Difference between revisions of "Newest History Reviews"

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[[Category:History|*]]
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Alan Moorehead
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|isbn=1785633457
|title= The Russian Revolution
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|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car
|rating= 4
+
|author=Clive Wilkinson
|genre= History
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|rating=5
|summary= First published in 1958, Moorhead's account is regarded as one of the most succinct accounts of its subject, and now reprinted to mark the centenary of the revolution.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445667320</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Adrian Mourby
 
|title=Rooms with a View: The Secret Life of Great Hotels
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Travel
 
|genre=Travel
|summary=Adrian Mourby has given us a flying visit to each of fifty grand hotels, from fourteen regions of the world, with the hotels in each section being arranged chronologically rather than by region, which helps to give something of an overall picture. So what makes a hotel 'grand'?  The first hotel to call itself 'grand' was in covent Garden in 1774 and it ushered in the beginning of a period when a hotel would be a lifestyle choice rather than a refuge for those without friends and family conveniently nearby.  The hotels we visit all began life in different circumstances and each faced a different set of challenges.  We begin in the Americas, move to the United Kingdom, circumnavigate Europe, briefly visit Russia and Turkey then northern Africa, India and Asia.  Australia, it seems, does not go for the grand.
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|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785782754</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Philip Matyszak
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|isbn=B09BLBP3P8
|title=24 Hours in Ancient Rome
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|title=Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940
 +
|author=Frederic Seager
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary= I've never been that interested in Ancient Rome. Blame my teachers, or our oh-so-dry visits to Roman villas with their earnest interpretation panels, or perhaps I just daydreamed through all the interesting bits… Somehow I entered adulthood with the impression that all Romans were bloodthirsty and hedonistic heathens with little to recommend them. ''Mea culpa'', you might say. So when my eye fell upon Philip Matyszak's ''24 Hours in Ancient Rome'', and its claim to introduce readers to the real Ancient Rome by examining the lives of ordinary people, I decided it was high time to update my education. And the lovely artwork on the front cover made this book all the more appealing.
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|summary=Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of the early days of World War II from 1939-40, known as the ''Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in to save the day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book, it was of vital significance in how the war played out.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782438564</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Sharon Bennett Connolly
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|isbn=3756228711
|title= Heroines of the Medieval World
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|title=CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'
|rating= 5
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|author=Hans Bodmer
|genre= History
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|rating=4
|summary= Many women in medieval times left their mark on history, but as 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.
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|genre=History
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445662647</amazonuk>
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|summary=''The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.''
 +
 
 +
Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us about the short, but explosive, history of the Control Data Company, CDC, for whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, told in a mixture of technological summary and wry anecdote.  
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Kurt Andersen
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|author=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene
|title= Fantasyland
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|title=Fritz and Kurt
|rating= 4
 
|genre= History
 
|summary= Fantasyland covers the history of America from 1517 to 2017 in awesome detail. Covering five centuries of tempestuous history, Andersen paints the conjuring of America in vivid relief. Discussing everything from pilgrims to politicians, the exhilarating gold rush to alternative facts, seminal episodes are explored in forensic detail with razor sharp wit.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785038656</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Twigs Way
 
|title=Tea Gardens (Britain's Heritage Series)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Lifestyle
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Tea Gardens really began in London in the late 18th century: a trip to Kings Cross or St Pancras was effectively a trip to the country in those days.  Men had their coffee houses, but they were not places where women could or would be seenTea was introduced to England in the 17th century but it was not until 1784 that the high duty was reduced from 119% to 12½% and tea became the drink of choice for the nationUntil then the working classes had been fuelled largely by cheap ginOnly, where would this beverage be drunk?  One answer was the pleasure gardens where the fashionable went to see and be seen: by the mid 1600s tea was also being served in places such as Ranelagh Gardens.
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|summary=We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school.  Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switchBut this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of JewsThese in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and his father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445670011</amazonuk>
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|isbn=024156574X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Nathen Amin
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|author=John Henry Phillips
|title=The House of Beaufort: The Bastard Line that Captured the Crown
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|title=The Search
|rating= 4
 
|genre= History
 
|summary= The family name of Beaufort played a major part in British history during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It therefore seems remarkable that little has been written about them until the appearance of this book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445647648</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Rory Stewart
 
|title= The Marches
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Travel
 
|summary= The Observer quote on the front of the paperback edition of Stewart's latest book observes ''This is travel writing at its finest.''  Perhaps, but to call it travel writing is to totally under-sell it.  This is erudition at its finest.  Stewart has the background to do this: he had an international upbringing and followed his father in both the Army and the Foreign Office, and then (to his father's, bemusement, shall we say) became an MP.  Oh, and he walked 6,000 miles across Afghanistan in 2002.  A walk along the Scottish borders should be a doddle by comparison.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581892</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Josh Dean
 
|title=The Taking of K-129: The Most Daring Covert Operation in History
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=In February 1968 the Soviet nuclear missile submarine K-129 left the port of Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka peninsula with a crew of 98 submariners. The captain and executive officers were experienced: the only factor giving cause for concern was that the crew had only recently returned 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 controls. The Division Commander complained that the decision was cruel and potentially reckless. He would be proved right - but not publicly - as K-129 went down with all hands in March 1968.  It was a while before the sSoviet navy realised that it had lost one of its submarines and despite an extensive search they couldn't find it.
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|summary=Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the dirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. This book is a case of the latter, as our author promises to locate the topic of the titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, the target might not exist any more – oh, and it's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the heroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and that he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of whom perished. Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445674742</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1472146182
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Philip Parker
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|isbn= B09F4CTKJR
|title=50 Things You Should Know About the Vikings
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|title= Flights for Freedom
 +
|author= Steven Burgauer
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
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|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=The Vikings have got a lot to own up to. A huge DNA study in 2014 was the first thing that proved to the Orkney residents that they had Viking blood in their veins – they had been insisting it was that of the Irish.  The Vikings it was that forced our English king's army to march from London to Yorkshire to kill off one invasion, only to spend the next fortnight schlepping back to Hastings to try and fend off another – and the Normans had the same Norse origin as the first lot, hence the name. There is a Thames Valley village just outside Henley – ie pretty damned far from the coast – that has a Viking longship on its signpost.  Yes, they got to a lot of places, from Greenland to Kiev, from Murmansk to Turkey and the Med, and their misaligned history is well worth visiting – particularly on these pages.
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|summary=It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784937908</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Emma Kay
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|isbn=0578761718
|title=Vintage Kitchenalia
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|title=The Inspiring History of a Special Relationship
|rating=3.5
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|author=Nancy Carver
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Over the half century and more that I've been preparing meals on a regular basis I've seen food preparation move from being just something you did, to an obsession akin to a religionMy first kitchen had nothing in the way of luxury - it was there to make meals as nutritiously and economically as possible: my current kitchen is not ''quite'' state of the art, but it's equipped to a high standard and is a pleasure to work 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 the history.
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|summary=The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at least 1181, when it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, the original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, in the grounds of Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445657511</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Martyn Beardsley
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|isbn=1784385166
|title= Waterloo Voices 1815: The Battle at First Hand
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|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany
|rating= 4.5
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|author=Roger Moorhouse
|genre= History
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|rating=5
|summary= The battle of Waterloo, fought on a midsummer day on a muddy field in Belgium, brought an end to two decades of war in Europe. As one of the pivotal events of the nineteenth century, it has inevitably been the focus of many accounts over the last two hundred years.
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|genre=History
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445660164</amazonuk>
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|summary=What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts. 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Rutherford
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|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)
|title=Landscape Gardens
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|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Graphic Novels
 +
|summary=I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, you know.  I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side.  This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.
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|isbn=1684056993
 +
}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=0648684806
 +
|title=Clara Colby: The International Suffragist
 +
|author=John Holliday
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Art
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|genre=Biography
|summary=My first experience of a ''big'' garden was Versailles as a teenager and whilst I was impressed, I didn't really like itI felt stifled and strangely underwhelmed by the flatness 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 opinionOn 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 delightfulI felt uplifted.  Then a cricket match at Stowe gave me the opportunity to walk the grounds for over an hourI was completely won over and a devotee of Lancelot 'Capability' BrownSarah Rutherford's ''Landscape Gardens'' was an opportunity to put him in context.
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|summary=The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA.  At the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothersInstead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of schoolShe was the only child in the household and her childhood was gloriousBy contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the familyClara 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 arrivedAs the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445669935</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1783784350
|author= Stuart Maconie
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|title=This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History
|title= Long Road From Jarrow
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|author=Esther Rutter
|rating= 5
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|rating=5
|genre= Travel
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|genre=History
|summary= I cancelled my ''Country Walking'' magazine subscription about a year ago and the only thing I miss is Stuart Maconie's columnHis down-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 honest, though, I picked this one up because of someone else's review, in which I spotted names like Ferryhill and Newton AycliffePlaces 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 of events reducible to one word like Aberfan, Hillsborough, or Orgreave'' then somehow it does become part of my history tooTangentially, at least.
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|summary=It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets.  The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mindJanuary was going to be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the landscapeShe'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the farm'' - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friendThis was in her blood.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785030531</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Vicky Hayward
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|isbn=1789017977
|title=Juan Altamiras' New Art of Cookery: A Spanish Friar's Kitchen Notebook
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|title=Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II
 +
|author=Wendy Williams
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Cookery
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|genre=History
|summary=In 1745 a Spanish friary cook, Juan Altamiras, published the first edition of  his ''New Art of Cookery, Drawn From the School of Economic Experience''.  It contained more than two hundred recipes for meat, poultry, game, salted and fresh fish, vegetables and dessertsThe style was informal, chatty and humorous on occasions and it was aimed, not at those who could afford to cook on a grand scale, but at those with more modest budgets, who sometimes needed to cook for large numbersWhilst the ingredients were - for the most part - modestly priced there is a stress on the careful combination of flavours and aromasSpices are used conservatively and the bluntness of some Moorish cooking is eschewed in favour of something much more subtle and we see influences from Altamiras' own region, Aragon, the Iberian court and the New World.
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|summary=Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his ageFor a while the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyleOne thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his lifeHe joined the army at eighteen in 1942.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1442279419</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Susan Duxbury-Neumann
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|isbn=1980891117
|title= What Have the Germans Ever Done for Us?: A History of the German Population of Great Britain
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|title=G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart
|rating= 4
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|author=John Webley
|genre= History
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|rating=4.5
|summary= The adapted Monty Pythonesque rhetorical question takes some time to provide a full answer, and this slim but useful volume does so very well.  
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|genre=Art
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445664860</amazonuk>
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|summary=George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the 1770s to the Regency era. He was also one of the most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Gillian Tindall
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|isbn=1789016304
|title= The Tunnel Through Time: A New Route for an Old London Journey
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|title=War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam
|rating= 4.5
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|author=Melanie Martin
|genre= History
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|rating=5
|summary=This book traces the course of historical journeys across the city in time and space, examining how the areas above the new Crossrail route, the largest building project currently under construction in Europe offering high speed links across London, have changed over the centuries, with destruction and renewal being a constantly recurring process in the city's history. It is a fascinating, compellingly readable exploration through the historical highways and byways of the metropolis.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099587793</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jonathan Trigg
 
|title=Voices of the Flemish Waffen-SS: The Final Testament of the Oostfronters
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=In the week I write this, Trump has come under fire for not condemning fascistic behaviour in America from some Neo-Nazis.  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 of new, but common sense obliges me to just call them Nazis.  Their excuse is they feel America has been invaded by the enemy – but what if you were indeed under occupation? Could you see yourself working for the forces that had indeed invaded you?  The author begins by pointing out that several countries were invaded by the Nazis, and they have different feelings about the people who worked against the commonly-held nationalistic aim.  France hates her collaborators, but just north of the border things are different – and the picture is a lot more muddy as a result.
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|summary=Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445666367</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Gerard Cheshire
 
|title= A History of Victorian Postage
 
|rating= 4.5
 
|genre= History
 
|summary=Although we think of postage and the sending of letters as a specifically Victorian innovation, its roots go far deeper than that. This book, which surveys a much broader time frame than the title might suggest, 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 the Footsteps of the Six Wives of Henry VIII: The visitor's companion to the palaces, 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 visited. This book straddles several categories; history, gazetteer or guide book, and collection of potted biographies.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144567114X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Terry Breverton
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|isbn=1908745819
|title= Owen Tudor: Founding Father of the Tudor Dynasty
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|title=Surfacing
|rating= 4.5
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|author=Kathleen Jamie
|genre= Biography
 
|summary= Owen Tudor was one of those shadowy yet very important characters in medieval history. While we may know little about him, 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, and as a maritime historian her interests are more social and economic than technical. Her aim is 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 decades.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445667207</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Svetlana Alexievich, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (translators)
 
|title=The Unwomanly Face of War
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=''War'', says Svetlana Alexievich, ''is first 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 a collection of first-hand accounts by Russian fighting women 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 19. They were passionate about defending their homeland and often extremely keen to join up, returning again and again to recruitment offices until someone could be persuaded to take them. Their ambition was to help their brothers, fathers, husbands to fight the terrible invader. They were trained and sent to the front, where they were greeted at first with disappointment and disgust by fighting men, who had hoped for reinforcements of able-bodied men. The women had to prove themselves.
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|summary=Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why.  The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it.  It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141983523</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Andrew Lacey
+
|isbn=0857058320
|title= The English Civil War in 100 Facts
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|title=Lord Of All the Dead
|rating= 4.5
+
|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|genre= History
 
|summary= The '100 Facts' series is now sufficiently well-established as a guarantee of useful introductory histories. This latest addition, recounting the struggle between King and Parliament, is no exception.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445649950</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lauren Elkin
 
|title=Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=History  
+
|genre=History
|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 of everything from ''Madame Bovary'' to ''Revolutionary Road''). When she imagines to herself what the female version of that well-known historical figure, the carefree ''flâneur'', might be, she thinks about women who freely wandered the world's great cities without having the more insalubrious connotation of the word 'streetwalker' applied to them.
+
|summary=''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593378</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Jeffrey James
+
|isbn=0008294011
|title= Ireland: The Struggle for Power: From the Dark Ages to the Jacobites
+
|title=How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship
|rating= 4.5
+
|author=Ece Temelkuran
|genre= History
+
|rating=4.5
|summary= The 'Irish troubles' go back over many centuries. When I and doubtless many others of my generation studied History at school, the Emerald Isle barely intruded on our consciousness, apart from brief references to the Battle of the Boyne and maybe the Easter Rising. This book therefore does us, and the country, a service in helping to fill a very large gap.
+
|genre=History
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445662469</amazonuk>
+
|summary=A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question ''Discuss the factors which led to...''  I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to.  I think now that I do know.  We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Michael Hicks
+
|isbn=1788037812
|title= The Family of Richard III
+
|title=The Fraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908
|rating= 4
+
|author=Brian Anderson
|genre= History
+
|rating=5
|summary= 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.
+
|genre=History
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445660156</amazonuk>
+
|summary=Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Clive Pearson
+
|isbn=1910593508
|title=The Second World War in 100 Facts
+
|title=Apollo
|rating=4
+
|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=To begin at the beginning, that is one dissembling title. 100 Facts? There are bounties galore here that that low figure belies. There are a lot more, and I would attest that there will be some you aren't completely au fait with. If the Phoney War and the Battle of the Plate are bread and butter to you, how about Matapan? You could well be used to reading essays about Goebbels or Speer, but Field-Marshal von Manstein? That's not to say this is utterly exhaustive or complex, nor confined to the trivial. Its unexpected format actually makes it one of the better primers for the entire WWII, before, during and after.
+
|summary=This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and because of this, the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to the book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445653532</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= John Ashdown-Hill
+
|isbn=1786331047
|title= The Wars of the Roses
+
|title=The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family
|rating= 4.5
+
|author=Helen Rappaport
|genre= History
+
|rating=5
|summary= During my schooldays, I always found the Wars of the Roses the most fascinating period of English history. In those days we were taught that the battles began in 1455 and ended in 1485. Ashdown-Hill is one of several modern historians whose study of the subject extends these boundaries, and in this volume he starts with the reign of Richard II, ending late in the Elizabethan era.
+
|genre=History
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445660350</amazonuk>
+
|summary=The basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, have long since been established. For the last few months of their lives in Russia the former Tsar and Tsarina, their children and few remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the news was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe.
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Home and Family Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 12:03, 20 March 2023

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Review of

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

5star.jpg Travel

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

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Review of

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

4.5star.jpg History

Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of the early days of World War II from 1939-40, known as the Phoney War. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in to save the day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book, it was of vital significance in how the war played out. Full Review

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Review of

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

4star.jpg History

The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.

Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us about the short, but explosive, history of the Control Data Company, CDC, for whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, told in a mixture of technological summary and wry anecdote. Full Review

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Review of

Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene

4star.jpg Confident Readers

We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. Kristallnacht happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and his father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about… Full Review

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Review of

The Search by John Henry Phillips

5star.jpg History

Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the dirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. This book is a case of the latter, as our author promises to locate the topic of the titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, the target might not exist any more – oh, and it's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the heroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and that he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of whom perished. Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties? Full Review

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Review of

Flights for Freedom by Steven Burgauer

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

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

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Review of

The Inspiring History of a Special Relationship by Nancy Carver

4.5star.jpg History

The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at least 1181, when it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, the original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, in the grounds of Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill. Full Review

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Review of

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

5star.jpg History

What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.  Full Review

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Review of

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

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989. Full Review

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Review of

Clara Colby: The International Suffragist by John Holliday

4star.jpg Biography

The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening. Full Review

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Review of

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

5star.jpg History

It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. January was going to be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the landscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - a free-range child on the farm - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in her blood. Full Review

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Review of

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

4star.jpg History

Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942. Full Review

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Review of

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

4.5star.jpg Art

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

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Review of

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

5star.jpg History

Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in The Diary of Ann Frank but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies. Full Review

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Review of

Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie

5star.jpg History

Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you this one has your name on it. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering an older, less tethered sense of herself. Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly. Full Review

0857058320.jpg

Review of

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

4star.jpg History

Lord Of All the Dead is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side. Full Review

0008294011.jpg

Review of

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

4.5star.jpg History

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

1788037812.jpg

Review of

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

5star.jpg History

Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967. Full Review

1910593508.jpg

Review of

Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins

5star.jpg History

This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and because of this, the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to the book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short. Full Review

1786331047.jpg

Review of

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

5star.jpg History

The basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, have long since been established. For the last few months of their lives in Russia the former Tsar and Tsarina, their children and few remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the news was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe. Full Review

Move on to Newest Home and Family Reviews