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[[Category:New Reviews|History]]==History==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreview|author=Richard Holmes|title=Churchill's Bunker: The Secret Headquarters at the Heart of Britain's Victory|rating=4|genre=HistoryFrontpage|summaryisbn=Nowadays, when there is a security threat it seems to be mandatory to whisk the leader and other important personages off to a secret location deep inside a mountain or in a distant forest, but Churchill fought his war – our war – from a series of basement rooms right in the heart of London and within sight of Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament. The Cabinet War Rooms didn't have their own air supply, were infested with vermin and lacked proper toilet facilities, but they were Churchill's choice. He spent a few nights down in the CWR but usually lived in the No 10 Annex upstairs – throughout the worst of the bombing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682312</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1785633457|title=RussiaCharging Around: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East|author=Martin Sixsmith|rating=5|genre=History|summary=As a former BBC correspondent in Moscow at the time that Exploring the Cold War was ending, Sixsmith is in a unique position to write a history Edges of Russia, based partly on research and partly on his own experiences, after having witnessed at first hand some of the upheavals in recent years which play such an important part in the story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849900728</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewEngland by Electric Car|author=Ben Shephard|title=The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of the Second World WarClive Wilkinson

|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=In the immediate aftermath Clive Wilkinson has a history of the Second World War Europe was in tatters, and millions of its citizens were stranded far from home. How to cope travelling by unconventional means with these Displaced Persons was one of the biggest issues of the immediate post-war period. In 'The Long Road Home' Ben Shephard tells their story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712600590</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Karen Blixen|title=Out Of Africa|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=It's more than a quarter of a century since I first saw the film ''Out of Africa'' and it's one of the few that have stayed with me over the intervening yearspreference for slow travel. It wasn't just the story, but the personality of Karen Blixen and As he neared his eightieth birthday the wonderful landscape idea of exploring the Ngong Hills, south edges of Nairobi, England in Kenya's Rift Valleyan electric car was not totally outrageous. I remember looking for this book at the timeIn fact, but being unable to find it, so the opportunity to read it now was too good to miss.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951437</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Addison and Jeremy A Crang|title=Listening to Britain: Home Intelligence Reports on Britain's Finest Hour, May-September 1940|rating=4|genre=History|summary=The Home Intelligence Department had been set up by the government to assess home morale by studying immediate reactions to specific events and to find out public opinion on important issues, including pacifism. One reason for this was 'to provide should be a basis pleasant holiday for publicity', that is, to plan propaganda Clive and test its effectiveness. The reports drew on various sourceshis wife, including Mass ObservationJoan, a market research style Wartime Social Survey, staff listening to conversations on the way to work, and visiting pubs and other places where lots of people went and talked to each other.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548747</amazonuk>shouldn't it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Betty LussierB09BLBP3P8|title=Intrepid Woman: Betty LussierNeville Chamberlain's Secret War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 19421939-1945|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Betty Lussier was born in Alberta, Canada. At the height of the depression her father bought a Maryland farm at a bank foreclosure sale, they crossed the border to the States and settled down to the hard life of raising dairy cattle and the crops needed to feed them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1591144493</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1940|author=Martin Pugh|title=Speak for Britain!: A New History of the Labour PartyFrederic Seager

|summary=Since the Labour Representation Committee came into existence in February 1900, the party in Britain which it spawned has had a chequered Received wisdom and simplified narrative often contrary existence. Ironically, as Pugh demonstrates, while it may have been formed lead to represent the workers, it never became a fully working class partymisconceptions about history. James Keir Hardie may have been a genuine socialist, but some of One such is the senior figures who followed were recruited from middle and upper-class Conservative backgrounds.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520788</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Benjamin Mandelkern|title=Escape scrubbing from the Nazis: The Incredible and Inspiring Saga popular imagination of Two Young Jews on the Run in early days of World War II Poland|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Do we all have it in us? Would you as a Pole in 1940s Polandfrom 1939-40, who like known as not had been the 'educated' in the horrendous evil of Jews by your church - would you ignore Nazi death threats and countless opportunities for the wrong thing to be saidPhoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, for the truth to be let war breaking out, for betrayal - would you help a Jewish life survive?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1550280554</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bernard Porter|title=The Battle of the Styles: Society, Culture and the Design of a new Foreign Office, 1855 - 61|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=Back Churchill coming in to save the 1850s it was mooted that Whitehall required some new public buildings, primarily in the form of a new Foreign Officeday. Such matters are never quite so simple as deciding Very little time is spent on the need this period in cultural reflections and arranging the construction and completion: there was to be debateyet, occasionally about the need for a new building but primarily about the form it should take and the style as Frederic Seager argues in which this book, it should be built. This proved to be acrimonious and devious and came to be known as 'The Battle was of vital significance in how the Styles'war played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441167390</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Lucas3756228711|title=Axis SallyCDC: The American Voice of Nazi Germanyhappy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer

|summary=Take one personable failed actress, embittered by lack ''The history of success at home in the USA, and conspire to land her living in Germany as WW2 breaks outdevelopment of IT could fill books of several hundred pages. What chance her becoming an American, female Lord Haw-Haw, being paid by Germany to broadcast entertaining, dissuasive propaganda worldwide on shortwave radio? Anybody could guess it would take innumerable factors, circumstances and events, and they're all here in this entertaining, eye-opening and educational biography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1935149431</amazonuk>}}'

{{newreview|author=Nick Bunker|title=Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Using hundreds of previously overlooked documentsAuthor Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us about the short, but explosive, British historian Nick Bunker tells the story history of the Pilgrim FathersControl Data Company, starting from the religious climate in England which led to them leaving the countryCDC, and continuing through to show how they settled in Americafor whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, trading beaver skins to let them settle told in New Englanda mixture of technological summary and wry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951182</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alison Weir, Kate Williams, Sarah Gristwood Jeremy Dronfield and Tracy BormanDavid Ziggy Greene|title=The Ring Fritz and the Crown: A History of Royal Weddings 1066-2011Kurt

|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=The Ring and We start with the Crown is a look at almost a thousand years pair of royal weddingsbrothers Fritz and Kurt, at how they've changed and howtheir muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in many ways1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, theyhelping 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've remained each Friday night – the sameSabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. Generally But this is the time just before the weddings are of kings, queens or heirs Austrian leader is going to cave to the throne but sometimes thereHitler's will, and instead of having a glimpse of how national vote to keep the minor royals have managed their nuptialsNazis out, invite them in with open arms. The book is lavishly illustrated and is probably ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as undid all the round-put-downable as anything which is basically a history bookups 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…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091943779</amazonuk>024156574X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shrabani BasuJohn Henry Phillips|title=Victoria and Abdul: The True Story of the Queen's Closest ConfidantSearch|rating=4.5

|summary=Abdul Karim was a 24-year-old assistant clerk at Agra Jail Archaeology cannot be child's play, when he was granted you're scraping in the opportunity of a lifetime – dirt looking to leave Indiafind what you can find, travel often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to England and find employment some specific thing. This book is a case of the latter, as personal attendant our author promises to locate the great Empress herself, Queen Victoriatopic of the titular search. Within And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a year of her employing him wide one, the target might not exist any more – oh, and his introducing her it's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the delights of curryheroic old man's visit back to France, she promoted our author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him. He would no longer be a mere servantto Normandy, and henceforth that he was now her teacher and clerk, or Munshilucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, with responsibility for instructing her in Indian affairs and the Urdu languagevast majority of whom perished. To the dismay and ill-concealed anger of nearly all her family and household, he suddenly became one of the most conspicuous figures Who else would make such promises to someone in the royal entourage.their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0752458531</amazonuk>1472146182

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Hopkins and Mary BeardB09F4CTKJR|title=The ColosseumFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=The Colosseum 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 most famous and instantly recognisable monument first US Aero Squadron to have survived from be trained in Canada, the classical world. Most readily associated with first to be attached to the gladiatorial games RAF and contests between the Christians and first to be sent into the skies to fight the lions so beloved by imperial RomeGermans in active combat. But before that can happen, it originally held over 50,000 spectators, a number now completely dwarfed by Petrol has to master flying the four million or more visitors who come each yearnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684706</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Jenkyns0578761718|title=Westminster Abbey: A Thousand Years The Inspiring History of National Pageantrya Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver

|summary=Few if any buildings The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in Britain personify historythe City of London from at least 1181, and are steeped when it was first mentioned in so muchrecords. Sadly, as Westminster Abbey. As the author says original church was destroyed in his introduction, it is the most complex church Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the world in terms of not only history but also functions fire and memoriesthen survived for centuries until World War II, perhaps when it was again ruined by bombs during the most complex building of any kindBlitz. In this compact paperback history, an updated edition But that wasn't the end of its story: after a hardback first published in 2004phenomenal fundraising effort, he tells the story very readably stones from its foundation by Edward the Confessor church's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, in the 11th century to grounds of Westminster College, the preparations for the wedding of Kate Middleton church was rebuilt and Prince William in 2011today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685346</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Titchmarsh1784385166|title=When I Was The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Nipper|rating=4|genre=Material History|summary=There's something about Alan Titchmarsh that you can't help liking. He's got a wry sense of humour, seems unfailingly positive and, best of all, was born in my home town of Ilkley. You really can't get much better than that, now can you? 'When I Was A Nipper' is a look not just at his life in the fifties (although there ''is'' a lot about him) but about the way that things were then. There's an unspoken question about what we can learn from how we lived then and how we can apply this to our lives today. It's pure nostalgia only lightly seasoned with the reality of outside privies and harsh working conditions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184990152X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNazi Germany|author=Rodric Braithwaite|title=Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-89Roger Moorhouse|rating=45

|summary=In 1979, What is the Soviet Union decided first image that comes to move into Afghanistan, and special forces killed mind when you think of the Afghan president. What was initially planned as Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a fairly modest expedition which would see them stabilise the government, train up the army and police, and then withdraw within a year, turned into a war lasting nearly a decade which left both the Russian army and the Afghan civilians counting the cost concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the intervention and with their lives changed foreverThird Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. What went wrong, But some objects and why has Afghanistan proved such a difficult place for foreign powers – ranging images from the British in the 19th century, that time may be less familiar to the Russians in you. In this bookshort volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the current armies engaged in period of the country – to get any sort Third Reich through one hundred of foothold?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680549</amazonuk>its material artefacts. 

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephanie WilliamsLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=Running the ShowTiananmen 1989: Governors of the British Empire 1857-1912Our Shattered Hopes

|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=For some, I never really followed the glory days events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the British Empire were second half of their teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn't know of the closing years weeks of the Victorian era protests and hunger strikes from the 19th century. Government ministers in London, and doubtless Queen Victoria herself, would glance at a map of students before the world massacre and bask in reflected glory at the generous expanses birth of land coloured redthe Tank Man image, I didn't know how the empire where area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the sun never setspeople involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser', to use s context for the old clichéwhole season of protests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670918040</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Duff Hart-Davis0648684806|title=Clara Colby: The War That Never WasInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=In the 1960The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's, an Egyptian general with delusions of grandeur is trying life was probably determined when her family emigrated to conquer the Arab worldUSA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, starting she wasn't allowed to sail with Yemenher parents and three brothers. The new Imam Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, having previously disobeyed both in and out of school. She was the general's orders to assassinate his own father, has fled to only child in the hillshousehold and her childhood was glorious. The British are wary of getting officially involved so turn to more subtle channels. Jim Johnson By contrast, an underwriter at Lloyd's who claims to have been arrested for attempted murder at her family had become pioneer farmers in the tender age mid-west of 8 when he attacked an Italian maid abusing a catthe United States and life was hard, is the man asked as Clara was to run a secret operation. His response? 'I've nothing particular find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to do in join the next few daysfamily. I might have Clara would only know her mother for a go.' Putting together a team of mercenariesfew months: she was married for fifteen years, he sends them to Yemen to fight what will becomehad ten pregnancies, as the subtitle of seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the book stateseldest girl, Britain's most secret battlea heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846058252</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Tinniswood1783784350|title=Pirates Of BarbaryThis Golden Fleece: Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in the 17th-Century MediterraneanA Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter

|summary=In the early 17th century the North African coast It was December and Esther Rutter was a particularly dangerous place stuck in her office job, writing to sail near due 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 prevalence length and breadth of pirates there ready to plunder the cargo British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of shipswool's history and how it had made and changed the landscape. In this truly captivating account author Adrian Tinnisworth looks at these corsairs – focusing She'd grown up on Englishmen such as John Warda sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the farm'' - and learned to spin, who became so renowned that plays about him knit and weave from her mother and Dutchman Simon Danseker managed to outsellKing Lear!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523868</amazonuk>her mother's friend. This was in her blood.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charles Emmerson1789017977|title=The Future History of the ArcticRonnie and Hilda's Romance: How climate, resources and geopolitics are reshaping the north, and why it matters to the worldTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|summary=Charles Emmerson examines the past history of Arctic exploration, economic exploitation and development and Ronnie Williams was the policies son of governments of countries which include Arctic territory Thomas Henry Williams (and othersknown as Harry), with the aim of understanding the present and predicting the future betterEthel Wall. He explains the apparently contradictory title in There's some detail doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in the Introduction. While history is about the past1863, 'ideas about the future but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have changed over time'shaved a few years off his age. Also, For a while the future of family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the Arctic will be shaped by its history.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523531</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alex Butterworth|title=The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists 1929 Depression and Secret Agents|rating=4five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle.5|genre=History|summary=In deciding One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to write about political upheaval across Europe, including Russia, Alex Butterworth has chosen a massive topic for be well-turned-out and this entertaining bookwould stay with him throughout his life. So massive, in fact, that when I tried reading it without first looking through He joined the pen pictures army at the start of the main players I was quickly completely lost. My mistake – the short, sharp, pen pictures, which cover sixteen pages and detail all the major anarchists and secret agents are completely invaluable and helped my reading of the book enormouslyeighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551926</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Giles Milton1980891117|title=WolframG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: The Boy Who Went To WarA year in the life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley

|genre=BiographyArt|summary=Giles Milton's daughter George Engleheart was set one of the task leading portrait miniaturists of designing an heraldic shield which represented Georgian London, with a career lasting from the most important elements of her family's history1770s to the Regency era. Aware that He was also one of her grandparents is German she included the only German symbol which she knew: a Swastika. It was this incidentmost prolific, painting nearly 5, which was an awkward mixture 000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of funny and disquieting which brought about 'Wolfram: The Boy Who Went To War'King George III). It's Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the story names of Giles' father-in-law, Wolfram Aïchele, who was nine years old when Hitler came to power and who found himself caught up in a situation which was none each of his making clients, and didn't accord with subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his own beliefsfee book. He was a man who wanted to be a sculptor or to paint, but he was forced to become a soldier.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340837888</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dudley Green1789016304|title=Patrick BronteWar and Love: Father of Genius|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=There have been many biographies about Charlotte Brontë and her siblings, but very little about their father. It is tempting to speculate whether he would be quite so deserving A family's testament of one if he had not been the father of such a famous family. Yet Dudley Green, a retired Classics teacher, has demonstrated here that he did lead an interesting life himself. Born in rural Ireland in 1777anguish, he spent his early years there before arriving in England in 1802 endurance and settled devotion in Yorkshire seven years later, where he remained the rest of his days.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454455</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewoccupied Amsterdam|author=Edward B Barbier|title=Scarcity and Frontiers: How Economies Have Developed Through Natural Resource ExploitationMelanie Martin

|summary=Scarcity Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and Frontiers is an ambitiouswas entranced by what she discovered, fascinating book particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that examines how the worldher own family's economies have developed by exploiting natural resourcesstories were equally fascinating. Throughout historyA hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, states have responded but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to natural resource scarcity by developing new frontiers, hence happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the title. The book begins with occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the development of agriculture along Germans might reach the banks of city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Nile and runs right through Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the present dayway that it did, finally questioning whether we are entering but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a new era vast scale but made up of natural resource scarcity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521701651</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Ashdown-Hill|title=The Last Days of Richard III|rating=4|genre=History|summary=The controversy surrounding King Richard III has meant that there have been far more biographies about him than on any other pre-Tudor monarch, some extremely partisan in exonerating him tens of the crimes laid at his door, some (a minority, it seems) more than keen to endorse the Shakespearean portrait thousands of a fiend in human shape, and others steering a middle courseindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454048</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Rappaport1908745819|title=Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the RomanovsSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie

|summary=The city of Ekaterinburg was once regarded as imperial RussiaSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''s gateway to the east. In 1918 it became symbolic with one of the most savage executionsMostly we take them at their word, or might one say liquidationsnot, ever recorded in history – but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the cold-blooded annihilation of the former Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, their children, the last remaining servants book. That's a rare experience. People who had stayed with them in captivityare sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, and their pet dogsrarely get it wrong.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520095</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts|title=Edgelands|rating=4In this case, I was told why.5|genre=History|summary=Around the middle The blurb speaks of the last century and earlierauthor considering ''an older, books about the English countryside seemed very much in vogueless tethered sense of herself. '' HOlder.VLess tethered. MortonThat's 'In Search not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of England' the poetic and associated titles spring readily to mindlyrical that are about style not form, but there were a wealth and substance most of othersall, about connection. Of course, by authors who seemed intent this book had my name on discovering the land it. It was written for themselves, sometimes anxious me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to document have it before it was gonefall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089021</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Clark0857058320|title=A World By Itself: A History of Lord Of All the British IslesDead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=As one who has always felt most at ease with ''Lord Of All the standard chronological approach Dead'' is a journey to history, driven by events uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and major personalities, I found death. Cercas is searching for the close-on 700 pages of this volume fairly demanding reading meaning behind his great uncle's death in placesthe Spanish Civil War. It Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is divided into six parts, each by a different contributor with the editor himself writing figure who looms large over the fourthbook. Each part is divided into Material Cultures, followed by essays on topics (not He died relatively young whilst fighting for all sections) on Religious Cultures; Religion, Nationalism and Identity; and Political and National CulturesFrancisco Franco's forces. What we have, therefore, is an overview of events from each period, more thorough in some instances than others, and a certain amount of theorizing Cercas ruminates on the general social, political and even artistic backgroundwhy his uncle fought for this dictator. A straightforward history through The question at the ages – centre of this book is whether it is notpossible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712664963</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Hart0008294011|title=GallipoliHow to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran

|summary=Early A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in 1915 the Allied Powers attempted years to seize come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the Dardanelles, capture Constantinople and eliminate Turkey, who had joined question ''Discuss the Central Powers, from the First World Warfactors which led to... '' The campaign ended in failure I agreed that she was right and retreat, yet for many years wasn't certain whether it was portrayed as a brilliant strategy undermined by good or bad luck and incompetent commandersthing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to. This painstakingly-researched account shows I think now that this was not the caseI do know. It was more a matter We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a wild scheme which was poorly planned and doomed from the start, compounding the Alliesflawed system I can' problems by diverting large numbers t think of troops from attacking Germans on the Western Fronta better one, where they would arguably have been better employed. In his introduction he calls particularly as the eight-month exercise 'an epic tragedy with an incredible heroic resilience displayed by the soldiersbenevolent dictator', yet ultimately is as rare as hen'a futile and costly sideshow for all the combatants.' It was a huge drain on Allied military resources, involving nearly half a million troops, with the British Empire losing about 205,000 – 115,000 killed, wounded or missing and 90,000 evacuated sick – while the French lost 47,000, and the Turkish over 251,000s teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681596</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patrick Dillon and P J Lynch1788037812|title=The Story Fraternity of Britainthe Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|genre=Children's Non-FictionHistory|summary=Author Patrick Dillon has put together a clear, well-written and beautifully concise story of BritainOriginally passed in 1885, summing up the history of Britain and Ireland in law that had made homosexual relations a little over 320 pages. Significant events, ranging from the Norman Conquest to the South Sea Bubble, and groups of people ranging from highwaymen to the Romantic poets, are each dealt with crime remained in between 1 and 3 pages written in Dillon's chatty, easy to read styleplace for 82 years. There are also mapsBut during this time, including those of the Drestrictions on same-Day landings sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and the Civil War battles, a timeline for each major period (Middle Ages, Tudors1908, Stuarts, Georgians, Victorians and Twentieth Century) and some gorgeous illustrations by former Kate Greenaway winner PJ Lynch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406311928</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Edward Pearce|title=Pitt three books on the Elder: Man nature of War|rating=3homosexuality appeared.5|genre=Biography|summary=William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham, They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and Prime Minister from 1766 to 1768John Addington Symonds, has come down to us through the ages as well as the great eighteenth century equivalent of Winston Churchill, one of heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the great men margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the British Empire European Continent, but barely talked about in its earlier daysthe UK, and the man who led England triumphantly through so the Seven Years War publications of 1756-63. During these men were hugely significant – contributing to the 'year scientific understanding of victories' in 1759, Quebec was capturedhomosexuality, and beginning the combined English struggle for recognition and Prussian forces defeated the French at Mindenequality, and leading to the army won a famous victory at Quiberon Bay. For this, Pitt took – or was accorded by generations milestone legalisation of historians – much of the creditsame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951433</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Judt1910593508|title=The Memory ChaletApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins

|summary=If you are inclined This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to take your cues from the weekly reviews, as Moon landings and the witty poet Gavin Ewart once expressed the matter, you will doubtless find currently articles as varied as; Russell Brand predicting the imminent decline of passion for the BBCsubject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, various interpretations of liberalism Chris Baker and how these struggle for expression in Coalition Government policyMike Collins. There are concerns too about the legislation governing the internet This is a story we know well and references back to the Sixties battles between, on the one hand, the unbridled self-expression because of the free market andthis, on the other, authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the virtues of self-restraint in such matters as blanks. These shortcuts are the re-examination of only downside to the Lady Chatterley trial, now fifty years agobook. An unusual and quite intriguing If you've ever read a comic book, Death adaptation of a Pirate, about film you will be familiar with the development of intellectual property slight feeling that there are scenes missing and piracy in radio touches on all these contemporary concerns in a dramatic waythat dialogue has been trimmed. It combines the history of modern broadcasting with This is a crime story graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and consequent trialstill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068609</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mary Beard1786331047|title=Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=The introduction does not spare Race to Save the reader of the horror of a volcanic (Vesuvius) eruption in the year 79 CE. As the local residents literally ran for their lives clutching what they could easily carry ' ... a deadly, burning combination of gases, volcanic debris and molten rock travelling at huge speed ...' leaves the reader with an horrific mental image. All that last minute panicking was in vain. No one could survive such an onslaught. Nature at her very worst indeed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684714</amazonuk>}} [[CategoryRomanovs:History]]{{newreview|author=Simon Garfield|title=Just My Type: A Book About Fonts|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=A quality typeface is a bit like a good referee at a football match in that you only really notice them if something has gone wrong. A referee is there to facilitate the players on the pitch, not to be the star of the show (though watching Match of the Day these past few weeks you'd often beg to differ). So it is with typefaces. A good type helps the reader, enhances the flow and makes the viewing experience easy and simple. Well sort of.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683017</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Simone de Beauvoir|title=The Second Sex|rating=4|genre=History|summary=This book was first published in France in Truth Behind the late 1940s and was an instant success. Much praise is heaped upon it as we see from the back cover; but the line which resonates with me, is simply 'The Second Sex is required reading for anyone who believes in equality.' I happily put my hand up for that one, speaking, as it happens - as a 'second sex' individual. It struck me that wouldn't it be interesting to also have a male reviewer give this book his thorough and undivided attention?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009949938X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Natalie Haynes|title=The Ancient Guide Secret Plans to Modern Life|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Haynes starts with the positive statement that we shouldn't throw the subject of ancient history straight in the bin, so to speak. We should instead embrace it. It has lots to tell us if only we would listen. Chapter 1 entitled ''Old World Order'' certainly grabbed my attention with the line ... 'Can politicians really make a positive difference to our lives ...' In 2010 when the role of politicians is at an all-time low in the eyes of the voters, this is an excellent question to kick off with. We zoom right back in time and explore how the Athenians lived. Apparently they were rather forward-thinking and progressive people with ideas which could easily be put into use today. They also enjoyed true democracy. When Haynes was talking about politics generally I liked another sweeping statement of hers where she says ' ... that history teaches us we could offer our politicians a hefty pay cut and still get plenty of perfectly competent candidates.' My inner voice was shouting out - make an immediate start on that one please. I won't spoil all the delicious details which led up to this attention-grabbing statement but it really is food for thought.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683238</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Patricia Malcolmson and Robert Malcolmson (Editors)|title=Nella Last in the 1950s: The Further Diaries of Housewife, 49|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Nella Last wrote a regular diary for twenty-seven years. Two previous volumes, also edited by Patricia and Robert Malcolmson, deal with the Second World War and immediate [[Nella LastRescue Russia's Peace: The Post-war Diaries of Housewife 49 by Patricia Malcolmson (Editor), Robert Malcolmson (Editor)|post-War years]]. Now this third book starts with selections from 1950 and covers four years of social change as Britain moves into the reign of Elizabeth II.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683505</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kwame Anthony Appiah|title=The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=In the Preface, Appiah believes that morality is an extremely important area of our lives as we live them today. He goes on by saying that it's all very well thinking about morality - our morals - our own code of living - but it's the ultimate action which truly matters. Well, I would certainly agree with that. And as Appiah digs deeper into his subject, he tells his readers that he was struck by similarities between, for example, ''the collapse of the duel, the abandonment of footbinding, the end of Atlantic slavery.'' In the following chapters he debates the issues of those three major areas of morality. They were, in short, moral issues on a very large scale.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393071626</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewImperial Family|author=Robert Temple|title=Egyptian Dawn: Exposing the Real Truth Behind Ancient EgyptHelen Rappaport|rating=3.5

|summary=This is latest book from Robert Temple in The basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which he documents new theories on were deliberately obscured at the Ancient Egyptianstime for various reasons, have long since been established. There are some startling claims For the last few months of their lives in Russia the bookformer Tsar and Tsarina, not least regarding the Pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid their children and the proposal that there few remaining servants were held in fact two Egyptian civilisations that existed alongside each other increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. To prevent them from being rescued, in different parts of Egypt. If July 1918 the author is correct in revolutionary regime had them all of his assertions then it would certainly point shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the location of amazing new archaeological discoveries and shine a new perspective on how we view the Ancient Egyptians and the Pyramidsnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>071268414X</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Roy Vickery|title=Garlands, Conkers and Mother-Die: British and Irish Plant-Lore|rating=5|genre=History|summary=For many centuries, plants have not only had practical uses as food, remedies, textiles and dyes, but have also symbolic and folkloric meaning in many different cultures. The term ''plant-lore'' has been coined Move on to describe the profusion of the customs and beliefs associated with plants, and this book gathers together many of the plant-lore traditions of Britain [[Newest Home and Ireland.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441101950</amazonuk>}}Family Reviews]]