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[[Category:New Reviews|History]]__NOTOC__ <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{Frontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=HistoryCharging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=5__NOTOC__|genre=Travel|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian W Pugh, Paul R Spiring and Sadru BhanjiB09BLBP3P8|title=Arthur Conan DoyleNeville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, Sherlock Holmes and Devon: A Complete Tour Guide and Companion1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager|rating=4.5

|summary=''The Hound of Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the Baskervilles'' is one popular imagination of the most famous mystery novels early days of allWorld War II from 1939-40, and also one of known as the most famous English novels set in Devon''Phoney War''. This alone would probably give more or less enough material for an entire book on connections between the story We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in to save the location which inspired itday. Yet the authors have found several more links between the county, Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and Conan Doyle alongside those associated with him. The result has revealed much information of which even Iyet, who have lived as Frederic Seager argues in the county nearly all my lifethis book, it was previously unawareof vital significance in how the war played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312861</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenny Diski3756228711|title=CDC: The Sixtieshappy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer

|summary=In the last few years, there have been many books ''The history of varying length about the 60s. Most development of them are relatively self-contained histories IT could fill books of the decade, often fairly liberal in adopting their signposts as to when the era began and endedseveral hundred pages. (Blame Philip Larkin's famous poem for the confusion, I hear you say).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680042</amazonuk>}}'

{{newreview|author=Charlotte Moore|title=Hancox|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Hancox Author Hans Bodmer is the large imposing house in rural Sussex where Charlotte Moore was brought up, and where she still livesquite right about that. Although its origins are not fully documented, according He has chosen to local records it certainly existed by tell us about the mid-15th centuryshort, its name probably derived from that of John Handcocksbut explosive, one of the early owners. In what is basically part family history and part biography of the house itselfControl Data Company, the author traces its story back to lawyer John DountonCDC, the first owner about for whom nothing substantial is known, who made extensive alterations to it in 1569he worked. It then passed through the hands of several families until her ancestors acquired it in 1888. In 1900 one of them let it to the Church of England Temperance Society as 's a drying-out house for 'inebriates'fascinating tale, but the arrangement was terminated told in 1907 a mixture of technological summary and the family moved back inwry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670915866</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances WoodsfordJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Dear Mr Bigelow: A Transatlantic FriendshipFritz and Kurt

|genre=AutobiographyConfident Readers|summary=Meet Mister Bigelow. He's elderly, living alone on Long Island, New York, We start with some health problems but more than enough family the pair of brothers Fritz and friends to get him byKurt, and still a very active interest their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in yachting1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, regattas helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and moreat a vocational school. Meet, too, Frances WoodsfordKurt 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. SheBut this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's reaching middle-agewill, living with her brother and mum in Bournemouth, and working for instead of having a national vote to keep the local baths as organiser of eventsNazis out, office lackey and moreinvite them in with open arms. I suggest you do meet them''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, although neither ever met as did all the otherround-ups of Jews. Despite this they kept up a brisk These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and lively conversation about all aspects sisters anxious to hear word of lifean evacuation to Britain or the US, from the late 1940s until while Fritz and his death at father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the beginning of same train to Buchenwald and the 60sstone quarry there. And as a result comes us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this book, of heavily edited highlights, which opens up a world of social history and entertaining diary-style comment.could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099542293</amazonuk>024156574X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter AckroydJohn Henry Phillips|title=Venice: Pure CityThe Search|rating=45

|summary=Among Peter AckroydArchaeology cannot be child's recent works are 'biographiesplay, 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 London and the latter, as our author promises to locate the topic of the river Thamestitular search. Now 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 gives similar treatment cannot dive. Latching on to Venice, basically a history but enlivened with his elegantparticular D-Day veteran through helping the heroic old man's visit back to France, literary styleour author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and what that he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a previous reviewer has called his love memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of 'psychogeographical investigation'whom perished.xWho else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099422565</amazonuk>1472146182

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Benedict GummerB09F4CTKJR|title=The Scourging Angel: The Black Death in the British IslesFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=The mid-fourteenth century was an unsettled time for England. It was an age which saw 's the first phases later stages of the protracted Hundred Years’ World War with France, I and the Scottish war of independence, which came to an end with United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the capture of King David II17 Aero Squadron. As if these events were not enough, in 1346 there This company was the first case of a man US Aero Squadron to be trained in Europe contracting an unknown disease that rapidly swept across Canada, the continent, claiming first to be attached to the lives of millions, RAF and one medieval chronicler noted 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 bodies looked like a macabre lasagne: corpses piled row upon row separated only by layers of dirt'notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548836</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mary Beard0578761718|title=The ParthenonInspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver

|summary=Despite 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 proliferation Great Fire of populist historians London in 1666. It was rebuilt in print Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and on televisionthen survived for centuries until World War II, Professor Mary Beard continues 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 be a voice apartFulton, Missouri. Her conversational style There, in the grounds of writing belies Westminster College, the academic research at its heart. This is serious history written as engagingly church was rebuilt and today serves as a detective storymemorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683491</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Beaumont1784385166|title=The Secret Life Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict Nazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse

|summary=As Barratt points out in What is the opening pages, there are literally thousands first image that comes to mind when you think of titles available about the sinking of the Titanic, at the time the largest, most expensive and most luxurious ship ever built. His aim in this volume is Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to bridge the gap between another forensic examination a concentration camp? None of how it sank, and yet another re-run these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of what he calls the familiar stories of heroism Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and tragedy images from literature in the public domain that time may be less familiar to provide the human story behind the disasteryou.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848091516</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stefan Klein|title=Leonardo's Legacy: How Da Vinci Reinvented the World|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=This excellent combination of science history and biography starts with the most populist and some of the most awkwardly scientific. Basically it throws modern-day science at the Mona LisaIn this short volume, which you might think is a little unfair – can she cope with being analysed, and Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the neuroscience we now know used in interpreting her? Of course she can – she’s the world’s best-known masterpiece period of Italian art, and she’s survived much worse. Klein’s approach fully works, when we see also the science da Vinci did know and that he worked on himself, which all helps us know partly why the truths Third Reich through one hundred of La Gioconda are still unknowableits material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818256</amazonuk> 

 {{newreview|author=Robert McCrum|title=Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=We British tend to forget just how insignificant we are.  Tiny geographically. Tiny in population. Tiny, whatever we tell ourselves, on the world stage. Yet our language is spoken in various forms worldwide by approximately four billion people; about a third of the world's population. How did ''that'' happen? This is what Robert McCrum attempts to explain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916404</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bernhard Schlink|title=Guilt About the Past|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Consider, if you will, guilt. You might have it tainting you, as 'beyond the perpetrators, every person who stands in solidarity with them and maintains solidarity after the fact becomes entangled'. The link might not strictly be a legal oneLun Zhang, but concern 'norms of religion and moralsAdrien Gombeaud, etiquette Ameziane and custom as well as day-to-day communications and interactions'. Hence a collective guilt like no other - that witnessed in Germany. 'The assumption that membership to a people engenders solidarity is something Germans of my generation do not easily like to accept', we read. However difficult it might have been back then in its day, Germany had to physically renounce anything to do with Nazism, to actively 'opt-out' of connections to avoid the solidarity seen connecting the whole nation like a toxic spider web. And since then it's linked in all the children, in a ''bequeathal'' of guilt.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905636776</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sara Wheeler|title=The Magnetic North: Travels in the Arctic|rating=4.5|genre=Travel|summary=The title of this book suggests another travel book about adventure in the frozen north, but Sara Wheeler mixes her tales of her own travels with some history of polar exploration and a serious examination of the impact of visitors and of those who wish to exploit the Arctic’s natural resources on the region and its people. Rather than setting off on another expedition to reach the North Pole, she travels around bits of the Arctic divided between different countries and governments, including Chukotka (Russia), Alaska Edward Gauvin (USAtranslator), Canada, Greenland, Svalbard (Norway) and Lapland (Russia and Scandinavia). There is a huge amount of material in the book but Wheeler organises and presents it in a very readable, accessible style.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099516888</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ronald Skirth and Duncan Barrett|title=The Reluctant TommyTiananmen 1989: An Extraordinary Memoir of the First World WarOur Shattered Hopes

|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=Ronald Skirth I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was one of many young Englishmen of nineteen caught up playing out – someone in the First World Warsecond half of their teens has other priorities, you know. He joined I certainly didn't know of the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1916, was promoted to Corporal, weeks of protests and sent to hunger strikes from the western front. Like most of his contemporaries, when he went he was an unquestioning servant of King students before the massacre and country, fighting for what he believed was right. On the battlefields birth of Flandersthe Tank Man image, one day he came across I didn't know how the body of Hansarea had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a German soldier spit about the same age, if not youngerpeople involved on either side. The dead man's hand was clutching This book is practically flawless in giving a photograph of his girlfriend, who could almost have been the twin sister of Ella, Skirthgeneral browser's own sweetheart. Like two of his friends who had just been killed, Hans had died as a result of context for the stupidity whole season of othersprotests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>023074673X</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Juliet Nicolson0648684806|title=Clara Colby: The Great Silence: 1918-1920 Living in the Shadow of the Great War International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=As the author says in The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her introduction, family emigrated to the 'great silence' of USA. At the title time she was that which followed the just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn'incessant thunder' of the Great Wart allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. There are three crucial dates in Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her narrativeand saw that she received a good education, all specific days both in three successive Novembersand out of school. The first She was when the guns fell silent only child in 1918, the second household and her childhood was that of glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the first twomid-minute silence in memory west of the fallen one year laterUnited States and life was hard, and the third as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the Unknown Soldier was lowered into silence beneath the floor in Westminster Abbey, another year onfamily. These act as Clara would only know her mother for a framework around which few months: she tells the story of the silence of grief which affected everyone was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in various ways during childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the first two years of peaceeldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719562562</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Griffiths1783784350|title=The Lotus Quest|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Mark Griffiths is one of This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's leading plant experts. I know this because his brief biog in the front of The Lotus Quest tells me so; just as it tells me that he is the editor of The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening 'the largest work on horticulture ever published'. His prior works list includes five other plant book credits, three of them for the RHS. I shall take all of this on trust, since attempts to find out more about the author and his background through the usual internet search mechanisms has failed miserably. He remains as elusive as the sacred flower that is the subject of this latest work: the lotus.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184595100X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewKnitted History|author=Archie Brown|title=The Rise and Fall of CommunismEsther Rutter|rating=4.5

|summary=It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'A source of hope 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 a radiant future or…the greatest threat on making changes and she decided that she would travel the face length and breadth of the earth'. Whichever British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of these descriptions you would apply to Communism you will find Archie Brownwool's detailed history and largely objective study enlightening how it had made and engrossingchanged the landscape. On one level, this is She'd grown up on a chronological description of how sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a political force grew free-range child on the farm'' - and learned to dominate a third of the worldspin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's population then virtually disappeared within a period of less than a centuryfriend. This was in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950674</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Welshman1789017977|title=ChurchillRonnie and Hilda's ChildrenRomance: The Evacuee Experience in Wartime Britain Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|summary=As a little girl I Ronnie Williams was fascinated by stories from the second world warson of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. My Nan would tell me tales of her work doing welding, my mumThere's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's uncle had exciting adventure stories from his years birthdate: he claimed to have been born in the RAF1863, 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 book Carrie's War family was one I returned quite well-to again -do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and againfive-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. So I One thing he did inherit from his father was intrigued by his need to be well-turned-out and this title which looks would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at the stories of thirteen children and adults through World War Two, from the first wave of evacuations through to the end of the wareighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0199574413</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catrine Clay1980891117|title=Trautmann's JourneyG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup LegendA year in the life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley

|genre=BiographyArt|summary='You have to learn to be hard menGeorge Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the 1770s to accept sacrifice without ever succumbing'. Such did Hitler say at the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies in the 1930sRegency era. He probably did not have in mind playing in goal at a FA Cup final with a broken neckwas also one of the most prolific, painting nearly 5, such is the lifetime 000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of difference between the two referencesKing George III). But Throughout most of that lifetimetime he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, as packed and varied subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as it was, is in the pages of this ever-interesting and swiftly-devoured his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082884</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Skidmore1789016304|title=Death War and the VirginLove: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart |rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=When Elizabeth I ascended the throne in November 1558, everyoneA family's dominant concern was the matter testament of her taking an appropriate husband and securing the succession. The man most likely to become her husband was Robert Dudley, whom she made her Master of the Horse and entrusted with considerable responsibility for her coronation festivities. The fact that he was already married to Amy Robsart did little to quell the speculationanguish, especially since she was believed to be dying of breast cancer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297846507</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=R A Scotti|title=The Lost Mona Lisa|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=One of the few things I remember from those writers' courses endurance and advice books – and I can hear from here you wished I remembered more of them – was the merit in being aware of anniversaries, especially devotion in your area of expertise, and having the ability to sell articles concerning historical events linked into centenaries, modern comparisons, and so on. Well, here is the book equivalent, and although it's early – it's looking back on the summer of 1911 – this stands as quality enough to deny any latecomers shelf room.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0553818309</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewoccupied Amsterdam|author=Greg Grandin|title=Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle CityMelanie Martin|rating=4.5

|summary=In 1927Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, the Ford Motor company bought a huge tract of land particularly in Brazil, for the purpose ''The Diary of the company growing its Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own rubber for use in making its carsfamily's stories were equally fascinating. They planted rubber trees A hundred and built a factory and housesseven 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 number of top managers from the company country with liberal values who were posted resistant to Fordlandia to run German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the operation. Huge amounts of money city were pumped into Fordlandia, and Ford made great claims for their plans. Howeverconvinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the project was a spectacular failure, and it lasted less than twenty years.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848311478</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dominique Lapierre|title=A Rainbow Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the Night |rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=A book integrating otherwise piecemeal news stories picked up over way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the past forty years into a coherent explanation is always welcomeorganisers became more circumspect. This book explores South AfricaIt's history and development, from the earliest Dutch arrivals in 1652 to the first racially integrated elections in 1994an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818477</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Doug Stewart1908745819|title=The Boy Who Would Be ShakespeareSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie

|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 Sometimes when people suggest that you read a couple of Elizabethan documents to show him. With the older man completely taken incertain book, his child then pretended hethey tell you ''this one has your name on it''d found a trunk full of lost artefacts belonging to the Bard – love letters to Anne Hathaway. Mostly we take them at their word, a declaration of his Protestant faith, the manuscript of King Lear, and even entirely new plays. Ireland fooled or not only his father, but also many of the prominent Londoners of the time, including Robert Southey, James Boswell, and rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the future William IVbook.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818310</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jim Krane|title=Dubai: The Story of the WorldThat's Fastest City|rating=4a rare experience.5|genre=History|summary=In the 1950's, Dubai contained just People who are sensitive to hearing a few thousand inhabitants scraping a living. By 1985book calling your name, rarely get it had grownwrong. In this case, but Sheikh Mohammed I was still laughed at when he said that he wanted to make it a popular destination for touriststold why. With the addition The blurb speaks of artificial islands, the worldauthor considering ''s tallest building, an indoor ski slopeolder, and much more, itless tethered sense of herself.'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>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Stonor Saunders|title=The Woman Who Shot Mussolini|rating=4 Older.5|genre=History|summary=Most British titled families of the 19th and 20th centuries have produced their fair share of rebelsLess tethered. 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 DisraeliThat'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 not a family dispute over the title and estates bad description of the Earldom of Ormondwhere I am. After their marriage negotiations came Add to an end in the face of legal obstacles, she became betrothed to Henry Percy, heir to the Duke that my love of Northumberland. With a little help from the scheming Cardinal Wolseynatural world, 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 those aspects 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 poetic and the French Revolution|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Two hundred years agolyrical that are about style not form, with the fall and substance most of the monarchy and the Napoleonic warsall, France underwent one cataclysmic change after anotherabout connection. There were many who witnessed and experienced the volatile age at first handOf course, but few left a more detailed record than the subject of this biography, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pin.|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 book had my name 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 erait. The importance of William and Mary It was completely overlooked in favour of a quick mention of the fact that William wasn't in direct line of succession written for me. It would have found its way to the throne and Mary had never wanted to marry him in the first placeme eventually. 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 leader, Khubilai Khan, achieved what his Grandfather Genghis had failed am pleased 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 Godshave it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532581</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Baldwin0857058320|title=The Kingmaker's Sisters: Six Powerful Women in Lord Of All the Wars of the RosesDead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=The interaction between three very different, not ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to say contrasting, personalities of uncover the Renaissance period sets the scene author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for what promises to be an intriguing title. In 1502 the paths of Cesare Borgia, notorious son of meaning behind his great uncle's death in the equally infamous Pope Alexander VISpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Niccolò MachiavelliCercas' great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the intellectual and diplomat, and Leonardo da Vinci, 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 time best known as a military engineer though remembered today primarily as a centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great artist, were destined uncle to crossbe a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951212</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timothy W Ryback0008294011|title=Hitler's Private LibraryHow to Lose a Country: The Books That Shaped His Life7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran

|summary=As 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 fictional schoolboy hero Nigel Molesworth might have said, factors which led to...''any fule kno I agreed that she was right and wasn' t certain whether it was a good or bad thing that Adolf Hitler we didn't know what all 'this' was notorious for burning booksleading to. Nevertheless he was also an avid collector and passionate reader, as around 1200 surviving volumes once in his possession I think now that I do know. We are in the Rare Book Division danger of the Library losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of Congress, and a smaller quantity in Brown University, Rhode Islandbetter one, demonstrate. Among them were world literature classics, such particularly as the 'Robinson Crusoebenevolent dictator', 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', and 'Gulliveris as rare as hen'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 Schillerteeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532174</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Druin Burch1788037812|title=Taking The Fraternity of the MedicineEstranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary=The Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was Originally passed in Britain 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in March 1807place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the last legal British slave ship left Africa seven months laternature of homosexuality appeared. Other countries They were slow to follow suitwritten by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Everyone in Britain knew there would be resistance, Exploring the margins of society and when studying homosexuality was common on the abolitionist Granville Sharpe purchased land in Sierra Leone to 'repatriate' freed slavesEuropean Continent, Ottobah Cugoana, a former slave living but barely talked about in Londonthe UK, asked if it was possible for 'a fountain so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to send forth both sweet water the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and bitter.' Could beginning the slave tradestruggle for recognition and equality, he wondered, be abolished from West Africa leading to the milestone legalisation of same- when West Africa was its source?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951174</amazonuk>sex relationships in 1967.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Grimson1910593508|title=The Isle of Man: Portrait of a NationApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins

|summary=To many of us, This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the Isle of Man is probably best known passion for the Tynwald, the annual TT motorcycle racessubject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and as Mike Collins. This is a holiday resort. I must admit that my knowledge story we know well and because 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 the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that few if any questions on we can fill in the subject blanks. These shortcuts are left unansweredthe only downside to the book. John Grimson has lived If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that there for nearly forty years, are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as well as working with several of the island's local authorities, was active as a long-distance runner and cyclist until his early seventiesstill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709081030</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Thomas Asbridge1786331047|title=The CrusadesRace to Save the Romanovs: The War for Truth Behind the Holy LandSecret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport|rating=4.5

|summary=The word 'Crusades' has been misappropriated basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and often used in Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the time for various other contexts over reasons, have long since been established. For the passing years. In last few months of their original meaning they were a series of holy wars during lives in Russia the medieval era between the Christian former Tsar and Tsarina, their children and Muslim worldfew remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. To prevent them from being rescued, fighting for dominion over in July 1918 the Holy Land between 1095 revolutionary regime had them all shot and 1291 as the defenders of western civilization formed expeditions travelling across the face of bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the known world from Europenews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their sole aim being to conquer and defend an isolated swathe of territory centred on Jerusalemrelatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0743268601</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=John Van der Kiste|title=Sons, Servants and Statesmen: The Men in Queen Victoria's Life|rating=4.5|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 unexplored. Of 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 trend. Victoria, 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andrew Marr|title=The Making of Modern Britain: From Queen Victoria to V.E. Day|rating=4.5|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, Move on postwar Britain, was hard to fault, [[Newest Home and anyone who enjoyed that will certainly relish this.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230709427</amazonuk>}}Family Reviews]]