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[[Category:History|*]]
 
[[Category:History|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|History]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|History]]__NOTOC__ <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
==History==
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1785633457
{{newreview
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|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car
|author=Dominique Lapierre
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|author=Clive Wilkinson
|title=A Rainbow in the Night
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=A book integrating otherwise piecemeal news stories picked up over the past forty years into a coherent explanation is always welcome.  This book explores South Africa's history and development, from the earliest Dutch arrivals in 1652 to the first racially integrated elections in 1994.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818477</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Doug Stewart
 
|title=The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=History
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|genre=Travel
|summary=In the late 18th century, keen to impress the Shakespeare-obsessed father who paid him little attention, 19 year old William Henry Ireland forged a couple of Elizabethan documents to show him. With the older man completely taken in, his child then pretended he'd found a trunk full of lost artefacts belonging to the Bard – love letters to Anne Hathaway, a declaration of his Protestant faith, the manuscript of King Lear, and even entirely new plays. Ireland fooled not only his father, but also many of the prominent Londoners of the time, including Robert Southey, James Boswell, and the future William IV.
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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>0306818310</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B09BLBP3P8
|author=Jim Krane
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|title=Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940
|title=Dubai: The Story of the World's Fastest City
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|author=Frederic Seager
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=In the 1950's, Dubai contained just a few thousand inhabitants scraping a living. By 1985, it had grown, but Sheikh Mohammed was still laughed at when he said that he wanted to make it a popular destination for tourists. With the addition of artificial islands, the world's tallest building, an indoor ski slope, and much more, it's now one of the world's foremost cities - but as headlines showed last year, the stellar growth may have been extremely costly, in terms of finances, environmental problems, and the quality of life for some of its inhabitants.
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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>1848870094</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=3756228711
|author=Frances Stonor Saunders
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|title=CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'
|title=The Woman Who Shot Mussolini
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|author=Hans Bodmer
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Most British titled families of the 19th and 20th centuries have produced their fair share of rebels.  Yet few came as close to changing the course of European history as the Honourable Violet Gibson, one of eight children of Baron Ashbourne, a Protestant Anglo-Irish peer and MP in Disraeli's government during the 1870s.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571239773</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Josephine Wilkinson
 
|title=The Early Loves of Anne Boleyn
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Before her marriage to King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn had already been courted by three suitors, any of whom might have become her husband - and possibly saved her from her eventual end on the scaffold.  The first was her Irish cousin James Butler, later Earl of Ormond, whom she was at one time intended to marry in order to settle a family dispute over the title and estates of the Earldom of Ormond.  After their marriage negotiations came to an end in the face of legal obstacles, she became betrothed to Henry Percy, heir to the Duke of Northumberland.  With a little help from the scheming Cardinal Wolsey, the Duke, who had little time for his son, insisted that any idea of marriage between them should be dismissed forthwith.  Soon after this the poet Thomas Wyatt became enamoured of her, but by this time there was fierce competition from his sovereign, and her destiny was sealed.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848684304</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Caroline Moorehead
 
|title=Dancing to the Precipice : Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French Revolution
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Two hundred years ago, with the fall of the monarchy and the Napoleonic wars, France underwent one cataclysmic change after another.  There were many who witnessed and experienced the volatile age at first hand, but few left a more detailed record than the subject of this biography, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pin.
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|summary=''The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Van der Kiste
 
|title=William and Mary: Heroes of the Glorious Revolution
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=At school I remember spending a lot of time on the Tudors and the early Stuarts – obviously great favourites of the history teacher and then galloping unceremoniously through the intervening years until we reached another ''meaningful'' period – the Victorian era.  The importance of William and Mary was completely overlooked in favour of a quick mention of the fact that William wasn't in direct line of succession to the throne and Mary had never wanted to marry him in the first place. Their successor, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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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.  
|author=James Delgado
 
|title=Kamikaze: History's Greatest Naval Disaster
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=When Mongol leader, Khubilai Khan, achieved what his Grandfather Genghis had failed to do in conquering China, he inherited the world's largest and most sophisticated navy. However, in attempting to utilise this to expand his empire further to Java, Vietnam and mainly Japan, he lost the entire armada in a few short years. New marine archeological evidence from Japan, ironically with the site discovered in the 1990s in the construction of new defences from the weather, has raised questions on the traditional view that the defeat of the two Japanese invasion forces of 1274 and particlularly 1281 were solely due to the intervention of the weather and what Japanese culture claim was a Kamikaze (or ''divine wind'') summoned by the Gods.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532581</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene
|author=David Baldwin
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|title=Fritz and Kurt
|title=The Kingmaker's Sisters: Six Powerful Women in the Wars of the Roses
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Due to the small amount of surviving personal sources, any book which purports to be a biography of a 15-century subject is almost inevitably going to be more a 'life and times' than a lifeIn the case of women who were sisters but not sovereigns or consorts themselves, the lack of data will be even more acute.
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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 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750950765</amazonuk>
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|isbn=024156574X
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=John Henry Phillips
|author=Paul Strathern
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|title=The Search
|title=The Artist, The Philosopher and The Warrior
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|rating=5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=The interaction between three very different, not to say contrasting, personalities of the Renaissance period sets the scene for what promises to be an intriguing title. In 1502 the paths of Cesare Borgia, notorious son of the equally infamous Pope Alexander VI, Niccolò Machiavelli, the intellectual and diplomat, and Leonardo da Vinci, at the time best known as a military engineer though remembered today primarily as a great artist, were destined to cross.
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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>1845951212</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1472146182
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn= B09F4CTKJR
|author=Timothy W Ryback
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|title= Flights for Freedom
|title=Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life
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|author= Steven Burgauer
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
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|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=As the fictional schoolboy hero Nigel Molesworth might have said, 'any fule kno' that Adolf Hitler was notorious for burning books. Nevertheless he was also an avid collector and passionate reader, as around 1200 surviving volumes once in his possession now in the Rare Book Division of the Library of Congress, and a smaller quantity in Brown University, Rhode Island, demonstrate.  Among them were world literature classics, such as 'Robinson Crusoe', 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', and 'Gulliver's Travels'.  He also owned an edition of the collected works of Shakespeare, in hand-tooled Moroccan leather with a gold-embossed eagle flanked by his initials on the spine. The Bard, he once said, was greatly superior to Goethe and Schiller.
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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>0099532174</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0578761718
|author=Druin Burch
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|title=The Inspiring History of a Special Relationship
|title=Taking the Medicine
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|author=Nancy Carver
|rating=5
 
|genre=Popular Science
 
|summary=In 1898, Burch points out that a new drug was developed and marketed for the treatment of tuberculosis by Bayer & Co. TB is such an ancient enemy of man that there is apparently evidence of an earlier strain to be found in Egyptian mummies. The German firm had discovered a chemical that seemed to work well, and patients and indeed their own staff, who were tested  seemed to respond well - it was named Heroin - and its addictive effects were at first missed.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951506</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sian Rees
 
|title=Sweet Water and Bitter: The Ships That Stopped the Slave Trade
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=The Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was passed in Britain in March 1807, and the last legal British slave ship left Africa seven months later. Other countries were slow to follow suit.  Everyone in Britain knew there would be resistance, and when the abolitionist Granville Sharpe purchased land in Sierra Leone to 'repatriate' freed slaves, Ottobah Cugoana, a former slave living in London, asked if it was possible for 'a fountain to send forth both sweet water and bitter.'  Could the slave trade, he wondered, be abolished from West Africa - when West Africa was its source?
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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>1845951174</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1784385166
|author=John Grimson
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|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany
|title=The Isle of Man: Portrait of a Nation
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|author=Roger Moorhouse
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=To many of us, the Isle of Man is probably best known for the Tynwald, the annual TT motorcycle races, and as a holiday resort.  I must admit that my knowledge of it extended little further than that, and therefore found this book invaluable. In these 550 pages, profusely illustrated with photographs and maps, I imagine that few if any questions on the subject are left unanswered.  John Grimson has lived there for nearly forty years, and as well as working with several of the island's local authorities, was active as a long-distance runner and cyclist until his early seventies.
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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. 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709081030</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)
|author=Thomas Asbridge
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|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
|title=The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
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|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=The word 'Crusades' has been misappropriated and often used in various other contexts over the passing yearsIn their original meaning they were a series of holy wars during the medieval era between the Christian and Muslim world, fighting for dominion over the Holy Land between 1095 and 1291 as the defenders of western civilization formed expeditions travelling across the face of the known world from Europe, their sole aim being to conquer and defend an isolated swathe of territory centred on Jerusalem.
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|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 knowI 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0743268601</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1684056993
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0648684806
|author=John Van der Kiste
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|title=Clara Colby: The International Suffragist
|title=Sons, Servants and Statesmen: The Men in Queen Victoria's Life
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|author=John Holliday
|rating=4.5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Biography
 
|genre=Biography
|summary=Like the first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary have been written about Queen Victoria, but John Van der Kiste has taken the unusual step of using the men in her life to illuminate some dark corners which might other wise have remained unexploredOf course the most famous man in her life, husband and Prince Consort Albert isn't 'son, servant or statesman' as promised by the title of the book, but he established a trendVictoria, often regarded as a difficult woman to please, would always have a man in her life who would, to a greater or lesser extent, dominate her.
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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 brothers.  Instead, 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 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 arrivedAs the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1783784350
|author=Andrew Marr
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|title=This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History
|title=The Making of Modern Britain: From Queen Victoria to V.E. Day
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|author=Esther Rutter
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=This book, and the BBC TV series which complements it, must confirm Andrew Marr's status as one of the most entertaining and compulsive historian-cum-presenters working today.  His previous project, on postwar Britain, was hard to fault, and anyone who enjoyed that will certainly relish this.
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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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230709427</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1789017977
|author=Patrick Casey and Richard I Hale
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|title=Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II
|title=For College, Club & Country - A History of Clifton Rugby Football Club
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|author=Wendy Williams
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Clifton Rugby Football Club can proudly trace its history back to the very emergence of the sport of rugby union. Founded in September 1872, the same year that William Webb Ellis, who is reputed to have been the rebellious Rugby schoolboy who first ran with the ball, died. In reality, it is highly likely that the Webb Ellis story is something of a spin job on behalf of Rugby School, although it did mean that Rugby School was able to impose its rules on the game at a time when most public schools had their own rules for playing versions of the game.
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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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312756</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1980891117
|author=Peter Gay
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|title=G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart
|title=Modernism: The Lure of Heresy - From Baudelaire to Beckett and Beyond
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|author=John Webley
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=History
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|genre=Art
|summary=It is impossible not to be impressed by the sheer scope of cultural historian Peter Gay's 2007 study of Modernism, newly released in this paperback edition. He notes in the introduction that it is not a 'comprehensive history' but rather 'a study of its rise, triumphs, and decline'. What is remarkable though, is the attempt to include the whole gamut of artistic fields in this coherent study.
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099441969</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1789016304
|author=John Van der Kiste
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|title=War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam
|title=Jonathan Wild: Conman and Cutpurse
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|author=Melanie Martin
|rating=4
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|rating=5
|genre=History
 
|summary=Born towards the end of the seventeenth century Jonathan Wild was to become the eighteenth century's most famous criminal, plying his trade in a rather curious fashion. He was born in Wolverhampton of parents described as ''mean but honest''.  It seems likely that he first travelled to London as the servant of a lawyer where he was eventually to settle, leaving his wife and child to fend for themselves.  It was whilst serving a term of imprisonment in Wood Street Compter that he mixed with the cream of London's criminal underclass and learned the rudiments of his trade.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848682190</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Bonnie Greer
 
|title=Obama Music
 
|rating=3
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=This is an interesting read, but unless I'm missing something, the focus of the book seems a little difficult to grasp.  It's best if I start with the author's intentions as set out in her Prologue.  It is a mixture of tales of her own life growing up on the South Side, she writes, interspersed with stories and observations about Obama, linking it with the music, musicians and music scene, past and present, including hip hop, country, classical, and rock'n'rollAll of these, she notes, were heard on the President's Inauguration Day.  To them she adds the blues, gospel, soul and jazz of the South Side, when the people began to build the great institutions and great solidarity that enabled him to become the most powerful man on the planet.
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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 occupationMost 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>1906558248</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1908745819
|author=Ian Mortimer
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|title=Surfacing
|title=1415: Henry V's Year of Glory
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|author=Kathleen Jamie
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=The medieval, in fact time-honoured, view of King Henry V as one of England's greatest heroes was propagated though not originated by Shakespeare, and again more recently to some extent by Olivier's portrayal in filmAt least one historian has called him ''the greatest man that ever ruled England''.
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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 whyThe 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>0224079921</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0857058320
|author=Toby Lester
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|title=Lord Of All the Dead
|title=The Fourth Part of the World: The Epic Story of History's Greatest Map
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|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4.5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=In 2003 a map was bought for $10 million, the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical document, by the Library of Congress, where it is now on permanent public display. No ordinary map, this is sometimes described as America's birth certificate. It is the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th century, and was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much that he was inspired to discover more, and this book is the result.
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|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>1861978030</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008294011
|author=Jenifer Roberts
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|title=How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship
|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of Portugal
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|author=Ece Temelkuran
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history.  Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen in 1777.  A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born in during the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy.  Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Steven M Gillon
 
|title=The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=The assassination of President Kennedy came at a pivotal moment in my life and for more than forty years I've read most of what has been written about the eventIt's been of variable quality, but the books fed the curiosity of people entranced by the charismatic young President who died so publicly.  I'd come to the point of wondering if there was anything new to be said, but Stephen Gillom has looked at what happened from an unusual and largely overlooked angle – the first twenty four hours of Lyndon Johnson's Presidency.
+
|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 knowWe 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>046501870X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1788037812
|author=Stella Tillyard
+
|title=The Fraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908
|title=A Royal Affair: George III and His Troublesome Siblings
+
|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=4
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=King George III was not the luckiest of English sovereigns.  America, and then his sons, in that order, gave him no end of grief, and the last few years of his life were clouded by madness.  It is thus often overlooked that, before these troubles arose to haunt this most conscientious monarch, he also had a thankless task in trying to control his siblings.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099428563</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Andy Beckett
 
|title=When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Having grown up during the era and followed the major news stories in the papers as they happened, I was fascinated to find everything (well, nearly everything) in the 500-page narrative that comprises this book.  It was quite a rocky ride from the election of Edward Heath in June 1970 through the three-day week, record British inflation and the IMF rescue, industrial disputes and picket battles at Saltley and Grunwick, the Gay Liberation Front and the stirrings of the green movement, the rise of Arthur Scargill, and the discovery of North Sea oil.  Then there was the survival of James Callaghan's minority administration despite the odds, and thanks largely to his adroit handling of the situation in keeping both Tony Benn and the Lib-Lab pact on board, followed by the winter of discontent, culminating in Thatcher at No 10.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057122136X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ian Mortimer
 
|title=The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=What would happen if we twenty-first century people took a trip back in time to the fourteenth century?  It would be very like visiting another country. Even our landscape would be greatly changed.  Ian Mortimer takes this approach and, applying his theory of living history, treats his readers to an objective and entertaining view of one of the most stereotypical centuries in medieval history. The fourteenth century has not only castles, knights, tournaments, and wars, but also gave birth to many of the creative minds associated with medieval England like Chaucer and the Gawain-poet.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950992</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1910593508
|author=Alison Weir
+
|title=Apollo
|title=The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn
+
|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Wot? More Tudors? Sorry, yes. Come on, be honest: you love 'em, I love 'em, we all love 'em.
+
|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.
 
 
My favourite writer of popular history is adding to the market writing for a third time about possibly history's most dramatic rise and fall - that of Anne Boleyn, second of Henry VIII's six wives. The book covers only a very short period, covering her arrest, trial and execution. She had been the scandal of Europe, this woman; had captured a king, unseated a queen, and promoted a new religion. Her fall couldn't have been swifter, harder or more ruthless and her little neck was severed on a scaffold at the Tower of London.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224063197</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Tracy Borman
 
|title=Elizabeth's Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=So many biographies have been written about the life and times of England's longest-lived and longest reigning sovereign that one might wonder whether there is anything new left to say about her.  However Tracy Borman has found an interesting new angle – by telling the story of her life through the women closest to her.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082264</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1786331047
|author=Tamim Ansary
+
|title=The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family
|title=Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
+
|author=Helen Rappaport
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=I enjoyed history at school and whilst we didn't always work our way through it chronologically I came, over time, to have a working knowledge of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. I knew about the rise of Christianity and spoke knowledgeably about medieval England, the Renaissance and the Reformation but was perhaps less taken by the Industrial Revolution and all that followed.  I was au fait with the east but it was mainly from the perspective of exploration – or even exploitation.  It was an education based on the virtues of the solid, white, English, Christian middle classes and it completely ignored histories from the perspective of other religions.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586486063</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Home and Family Reviews]]
|author=Elliott J Gorn
 
|title=Dillinger's Wild Ride: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number One
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=John Dillinger was born and brought up in Indiana.  His childhood was no better and no worse than most but the early part of his adult life was to be blighted by a spell in prison when he was convicted of an attack on a man in a botched hold-up.  Hoping for leniency he pleaded guilty but was sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment, whilst the man with him pleaded not guilty and when convicted received a shorter sentence.  It's easy to see where Dillinger's contempt for the law was spawned.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0195304837</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Anthony Read
 
|title=The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=In 1919 the world was an extremely unstable place.  They say history often repeats itself, and there were parallels with 1789 - but on a far greater scale.
 
 
 
During the First World War, with the Russian revolution and the overthrow of the Tsarist regime, one tyranny was supplanted by another which was even worse.  Lenin took the new upstart socialist republic out of the conflict, accepting unbelievably harsh peace terms from Germany in order to save and nurture the still fragile Bolshevik revolution.  Consolidating his power was no easy task.  Much as the people might have been glad to see the end of imperial Russia (if not the cold-blooded butchery of the former sovereign, his consort and their children), they were less than enthusiastic about Bolshevism, which secured only 24% of the votes in the new assembly.  Lenin dealt promptly with the problem by shutting the assembly down.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844138321</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Conn Iggulden and David Iggulden
 
|title=The Dangerous Book of Heroes
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=For most of us (well, for me certainly) the word 'hero' summons an image of capes, spandex and garish primary colours. Conn and David Iggulden have written a book about the other kind – the every day heroes from history, who achieve incredible things without the aid of superpowers.
 
 
 
From household names like Horatio Nelson and Winston Churchill, to lesser known people, like Aphra Behn and Hereward the Wake, ''The Dangerous Book of Heroes'' covers a comprehensive range of characters from the history of the British Empire. From campaigners for political change, brilliant battle strategists to daring explorers, each and every one of the people in this book lived brilliant lives and changed the world forever.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000726092X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Timothy Brook
 
|title=Vermeer's Hat: The seventeenth century and the dawn of the global world
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=If a picture paints a thousand words, then Timothy Brook provides the dictionary we can use to make sense of the vocabulary. Using five paintings by the seventeenth century Delft artist Johannes Vermeer along with a blue and white porcelain plate and the works of two of Vermeer's contemporaries, Brook demonstrates how the far flung corners of the seventeenth century world were drawn together by the ambitions of European merchants and the ability of Asia, Africa and the Americas to provided the materials to fulfil them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681200</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Pete Brown
 
|title=Hops and Glory: One Man's Search for the Beer That Built the British Empire
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=Being a beer writer can't be the easiest route to respect in journalism. But with this book Pete Brown has done much to counter the sceptical, even dismissive, attitudes which must surround his trade and its subject matter. He has attempted to combine a history of British imperialism and the brewing industry with the comic 'quest' genre of travel writing.
 
Against all the odds, he has largely succeeded.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230706355</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michael Haag
 
|title=The Templars: History and Myth: From Solomon's Temple to the Freemasons
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Despite being very descriptive, the title of 'The Templars: History and Myth: From Solomon's Temple to the Freemasons' still doesn't cover the full scope of Michael Haag's book. Notwithstanding its relatively modest page count, ''Templars'' not only manages to place the fascinating tale of the Knights' astonishing rise and spectacular fall in a rich historical context, but also provides an entertaining account of the Templars' 'afterlife': from the Masonic lore of the title to novels, films and games to conspiracy theories. There is also a travel guide and good list of source materials for further reading.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681537</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

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

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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

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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