Difference between revisions of "Newest History Reviews"

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[[Category:History|*]]
 
[[Category:History|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|History]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|History]]__NOTOC__ <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
==History==
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1785633457
 
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|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car
{{newreview
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|author=Clive Wilkinson
|author=Andrew Wheen
 
|title=Dot-Dash To Dot.Com
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Popular Science
 
|summary=You know exactly what you're getting when you read the summary of Andrew Wheen's ''Dot-Dash To Dot.Com''. ''How Modern Telecommunications Evolved from the Telegraph to the Internet'' sums it up perfectly. This is a history of technology and the people involved in creating that technology. It serves as a primer for anyone with an interest or need to know about telecommunications.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441967591</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Nigel Hamilton
 
|title=American Caesars: Lives of the US Presidents, from Franklin D Roosevelt to George W Bush
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=History
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|genre=Travel
|summary=The Premise is simple: take twelve men (and unfortunately they are all men, but that's not the author's fault) who have achieved high office and look at each of them. Firstly, take a look at the road to the high office, then how they performed once they reached their goal and finally a look at their private life.  Suetonius did it first when he wrote ''The Twelve Caesars'' and now Nigel Hamilton has taken the same journey with ''American Caesars'', a remarkably in-depth look at twelve consecutive American presidents from the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, starting with Franklin D Roosevelt and finishing with George W Bush.
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|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520419</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B09BLBP3P8
|author=Ciaran O Murchadha
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|title=Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940
|title=The Great Famine: Ireland's Agony 1845-1852
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|author=Frederic Seager
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=In August 1845, reports began to circulate of the destruction of growing potatoes in the south of England, killed by a mysterious and so far unknown plant disease.  As yet, the scientific aspects of what was given the name of 'blight' were not fully recognised, let alone understood.  At the end of the month, small instances of failure in the potato crop in Ireland were reported, but there seemed to be no cause for alarm until the main crop was dug out in October.  Only then did it become apparent that an 'awful plague' had appeared in several areas, with decomposing vegetables producing a strong, foul stench that assailed the nostrils of cultivators and passers-by alike.
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|summary=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 ''Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in to save the day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book, it was of vital significance in how the war played out.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847252176</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=3756228711
|author=Richard Holmes
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|title=CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'
|title=Churchill's Bunker: The Secret Headquarters at the Heart of Britain's Victory
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|author=Hans Bodmer
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Nowadays, when there is a security threat it seems to be mandatory to whisk the leader and other important personages off to a secret location deep inside a mountain or in a distant forest, but Churchill fought his war – our war – from a series of basement rooms right in the heart of London and within sight of Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament. The Cabinet War Rooms didn't have their own air supply, were infested with vermin and lacked proper toilet facilities, but they were Churchill's choice.  He spent a few nights down in the CWR but usually lived in the No 10 Annex upstairs – throughout the worst of the bombing.
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|summary=''The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682312</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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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. It's a fascinating tale, told in a mixture of technological summary and wry anecdote.  
|title=Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East
 
|author=Martin Sixsmith
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=As a former BBC correspondent in Moscow at the time that the Cold War was ending, Sixsmith is in a unique position to write a history of Russia, based partly on research and partly on his own experiences, after having witnessed at first hand some of the upheavals in recent years which play such an important part in the story.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849900728</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene
|author=Ben Shephard
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|title=Fritz and Kurt
|title=The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of the Second World War
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|rating=4
|rating=5
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=History
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|summary=We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational schoolKurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch.  But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms.  ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of Jews.  These in their turn leave the 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 same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…
|summary=In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War Europe was in tatters, and millions of its citizens were stranded far from homeHow to cope with these Displaced Persons was one of the biggest issues of the immediate post-war periodIn 'The Long Road Home' Ben Shephard tells their story.
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|isbn=024156574X
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712600590</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=John Henry Phillips
|author=Karen Blixen
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|title=The Search
|title=Out Of Africa
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=It's more than a quarter of a century since I first saw the film ''Out of Africa'' and it's one of the few that have stayed with me over the intervening years.  It wasn't just the story, but the personality of Karen Blixen and the wonderful landscape of the Ngong Hills, south of Nairobi, in Kenya's Rift Valley.  I remember looking for this book at the time, but being unable to find it, so the opportunity to read it now was too good to miss.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951437</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Paul Addison and Jeremy A Crang
 
|title=Listening to Britain: Home Intelligence Reports on Britain's Finest Hour, May-September 1940
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=The Home Intelligence Department had been set up by the government to assess home morale by studying immediate reactions to specific events and to find out public opinion on important issues, including pacifism. One reason for this was 'to provide a basis for publicity', that is, to plan propaganda and test its effectiveness. The reports drew on various sources, including Mass Observation, a market research style Wartime Social Survey, staff listening to conversations on the way to work, and visiting pubs and other places where lots of people went and talked to each other.
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|summary=Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the dirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. This book is a case of the latter, as our author promises to locate the topic of the titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, the target might not exist any more – oh, and it's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a 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 erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of whom perished. Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548747</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1472146182
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn= B09F4CTKJR
|author=Betty Lussier
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|title= Flights for Freedom
|title=Intrepid Woman: Betty Lussier's Secret War, 1942-1945
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|author= Steven Burgauer
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Betty Lussier was born in Alberta, Canada.  At the height of the depression her father bought a Maryland farm at a bank foreclosure sale, they crossed the border to the States and settled down to the hard life of raising dairy cattle and the crops needed to feed them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1591144493</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Martin Pugh
 
|title=Speak for Britain!: A New History of the Labour Party
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
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|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Since the Labour Representation Committee came into existence in February 1900, the party in Britain which it spawned has had a chequered and often contrary existence. Ironically, as Pugh demonstrates, while it may have been formed to represent the workers, it never became a fully working class party. James Keir Hardie may have been a genuine socialist, but some of the senior figures who followed were recruited from middle and upper-class Conservative backgrounds.
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|summary=It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520788</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0578761718
|author=Benjamin Mandelkern
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|title=The Inspiring History of a Special Relationship
|title=Escape from the Nazis: The Incredible and Inspiring Saga of Two Young Jews on the Run in World War II Poland
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|author=Nancy Carver
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=Do we all have it in us?  Would you as a Pole in 1940s Poland, who like as not had been 'educated' in the horrendous evil of Jews by your church - would you ignore Nazi death threats and countless opportunities for the wrong thing to be said, for the truth to be let out, for betrayal - would you help a Jewish life survive?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1550280554</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Bernard Porter
 
|title=The Battle of the Styles: Society, Culture and the Design of a new Foreign Office, 1855 - 61
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Back in the 1850s it was mooted that Whitehall required some new public buildings, primarily in the form of a new Foreign Office.  Such matters are never quite so simple as deciding on the need and arranging the construction and completion: there was to be debate, occasionally about the need for a new building but primarily about the form it should take and the style in which it should be built.  This proved to be acrimonious and devious and came to be known as 'The Battle of the Styles'.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441167390</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Richard Lucas
 
|title=Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi Germany
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Take one personable failed actress, embittered by lack of success at home in the USA, and conspire to land her living in Germany as WW2 breaks out.  What chance her becoming an American, female Lord Haw-Haw, being paid by Germany to broadcast entertaining, dissuasive propaganda worldwide on shortwave radio?  Anybody could guess it would take innumerable factors, circumstances and events, and they're all here in this entertaining, eye-opening and educational biography.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1935149431</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Nick Bunker
 
|title=Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Using hundreds of previously overlooked documents, British historian Nick Bunker tells the story of the Pilgrim Fathers, starting from the religious climate in England which led to them leaving the country, and continuing through to show how they settled in America, trading beaver skins to let them settle in New England.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951182</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alison Weir, Kate Williams, Sarah Gristwood and Tracy Borman
 
|title=The Ring and the Crown: A History of Royal Weddings 1066-2011
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=The Ring and the Crown is a look at almost a thousand years of royal weddings, at how they've changed and how, in many ways, they've remained the same.  Generally the weddings are of kings, queens or heirs to the throne but sometimes there's a glimpse of how the minor royals have managed their nuptials.  The book is lavishly illustrated and is probably as un-put-downable as anything which is basically a history book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091943779</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Shrabani Basu
 
|title=Victoria and Abdul: The True Story of the Queen's Closest Confidant
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Abdul Karim was a 24-year-old assistant clerk at Agra Jail when he was granted the opportunity of a lifetime – to leave India, travel to England and find employment as personal attendant to the great Empress herself, Queen Victoria. Within a year of her employing him and his introducing her to the delights of curry, she promoted him.  He would no longer be a mere servant, and henceforth he was now her teacher and clerk, or Munshi, with responsibility for instructing her in Indian affairs and the Urdu language.  To the dismay and ill-concealed anger of nearly all her family and household, he suddenly became one of the most conspicuous figures in the royal entourage.
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|summary=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 London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, in the grounds of Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752458531</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1784385166
|author=Keith Hopkins and Mary Beard
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|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany
|title=The Colosseum
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|author=Roger Moorhouse
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=The Colosseum is the most famous and instantly recognisable monument to have survived from the classical world. Most readily associated with the gladiatorial games and contests between the Christians and the lions so beloved by imperial Rome, it originally held over 50,000 spectators, a number now completely dwarfed by the four million or more visitors who come each year.
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|summary=What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of the 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 the Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts. 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684706</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)
|author=Richard Jenkyns
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|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
|title=Westminster Abbey: A Thousand Years of National Pageantry
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
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|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Few if any buildings in Britain personify history, and are steeped in so much, as Westminster AbbeyAs the author says in his introduction, it is the most complex church in the world in terms of not only history but also functions and memories, perhaps the most complex building of any kind.  In this compact paperback history, an updated edition of a hardback first published in 2004, he tells the story very readably from its foundation by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century to the preparations for the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William in 2011.
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|summary=I 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, you knowI certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side.  This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685346</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1684056993
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0648684806
|author=Alan Titchmarsh
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|title=Clara Colby: The International Suffragist
|title=When I Was A Nipper
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|author=John Holliday
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Biography
 +
|summary=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 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 household and her childhood was glorious.  By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life 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 eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1783784350
 +
|title=This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History
 +
|author=Esther Rutter
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=There's something about Alan Titchmarsh that you can't help likingHe's got a wry sense of humour, seems unfailingly positive and, best of all, was born in my home town of IlkleyYou really can't get much better than that, now can you?  'When I Was A Nipper' is a look not just at his life in the fifties (although there ''is'' a lot about him) but about the way that things were then.  There's an unspoken question about what we can learn from how we lived then and how we can apply this to our lives todayIt's pure nostalgia only lightly seasoned with the reality of outside privies and harsh working conditions.
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|summary=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 mindJanuary was going to be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the landscapeShe'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the farm'' - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friendThis was in her blood.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184990152X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1789017977
|author=Rodric Braithwaite
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|title=Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II
|title=Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-89
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|author=Wendy Williams
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=In 1979, the Soviet Union decided to move into Afghanistan, and special forces killed the Afghan president. What was initially planned as a fairly modest expedition which would see them stabilise the government, train up the army and police, and then withdraw within a year, turned into a war lasting nearly a decade which left both the Russian army and the Afghan civilians counting the cost of the intervention and with their lives changed forever. What went wrong, and why has Afghanistan proved such a difficult place for foreign powers – ranging from the British in the 19th century, to the Russians in this book, to the current armies engaged in the country – to get any sort of foothold?
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|summary=Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall.  There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 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 this would stay with him throughout his life.  He joined the army at eighteen in 1942.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680549</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1980891117
|author=Stephanie Williams
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|title=G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart
|title=Running the Show: Governors of the British Empire 1857-1912
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|author=John Webley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
+
|genre=Art
|summary=For some, the glory days of the British Empire were the closing years of the Victorian era and the 19th century.  Government ministers in London, and doubtless Queen Victoria herself, would glance at a map of the world and bask in reflected glory at the generous expanses of land coloured red, 'the empire where the sun never sets', to use the old cliché.
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|summary=George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the 1770s to the Regency era. He was also one of the most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918040</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1789016304
|author=Duff Hart-Davis
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|title=War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam
|title=The War That Never Was
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|author=Melanie Martin
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=In the 1960's, an Egyptian general with delusions of grandeur is trying to conquer the Arab world, starting with Yemen. The new Imam, having previously disobeyed the general's orders to assassinate his own father, has fled to the hills. The British are wary of getting officially involved so turn to more subtle channels. Jim Johnson, an underwriter at Lloyd's who claims to have been arrested for attempted murder at the tender age of 8 when he attacked an Italian maid abusing a cat, is the man asked to run a secret operation. His response? 'I've nothing particular to do in the next few days. I might have a go.' Putting together a team of mercenaries, he sends them to Yemen to fight what will become, as the subtitle of the book states, Britain's most secret battle.
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|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 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 country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846058252</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1908745819
|author=Adrian Tinniswood
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|title=Surfacing
|title=Pirates Of Barbary: Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in the 17th-Century Mediterranean
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|author=Kathleen Jamie
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=In the early 17th century the North African coast was a particularly dangerous place to sail near due to the prevalence of pirates there ready to plunder the cargo of ships. In this truly captivating account author Adrian Tinnisworth looks at these corsairs – focusing on Englishmen such as John Ward, who became so renowned that plays about him and Dutchman Simon Danseker managed to outsell
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|summary=Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why.  The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself.''  Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am.  Add to that my love of the natural world, of those 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 it fall onto my path so quickly.
King Lear!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523868</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0857058320
|author=Charles Emmerson
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|title=Lord Of All the Dead
|title=The Future History of the Arctic: How climate, resources and geopolitics are reshaping the north, and why it matters to the world
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|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Charles Emmerson examines the past history of Arctic exploration, economic exploitation and development and the policies of governments of countries which include Arctic territory (and others), with the aim of understanding the present and predicting the future better. He explains the apparently contradictory title in some detail in the Introduction. While history is about the past, 'ideas about the future have changed over time'. Also, the future of the Arctic will be shaped by its history.
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|summary=''Lord Of All the 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 the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is 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>0099523531</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008294011
|author=Alex Butterworth
+
|title=How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship
|title=The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Agents
+
|author=Ece Temelkuran
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=In deciding to write about political upheaval across Europe, including Russia, Alex Butterworth has chosen a massive topic for this entertaining book. So massive, in fact, that when I tried reading it without first looking through the pen pictures at the start of the main players I was quickly completely lost. My mistake – the short, sharp, pen pictures, which cover sixteen pages and detail all the major anarchists and secret agents are completely invaluable and helped my reading of the book enormously.
+
|summary=A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question ''Discuss the factors which led to...''  I 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 know.  We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551926</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1788037812
|author=Giles Milton
+
|title=The Fraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908
|title=Wolfram: The Boy Who Went To War
+
|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=Giles Milton's daughter was set the task of designing an heraldic shield which represented the most important elements of her family's history. Aware that one of her grandparents is German she included the only German symbol which she knew: a Swastika. It was this incident, which was an awkward mixture of funny and disquieting which brought about 'Wolfram: The Boy Who Went To War'.  It's the story of Giles' father-in-law, Wolfram Aïchele, who was nine years old when Hitler came to power and who found himself caught up in a situation which was none of his making and didn't accord with his own beliefs.  He was a man who wanted to be a sculptor or to paint, but he was forced to become a soldier.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340837888</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Dudley Green
 
|title=Patrick Bronte: Father of Genius
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=There have been many biographies about Charlotte Brontë and her siblings, but very little about their father. It is tempting to speculate whether he would be quite so deserving of one if he had not been the father of such a famous family. Yet Dudley Green, a retired Classics teacher, has demonstrated here that he did lead an interesting life himself.  Born in rural Ireland in 1777, he spent his early years there before arriving in England in 1802 and settled in Yorkshire seven years later, where he remained the rest of his days.
+
|summary=Originally passed in 1885, the 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 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were 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 1967.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454455</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1910593508
|author=Edward B Barbier
+
|title=Apollo
|title=Scarcity and Frontiers: How Economies Have Developed Through Natural Resource Exploitation
+
|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Scarcity and Frontiers is an ambitious, fascinating book that examines how the world's economies have developed by exploiting natural resources. Throughout history, states have responded to natural resource scarcity by developing new frontiers, hence the title. The book begins with the development of agriculture along the banks of the Nile and runs right through to the present day, finally questioning whether we are entering a new era of natural resource scarcity.
+
|summary=This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the 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 this, the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to the book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521701651</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1786331047
|author=John Ashdown-Hill
+
|title=The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family
|title=The Last Days of Richard III
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=The controversy surrounding King Richard III has meant that there have been far more biographies about him than on any other pre-Tudor monarch, some extremely partisan in exonerating him of the crimes laid at his door, some (a minority, it seems) more than keen to endorse the Shakespearean portrait of a fiend in human shape, and others steering a middle course.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454048</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
 
|author=Helen Rappaport
 
|author=Helen Rappaport
|title=Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=The city of Ekaterinburg was once regarded as imperial Russia's gateway to the east.  In 1918 it became symbolic with one of the most savage executions, or might one say liquidations, ever recorded in history – the cold-blooded annihilation of the former Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, their children, the last remaining servants who had stayed with them in captivity, and their pet dogs.
+
|summary=The 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. For the last few months of their lives in Russia the former Tsar and Tsarina, their children and few remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the news was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520095</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts
 
|title=Edgelands
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Around the middle of the last century and earlier, books about the English countryside seemed very much in vogue.  H.V. Morton's 'In Search of England' and associated titles spring readily to mind, but there were a wealth of others, by authors who seemed intent on discovering the land for themselves, sometimes anxious to document it before it was gone.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089021</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jonathan Clark
 
|title=A World By Itself: A History of the British Isles
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=As one who has always felt most at ease with the standard chronological approach to history, driven by events and major personalities, I found the close-on 700 pages of this volume fairly demanding reading in places.  It is divided into six parts, each by a different contributor with the editor himself writing the fourth. Each part is divided into Material Cultures, followed by essays on topics (not for all sections) on Religious Cultures; Religion, Nationalism and Identity; and Political and National Cultures.  What we have, therefore, is an overview of events from each period, more thorough in some instances than others, and a certain amount of theorizing on the general social, political and even artistic background.  A straightforward history through the ages – it is not.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712664963</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Peter Hart
 
|title=Gallipoli
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Early in 1915 the Allied Powers attempted to seize the Dardanelles, capture Constantinople and eliminate Turkey, who had joined the Central Powers, from the First World War.  The campaign ended in failure and retreat, yet for many years it was portrayed as a brilliant strategy undermined by bad luck and incompetent commanders.  This painstakingly-researched account shows that this was not the case.  It was more a matter of a wild scheme which was poorly planned and doomed from the start, compounding the Allies' problems by diverting large numbers of troops from attacking Germans on the Western Front, where they would arguably have been better employed.  In his introduction he calls the eight-month exercise 'an epic tragedy with an incredible heroic resilience displayed by the soldiers', yet ultimately 'a futile and costly sideshow for all the combatants.'  It was a huge drain on Allied military resources, involving nearly half a million troops, with the British Empire losing about 205,000 – 115,000 killed, wounded or missing and 90,000 evacuated sick – while the French lost 47,000, and the Turkish over 251,000.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681596</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Home and Family Reviews]]
|author=Patrick Dillon and P J Lynch
 
|title=The Story of Britain
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary=Author Patrick Dillon has put together a clear, well-written and beautifully concise story of Britain, summing up the history of Britain and Ireland in a little over 320 pages. Significant events, ranging from the Norman Conquest to the South Sea Bubble, and groups of people ranging from highwaymen to the Romantic poets, are each dealt with in between 1 and 3 pages written in Dillon's chatty, easy to read style. There are also maps, including those of the D-Day landings and the Civil War battles, a timeline for each major period (Middle Ages, Tudors, Stuarts, Georgians, Victorians and Twentieth Century) and some gorgeous illustrations by former Kate Greenaway winner PJ Lynch.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406311928</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Edward Pearce
 
|title=Pitt the Elder: Man of War
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham, and Prime Minister from 1766 to 1768, has come down to us through the ages as the great eighteenth century equivalent of Winston Churchill, one of the great men of the British Empire in its earlier days, and the man who led England triumphantly through the Seven Years War of 1756-63.  During the 'year of victories' in 1759, Quebec was captured, the combined English and Prussian forces defeated the French at Minden, and the army won a famous victory at Quiberon Bay.  For this, Pitt took – or was accorded by generations of historians – much of the credit.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951433</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 12:03, 20 March 2023

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Review of

Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car by Clive Wilkinson

5star.jpg Travel

Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it? Full Review

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Review of

Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940 by Frederic Seager

4.5star.jpg History

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 Phoney War. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in to save the day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book, it was of vital significance in how the war played out. Full Review

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Review of

CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena' by Hans Bodmer

4star.jpg History

The history of the development of IT could fill books of 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. It's a fascinating tale, told in a mixture of technological summary and wry anecdote. Full Review

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Review of

Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene

4star.jpg Confident Readers

We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, 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 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's will, and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. Kristallnacht happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the 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 same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about… Full Review

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Review of

The Search by John Henry Phillips

5star.jpg History

Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the dirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. This book is a case of the latter, as our author promises to locate the topic of the titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, the target might not exist any more – oh, and it's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a 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 erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of whom perished. Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties? Full Review

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Review of

Flights for Freedom by Steven Burgauer

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel. Full Review

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Review of

The Inspiring History of a Special Relationship by Nancy Carver

4.5star.jpg History

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 London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, in the grounds of Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill. Full Review

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Review of

The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany by Roger Moorhouse

5star.jpg History

What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of the 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 the Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.  Full Review

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Review of

Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes by Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

I 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, you know. I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989. Full Review

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Review of

Clara Colby: The International Suffragist by John Holliday

4star.jpg Biography

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 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 household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life 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 eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening. Full Review

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Review of

This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History by Esther Rutter

5star.jpg History

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 be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the landscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - a free-range child on the farm - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in her blood. Full Review

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Review of

Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II by Wendy Williams

4star.jpg History

Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 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 this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942. Full Review

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Review of

G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart by John Webley

4.5star.jpg Art

George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the 1770s to the Regency era. He was also one of the most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book. Full Review

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Review of

War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam by Melanie Martin

5star.jpg History

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 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 occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies. Full Review

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Review of

Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie

5star.jpg History

Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you this one has your name on it. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering an older, less tethered sense of herself. Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, of those 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 it fall onto my path so quickly. Full Review

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Review of

Lord Of All the Dead by Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

4star.jpg History

Lord Of All the 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 the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is 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. Full Review

0008294011.jpg

Review of

How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship by Ece Temelkuran

4.5star.jpg History

A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question Discuss the factors which led to... I 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 know. We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth. Full Review

1788037812.jpg

Review of

The Fraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908 by Brian Anderson

5star.jpg History

Originally passed in 1885, the 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 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were 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 1967. Full Review

1910593508.jpg

Review of

Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins

5star.jpg History

This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the 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 this, the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to the book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short. Full Review

1786331047.jpg

Review of

The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family by Helen Rappaport

5star.jpg History

The 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. For the last few months of their lives in Russia the former Tsar and Tsarina, their children and few remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the news was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe. Full Review

Move on to Newest Home and Family Reviews