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[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The War that Ended Peace: How Europe abandoned peace for the First World WarJacqueline Rose|authortitle=Margaret MacMillanWomen in Dark Times|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=One could argue that ''The world of the main title of this book unconscious is slightly questionable. Throughout the half-century or so before not the outbreak antagonist of hostilities in 1914political life, Europe had rarely been free from conflictbut its steadfast companion, with the Franco-Prussian, Graeco-Turkish and Balkan wars for a start. Nevertheless, the majority of the continent was at peace with itself and most of its neighbours during this period.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668272X</amazonuk>}}hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…''

{{newreview|author=Vincent Bugliosi|title=Parkland|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=''Parkland'' Women in Dark Times is not just a book about history but a book Jacqueline Rose''with'' a s homage to courageous women throughout history. Vincent Bugliosi published ''Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy'' in 2007 with much , particularly women of the book being based on his preparation for a mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald which was shown on British television21st, 20th and 19th centuries. This book was an exhaustive look at what happened in Dallas Her historical and at subsequent events such as the trial of Jack Ruby political backdrop is, thus, expansive, yet she navigates it with intelligence and the conspiracy theories which have abounded in the intervening fifty years. an acknowledgment that feminism''Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy'' was published in June 2008 and s lengthy mission is - as the title suggests - restricted a testament to what happened on 22 November 1963 its successes, and the following three days. not its failures: ''Parklandthe ongoing force of feminism'' is the film tie-in version of that book.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393347338</amazonuk>1804271713

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee and Howard WebsterMary McCarthy|title=Canton Elegy: A Father's Letter Memories of Sacrifice, Survival and Lovea Catholic Girlhood|rating=4.5

|summary=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee, known in his childhood Mary McCarthy describes herself as Ah Noman ''amateur architect'', was born early in obsessively digging into the twentieth century in past to piece together the village broken mosaic of Dai Waan her life. She attributes her ''burning interest in rural China. His father died when he was young and he lived with his grandmother, mother and the past'Little Uncle'to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who was only a matter of months older than Ah Nomdied in the 1918 flu epidemic. They'd become friends as they grew olderThis memoir chronicles her early years, but when his Grandfather returned after a long absence beginning with her orphanhood in America there as a distinct rivalry between Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the twoharsh guardianship of her late father's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. Then Grandfather revealed his reason for returning home - he intended Later, she moved to take the boys Seattle to America to be educated. It was live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a wonderful opportunity and Ah Nom left the village and his mother not knowing when he would see either againdifferent kind of upbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780285736</amazonuk>1804271659

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Max Adams1785633457|title=The King in the NorthCharging Around: The Life and Times of Oswald of Northumbria|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Born in 604 and around for only 38 years, Oswald didn't live that long but he packed a lot in. Born into Bernician royalty, Oswald Exploring the teenager had to flee with his mother and siblings when his father Aelfrith was killed at the Battle Edges of the River Idle. Any noble wanting to beat his way to the top would naturally kill Oswald's family and so an obscure upbringing in Ireland seemed the answer. However, Oswald grows strong and bides his time until he comes home and clears his own path, ruling Northumbria for 8 years until his own untimely demise. During those 8 years he united kingdoms, helped establish Christianity and became the inspiration of writers as disparate as St Bede and Tolkien. As Oswald became St Oswald he left behind as many legends as historical events and this book seeks to separate the man from the myth while explaining the time we call the Dark Ages in the brutally separated lands that we now call Great Britain and Ireland.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781854181</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Empress Dowager CixiEngland by Electric Car|author=Jung ChangClive Wilkinson

|genre=BiographyTravel|summary=It’s easy to see why Jung Chang selected Cixi as the focal point Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for her study of China’s tumultuous modern historyslow travel. Cixi is a truly fascinating woman, one As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of few human beings whose existence can be honestly said to have shaped exploring the course edges of historyEngland in an electric car was not totally outrageous. Cixi’s biography is not only In fact, it should be a fascinating read due to her own political machinationspleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, but also because of the immense transformations that occurred in China during her lifetime. Jung Chang offers a detailed exploration of the period from Cixi’s entrance to court in 1852 to her death in 1908Joan, during which time the ancient dynastic customs of China gave way to the advent of the industrial age.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087436</amazonuk>shouldn't it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B09BLBP3P8|title=The Explorer GeneNeville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Tom CheshireFrederic Seager|rating=4.5

|summary=''The Explorer Gene'' relates Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the remarkable story of three generations of scrubbing from the Piccard family, each popular imagination of whom managed to push the boundaries early days of travel and break new frontiers. The grandfatherWorld War II from 1939-40, Auguste Piccard was known as the first human to enter the stratosphere, using en experimental balloon of his own invention''Phoney War''. His later workWe remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, designing submarineswar breaking out, enabled his son Jacques and Churchill coming in to become save the first person to descend to the bottom of the infamous Mariana trench, setting a world record for the deepest diveday. Grandson Bertrand became the first person to fly around the world Very little time is spent on this period in a balloon cultural reflections and now seeks to break new records by means yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book, it was of a solar-powered craft that he intends to pilot all the way around vital significance in how the earthwar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780720890</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn and Tom Pinfold3756228711|title=Tudor Monastery FarmCDC: Life in rural England 500 The happy years agowith a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer

|summary=Think of it as time travel. Three professional historians have travelled back some five hundred years to put what they've learned into practice. On a monastery farm they've experienced what it was really like in rural Tudor England. It's a book to accompany The history of the BBC television series but it's still a rich and rewarding experience if - like me - you missed the showdevelopment of IT could fill books of several hundred pages. There's a wealth of experience between the three authors and they write about what they each know best and it's all supplemented by some sumptuous photographs of Bayleaf Farm in west Sussex and the surrounding farmland.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849906920</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|title=High Minds: The Victorians and Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us about the Birth short, but explosive, history of Modern Britain|author=Simon Heffer|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Between 1840 and 1880 British life and society underwent a gradual but major change. Young adults in the latter year would have seen a very different country from that in which an earlier generation came to maturity. The land in which povertyControl Data Company, diseaseCDC, squalor and injustice were endemicfor whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, and told in which the Chartists had agitated for fairer rights for all, had been largely transformed by the modernising factors a mixture of social upheaval technological summary and industrial changewry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847946771</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony SummersJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Not In Your Lifetime: The Assassination of JFKFritz and Kurt|rating=4.5|genre=True CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Originally published as ''The Kennedy Conspiracy''We 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, Anthony Summers has massively revised helping the textneighbours, updated being dutiful when it with comes to the latest evidence synagogue choir and itat a vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours's been republished each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler''Not in Your Lifetime: The Assassination s will, and instead of JFK'' which refers having a national vote to keep the statement made by Chief Justice Earl Warren who was asked if the truth about what happened would come Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. He said that it would, but added the rider that ''it might not be in your lifetimeKristallnacht''. Fifty years on most of the people directly involved are now deadhappened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, but as did all the truth has not officially emergedround-ups of Jews. In fact, it's difficult These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to avoid the thought that Britain or the US government would prefer that it did not see the light of day. Further documents , while Fritz and his father are due , unknown initially to be released in 2017each other, but, in packed off on the meantime Anthony Summer has examined what is available, investigated on his own behalf same train to Buchenwald and given the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this comprehensive book.could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755365429</amazonuk>024156574X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Great Britain's Great WarJohn Henry Phillips|authortitle=Jeremy PaxmanThe Search

|summary=Throughout Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the 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 a case of the nineteenth centurylatter, Britain was regularly at war with as 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 or , the target might not exist any more overseas nation– oh, be and it France, Russia's underwater, South Africa or elsewherewhen he cannot dive. These conflicts generally passed Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the public byheroic old man's visit back to France, except for families who had loved ones serving overseas. When the declaration of war against Germany was announced our author has promised to find the crowds in London in August 1914, it was assumed landing craft that once again most people would not be affecteddelivered him to Normandy, and that he was lucky to survive when it would probably be over by Christmassank from beneath him. This was proved wrong on both counts. A weary conflict dragged on for four long yearsThe secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, and nobody in Britain escaped from the long shadow which it castvast majority of whom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670919616</amazonuk>1472146182

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn= B09F4CTKJR|title=The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder That Changed the WorldFlights for Freedom|author=Greg King and Sue WoolmansSteven Burgauer|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyHistorical Fiction|summary=Possibly no assassination in history can have had such momentous consequences for It's the history later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the world as that of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and his wife Sophie joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in SarajevoCanada, the capital of Bosnia, first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in June 1914active combat. It was their killing which led directly But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the outbreak of the First World War, just six weeks laternotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230759572</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0578761718|title=The First Bohemians: Life and Art in London's Golden AgeInspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Vic GatrellNancy Carver

|summary=It was The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the eighteenth century that an area City of London consisting of about half a square mile, from Soho and Leicester Square across Covent Garden’s Piazza to Drury Lane, and down from Long Acre to the Strand, with Covent Garden at the very centreleast 1181, became what has when it was first mentioned in modern times been recognised as the world’s first creative ‘bohemia’records. Sadly, This the original church was where destroyed in the cream of Britain’s significant artists, actors, poets, novelists, and dramatists Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the age lived fire and workedthen survived for centuries until World War II, side when it was again ruined by side with bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the city’s chief market tradersend of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, craftsmenthe stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, shopkeepersMissouri. There, rakesin the grounds of Westminster College, pickpockets the church was rebuilt and prostitutes. One might say that all human life was heretoday serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846146771</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1784385166|title=Inventing the EnemyThe Third Reich in 100 Objects: Essays on EverythingA Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Umberto EcoRoger Moorhouse|rating=45

|summary=Imagine a sumptuous Italian feast in What is the sunlit-bathed ancient countryside near Milan. Next first image that comes to mind when you think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a gentleman talks and eats with furious energy. He tells concentration camp? None of Dante, Cicero, and St Augustine and quotes a multitude these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of obscure troubadours from the Middle Ages. He repeats himself, gestures flamboyantly, nudges you sharply in the ribs, belches and even breaks wind. His conversation contains nuggets of information but Third Reich's fascist regime in the flow of his discourse there is a fondness for iteration and reiterationall its iniquity. He throws bones over his shoulder But some objects and when he reaches the cheese course - definitely too much information on the mouldy bacteria! When images from that time may be less familiar to you finally get up things the elderly gentleman has said prompt your imagination. You are better informedIn this short volume, intrigued and prodded Roger Moorhouse has attempted to examine his discourse again and again, even if only to challenge what you have heard. Such are illustrate the effects period of reading Eco’s essays in ''Inventing the Enemy''Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553945</amazonuk> 

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Crooked Timber Of HumanityLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|authortitle=Isaiah BerlinTiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes

|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=''The Crooked Timber I never really followed the events of Humanity'' is a collection of essays by philosopher Isaiah Berlin, born Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in Riga, to, later in life, become an Oxford student and one the second half of the institution's more notable alumni, continuing to influence the university by, among their teens has other thingspriorities, cofounding Wolfson Collegeyou know. Altogether, the collection presents Berlin I certainly didn's observations t know of Western thought. The history the weeks of morals in protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the West was birth of particular interest to Berlinthe Tank Man image, as well as I didn't know how these morals informed the more obvious changes in philosophyarea had long been a venue for political protest, literature, culture and much I didn't know morethan a spit about the people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845952081</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0648684806|title=A Very British MurderClara Colby: the Story of a National ObsessionThe International Suffragist|author=Lucy WorsleyJohn Holliday|rating=4.5|genre=True CrimeBiography|summary=The British are an illogical racepath of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. Short At the time she was just three-years-old but because of genocidesome childhood ailment, murder is the worstshe wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, most shocking crime an individual can commitshe remained with her grandparents, yet it has become who doted on her and saw that she received a kind good education, both in and out of commodity which over school. She was the only child in the last years has been endlessly packaged as a mass market entertainment industryhousehold and her childhood was glorious. We buy newspapers and magazines with blow-byBy contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-blow accounts west of dreadful true the United States and life caseswas hard, we read thrillersas Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, watch TV drama series and documentarieshad ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and we can take part died in murder mystery evenings childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and weekends at pubs and hotelsWisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849906343</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1783784350|title=1912This Golden Fleece: The Year the World Discovered AntarcticaA Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Chris TurneyEsther Rutter|rating=45

|summary=If you read those products designed to make you a published authorIt was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, one way writing to start according people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. January was going to so many be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of them is to look ahead for a pertinent anniversary, research or know your subject wellthe British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of wool's history and write well in advance how it had made and as popularly as you can on whatever changed the subject islandscape. Make no mistake, however – Chris Turney, even if he would appear to have followed that dictum She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the farm'' - and learned to the lastspin, is no chancer with the eye to the temporary relevanceknit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845952103</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark White1789017977|title=KennedyRonnie and Hilda's Romance: A Cultural History of an American IconTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|summary=During his lifetime John Fitzgerald Kennedy created an image Ronnie Williams was the son of himself that dazzled 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 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and which has largely remained intact despite the steady leakage of information over the he might well have shaved a few years which could have been expected to tarnishoff his age. It could be argued that For a while the family was quite well-to- much as do but disaster struck in the case of Elvis Presley 1929 Depression and Princess Diana five- death year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was an excellent career move, but Mark White examines the way the image was built up, then maintained and his need to be well- after the assassination turned- burnished, reinforced out and protectedthis would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441161864</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1980891117|title=Armchair NationG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: An intimate history of Britain A year in front the life of the TVGeorge Engleheart|author=Joe MoranJohn Webley

|genre=EntertainmentArt|summary=All George Engleheart was one of us have a love-hate affair with television, or ‘the idiot lantern’. Hardly anybody who has ever owned a set, or been part the leading portrait miniaturists of a family which has had oneGeorgian London, can envisage life without it. It has been with a source of endless entertainment and escape career lasting from the drudge 1770s to the Regency era. He was also one of everyday lifethe most prolific, while at some time it has irritated most painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of us beyond measureKing George III). Love it or loathe it, it has always been part Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the fabric names of our existence. While to a certain extent it has been superseded by online services which have supplemented if not overtaken or usurped part each of its rolehis clients, its iconic status and subsequently transcribed them into what is unlikely referred to disappear for the foreseeable futureas his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683912</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1789016304|title=Anti-JudaismWar and Love: A History of a Way family's testament of Thinkinganguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=David NirenbergMelanie Martin|rating=4.5

|summary=Initially 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 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 choice of title seemed an odd one on account of city during the more widely used termwar years, anti-Semitismbut only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. The distinction is quickly made though Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that unlike the latter, anti-Judaism does not need real Jews Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to flourishescalate in the way that it did, but is fuelled by initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an idea alone. In fact this is atrocity on a core tenet vast scale but made up of Nirenberg’s thesis. Throughout history the idea tens of ‘Judaism’ is raised as an existential spectre in societies where there may be no Jewish members at all. This is a chilling reality, and Nirenberg charts the course thousands of how this came to beindividual tragedies. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851131</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1908745819|title=Victoria's Madmen: Revolution and AlienationSurfacing|author=Clive BloomKathleen Jamie|rating=4.5

|summary=Despite the revisionist work of Sometimes when people suggest that you read a few writers and historianscertain book, our prevailing image of the Victorian age they tell you ''this one has generally been one of staid conformityyour name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, superiority and stuffinessor not, during which only but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a few dissenters put their heads above book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the parapetauthor considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself. '' Clive Bloom sums it up rather succinctly on the first page as Older. Less tethered. That's not a ‘monolith bad description of steam and class conflict, antimacassars and aspidistras’where I am. A page later, he describes the nineteenth century – most Add to that my love of which was covered by the Victorian era – as one divided by three groupsnatural world, namely of those who represented aspects of the old Georgian decadence, the young Turks eager for reformpoetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and finally a group who felt an allegiance to the world substance most of their forebears but were forced all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to exist in a world of confirming moralism and priggishnessme eventually. The young Turks, he concludes, ultimately wonI am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230313825</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0857058320|title=Inferno Decoded: The essential companion to Lord Of All the myths, mysteries and locations of Dan Brown's InfernoDead|author=Michael HaagJavier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=While ''Lord Of All the novels of Alexandre Dumas, like Dead''The Three Musketeersis a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor' s life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle''The Count of Monte Cristo''s death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, werenCercas't truegreat uncle, they were based on a real hero - Dumasis the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's own fatherforces. Born Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the son centre of a slave and a French nobleman, General Alexandre Dumas would go on this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to rise to fame and fortune during the French Revolution, only to face racism, betrayal, and be a rivalry with Napoleon Bonaparte which would eventually lead to hero whilst having fought for the virtual disappearance from history of this incredible figurewrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575132</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008294011|title=Tutankhamen's CurseHow to Lose a Country: The Developing History of an Egyptian King7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Joyce TyldesleyEce Temelkuran

|summary=The striking cover of 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 students when faced with the question 'Tutankhamen’s Curse' certainly has a way of arresting Discuss the reader’s attentionfactors which led to... The iconic golden funeral mask peers out from an ink-black background '' I agreed that she was right and those heavily-lined Egyptian eyes seem wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to stare eerily into the soul . I think now that I do know. We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the beholder'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861971664</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788037812|title=A Very British KillingThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The Death of Baha MousaFight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=A T WilliamsBrian Anderson

|summary=Almost ten years ago on a Sunday morning back Originally passed in September 20031885, British Troops raided the law that had made homosexual relations a hotel crime remained in Basraplace for 82 years. It was a difficult period in the occupationBut during this time, six months restrictions on from the Usame-sex relationships did not go unchallenged.S. led invasion. Temperatures were more than 50 degrees centigrade. Members of Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the Queen's Lancashire Regiment (QLR) took ten suspects in for questioning from a hotel in the vicinity nature of insurgent weaponryhomosexuality appeared. The Iraqis They were hooded, plasticuffed, forced into stress positions and subjected to karate chops and kidney punches written by the British. Other two homosexual men : Edward Carpenter and officers watchedJohn Addington Symonds, walked by or wondered at as well as the stench that resulted from vicious punishmentheterosexual Havelock Ellis. After 36 hours Exploring the margins of torturesociety and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, a 26 year-old hotel receptionist lay dead by asphyxiation. His grossly disfigured body bore 93 individual injuries. There are now but barely talked about in the region UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of another 250 individualshomosexuality, men and womenbeginning the struggle for recognition and equality, whose families are making legal claims leading to have been killed the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in further encounters with British patrols or prison guards1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575116</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1910593508|title=The Shadow King: The Bizarre Afterlife of King Tut's MummyApollo|author=Jo MarchantMatt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins

|summary=''Now, if I'd known''<br>''They'd line up just This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to see himthe Moon landings and the passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch,''<br>''I'd taken all my money''<br>''And bought me a museumChris Baker and Mike Collins.'' These lyrics, taken from This is a popular Steve Martin songstory we know well and because of this, perfectly epitomize the authors take a phenomenon first described few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the New York Times, February 1923blanks. The craze came These shortcuts are the only downside to the book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be known as ''Tut-Mania'' familiar with the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and even now, ninety years later, there that dialogue has been trimmed. This is something about the boy-king with the golden mask a graphic novel that ignites the imagination could easily have been three times as long and curiosity of each subsequent generationstill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306821338</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=The Last Battle1786331047|author=Stephen Harding|rating=4.5|genre=History|summarytitle=May 4, 1945 saw the unconditional surrender of all German troops in Germany in Northwest Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Bavaria. Berlin had surrendered two days earlier. A few more areas remained officially at war, but even the most diehard supporter must have realised Germany had fallen. The war was over, Race to most soldiers, although VE day would be delayed for a few more days. But Save the most implausible battle of Romanovs: The Truth Behind the second world war was about Secret Plans to begin. Had Rescue Russia''The Last Battle'' been fiction, I would have scoffed at the unlikely alliance featured in this book as too unbelievable. A final battle played out in isolated Austrian castle was to rescue French VIPs held as honour prisoners. They were to be protected by the oddest ensemble of soldiers ever known. A ranking member of the S.S., a decorated Wehrmacht officer and his troops, the Austrian resistance and a few American soldiers against a suicidal S.S. troop bent on carrying as many killings as possible before the inevitable end.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306822083</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Riddle of the Labyrinths Imperial Family|author=Margalit FoxHelen Rappaport

|summary=Meet Linear B. It's The basic facts about the name given to an ancient writing system discovered in 1900, and has stuck ever since then. If you need to know more, it's a linear style deaths of writing, Nicholas and is linked to Linear A. ThereAlexandra, that's that cleared up. But it took an awful long time to clear anything more up – while people knew some things about Linear B, and why and how they got to be holding it in their hands, of which were deliberately obscured at the actual language it containedtime for various reasons, and its meaning, was a truly intellectual challengehave long since been established. It was five whole decades For the last few months of obscurity, annoyingly secretive archaeologists their lives in Russia the former Tsar and more, between Sir Arthur Evans finding Linear B on copious clay tablets on CreteTsarina, their children and its interpretation. In between those two landmarks was an unsung American heroine, and this book is both an incredibly readable guide to everything regarding Linear B, and a study of her contribution.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251320</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jonathan Dimbleby|title=Destiny few remaining servants were held in the Desert: The Road to El Alamein - the Battle that Turned the Tide|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=El Alamein is a totemic British battleincreasingly squalid, standing as it does with others which turned the tide of our fortuneshumiliating captivity. The Allies were still smarting To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the effects of Dunkirk and harbouring the knowledge that revolutionary regime had Hitler elected to press his advantage then the situation could have been very different. Churchill is often quoted as saying that there were no victories before El Alamein them all shot and no defeats afterwards. This isn't true - 'it seemed that' is generally omitted from the beginning of the quote - but it does sum up the fact that the battle turned the tide of ''perception'' as well as the fortunes of war, which was quite an achievement for fighting which took place on land bayoneted to death in circumstances which none of , once the major participants had any legitimate claimnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684455</amazonuk>

{{newreview|title=Ruta's Closet|author=Keith Morgan with Ruth Kron Sigal|rating=4|genre=History|summary=A Holocaust memoir. There, I've said it, and in one fell swoop I've consigned this book to a niche market, and a small – and very much over-supplied – audience. Such books do find it difficult to get their heads above the parapet and the voice within heard, and it seems they have slowly filled in all the gaps in the available knowledge about the Holocaust. But that's the point that makes those words sound churlish – every life that survived that nightmare has Move on to fill in a gap, and account for those who committed the crimes and those that helped out [[Newest Home and rescued a survivor, and serve as monument to those six million gaps it created. Luckily, mostly on account of location, this book certainly does serve to fill in a wider gap in our perception of WWII than most.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906509263</amazonuk>}}Family Reviews]]