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[[Category:History|*]]
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Mourby1785633457|title=Rooms with a ViewCharging Around: The Secret Life Exploring the Edges of Great HotelsEngland by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=45
|genre=Travel
|summary=Adrian Mourby Clive Wilkinson has given us a flying visit to each history of fifty grand hotels, from fourteen regions travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the world, with the hotels edges of England in each section being arranged chronologically rather than by region, which helps to give something of an overall pictureelectric car was not totally outrageous. So what makes a hotel 'grand'? The first hotel to call itself 'grand' was in covent Garden in 1774 and In fact, it ushered in the beginning of a period when a hotel would should be a lifestyle choice rather than a refuge pleasant holiday for those without friends and family conveniently nearby. The hotels we visit all began life in different circumstances Clive and each faced a different set of challenges. We begin in the Americashis wife, move to the United Kingdom, circumnavigate Europe, briefly visit Russia and Turkey then northern Africa, India and Asia. AustraliaJoan, shouldn't it seems, does not go for the grand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785782754</amazonuk>?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Philip MatyszakB09BLBP3P8|title=24 Hours in Ancient RomeNeville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary= I've never been that interested in Ancient RomeReceived wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. Blame my teachers, or our ohOne such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of the early days of World War II from 1939-so-dry visits to Roman villas with their earnest interpretation panels40, or perhaps I just daydreamed through all the interesting bits… Somehow I entered adulthood with known as the impression that all Romans were bloodthirsty and hedonistic heathens with little to recommend them. ''Mea culpaPhoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, you might say. So when my eye fell upon Philip Matyszak's ''24 Hours in Ancient Rome''war breaking out, and its claim to introduce readers Churchill coming in to save the real Ancient Rome by examining the lives of ordinary people, I decided it was high day. Very little time to update my education. And the lovely artwork is spent on the front cover made this period in cultural reflections and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book all , it was of vital significance in how the more appealingwar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782438564</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Sharon Bennett Connolly3756228711|title= Heroines of the Medieval World|rating= 5|genre= History|summary= Many women in medieval times left their mark on history, but as CDC: The happy years with a rule they have been neglected by biographers and historians as there is too little surviving information for them to have even brief biographies to themselves. Ms Connolly has adopted an enterprising solution to the problem by writing a general account on a broadly thematic basis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445662647</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewspectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author= Kurt Andersen|title= FantasylandHans Bodmer|rating= 4|genre= History |summary= Fantasyland covers the ''The history of America from 1517 to 2017 in awesome detail. Covering five centuries the development of tempestuous history, Andersen paints the conjuring IT could fill books of America in vivid reliefseveral hundred pages.'' Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. Discussing everything from pilgrims He has chosen to politicianstell us about the short, but explosive, history of the exhilarating gold rush to alternative factsControl Data Company, CDC, for whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, seminal episodes are explored told in forensic detail with razor sharp wita mixture of technological summary and wry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785038656</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Twigs WayJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Tea Gardens (Britain's Heritage Series)Fritz and Kurt
|rating=4
|genre=LifestyleConfident Readers|summary=Tea Gardens really began in London 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 late 18th century: a trip neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to Kings Cross or St Pancras was effectively the synagogue choir and at a trip vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the country in those days. Men had lamps are turned on at their coffee houses, but they were not places where women could or would be seenvery Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. Tea was introduced to England in But this is the 17th century but it was not until 1784 that time just before the high duty was reduced from 119% Austrian leader is going to 12½% cave to Hitler's will, and tea became the drink instead of choice for having a national vote to keep the nationNazis out, invite them in with open arms. Until then ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the working classes had been fuelled largely by cheap ginround-ups of Jews. OnlyThese 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, where would this beverage be drunk? One answer was the pleasure gardens where packed off on the fashionable went same train to see Buchenwald and be seen: by the mid 1600s tea was also being served in places such as Ranelagh Gardensstone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445670011</amazonuk>024156574X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Nathen AminJohn Henry Phillips|title=The House of Beaufort: The Bastard Line that Captured the CrownSearch|rating= 45|genre= History|summary= The family name 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 Beaufort played the titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a major part in British history during wide one, the fourteenth target might not exist any more – oh, and fifteenth centuriesit's underwater, when he cannot dive. It therefore seems remarkable 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 little has been written about them until he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the appearance vast majority of this bookwhom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445647648</amazonuk>1472146182
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Rory StewartB09F4CTKJR|title= The MarchesFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer|rating= 4.5|genre= TravelHistorical Fiction|summary= The Observer quote on It's the front later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the paperback edition of Stewart's latest book observes ''This is travel writing at its finestconflict.'' Perhaps, but to call it travel writing Petrol Petronus is to totally under-sell ita young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This is erudition at its finest. Stewart has company was the background first US Aero Squadron to do this: he had an international upbringing and followed his father be trained in both Canada, the first to be attached to the Army RAF and the Foreign Office, and then (first to be sent into the skies to his father's, bemusement, shall we say) became an MPfight the Germans in active combat. OhBut before that can happen, and he walked 6,000 miles across Afghanistan in 2002. A walk along Petrol has to master flying the Scottish borders should be a doddle by comparisonnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581892</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0578761718|title=The Inspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Josh DeanNancy Carver|rating=4.5|genre=History|titlesummary=The Taking church of K-129St 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.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1784385166|title=The Most Daring Covert Operation Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material Historyof Nazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=In February 1968 What is the Soviet nuclear missile submarine K-129 left the port first image that comes to mind when you think of Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka peninsula with Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a crew concentration camp? None of 98 submarinersthese are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. The captain But some objects and executive officers were experienced: the only factor giving cause for concern was images from that the crew had only recently returned time may be less familiar to base and were expecting a longer break and were only back at sea because two sister ships had experienced mechanical problems and were unfit for combat controlsyou. The Division Commander complained that In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the decision was cruel Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts. }}{{Frontpage|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and potentially recklessEdward Gauvin (translator)|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes|rating=4. He would be proved right - but not publicly - as K-129 went down 5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with all hands much attention when it was playing out – someone in March 1968the second half of their teens has other priorities, you know. It was a while I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the sSoviet navy realised that it massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had lost one of its submarines long been a venue for political protest, and despite an extensive search they couldnI didn't find itknow 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445674742</amazonuk>1684056993
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{{Frontpage<!-- Parker -->|isbn=0648684806*[[image:Parker_50.jpg|left|linktitle=httpsClara Colby://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1784937908?ieThe International Suffragist|author=UTF8&tagJohn Holliday|rating=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1784937908]]4|genre===[[50 Things You Should Know About the Vikings by Philip Parker]]===Biography[[image:4.5star.jpg|linksummary=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:ChildrenThe path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's Nonlife was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-Fiction|Childrenyears-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn's Non-Fiction]]t allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, [[:Category:Confident Readers|Confident Readers]]she remained with her grandparents, [[:Category:History|History]] The Vikings have got who doted on her and saw that she received a lot to own up togood education, both in and out of school. A huge DNA study in 2014 She was the first thing that proved to only child in the Orkney residents that they household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had Viking blood become pioneer farmers in their veins – they had been insisting it was that the mid-west of the Irish. The Vikings it United States and life was that forced our English king's army to march from London to Yorkshire to kill off one invasionhard, only as Clara was to spend the next fortnight schlepping back find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to Hastings to try and fend off another – and join the Normans had the same Norse origin as the first lot, hence the namefamily. There is Clara would only know her mother for a Thames Valley village just outside Henley – ie pretty damned far from the coast – that has a Viking longship on its signpost. Yesfew months: she was married for fifteen years, they got to a lot of places, from Greenland to Kievhad ten pregnancies, from Murmansk to Turkey seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the Medeldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and their misaligned history is well worth visiting – particularly on these pagesWisconsin was a rude awakening. [[50 Things You Should Know About the Vikings by Philip Parker|Full Review]]<br>}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emma Kay1783784350|title=Vintage KitchenaliaThis Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating=3.5
|genre=History
|summary=Over the half century It was December and more that IEsther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she've been d never met and preparing meals on a regular basis I've seen food preparation move from being just something you spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did, to an obsession akin to a religionnot soothe her mind. My first kitchen had nothing in the way of luxury - it January was there going to make meals as nutritiously be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and economically as possible: my current kitchen is not ''quite'' state breadth of the artBritish Isles with occasional forays abroad, but itdiscovering and telling the story of wool's equipped to a high standard history and how it had made and is changed the landscape. She'd grown up on a pleasure to work sheep farm in. But what of all Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the equipment which went beforefarm'' - and learned to spin, which paved the way to what we have now? knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. Emma Kay is going to give you a quick trip through the historyThis was in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445657511</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Martyn Beardsley1789017977|title= Waterloo Voices 1815Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: The Battle at First HandTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= The battle Ronnie Williams was the son of WaterlooThomas 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, fought on but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a midsummer day on few years off his age. For a muddy field while the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in Belgium, brought an end 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 two decades of war in Europebe well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. As one of He joined the pivotal events of the nineteenth century, it has inevitably been the focus of many accounts over the last two hundred yearsarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445660164</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Rutherford1980891117|title=Landscape GardensG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley|rating=4.5
|genre=Art
|summary=My first experience George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a ''big'' garden career lasting from the 1770s to the Regency era. He was Versailles 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 a teenager his fee book.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1789016304|title=War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=5|genre=History|summary=Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and whilst I was impressedentranced by what she discovered, I didnparticularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family't really like its stories were equally fascinating. I felt stifled A hundred and strangely underwhelmed by seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the flatness of it all. As luck would have it I then saw Hampton Court war years, but only five thousand survived and it was official: I was off big gardens. It would Martin could not understand how this could be many years before I revised my opinion. On a trip allowed to Harewood House it was too hot happen in a day country with liberal values who were resistant to be corralled into German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the house, so I wandered Germans might reach the gardens and found city were convinced that they were delightful. I felt uplifted. Then a cricket match at Stowe gave me would soon be pushed back, that the opportunity Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to walk escalate in the grounds for over an hourway that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. I was completely won over and a devotee of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. Sarah RutherfordIt's ''Landscape Gardens'' was an opportunity to put him in contextatrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445669935</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Stuart Maconie1908745819|title= Long Road From JarrowSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie|rating= 5|genre= Travel History|summary= I cancelled my Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''Country Walkingthis one has your name on it'' magazine subscription about a year ago and . 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 only thing I miss is Stuart Maconiebook. That's columna rare experience. His down-People who are sensitive to-earth approach and sharp wit belie an equally sharp intellect and hearing a soul more sensitive than he might be willing to admitbook calling your name, rarely get it wrong. Let's be honest, thoughIn this case, I picked this one up because was told why. The blurb speaks of someone elsethe author considering ''s reviewan older, in which I spotted names like Ferryhill and Newton Aycliffeless tethered sense of herself. '' Places Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I grew up inam. Like Maconie I have no connection (Add to that I know my love of the natural world, of those aspects of) to the Jarrow Crusade but when he talks poetic and lyrical that are about it being ''a whole matrix style not form, and substance most of events reducible to one word like Aberfanall, Hillsboroughabout connection. Of course, or Orgreave'' then somehow this book had my name on it does become part of my history too. Tangentially, at leastIt was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785030531</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vicky Hayward0857058320|title=Juan Altamiras' New Art of Cookery: A Spanish Friar's Kitchen NotebookLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=CookeryHistory|summary=In 1745 a Spanish friary cook, Juan Altamiras, published ''Lord Of All the first edition of his Dead''New Art of Cookery, Drawn From is a journey to uncover the School of Economic Experienceauthor's lost ancestor's life and death. It contained more than two hundred recipes Cercas is searching for meat, poultry, game, salted and fresh fish, vegetables and dessertsthe meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. The style was informalManuel Mena, chatty and humorous on occasions and it was aimedCercas' great uncle, not at those is the figure who could afford to cook on a grand scale, but at those with more modest budgets, who sometimes needed to cook for looms large numbersover the book. Whilst the ingredients were - He died relatively young whilst fighting for the most part - modestly priced there is a stress Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on the careful combination of flavours and aromaswhy his uncle fought for this dictator. Spices are used conservatively and The question at the bluntness centre of some Moorish cooking this book is eschewed in favour of something much more subtle and we see influences from Altamiras' own region, Aragon, whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the Iberian court and the New Worldwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1442279419</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Susan Duxbury-Neumann0008294011|title= What Have the Germans Ever Done for Us?How to Lose a Country: A History of the German Population of Great BritainThe 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= The adapted Monty Pythonesque rhetorical 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 takes some time ''Discuss the factors which led to provide ...'' I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a full answergood 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, and this slim but useful volume does so very wellparticularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445664860</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Gillian Tindall1788037812|title= The Tunnel Through TimeFraternity of the Estranged: A New Route The Fight for an Old London JourneyHomosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary=This book traces 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 course margins of historical journeys across society and studying homosexuality was common on the city European Continent, but barely talked about in time and spacethe UK, examining how so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the areas above scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the new Crossrail routestruggle for recognition and equality, leading to the largest building project currently under construction milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in Europe offering high speed links across London1967.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1910593508|title=Apollo|author=Matt Fitch, have changed over Chris Baker and Mike Collins|rating=5|genre=History|summary=This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the passion for the centuriessubject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, with destruction Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and renewal being because of this, the authors take a constantly recurring process few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the cityblanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to the book. If you's historyve 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. It This is a fascinating, compellingly readable exploration through the historical highways graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and byways of the metropolisstill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099587793</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Trigg1786331047|title=Voices of The Race to Save the Flemish Waffen-SSRomanovs: The Final Testament of Truth Behind the OostfrontersSecret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport|rating=3.5
|genre=History
|summary=In The basic facts about the week I write thisdeaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, Trump has come under fire for not condemning fascistic behaviour in America from some Neo-Nazis. It strikes me that of which were deliberately obscured at the ''Neo-'' is a pointless dignification – yestime for various reasons, they cannot be deemed to follow Hitler precisely as he's have long dead and burnt, so they're kind of new, but common sense obliges me to just call them Nazissince been established. Their excuse is they feel America has been invaded by For the enemy – but what if you were indeed under occupation? Could you see yourself working for last few months of their lives in Russia the forces that had indeed invaded you? The author begins by pointing out that several countries were invaded by the Nazisformer Tsar and Tsarina, their children and they have different feelings about the people who worked against the commonly-few remaining servants were held nationalistic aimin increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. France hates her collaboratorsTo prevent them from being rescued, but just north of in July 1918 the border things are different – revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the picture is a lot more muddy as a resultnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445666367</amazonuk>
}}
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