Difference between revisions of "Newest History Reviews"

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[[Category:History|*]]
 
[[Category:History|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|History]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|History]]__NOTOC__ <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
==History==
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1785633457
{{newreview
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|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car
|author=Ian Mortimer
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|author=Clive Wilkinson
|title=Medieval Intrigue: Decoding Royal Conspiracies
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Over the last few years Dr Mortimer has established himself as one of the foremost writers of British historical biography covering the 14th and early 15th centuries.  However his previous books have been quite accessible to the general as well as the scholarly reader.  This present volume is aimed more at the latter audience, assuming as it does a detailed knowledge of King Edward II and his successors.  This is hinted at in his introduction, in which he points out that 'history is the most conservative of all professions, and a radical historian is generally branded a maverick by the mainstream.'
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847065899</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Daniel Swift
 
|title=Bomber County
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Bomber County is, of course, Lincolnshire where squadrons of Beaufighters, Wellingtons, Halifaxes and Lancasters were huddled in hangars for combined raids against enemy targets in German occupied Europe. As the war progressed the targets escalated, from attacks against the German Fleet, the industrial complex of the Ruhr and later, with the aim of breaking enemy morale, the targets included the cities - including Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden and Cologne. Night after night, crews already warmly dressed in jerseys and thick woollen socks zipped themselves into flying suits and made their way towards the enemy coast. Conditions were cramped and the temperatures plummeted as they gained altitude flying by the light of the moon to their appointed destinations.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144175</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Richard Tarnas
 
|title=The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=History
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|genre=Travel
|summary=With plaudits such as 'Ten years in the making' and a 'US Bestseller', this book has serious pedigree.  It is a serious book in content also.  At its very heart is the link between the disciplines of philosophy, religion and science.  Small sentence, huge implications, I'm thinking right at the outset.  Where to begin?  Well, all the chapters are usefully sub-divided into bite-sized pieces.  So, although this book may look daunting to some at first glance, the subject matter can be broken down very easily.  Therefore, it starts with a section headed 'The Greek World View' and as many might expect, covers Socrates, Plato and Homer.
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|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184595162X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jonathan Phillips
 
|title=Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=In this book, drawing on a wealth of contemporary sources including chronicles, songs, sermons, travel diaries and peace treaties, as well as the existing literature from earlier generations, Phillips explores in depth the contradictions and the diversity of holy war, of friendships and alliances between Christians and Muslims, the launches of crusades against Christians, and calls for jihads against Muslims. In doing so he has written what is not so much a general history, but had vividly brought to life a rich tapestry of figures and events, while devoting equal attention in his narrative to the Christian and Islamic point of view.  This traces the crusading impulse from the conquest of Jerusalem in the First Crusade, launched by Pope Urban II in France in 1095, to today, and in the process helps us to understand the origins of some of the sensitivities which have led to many of the conflicts still raging in the world today.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184595078X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B09BLBP3P8
|author=Martin Davidson
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|title=Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940
|title=The Perfect Nazi: Uncovering My SS Grandfather's Secret Past and How Hitler Seduced a Generation
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|author=Frederic Seager
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Meet Martin Davidson. Now, when I start my reviews like that, normally it means he's the main character, but he's not here.  He's big in the world of BBC History documentaries, and grew up in the UK, half Scottish and half German, knowing that many of his older relatives lived through the Second World War. Foremost among them was his German grandfather, Bruno Langbehn, who would have been of fighting age - in his 30s - during the Third Reich. Nothing much was ever said about Bruno's own history during the war, except for many inflammatory, rising comments by Bruno himself.  It took the old man to die for the truth to be admitted by Martin's mother - their forefather was in the SS.
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|summary=Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of the early days of World War II from 1939-40, known as the ''Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in to save the day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book, it was of vital significance in how the war played out.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916161</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=3756228711
|author=Robert Darnton
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|title=CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'
|title=The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future
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|author=Hans Bodmer
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Reading a book, whether for study or relaxation, in the sitting room, in bed, on public transport, or almost anywhere else, has been one of everybody's favourite activities for many a long year, and not just by visitors and contributors to this site. (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.
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|summary=''The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>158648902X</amazonuk>
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 +
Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us about the short, but explosive, history of the Control Data Company, CDC, for whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, told in a mixture of technological summary and wry anecdote.  
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene
|author=John Keegan
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|title=Fritz and Kurt
|title=The American Civil War
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=History
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|genre=Confident Readers
|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 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 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.
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|summary=We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do kicking things around the empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of JewsThese in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and his father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there.  And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712616101</amazonuk>
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|isbn=024156574X
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David Howarth
 
|title=We Die Alone
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=Consider taking a five day sail in a small fishing boat the height of the North Sea from Shetland, to try and establish, train and supply some potentially vital anti-German resistance in the far, far north of occupied Norway, your homelandImagine the sight of heavy naval parades where you intended to land, as galling proof that your intel is ages out of datePonder too the 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, and you're forced to go on the run in one of Europe's last, and coldest, wildernesses.  And you have no idea whatsoever quite how bad this scenario is going to get.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847678459</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=John Henry Phillips
|author=Norman Rose
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|title=The Search
|title=A Senseless Squalid War: Voices From Palestine 1890s - 1948
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=The reappearance of ''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.
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|summary=Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the dirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. This book is a case of the latter, as our author promises to locate the topic of the titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, the target might not exist any more – oh, and it's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the heroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and that he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of whom perished. Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950798</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1472146182
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn= B09F4CTKJR
|author=Paul Addison
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|title= Flights for Freedom
|title=No Turning Back: The Peacetime Revolutions of Post-War Britain
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|author= Steven Burgauer
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
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|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=In the opening chapter Addison, a child of the 1940s, starts by comparing the leaders of the peacetime administrations that did most to change the face of Britain after 1945.  The first, Clement Attlee, was a modest, unassuming, even uncharismatic personality, yet he still led a genuinely radical and reforming government.  As the second, his admirer Margaret Thatcher, would point out in her memoirs, not only did he achieve a great deal, but he did so because of, or perhaps despite, being all substance and no show.
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|summary=It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192192671</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0578761718
|author=Jonathan Green
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|title=The Inspiring History of a Special Relationship
|title=Murder in the High Himalaya
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|author=Nancy Carver
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=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 a near-impenetrable barrier, protecting their country from history'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 they'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 Companion
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' is one of the most famous mystery novels of all, and also one 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 him. The result has revealed much information of which even I, who have lived in the county nearly all my life, was previously unaware.
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|summary=The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at least 1181, when it was first mentioned in records. Sadly,  the original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, in the grounds of Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312861</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1784385166
|author=Jenny Diski
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|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany
|title=The Sixties
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|author=Roger Moorhouse
|rating=4
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|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=In the last few years, there have been many books of varying length about the 60s.  Most of them are relatively self-contained histories of the decade, often fairly liberal in adopting their signposts as to when the era began and ended.  (Blame Philip Larkin's famous poem for the confusion, I hear you say).
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|summary=What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts. 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680042</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)
|author=Charlotte Moore
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|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
|title=Hancox
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
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|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Hancox is the large imposing house in rural Sussex where Charlotte Moore was brought up, and where she still livesAlthough 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 1569It 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.
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|summary=I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, you knowI certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either sideThis book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670915866</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1684056993
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0648684806
|author=Frances Woodsford
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|title=Clara Colby: The International Suffragist
|title=Dear Mr Bigelow: A Transatlantic Friendship
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|author=John Holliday
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
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|genre=Biography
|summary=Meet Mister Bigelow.  He's elderly, living alone on Long Island, New York, with some health problems but more than enough family and friends to get him by, and still a very active interest in yachting, regattas and moreMeet, too, Frances WoodsfordShe's reaching middle-age, living with her brother and mum in Bournemouth, and working for the local baths as organiser of events, office lackey and moreI suggest you do meet them, although neither ever met the other.  Despite this they kept up a brisk and lively conversation about all aspects of life, from the late 1940s until his death at the beginning of the 60sAnd as a result comes this book, of heavily edited highlights, which opens up a world of social history and entertaining diary-style comment.
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|summary=The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USAAt the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothersInstead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school.  She was the only child in the household and her childhood was gloriousBy contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the familyClara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived.  As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542293</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1783784350
|author=Peter Ackroyd
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|title=This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History
|title=Venice: Pure City
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|author=Esther Rutter
|rating=4
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|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Among Peter Ackroyd's recent works are 'biographies' of London and of the river ThamesNow he gives similar treatment to Venice, basically a history but enlivened with his elegant, literary style, and what a previous reviewer has called his love of 'psychogeographical investigation'.x
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|summary=It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets.  The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mindJanuary was going to be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the landscape.  She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the farm'' - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend.  This was in her blood.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099422565</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1789017977
|author=Benedict Gummer
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|title=Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II
|title=The Scourging Angel: The Black Death in the British Isles
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|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4.5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=The mid-fourteenth century was an unsettled time for EnglandIt was an age which saw the first phases of the protracted Hundred Years’ War with France, and the Scottish war of independence, which came to an end with the capture of King David IIAs if these events were not enough, in 1346 there was the first case of a man 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'.
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|summary=Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel WallThere's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age.  For a while the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle.  One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his lifeHe joined the army at eighteen in 1942.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548836</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1980891117
|author=Mary Beard
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|title=G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart
|title=The Parthenon
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|author=John Webley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
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|genre=Art
|summary=Despite the proliferation of populist historians in print and on television, Professor Mary Beard continues to be a voice apart. Her conversational style of writing belies the academic research at its heart. This is serious history written as engagingly as a detective story.
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|summary=George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the 1770s to the Regency era. He was also one of the most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683491</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1789016304
|author=Peter Beaumont
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|title=War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam
|title=The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict
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|author=Melanie Martin
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=Peter Beaumont is the Foreign Affairs editor at The Observer.  He joined the paper in 1989 and has spent much of the intervening time dealing with the kind of 'foreign affairs' that is better described as 'war reporting'. 'The Secret Life of War' is a distillation of his years in the field.  It is a book ill-served by both its title and its cover, except maybe insofar as both might serve to sneak it onto the bookshelves of those who really need to read it, but probably wouldn't choose to do so were it more accurately wrapped.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520982</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Nick Barratt
 
|title=Lost Voices from the Titanic: The Definitive Oral History
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=As Barratt points out in the opening pages, there are literally thousands 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 to bridge the gap between another forensic examination of how it sank, and yet another re-run of what he calls the familiar stories of heroism and tragedy from literature in the public domain to provide the human story behind the disaster.
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|summary=Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation.  Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect.  It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848091516</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1908745819
|author=Stefan Klein
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|title=Surfacing
|title=Leonardo's Legacy: How Da Vinci Reinvented the World
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|author=Kathleen Jamie
 
|rating=5
 
|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 Lisa, which you might think is a little unfair – can she cope with being analysed, and the neuroscience we now know used in interpreting her?  Of course she can – she’s the world’s best-known masterpiece 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 of La Gioconda are still unknowable.
 
|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>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|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 one, but concern 'norms of religion and morals, etiquette 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 (USA), 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 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 man's hand was clutching a photograph of his girlfriend, 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>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Juliet Nicolson
 
|title=The Great Silence: 1918-1920 Living in the Shadow of the Great War
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=As the author says in her introduction, the 'great silence' of the title was that which followed the 'incessant thunder' of the Great War.  There are three crucial dates in her narrative, all specific days in three successive Novembers.  The first was when the guns fell silent in 1918, the second was that of the first two-minute silence in memory of the fallen one year later, and the third was when the Unknown Soldier was lowered into silence beneath the floor in Westminster Abbey, another year on.  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 peace.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719562562</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Mark Griffiths
 
|title=The Lotus Quest
 
|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 Communism
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary='A source of hope for a radiant future or…the greatest threat on the face of the earth'.
+
|summary=Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why.  The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself.''  Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am.  Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it.  It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually.  I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.
 
 
Whichever of these descriptions you would apply to Communism you will find Archie Brown's detailed and largely objective study enlightening and engrossing. On one level, this is a chronological description of how a political force grew to dominate a third of the world's population then virtually disappeared within a period of less than a century.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950674</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0857058320
|author=John Welshman
+
|title=Lord Of All the Dead
|title=Churchill's Children: The Evacuee Experience in Wartime Britain
+
|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=
+
|summary=''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.  
As a little girl I was fascinated by stories from the second world war.  My Nan would tell me tales of her work doing welding, my mum's uncle had exciting adventure stories from his years in the RAF, and the book Carrie's 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 Two, from the first wave of evacuations through to the end of the war.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0199574413</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Catrine Clay
 
|title=Trautmann's Journey: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup Legend
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary='You have to learn to be hard men, to accept sacrifice without ever succumbing'.  Such did Hitler say 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 is the lifetime of difference between the two references.  But that lifetime, as packed and varied as it was, is in the pages of this ever-interesting and swiftly-devoured book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082884</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Chris Skidmore
 
|title=Death and the Virgin: 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 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>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{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 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 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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0008294011
|author=Greg Grandin
+
|title=How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship
|title=Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City
+
|author=Ece Temelkuran
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=In 1927, the Ford Motor company bought a huge tract of land in Brazil, for the purpose of the company growing its own rubber for use in making its cars. They planted rubber trees and built a factory and houses, and a number of top managers from the company were posted to Fordlandia to run the operation. Huge amounts of money were pumped into Fordlandia, and Ford made great claims for their plans. However, the project was a spectacular failure, and it lasted less than twenty years.
+
|summary=A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question ''Discuss the factors which led to...''  I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to. I think now that I do know.  We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848311478</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Dominique Lapierre
 
|title=A Rainbow in the Night
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=A book integrating otherwise piecemeal news stories picked up over the past forty years into a coherent explanation is always welcome.  This book explores South Africa's history and development, from the earliest Dutch arrivals in 1652 to the first racially integrated elections in 1994.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818477</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1788037812
|author=Doug Stewart
+
|title=The Fraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908
|title=The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare
+
|author=Brian Anderson
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=In the late 18th century, keen to impress the Shakespeare-obsessed father who paid him little attention, 19 year old William Henry Ireland forged a couple of Elizabethan documents to show him. With the older man completely taken in, his child then pretended he'd found a trunk full of lost artefacts belonging to the Bard – love letters to Anne Hathaway, a declaration of his Protestant faith, the manuscript of King Lear, and even entirely new plays. Ireland fooled not only his father, but also many of the prominent Londoners of the time, including Robert Southey, James Boswell, and the future William IV.
+
|summary=Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818310</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1910593508
|author=Jim Krane
+
|title=Apollo
|title=Dubai: The Story of the World's Fastest City
+
|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=In the 1950's, Dubai contained just a few thousand inhabitants scraping a living. By 1985, it had grown, but Sheikh Mohammed was still laughed at when he said that he wanted to make it a popular destination for tourists. With the addition of artificial islands, the world's tallest building, an indoor ski slope, and much more, it's now one of the world's foremost cities - but as headlines showed last year, the stellar growth may have been extremely costly, in terms of finances, environmental problems, and the quality of life for some of its inhabitants.
+
|summary=This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and because of this, the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to the book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848870094</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1786331047
|author=Frances Stonor Saunders
+
|title=The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family
|title=The Woman Who Shot Mussolini
+
|author=Helen Rappaport
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=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
 
|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.
+
|summary=The basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, have long since been established. For the last few months of their lives in Russia the former Tsar and Tsarina, their children and few remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the news was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Home and Family Reviews]]
|author=John Van der Kiste
 
|title=William and Mary: Heroes of the Glorious Revolution
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=At school I remember spending a lot of time on the Tudors and the early Stuarts – obviously great favourites of the history teacher and then galloping unceremoniously through the intervening years until we reached another ''meaningful'' period – the Victorian era.  The importance of William and Mary was completely overlooked in favour of a quick mention of the fact that William wasn't in direct line of succession to the throne and Mary had never wanted to marry him in the first place.  Their successor, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 12:03, 20 March 2023

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Review of

Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car by Clive Wilkinson

5star.jpg Travel

Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it? Full Review

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Review of

Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940 by Frederic Seager

4.5star.jpg History

Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of the early days of World War II from 1939-40, known as the Phoney War. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in to save the day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book, it was of vital significance in how the war played out. Full Review

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Review of

CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena' by Hans Bodmer

4star.jpg History

The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.

Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us about the short, but explosive, history of the Control Data Company, CDC, for whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, told in a mixture of technological summary and wry anecdote. Full Review

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Review of

Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene

4star.jpg Confident Readers

We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. Kristallnacht happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and his father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about… Full Review

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Review of

The Search by John Henry Phillips

5star.jpg History

Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the dirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. This book is a case of the latter, as our author promises to locate the topic of the titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, the target might not exist any more – oh, and it's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the heroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and that he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of whom perished. Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties? Full Review

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Review of

Flights for Freedom by Steven Burgauer

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel. Full Review

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Review of

The Inspiring History of a Special Relationship by Nancy Carver

4.5star.jpg History

The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at least 1181, when it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, the original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, in the grounds of Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill. Full Review

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Review of

The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany by Roger Moorhouse

5star.jpg History

What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.  Full Review

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Review of

Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes by Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989. Full Review

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Review of

Clara Colby: The International Suffragist by John Holliday

4star.jpg Biography

The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening. Full Review

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Review of

This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History by Esther Rutter

5star.jpg History

It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. January was going to be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the landscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - a free-range child on the farm - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in her blood. Full Review

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Review of

Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II by Wendy Williams

4star.jpg History

Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942. Full Review

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Review of

G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart by John Webley

4.5star.jpg Art

George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the 1770s to the Regency era. He was also one of the most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book. Full Review

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Review of

War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam by Melanie Martin

5star.jpg History

Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in The Diary of Ann Frank but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies. Full Review

1908745819.jpg

Review of

Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie

5star.jpg History

Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you this one has your name on it. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering an older, less tethered sense of herself. Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly. Full Review

0857058320.jpg

Review of

Lord Of All the Dead by Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

4star.jpg History

Lord Of All the Dead is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side. Full Review

0008294011.jpg

Review of

How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship by Ece Temelkuran

4.5star.jpg History

A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question Discuss the factors which led to... I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to. I think now that I do know. We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth. Full Review

1788037812.jpg

Review of

The Fraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908 by Brian Anderson

5star.jpg History

Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967. Full Review

1910593508.jpg

Review of

Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins

5star.jpg History

This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and because of this, the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to the book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short. Full Review

1786331047.jpg

Review of

The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family by Helen Rappaport

5star.jpg History

The basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, have long since been established. For the last few months of their lives in Russia the former Tsar and Tsarina, their children and few remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the news was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe. Full Review

Move on to Newest Home and Family Reviews