Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lyuba Vinogradova and Arch Tait (translator)1785633457|title=Defending the MotherlandCharging Around: The Soviet Women Who Fought Hitler's Aces|rating=2.5|genre=History|summary=If you picture a wartime fighter ace in your mind, chances are it will hold to a few certain characteristics. The chutzpah on the face of a Han Solo, a fluffy pilot's jacket perhaps, the swagger of a person who's faced and dealt death and come out the other side only stronger, someone who can carry off the look of pilot's goggles – and whatever your visual impression, pretty much certainly a male. But consider the Soviet war machine, facing the Nazis easily absorbing Ukrainian territories and closing on Moscow with surprising rapidity. This is a country where all jobs are gender neutral, and where young girls fresh out of school had been building the Moscow Underground stations. No wonder, then, that that place and that cause were the locations for the world's first, and apparently, only female air regiments.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051954</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= John Aubrey|title= Brief Lives|rating= 4|genre= Biography|summary= John Aubrey was a modest man, an antiquarian and the inventor of modern biography. His lives of Exploring the prominent figures of his generation include Shakespeare, Milton, and Sir Walter Raleigh. Funny, illuminating and full Edges of historical details, they have been plundered by historians for centuries. Here Aubrey's biographical writings are collected, painting a series of unforgettable portraits of the characters of his day – all more alive and kicking than in a conventional history book. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784870331</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Lauren Johnson|title= So Great a Prince: England and the Accession of Henry VIII|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= King Henry VII, whose victory at the battle of Bosworth in 1485 brought the curtain down on the Wars of the Roses, brought peace and stability to a divided country, but his last few years were marked by corruption and repression. When he died in 1509, there were hopes that his eighteen-year-old heir, now Henry VIII, would mark the end of medieval England and the start of a new era. The age of Protestantism and the Renaissance would indeed fulfil these aspirations. Lauren Johnson's book examines in fascinating detail the transitional year between the old and the new.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178185985X</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewElectric Car|author=Delia Garratt and Tara Hamling (editors)|title=Shakespeare and the Stuff of Life: Treasures from the Shakespeare Birthplace TrustClive Wilkinson

|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=You remember that thing the British Museum did Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a few years back, where they picked preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the best idea of exploring the best they owned – 100 objects that most epitomised both the riches edges of the place and the cultures it England in an electric car was designed to represent? Wellnot totally outrageous. In fact, it seems that idea has legs. It’s been repeated, even, should be a pleasant holiday for the purpose of illuminating just one man – and you can probably guess that man was Mr Shakespeare. There has indeed been a project to pick a hundred limelights to illuminate his texts Clive and his timeswife, Joan, although for the purpose of this book they have been whittled down to fifty – and arranged by theme according to Jaques' 'Seven Ages of Man' speech from ''As You Like It'shouldn'. And the chances are, seeing as the results are almost more powerful here than in the best museum, you will like t it very much indeed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1474222269</amazonuk>?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peggy CaravantesB09BLBP3P8|title=Marooned in the Arctic|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Misogynists are manmade. And if anyone was in a position to hate men and the lot they put on their shoulders, it was Ava Blackjack. Her surname spoke of an abusive man she had a son by, but it was her time with four other men that made for one of the last centuryNeville Chamberlain's more remarkable stories. An Inuit nativeWar: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, but one brought up in a city and with English lessons, she was invited on an excursion alongside many other 'Eskimo' and four intrepid Westerners, to the uninhabited Wrangel Island, perched off the northern Siberian coast. They were there just to stick a flag in it and call it British, even if they were pretty much fully American and Canadian, and the chap whose ideas these all were bore an Icelandic name; she was along to provide native expertise, especially waterproof fur clothing. And that was it – none of her kin joined her, leaving her in one tent and four men in another, in one of the world's most remote and inhospitable places. And that was just the start of her worries…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1613730985</amazonuk>}}{{newreview1939-1940|author= Margaret MacMillan|title= History's People: Personalities and the PastFrederic Seager|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= According to the 19th century historian Thomas Carlyle, 'the history of the world is but the biography of great men'. Historian Margaret McMillan acknowledges in her introduction to this volume, based on a series of recent lectures, that there is a long-standing debate in history over whether events are moved either by individuals or by economic and social changes or technological and scientific advances, and suggests that there is no right or wrong answer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781255121</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=David P Colley|title=Seeing the War: The Stories Behind the Famous Photographs from World War II|rating=4

|summary=As anybody could tell, a still photograph is only part of the truth, if that. There is a beforehand we don't see, Received wisdom and an after we can only fantasise simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about unless we know otherwisehistory. Take One such is the famous image scrubbing from the popular imagination of wartime grunts pushing the flag pole upright – an icon early days of the World War in the Pacific for the US soldiersII from 1939-40, and known as the films made about Iwo Jima since''Phoney War''. But other images of the We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war have been just as long-lastingbreaking out, and the people Churchill coming in to save the photos don't always have movies made of their full story arcday. This book Very little time is a collection of the imagesspent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, and a corrective to that narrative lackas Frederic Seager argues in this book, giving much more it was of a full biography with which to pay tributevital significance in how the war played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1611687268</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timothy W Ryback3756228711|title=HitlerCDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 's First Victims: And One ManPhenomena's Race for Justice|author=Hans Bodmer

|summary=Four people, taken to a sheltered corner of the place they're trapped, and shot in the back 'The history of the head by fresh-faced guards and soldiers with far too little experience development of anything, let alone treating other men on the wrong end IT could fill books of a gunseveral hundred pages. Three people ''unceremoniously dumped Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us about the short, like slain gamebut explosive, on the floor history of a nearby ammunition shed'' – the fourth had two hellish days with at least one bullet wound to the brain before Control Data Company, CDC, for whom he passed away. All four over-worked from being in a Nazi establishment, all four probably killed merely for being Jewish. Not a remarkable story, itIt's horrid to think, due to there being about six million cases of this happening. What is remarkable about this instance is that it was the firsta fascinating tale, at the incredible time of April 1933. And if it seems the first told in a long chain mixture of such murders, you would think people might have noticed that at the time, technological summary and tried to do something about it. Well, they didwry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700169</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jason BurkeJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=The New Threat From Islamic MilitancyFritz and Kurt

|genre=Politics and SocietyConfident Readers|summary=Barely a day passes without Islamic militancy making headlines somewhere 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 worldneighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and yet it can be at a hard subject vocational school. Kurt has to grasp. The sudden rise of Islamic State and make sure the lamps are turned on at their campaign of shocking violence both in very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Middle East Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and further afield has left many confused and fearfulworkmanlike as a light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and has provoked instead of having a sometimes extreme political responsenational vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. In "The New Threat From Islamic Militancy" ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, Jason Burke, a journalist as did all the round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with two decades his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of experience reporting on an evacuation to Britain or the Islamic worldUS, while Fritz and his father are, attempts unknown initially to correct each other, packed off on the many misconceptions about Islamic extremism same train to give a true understanding of Buchenwald and the threat we now facestone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784701475</amazonuk>024156574X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon HorobinJohn Henry Phillips|title=How English Became English: A short history of a global languageThe Search|rating=45

|summary=Angle se yon lang konfizyon. Mwen konnen, paske mwen li liv sa a tout sou li. NowArchaeology cannot be child's play, I know a lot of when you understood that, and it's thanks to a certain search engine's 'translate' facility that it exists here re scraping in the first placedirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but hardly any of not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you would recognise it as Haitian Creoleset out to find some specific thing. But pretty much all This book is a case of the words in the two sentences have come into English through one way or anotherlatter, through an invasion either literal or lingual. ''Angle'' – as our author promises to locate the Anglo-Saxons were topic of the first speakers of what we now call Old English, which is pretty much impenetrable – certainly harder to read than Creoletitular search. The And he really hasn''konfizyon'' in the ''lang''uage are equally t made it easy to decipher, and for himself – the second half search area is pretty close to the French with what seems a German verb in it. If you do use regular Englishwide one, that's what you're doing the target might not exist any more – using French with some Germanoh, and Latinit's underwater, and Indian, and when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the rest, even if thatheroic old man's only as far as vocabulary goes; visit back to France, our grammar is too Germanic author has promised to be called anything but. It's at this stage one reels out find the old gag about English being the 'lingua franca' landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and thus proves that however global English he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim isto erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, it doesn't really stand as its own entity if you give it the slightest scrutinyvast majority of whom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0198754272</amazonuk>1472146182

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jason Quinn and Naresh KumarB09F4CTKJR|title=World War Two: Against the Rising Sun (Campfire Graphic Novels)Flights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|genre=Children's Non-Historical Fiction |summary=It's the later stages of World War Two – so often I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a lesson subject for our primary school children, even after all this timeyoung American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. Nazis, SovietsThis company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, Pearl Harbor – but wait. That last wasn't just the clarion call first to the Americans be attached to join in with the rest of our Allies – it was a mere episode in a fuller story – RAF and the half of first to be sent into the war that was never seen by those in Europe, beyond the fact the British Empire was certainly changed forever. The War in skies to fight the Pacific is something I was certainly never taught much about Germans in school, at any ageactive combat. And here's a graphic novel version of the tale from a publisher in India But before that can serve at last as a salutary lessonhappen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9381182051</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lewis Helfand and Lalit Kumar Sharma0578761718|title=World War Two: Under the Shadow The Inspiring History of the Swastika (Campfire Graphic Novels)a Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionHistory|summary=One The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the most common subjects City of London from at primary schoolleast 1181, getting on for three generations since when it happenedwas first mentioned in records. Sadly, is of course World War Two. It has the impact that sixty million dead people deserve – but only if it's taught correctly. One of the ways to present it is this book, which comes from a slightly surprising place – an Indian publisher completely new to me – but succeeds original church was destroyed in being remarkably competent, complete and really quite readable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9381182140</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Stacy Schiff|title= The Witches: Salem 1692|rating= 5|genre= History|summary= Like most people I know the story Great Fire of Salem through the very particular lens of _The Crucible_London in 1666. That particular lens It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the very current witch-hunt that fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was going on at again ruined by bombs during the timeBlitz. Arthur MillerBut that wasn's play is rightly seen as an allegory t the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the McCarthyism in 1950s America – but having read Schiffchurch's more academic approach walls were transported to the source taleFulton, Missouri. There, it's easy to see that Miller's drama is much more about in the hunting down grounds of Westminster College, the 'red menace' than about what might have happened in New England two hundred church was rebuilt and fifty years earliertoday serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147460224X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1784385166|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany

|title=The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941|rating=3.5

|summary=Before WWII started, What is the first image that comes to mind when you didn't really have peace. Tensions had hardly settled down since the Great War, and there had been conflicts several times since, particularly in what would become the Theatre think of War in eastern Europe. Nazi Germany and the Soviet regime were already at loggerheads, with the former supporting Japanese aggression in eastern Asia. They were bedfellows in evil, but very much on opposing sides. But with things stirring like never before under Third Reich? Hitler's expansionist activities, and despite numerous instances of this side talking to that potential enemy about the other, ? A swastika? The Nazi and Communist seemed salute? The gate to be firm foes. Both had publicly been denouncing the other – the Soviets deeming Nazis one side a concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the same corrupt, capitalist coin as us Brits, the Hitlerites already equating Communism with JewryThird Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from under that period when the sides were ''pouring buckets of shit on each other's heads'' (sorry for the language, but it’s me quoting Stalin, believe it or not) came an extraordinary Pact – one of a handful in fact, that deemed Germany and Russia non-aggressors and collaborators, - just in time for them may be less familiar to share Poland between themselvesyou. The initial document was In this shortvolume, but had an impact Roger Moorhouse has attempted to affect 50 million people then, and many millions now – and yet it's hardly been illustrate the period of the subject Third Reich through one hundred of a full look before nowits material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099571897</amazonuk> 

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hugh BichenoLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=Battle RoyalTiananmen 1989: The Wars of Lancaster and York, 1450-1464 (Wars of the Roses Book 1)Our Shattered Hopes

|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=Lancastrian Henry VI is an ailing king. Politically his popularity waivers as he spends English money on apparently fruitless wars I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in France and physically his poor mental health translates as unreliability and physical weaknessthe second half of their teens has other priorities, you know. His queen, Marguerite dI certainly didn'Anjou is determined to shore up any shortfall for t know of the sake weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the country students before the massacre and her children but the House birth of York has other ideasthe 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. And so begins bloody (and rather fascinating) civil war…This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781859655</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Benedict Rogers0648684806|title= BurmaClara Colby: A Nation at the CrossroadsThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating= 3.54|genre= HistoryBiography|summary= Benedict Rogers is a human rights activist 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 journalist three brothers. Instead, she remained with an expert insight into Burmaher grandparents, gathered first-hand who doted on journeys to regions off her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the beaten trackhousehold and her childhood was glorious. Burma is a country under By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the iron rule 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 succession of military regimesfew months: she was married for fifteen years, struggling with over half a century of sufferinghad ten pregnancies, much unknown to seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the wider international audienceeldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846044464</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Allan Metcalf1783784350|title=From Skedaddle to SelfieThis Golden Fleece: Words of the GenerationA Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating=3.5|genre=TriviaHistory|summary=I have to go a roundabout way to introducing this book, so bear with me. It stems partly from dictionaries was December and the etymology of the language we use, but more so if anything from a different couple of booksEsther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and their ideas of generationspreparing spreadsheets. The authors of those posited the idea 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 all those archetypical generations – she would travel the Baby Boomers, length and breadth of the Millennials, and those before, in between and since – have their own cyclical patternBritish Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of wool's history of humanity has been and will be formed by how it had made and changed the interplay of just four different kinds, running (with only one exception) in regular orderlandscape. I donShe't really hold much store by that, and I certainly didnd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - 't know we'd started one since a free-range child on the Millennials – who the heck decides such things, for one? farm''Somebody must have put out an order'- and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother', as someone here says of something elses friend. But in the same way as generations get defined by collective persons unknown, so do words – and those words are certainly a clue to what This was important, predominant and of course spoken in each decadeher blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>019992712X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Halliday1789017977|title=Cathedrals Ronnie and Abbeys (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=4.5

|summary=What makes a cathedral? Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. ItThere's some doubt as to whether or not automatically the principal church of anywhere that is made a city – St Davids is a village of 2,000 people, and wasnthey were ever married or even Harry't always a citys birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but always had he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a cathedral, as did Chelmsfordfew years off his age. It's not the seat of For a bishop – Glasgow has while the building family was quite well-to-do but not disaster struck in the person, 1929 Depression and hasn't five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a bishop since 1690. It's not a minster – that's something completely very different, and if you can understand the sign in the delightful Beverley Minster describing the difference, that I saw only the other month, you're a better man I, Gunga Dinlifestyle. Luckily this book doesn't touch on minsters much, One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and we can understand abbeys, so it's only the vast majority of this book that is saddled would stay with the definition problemhim throughout his life. It's clearly not a real problem, and those it does have are by-passable, for this successfully defines a cathedral as somewhere of major importance, fine trivia and greatly worthy of our attentionHe joined the army at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910821047</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Dominic Pearce1980891117|title= Henrietta MariaG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryArt|summary=The phrase 'tragic Queen' is an often overused George Engleheart was one, but of the French princess who became the second Stuart Queen Consort leading portrait miniaturists of Britain surely has as strong Georgian London, with a claim as any career lasting from the 1770s to the titleRegency era. In British history she He was unique in 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 she not only lived to see her husband defeated in civil wartime he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, but also sentenced and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to death and in effect judicially murderedas his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445645475</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Zoe Bramley1789016304|title= The Shakespeare TrailWar and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating= 45|genre= TriviaHistory|summary= It has been 400 years since William ShakespeareMelanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, the man heralded as the greatest writer particularly in the English language, and England''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's national poet, diedstories were equally fascinating. Shakespeare has made a profound mark on our culture A hundred and heritage, yet many aspects of his life remain in seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the shadowswar years, but only five thousand survived and many places throughout England have forgotten their association Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with himliberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Here 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, Zoe Bramley takes but initial protests melted away as the reader organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a journey through hundreds vast scale but made up of places associated with Shakespeare – many whose connections will come as a surprise to most. Filled with intriguing titbits tens of thousands of information about Shakespeare, Elizabethan England, and the places that she talks about, this is no mere travel guideindividual tragedies. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445646846</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Stephen Halliday1908745819|title=London (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)Surfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=4.5|genre=TriviaHistory|summary= What makes Sometimes when people suggest that you read a city? Is 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 materialsbook. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, such as the very London Stone itselfrarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of mythological reputethe author considering ''an older, that has moved around several times, and now forms part less tethered sense of a WH Smithherself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's branch? (This has nothing, not a bad description of course, on Temple Bar, which has also been known to walkwhere I am.) Is it Add to that my love of the people – the butchers [[Jack natural world, of those aspects of the Ripper: CSI: Whitechapel by John Bennett poetic and Paul Begg|(Jack the Ripper)]]lyrical that are about style not form, the bakers (or whoever set fire to the entire city from Pudding Lane) and the candlestick makers? Is it the infrastructuresubstance most of all, from the Undergroundabout connection. Of course, whose one-time boss got a medal from Stalin for his success, to the London Bridge itself, that in its own wanderlust means this book had my name on it's highly unlikely the Thames will freeze again? . However you define a city, London certainly has a lot going It was written for it as regards weird and wonderful, and the trivial yet fascinatingme. It would have found its way to me eventually. And, luckily for us, I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so has this bookquickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910821020</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Stephen Halliday0857058320|title=London Underground Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (Amazing and Extraordinary Factstranslator)

|genre=TravelHistory|summary= From initial worries about smutty, enclosed air with ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a pungent smell journey to decades of human hair uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and engine grease causing escalator fires; from just a few lines connecting London termini to major jaunts out into Metro-land death. Cercas is searching for the suburbia-bound commuters; and from a few religious-minded if financially dodgy pioneer investment managers to Crossrail; meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the history of figure who looms large over the worldbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's most extensive underground system (even when a majority forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is actually above ground) whether it is fascinating possible for his great uncle to many. This book is be a repository of much that is entirely trivial, but is also pretty much thoroughly interestinghero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910821039</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julian Holland0008294011|title=Railways (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran|rating=34.5|genre=TravelHistory|summary=How and 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 did Laurel and Hardy replace faced with the Duke of York (George VI)? They reopened question ''Discuss the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway when peacetime resumed, at whose launch the latter had officiated before the Warfactors which led to... '' What's the worst I agreed that can happen when you travel internationally she was right and arrive on wasn't certain whether it was a London goods train with no further destination documents? Well, if yougood or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this're an unidentifiable Peruvian mummy you can get buried as an unknown corpse before the invoice turns up was leading to prove you were wanted in Belgium. After so many miles I think now that I do know. We are in danger of losing democracy and so much drama, whilst it's no surprise odd facts and fun trivia derive from our countrya flawed system I can's trains. This book is designed to be an ideal source t think of quick articles and fun mini-essays for use in a better one, particularly as the smallest room'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910821004</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Paddy Hayes1788037812|title= Queen The Fraternity of Spiesthe Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= Paddy Hayes has created an extensive account of Originally passed in 1885, the life 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 career 1908, three books on the nature of an extraordinary female spyhomosexuality appeared. Daphne Park has faced sexismThey were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, brutality as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and betrayal. She has bravely stood against terrorstudying 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, charmed diplomats and navigated her way through beginning the then alien Soviet Russia. Hers is an incredible lifestruggle for recognition and equality, one that brings leading to the nailmilestone legalisation of same-biting and seat teetering that we expect from a spy storysex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715650432</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanne Parker1910593508|title=Britannia Obscura: Mapping Britain's Hidden LandscapesApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins|rating=45

|summary=What shape do you assume Britain This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to be? If you merely go by the current map, you're holding yourself ransom by the secessionists wanting devolution, Moon landings and changes to the boundaries within Britain, but doesn't passion for the place go beyond that outline on the page? Remember, it used to be connected to mainland Europesubject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and once Mike Collins. This is a story we'd sort-know well and because of-settled into one kingdom on our shores [[Divorcedthis, Beheaded, Died...: The History of Britain's Kings and Queens the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in Bite-Sized Chunks by Kevin Flude|the people in charge]] were also ruling over parts of Franceblanks. And of course – These shortcuts are the only downside to the two-dimensional plan book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the British Isles slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is nowhere near the real story, for we a graphic novel that could easily have many coastal waters, we have airspace, been three times as long and we have a large subterranean territory. You can definitely throw away the imagined space of Britain, for the reality is far granderstill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700002</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Suzannah Lipscomb1786331047|title= The King is Dead|rating= 5|genre= History|summary= Shortly before his death in January 1547, King Henry VIII's last will and testament was read, stamped and sealed. It has remained one of Race to Save the most intriguing and contested documents in British history. This book examines it from every angle, and analyses Romanovs: The Truth Behind the background against the last days of the KingSecret Plans to Rescue Russia's life and the events which followed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784081922</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewImperial Family|author= Ian Mortimer|title= Human Race: 10 Centuries of Change on EarthHelen Rappaport|rating=45|genre= History|summary= We are an astonishing species. Over The basic facts about the past millennium deaths of plagues Nicholas and explorationAlexandra, revolution and scientific discovery, women's rights and technological advances, human society has changed beyond recognition. Best known for his ''Time Traveller's Guide'' history books, Ian Mortimer here gives some of which were deliberately obscured at the reader a whistle-stop tour through ten centuries. ''Human Race'' contains the lunar leaps and lightbulb moments that, time for better or worsevarious reasons, have sent humanity swerving down a path that no-one could have predictedlong since been established. The question here is which of For the last ten centuries saw few months of their lives in Russia the greatest change in human history?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593386</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Catherine Hewitt|title= The Mistress of Paris|rating= 4|genre= Biography|summary= Born into povertyformer Tsar and Tsarina, no-one could have guessed that the girl who would one day be known as Valtesse de la Bigne would have achieved greatness. This is the tale of her rise to wealth their children and power – starting few remaining servants were held in a dress shop as a thirteen year oldincreasingly squalid, but fast becoming a courtesan who would be fought over by some of the greatest men of her timehumiliating captivity. A woman who kept an air of mystery about many details of her lifeTo prevent them from being rescued, Catherine Hewitt nevertheless paints an incredible story around in July 1918 the gaps, revolutionary regime had them all shot and this proves bayoneted to be both a full and intriguing biographydeath in circumstances which, and a fascinating portrait of once the time periodnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848319266</amazonuk>