries to separate myth and fact in this fascinating book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845402146</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewoccupied Amsterdam|author=Nigel Jones|title=TowerMelanie Martin
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=If you had Melanie Martin read about what happened to name one particular artefact which personifies Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The 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 history of Englandcity during the war years, it would but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be hard allowed to choose anything more appropriate than happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the building which has at various times been a castlecity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, a palace, a prison, a torture chamber, and execution site, an armoury, and is now that the most visited tourist attraction Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the nationway that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091936659</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Annelise Freisenbruch1908745819|title=The First Ladies of Rome: The Women Behind the CaesarsSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Perhaps the most shocking thing to be gleaned from Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this fascinating history of the women who surrounded the Caesars is how easily one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their reputations were createdword, or not, moulded and destroyed. Any woman who put a foot but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out of line in a culture where men held almost all that we didn't like the power could be accused of book. That's a litany of crimes which bore curious similarities with those of many another woman in similar circumstancesrare experience. Incest and adultery were charges regularly levied against themPeople who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, and the very fact that the details were identical in almost every rarely get it wrong. In this case should give rise to suspicion about their accuracy, I was told why. And yet history has accepted and spread these scandals as fact.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523930</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Daniel Allen Butler|title= The Other Side blurb speaks of the Night: The Carpathiaauthor considering ''an older, the Californian, and the Night the Titanic Was Lost|rating=4|genre=History|summary=It's now almost a century since the loss less tethered sense of the herself.''Titanic Older. Less tethered. That'' and although much has been written about almost every aspect s not a bad description of that dreadful night one point has remained a mysterywhere I am. When Add to that my love of the wireless operator on natural world, of those aspects of the 'unsinkable' Titanic radioed poetic and lyrical that the ship had hit an icebergare about style not form, had too few lifeboats for and substance most of all passengers and was sinking fast there were two ships in the vicinity, about connection. Captain Arthur Rostron Of course, this book had my name on the ''Carpathia'' responded to the distress signal and hastened to the Titanic's aidit. But Captain Stanley Lord of the ''Californian'' did not respondIt was written for me. The ship's radio officer had retired for the night and Lord failed It would have found its way to take decisive action later that night when told about distress flares from the Titanicme eventually. The controversy as I am pleased to why the two captains should have acted it fall onto my path so differently has raged across the intervening yearsquickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1935149857</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=D R Thorpe0857058320|title=Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=The great-grandson of a crofter, and son-in-law of a Duke, Harold Macmillan was born in London in 1894. Despite the well-to-do aristocratic background, his years as a young adult were marked by bad experiences in the trenches which left him with lifelong war wounds, and his early service as a Conservative Member of Parliament by Lord Of All the plight of the unemployed in his first constituency of Stockton. He had much in common with another future Prime Minister, Winston Churchill; both had American mothers, and both were mavericks who were elected as Conservatives but refused to toe the party line too steadfastly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844135411</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDead|author=Simon Jenkins|title=A Short History of England Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Most of us see history rather like ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a cloudjourney to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. WeCercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle're aware of s death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great mass of ituncle, seeing some parts more clearly than others, but perhaps struggling to bring it into a straight line. Some parts we will have studied at school, or read about out of interest but these parts will be balanced by other periods when we will be woefully ignorant of some of is the figure who looms large over the most basic factsbook. IHe died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco've studied the Tudors in some depth s forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at various points in my life – but I would struggle to tell you much about the Stuarts. What was needed was a concise history centre of England in one volume and written this book is whether it is possible for the adult reader who would simply like his great uncle to be more informed, but not over-burdeneda hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684617</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bettany Hughes0008294011|title=How to Lose a Country: The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=As Wilson rightly points out, A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to come would be discussed by A level history is generally written by students when faced with the winners. This book turns question ''Discuss the tables by looking at ten of the worst episodes from the point of view of those who were on the losing side, from the sixth factors which led to the late twentieth centuries. ..'' Starting with the plague I agreed that she was right and war of 541-2 which accelerated the collapse of the Roman Empire, wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to the recent Rwandan genocide . I think now that I do know. We are in which the death toll over just danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a few months probably exceeded flawed system I can't think of a millionbetter one, history has had an uncomfortable habit of repeating itselfparticularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907595457</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roger Moorhouse1788037812|title=Berlin at WarThe Fraternity of the Estranged: Life and Death The Fight for Homosexual Rights in Hitler's CapitalEngland, 19391891-451908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Berlin at War is an account Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the day to day lives margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the ordinary people of BerlinEuropean Continent, but barely talked about in the then capital of Nazi GermanyUK, during so the Second World War. Berlin was heavily bombed throughout much publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the warscientific understanding of homosexuality, and suffered greatly as beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the symbolic target milestone legalisation of Allied forces at the endsame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551896</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jacqueline Percival1910593508|title=Elbow Grease: How our Grandmothers Apollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Great-Grandmothers Kept HouseMike Collins|rating=3.5
|genre=History
|summary=Sometimes I look at This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the housework that needs to be done passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and it seems like because of this, the authors take a mountain few narrative shortcuts knowing that has to be climbedwe can fill in the blanks. It's not until I look back at These shortcuts are the work that my mother, her mother and even my great grandmother had only downside to do to keep the house clean and free book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of pests as well as doing all a film you will be familiar with the laundry slight feeling that I realise that my problems there are more of a molehill scenes missing and a lot less strenuous than their daily grind ever wasthat dialogue has been trimmed. Jacqueline Percival has taken This is a look back at the way graphic novel that things really were for the women who went before us – could easily have been three times as long and in those days housework generally was down to the woman in the housestill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956559530</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laura Schwartz1786331047|title=A Serious EndeavourThe Race to Save the Romanovs: Gender, Education and Community at St HughThe Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's, 1886-2011|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary='A Serious Endeavour' is an account of the role 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>}} {{newreviewImperial Family|author=Elizabeth Cooke|title=The Damnation of John Donellan: A Mysterious Case of Death and Scandal in Georgian EnglandHelen Rappaport
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Truth is stranger than fiction - but it is not always this gripping. The Boughtons basic facts about the deaths of Lawford HallNicholas and Alexandra, Warwickshiresome of which were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, have a colourful history, including long since been established. For the ghost last few months of One-Handed Boughtontheir lives in Russia the former Tsar and Tsarina, who haunted their land long before this new misfortune befell children and few remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. To prevent them. With marriages creating more branches of familyfrom being rescued, delicate relationships abound in July 1918 the revolutionary regime had them all shot and help bayoneted to shape the complex events detailed death in the book. We begin with Sir Theodosius Boughtoncircumstances which, heir to once the estate when he comes of agenews was confirmed beyond all doubt, suffering from venereal disease. He is obliged to take medication and is well known for neglecting the recommendations of physicians. One fateful morning, he takes a new medicine, and dies horrified their relatives in agonyEurope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668482X</amazonuk>
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