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[[Category:New Reviews|History]]==History==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John O'Connell1785633457|title=For the Love of LettersCharging Around: The Joy of Slow Communication|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=With Exploring the advent Edges of mobile phones and e-mail, is there still a place for good old-fashioned letter-writing in the world today? John O'Connell certainly thinks there is, and has written a compelling argument in this book which, if you haven't put pen to paper for some time, may be enough to remind you of the benefits of slower correspondence in today's high-speed world.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721099</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewEngland by Electric Car|author=Roger Osborne|title=Of the People, By the People: A New History of DemocracyClive Wilkinson|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=Most authors writing on the subject Clive Wilkinson has a history of democracy tend to concentrate on political theorytravelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. Osborne approaches As he neared his eightieth birthday the subject from idea of exploring the historical angle instead, looking at different democracies from that edges of Greece England in the sixth century BC, to the present dayan electric car was not totally outrageous. 'Humanity's finest achievement'In fact, as Osborne calls it in the first sentence of should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his prologuewife, Joan, comes from the Greek words shouldn''demos'' (people) and ''kratos'' (rule). It had its origins in the system devised in ancient Athens, the earliest in the world which did not first operate through complex relations of kinship and deference, as had others up to then. Parallels would be seen in Rome a few centuries later.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950623</amazonuk>t it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen DolbyB09BLBP3P8|title=Oranges and LemonsNeville Chamberlain's War: Rhymes From Past TimesHow Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager

|summary=Karen Dolby's book Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is a loving look at nursery rhymes the scrubbing from the popular imagination of the early days of World War II from many different times and places1939-40, handily organised into groups like known as the 'Monday's Child: The Rhythm of DaysPhoney War' and 'Oranges . We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Lemons: Songs and Games'. In addition Churchill coming in to save the rhymes themselvesday. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book, Dolby sets them into context and tells us it was of vital significance in how the stories behind themwar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843179598</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catherine Bailey3756228711|title=CDC: The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mysteryhappy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer|rating=4.5

|summary=Like many an enthralling novel, this book starts with a death from natural causes yet in odd circumstances which initially leaves several questions unanswered. In fact, in spite ''The history of the subtitle, and also knowing nothing about the family whose story it tells in part, I had to look through the book thoroughly before reading, to satisfy myself that it actually was non-fictiondevelopment of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917559</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Patricia Malcolmson and Robert Malcolmson (Editors)|title=The Diaries of Nella Last: Writing in War and Peace|rating=3Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that.5|genre=History|summary=This work brings together a selection of some of Nella Last's diary entries from He has chosen to tell us about the 1940's and 1950's. She wrote from her home in Barrow-in-Furness as part short, but explosive, history of the Mass Observation projectControl Data Company, writing a huge amount of materialCDC, some of which has already been published as ''Nella Lastfor whom he worked. It's War''a fascinating tale, [[Nella Last's Peace: The Post-war Diaries of Housewife 49 by Patricia Malcolmson (Editor), Robert Malcolmson (Editor)|Nella Last's Peace]] and [[Nella Last told in the 1950s: The Further Diaries a mixture of Housewife, 49 by Patricia Malcolmson and Robert Malcolmson (Editors)|Nella Last in the 1950s]] This volume brings together the three previous collections, with new material too, taking the reader through the war years technological summary and on into post-war Britainwry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668546X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah WiseJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty Fritz and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Many a family in Victorian England had a problem husband, wife, son or daughter whom they felt ought to be ‘locked away’. Only occasionally if ever was it for totally unselfish reasons connected with their mental health and well-being. More often than not it was to settle old scores, or so the family could get their hands on the victim’s fortune or business, or sometimes because, as the title of this book suggests, they were merely ‘inconvenient’.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847921124</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gavin Mortimer|title=A History of Football in 100 ObjectsKurt

|genre=SportConfident Readers|summary=Given how long it's been played We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and how many books have been written about ittheir muckers, doing things any new history of football needs Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to have some kind of hook to make it stand out. Gavin Mortimer may have found thatdo – kicking things around the empty market place, by presenting his history as ''A History of Football in 100 Objects''. This prompts helping the question as neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to whether the whole of football could be reduced down to synagogue choir and at a mere century of objectsvocational school. But then, if [[From 0 Kurt has to Infinity in 26 Centuries by Chris Waring]] can make a history of maths worth reading, I guess anything is possible.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250618</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Victoria Glendinning|title=Raffles And sure the Golden Opportunity|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Although Raffles has gone down in history as lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the founder of Singapore his roots were far from grand. He had no advantages apart from his own drive and determination and his professional life began with a lowly clerkship with the East india Company, then Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as large mechanical and ungainly workmanlike as many a governmentlight switch. When he went abroad on behalf of the Company he quickly learned the merits of doing something and asking permission afterwards, not least because of the time taken to contact London and then receive a reply. Even if all went well But this could take is the best part of a year - by which time just before the original question could well be academic.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686032</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Max Decharne|title=Capital Crimes: Seven centuries of London life and murder|rating=4.5|genre=True Crime|summary=True crime has been one of the great growth areas of publishing in the last few years. As more than one author in the field as observed, everyone loves a good murder in a manner of speaking, and anybody who Austrian leader is looking for books on murders in London will find no lack of choice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847945902</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sarah Herman|title=The Classic Guide to Famous Assassinations (Classic Guides)|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=If you ever wanted going to know the details of famous assassinations, this is almost certainly the book you've been waiting for. In an easy cave to read style with lots of bullet points and box-outs, Sarah Herman talks us through historyHitler's most famous killings and failed attempts. Starting with Greek and Roman timeswill, subsequent chapters move through religious and royal victims, revolutionaries, Russians and American politicians.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780950144</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Carola Hicks|title=Girl in instead of having a Green Gown: The History and Mystery of national vote to keep the Arnolfini Portrait|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=The Arnolfini marriage portraitNazis out, as it is generally if perhaps inaccurately known, painted by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, signed and dated 1434, has long been one of the most popular and enigmatic paintings of its timeinvite them in with open arms. Of modest size, a little less than three feet high''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, it is one of the oldest surviving panel pictures to be painted in oils rather than tempera. It is also regarded as did all the first work of art which simultaneously celebrates both middleround-class comfort and monogamous marriage.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526891</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tracy Borman|title=Matilda: Wife of the Conqueror, first Queen of England|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Writing the biography ups of any woman who lived as long ago as the eleventh century, even someone as illustrious as a Queen, is a pretty thankless taskJews. There will always be huge gaps These in their turn leave the knowledge available. For example we do not know when Matilda was born, younger Kurt at home with his mother and likewise we do not have a precise date for her marriage, although we do know when she died. No lifelike images sisters anxious to hear word of her are knownan evacuation to Britain or the US, though evidence suggests that she was quite short of stature. In a male-dominated society, there while Fritz and his father are approximate records of when her sons were born, but not her daughters. Even more confusingly perhapsunknown initially to each other, many of packed off on the stories passed down same train to us throughout history are quite probably falseBuchenwald and the stone quarry there. It is hardly surprising that this appears to be And us wondering how the titular event for the first full-length life adult variant of her yet to appear in English.all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099549131</amazonuk>024156574X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert ShepherdJohn Henry Phillips|title=Westminster: A biography, from earliest times to the presentThe Search

|summary=There seems to Archaeology cannot be no shortage of ways child's play, when you're scraping in which the history of London dirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be told, and as befitting an experienced historical and political biographer, Shepherd has found another interesting variation on the themesomething there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. In this superbly detailed and exhaustively researched volume, he brings us This book is a case of the story of Westminsterlatter, as our author promises to locate the royal capital that became the birthplace topic of parliamentary government and the centre of a world powertitular search. Over 1500 years ago And he really hasn't made it was Thorney Island, a secluded easy for himself – the search area on the banks of the Thames. It then became is a villagewide one, yet a very grand one comprising a spiritual centrethe target might not exist any more – oh, a royal ceremonial stage and later it's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a political capital, encompassing buildings such as particular D-Day veteran through helping the Abbeyheroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the Houses of Parliamentlanding craft that delivered him to Normandy, and 10 Downing Streetthat he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. Against this stage has been enacted the history of The secondary aim is to erect a nationmemorial to everyone else aboard, of the monarchs and politicians who for better and worse shaped the events vast majority of the last thousand yearswhom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0826423809</amazonuk>1472146182

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ann WroeB09F4CTKJR|title=Orpheus, The Song Of LifeFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=Orpheus is one of It's the most memorable and recognisable figures later stages of Greek mythology. He was a legendary musician World War I and poet, whose song could charm all living things and indeed the very stones of United States has just entered the earthconflict. He had Petrol Petronus is a dramatic life, including joining the Argonauts as they searched for the golden fleece. Most memorably, he travelled to Hades to rescue his dead wife Eurydice from the underworld. However, he was unable to obey Pluto’s command not to look at her. He couldn’t resist turning around, only to see her sucked back into the depths and death. This tale of romantic tragedy and thwarted love young American who has intrigued signed up and delighted artists and writers through joined the centuries, and they have portrayed Orpheus and his life in music, paintings, plays, poems, operas and films ever since17 Aero Squadron.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951689</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alison Maloney|title=Bright Young Things|rating=4|genre=History|summary=According to This company was the summary I read of ''Bright Young Things'' before choosing the book first US Aero Squadron to readbe trained in Canada, it 'takes a sweeping look at the changing world of the Jazz Age'. I was expecting it first to be something of a narrative account of attached to the Roaring Twenties – in actual fact, it's set out as a collection of trivia about RAF and the decade. Similarly, the 'first person accounts' mentioned on the inside front cover are limited to two or three sentence quotes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753540975</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Neil Root|title=Frenzy!: How the tabloid press turned three evil serial killers be sent into celebrities|rating=4|genre=History|summary=It was forever thus. Only last year, 2011, did the ''News of the World'' and the ''Sunday Mirror'' stop being the double-headed monster of tabloid journalism, and very little was different in the 1950s, beyond the inclusion of boobies, and the fact the ''Mirror'' was then just skies to fight the ''Sunday Pictorial''. Both formed a duopoly for those Germans in their audience seeking all the salacious details of the scandals of the day, and the crimes and criminals people would talk about over their breakfastsactive combat. Three men stood out in those days for the ways in which they achieved their notoriety, and this book is an account of their goings-on, and how the press reported the stories – at times paying large fortunes for the privilege.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099557762</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robert O Bucholz and Joseph P Ward|title=London: A Social and Cultural History, 1550-1750|rating=4|genre=History|summary=It seems hard to visualise a time when London was just a city of no major importance, except as England’s capital. The main thrust of this book is only about halfway through the Tudor area did it really rise to global prominence and come to dominate the economic, political, social and cultural life of the nation as it never had But before – and arguably since. By 1750 it had also surpassed Amsterdam as Europe’s financial and banking hub, and become 'a cornucopia of culture' through its vibrant concert and theatre life, to say nothing of a thriving and relatively free press. Before long it would also become the home of the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts. Lest this testimonial seems too gilded, we are reminded at the same time that the city was one of palaces and slums, concert halls and gin jointscan happen, churches and brothels, possibility and fear. Good and evil were always side by side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521896525</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gordon Weiss|title=The Cage|rating=4|genre=History|summary=The history of Ceylon, and latterly Sri Lanka Petrol has at its centre an undeniable contradiction. A nation which espoused and proclaimed peaceful Buddhism was caught in one of the bloodiest conflicts in the recent past, a conflict peppered with suicide bombings, mass killings, rapes, torture and imprisonment, and more than a hint of genocide. Gordon Weiss was intimately involved as a journalist and as the United Nations Spokesman in Sri Lanka for two years of the almost 40 years conflict, and has produced a detailed account of to master flying the background and eventual denouement of this conflictnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954847X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frank McLynn0578761718|title=The Road Not Taken: How Britain narrowly missed Inspiring History of a revolutionSpecial Relationship|author=Nancy Carver

|summary=Since The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the Norman conquestCity of London from at least 1181, there have been no successful invasions of Britainwhen it was first mentioned in records. Yet according to this bookSadly, during that era the country has come close to revolution on seven occasions. These were the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, Jack Cade's rebellion of 1450, original church was destroyed in the Pilgrimage Great Fire of Grace London in 1666. It was rebuilt in 1536, Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the English Civil fire and then survived for centuries until World War in II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the 1640s, Blitz. But that wasn't the Jacobite rising in 1745-6end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the Chartist Movement of stones from the early Victorian erachurch's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, and finally in the General Strike grounds of 1926. In each caseWestminster College, social turbulence threatened the status quo but went no furtherchurch was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill. Why and how did they ultimately fail?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224072935</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bernard Wasserstein1784385166|title=On the EveThe Third Reich in 100 Objects: The Jews A Material History of Europe before the Second World WarNazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse

|summary=The introduction What is the first image that comes to 'On the Eve' begins with the controversial statement, 'Nor is anti-Semitism, by itself, a satisfactory explanation mind when you think of the Jew's predicament'. Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The author has written gate to a history concentration camp? None of the post-war Jewry called the ''Vanishing Diaspora'' these are comfortable images but this book examines they are emblematic of the collective failure by the Jewish people before 1939 Third Reich'to attain at least s fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some control over the threatening vagaries of fate'. It examines their failure to establish cohesive social links, political parties, hospitals, newspapers objects and schools. Jewish culture and religious practice weakened during the very period when they advocated loyalty images from that time may be less familiar to the states where they were citizens; the USSR, Poland, Germany and Franceyou. Their population too was in decline. WassersteinIn this short volume, who is a master at pointing out intriguing and surprising detail, explains that on Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the brink period of annihilation, there were actually more Jews held in camps outside the Third Reich than within itthrough one hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681804</amazonuk> 

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nigel SaulLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=For Honour and FameTiananmen 1989: Chivalry in England 1066-1500Our Shattered Hopes

|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=ChivalryI never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, Saul tells us in you know. I certainly didn't know of the opening sentences weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the preface, is associated first massacre and foremost with the estate birth of knighthood the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and with fighting I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on horsebackeither side. In this This book he aims to present an account of English aristocratic society is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the Middle Ages, from the Norman conquest to the first years whole season of the Tudor dynasty, which puts chivalry centre-stageprotests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845951891</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert K Massie0648684806|title=Catherine the GreatClara Colby: Portrait of a WomanThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4.5

|summary=Already known for major biographies The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of Nicholas some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and Alexandrathree brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of Peter school. She was the Greatonly child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, Massie has now written an equally full her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and absorbing life of was hard, as 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, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the late eighteenth-century reigning Empresseldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0679456724</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eamon Duffy1783784350|title=Saints, Sacrilege and SeditionThis Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating=45

|summary=In the introduction It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to 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 this book Eamon Duffy, Professor of be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the History length and breadth of Christianity at Cambridge History, points out that all too often historians have written about the English Reformation from strongly polarised views. Taking two extreme examplesBritish Isles with occasional forays abroad, he cites one which states that discovering and telling the people story of England, formerly happy medieval Catholics, were forced by King Henry to abandon their religion, wool's history and England was never merry again, alongside another which speaks of the English being oppressed by corrupt churchmen until King Henry gave them the Protestant nation for which they longed. On the following page, he suggests that how it had long been an axiom of historical writing that made and changed the success of the Reformation landscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in England was an inevitable consequence of Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the dysfunction farm'' - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and unpopularity of late medieval Catholicismher mother's friend. Such remarks were evidently made by writers with an axe to grind This was in her blood. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441181172</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Winter1789017977|title=Defeating Hitler: WhitehallRonnie and Hilda's Top Secret Report on Why Hitler Lost the Romance: Towards a New Life after World WarII|author=Wendy Williams

|summary=Just how Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and why did Hitler lose the Second World War? Ethel Wall. The message 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 [[Fatherland by Robert Harris]] is that 1863, but he spent too much effort killing Jews to concentrate on anything elsewas already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. Remarkably, this look at more explicit reasons for For a while the end of the Third Reich barely mentions family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the Holocaust. What we have is ''Some Weaknesses in German Strategy 1929 Depression and Organisation 1933five-1945'' year- old Ronnie had to adjust to a document drawn up by what would now have very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be called Whitehall Mandarins, written during a year of war well-turned-out and a year of peace, that itemises for those this would stay with enough security clearance just what Hitler's chain of command was, and what him throughout his thinking was for each theatre of the Warlife. It was never Top Secret, but was classified for thirty years and has spent about as long waiting for this hardback versionHe joined the army at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441196358</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean-Paul Kauffmann1980891117|title=G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A Journey to Nowhere: Among year in the Lands and History life of CourlandGeorge Engleheart|author=John Webley

|genre=TravelArt|summary=When I turn to travel writingGeorge Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, it is with a healthy balance of that about places I have been career lasting from the 1770s to, and places I've notthe Regency era. But without sounding too big-headed it is seldom places I have never heard He was also one of in any context - especially those I have passed throughthe most prolific, painting nearly 5, what's more000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). The 'nowhere' in focus here is Courland, which was more-or-less Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the coastal slither names of the top each of Latviahis clients, and was once an independent Duchy. In one fell swoop Kauffmann seems to become the only travel writer subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to have written a as his fee book about the place, at least for many a generation, and, it's pleasant to say, probably the best one could have hoped for.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050362</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Penelope Hughes-Hallett1789016304|title=The Immortal DinnerWar and Love: A famous evening family's testament of genius anguish, endurance and laughter devotion in literary London, 1817occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=4.5

|summary=Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A book based around just one dinner sounds hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a little extraordinarycountry with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. But Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the host, painter Benjamin Robert Haydoncity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, was no ordinary artist. He was a friend of many of that the major artistic and literary figures of Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the dayway that it did, in addition to being an ambitious painter of historical scenesbut initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. Sadly, his ambition was not matched by popularity or good fortune, and despite or perhaps parly because It's an exaggerated belief in his own abilities, one and atrocity on a half centuries after his death he is largely forgotten except for his suicide after years vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of despair, and perhaps his diary as wellindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956372X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Martin1908745819|title=Underground Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube Surfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=4.5

|summary=Although he was born in YorkshireSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, Andrew Martin they tell you ''this one has long been enthralled by the London Undergroundyour name on it''. His father worked on British RailMostly we take them at their word, or not, and Andrew himself therefore had free travel on but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the system as well as book. That's a Privilege Pass which entitled him to free first-class train travel on the national rail networkrare experience. Having lived in London for twenty-five years, commuting People who are sensitive to various newspaper offices in his employment as hearing a journalistbook calling your name, a job which has included writing a regular magazine columnrarely get it wrong. In this case, Tube TalkI was told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, he is well qualified less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to write this entertaining and enlightening social history that my love of the natural world's , of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most famous underground railwayof all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. 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>1846684773</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mary Beard0857058320|title=Lord Of All in a Don's Day|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Mary Beard's latest collection, 'All in a Don's Day', of her assembled blog pieces from 2009 until the end of 2011, covers similar concerns to her previous selection, [[It's A Don's Life by Mary Beard|It's a Don's Life]]. Professor Beard is a fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge and became Classics Professor at there in 2004. She is also an expert in Roman laughter, an interest which she fully indulges in the pages of her TLS blog. In her latest collection she bemoans the parlous current state of both Education and the Academy, and makes witty observations on matters as various as television chefs, what and how to visit in Rome and the art and worth of completing references in an age when only positive things may be said about postgraduate job-seekers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685362</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDead|author=R I Moore|title=The War On Heresy: Faith Javier Cercas and Power in Medieval EuropeAnne McLean (translator)

|summary=At ''Lord Of All the end of Dead'' is a journey to uncover the first millennium, Western Europe was a place which had barely ever encountered heresyauthor's lost ancestor's life and death. It took just a couple of centuries Cercas is searching for it to become a major problem the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the eyes of church leadersSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, leading to is the figure who looms large over the persecution of individuals and groupsbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Was heresy such a fast-growing problem? In Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this volume, R I Moore provides a thoughtful analysis of dictator. The question at the issues and makes a powerful case that many supposed heretics were merely victims centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a paranoid church which created propaganda to justify so many deathshero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681960</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Julius Norwich0008294011|title=How to Lose a Country: The Popes: A History7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran

|summary=Historian [[:Category:John Julius Norwich|John Julius Norwich]] (or Rt Hon/Viscount John Julius Norwich, A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to give him his full title) doesncome would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question ''t write Discuss the sort of history books one associates with school daysfactors which led to... '' He doesnI agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to. I think now that I do dry and dustyknow. In fact ''The Popes: A HistoryWe are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it'' isns a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the 'benevolent dictator'justis as rare as hen'' a history book but a romp through the ages with some great trivia nuggets scattered throughout the informative golds teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099565870</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emma Smith1788037812|title=The Cambridge Shakespeare GuideFraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary=The work of Originally passed in 1885, the secret services is always going to be shadylaw that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, dark and murkyrestrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Books like David Stafford's Mission Accomplished: SOE Between 1891 and Italy 1943 - 1945 make an effort to shine a light 1908, three books on the shadows nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and bring John Addington Symonds, as well as the facts into viewheterosexual Havelock Ellis. Stafford's admirably honest introduction claims that he has 'done [his] best to ensure that what appears here is accurate Exploring the margins of society and truthful'studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but reminds his reader that 'history is indeed intrinsically messy'; even more barely talked about in the UK, so when his sources the publications of these men were writing with secrecy hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in mind1967. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531836</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Bushkovitch1910593508|title=A Concise History of RussiaApollo|rating=4.5|genreauthor=History|summary=Russia's recent history, especially since the end of the Cold War, has been so full of new developments that there is probably little if any limit to the number of fresh histories the market can absorb. This most recentMatt Fitch, from a Professor of History at Yale University, take a little over 450 pages to tell the story from the earliest days of Kiev Rus, the territory which was to become the ancestor of the present nation state around the 10th century AD, to Vladimir Putin's assumption of office as President in 2000.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521543231</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chil Rajchman|title=Treblinka: A Survivor's MemoryChris Baker and Mike Collins

|summary=Here comes yet another book about This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Holocaust, Moon landings and yet another with more than enough damning indictment of those events and their perpetrators, with more than enough horrific reportage to make your blood run coldthe passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and with more than enough distinguishing features to make it a necessary purchaseMike Collins. The latter This is partly down to where it came from - while Dachau started out as a camp for political prisonersstory we know well and because of this, and Auschwitz I was the authors take a work camp based round barrack blocks few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to the book. If you can squint at and see 've ever read a comic book adaptation of a bad private school, this is coming from Treblinka, which was constructed purely film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and simply to kill. It that dialogue has rightly been called trimmed. This is a 'conveyer-belt executioner's block'graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849163995</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Johanna Adorjan1786331047|title=An Exclusive Love|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=This moving memoir tells of the double suicide of both István (a Hungarian-Jewish form of Stephen) and his wife Vera one Sunday morning in October. The story is told by their granddaughter, Joanna Adorján and tells of her close fondness for them both but in particular with Vera, with whom the author shares many characteristics. The story begins with the systematic persecution of such Hungarian Jews in Budapest under the Nazi occupation and describes their perilous flight Race to Denmark after Save the Soviet occupation of Hungary in 1956. It ends with the police reports of the duty officer dated 15.10.91 with the discovery of their bodies in their bungalow in the Charlottenlund, a town of the Capital Region of Denmark. Entry is gained by a local locksmith who charged 297.02 kroner. It is the charm and lyricism with which this tale is related which makes this fateful, haunting and profoundly moving story about identity both sad and memorable. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552671</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Loades|title=Romanovs: The Tudors: History of a Dynasty|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=For several years David Loades has written and published extensively about the Tudors, individually and collectively, from almost every angle possible. This title is not a chronological biography or history of Truth Behind the five monarchs whose reigns gave their name Secret Plans to the era. As he and his publisher make clear in the preface, it is rather a study of Tudor policies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441136908</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewRescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Francesca Beauman|title=Shapely Ankle Preferr'd: A History of the Lonely Hearts AdvertisementHelen Rappaport

|summary=You might think The basic facts about the Lonely Hearts ad a trivial matterdeaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, have long since been established. You might think it should appear For the last few months of their lives in lower case Russia the former Tsar and not be capitalisedTsarina, but you'd be their children and few remaining servants were held in disagreement with Ms Beaumanincreasingly squalid, who gives a big L humiliating captivity. To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the revolutionary regime had them all shot and a big H bayoneted to it every time she writes of it death in her survey of its history. What's morecircumstances which, she gets to write about a lot more than just once the contents of the adverts news was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in this brilliant bookEurope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009951334X</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Roman Krznaric|title=The Wonderbox: Curious Histories of How Move on to Live|rating=5|genre=History|summary='How should we live?' asks author Roman Krznaric. To answer this ancient question, he looks to history. 'I believe that the future of the art of living can be found by gazing into the past', he says. Creating a book which is as full of curiosities as a Renaissance 'Wunderkammer', he has a stab at the big questions: love, belief, money, family, death. The result is a pot-pourri of delights which left this particular reader stimulated [[Newest Home and invigorated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683939</amazonuk>}}Family Reviews]]