Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= James Sharpe1785633457|title= A Fiery and Furious PeopleCharging Around: A History Exploring the Edges of Violence in Englandby Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating= 45|genre= History, Travel|summary= From the tragic tale Clive Wilkinson has a history of Mary Clifford, whose death at the hands of her employer scandalised Georgian London, to Victorian Manchester's scuttling gangs, to travelling by unconventional means with a duel obsessed cavalier, author James Sharpe explores the brutal underside of our national lifepreference for slow travel. As it considers he neared his eightieth birthday the litany idea of assaults, murders and riots that pepper our history, it also traces the shifts that have taken place in exploring the nature edges of violence and England in people's attitudes to itan electric car was not totally outrageous. Why was In fact, itshould be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, for exampleJoan, that wife-beating could at once be simultaneously legal and so frowned upon that persistent offenders might well end up ducking in the village pondshouldn't it? }}{{Frontpage|isbn=B09BLBP3P8|title=Neville Chamberlain's War: How could foot ball be regarded at one moment as a raucous pastime that should be bannedGreat Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Received wisdom and next as a respectable sport that should be encouraged? Professor James Sharpe draws on an astonishingly wide range of material simplified narrative often lead to paint vivid pictures of misconceptions about history. One such is the nation's criminals and criminal system scrubbing from medieval times to the present day. He gives a strong sense popular imagination of what it was like to be caught up in a street brawl in medieval Oxford one minute, and a battle during the English Civil early days of World War the next. Looking at a country that has experienced not only constant aggression on an individual scaleII from 1939-40, but also known as the Peasants' Revolt'Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, the Gordon Riotswar breaking out, and Churchill coming in to save the Poll Tax protests day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and the urban unrest of summer 2011yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book asks – are we becoming a gentler nation? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847945139</amazonuk>, it was of vital significance in how the war played out.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jan Bondeson3756228711|title= Strange VictorianaCDC: Tales of the Curious, the Weird and the Uncanny from Our Victorian AncestorsThe happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer

|summary= ''The Victorians, not surprisingly, had their own tabloid press. The most successful title history of this nature was the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.'Illustrated Police News', a weekly journal first published in 1864 and lasting seventy-four years Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. Not He has chosen to be confused with tell us about the short, but explosive, history of the more upmarket 'Illustrated London News'Control Data Company, its main stock-in-trade was weirdCDC, far-fetched and not always entirely genuine stories from Victorian lifefor whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, generally told in Britain but sometimes in Europe as well. This book is based on a recently-discovered archive mixture of the paper. Prepare to be amazed, enthralled, sometimes horrified – technological summary and occasionally disbelievingwry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445658852</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Anna BikontJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title= The Crime and the Silence|rating= 4|genre= History|summary= Where was your father? Where was your brother, your mother, your uncle? These are the questions Anna Bikont struggles to ask during her investigation into a shocking act of violence committed against the Jewish community in Jedwabne during the summer of 1941. The Crime and the Silence weaves together journals, interviews and pictures to share the story of a community torn apart by hatred and intolerance. It is also a moving testament to the dedication of Bikont, who documents her struggle to find the truth with grace and dignity in the face of silence, rationalisation, Fritz and even anger, from members of the Polish community who would rather not stir up the crimes of the past.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099592525</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Susan Higginbotham|title= Margaret Pole: The Countess in the TowerKurt

|genre=BiographyConfident Readers|summary= The fate We start with the pair of Margaret Polebrothers 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, who as helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the cover says synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has a good claim to make sure the title of lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours'each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. But this is the last Plantagenettime just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, was and instead of having a sorry onenational vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. As a close relation ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the Yorkists younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the Tudors at a time of upheavalUS, her life was overshadowed by the executions of several of her family – while Fritz and ultimately leading his father are, unknown initially to her own, largely it seemseach other, packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the 'crime' adult variant of being who she was.all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445635941</amazonuk>024156574X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter DoggettJohn Henry Phillips|title= Electric Shock: From the Gramophone to the iPhone - 125 Years of PopThe Search

|genre=EntertainmentHistory|summary= For many of usArchaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the dirt looking to find what you can find, it often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be difficult a fair bit harder when you set out to imagine find some specific thing. This book is a life without recorded music. Millions case of us must have grown up withthe latter, even 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 very varied soundtrack consisting of wide one genre after another, the target might not exist any more – oh, and it's underwater, when he cannot dive. In this book, Peter Doggett takes Latching on to a marvellous broad sweep particular D-Day veteran through helping the history of popular music from the end of heroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the nineteenth century landing craft that delivered him to the present dayNormandy, and that he was lucky to survive when it sank from wax cylinders to streaming servicesbeneath him. A rather maudlin ditty 'After The Ball', by Charles K. Harris, secondary aim is regarded as the first modern popular song (wellto erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, it was modern in 1891) – the first vast majority of millionswhom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184792218X</amazonuk>1472146182

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn= B09F4CTKJR|title= Flights for Freedom|author=Helen RappaportSteven Burgauer|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0578761718|title=Caught The Inspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the RevolutionCity of London from at least 1181, when it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, the original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, in the grounds of Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1784385166|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse

|summary= Few cities have experienced a year more dramatic than Petrograd in 1917. The city, now known as St Petersburg, went through two revolutions: What is the first a popular uprising image that brought down comes to mind when you think of the Romanov dynasty, the second Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a Bolshevik coup that led to the formation concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Soviet UnionThird Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. At the But some objects and images from that time, Petrograd was home may be less familiar to a large expatriate community, including diplomats, journalists, and businessmen. Many kept diaries or wrote letters home, vividly describing the chaos unfolding at their doorstepyou. In Caught in the Revolutionthis short volume, Helen Rappaport draws on this material Roger Moorhouse has attempted to give a gripping first-hand account illustrate the period of the Russian Revolution, as told by those who lived Third Reich through itone hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091958954</amazonuk> 

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Melissa MohrLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title= Holy Sh*tTiananmen 1989: A brief history of swearing Our Shattered Hopes|rating= 34.5|genre= HistoryGraphic Novels|summary= Holy Sh*t as I never really followed the name suggests looks at both swearing, events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in Biblical terms, to swearing, also usually in Biblical terms but with rather more emphasis on the actsecond half of their teens has other priorities, rather than the deityyou know. This book takes I certainly didn't know of the reader on a journey weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the Old Testamentstudents before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, when swearing your allegiance to I didn't know how the one true God was area had long been a prerequisite venue for staying alivepolitical protest, to and I didn't know more than a spit about the Middle Ages where swearing people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the same God was punishable by rather grisly death. That takes care whole season of the Holy, now onto the part you are really interested protests back in, the Sh*t1989. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>019049168X</amazonuk>1684056993

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenifer Roberts0648684806|title=Clara Colby: The Beauty of Her Age: A Tale of Sex, Scandal and Money in Victorian EnglandInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4.5

|summary= The name path of Yolande Stephens (nee Duvernay) is not that wellClara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-known in the annals old but because of Victorian Englandsome childhood ailment, but behind it lies an enthralling rags-she wasn't allowed to-riches sagasail with her parents and three brothers. How did Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a young girl born into poverty good education, both in Paris become one and out of school. She was the most celebrated ballerinas of only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her time family had become pioneer farmers in Englandthe mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and after that one of her grandparents eventually went to join the richest women family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the countryeldest girl, with a fortune heavy burden would fall on her death which rivalled that of Queen Victoria?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445653206</amazonuk>Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gordon Stevens1783784350|title=The OriginalsThis Golden Fleece: The Secret A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History of the Birth of the SAS|author=Esther Rutter

|summary= It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The SAS is a regiment shrouded in secrecyjob frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. Since its spectacular rise January was going to fame during the Iranian Embassy siege in 1978, it has become be a part of myth time for making changes and folklore. The paradox is she decided that more words have probably been written about this organisation than any other military unit in she would travel the world. Some are well researched, length and have a genuine historical perspective on breadth of the regiments operations British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and activities. Others are pure fantasy, which add little, other than further telling the mystique story of a regiment that lives in wool's history and how it had made and changed the shadowslandscape. She''The Originalsd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' provides a fresh perspective. It tells free-range child on the story of the birth of the SASfarm'' - and learned to spin, by the people who were there. In a series of long forgotten interviews, the regiment is brought to life with fresh insight knit and weave from her mother and wonderful anecdotesher mother's friend. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091901820</amazonuk>This was in her blood.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Steven Gunn1789017977|title= Charles Brandon: Henry VIIIRonnie and Hilda's Closest Friend|rating= 3.5|genre= History|summary=Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, was almost unique in Tudor history in that he was Romance: Towards a close friend and companion – in fact the closest – of King Henry VIII throughout the latter's reign, never really fell out of favour, and had the good fortune to die peacefully in his bed, just eighteen months before his notoriously capricious royal patron.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445656345</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewNew Life after World War II|author=Hugh Sebag-Montefiore|title=Somme: Into the BreachWendy Williams

|summary=One-hundred years ago this month, on Ronnie Williams was the 1st son of July 1916Thomas 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 he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while the most notorious battle family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the history of the British army began at 07:20 with the detonation of a huge mine under the Hawthorn Redoubt. The Battle of the Somme had begun, 1929 Depression and by the end of the first day the British five-year-old Ronnie had suffered nearly 60,000 casualties, 20,000 of whom were killedto adjust to a very different lifestyle. Published One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to mark the centenary of the battle, Somme: Into the Breach by historian Hugh Sebagbe well-turned-Montefiore is a comprehensive account of out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the conflict told primarily by the soldiers who fought army at eighteen in it1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918385</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Rex1980891117|title=William G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the Conqueror: The Bastard life of NormandyGeorge Engleheart|author=John Webley

|genre=History Art|summary= The basic facts George Engleheart was one of William I's life are inevitably as clouded as those surrounding the Norman conquestleading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the events and politics which led up 1770s to it, and the aftermathRegency era. As Peter Rex makes clear in his introductionHe was also one of the most prolific, painting nearly 5, any surviving sources are inevitably very incomplete000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Moreover, 'Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the writing names of the history each of the eleventh century requires the historian his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to attempt to provide motives and explanations for events that are only sketchily described at best'as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445660172</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catherine Hickley1789016304|title=The Munich Art HoardWar and Love: HitlerA family's Dealer testament of anguish, endurance and His Secret Legacydevotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=4.5

|summary=One of the most newsworthy events in modern art history Melanie Martin read about what happened seemingly by chance. When tax police raided the house of an aged man to Dutch Jews in Munich it was because they assumed he had been moving too much money about occupied Amsterdam during World War II and paying no tax – this six months after he was seen on the train between Bavaria and Switzerland with entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank''nearly too muchbut then realised that her own family' cashs stories were equally fascinating. The investigators had no caseA hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but he had something much more complex only five thousand survived and rich – Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a massive legacy of 20th Century country with liberal values who were resistant to German and European artoccupation. But Most people believed that collection had to have an origin – one of dubious and at times nefarious beginningsthe occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, and one that could have quite a rich and convoluted background. Hickley, in these pages, gives us much the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the way of context as well as ironing out those convolutionsthat it did, so this story is both of interest to Nazi historians and art scholars – but initial protests melted away as well as to those larger numbers who just like the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a good story told wellvast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0500292574</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Scott1908745819|title=Ancient WorldsSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie

|summary= History can be perceived as Sometimes when people suggest that you read a dusty academic backwatercertain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Often viewed as an irrelevance in our modern worldMostly we take them at their word, or not, as but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we race through didn't like the daily events of our livesbook. It is That's a subject that has suffered greatly in our education system, where there has always been rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a tendency to teach the subject in isolationbook calling your name, only focussing on the events that have shaped our own national identityrarely get it wrong. Michael Scott's new book offers a refreshing changeIn this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering ''Ancient Worldsan older, less tethered sense of herself.'' is thought provoking history for the general reader Older. Less tethered. Well researched and with That's not a persuasive argumentbad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, he explores of those aspects of the interactions across three differing culturespoetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Interactions that provide a new perspective Of course, this book had my name on our modern worldit. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091958814</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Alexandra Harris0857058320|title= Weatherland: Writers Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and artists under English skiesAnne McLean (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= ReferenceHistory|summary=The story of English culture over a thousand years can be told as the story of changing ideas about ''Lord Of All the weather. A sweeping panorama, Dead''Weatherlandis a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor' explores how writers s life and artists, looking up at death. Cercas is searching for the same skies and walking meaning behind his great uncle's death in the brisk airSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, have felt very different things. A journey through centuries and culturesCercas' great uncle, Harris walks is the figure who looms large over the reader through misty moor and foggy fen, lays with them book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on bright sunlit beaches, treks with them to stormy summits, and introduces them why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a fascinating cast of writers, artists and cultural figures along hero whilst having fought for the waywrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0500292655</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jem Duducu0008294011|title= Forgotten HistoryHow to Lose a Country: Unbelievable Moments from the Past|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary=The numerous highways, byways and tangents of the chronicle of our life on earth provide the raw rata for any number of alternative histories, and in this book Jem Duducu has trawled magnificently through the ages 7 Steps from several centuries BC up Democracy to the present day.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445656345</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewDictatorship|author=Martin Wall|title= The Anglo-Saxons in 100 FactsEce Temelkuran|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= As one of the generation who was introduced A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to English come would be discussed by A level history through students when faced with the question 'Kings and Queens' principle, and thoroughly enjoyed it, I have long since regarded Discuss the period between the Roman invasion and the Norman conquest as a bit of a blurfactors which led to. For me it is a rather murky area, punctuated by the likes of Hengist and Horsa, Alfred the Great and Ethelred the Unready, not to mention the Athelstans, Edgars, Egberts and others who are so often little more than names. In order words, what exactly did they do? This admirable title brings it all into focus.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445656388</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Robert Kershaw|title= 24 Hours at the Somme|rating= 5|genre= Reference|summary=''They came past one by one...walking lumps of clay, with torn clothing, hollow cheeks I agreed that she was right and sunken eyes...There wasn't certain whether it was a dreadful weariness, but a wildness burning in their fevered eyes, showing good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this appalling hand ' was leading to hand fighting had cost them. Utterly unforgivable for me.. I think now that I do know. We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can' So goes the description t think of the mena better one, particularly as the 'benevolent dictator'ghosts,'' at the end of the first day of the Somme. July 1 2016 will mark 100 years since this most bloody of battles took place. It was supposed to be the optimistic 'Big Pushis as rare as hen' that would end the Great War, but by sunset of the first day the British casualties numbered 57,470. The battle would rage until November that year, with the total number of casualties on all sides exceeding one millions teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753555476</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher McGrath1788037812|title=Mr Darley's ArabianThe Fraternity of the Estranged: High LifeThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, Low Life, Sporting Life: A History of Racing in 25 Horses1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary= Debunking Originally passed in 1885, the Bard of Avon law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on the grounds that he same-sex relationships did not write go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the plays attributed to him is nothing newnature of homosexuality appeared. This scholarly workThey were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, based as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on several years' research and new evidencethe European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, is by no means so the first publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to suggest otherwisethe scientific understanding of homosexuality, and provides a compelling argument as beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to who really was the authormilestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445654660</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clinton Romesha1910593508|title=Red PlatoonApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins

|summary= When This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the soldiers of Red Platoon arrived at Combat Outpost Keating, in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan, Moon landings and the vulnerabilities of passion for the outpost were frighteningly obvious. It was surrounded on all sides subject drips off every Apollo by steep and wooded hillsMatt Fitch, giving the Taliban excellent vantage points to observe the outpost Chris Baker and fire into it; the helicopter landing zone, essential for bringing in supplies Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and evacuating the woundedbecause of this, was situated outside the base across authors take a river; and few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the perimeter was too large to be sufficiently defendedblanks. These weaknesses were also obvious shortcuts are the only downside to the Taliban, and on the 3rd October 2009, just after dawn, they launched book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a full-out assault to capture film you will be familiar with the baseslight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. Red Platoon This is a first-hand account of the frantic battle graphic novel that followed, written by Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha who received the Medal of Honor for his actionscould easily have been three times as long and still felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848094647</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Teresa Cole1786331047|title= Henry VThe Race to Save the Romanovs: The Life of Truth Behind the Warrior King & the Battle of Agincourt|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary= Henry V is remembered as one of EnglandSecret Plans to Rescue Russia's greatest warrior kings, not least as a result of his immortalisation in the play by Shakespeare (as well as by two film versions of the drama). Ironically he was one of several great-grandchildren of Edward III, and as he was considered relatively unimportant at the time of his birth, exactly when he arrived in the world was not recorded and two different dates have been given. It was the deposition of his father's childless cousin Richard II in 1399 which placed him directly in the line of succession.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445655411</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewImperial Family|author=Kathryn Warner |title=Isabella of France: The Rebel Queen Helen Rappaport|rating= 5|genre= History|summary= Ask almost anyone what they know about Isabella, Queen of King Edward II. The chances are that they will tell you she was ‘the she-wolf of France’ who was so infuriated by her gay husband’s propensity for disastrous favourites that she took a lover and they conspired to depose him, then have him murdered in captivity. The truth is somewhat different. To use an old cliché, if you throw enough mud it will stick. A good deal has adhered to this seemingly much-maligned couple over the years.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445647400</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Penrose Halson|title=Marriages Are Made in Bond Street: True Stories from a 1940's Marriage Bureau|rating=4

|summary=Audrey Parsons had no desire to marry. Her mother, however, had quite different ideas The basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and was insistent that her daughter find a husbandAlexandra, as their would be no place for her some of which were deliberately obscured at the family farm when she was oldertime for various reasons, have long since been established. Frustrated by her lack For the last few months of options, Audrey bowed to pressure and went to stay with her uncle in India their lives in Russia the hope of finding a husband. When she arrived she was overwhelmed by all of the male attention she received. In the coloniesformer Tsar and Tsarina, eligible women were their children and few and far between and men remaining servants were desperate for wives. Although she didn't find a husbandheld in increasingly squalid, she hit upon an idea that would kill two birds with one stone: she would find wives for these lonely men, whilst at the same time creating a business that would allow her the financial independence she cravedhumiliating captivity. The Marriage Bureau was born.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447282620</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Peter Popham |title=The Lady and the Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's Struggle for Freedom|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=On 13 November 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi was released To prevent them from house arrest after spending 15 of the previous 21 years as a prisoner of Burma's military junta. Political reforms soon followed, culminating with Suu (as she prefers to be known) being elected to parliament. The West rejoiced; leadersrescued, business men, and tourists poured in; and Suu entered July 1918 the pantheon of modern-day political heroes. Burma was a burgeoning democracy, revolutionary regime had them all shot and Suu was a saint. In reality, as Peter Popham argues bayoneted to death in 'The Lady and the Generals'circumstances which, once the situation news was far more complex.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846043719</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Kristie Dean|title= On the Trail of the Yorks|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= Just when you wondered whether there was room on your shelves for another book on the Yorkist dynastyconfirmed beyond all doubt, here comes a very enterprising addition. Part biography, part travel guide, this is a guidebook comprising a tour of various places at home and abroad associated with the major figureshorrified their relatives in Europe. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445647133</amazonuk>