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[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Emma KayClive Wilkinson|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B09BLBP3P8|title=Vintage KitchenaliaNeville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager|rating=34.5

|summary=Over the half century Received wisdom and more that I've been preparing meals on a regular basis I've seen food preparation move from being just something you did, simplified narrative often lead to an obsession akin to a religionmisconceptions about history. My first kitchen had nothing in One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of the way early days of luxury World War II from 1939- it was there to make meals 40, known as nutritiously and economically as possible: my current kitchen is not the ''quitePhoney War'' state of the art. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, but it's equipped to a high standard and is a pleasure to work Churchill coming in. But what of all the equipment which went before, which paved the way to what we have now? Emma Kay is going to give you a quick trip through save the historyday.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445657511</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Martyn Beardsley|title= Waterloo Voices 1815: The Battle at First Hand|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= The battle of Waterloo, fought Very little time is spent on a midsummer day on a muddy field this period in Belgiumcultural reflections and yet, brought an end to two decades of war as Frederic Seager argues in Europe. As one of the pivotal events of the nineteenth centurythis book, it has inevitably been the focus was of many accounts over vital significance in how the last two hundred yearswar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445660164</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Rutherford3756228711|title=Landscape GardensCDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer

|genre=ArtHistory|summary=My first experience of a ''big'' garden was Versailles as a teenager and whilst I was impressed, I didn't really like it. I felt stifled and strangely underwhelmed by The history of the flatness development of it all. As luck would have it I then saw Hampton Court and it was official: I was off big gardens. It would be many years before I revised my opinion. On a trip to Harewood House it was too hot a day to be corralled into the house, so I wandered the gardens and found they were delightful. I felt uplifted. Then a cricket match at Stowe gave me the opportunity to walk the grounds for over an hour. I was completely won over and a devotee IT could fill books of Lancelot 'Capability' Brownseveral hundred pages. Sarah Rutherford's ''Landscape Gardens'' was an opportunity to put him in context.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445669935</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author= Stuart Maconie|title= Long Road From Jarrow|rating= 5|genre= Travel |summary= I cancelled my ''Country Walking'' magazine subscription Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about a year ago and the only thing I miss is Stuart Maconie's columnthat. His down-He has chosen to-earth approach and sharp wit belie an equally sharp intellect and a soul more sensitive than he might be willing to admit. Let's be honesttell us about the short, thoughbut explosive, I picked this one up because history of someone elsethe Control Data Company, CDC, for whom he worked. It's reviewa fascinating tale, told in which I spotted names like Ferryhill and Newton Aycliffe. Places I grew up in. Like Maconie I have no connection (that I know of) to the Jarrow Crusade but when he talks about it being ''a whole matrix mixture of events reducible to one word like Aberfan, Hillsborough, or Orgreave'' then somehow it does become part of my history too. Tangentially, at leasttechnological summary and wry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785030531</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Vicky HaywardJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Juan Altamiras' New Art of Cookery: A Spanish Friar's Kitchen NotebookFritz and Kurt

|genre=CookeryConfident Readers|summary=In 1745 a Spanish friary cookWe start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, Juan Altamirasand their muckers, published doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the first edition of his ''New Art of Cookeryempty market place, Drawn From helping the School of Economic Experience''. It contained more than two hundred recipes for meatneighbours, poultry, game, salted being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and fresh fish, vegetables and dessertsat a vocational school. The style was informal, chatty and humorous on occasions and it was aimed, not at those who could afford Kurt has to cook make sure the lamps are turned on a grand scale, but at those with more modest budgets, who sometimes needed to cook their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for large numbersusing anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. Whilst But this is the ingredients were - for time just before the most part - modestly priced there Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and instead of having a stress on national vote to keep the careful combination of flavours and aromasNazis out, invite them in with open arms. Spices are used conservatively and ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the bluntness round-ups of some Moorish cooking is eschewed Jews. These in favour their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of something much more subtle an evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and we see influences from Altamiras' own regionhis father are, Aragonunknown initially to each other, packed off on the Iberian court same train to Buchenwald and the New Worldstone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1442279419</amazonuk>024156574X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Susan Duxbury-NeumannJohn Henry Phillips|title= What Have the Germans Ever Done for Us?: A History of the German Population of Great BritainThe Search|rating= 45|genre= History|summary= The adapted Monty Pythonesque rhetorical question takes 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 time specific thing. This book is a case of the latter, as our author promises to locate the topic of the titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, the target might not exist any more – oh, and it's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to provide a full answerparticular 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 this slim but useful volume does so very wellthat he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of whom perished. Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445664860</amazonuk>1472146182

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Gillian TindallB09F4CTKJR|title= The Tunnel Through Time: A New Route Flights for an Old London JourneyFreedom|author= Steven Burgauer|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=This book traces It's the course later stages of historical journeys across World War I and the city in time United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and space, examining how joined the areas above 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the new Crossrail routefirst US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the largest building project currently under construction in Europe offering high speed links across London, have changed over first to be attached to the centuries, with destruction RAF and renewal being a constantly recurring process the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in the city's historyactive combat. It is a fascinatingBut before that can happen, compellingly readable exploration through Petrol has to master flying the historical highways and byways of the metropolisnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099587793</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Trigg0578761718|title=Voices of the Flemish Waffen-SS: The Final Testament Inspiring History of the Oostfrontersa Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver|rating=34.5

|summary=In The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the week I write thisCity of London from at least 1181, Trump has come under fire for not condemning fascistic behaviour when it was first mentioned in America from some Neo-Nazisrecords. Sadly, It strikes me that the ''Neo-'' is a pointless dignification – yes, they cannot be deemed to follow Hitler precisely as he's long dead and burnt, so they're kind original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of new, but common sense obliges me to just call them NazisLondon in 1666. Their excuse is they feel America has been invaded It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the enemy – but what if you were indeed under occupation? Could you see yourself working fire and then survived for the forces that had indeed invaded you? The author begins by pointing out that several countries were invaded centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Nazis, and they have different feelings about the people who worked against the commonly-held nationalistic aimBlitz. France hates her collaborators, but just north of the border things are different – and the picture is a lot more muddy as a result.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445666367</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Gerard Cheshire|title= A History of Victorian Postage|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary=Although we think of postage and But that wasn't the sending end of letters as a specifically Victorian innovation, its roots go far deeper than that. This book, which surveys story: after a much broader time frame than the title might suggestphenomenal fundraising effort, presents us with an admirably concise picture of its development up to its full fruition in the mid-nineteenth century.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445664372</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=S Morris and N Grueninger|title=In stones from the Footsteps of the Six Wives of Henry VIII: The visitorchurch's companion walls were transported to the palacesFulton, castles & houses associated with Henry VIII's iconic queens|rating= 5|genre= History|summary= It was inevitable that each of the six wives of Henry VIII would have left their mark in some way on the places they lived and visitedMissouri. This book straddles several categories; historyThere, gazetteer or guide book, and collection of potted biographies. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>144567114X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Terry Breverton|title= Owen Tudor: Founding Father of in the Tudor Dynasty|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary= Owen Tudor was one grounds of those shadowy yet very important characters in medieval history. While we may know little about himWestminster College, or at least did not until this biography appeared, his historical importance can hardly be overestimated. Without him, there would have been no Tudor dynasty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445654180</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Helen Doe|title= The First Atlantic Liner: Brunel's Great Western Steamship|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= Isambard Kingdom Brunel's enduring seafaring monuments were the Great Britain and Great Eastern. Their forerunner the Great Western, which paved the way and yet is now largely forgotten, at last merits a full account in this book. Ms Doe admits at the front that she is not an engineer, church was rebuilt and today serves as a maritime historian her interests are more social and economic than technical. Her aim is memorial to tell the story of the ship, that of the people who travelled on her as crew or passengers, and her influence on subsequent maritime history after an existence of barely two decadesWinston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445667207</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Svetlana Alexievich, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (translators)1784385166|title=The Unwomanly Face Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of WarNazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse

|summary=''War'', says Svetlana Alexievich, ''What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of all murder, and then hard work. And then simply ordinary life: singing, falling in love, putting your hair in curlers…''. This extraordinary book is the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a collection concentration camp? None of first-hand accounts by Russian fighting women these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Third Reich's fascist regime in the Second World War. A million women joined Russian military forces as soldiers of all ranks, medics, pilots, drivers, snipers, cryptographers. Most were very young, little more than girls of 18 or 19its iniquity. They were passionate about defending their homeland and often extremely keen to join up, returning again But some objects and again to recruitment offices until someone could images from that time may be persuaded less familiar to take themyou. Their ambition was to help their brothers, fathersIn this short volume, husbands Roger Moorhouse has attempted to fight illustrate the terrible invader. They were trained and sent to period of the front, where they were greeted at first with disappointment and disgust by fighting men, who had hoped for reinforcements Third Reich through one hundred of able-bodied men. The women had to prove themselvesits material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141983523</amazonuk> 

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Andrew LaceyLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title= The English Civil War in 100 FactsTiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryGraphic Novels|summary= The I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn'100 Factst know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn' series is now sufficiently well-established as t know more than a guarantee of useful introductory historiesspit about the people involved on either side. This latest addition, recounting book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the struggle between King and Parliament, is no exceptionwhole season of protests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445649950</amazonuk>1684056993

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lauren Elkin0648684806|title=FlaneuseClara Colby: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and LondonThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|genre=History Biography|summary=Lauren Elkin is down on suburbs: they're places where you can't or shouldn't be seen walking; places where, in fiction, women who transgress boundaries are punished (thinking The path of everything from ''Madame Bovary'Clara Dorothy Bewick' s life was probably determined when her family emigrated to ''Revolutionary Road'')the USA. When At the time she imagines to herself what the female version was just three-years-old but because of that well-known historical figuresome childhood ailment, the carefree ''flâneur'she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, might beshe remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she thinks about women who freely wandered received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the world's great cities without having household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the more insalubrious connotation mid-west of the word 'streetwalker' applied United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to themjoin the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593378</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jeffrey James1783784350|title= IrelandThis Golden Fleece: The Struggle for Power: From the Dark Ages to the JacobitesA Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The 'Irish troubles' go back over many centuriesjob frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. When I January was going to be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and doubtless many others breadth of my generation studied History at school, the Emerald Isle barely intruded on our consciousnessBritish Isles with occasional forays abroad, apart from brief references to discovering and telling the Battle story of the Boyne wool's history and how it had made and maybe changed the Easter Risinglandscape. This book therefore does us She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the farm'' - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and the country, a service her mother's friend. This was in helping to fill a very large gapher blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445662469</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Michael Hicks1789017977|title= The Family of Richard III|rating= 4|genre= History|summary= Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New titles about the Yorkist dynasty, which ruled England for little more than two decades, continue to proliferate. Michael Hicks, acknowledged as one of the great – although never sympathetic – experts on Richard III, has contributed an interesting chronicle to the shelves.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445660156</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewLife after World War II|author=Clive Pearson|title=The Second World War in 100 FactsWendy Williams

|summary=To begin at Ronnie Williams was the beginning, that is one dissembling titleson of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. 100 Facts? There are bounties galore here that that low figure belies. There are a lot more'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 I would attest that there will be some you aren't completely au fait withhe might well have shaved a few years off his age. If For a while the Phoney War and family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the Battle of the Plate are bread 1929 Depression and butter five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to you, how about Matapan? You could be well be used to reading essays about Goebbels or Speer, but Field-Marshal von Manstein? That's not to say turned-out and this is utterly exhaustive or complex, nor confined to the trivialwould stay with him throughout his life. Its unexpected format actually makes it one of He joined the better primers for the entire WWII, before, during and afterarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445653532</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= John Ashdown-Hill1980891117|title= The Wars G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of the RosesGeorge Engleheart|author=John Webley|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryArt|summary= During my schooldaysGeorge Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, I always found with a career lasting from the 1770s to the Wars Regency era. He was also one of the Roses the most fascinating period prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of English historythem being of King George III). In those days we were taught Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the battles began in 1455 and ended in 1485. Ashdown-Hill is one names of several modern historians whose study each of the subject extends these boundarieshis clients, and in this volume he starts with the reign of Richard II, ending late in the Elizabethan erasubsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445660350</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Charles Drazin1789016304|title= Mapping the PastWar and Love: A Search for Five Brothers at the Edge of Empire|rating= 4|genre= History|summary=''Mapping the Past'' is at once a personal quest into the authorfamily's family history, and an account of some of the interesting, perhaps even amazing things the Royal Engineers have achieved over the past couple of centuries. Drazin is descended from a generation of Engineers; five brothers who all served in the Army, mostly as surveyors mapping the far flung parts testament of the Empire. This was despite them being both Irish and Catholic. He uncovers their pastsanguish, the many things they undertook endurance and how it affected them devotion in the end. It's a story that's uplifting and extremely sad, as the First World War and the Easter Rising in 1916 seem to mark a true watershed for his family.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099468271</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewoccupied Amsterdam|author= Lyndal Roper|title= Melanie Martin Luther:Renegade and Prophet|rating= 5|genre= History|summary= Exactly five centuries ago in October 2017, Melanie Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses against the sale of indulgences read about what happened to the door of the All Saints' Church Dutch Jews in Wittenberg. The ensuing maelstrom ripped the Christian church asunder occupied Amsterdam during World War II and changed the course of history. But how was a provincial professor in a cassock able to set the Reformation in motionentranced by what she discovered, despite papal and imperial authority being ranged against him? In a biography which was ten years particularly in the making, Lyndal Roper strips away mythology to illuminate the facts underneath (for starters, it is highly unlikely that Luther actually nailed the ninety-five theses to the door). She provides a thoughtful analysis of the forces which drove the evangelical preacher and convincingly explains his contradictions – why, after decades of monastic observance did he marry a nun and develop a love of German beer and wine? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784703443</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= A T Williams|title= A Passing Fury: Searching for Justice at the End of World War II|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= In ''A Passing Fury,The Diary of Ann Frank'' we follow an Orwell Prize-winning law academicbut then realised that her own family's journey through Germany as he pursues stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the legal history of city during the trials waged by the Britishwar years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to some extent other Allied forces, against the newly-fallen Nazi regimeGerman occupation. This is a deeply personal account, Most people believed that reads very much like a travelogue in places. Williams is affected at every turn by harrowingly familiar accounts of life in the concentration camp system, such as occupation could never happen: even those of the esteemed Italian writer and academic Primo Levi, who features throughout thought that the book. More striking to Germans might reach the readercity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, however, are that the often-forgotten atrocities Williams describes that failed Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to make a mark on our collective memory, such as escalate in the Cap Arcona tragedyway that it did, in which some 7,000 concentration camp internees were killed in a British air raid. Horrors such but initial protests melted away as these, which largely go unremembered, raise many questions, chief among them, was justice served? Williams pursues answers to this question throughout his investigation, which is just shy of 500 pages long.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593262</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= David Grann|title= Killers of the Flower Moon|rating= 5|genre= True Crime|summary=Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of the Osage tribe, forced to settle in the rocky, uninhabitable wilds of Oklahoma in what would become Osage Countyorganisers became more circumspect. In It's an unexpected turn of fortune, prospectors struck oil, instantly catapulting the Osage into unimaginable wealth and fortune making them some of the richest people in the world. Then members of the tribe start to die, slowly at first of apparently natural causes then in increasingly violent ways. Investigation into the matter stalls and is beset by incompetence and atrocity on a general lack vast scale but made up of interest in the fate tens of the Osage until the FBI becomes involved and draws together a team thousands of battle scarred, unorthodox agents led by former Texas Ranger Tom Whiteindividual tragedies. As pressure on White increases, from both the FBI and the increasingly angry Osage, the race to find the truth becomes increasingly difficult, with more twists and double crosses than any murder mystery.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857209027</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Feiling1908745819|title=The Island that DisappearedSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie

|summary= Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it'The Island that Disappeared' tells the history of the. Mostly we take them at their word, largely now forgottenor not, island of Providence in but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the Caribbeanbook. It is That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a fascinating and compelling account of what might have been but ultimately is the story of greedbook calling your name, ambition and human naturerarely get it wrong. In 1630 on board the Seaflowerthis case, a sister ship to I was told why. The blurb speaks of the Mayflowerauthor considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a small group bad description of English puritans sailed to the island where I am. Add to establish a new colony. They were convinced in their belief that my love of the British Empire would rise in natural world, of those aspects of the Central America poetic and lyrical that are about style not in New England. The hopes that they carried was soon destroyed by failing cropsform, quarrels and rebellions and many turned to piracy and the plundering substance most of Spanish treasure shipsall, about connection. Within ten yearsOf course, the Spanish retaliated and invaded the island, wiping the colony outthis book had my name on it. Providence became a footnote of history until it It was resettled over a hundred years laterwritten for me. The book tells the island's story from It would have found its early puritan beginnings way to the present and through its telling me eventually. I am pleased to have it provides a fascinating microcosm of the world we live in todayfall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911184040</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Twigs Way0857058320|title=Allotments Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (Britain's Heritage Seriestranslator)

|genre=LifestyleHistory|summary=Allotments came about originally from ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the enclosure of land, primarily author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for sheep pasturethe meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Fearing that the enclosures would leave peasants unable to feed themselvesManuel Mena, Elizabeth I issued an act requiring all new cottages to have four acres of groundCercas' great uncle, something which has been honoured more by history than by Elizabethis the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's contemporariesforces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. It was The question at the first in a long line centre of legislation with that aim in mind - which largely failed this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to achieve their aimsbe a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445665700</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Peter Rex0008294011|title= HaroldHow to Lose a Country: The King Who Fell at Hastings7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran|rating= 4.5

|summary= Harold is 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 unenviable position for being remembered as question ''Discuss the monarch who factors which led to...'' I agreed that she was defeated right and killed in the Norman conquest, and almost nothing else. He does not even merit wasn't certain whether it was a passing mention in the renowned 1930s spoof English history, good or bad thing that we didn'1066 and t know what all That', which no doubt has him this' was leading to. I think now that I do know. We are in their category danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the 'Unmemorable Kingsbenevolent dictator'. This book is thus inevitably a history rather than a biography of someone about whom undisputed facts are rather lackingas rare as hen's teeth. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>144565721X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Zuehlke and Claude St Aubin1788037812|title=The Loxleys and ConfederationFraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=3.5|genre=Graphic NovelsHistory|summary=There is Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a huge hole crime remained in my history knowledge where North America is concernedplace for 82 years. SlowlyBut during this time, from an opening of sheer ignorancerestrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, having never studied it whatsoever at school, I've got a small grip three books on things like the Civil War, the foundations nature of the USA homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and a few other things. But that means nothing John Addington Symonds, as far well as this book is concerned, for that huge hole is Canadathe heterosexual Havelock Ellis. NoExploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, I didn't have an inkling but barely talked about how it was trying to unify, just as the American Civil War was in full pelt just across the border. I didn't know what was there before CanadaUK, if you see what I mean. The story does have some things in common with that so the publications of their southern neighbours these men were hugely significant – European occupancy being slowly turned into a list contributing to the scientific understanding of states as we know them nowhomosexuality, slowly spreading into and beginning the heart of the continent with struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the help milestone legalisation of the railways etc; native 'Indians' being 'same-sex relationships in the way'; past trading agreements to either maintain or try to improve on; and so on – but of course it also had the British vs French issue1967. But did you know how an American President getting shot at the theatre had a bearing on the story? Or the Irish? Like I said, a huge hole…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0992150892</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lynn Knight1910593508|title= The Button BoxApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins|rating= 45|genre= History|summary= Buttons are This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the underdogs of passion for the clothing world: dismissed as functional elements subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and because of clothingthis, falling into the same dustbin category with zips and shoe laces, they tend to be seen as necessary for keeping clothes on, rather than contributors to styleauthors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. But Lynn Knight is set These shortcuts are the only downside to prove that the opposite is truebook. We think nothing If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of lacing discussions about clothing and feminism a film you will be familiar with headscarves, bikinis, the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and underweight models – that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and buttons deserve a place on the pedestal of gender discussion, still felt tooshort.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593092</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Sarah Fraser1786331047|title= The Prince Who Would Be KingRace to Save the Romanovs: The Life and Death of Henry StuartTruth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography History|summary= Henry Stuart, eldest child The basic facts about the deaths of King James VI Nicholas and IAlexandra, was not some of which were deliberately obscured at the only eldest son of a monarch who did not live time for various reasons, have long enough to succeed to since been established. For the throne. The list also included Arthur (son last few months of Henry VII) their lives in Russia the former Tsar and Tsarina, their children and Albert Victor (Edward VII)few remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. Of To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the threerevolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, Henry undoubtedly showed once the most promisenews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007548087</amazonuk>