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[[Category:History|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|History]]__NOTOC__ <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{Frontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=HistoryClive Wilkinson|rating=5|genre=Travel__NOTOC__|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=Martin DavidsonB09BLBP3P8|title=The Perfect Nazi: Uncovering My SS GrandfatherNeville Chamberlain's Secret Past and War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler Seduced a Generation, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Meet Martin DavidsonReceived wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. Now, when I start my reviews like that, normally it means he's One such is the main character, but he's not here. He's big in scrubbing from the world popular imagination of BBC History documentaries, and grew up in the UKearly days of World War II from 1939-40, half Scottish and half German, knowing that many of his older relatives lived through known as the Second World ''Phoney War''. Foremost among them was his German grandfatherWe remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, Bruno Langbehnwar breaking out, who would have been of fighting age - and Churchill coming in his 30s - during to save the Third Reichday. Nothing much was ever said about Bruno's own history during the warVery little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, except for many inflammatoryas Frederic Seager argues in this book, rising comments by Bruno himself. It took the old man to die for the truth to be admitted by Martin's mother - their forefather it was of vital significance in how the SSwar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916161</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Darnton3756228711|title=CDC: The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Futurehappy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Reading a book''The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.'' Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us about the short, whether for study or relaxationbut explosive, in history of the sitting room, in bedControl Data Company, on public transportCDC, or almost anywhere else, has been one of everybodyfor whom he worked. It's favourite activities for many a long yearfascinating tale, told in a mixture of technological summary and not just by visitors and contributors to this sitewry anecdote. (Therein lies a paradox, I hear you say). As Darnton points out in his introduction, the good old-fashioned book was not destroyed by newspapers (or magazines, for that matter), any more than television destroyed radio, or the internet made people abandon TV.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>158648902X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John KeeganJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=The American Civil WarFritz and Kurt
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=While before reading this book I considered myself to be vaguely familiar We start with the major facts about the American Civil War pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the fight to liberate empty market place, helping the slavesneighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the well-known battles, synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the towering figures such Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S Granta light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and Robert E Lee – I was keen instead of having a national vote to learn more about keep the war and get an Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as inGermany, as did all the round-depth view ups of it from a renowned historianJews. After finishing These in their turn leave the book, I certainly consider myself younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to be far better informed on Britain or the militaryUS, while Fritz and tacticalhis father are, side of thingsunknown initially to each other, but found it a little lacking in certain other areas such as packed off on the causes same train to Buchenwald and effectsthe stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0712616101</amazonuk>024156574X
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|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=The reappearance of 'Archaeology cannot be child'A Senselesss play, Squalid War'when you' re scraping in paperback will afford wider access 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 the balanced and detailed scholarship of Prof Norman Stonefind some specific thing. This book is a sad story case of the Palestinian Mandate retold through latter, as our author promises to locate the viewpoints topic of politicians and proponents; Arabthe titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, Jewishthe target might not exist any more – oh, British, Frenchand it's underwater, German and Americanwhen he cannot dive. It energetically conveys an understanding of Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the character of figures as disparate as David Ben Gurionheroic old man's visit back to France, Richard Crossmanour author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, Haj Amin and David Lloyd Georgethat he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. OrganisationsThe secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, conferences and sticking points are deftly expounded. It does not lose sight the overarching motives and machinations vast majority of International Politicswhom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845950798</amazonuk>1472146182
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul AddisonB09F4CTKJR|title=No Turning Back: The Peacetime Revolutions of Post-War BritainFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=In It's the opening chapter Addison, a child later stages of World War I and the 1940s, starts by comparing United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the leaders of 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the peacetime administrations that did most first US Aero Squadron to change be trained in Canada, the face of Britain after 1945. The first, Clement Attlee, was a modest, unassuming, even uncharismatic personality, yet he still led a genuinely radical to be attached to the RAF and reforming government. As the second, his admirer Margaret Thatcher, would point out first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in her memoirs, not only did he achieve a great dealactive combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but he did so because of, or perhaps despite, being all substance and no showmajestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192192671</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Green0578761718|title=Murder in the High HimalayaThe Inspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=''The Hound church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the Baskervilles'' is one City of London from at least 1181, when it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, the original church was destroyed in the most famous mystery novels Great Fire of all, and also one of the most famous English novels set London in Devon1666. This alone would probably give more or less enough material for an entire book on connections between It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the story fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the location which inspired itBlitz. Yet But that wasn't the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the authors have found several more links between stones from the countychurch's walls were transported to Fulton, and Conan Doyle alongside those associated with himMissouri. The result has revealed much information of which even IThere, who have lived in the county nearly all my lifegrounds of Westminster College, the church was previously unawarerebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312861</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenny Diski1784385166|title=The SixtiesThird Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse|rating=45
|genre=History
|summary=In What is the last few years, there have been many books first image that comes to mind when you think of varying length about the 60s. Most Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a concentration camp? None of them these are comfortable images but they are relatively self-contained histories emblematic of the decadeThird Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, often fairly liberal in adopting their signposts as Roger Moorhouse has attempted to when illustrate the era began and ended. (Blame Philip Larkin's famous poem for period of the confusion, I hear you say)Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680042</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charlotte MooreLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=HancoxTiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=Hancox is I never really followed the large imposing house events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in rural Sussex where Charlotte Moore was brought upthe second half of their teens has other priorities, and where she still livesyou know. Although its origins are not fully documented, according to local records it I certainly existed by didn't know of the mid-15th century, its name probably derived weeks of protests and hunger strikes from that of John Handcocks, one of the early owners. In what is basically part family history students before the massacre and part biography the birth of the house itselfTank Man image, I didn't know how the author traces its story back to lawyer John Dountonarea had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the first owner about whom nothing substantial is known, who made extensive alterations to it in 1569people involved on either side. It then passed through the hands of several families until her ancestors acquired it This book is practically flawless in 1888. In 1900 one of them let it to the Church of England Temperance Society as giving a drying-out house general browser's context for 'inebriates', but the arrangement was terminated in 1907 and the family moved whole season of protests back in1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670915866</amazonuk>1684056993
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances Woodsford0648684806|title=Dear Mr BigelowClara Colby: A Transatlantic FriendshipThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyBiography|summary=Meet Mister Bigelow. HeThe path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's elderly, living alone on Long Island, New York, with some health problems but more than enough life was probably determined when her family and friends emigrated to get him by, and still a very active interest in yachting, regattas and morethe USA. MeetAt the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, too, Frances Woodsfordshe wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. She's reaching middle-ageInstead, living she remained with her brother grandparents, who doted on her and mum saw that she received a good education, both in Bournemouth, and working for out of school. She was the only child in the local baths as organiser of events, office lackey household and moreher childhood was glorious. I suggest you do meet themBy contrast, although neither ever met her family had become pioneer farmers in the other. Despite this they kept up a brisk mid-west of the United States and lively conversation about all aspects of lifewas hard, from as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the late 1940s until his death at the beginning of the 60sfamily. And as Clara would only know her mother for a result comes this bookfew months: she was married for fifteen years, of heavily edited highlightshad ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, which opens up a world of social history heavy burden would fall on Clara and entertaining diary-style commentWisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542293</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Ackroyd1783784350|title=VeniceThis Golden Fleece: Pure CityA Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating=45
|genre=History
|summary=Among Peter AckroydIt was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she's recent works are 'biographies' of London d never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and of the river Thameseven her knitting did not soothe her mind. Now he gives similar treatment January was going to Venice, basically be a history but enlivened time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of the British Isles with his elegant, literary styleoccasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and what changed the landscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a previous reviewer has called his love of free-range child on the farm'psychogeographical investigation'- and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in her blood.x|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099422565</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Benedict Gummer1789017977|title=The Scourging AngelRonnie and Hilda's Romance: The Black Death in the British IslesTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=The mid-fourteenth century Ronnie Williams was an unsettled time for Englandthe son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. It There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was an already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age which saw . For a while the first phases of family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the protracted Hundred Years’ War with France, 1929 Depression and the Scottish war of independence, which came five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to an end be well-turned-out and this would stay with the capture of King David IIhim throughout his life. As if these events were not enough, in 1346 there was He joined the first case of a man army at eighteen in Europe contracting an unknown disease that rapidly swept across the continent, claiming the lives of millions, and one medieval chronicler noted that 'the bodies looked like a macabre lasagne: corpses piled row upon row separated only by layers of dirt'1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548836</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mary Beard1980891117|title=The ParthenonG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryArt|summary=Despite George Engleheart was one of the proliferation leading portrait miniaturists of populist historians in print and on televisionGeorgian London, Professor Mary Beard continues with a career lasting from the 1770s to be a voice apartthe Regency era. Her conversational style He was also one of writing belies the academic research at its heartmost prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). This Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is serious history written referred to as engagingly as a detective storyhis fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683491</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Beaumont1789016304|title=The Secret Life of Warand Love: Journeys Through Modern Conflict A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=As Barratt points out Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in the opening pagesoccupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, there are literally thousands particularly in ''The Diary of titles available about Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the sinking of city during the Titanicwar years, at but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the time Germans might reach the largestcity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, most expensive and most luxurious ship ever built. His aim that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in this volume is to bridge the gap between another forensic examination of how way that it sankdid, and yet another re-run but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of what he calls the familiar stories thousands of heroism and tragedy from literature in the public domain to provide the human story behind the disasterindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848091516</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stefan Klein1908745819|title=Leonardo's Legacy: How Da Vinci Reinvented the WorldSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=As the author says in her introductionSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, the they tell you ''this one has your name on it'great silence' of the title was . Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that which followed we didn't like the book. That'incessant thunder' of the Great Wars a rare experience. There People who are three crucial dates in her narrativesensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, all specific days in three successive NovembersI was told why. The first was when blurb speaks of the guns fell silent in 1918author considering ''an older, the second was 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 first two-minute silence in memory natural world, of those aspects of the fallen one year laterpoetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and the third was when the Unknown Soldier was lowered into silence beneath the floor in Westminster Abbeysubstance most of all, about connection. Of course, another year this book had my name onit. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. These act as a framework around which she tells the story of the silence of grief which affected everyone in various ways during the first two years of peaceI am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719562562</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Griffiths0857058320|title=The Lotus QuestLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=One of ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the few things I remember from those writersauthor's lost ancestor' courses s life and advice books – and I can hear from here you wished I remembered more of them – was death. Cercas is searching for the merit in being aware of anniversaries, especially meaning behind his great uncle's death in your area of expertise, and having the ability to sell articles concerning historical events linked into centenariesSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, modern comparisons, and so on. WellCercas' great uncle, here is the figure who looms large over the book equivalent, and although it. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's early – it's looking back forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the summer centre of 1911 – this stands as quality enough book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to deny any latecomers shelf roombe a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0553818309</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Greg Grandin0008294011|title=FordlandiaHow to Lose a Country: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=In 1927, the Ford Motor company bought A little while ago a huge tract of land friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in Brazil, for years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the purpose of question ''Discuss the company growing its own rubber for use in making its carsfactors which led to... They planted rubber trees '' I agreed that she was right and built wasn't certain whether it was a factory and houses, and a number of top managers from the company were posted good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to Fordlandia to run the operation. Huge amounts I think now that I do know. We are in danger of money were pumped into Fordlandia, losing democracy and Ford made great claims for their plans. Howeverwhilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the project was a spectacular failure, and it lasted less than twenty years'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848311478</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dominique Lapierre1788037812|title=A Rainbow The Fraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights 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 developmentEngland, from the earliest Dutch arrivals in 1652 to the first racially integrated elections in 1994.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818477</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1891-1908|author=Doug Stewart|title=The Boy Who Would Be ShakespeareBrian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=In Originally passed in 1885, the late 18th centurylaw that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, keen to impress the Shakespearerestrictions on same-obsessed father who paid him little attentionsex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, 19 year old William Henry Ireland forged a couple three books on the nature of Elizabethan documents to show himhomosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. With Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the older man completely taken European Continent, but barely talked about inthe UK, his child then pretended he'd found a trunk full so the publications of lost artefacts belonging these men were hugely significant – contributing to the Bard – love letters to Anne Hathaway, a declaration scientific understanding of his Protestant faithhomosexuality, and beginning the manuscript of King Lear, struggle for recognition and even entirely new plays. Ireland fooled not only his fatherequality, but also many of leading to the prominent Londoners milestone legalisation of the time, including Robert Southey, James Boswell, and the future William IVsame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818310</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jim Krane1910593508|title=Dubai: The Story of the World's Fastest CityApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=In This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the passion for the 1950'ssubject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and because of this, Dubai contained just the authors take a few thousand inhabitants scraping a living. By 1985, it had grown, but Sheikh Mohammed was still laughed at when he said narrative shortcuts knowing that he wanted to make it a popular destination for touristswe can fill in the blanks. With These shortcuts are the addition of artificial islands, only downside to the worldbook. If you's tallest building, an indoor ski slope, and much more, it's now one ve ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the world's foremost cities - but as headlines showed last year, the stellar growth may slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been extremely costly, in terms of finances, environmental problems, three times as long and the quality of life for some of its inhabitantsstill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848870094</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances Stonor Saunders1786331047|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 Race to changing Save the course of European history as Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Honourable Violet Gibson, one of eight children of Baron Ashbourne, a Protestant Anglo-Irish peer and MP in DisraeliSecret Plans to Rescue Russia's government during the 1870s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571239773</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewImperial Family|author=Josephine Wilkinson|title=The Early Loves of Anne BoleynHelen Rappaport|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 basic facts about the fall deaths of the monarchy Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the Napoleonic warstime for various reasons, France underwent one cataclysmic change after anotherhave long since been established. There were many who witnessed For the last few months of their lives in Russia the former Tsar and experienced the volatile age at first handTsarina, but their children and few left a more detailed record than remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the subject of this biographyrevolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, Lucie-Henriette Dillononce the news was confirmed beyond all doubt, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pinhorrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>
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