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[[Category:New Reviews|History]]==History==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Greg Grandin1785633457|title=FordlandiaCharging Around: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=In 1927, the Ford Motor company bought a huge tract of land in Brazil, for the purpose of the company growing its own rubber for use in making its cars. They planted rubber trees and built a factory and houses, and a number of top managers from Exploring the company were posted to Fordlandia to run the operation. Huge amounts Edges of money were pumped into Fordlandia, and Ford made great claims for their plans. However, the project was a spectacular failure, and it lasted less than twenty years.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848311478</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dominique Lapierre|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>}} {{newreviewEngland by Electric Car|author=Doug Stewart|title=The Boy Who Would Be ShakespeareClive Wilkinson

|genre=HistoryTravel|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 Clive Wilkinson has a couple history of Elizabethan documents to show himtravelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. With the older man completely taken in, As he neared his child then pretended he'd found a trunk full of lost artefacts belonging to eightieth birthday the Bard – love letters to Anne Hathaway, a declaration idea of his Protestant faith, exploring the manuscript edges of King Lear, and even entirely new plays. Ireland fooled England in an electric car was not only his father, but also many of the prominent Londoners of the time, including Robert Southey, James Boswell, and the future William IVtotally outrageous.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818310</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jim Krane|title=Dubai: The Story of the World's Fastest City|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=In the 1950's, Dubai contained just a few thousand inhabitants scraping a living. By 1985fact, it had grown, but Sheikh Mohammed was still laughed at when he said that he wanted to make it should be a popular destination pleasant holiday for tourists. With the addition of artificial islandsClive and his wife, Joan, the worldshouldn's tallest building, an indoor ski slope, and much more, t 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848870094</amazonuk>?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances Stonor SaundersB09BLBP3P8|title=The Woman Who Shot MussoliniNeville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager

|summary=Most British titled families of the 19th Received wisdom and 20th centuries have produced their fair share of rebelssimplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. Yet few came as close to changing One such is the scrubbing from the course popular imagination of European history as the Honourable Violet Gibson, one early days of eight children of Baron Ashbourne, a Protestant AngloWorld War II from 1939-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 VIII40, 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 known as the scaffold''Phoney War''. The first was her Irish cousin James ButlerWe remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, later Earl of Ormondwar breaking out, 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 Churchill coming in the face of legal obstacles, she became betrothed to Henry Percy, heir to save the Duke of Northumberlandday. With a little help from the scheming Cardinal Wolsey, the Duke, who had Very little time for his son, insisted that any idea of marriage between them should be dismissed forthwith. Soon after is spent on this the poet Thomas Wyatt became enamoured of herperiod in cultural reflections and yet, but by as Frederic Seager argues in this time there was fierce competition from his sovereignbook, and her destiny it was sealedof vital significance in how the war played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848684304</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Caroline Moorehead 3756228711|title=Dancing to the Precipice CDC: Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French RevolutionThe happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer

|summary=Two hundred years ago, with ''The history of the fall development 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 IT could fill books of this biography, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pinseveral hundred pages.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=John Van der Kiste|title=William and Mary: Heroes of the Glorious Revolution|rating=4Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that.5|genre=Biography|summary=At school I remember spending a lot of time on the Tudors and the early Stuarts – obviously great favourites of He has chosen to tell us about the short, but explosive, 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|author=James Delgado|title=Kamikaze: History's Greatest Naval Disaster|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=When Mongol leaderControl Data Company, Khubilai Khan, achieved what his Grandfather Genghis had failed to do in conquering ChinaCDC, for whom he inherited the worldworked. It's largest and most sophisticated navy. However, in attempting to utilise this to expand his empire further to Java, Vietnam and mainly Japana fascinating tale, he lost the entire armada told in a few short years. New marine archeological evidence from Japan, ironically with the site discovered in the 1990s in the construction mixture of new defences from the weather, has raised questions on the traditional view that the defeat of the two Japanese invasion forces of 1274 technological summary 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 Godswry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532581</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy Dronfield and David BaldwinZiggy Greene|title=The Kingmaker's Sisters: Six Powerful Women in the Wars of the RosesFritz and Kurt

|genre=BiographyConfident Readers|summary=Due to We start with the small amount pair of surviving personal sourcesbrothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any book which purports 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 be the synagogue choir and at a biography of 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 15-century subject light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is almost inevitably going to be more a cave to Hitler'life s will, and times' than instead of having a lifenational vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. In ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the case round-ups of women who were Jews. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters but not sovereigns anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or consorts themselvesthe US, while Fritz and his father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the lack same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of data will be even more acute.all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0750950765</amazonuk>024156574X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul StrathernJohn Henry Phillips|title=The Artist, The Philosopher and The WarriorSearch|rating=3.5

|summary=The interaction between three very differentArchaeology 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 say contrasting, personalities find some specific thing. This book is a case of the Renaissance period sets the scene for what latter, as our author promises to be an intriguing titlelocate the topic of the titular search. In 1502 And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the paths of Cesare Borgiasearch area is a wide one, notorious son of the equally infamous Pope Alexander VItarget might not exist any more – oh, Niccolò Machiavelliand it's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the intellectual and diplomatheroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and Leonardo da Vincithat he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, at the time best known as a military engineer though remembered today primarily as a great artist, were destined vast majority of whom perished. Who else would make such promises to cross.someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845951212</amazonuk>1472146182

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timothy W RybackB09F4CTKJR|title=Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His LifeFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=As It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the fictional schoolboy hero Nigel Molesworth might have said, 'any fule kno' that Adolf Hitler was notorious for burning booksconflict. Nevertheless he was also an avid collector Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and passionate reader, as around 1200 surviving volumes once in his possession now in joined the Rare Book Division of 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the Library of Congress, and a smaller quantity first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Brown University, Rhode Island, demonstrate. Among them were world literature classics, such as 'Robinson Crusoe', 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and 'Gulliver's Travels'. He also owned an edition of the collected works of Shakespeare, first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in hand-tooled Moroccan leather with a gold-embossed eagle flanked by his initials on the spineactive combat. The BardBut before that can happen, he once said, was greatly superior Petrol has to Goethe and Schillermaster flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532174</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Druin Burch0578761718|title=Taking the Medicine|rating=5|genre=Popular Science|summary=In 1898, Burch points out that a new drug was developed and marketed for the treatment The Inspiring History 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>}} {{newreviewSpecial Relationship|author=Sian Rees|title=Sweet Water and Bitter: The Ships That Stopped the Slave TradeNancy Carver

|summary=The Act for church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the Abolition City of London from at least 1181, when it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, the Slave Trade original church was passed destroyed in Britain the Great Fire of London in March 1807, and the last legal British slave ship left Africa seven months later1666. Other countries were slow to follow suit. Everyone It was rebuilt in Britain knew there would be resistancePortland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, and when it was again ruined by bombs during the abolitionist Granville Sharpe purchased land in Sierra Leone to Blitz. But that wasn'repatriatet the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church' freed slavess walls were transported to Fulton, Ottobah CugoanaMissouri. There, a former slave living in Londonthe grounds of Westminster College, asked if it the church was possible for 'rebuilt and today serves as a fountain memorial to send forth both sweet water and bitterWinston Churchill.' Could the slave trade, he wondered, be abolished from West Africa - when West Africa was its source?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951174</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Grimson1784385166|title=The Isle of ManThird Reich in 100 Objects: Portrait A Material History of a NationNazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse

|summary=To many What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of us, the Isle 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 Man is probably best known for the Tynwald, the annual TT motorcycle races, Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and as a holiday resort. I must admit that my knowledge of it extended little further than images from that, and therefore found this book invaluabletime may be less familiar to you. In these 550 pagesthis short volume, profusely illustrated with photographs and maps, I imagine that few if any questions on Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the subject are left unanswered. John Grimson has lived there for nearly forty years, and as well as working with several period of the island's local authorities, was active as a long-distance runner and cyclist until his early seventiesThird Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709081030</amazonuk> 

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Thomas AsbridgeLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=The CrusadesTiananmen 1989: The War for the Holy LandOur Shattered Hopes

|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=The word 'Crusades' 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 been misappropriated and often used in various other contexts over the passing yearspriorities, you know. In their original meaning they were a series I certainly didn't know of holy wars during the medieval era between weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the Christian and Muslim world, fighting for dominion over students before the Holy Land between 1095 massacre and 1291 as the defenders birth of western civilization formed expeditions travelling across the face of Tank Man image, I didn't know how the known world from Europearea had long been a venue for political protest, their sole aim being to conquer and defend an isolated swathe 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 territory centred on Jerusalemprotests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0743268601</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der Kiste0648684806|title=Sons, Servants and StatesmenClara Colby: The Men in Queen Victoria's LifeInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4.5

|summary=Like The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary have been written about Queen Victoria, USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but John Van der Kiste has taken the unusual step because of using the men in some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her life to illuminate some dark corners which might other wise have parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained unexploredwith her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. Of course She was the most famous man only child in the household and her lifechildhood was glorious. By contrast, husband her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and Prince Consort Albert isn't 'sonlife was hard, servant or statesman' as promised by Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the title of the bookfamily. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, but he established a trendseven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. VictoriaAs the eldest girl, often regarded as a difficult woman to please, heavy burden would always have a man in her life who would, to fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a greater or lesser extent, dominate herrude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Marr1783784350|title=The Making of Modern This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain: From Queen Victoria to V.E. Day's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating=4.5

|summary=This bookIt 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 BBC TV series which complements itlength and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, must confirm Andrew Marrdiscovering and telling the story of wool's status as one of history and how it had made and changed the most entertaining and compulsive historianlandscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk -cum'' a free-presenters working today. His previous project, range child on postwar Britain, was hard the farm'' - and learned to faultspin, knit and anyone who enjoyed that will certainly relish thisweave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230709427</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1789017977|authortitle=Patrick Casey Ronnie and Richard I HaleHilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|titleauthor=For College, Club & Country - A History of Clifton Rugby Football ClubWendy Williams

|summary=Clifton Rugby Football Club can proudly trace its history back to the very emergence of Ronnie Williams was the sport son of rugby unionThomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. Founded in September 1872, the same year that William Webb Ellis, who is reputed There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been the rebellious Rugby schoolboy who first ran with the ballborn in 1863, diedbut he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. In reality, it is highly likely that For a while the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the Webb Ellis story is something of 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a spin job on behalf of Rugby School, although it very different lifestyle. One thing he did mean that Rugby School inherit from his father was able his need to impose its rules on be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the game army at a time when most public schools had their own rules for playing versions of the gameeighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312756</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Gay1980891117|title=ModernismG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: The Lure A year in the life of Heresy - From Baudelaire to Beckett and BeyondGeorge Engleheart|author=John Webley|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryArt|summary=It is impossible not to be impressed by George Engleheart was one of the sheer scope of cultural historian Peter Gay's 2007 study leading portrait miniaturists of ModernismGeorgian London, newly released in this paperback editionwith a career lasting from the 1770s to the Regency era. He notes in was also one of the introduction most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that it is not a 'comprehensive history' but rather 'a study time he carefully recorded the names of each of its rise, triumphshis clients, and decline'. What is remarkable though, subsequently transcribed them into what is the attempt referred to include the whole gamut of artistic fields in this coherent studyas his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099441969</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der Kiste1789016304|title=Jonathan WildWar and Love: Conman and Cutpurse|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Born towards the end of the seventeenth century Jonathan Wild was to become the eighteenth centuryA family's most famous criminal, plying his trade in a rather curious fashion. He was born in Wolverhampton testament 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 settleanguish, leaving his wife endurance and child to fend for themselves. It was whilst serving a term of imprisonment devotion 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>}} {{newreviewoccupied Amsterdam|author=Bonnie Greer|title=Obama MusicMelanie Martin|rating=35

|summary=This is an interesting Melanie Martin readabout what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, but unless Iparticularly in ''m missing something, the focus The Diary of the book seems a little difficult to grasp. ItAnn Frank's best if I start with the author's intentions as set out in her Prologue. It is a mixture of tales of but then realised that her own life growing up on the South Side, she writes, interspersed with family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and observations about Obama, linking it with seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the musicwar years, musicians but only five thousand survived and music scene, past and present, including hip hop, Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country, classical, and rock'n'rollwith liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. All of these, she notes, were heard on Most people believed that the President's Inauguration Day. To them she adds occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the blues, gospel, soul and jazz of Germans might reach the South Sidecity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, when that the people began Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to build escalate in the great institutions and great solidarity way that enabled him to become it did, but initial protests melted away as the most powerful man organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on the planeta vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906558248</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mortimer1908745819|title=1415: Henry V's Year of GlorySurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie

|summary=The medievalSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, in fact time-honoured, view of King Henry V as they tell you ''this one of Englandhas your name on it''s greatest heroes was propagated though . Mostly we take them at their word, or not originated by Shakespeare, and again more recently to some extent by Olivierbut rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's portrayal in filma rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. At least one historian has called him 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 greatest man poetic and lyrical that ever ruled England''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>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Toby Lester0857058320|title=The Fourth Part of Lord Of All the World: The Epic Story of History's Greatest MapDead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)|rating=4.5

|summary=In 2003 a map was bought for $10 million, ''Lord Of All the highest price ever paid publicly for Dead'' is a historical document, by journey to uncover the Library of Congress, where it is now on permanent public displayauthor's lost ancestor's life and death. No ordinary map, this Cercas is sometimes described as Americasearching for the meaning behind his great uncle's birth certificatedeath in the Spanish Civil War. It Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in figure who looms large over the 16th century, and was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much that he was inspired to discover more, and 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 resultwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenifer Roberts0008294011|title=The Madness of Queen MariaHow to Lose a Country: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of Portugal|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune 7 Steps from Democracy 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>}} {{newreviewDictatorship|author=Steven M Gillon|title=The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours AfterEce Temelkuran

|summary=The assassination of President Kennedy came at A little while ago a pivotal moment friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in my life and for more than forty years Ito come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question ''ve read most of what has been written about Discuss the eventfactors which led to. It..''s been of variable quality, but the books fed the curiosity of people entranced by the charismatic young President who died so publicly. I'd come to the point of wondering if there agreed that she was anything new to be said, but Stephen Gillom has looked at what happened from an unusual right and largely overlooked angle – the first twenty four hours of Lyndon Johnsonwasn's Presidency.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>046501870X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stella Tillyard |title=A Royal Affair: George III and His Troublesome Siblings|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=King George III t certain whether it was not the luckiest of English sovereigns. America, and then his sons, in a good or bad thing 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 we didn't know what all 'this most conscientious monarch, he also had a thankless task in trying ' was leading 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 think now that comprises this bookI do know. It was quite a rocky ride from the election of Edward Heath We are 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 danger of Arthur Scargill, losing democracy and the discovery of North Sea oil. Then there was the survival of James Callaghanwhilst it's minority administration despite the odds, and thanks largely to his adroit handling a flawed system I can't think of the situation in keeping both Tony Benn and the Lib-Lab pact on boarda better one, followed by particularly as the winter of discontent, culminating in Thatcher at No 10'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057122136X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mortimer 1788037812|title=The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval EnglandFraternity of the Estranged: A Handbook The Fight for Visitors to the Fourteenth CenturyHomosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary=What would happen if we twenty-first century people took Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a trip back crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time to the fourteenth century? It would be very like visiting another country, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Even our landscape would be greatly changed. Ian Mortimer takes this approach Between 1891 and1908, applying his theory three books on the nature of living historyhomosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, treats his readers to an objective and entertaining view of one of as well as the most stereotypical centuries in medieval historyheterosexual Havelock Ellis. The fourteenth century has not only castles, knights, tournaments, Exploring the margins of society and warsstudying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but also gave birth barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to many the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the creative minds associated with medieval England like Chaucer struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the Gawainmilestone legalisation of same-poetsex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950992</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alison Weir1910593508|title=The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne BoleynApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins

|summary=Wot? More Tudors? Sorry, yes. Come on, be honest: you love 'em, I love 'em, we all This incredible graphic novel is a love 'em. My favourite writer of popular history is adding letter to the market writing Moon landings and the passion for a third time about possibly history's most dramatic rise the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and fall - that of Anne Boleyn, second of Henry VIII's six wivesMike Collins. The book covers only This is a very short period, covering her arrest, trial story we know well and execution. She had been the scandal because of Europe, this woman; had captured a king, unseated the authors take a queen, and promoted a new religionfew narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. Her fall couldn't have been swifter, harder or more ruthless and her little neck was severed on a scaffold at These shortcuts are the only downside to the Tower of Londonbook. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224063197</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tracy Borman |title=ElizabethIf you's Women: The Hidden Story ve ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the Virgin Queen|rating=4slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed.5|genre=Biography|summary=So many biographies This is a graphic novel that could easily have been written about the life and three times of England's longest-lived as long 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 herstill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082264</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tamim Ansary 1786331047|title=Destiny DisruptedThe Race to Save the Romanovs: A History of The Truth Behind the World Through Islamic EyesSecret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport

|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 The basic facts about the rise deaths of Christianity Nicholas and spoke knowledgeably about medieval EnglandAlexandra, 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 some of exploration – or even exploitation. It was an education based on which were deliberately obscured at the virtues of the solid, white, English, Christian middle classes and it completely ignored histories from the perspective of other religions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586486063</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|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 time for leniency he pleaded guilty but was sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonmentvarious reasons, whilst the man with him pleaded not guilty and when convicted received a shorter sentencehave long since been established. 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 For the overthrow last few months 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 their lives 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 sovereignTsar and Tsarina, his consort and their children), they and few remaining servants were less than enthusiastic about Bolshevism, which secured only 24% of the votes held 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 (wellincreasingly squalid, for me certainly) the word 'hero' summons an image of capes, spandex and garish primary colourshumiliating captivity. Conn and David Iggulden have written a book about the other kind – the every day heroes To prevent them from historybeing rescued, who achieve incredible things without in July 1918 the aid of superpowers.  From household names like Horatio Nelson revolutionary regime had them all shot and Winston Churchill, bayoneted to lesser known peopledeath in circumstances which, like Aphra Behn and Hereward once the Wakenews was confirmed beyond all doubt, ''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 horrified their relatives in this book lived brilliant lives and changed the world foreverEurope.|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 Move on to conspiracy theories. There is also a travel guide [[Newest Home and good list of source materials for further reading.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681537</amazonuk>}}Family Reviews]]