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[[Category:New Reviews|History]]==History==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Keegan1785633457|title=The American Civil War|rating=4|genre=History|summary=While before reading this book I considered myself to be vaguely familiar with the major facts about the American Civil War – the fight to liberate the slaves, the well-known battles, and Charging Around: Exploring the towering figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S Grant, and Robert E Lee – I was keen to learn more about the war and get an in-depth view Edges of it from a renowned historian. After finishing the book, I certainly consider myself to be far better informed on the military, and tactical, side of things, but found it a little lacking in certain other areas such as the causes and effects.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712616101</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewEngland by Electric Car|author=David Howarth|title=We Die AloneClive Wilkinson

|genre=BiographyTravel|summary=Consider taking Clive Wilkinson has a five day sail in history of travelling by unconventional means with a small fishing boat preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the height idea of exploring the North Sea from Shetland, to try and establish, train and supply some potentially vital anti-German resistance edges of England in the far, far north of occupied Norway, your homelandan electric car was not totally outrageous. Imagine the sight of heavy naval parades where you intended to land, as galling proof that your intel is ages out of date. Ponder too the In fact that you get reported to the Nazis due to the most ridiculous slight of fortune. All your colleagues are dead or captured, your equipment blown up with your trawler to keep it safe from Jerry hands, half your big toe has been shot off, should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and you're forced to go on the run in one of Europe's lasthis wife, and coldestJoan, wildernesses. And you have no idea whatsoever quite how bad this scenario is going to get.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847678459</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Norman Rose|title=A Senseless Squalid War: Voices From Palestine 1890s - 1948|rating=5|genre=History|summary=The reappearance of shouldn''A Senseless, Squalid War'' in paperback will afford wider access to the balanced and detailed scholarship of Prof Norman Stone. This is a sad story of the Palestinian Mandate retold through the viewpoints of politicians and proponents; Arab, Jewish, British, French, German and American. It energetically conveys an understanding of the character of figures as disparate as David Ben Gurion, Richard Crossman, Haj Amin and David Lloyd George. Organisations, conferences and sticking points are deftly expounded. It does not lose sight the overarching motives and machinations of International Politics.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950798</amazonuk>t it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul AddisonB09BLBP3P8|title=No Turning BackNeville Chamberlain's War: The Peacetime Revolutions of PostHow Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-War Britain1940|author=Frederic Seager

|summary=In Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the opening chapter Addison, a child scrubbing from the popular imagination of the 1940searly days of World War II from 1939-40, starts by comparing the leaders of known as the peacetime administrations that did most to change the face of Britain after 1945''Phoney War''. The firstWe remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, Clement Attlee, was a modest, unassuming, even uncharismatic personalitywar breaking out, yet he still led a genuinely radical and reforming governmentChurchill coming in to save the day. As the second, his admirer Margaret ThatcherVery little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, would point out as Frederic Seager argues in her memoirsthis book, not only did he achieve a great deal, but he did so because it was of, or perhaps despite, being all substance and no showvital significance in how the war played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192192671</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Green3756228711|title=Murder in the High Himalaya|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=CDC: The Himalayan mountains mean many things to different people. To the people of Tibet, trapped under the atheist occupiers from China, who ran the Dalai Lama out in the 1950s in their consuming urge for lebensraum and mineral mining, they are happy years with a near-impenetrable barrier, protecting their country from historyspectacular IT 's prior ravages, but keeping people who want out, very much in. To rich Westerners, they are a sparkling challenge - a task of the highest order, a box to tick on the way to self-fulfilment - something to be climbed, because theyPhenomena're there.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586487140</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Brian W Pugh, Paul R Spiring and Sadru Bhanji|title=Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and Devon: A Complete Tour Guide and CompanionHans Bodmer

|summary=''The Hound history of the Baskervilles'' is one of the most famous mystery novels development of all, and also one IT could fill books of the most famous English novels set in Devon. This alone would probably give more or less enough material for an entire book on connections between the story and the location which inspired it. Yet the authors have found several more links between the county, and Conan Doyle alongside those associated with himhundred pages. The result has revealed much information of which even I, who have lived in the county nearly all my life, was previously unaware.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312861</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Jenny Diski|title=The Sixties|rating=4|genre=History|summary=In Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us about the last few yearsshort, but explosive, there have been many books history of varying length about the 60s. Most of them are relatively self-contained histories of the decadeControl Data Company, CDC, often fairly liberal in adopting their signposts as to when the era began and endedfor whom he worked. (Blame Philip LarkinIt's famous poem for the confusiona fascinating tale, I hear you say)told in a mixture of technological summary and wry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680042</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charlotte MooreJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Hancox|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Hancox is the large imposing house in rural Sussex where Charlotte Moore was brought up, Fritz and where she still lives. Although its origins are not fully documented, according to local records it certainly existed by the mid-15th century, its name probably derived from that of John Handcocks, one of the early owners. In what is basically part family history and part biography of the house itself, the author traces its story back to lawyer John Dounton, the first owner about whom nothing substantial is known, who made extensive alterations to it in 1569. 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 a drying-out house for 'inebriates', but the arrangement was terminated in 1907 and the family moved back in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670915866</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Woodsford|title=Dear Mr Bigelow: A Transatlantic FriendshipKurt

|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

|genre=Politics and SocietyHistory|summary=Peter Beaumont What is the Foreign Affairs editor at The Observer. He joined the paper in 1989 and has spent much first image that comes to mind when you think of the intervening time dealing with the kind Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a concentration camp? None of 'foreign affairs' that is better described as 'war reporting'. 'The Secret Life these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of Warthe Third Reich' is a distillation of his years s fascist regime in the fieldall its iniquity. It is a book ill-served by both its title But some objects and its coverimages from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, except maybe insofar as both might serve Roger Moorhouse has attempted to sneak it onto illustrate the period of the bookshelves Third Reich through one hundred of those who really need to read it, but probably wouldn't choose to do so were it more accurately wrappedits material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520982</amazonuk> 

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick BarrattLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=Lost Voices from the TitanicTiananmen 1989: The Definitive Oral HistoryOur Shattered Hopes

|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=As Barratt points I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the opening pagessecond half of their teens has other priorities, there are literally thousands you know. I certainly didn't know of the weeks of titles available about protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the sinking birth of the TitanicTank Man image, at the time I didn't know how the largestarea had long been a venue for political protest, most expensive and most luxurious ship ever builtI didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. His aim This book is practically flawless in this volume is to bridge the gap between another forensic examination of how it sank, and yet another re-run of what he calls giving a general browser's context for the familiar stories whole season of heroism and tragedy from literature protests back in the public domain to provide the human story behind the disaster1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848091516</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stefan Klein0648684806|title=Leonardo's LegacyClara Colby: How Da Vinci Reinvented the WorldThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=54

|summary=This excellent combination The path of science history and biography starts 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 the most populist her parents and some of the most awkwardly scientificthree brothers. Basically it throws modern-day science at the Mona LisaInstead, which you might think is a little unfair – can she cope remained with being analysedher grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the neuroscience we now know used only child in interpreting the household and her? childhood was glorious. Of course she can – she’s By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the world’s bestmid-known masterpiece west of Italian artthe United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and she’s survived much worseher grandparents eventually went to join the family. Klein’s approach fully worksClara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, when we see also seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the science da Vinci did know eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and that he worked on himself, which all helps us know partly why the truths of La Gioconda are still unknowableWisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818256</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert McCrum1783784350|title=GlobishThis Golden Fleece: How the English Language Became the WorldA Journey Through Britain's LanguageKnitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating=3.5

|summary=We British tend It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to forget just how insignificant we are.  Tiny geographicallypeople she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. Tiny in populationThe job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. Tiny, whatever we tell ourselvesJanuary 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, on discovering and telling the world stage. Yet our language is spoken in various forms worldwide by approximately four billion people; about a third story of the worldwool's populationhistory and how it had made and changed the landscape. How did She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - ''thata free-range child on the farm''- and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother' happen? s friend. This is what Robert McCrum attempts to explainwas in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916404</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bernhard Schlink1789017977|title=Guilt About the PastRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|genre=Politics and SocietyHistory|summary=Consider, if you will, guiltRonnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. You might have it tainting you, There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry'beyond the perpetrators, every person who stands s birthdate: he claimed to have been born in solidarity with them and maintains solidarity after the fact becomes entangled'. The link might not strictly be a legal one1863, but concern 'norms of religion he was already many years older than Ethel and morals, etiquette and custom as he might well as day-to-day communications and interactions'have shaved a few years off his age. Hence For a collective guilt like no other while the family was quite well- 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 but disaster struck in its day, Germany the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to physically renounce anything adjust to do with Nazism, a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to actively 'optbe well-turned-out' of connections to avoid the solidarity seen connecting the whole nation like a toxic spider weband this would stay with him throughout his life. And since then it's linked in all He joined the children, army at eighteen in a ''bequeathal'' of guilt1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905636776</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sara Wheeler1980891117|title=The Magnetic NorthG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: Travels A year in the Arcticlife of George Engleheart|author=John Webley

|genre=TravelArt|summary=The title George Engleheart was one of this book suggests another travel book about adventure in the frozen northleading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, but Sara Wheeler mixes her tales of her own travels with some history of polar exploration and a serious examination of career lasting from the impact of visitors and of those who wish 1770s to exploit the Arctic’s natural resources on the region and its peopleRegency era. Rather than setting off on another expedition to reach the North Pole, she travels around bits He was also one of the Arctic divided between different countries and governmentsmost prolific, including Chukotka (Russia)painting nearly 5, Alaska 000 miniatures altogether (USAover twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, Canada, Greenland, Svalbard (Norway) and Lapland (Russia and Scandinavia). There subsequently transcribed them into what is a huge amount of material in the referred to as his fee book but Wheeler organises and presents it in a very readable, accessible style.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099516888</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ronald Skirth and Duncan Barrett1789016304|title=The Reluctant Tommy: An Extraordinary Memoir of the First World War|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Ronald Skirth was one of many young Englishmen of nineteen caught up in the First World War. He joined the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1916, was promoted to Corporal, and sent to the western front. Like most of his contemporaries, when he went he was an unquestioning servant of King and country, fighting for what he believed was right. On the battlefields of Flanders, one day he came across the body of Hans, a German soldier the same age, if not younger. The dead manLove: A family's hand was clutching a photograph testament of his girlfriendanguish, who could almost have been the twin sister of Ella, Skirth's own sweetheart. Like two of his friends who had just been killed, Hans had died as a result of the stupidity of others.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023074673X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewendurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Juliet Nicolson|title=The Great Silence: 1918-1920 Living in the Shadow of the Great War Melanie Martin|rating=45

|summary=As the author says Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in her introductionoccupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, the particularly in 'great silence' The Diary of the title was Ann Frank'' but then realised that which followed her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the 'incessant thunder' of city during the Great War. There are three crucial dates in her narrativewar years, all specific days but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in three successive Novembersa country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. The first was when Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the guns fell silent in 1918city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, the second was that of the first two-minute silence Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in memory of the fallen one year laterway that it did, and the third was when but initial protests melted away as the Unknown Soldier was lowered into silence beneath the floor in Westminster Abbey, another year onorganisers became more circumspect. These act as It's an atrocity on a framework around which she tells the story vast scale but made up of the silence tens of grief which affected everyone in various ways during the first two years thousands of peaceindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719562562</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Griffiths1908745819|title=The Lotus QuestSurfacing|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Mark Griffiths is one of 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>}} {{newreview|author=Archie Brown|title=The Rise and Fall of CommunismKathleen Jamie|rating=4.5

|summary=Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''A source of hope for a radiant future or…the greatest threat 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 face 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 earthauthor considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself. Whichever of these descriptions you would apply to Communism you will find Archie Brown'' Older. Less tethered. That's detailed and largely objective study enlightening and engrossing. On one level, this is not a chronological bad description of how a political force grew where I am. Add to dominate a third that my love of the natural world's population then virtually disappeared within a period , of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of less than a centuryall, 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>1845950674</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Welshman0857058320|title=Churchill's Children: The Evacuee Experience in Wartime Britain Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=As ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a little girl I was fascinated by stories from journey to uncover the second world war. My Nan would tell me tales of her work doing welding, my mumauthor's lost ancestor's uncle had exciting adventure stories from his years in the RAF, life and death. Cercas is searching for the book Carriemeaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War was one I returned to again and again. So I was intrigued by this title which looks at the stories of thirteen children and adults through World War TwoManuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, from the first wave of evacuations through to is the end of figure who looms large over the warbook.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0199574413</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Catrine Clay|title=TrautmannHe died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's Journey: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup Legend|rating=4forces.5|genre=Biography|summary='You have to learn to be hard men, to accept sacrifice without ever succumbing'Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. Such did Hitler say The question at the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies in the 1930s. He probably did not have in mind playing in goal at a FA Cup final with a broken neck, such centre of this book is the lifetime of difference between the two references. But that lifetime, as packed and varied as whether it was, is in possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the pages of this ever-interesting and swiftly-devoured bookwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082884</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Skidmore0008294011|title=Death and the VirginHow to Lose a Country: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart |rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=When Elizabeth I ascended the throne in November 1558, everyone's dominant concern was the matter of her taking an appropriate husband and securing the succession. The man most likely 7 Steps from Democracy 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 speculation, especially since she was believed to be dying of breast cancer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297846507</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDictatorship|author=R A Scotti|title=The Lost Mona LisaEce Temelkuran

|summary=One of 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 few things I remember from those writersfactors which led to...'' courses and advice books – and I can hear from here you wished I remembered more of them – agreed that she was the merit in being aware of anniversaries, especially in your area of expertise, right and having the ability wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to sell articles concerning historical events linked into centenaries, modern comparisons, and so on. Well, here is the book equivalent, I think now that I do know. We are in danger of losing democracy and although whilst it's early – ita flawed system I can's looking back on t think of a better one, particularly as the summer of 1911 – this stands 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as quality enough to deny any latecomers shelf roomhen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0553818309</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Greg Grandin1788037812|title=FordlandiaThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle CityFight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=4.5

|summary=In 1927Originally passed in 1885, the Ford Motor company bought law that had made homosexual relations a huge tract of land crime remained in Brazilplace for 82 years. But during this time, for restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the purpose nature of the company growing its own rubber for use in making its carshomosexuality appeared. They planted rubber trees and built a factory were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and housesJohn Addington Symonds, and a number of top managers from as well as the company were posted to Fordlandia to run heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the operation. Huge amounts margins of money were pumped into Fordlandia, society and Ford made great claims for their plans. Howeverstudying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the project was a spectacular failureUK, and it lasted less than twenty years.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848311478</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dominique Lapierre|title=A Rainbow in so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the Night |rating=4.5|genre=Politics scientific understanding of homosexuality, and Society|summary=A book integrating otherwise piecemeal news stories picked up over beginning the past forty years into a coherent explanation is always welcome. This book explores South Africa's history struggle for recognition and developmentequality, from the earliest Dutch arrivals in 1652 leading to the first racially integrated elections milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 19941967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818477</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Doug Stewart1910593508|title=The Boy Who Would Be ShakespeareApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins

|summary=In This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the late 18th century, keen to impress passion for the Shakespeare-obsessed father who paid him little attentionsubject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, 19 year old William Henry Ireland forged Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a couple story we know well and because of Elizabethan documents this, the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to show himthe book. With the older man completely taken in, his child then pretended heIf you'd found ve ever read a trunk full comic book adaptation of lost artefacts belonging to the Bard – love letters to Anne Hathaway, a declaration of his Protestant faith, film you will be familiar with the manuscript of King Lear, slight feeling that there are scenes missing and even entirely new playsthat dialogue has been trimmed. Ireland fooled not only his father, but also many of the prominent Londoners of the time, including Robert Southey, James Boswell, This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and the future William IVstill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818310</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jim Krane1786331047|title=DubaiThe Race to Save the Romanovs: The Story of Truth Behind the WorldSecret Plans to Rescue Russia's Fastest CityImperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport|rating=4.5

|summary=In The basic facts about the 1950'sdeaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, Dubai contained just a few thousand inhabitants scraping a living. By 1985, it had grown, but Sheikh Mohammed was still laughed some of which were deliberately obscured at when he said that he wanted to make it a popular destination the time for touristsvarious reasons, have long since been established. With For the addition last few months of artificial islands, their lives in Russia the world's tallest buildingformer Tsar and Tsarina, an indoor ski slopetheir children and few remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, and much morehumiliating captivity. To prevent them from being rescued, it's now one of in July 1918 the world's foremost cities - but as headlines showed last yearrevolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the stellar growth may have been extremely costlynews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in terms of finances, environmental problems, and the quality of life for some of its inhabitantsEurope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848870094</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Frances Stonor Saunders|title=The Woman Who Shot Mussolini|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|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.|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 Move 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 [[Newest Home 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>}}Family Reviews]]