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[[Category:New Reviews|History]]==History== __NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Jenifer Roberts|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of Portugal|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born in during the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Steven M Gillon|title=The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=The assassination of President Kennedy came at a pivotal moment in my life and for more than forty years I've read most of what has been written about the event. It's been of variable quality, but the books fed the curiosity of people entranced by the charismatic young President who died so publicly. I'd come to the point of wondering if there was anything new to be said, but Stephen Gillom has looked at what happened from an unusual and largely overlooked angle – the first twenty four hours of Lyndon Johnson's Presidency.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>046501870X</amazonuk!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stella Tillyard 1785633457|title=A Royal AffairCharging Around: George III and His Troublesome Siblings|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=King George III was not Exploring the luckiest Edges of English sovereigns. America, and then his sons, in that order, gave him no end of grief, and the last few years of his life were clouded England by madness. It is thus often overlooked that, before these troubles arose to haunt this most conscientious monarch, he also had a thankless task in trying to control his siblings.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099428563</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewElectric Car|author=Andy Beckett |title=When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the SeventiesClive Wilkinson

|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=Having grown up during the era and followed the major news stories in the papers as they happened, I was fascinated to find everything (well, nearly everything) in the 500-page narrative that comprises this book. It was quite Clive Wilkinson has a rocky ride from the election history of Edward Heath in June 1970 through the three-day week, record British inflation and the IMF rescue, industrial disputes and picket battles at Saltley and Grunwick, the Gay Liberation Front and the stirrings of the green movement, the rise of Arthur Scargill, and the discovery of North Sea oiltravelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. Then there was As he neared his eightieth birthday the survival idea of James Callaghan's minority administration despite exploring the odds, and thanks largely to his adroit handling edges of the situation in keeping both Tony Benn and the Lib-Lab pact on board, followed by the winter of discontent, culminating in Thatcher at No 10.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057122136X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ian Mortimer |title=The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century|rating=5|genre=History|summary=What would happen if we twenty-first century people took a trip back in time to the fourteenth century? It would be very like visiting another country. Even our landscape would be greatly changed. Ian Mortimer takes this approach and, applying his theory of living history, treats his readers to an objective and entertaining view of one of the most stereotypical centuries in medieval history. The fourteenth century has electric car was not only castles, knights, tournaments, and wars, but also gave birth to many of the creative minds associated with medieval England like Chaucer and the Gawain-poettotally outrageous.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950992</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alison Weir|title=The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn|rating=5|genre=History|summary=Wot? More Tudors? Sorry, yes. Come onIn fact, it should be honest: you love 'em, I love 'em, we all love 'em. My favourite writer of popular history is adding to the market writing a pleasant holiday for a third time about possibly history's most dramatic rise Clive and fall - that of Anne Boleyn, second of Henry VIII's six wives. The book covers only a very short periodhis wife, covering her arrestJoan, trial and execution. She had been the scandal of Europe, this woman; had captured a king, unseated a queen, and promoted a new religion. Her fall couldnshouldn't have been swifter, harder or more ruthless and her little neck was severed on a scaffold at the Tower of London. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224063197</amazonuk>it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy Borman B09BLBP3P8|title=ElizabethNeville Chamberlain's WomenWar: The Hidden Story of the Virgin QueenHow Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager

|summary=I enjoyed history at school Received wisdom and whilst we didn't always work our way through it chronologically I came, over time, simplified narrative often lead to have a working knowledge of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. I knew misconceptions about the rise of Christianity and spoke knowledgeably about medieval England, the Renaissance and the Reformation but was perhaps less taken by the Industrial Revolution and all that followedhistory. I was au fait with One such is the east but it was mainly scrubbing from the perspective popular imagination of exploration – or even exploitation. It was an education based on the virtues early days of World War II from 1939-40, known as the solid''Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, whiteand Churchill coming in to save the day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, Englishas Frederic Seager argues in this book, Christian middle classes and it completely ignored histories from was of vital significance in how the perspective of other religionswar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586486063</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elliott J Gorn 3756228711|title=Dillinger's Wild RideCDC: The Year That Made Americahappy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena's Public Enemy Number One|author=Hans Bodmer

|summary=John Dillinger was born and brought up in Indiana. His childhood was no better and no worse than most but ''The history of the early part development of his adult life was to be blighted by a spell in prison when he was convicted IT could fill books of an attack on a man in a botched hold-upseveral hundred pages. Hoping for leniency he pleaded guilty but was sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment, whilst the man with him pleaded not guilty and when convicted received a shorter sentence. It's easy to see where Dillinger's contempt for the law was spawned.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0195304837</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Anthony Read |title=The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism |rating=4Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that.5|genre=History|summary=In 1919 the world was an extremely unstable place. They say history often repeats itself, and there were parallels with 1789 - but on a far greater scale. During the First World War, with the Russian revolution and the overthrow of the Tsarist regime, one tyranny was supplanted by another which was even worse. Lenin took the new upstart socialist republic out of the conflict, accepting unbelievably harsh peace terms from Germany in order to save and nurture the still fragile Bolshevik revolution. Consolidating his power was no easy task. Much as the people might have been glad He has chosen to see the end of imperial Russia (if not the cold-blooded butchery of the former sovereign, his consort and their children), they were less than enthusiastic about Bolshevism, which secured only 24% of the votes in the new assembly. Lenin dealt promptly with the problem by shutting the assembly down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844138321</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Conn Iggulden and David Iggulden|title=The Dangerous Book of Heroes|rating=3|genre=History|summary=For most of tell us (well, for me certainly) the word 'hero' summons an image of capes, spandex and garish primary colours. Conn and David Iggulden have written a book about the other kind – the every day heroes from historyshort, who achieve incredible things without the aid of superpowers.  From household names like Horatio Nelson and Winston Churchill, to lesser known people, like Aphra Behn and Hereward the Wakebut explosive, ''The Dangerous Book of Heroes'' covers a comprehensive range of characters from the history of the British Empire. From campaigners for political changeControl Data Company, brilliant battle strategists to daring explorersCDC, each and every one of the people in this book lived brilliant lives and changed the world foreverfor whom he worked.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000726092X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Timothy Brook |title=VermeerIt's Hat: The seventeenth century and the dawn of the global world|rating=4|genre=History|summary=If a picture paints a thousand wordsfascinating tale, then Timothy Brook provides the dictionary we can use to make sense of the vocabulary. Using five paintings by the seventeenth century Delft artist Johannes Vermeer along with told in a blue and white porcelain plate and the works mixture of two of Vermeer's contemporaries, Brook demonstrates how the far flung corners of the seventeenth century world were drawn together by the ambitions of European merchants and the ability of Asia, Africa technological summary and the Americas to provided the materials to fulfil themwry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681200</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pete Brown Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Hops Fritz and Glory: One Man's Search for the Beer That Built the British EmpireKurt

|genre=TravelConfident Readers|summary=Being a beer writer can't be We start with the easiest route to respect pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in journalism. But with this book Pete Brown has done much 1930s Vienna would want to counter do – kicking things around the scepticalempty market place, even dismissivehelping the neighbours, attitudes which must surround his trade being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and its subject matterat a vocational school. He Kurt has attempted to combine 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 history light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and instead of British imperialism and having a national vote to keep the brewing industry Nazis out, invite them in with the comic open arms. ''Kristallnacht'quest' genre happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of travel writingJews. Against all 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 oddsUS, he has largely succeededwhile 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…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230706355</amazonuk>024156574X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael Haag John Henry Phillips|title=The Templars: History and Myth: From Solomon's Temple to the FreemasonsSearch|rating=4.5

|summary=Despite being very descriptive, the title of 'The Templars: History and Myth: From SolomonArchaeology cannot be child's Temple to the Freemasonsplay, when you' still doesn't cover re scraping in the full scope 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 Michael Haag's book. Notwithstanding its relatively modest page countthe latter, ''Templars'' not only manages as our author promises to place locate the fascinating tale topic of the Knightstitular search. And he really hasn' astonishing rise and spectacular fall in t made it easy for himself – the search area is a rich historical contextwide one, but also provides an entertaining account of the Templarstarget 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'afterlife': from s visit back to France, our author has promised to find the Masonic lore of the title landing craft that delivered him to novelsNormandy, films and games that he was lucky to conspiracy theoriessurvive when it sank from beneath him. There The secondary aim is also to erect a travel guide and good list memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of source materials for further readingwhom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846681537</amazonuk>1472146182

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Wheatcroft B09F4CTKJR|title=The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle Flights for EuropeFreedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=The battle for Europe which Andrew Wheatcroft describes in such vivid detail is the culmination of a power struggle between the Ottoman empire, based in Constantinople, and the Habsburg domain in Vienna, which had lasted for around 250 years prior to the final solution. These two centuries and more of struggle between them led to the decision by the sultan of Turkey, hungry for more territory, and his ministers in 1682 to lead their army against the Habsburgs at Vienna with the ultimate objective of capturing It's the city, and the ensuing siege a year later. Some historians have seen this as a crucial moment in the history stages of conflicts between the east World War I and the west, although others consider its status as one of United States has just entered the defining events somewhat over-estimatedconflict. Whatever the truth of the matter, the book that tells the story Petrol Petronus is a vivid chronicle of war in the 17th century.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844137414</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matthew Cobb |title=The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis |rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=''Allo, Allo'', ''The Secret Army'' and numerous films have painted a fairly romantic picture of the resistance — beret-wearing men and women young American who dart about blowing has signed up trains and shooting Nazisjoined the 17 Aero Squadron. The reality, according to Matthew Cobb's ''The Resistance'', This company was somewhat different. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737123X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Downing |title=Sealing Their Fate: 22 Days That Decided the Second World War|rating=4|genre=History|summary=In this detailed volume, David Downing makes a convincing argument that first US Aero Squadron to be trained in the brief 22-day period between 17 November and 8 December 1941Canada, the actions of first to be attached to the various Axis powers RAF and their Allied opponents marked the beginning of first to be sent into the end of a war that still had several years left skies to run – fight the turning point famously described by Churchill as ''the end of the beginning''Germans in active combat. After Pearl Harbor, America entered the war, making it a true world war - though it was actually Hitler But before that declared war on Americacan happen, ironically – on 11 December, just after these events take place. ''Sealing Their Fate'' opens with the launch of Petrol has to master flying the Japanese fleet and ends with that same fleet's attack on Pearl Harbor, notoriously difficult but it's not specifically about Japan and Americamajestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847371310</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard D Ryder0578761718|title=Nelson, Hitler and Diana|rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary=Was Horatio Nelson, a navy officer of great renown, forever thrusting himself into the limelight, doing it because his mother passed away when he was nine? Was Hitler overly affected by his father dying in a time of paternal disapproval, and a kind of Oedipal reaction to being the man in the house making him suffer when she herself died? And can Diana, Princess The Inspiring History of Wales' parents' divorce lead to a claim she was a sufferer of borderline personality disorder?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845401662</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSpecial Relationship|author=William Blades, Randolph G. Adams, Bagher Bachchha (Editor) |title=Enemies of BooksNancy Carver

|summary=William Blades, a Victorian printer and bibliographer, is best remembered as The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the biographer City of William Caxton. He also wrote this very concise work on the threats to books London from such enemies as fireat least 1181, water, gas and heat, dust and neglect, and ignorance and bigotry. In the process he slips when it was first mentioned in several interesting historical factsrecords. Sadly, The chapter on fire notes the vast destruction of books original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, as well as . It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the Gordon Riots just over a century later, fire and closer to his own timethen survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the destruction Blitz. But that wasn't the end of its story: after a priceless law library at Strasbourgphenomenal fundraising effort, ravaged by the shells of stones from the German army during church's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, in the Franco-Prussian war grounds of 1870Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904799361</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul R Spiring (Editor) 1784385166|title=The World Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Vanity Fair - Bertram Fletcher RobinsonNazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse

|genre=Biography History|summary=Every now and then, you What is the first image that comes across a really sumptuous book, where just turning and looking at the pages takes to mind when you into another world. Such is think of the case with this one. ''Vanity Fair'' was Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a gentler Victorian forerunner concentration camp? None of ''Private Eye''. Subtitled, ''A Weekly'' ''Show these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of Political, Social, and Literary Wares'', it appeared between 1868 and 1914. Like the more successful, longer-lasting Third Reich''Punch'', it began with radical aspirations, intending ''to expose what'' [the editor] ''perceived to be the'' ''vanities of the elite social classes''. However its satire was gently humorous rather than malicious, and almost everybody who was portrayed s fascist regime in all its pages was flatterediniquity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312535</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Phil Robins |title=Can I Come Home, Please?|rating=4But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you.5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction |summary=Using the sound archives of the Imperial War Museum and other primary sources, In this affecting short volume gives an overview , Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the progress of Nazism as seen Third Reich through the eyes one hundred of children in different parts of Europe. The simplicity of the language used in the transcribed interviews means it is accessible to children from Y6, yet remains useful to GCSE students as a succinct, linear timeline of WW2its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407109030</amazonuk> 

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Keith MillerLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=St Peter's (Wonders of the World)Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes

|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=It is huge: not only in space but in time and structure; and in I never really followed the non-material sphere events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the complex interplay second half of meaningstheir teens has other priorities, symbols and significancesyou know. Miller I certainly didn's book, intentionally combining cultural t know of the weeks of protests and political history, art criticism hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and travel writing, manages to reflect that hugeness without weighting the reader down with too much austere detail.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861979088</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Richard Mullen and James Munson|title=The Smell birth of the Continent|rating=5|genre=History|summary=When Frances Trollope landed at Calais in Tank Man image, I didn't know how the 1830s, she overheard area had long been a conversation between two travellers, the younger commenting on the dreadful smellvenue for political protest, the older and I didn't know more experienced telling him it was ''than a spit about the smell of'' ''the continent''people involved on either side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230741908</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jennifer Worth|title=Farewell To The East End|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=I am interested This book is practically flawless in social history and, as giving a mother, general browser's context for the job whole season of midwives fascinates me. Combining these two subjects, ''Farewell to the East End'' is a riveting read. The author Jennifer Worth was a midwife and nurse, working with the nuns at Nonnatus House protests back in the East End of London and this volume (her third book on this topic) covers the 1950s1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297844652</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Williams0648684806|title=Becoming QueenClara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|summary=ItThe path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's a story which has been told by many authors during the last century. The Victorian age, or at any rate the woman who gave life was probably determined when her name family emigrated to the era, came about largely if not wholly because of a crisis of sorts among King George III's familyUSA. By At the time his seven surviving sons reached middle ageshe was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, they had managed she wasn't allowed to produce one legitimate child between them, namely Princess Charlottesail with her parents and three brothers. Her unexpected deathInstead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and the need for at least some if not all of the others to do their dynastic duty and produce an heir or twosaw that she received a good education, resulted both in an undignified mass scramble to the altar. Edward, Duke and out of Kent won the lotteryschool. It She was he the only child in the household and his wife, a widow with two small children by her first marriage, whose daughter Victoria became the saviour of the royal succession.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099451824</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Martyn Downer|title=The Queen's Knight|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The title sounds more indicative of a novel by [[:Category:Dorothy Dunnett|Dorothy Dunnett]] or Jean Plaidy than a biographychildhood was glorious. Then a brief prologue starts the story at the very endBy contrast, when Queen Victoria receives the unexpected news of the death of Sir Howard Elphinstone. An equally short first chapter gives us a glimpse of the man some thirty years earlier her family had become pioneer farmers in the thick mid-west of battle at the Crimea. Only after that do we 'reach' his birth in 1829. Sometimes rules are meant to be broken, United States and it's a good way of introducing this very interesting life. As the husband of his subject's great-great-granddaughterwas hard, the author is well qualified as Clara was to write it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>055215508X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ruth Maier, Jamie Bulloch (Translator) find out when she and Jan Erik Vold (Editor)|title=Ruth Maier's Diary: A Young Girl's Life Under Nazism|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=I was looking forward her grandparents eventually went to reading Ruth Maier's Diary as I am interested in join the history surrounding World War Two and its victims and survivorsfamily. I am especially fascinated by social history and how the lives of ordinary people were affected by events beyond therir control. Ruth Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was born in 1920 married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died on arrival in Auschwitz in 1942childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, aged only twenty-two. She was born in Austria and lived there with her parents a heavy burden would fall on Clara and sister, Judith. But in 1939, life there Wisconsin was becoming much harder for Jews, so Judith was sent to England and Ruth to Norway, where she lived with the Strom family in Lillestroma rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552141</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katherine Ashenburg1783784350|title=CleanThis Golden Fleece: An Unsanitised A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History of Washing|author=Esther Rutter

|summary=Although maybe not the first book youIt 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 drawn to – a history of personal hygiene perhaps doesn't seem time for making changes and she decided that appealing – but if you had overlooked this excellent book, you she would have missed out on an enjoyable and informative book, full of fascinating facts and a jolly good read. Attitudes towards and rituals of cleanliness have certainly changed over travel the last two thousand years length and this book chronicles many breadth of them, largely in Europe and the US. Cultural differences British Isles with regard to cleanliness and body odour (and yes, Napoleon and Josephine do get a mention hereoccasional forays abroad, although it transpires that they both took daily baths) are discussed at length, from the Greeks discovering and Romans to telling the present day.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681014</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jean Hatzfeld|title=The Strategy Of Antelopes: Rwanda After the Genocide|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=story of wool''Life offers me smiles, s history and I owe how it my gratitude for not having abandoned me in had made and changed the marsheslandscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - ' ''I've known a free-range child on the defilement of a bestial existence.farm'' ''Who's going - and learned to say that word, forgiveness? It's outside of human nature.'' So say some of the survivors of the Rwandan genocide of 1994spin, when 800,000 Tutsis were murdered by their fellow Hutu citizens. Jean Hatzfeld talked to both Tutsis knit and Hutus then, publishing two award-winning books. In The Strategy of Antelopes, he returns to Rwanda to talk to the same people weave from her mother and explore life after genocide. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686865</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Iain McCalman|title=Darwinher mother's Armada: Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle for the Theory of Evolution|rating=3friend.5|genre=Biography|summary=A look at Darwin's journey on The Beagle, as well as journeys by Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley and Alfred Wallace. Darwin's Armada provides a broad overview that strikes a different tone to other books This was in a crowded market. Casual readers who usually steer clear of non-fiction will enjoy ither blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737266X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Thomas Robisheaux1789017977|title=The Last Witch of LangenburgRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Murder in Towards a German VillageNew Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|summary=In rural Germany, a long long time ago… A woman passes through Ronnie Williams was the village, handing out good cheer son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and cakesEthel Wall. One family dismiss the foodThere'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 even their dog is seen to avoid ithe might well have shaved a few years off his age. She visits For a second while the family, was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and urges Anna, five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a young new mother, still convalescing as is the norm, to try one of the cakesvery different lifestyle. Anna does. But the friends by her bedside seem One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to think be well-turned-out and this might not be a good ideawould stay with him throughout his life. They may be correct, as before He joined the night is out she is deadarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393065510</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Doris Kearns Goodwin1980891117|title=Team G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of RivalsGeorge Engleheart|author=John Webley

|genre=BiographyArt|summary=This hefty tomeGeorge Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the cover tells us, is '1770s to the book that inspired Barack Obama'Regency era. For what it's worth, Obama's name appears no less than nine times on He was also one of the cover and spinemost prolific, while Lincoln's appears only sixpainting nearly 5, and 000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of the author a mere twoeach of his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043725</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James J O'Donnell1789016304|title=The Ruin War and Love: A family's testament of the Roman Empireanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=45

|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 Decline and Fall Diary of the Roman EmpireAnn Frank'' is the traditional starting point for those studying the demise of Rome. Gibbonbut then realised that her own family's masterwork suggests that stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the great empire collapsed in large part due to violent invasions from barbarians such as city during the Visigothswar years, Vandals but only five thousand survived and other non-Romans. In ''The Ruin of the Roman Empire'' classical scholar James J. O'Donnell, Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in line a country with much modern revisionist thinking, turns this argument on it headliberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Rather than being a destructive influence, Most people believed that the barbarian kings within occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the empire tried to retain Germans might reach the good things about Roman rule. The real blame for city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the fall of Rome can Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in fact be attributed to Emperor Justinian.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861979355</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Patrick Wright|title=A Journey Through Ruins: The Last Days of London |rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=My good mood evaporated when Suethe way that it did, my Bookbag partner, asked me if I'd read and review A Journey Through Ruinsbut initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. She was right to ask because Thatcher It's Britain is certainly an area atrocity on a vast scale but made up of interest to me. The thing is, times are depressing enough. Margaret Hilda's neo-liberal legacy is crashing around us. Jobless queues are lengthening. Roofs are disappearing from over people's heads. The rampant cronyism and venal nature tens of thousands of our economic and political elites are slowly exposing themselves in ways likely to send my blood pressure soaringindividual tragedies. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0199541949</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Grann1908745819|title=The Lost City of Z: A Legendary British Explorer's Deadly Quest to Uncover the Secrets of the AmazonSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie

|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'For King and Country – Voices from 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 First World Warauthor considering '' is an anthology older, less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of writings edited by Brian MacArthurwhere I am. It features around 450 pages Add to that my love of journalsthe natural world, poemsof those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, articles and memories substance most of those involved in WWI. These factual accounts cover all kinds of styles, lengths and subject matterabout connection. Of course, but each one is hopefully able this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to give the reader a real taste of a time most of us are too young me eventually. I am pleased to remember first-handhave it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349120293</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nechama Tec0857058320|title=DefianceLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)|rating=4.5

|summary=In this thoroughly researched history, Nechama Tec challenges ''Lord Of All the notion that European Jews went passively Dead'' is a journey to their deaths during WW2uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Instead, she presents us with a history of Cercas is searching for the activities of meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Bielski brothersSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, headed by the charismatic Tuvia BielskiCercas' great uncle, which resulted in is the saving of around 1,200 Jews figure who spent looms large over the latter part of WW2 hidden in nomadic villages in 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 forests centre of western Belorussia. No Jew was turned away by the Bielskis – the camp worked together this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to provide be a hero whilst having fought for the sick, elderly and children. Through mutual cooperation, great bravery and huge physical effort, these Polish Jews survived, turning notions of Jewish passivity on their headwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0195385233</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Thomas Buergenthal 0008294011|title=A Lucky Child|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=I have read How to Lose a lot of books on the Holocaust and many survivors' tales, as well as biographies and memoirs of those who didn't survive – most famously, ''Country: The Diary of Anne Frank''. So I was very interested 7 Steps from Democracy to read A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal, who was only ten years old when he was incarcerated in Auschwitz in August 1944.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681782</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDictatorship|author=Quentin Letts |title=50 People Who Buggered Up Britain|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=In a rather less permissive age, 20 or 30 years ago, I suspect that the author might have been at the top of some people's list of culprits for using that naughty b-word. Good grief, man, you can't possibly have that in a book title, what!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845298551</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicola Sly |title=Dorset Murders (True Crime History)Ece Temelkuran

|summary=Having examined A little while ago a number of true crime cases from Bristol friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in her [[Bristol Murders years to come would be discussed by Nicola Sly|last book]], A level history students when faced with the question ''Discuss the author 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 does the same for largely rural yet not always idyllic Dorsetthat I do know. Twenty two murders, committed between 1818 We are in danger of losing democracy and 1946whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, come under particularly as the microscope in these pages'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750951079</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Desmond and James Moore 1788037812|title=Darwin's Sacred CauseThe Fraternity of the Estranged: RaceThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|genre=Popular ScienceHistory|summary=This probably won't be Originally passed in 1885, the only time you are told through 2009 law that it would have been Charles Darwin's 200th birthday had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this yeartime, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and that it is 150 years since ''On The Origin 1908, three books on the nature of Species'' first homosexuality appeared. This book however declares that second anniversary to be slightly They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of less importancesociety and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, when you factor but barely talked about in the biggest section UK, so the publications of his evolutionary thinking Darwin left out these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of that book – that homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of human evolutionsame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846140358</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stefan Aust1910593508|title=The Baader-Meinhof ComplexApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins

|summary=There are not that many non-fiction books in translation concerning vaguely-remembered foreign terrorist gangs that become eminently faithfulThis incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, successful Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and dramatic cinema filmsbecause of this, for the simple reason authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that it would be impossible we can fill in the blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to make such movies from the great majority book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of such booksa film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. Here, though, it comes across This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as seeming almost easylong and still felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847920454</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adam Roberts1786331047|title=The Wonga CoupRace to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport|rating=4.5

|summary=The chances are that you've never heard basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of Macias Nguema. You probably don't know his nephewwhich were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, Obiang Nguema eitherhave long since been established. They're certainly up there For the last few months of their lives in Russia the Premier League of killing former Tsar and disappearanceTsarina, alongside the likes of Pol Pot their children and modern day tyrants like Robert Mugabefew remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. The fact that the Nguemas are dictators To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the tiny west African state of Equatorial Guinea meant they largely slipped off revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the radar of western consciousnessnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682347</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Megan Hutching|title=Over the Wide and Trackless Sea: the Pioneer Women and Girls of New Zealand|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=This book offers a valuable insight into the lives of twelve pioneer women who suffered, endured and triumphed in New Zealand.  Their journey by boat from Europe Move on to New Zealand was a long and sometimes perilous one. The European explorers had previously been certain that their destination existed, mainly because they abhorred a vacuum, [[Newest Home and couldn't believe there could be such a vast expanse of ocean without the existence of a great land. Some also believed that without a land mass south of the Tropic of Capricorn, the world would be tipped upside down, while others were fearful they would burn up whilst crossing the equator, a myth finally dispelled by the Portuguese voyaging around Africa.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1869507061</amazonuk>}}Family Reviews]]