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[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Helen Doe1785633457|title= The First Atlantic LinerCharging Around: Brunel's Great Western SteamshipExploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryTravel|summary= Isambard Kingdom Brunel's enduring seafaring monuments were the Great Britain and Great EasternClive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. Their forerunner As he neared his eightieth birthday the Great Western, which paved idea of exploring the way and yet is now largely forgotten, at last merits a full account edges of England in this bookan electric car was not totally outrageous. Ms Doe admits at the front that she is not an engineerIn fact, and as it should be a maritime historian her interests are more social pleasant holiday for Clive and economic than technical. Her aim is to tell the story of the shiphis wife, that of the people who travelled on her as crew or passengersJoan, and her influence on subsequent maritime history after an existence of barely two decades.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445667207</amazonuk>shouldn't it?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Svetlana Alexievich, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (translators)B09BLBP3P8|title=The Unwomanly Face of Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager|rating=4.5

|summary=''War'', says Svetlana Alexievich, ''is first of all murder, Received wisdom and then hard worksimplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. And then simply ordinary life: singing, falling in love, putting your hair in curlers…''. This extraordinary book One such is a collection the scrubbing from the popular imagination of first-hand accounts by Russian fighting women in the Second early days of World War. A million women joined Russian military forces II from 1939-40, known as soldiers of all ranks, medics, pilots, drivers, snipers, cryptographersthe ''Phoney War''. Most were very youngWe remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, little more than girls of 18 or 19. They were passionate about defending their homeland and often extremely keen to join upwar breaking out, returning again and again to recruitment offices until someone could be persuaded to take them. Their ambition was Churchill coming in to help their brothers, fathers, husbands to fight save the terrible invaderday. They were trained Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and sent to the frontyet, where they were greeted at first with disappointment and disgust by fighting menas Frederic Seager argues in this book, who had hoped for reinforcements it was of able-bodied men. The women had to prove themselvesvital significance in how the war played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141983523</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Andrew Lacey3756228711|title= CDC: The English Civil War in 100 Factshappy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= ''The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.'100 Facts' series  Author Hans Bodmer is now sufficiently well-established as a guarantee quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us about the short, but explosive, history of useful introductory historiesthe Control Data Company, CDC, for whom he worked. This latest additionIt's a fascinating tale, recounting the struggle between King told in a mixture of technological summary and Parliament, is no exceptionwry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445649950</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lauren ElkinJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice Fritz and LondonKurt

|genre=History Confident Readers|summary=Lauren Elkin is down on suburbs: they're places where you can't or shouldn't be seen walking; places whereWe start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in fiction1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, women who transgress boundaries helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are punished (thinking of everything from ''Madame Bovary'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 time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler''Revolutionary Road''). When she imagines s will, and instead of having a national vote to herself what keep the female version of that well-known historical figureNazis out, the carefree invite them in with open arms. ''flâneurKristallnacht''happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, might be, she thinks about women who freely wandered as did all the world's great cities without having round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the more insalubrious connotation younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and his father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the word 'streetwalker' applied same train to themBuchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099593378</amazonuk>024156574X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jeffrey JamesJohn Henry Phillips|title= Ireland: The Struggle for Power: From the Dark Ages to the JacobitesSearch|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= The Archaeology cannot be child'Irish troubless play, when you' go back over many centuriesre scraping in the dirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. When I and doubtless many others This book is a case of my generation studied History at schoolthe latter, the Emerald Isle barely intruded on as our consciousness, apart from brief references author promises to locate the Battle topic of the Boyne and maybe titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, the Easter Rising. This book therefore does ustarget might not exist any more – oh, and the countryit's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a service in particular D-Day veteran through helping the heroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and that he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to fill erect a very large gapmemorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of whom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445662469</amazonuk>1472146182

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Michael HicksB09F4CTKJR|title= The Family of Richard IIIFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary= New titles about 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 Yorkist dynastyfirst US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, which ruled England for little more than two decades, continue the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to proliferatefight the Germans in active combat. Michael Hicks, acknowledged as one of the great – although never sympathetic – experts on Richard IIIBut before that can happen, Petrol has contributed an interesting chronicle to master flying the shelvesnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445660156</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clive Pearson0578761718|title=The Second World War in 100 FactsInspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver|rating=4.5

|summary=To begin The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at the beginningleast 1181, that is one dissembling titlewhen it was first mentioned in records. 100 Facts? There are bounties galore here that that low figure beliesSadly, the original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. There are It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a lot moredesign by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, and I would attest when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that there will be some you arenwasn't completely au fait with. If the Phoney War and end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the Battle of stones from the Plate are bread and butter to you, how about Matapan? You could well be used to reading essays about Goebbels or Speer, but Field-Marshal von Manstein? Thatchurch's not walls were transported to say this is utterly exhaustive or complexFulton, Missouri. There, nor confined to in the trivial. Its unexpected format actually makes it one grounds of Westminster College, the better primers for the entire WWII, before, during church was rebuilt and aftertoday serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445653532</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= John Ashdown-Hill1784385166|title= The Wars Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of the RosesNazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= During my schooldays, I always found What is the Wars first image that comes to mind when you think of the Roses the most fascinating period Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of English history. In those days we were taught that the battles began Third Reich's fascist regime in 1455 all its iniquity. But some objects and ended in 1485images from that time may be less familiar to you. Ashdown-Hill is one of several modern historians whose study of the subject extends these boundaries, and in In this short volume he starts with , Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the reign period of Richard II, ending late in the Elizabethan eraThird Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445660350</amazonuk> 

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Charles DrazinLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title= Mapping the PastTiananmen 1989: A Search for Five Brothers at the Edge of EmpireOur Shattered Hopes|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=''Mapping I never really followed the Past'' is at once a personal quest into events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the authorsecond half of their teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn's family history, and an account t know of some the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the interesting, perhaps even amazing things students before the Royal Engineers have achieved over massacre and the past couple of centuries. Drazin is descended from a generation birth of Engineers; five brothers who all served in the ArmyTank Man image, mostly as surveyors mapping I didn't know how the far flung parts of area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the Empirepeople involved on either side. This was despite them being both Irish and Catholic. He uncovers their pasts, the many things they undertook and how it affected them book is practically flawless in the end. It's giving a story thatgeneral browser's uplifting and extremely sad, as context for the First World War and the Easter Rising whole season of protests back in 1916 seem to mark a true watershed for his family1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099468271</amazonuk>1684056993

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lyndal Roper0648684806|title= Martin LutherClara Colby:Renegade and ProphetThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating= 54|genre= HistoryBiography|summary= Exactly five centuries ago in October 2017, Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses against the sale The path of indulgences Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the door USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of the All Saintssome childhood ailment, she wasn' Church 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 Wittenberg. The ensuing maelstrom ripped the Christian church asunder and changed the course out of historyschool. But how She was a provincial professor the only child in a cassock able to set the Reformation household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in motionthe mid-west of the United States and life was hard, despite papal as Clara was to find out when she and imperial authority being ranged against him? her grandparents eventually went to join the family. In Clara would only know her mother for a biography which few months: she was ten married for fifteen years in the making, Lyndal Roper strips away mythology to illuminate the facts underneath (for startershad ten pregnancies, it is highly unlikely that Luther actually nailed the ninety-five theses to the door)seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. She provides a thoughtful analysis of the forces which drove As the evangelical preacher and convincingly explains his contradictions – whyeldest girl, after decades of monastic observance did he marry a nun heavy burden would fall on Clara and develop Wisconsin was a love of German beer and wine? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784703443</amazonuk>rude awakening.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= A T Williams1783784350|title= A Passing FuryThis Golden Fleece: Searching for Justice at the End of World War II|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= In ''A Passing Fury,'' we follow an Orwell Prize-winning law academicJourney Through Britain's journey through Germany as he pursues the legal history of the trials waged by the British, and to some extent other Allied forces, against the newly-fallen Nazi regime. This is a deeply personal account, that reads very much like a travelogue in places. Williams is affected at every turn by harrowingly familiar accounts of life in the concentration camp system, such as those of the esteemed Italian writer and academic Primo Levi, who features throughout the book. More striking to the reader, however, are the often-forgotten atrocities Williams describes that failed to make a mark on our collective memory, such as the Cap Arcona tragedy, in which some 7,000 concentration camp internees were killed in a British air raid. Horrors such as these, which largely go unremembered, raise many questions, chief among them, was justice served? Williams pursues answers to this question throughout his investigation, which is just shy of 500 pages long.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593262</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewKnitted History|author= David Grann|title= Killers of the Flower Moon|rating= 5|genre= True Crime|summary=Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of the Osage tribe, forced to settle in the rocky, uninhabitable wilds of Oklahoma in what would become Osage County. In an unexpected turn of fortune, prospectors struck oil, instantly catapulting the Osage into unimaginable wealth and fortune making them some of the richest people in the world. Then members of the tribe start to die, slowly at first of apparently natural causes then in increasingly violent ways. Investigation into the matter stalls and is beset by incompetence and a general lack of interest in the fate of the Osage until the FBI becomes involved and draws together a team of battle scarred, unorthodox agents led by former Texas Ranger Tom White. As pressure on White increases, from both the FBI and the increasingly angry Osage, the race to find the truth becomes increasingly difficult, with more twists and double crosses than any murder mystery.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857209027</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Tom Feiling|title=The Island that DisappearedEsther Rutter

|summary= 'The Island that Disappeared' tells the history of the, largely now forgotten, island of Providence in the Caribbean. It is a fascinating was December and compelling account of what might have been but ultimately is the story of greedEsther Rutter was stuck in her office job, ambition writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and human natureeven her knitting did not soothe her mind. In 1630 on board the Seaflower, a sister ship January was going to the Mayflower, be a small group of English puritans sailed to the island to establish a new colony. They were convinced in their belief time for making changes and she decided that the British Empire she would rise in travel the Central America length and not in New England. The hopes that they carried was soon destroyed by failing cropsbreadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, quarrels and rebellions and many turned to piracy discovering and telling the plundering story of Spanish treasure ships. Within ten years, the Spanish retaliated wool's history and how it had made and invaded the island, wiping changed the colony outlandscape. Providence became She'd grown up on a footnote of history until it was resettled over sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a hundred years later. The book tells free-range child on the islandfarm's story ' - and learned to spin, knit and weave from its early puritan beginnings to the present her mother and through its telling it provides a fascinating microcosm of the world we live her mother's friend. This was in todayher blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911184040</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Twigs Way1789017977|title=Allotments (BritainRonnie and Hilda's Heritage Series)Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|summary= Harold is in Ronnie Williams was the unenviable position for being remembered son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as the monarch who was defeated Harry) and killed 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 the Norman conquest1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and almost nothing elsehe might well have shaved a few years off his age. He does not even merit For a passing mention while the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the renowned 1930s spoof English history, '1066 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and all That', which no doubt has this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in their category of 'Unmemorable Kings'. This book is thus inevitably a history rather than a biography of someone about whom undisputed facts are rather lacking1942. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>144565721X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Zuehlke and Claude St Aubin1980891117|title=The Loxleys and ConfederationG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley|rating=34.5|genre=Graphic NovelsArt|summary=There is a huge hole in my history knowledge where North America is concerned. Slowly, from an opening George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of sheer ignoranceGeorgian London, having never studied it whatsoever at school, I've got with a small grip on things like career lasting from the Civil War, 1770s to the foundations Regency era. He was also one of the USA and a few other things. But that means nothing as far as this book is concernedmost prolific, for that huge hole is Canada. Nopainting nearly 5, I didn't have an inkling about how it was trying to unify, just as the American Civil War was in full pelt just across the border000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). I didn't know what was there before Canada, if you see what I mean. The story does have some things in common with Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of their southern neighbours – European occupancy being slowly turned into a list each of states as we know his clients, and subsequently transcribed them now, slowly spreading into the heart of the continent with the help of the railways etc; native 'Indians' being 'in the way'; past trading agreements what is referred to either maintain or try to improve on; and so on – but of course it also had the British vs French issueas his fee book. But did you know how an American President getting shot at the theatre had a bearing on the story? Or the Irish? Like I said, a huge hole…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0992150892</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lynn Knight1789016304|title= The Button BoxWar and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating= 45|genre= History|summary= Buttons are Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the underdogs of city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the clothing worldoccupation could never happen: dismissed as functional elements of clothing, falling into even those who thought that the Germans might reach the same dustbin category with zips and shoe laces, city were convinced that they tend to would soon be seen as necessary for keeping clothes onpushed back, rather than contributors that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to style. But Lynn Knight is set to prove escalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the opposite is trueorganisers became more circumspect. We think nothing It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of lacing discussions about clothing and feminism with headscarves, bikinis, and underweight models – and buttons deserve a place on the pedestal thousands of gender discussion, tooindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593092</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Sarah Fraser1908745819|title= The Prince Who Would Be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography |summary= Henry Stuart, eldest child of King James VI and I, was not the only eldest son of a monarch who did not live long enough to succeed to the throne. The list also included Arthur (son of Henry VII) and Albert Victor (Edward VII). Of the three, Henry undoubtedly showed the most promise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007548087</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewSurfacing|author= Paul Flynn|title= Good As You: From Prejudice to Pride - 30 Years of Gay BritainKathleen Jamie|rating= 5|genre= History |summary=The last 30 years have seen Sometimes when people suggest that you read a tidal wave of change sweep the country with regards to how gay people are perceived and accepted. In 1984certain book, the pulsing electronic beats of they tell you ''Smalltown Boythis one has your name on it'' became an anthem to unite Gay Men. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but just a month later, a virus called HIV would be identified, spreading a climate of panic and fear across rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the nation, and marginalising book. That's a community rare experience. People who were already ostracised. 30 years later though, the long road are sensitive to gay equality would reach hearing a climax with the legalistion of gay marriagebook calling your name, rarely get it wrong. Journalist Paul Flynn charts this remarkable journey via the cultural milestones that affected In this change - with interviews with such protagonists as Kyliecase, Russell T Davies, Will Young, Holly Johnson and Lord Chris SmithI was told why. This is The blurb speaks of the story of Britainauthor considering ''s brothersan older, sons, cousins, fathers and husbandsless tethered sense of herself. Of public outrage and personal loss, the (not always legal) highs and desperate lows, and the final collective victory as Gay Men were finally recognised to be as Good As You'' Older. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785032925</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Miles Russell|title= Arthur and the Kings of Britain: The Historical Truth Behind the Myths|rating= 4Less tethered.5|genre= History|summary= As the author That's not a bad description of the Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), written in 1136, Geoffrey of Monmouth is commonly recognized as one of the first British historianswhere I am. His book told – or is supposed Add to have told - the story that my love of the British monarchy during the Dark Agesnatural world, from the arrival of the Trojan Brutus, grandson those aspects of Aeneas, up to the seventh century AD when the Anglo-Saxons had taken control of Britain. Being virtually the only work of its kind at the time, it proved very influentialpoetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and became well-known throughout western Europe as one substance most of the great works of medieval literature as the first retelling of the story of King Arthurall, Lear and Cymbelineabout connection. Shakespeare was forever in his debt with regard to the two latter. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445662744</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Mark Aylwin Thomas|title= Blades of Grass|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary= Any Of course, this book that has me in tears at the end has been worth had my timename on it. Any book that has It was written for me hoping it will end differently . It would have found its way to the way I know it must is worth the reading. Any book that convinces me that maybe there is still hope in the world – that for all the mistakes made thus far, still being made right now, there is a common humanity which ultimately, eventually, must do some good – that is worth the writing and the reading and the time. Blades of Grass is one such book. It's a forgotten story, an unknown story I am pleased to most people. It is one that should be told – and reflected upon.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524676969</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Andrew Cook|title= The Murder of the Romanovs|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= The fate of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, his wife Alexandra and children, fuelled no end of rumour, misinformation and conspiracy theories for many years, even though the truth was known not long after the event. In the last few years, the advance of forensic science, DNA testing and the precise location of the bodies have allowed for confirmation of the exact truth and a dismissal of claims by a noted so-called surviving Grand Duchess. Even it fall onto my path so, as Andrew Cook notes, straight after the deaths of the imperial family 'there would begin a ninety-year battle between science and superstition which is not over yet'quickly. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445666278</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Sarah Bakewell0857058320|title= At The Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Apricot CocktailsAnne McLean (translator)

|genre= Politics and SocietyHistory|summary= You know that old saying about judging books by their cover? Ignore it! I have found that by judging ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a book by its cover journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and getting it completely wrong death. Cercas is a searching for the meaning behind his great way to find yourself committed to reading a book that youuncle'd never have picked s death in a million years and yetthe Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, somehowCercas' great uncle, being amazingly glad you didis the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on 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 hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554887</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Helen Hollick0008294011|title= PiratesHow to Lose a Country: Truth and TaleThe 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary=The eighteenth century lived A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in terror of years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the tramps of question ''Discuss the seas – piratesfactors which led to. Pirates have fascinated people ever since. It .'' I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a harsh life for those who went good or bad thing that we didn'on the accountt know what all ', constantly overshadowed by the threat of death – through violence, illness, shipwreck, or the hangmanthis's noosewas leading to. The lure of gold, the excitement of the chase and the freedom I think now that life aboard a pirate ship offered were judged by some to be worth the riskI do know. Helen Hollick explores both the fiction and fact of the Golden Age We are in danger of piracy, losing democracy and there are some surprises in store for those who whilst it's a flawed system I can't think they know their Barbary Corsair from their boucanier. Everyone has heard of Captain Morgana better one, but who recognises particularly as the name of the aristocratic Frenchman Daniel Montbars? He killed so many Spaniards he was known as 'The Exterminatorbenevolent dictator'. The fictional world of pirates, represented in novels and movies, is different from realityas rare as hen's teeth. What draws readers and viewers to these notorious hyenas of the high seas? What are the facts behind the fantasy?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445652153</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Timothy Venning1788037812|title= Kingmakers: How Power in England Was Won and Lost on the Welsh Frontier|rating= 3.5|genre= History|summary= Between the Norman conquest and the Tudor period, Britain often seemed to be on the verge of civil war. The Anglo-Welsh borders were a perpetual source Fraternity of trouble, kept at bay only by the Marcher lords appointed by the King of Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England to guard the Welsh Marches.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445659409</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Nigel Linge and Andy Sutton|title= The British Phonebox|rating= 4.5|genre= History |summary= The mobile phone must be one of the most used, must1891-have accessories of the modern age, the one device you cannot escape from in public. Some of us with (relatively) long memories must look back on the age when the bright red phonebox reigned supreme as a long time ago.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445663082</amazonuk>}}{{newreview1908|author=Martin Wall|title=Warriors and Kings: The 1500-Year Battle for Celtic BritainBrian Anderson|rating= 4.5

|summary= For several centuriesOriginally passed in 1885, much of the ancient law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and medieval history 1908, three books on the nature of Britain was one forged in war homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the Celtic peoples took a stand against invasion heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and oppression. First it studying homosexuality was common on the RomansEuropean Continent, then but barely talked about in the SaxonsUK, Vikings and Normansso the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, who threatened the unyielding and insular people. This book examines how several tenacious and heroic figures led beginning the Britons struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the Welsh against often overwhelming oddsmilestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445658437</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Hewitt1910593508|title=JosephApollo|author=Matt Fitch, 1917Chris Baker and Mike Collins|rating=3.5

|summary=During This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the autumn passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and because of 1915 Edward Stanleythis, the Earl of Derby and Director General of military recruitment inaugurated authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the Derby Schemeblanks. Men of fighting age would be encouraged by door-to-door canvassers These shortcuts are the only downside to the book. If you'attest' that they would sign up for military service at ve ever read a comic book adaptation of a recruitment office within 48 hours. They would then film you will be categories according to marital status familiar with the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and be called up, with 14 days' notice, in an order in line with their household responsibilitiesthat dialogue has been trimmed. The idea was This is a sound one: married men with children only being called on if absolutely necessary. Lancastrian Joseph Blackburn chose to attest but then for him graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and many others, unforeseen results ensuedstill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785898973</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Wright1786331047|title=A British Lion in ZululandThe Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport

|summary= During The basic facts about the reign deaths of Queen VictoriaNicholas and Alexandra, southern Africa was a land some of opportunity. Fame and fortune was to be found which were deliberately obscured at the time for any brave soul willing to suffer the hardships and dangers the lands offeredvarious reasons, have long since been established. For the government last few months of Britain it was also their lives in Russia the source of major headaches. The balance between abundant wealth former Tsar and a native population that would not accept colonial rule created constant conflict. 'A British Lion in Zululand' is the story of the manTsarina, widely regarded, as the person who drew these conflicts with the Zulu tribe to a conclusion. Field Marshall Garnet Joseph Wolseley was a heroic their children and larger than life figure few remaining servants were held in Victorian Britain; howeverincreasingly squalid, even today his role in shaping the future of a continent is controversialhumiliating captivity. With the aid of extensive research To prevent them from a number of new sourcesbeing rescued, William Wright has defined in July 1918 the man revolutionary regime had them all shot and brought fresh insight bayoneted to a neglected area of British colonial historydeath in circumstances which, once the news was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445665484</amazonuk>