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[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreview{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Porter1785633457|title=Everyday Life in Tudor LondonCharging Around: Life in Exploring the City Edges of Thomas Cromwell, William Shakespeare & Anne Boleyn|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=The Tudor period in England marked a transition in so many ways from the medieval period to a new era, and so it is only right that somebody should at last have examined what effect that should have had on our capital city. After the instability of the Wars of the Roses, a period of consolidation set in and London was at last established as the seat of royalty and government, as well as the centre of cultural life and commercial activity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445645866</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewby Electric Car|author=Simon Wills|title= The Wreck of the SS LondonClive Wilkinson

|genre=HistoryTravel|summary= The sinking Clive Wilkinson has a history of the Titanic in 1912 was the ocean disaster against which all subsequent shipwrecks have come to be comparedtravelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. Yet some forty years earlier, As he neared his eightieth birthday the people idea of mid-Victorian Britain and overseas were horrified by another loss at sea which at exploring the time had a similar impactedges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In January 1866 SS Londonfact, it should be a large new luxury liner en route to Australia, went down shortly after leaving Englandpleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, with around 250 people deadJoan, maybe more (the exact figure will never be known), and only three survivors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144565654X</amazonuk>shouldn't it?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der KisteB09BLBP3P8|title=Queen Victoria and the European EmpiresNeville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager

|summary=''Queen Victoria Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of the early days of World War II from 1939-40, known as the European Empires'' is a very readable history of Queen VictoriaPhoney War''s relationships. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, both personal and political with Churchill coming in to save the royalty of France, Germany, Austria and Russiaday. Many of these associations were based Very little time is spent on family tiesthis period in cultural reflections and yet, but - as Frederic Seager argues in all families - not all connections brought joy in their wake. John Van der Kiste - an expert this book, it was of vital significance in all things Victorian - produces an elegant picture of the changing relationships between the eighteen thirties and how the early nineteen hundreds in a book which is deceptively slim, but packed with fascinating information and insightswar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781555508</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Bard3756228711|title= Capital PunishmentCDC: LondonThe happy years with a spectacular IT 's Places of ExecutionPhenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer

|summary= ''The majority history of the development of IT could fill books on true crime and murder focus first and foremost on specific incidentsof several hundred pages.'' Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us about the short, but explosive, history of the Control Data Company, CDC, for whom he worked. This concise volume takes It's a different approachfascinating tale, told in dealing with them according to where the executioner completed his taska mixture of technological summary and wry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445667363</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Colin BrownJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Operation Big: The Race to Stop Hitler's A-BombFritz and Kurt|rating=3.54|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=WhatWe start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, do you thinkand their muckers, was more feared doing things any Jewish lad in 1941 and 1942 than 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the Nazi Party? Wellempty market place, a Nazi Party with nuclear arms would be pretty high on helping the list. It seems neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the stuff of pure fantasy, but I'm not so suresynagogue choir and at a vocational school. A lot of the people Kurt has to be at make sure the forefront of the nuclear physics of the age were German, and the first nuclear fission was lamps are turned on at their soil. Two things seemed to be needed for nuclear arms very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – uranium, which they procured by capturing Czechoslovakia, the location of one its greatest source mines; Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and heavy waterworkmanlike as a light switch. That so nearly fell into Nazi hands when they invaded Norway, but what seems to have been But this is the great majority of time just before the worldAustrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's supply had only just been smuggled will, and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. [[Fatherland by Robert Harris|Some fiction]] takes great strides to suggest ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in a fantasy way that if Hitler hadn't concentrated on exterminating JewsGermany, he would have had as did all the energy to win round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the war – younger Kurt at home with his mother and it must only be a short step sisters anxious to see his imperial expansionism as having hear word of an ulterior motive in nuclear materiel. But make no mistakeevacuation to Britain or the US, this is not fiction – these while Fritz and his father are , unknown initially to each other, packed off on the pure facts behind same train to Buchenwald and the issuestone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445664674</amazonuk>024156574X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick BunkerJohn Henry Phillips|title=An Empire on the EdgeThe Search

|summary=The history that we are taught is centred on events. Often we know Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the datesdirt looking to find what you can find, the central characters and the outcomeoften knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. We seldom identify and study the causesArchaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. 'An Empire on the Edge' This book is history writ large and looks at a case of the chain of events leading latter, as our author promises to locate the Boston Tea Party, and subsequent American War topic of Independencethe titular search. What emerges And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a catalogue of human failings and frailties that shaped wide one, the destiny of America target might not exist any more – oh, and Britain in the eighteenth centuryit's underwater, when he cannot dive. Many of Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the failings were avoidable but heroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the accumulation landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and chain reaction they caused had that he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a catastrophic effect on thousands of lives and has shaped memorial to everyone else aboard, the character vast majority of two nations ever sincewhom perished. Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099552736</amazonuk>1472146182

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn= B09F4CTKJR|title=Tales of Loving and LeavingFlights for Freedom|author=Gaby WeinerSteven Burgauer

|genre=BiographyHistorical Fiction|summary=In It''Tales s the later stages of Loving World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and Leaving''joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, author Gaby Weiner tells the story of three of her family members: her grandmother, Amalia Moszkowicz Dinger; her mother, Steffi Dinger; first to be attached to the RAF and her fatherthe first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Uszer FrochtPetrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524635081</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew Lewis0578761718|title=Henry III: The Son Inspiring History of Magna Cartaa Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver

|genre=BiographyHistory|summary= For a monarch whose reign over England The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at least 1181, when it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, the original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of fifty-six years London in 1666. It was unequalled 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 nineteenth century, Henry III remains curiously little-knownBlitz. Nobody could claim But that he was wasn't the end of its story: after a particularly outstanding or successful rulerphenomenal fundraising effort, but the fact that he held his throne for so long stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, in an unstable age the grounds of Westminster College, the church was no mean achievement in itselfrebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445653575</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amy Licence1784385166|title=Catherine of AragonThe Third Reich in 100 Objects: An Intimate Life A Material History of Henry VIII's True WifeNazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse

|summary=At a time What is the first image that comes to mind when the US Presidential election is fielding at least one candidate you'd cross think of the road Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to avoid (and I'm not saying which one) ita concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Third Reich's useful fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to look back over the forty four presidents who have gone before themyou. It's surprising how many of them have been lawyersIn this short volume, soldiers and career politicians, but there have also been school teachers, journalists, Hollywood actors, professors, postmasters and even a peanut farmer. Gone are Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the early days when you could almost fall into period of the presidency accidentally - now you need a massive war chest if you're to get to election dayThird Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445656507</amazonuk> 

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth NortonLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title= The Lives of Tudor WomenTiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes

|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary= After a series I never really followed the events of individual biographies on Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the major Tudor womensecond half of their teens has other priorities, mostly royal, this book brings a new dimension in touching on you know. I certainly didn't know of the lives weeks of individuals protests and hunger strikes from all walks of life. However it is much more than a collection of lives. While the Queens students before the massacre and princesses naturally dominate some the birth of the chaptersTank Man image, it looks beyond I didn't know how the surface to devote attention to serving maids, businesswomenarea had long been a venue for political protest, activists and martyrs, as well as focus I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on various aspects either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of life for women and girls protests back in Tudor England1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784081752</amazonuk>1684056993

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Matthews0648684806|title=Robin HoodClara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryBiography|summary= The Outlaw path of Sherwood Forest has been part 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 national mythology ever since some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the twelfth centuryhousehold and her childhood was glorious. Did Mr Hood really exist By contrast, or is he a figment her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of popular imagination who refuses the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to go quietly? If historians find out when she and researchers over her grandparents eventually went to join the ages are to be believedfamily. 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 truth seems to lie somewhere in betweeneldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445656019</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lydia Ginzburg1783784350|title=Notes from the BlockadeThis Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter

|summary=Long regarded as the most pivotal date It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in English historyher office job, writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not least soothe her mind. January was going to generations be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of us familiar the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the 1930s Sellar story of wool's history and how it had made and Yeatman spoof history changed the landscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '1066 And All That', the year of the Norman Conquest has long been seen as a relatively isolated event as well as free-range child on the start of a new era for our island storyfarm'' - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. The full picture This was inevitably more complexin her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445649225</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= James Sharpe1789017977|title= A Fiery and Furious People: A History of Violence in England|rating= 4|genre= History |summary= From the tragic tale of Mary Clifford, whose death at the hands of her employer scandalised Georgian London, to Victorian Manchester's scuttling gangs, to a duel obsessed cavalier, author James Sharpe explores the brutal underside of our national life. As it considers the litany of assaults, murders Ronnie and riots that pepper our history, it also traces the shifts that have taken place in the nature of violence and in peopleHilda's attitudes to it. Why was it, for example, that wife-beating could at once be simultaneously legal and so frowned upon that persistent offenders might well end up ducking in the village pond? How could foot ball be regarded at one moment as Romance: Towards a raucous pastime that should be banned, and next as a respectable sport that should be encouraged? Professor James Sharpe draws on an astonishingly wide range of material to paint vivid pictures of the nation's criminals and criminal system from medieval times to the present day. He gives a strong sense 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 New Life after World War the next. Looking at a country that has experienced not only constant aggression on an individual scale, but also the Peasants' Revolt, the Gordon Riots, the Poll Tax protests and the urban unrest of summer 2011, this book asks – are we becoming a gentler nation? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847945139</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewII|author=Jan Bondeson|title= Strange Victoriana: Tales of the Curious, the Weird and the Uncanny from Our Victorian AncestorsWendy Williams

|summary= The Victorians, not surprisingly, had their own tabloid press. The most successful title of this nature Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There'Illustrated Police Newss 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 weekly journal first published few years off his age. For a while the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in 1864 the 1929 Depression and lasting seventyfive-year-four yearsold Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. Not One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be confused with the more upmarket 'Illustrated London News', its main stockwell-inturned-trade was weird, far-fetched out and not always entirely genuine stories from Victorian this would stay with him throughout his life, generally in Britain but sometimes in Europe as well. This book is based on a recently-discovered archive of He joined the paper. Prepare to be amazed, enthralled, sometimes horrified – and occasionally disbelievingarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445658852</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Anna Bikont1980891117|title= The Crime and G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the Silencelife of George Engleheart|author=John Webley|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryArt|summary= Where was your father? Where George Engleheart was your brother, your mother, your uncle? These are the questions Anna Bikont struggles to ask during her investigation into a shocking act one of violence committed against the Jewish community in Jedwabne during the summer leading portrait miniaturists of 1941. The Crime and Georgian London, with a career lasting from the Silence weaves together journals, interviews and pictures 1770s to share the story of a community torn apart by hatred and intoleranceRegency era. It is He was also a moving testament to the dedication one of Bikont, who documents her struggle to find the truth with grace and dignity in the face of silencemost prolific, rationalisationpainting nearly 5, and even anger, from members 000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the Polish community who would rather not stir up the crimes names of each of the pasthis clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099592525</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Susan Higginbotham1789016304|title= Margaret PoleWar and Love: The Countess in the Tower|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary= The fate of Margaret Pole, who as the cover says has a good claim to the title of A family'the last Plantagenet', was a sorry one. As a close relation s testament of the Yorkists and the Tudors at a time of upheavalanguish, her life was overshadowed by the executions of several of her family – endurance and ultimately leading to her own, largely it seems, for the 'crime' of being who she was.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445635941</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewdevotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Peter Doggett|title= Electric Shock: From the Gramophone to the iPhone - 125 Years of PopMelanie Martin

|genre=EntertainmentHistory|summary= For many 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 usAnn Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, it must but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be difficult allowed to imagine happen in a life without recorded music. Millions of us must have grown up country with, even liberal values who were resistant to, a very varied soundtrack consisting of one genre after anotherGerman occupation. In this book, Peter Doggett takes a marvellous broad sweep through Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the history of popular music from Germans might reach the end of city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the nineteenth century Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the present dayway that it did, from wax cylinders to streaming servicesbut initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. A rather maudlin ditty It'After The Ball', by Charles K. Harris, is regarded as the first modern popular song (well, it was modern in 1891) – the first s an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of millionsindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184792218X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Rappaport1908745819|title=Caught in the RevolutionSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie

|summary= Few cities have experienced Sometimes when people suggest that you read a year more dramatic than Petrograd in 1917certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. The cityMostly we take them at their word, now known as St Petersburgor not, went through two revolutions: the first a popular uprising but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that brought down we didn't like the Romanov dynasty, the second book. That's a Bolshevik coup that led to the formation of the Soviet Unionrare experience. At the time, Petrograd was home People who are sensitive to hearing a large expatriate communitybook calling your name, including diplomats, journalists, and businessmenrarely get it wrong. Many kept diaries or wrote letters homeIn this case, vividly describing the chaos unfolding at their doorstepI was told why. In Caught in The blurb speaks of the Revolutionauthor considering ''an older, Helen Rappaport draws on this material less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to give a gripping first-hand account that my love of the Russian Revolutionnatural world, as told by of those who lived through aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have itfall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091958954</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Melissa Mohr0857058320|title= Holy Sh*t: A brief history of swearing Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)|rating= 3.54|genre= History|summary= Holy Sh*t as ''Lord Of All the name suggests looks at both swearing, Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in Biblical termsthe Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, to swearingCercas' great uncle, also usually in Biblical terms but with rather more emphasis on is the act, rather than figure who looms large over the deitybook. This book takes the reader He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on a journey from why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the Old Testament, when swearing your allegiance centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to the one true God was be a prerequisite hero whilst having fought for staying alive, to the Middle Ages where swearing on the same God was punishable by rather grisly death. That takes care of the Holy, now onto the part you are really interested in, the Sh*twrong side. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>019049168X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenifer Roberts0008294011|title=How to Lose a Country: The Beauty of Her Age: A Tale of Sex, Scandal and Money in Victorian England7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran

|genre=BiographyHistory|summary= The name of Yolande Stephens (nee Duvernay) is not A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that well-known we were living through what in years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question ''Discuss the annals of Victorian England, but behind factors which led to...'' I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it lies an enthralling rags-was a good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to-riches saga. How did a young girl born into poverty I think now that I do know. We are in Paris become one danger of the most celebrated ballerinas losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of her time in Englanda better one, and after that one of particularly as the richest women in the country, with a fortune on her death which rivalled that of Queen Victoria?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445653206</amazonuk>'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gordon Stevens1788037812|title=The OriginalsFraternity of the Estranged: The Secret History of the Birth of the SASFight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary= The SAS is Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a regiment shrouded crime remained in secrecyplace for 82 years. Since its spectacular rise to fame But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the Iranian Embassy siege in 1978, it has become a part nature of myth and folklorehomosexuality appeared. The paradox is that more words have probably been They were written about this organisation than any other military unit in by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the worldheterosexual Havelock Ellis. Some are well researched, Exploring the margins of society and have a genuine historical perspective studying homosexuality was common on the regiments operations and activities. Others are pure fantasyEuropean Continent, which add little, other than further the mystique of a regiment that lives but barely talked about in the shadows. ''The Originals'' provides a fresh perspective. It tells UK, so the story publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the birth scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the SASstruggle for recognition and equality, by leading to the people who were there. In a series milestone legalisation of long forgotten interviews, the regiment is brought to life with fresh insight and wonderful anecdotessame-sex relationships in 1967. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091901820</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Steven Gunn1910593508|title= Charles Brandon: Henry VIII's Closest FriendApollo|rating= 3.5|genreauthor= History|summary=Charles Brandon, Duke of SuffolkMatt Fitch, was almost unique in Tudor history in that he was a close friend Chris Baker 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>}}{{newreview|author=Hugh Sebag-Montefiore|title=Somme: Into the BreachMike Collins|rating=45

|summary=One-hundred years ago this monthThis incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, on the 1st Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and because of July 1916this, the most notorious battle authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the history of blanks. These shortcuts are the British army began at 07:20 with only downside to the detonation book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a huge mine under the Hawthorn Redoubt. The Battle of film you will be familiar with the Somme had begun, slight feeling that there are scenes missing and by the end of the first day the British had suffered nearly 60,000 casualties, 20,000 of whom were killedthat dialogue has been trimmed. Published to mark the centenary of the battle, Somme: Into the Breach by historian Hugh Sebag-Montefiore This is a comprehensive account of the conflict told primarily by the soldiers who fought in itgraphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918385</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Rex1786331047|title=William The Race to Save the ConquerorRomanovs: The Bastard of Normandy|rating=4.5|genre=History |summary= The basic facts of William I's life are inevitably as clouded as those surrounding Truth Behind the Norman conquest, the events and politics which led up Secret Plans to it, and the aftermath. As Peter Rex makes clear in his introduction, any surviving sources are inevitably very incomplete. Moreover, 'the writing of the history of the eleventh century requires the historian to attempt to provide motives and explanations for events that are only sketchily described at best'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445660172</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Catherine Hickley|title=The Munich Art Hoard: HitlerRescue Russia's Dealer and His Secret Legacy|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=One of the most newsworthy events in modern art history happened seemingly by chance. When tax police raided the house of an aged man in Munich it was because they assumed he had been moving too much money about and paying no tax – this six months after he was seen on the train between Bavaria and Switzerland with 'nearly too much' cash. The investigators had no case, but he had something much more complex and rich – a massive legacy of 20th Century German and European art. But that collection had to have an origin – one of dubious and at times nefarious beginnings, and one that could have quite a rich and convoluted background. Hickley, in these pages, gives us much in the way of context as well as ironing out those convolutions, so this story is both of interest to Nazi historians and art scholars – as well as to those larger numbers who just like a good story told well.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0500292574</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewImperial Family|author=Michael Scott|title=Ancient WorldsHelen Rappaport

|summary= History can be perceived as a dusty academic backwaterThe basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, have long since been established. Often viewed as an irrelevance in our modern world, as we race through For the daily events last few months of our their lives. It is a subject that has suffered greatly in our education systemRussia the former Tsar and Tsarina, where there has always been a tendency to teach the subject their children and few remaining servants were held in isolationincreasingly squalid, only focussing on the events that have shaped our own national identityhumiliating captivity. Michael Scott's new book offers a refreshing change. ''Ancient Worlds'' is thought provoking history for To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the general reader. Well researched revolutionary regime had them all shot and with a persuasive argumentbayoneted to death in circumstances which, he explores once the interactions across three differing cultures. Interactions that provide a new perspective on our modern worldnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091958814</amazonuk>