Open main menu

Changes

9,156 bytes removed ,  12:03, 20 March 2023
no edit summary
[[Category:History|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|History]]==History==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chil Rajchman1785633457|title=TreblinkaCharging Around: A Survivor's MemoryExploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=Here comes yet another book about the Holocaust, and yet another with more than enough damning indictment Clive Wilkinson has a history of those events and their perpetrators, travelling by unconventional means with more than enough horrific reportage to make your blood run cold, and with more than enough distinguishing features to make it a necessary purchasepreference for slow travel. The latter is partly down to where 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 came from - while Dachau started out as should be a camp pleasant holiday for political prisoners, Clive and Auschwitz I was a work camp based round barrack blocks that you can squint at and see a bad private schoolhis wife, this is coming from TreblinkaJoan, which was constructed purely and simply to kill. It has rightly been called a shouldn'conveyer-belt executioner's block'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849163995</amazonuk>t it?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Johanna AdorjanB09BLBP3P8|title=An Exclusive LoveNeville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=This moving memoir tells of the double suicide of both István (a Hungarian-Jewish form of Stephen) Received wisdom and his wife Vera one Sunday morning in Octobersimplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. The story One such is told by their granddaughter, Joanna Adorján and tells of her close fondness for them both but in particular with Vera, with whom the author shares many characteristics. The story begins with scrubbing from the systematic persecution popular imagination of such Hungarian Jews in Budapest under the Nazi occupation and describes their perilous flight to Denmark after the Soviet occupation of Hungary in 1956. It ends with the police reports early days of World War II from 1939-40, known as the duty officer dated 15''Phoney War''.10.91 with the discovery of their bodies We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in their bungalow in the Charlottenlund, a town of to save the Capital Region of Denmarkday. Entry Very little time is gained by a local locksmith who charged 297.02 kroner. It is the charm spent on this period in cultural reflections and lyricism with which yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this tale is related which makes this fatefulbook, haunting and profoundly moving story about identity both sad and memorableit was of vital significance in how the war played out. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552671</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=3756228711
|title=CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'
|author=Hans Bodmer
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=''The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.''
{{newreview|author=David Loades|title=The Tudors: History of a Dynasty|rating=4Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that.5|genre=History|summary=For several years David Loades He has written and published extensively chosen to tell us about the Tudorsshort, individually and collectivelybut explosive, from almost every angle possible. This title is not a chronological biography or history of the five monarchs whose reigns gave their name to the eraControl Data Company, CDC, for whom he worked. As he and his publisher make clear It's a fascinating tale, told in the preface, it is rather a study mixture of Tudor policiestechnological summary and wry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441136908</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Francesca BeaumanJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Shapely Ankle Preferr'd: A History of the Lonely Hearts AdvertisementFritz and Kurt|rating=54|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=You might think 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 Lonely Hearts ad empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a trivial mattervocational school. You might think it should appear in lower case 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 not be capitalised, but youworkmanlike as a light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler'd be in disagreement with Ms Beaumans will, who gives a big L and instead of having a big H national vote to it every time she writes of it keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in her survey Germany, as did all the round-ups of its historyJews. What's moreThese 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, she gets packed off on the same train to write about a lot more than just Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the contents adult variant of the adverts in all this brilliant book.could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009951334X</amazonuk>024156574X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roman KrznaricJohn Henry Phillips|title=The Wonderbox: Curious Histories of How to LiveSearch
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Archaeology cannot be child'How should we live?' asks author Roman Krznaric. To answer this ancient questions play, he looks to history. when you'I believe that re scraping in the future of the art of living dirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be found by gazing into the past', he sayssomething there but not always confident what. Creating Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. This book which is a case of the latter, as full our author promises to locate the topic of curiosities as the titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a Renaissance 'Wunderkammerwide one, the target might not exist any more – oh, and it's underwater, when he has cannot dive. Latching on to a stab at particular D-Day veteran through helping the big questions: loveheroic old man's visit back to France, beliefour author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, money, family, deathand that he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The result secondary aim is to erect a pot-pourri memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of delights which left this particular reader stimulated and invigoratedwhom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846683939</amazonuk>1472146182
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James PalmerB09F4CTKJR|title=The Death of Mao: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Birth of the New ChinaFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=Welcome to China, where It's the populous are busy leaving a rural country full later stages of prosperous mineral resources World War I and coal mines, and shoddily-built hydro-electric dams in environmentally dubious locations, for the burgeoning, mechanised cities. But this isn't United States has just entered the birth of 2012, it's the dawn of 1976conflict. Chairman Mao Petrol Petronus is dying, Premier Zhou Enlai a young American who has just died, signed up and joined the cauldron of power is being stirred as never before17 Aero Squadron. Among This company was the momentous events of the year however will first US Aero Squadron to be a huge earthquake directly centred on the city of Tangshantrained in Canada, which will kill something like two thirds of a million people.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571243991</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Phillip Thomas Tucker|title=Exodus From the Alamo|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=Remember first to be attached to the Alamo!  The war-cry of generations of Americans is based upon RAF and the idea of first to be sent into the hugely outnumbered defenders of skies to fight the Texan mission against Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the marauding Mexicans standing in defence of an ideal until deathnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1612000762</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Louise Foxcroft0578761718|title=Calories and Corsets: A history The Inspiring History of dieting over two thousand yearsa Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=We’re in that post-Christmas period when all the socialising and indulging is over and all you’re left with is a pasty, bloated, over-fed but under-nourished complexion, a wardrobe full of clothes just a little too tight and a new year’s resolution to Get Healthy. So it’s the perfect time for a new diet book to hit the shelves. The title of this one might make you think it’s going to be full of useful tips, and the cover does little to dispel this idea, groaning as it is with the weight of plump jellies, lavish cupcakes and even a decadent lobster or two, but take a moment to note the subtitle, if you will: '''a history of dieting over 2000 years'''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684250</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Kenneth D Alford and Theodore P Savas
|title=Nazi Millionaires: The Allied Search for Hidden SS Gold
|rating=3.5
|genre=History
|summary=We are all doubtless aware The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the six million or so dead City of London from at the hands of the Nazisleast 1181, both through death camps and death squadswhen it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, We are all probably conscious that before they were taken to the forests to be shot, or to 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 train stationfire and then survived for centuries until World War II, never to be seen when it was again, ruined by bombs during the Jewish and other communities captured in Blitz. But that wasn't the Holocaust were ransacked for everything they had. It started early, end of courseits story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, with the denial of rights for Jewish people stones from the church's walls were transported to own businessesFulton, then houses, paintings, other valuablesMissouri. There, cash - and in the end their own gold dental fillings. The story grounds of what happened to everything is as complex Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and today serves as retelling the ends of six million people, but this book opens up several windows on a memorial to those stories, through the more notable examplesWinston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1935149350</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Bradford1784385166|title=Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Our Times|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=As a biographer who has previously written substantial biographies of the Queen (published in 1996), of her father George VI, and her daughter-in-law Diana, Sarah Bradford needs little introduction. At around 260 pages of text, this is barely half the length of her other titles, and probably aimed more at the general reader with an eye on the Diamond Jubilee market.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>067091911X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Denise Kiernan|title=Signing Their Rights Away|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Many Americans believe that the Declaration of Independence is the cornerstone of the American democracy, the fountain-head of the American Way of Life and the American Dream. The 4th of July is the national holiday and often thought to be the single most important date Third Reich in American history.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>159474520X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Toby Lester|title=Da Vinci's Ghost100 Objects: The untold story of Vitruvian Man|rating=4|genre=History|summary=As the number of popular non-fiction titles grows, the authors on the hunt for new-book material often use a ''concept'' approach, trying to come up with an USP for a new title. This uniqueness is often achieved by adopting an obscure subject, or an unusual perspective from which to view a popular theme. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684544</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Neil Monnery|title=Safe As Houses? A Historical Analysis of Property Prices|rating=4|genre=Material History|summary=Neil Monnery was asked to become a trustee of a local charity with most of its assets in local residential property. Over the years this had yielded good results and the charity was concerned as to whether or not they should continue on the same basis or diversify and Monnery said that he would look into this. That discussion was the genesis for this book as he began to research the history of house prices – in the UK and elsewhere – for as far back as he could go to establish whether or not house were, well, as safe as houses.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907994017</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNazi Germany|author=Andrew Wilson|title=Shadow of the TitanicRoger Moorhouse|rating=45
|genre=History
|summary=Lesson one in writing non-fiction articles and journalism seems to be to find out what is topical. April 2012 What is the centenary first image that comes to mind when you think of the sinking 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 Titanic, Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and there are going to images from that time may be hoards of people finding it topical less familiar to celebrate thatyou. Lesson two seems to be In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to find your own unique angle on illustrate the story. Wilson approaches period of the Titanic disaster by sinking her at the end of chapter Third Reich through one, for he looks more at the lives hundred of the people on board, and how they took the calamity and dealt with itits material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377300</amazonuk> 
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter EnglundLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=The Beauty and the SorrowTiananmen 1989: An intimate history of the first world warOur Shattered Hopes
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=In simple terms I never really followed the First World War, like most (if not all) conflicts has come down to us largely as a four-year sequence events of events, an acknowledgement Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of defeat by one sidetheir teens has other priorities, and a peace agreementyou know. Yet there are many different ways I certainly didn't know of the weeks of telling its history, protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and as Englund tells us in his prefacethe birth of the Tank Man image, this is not I didn't know how the area had long been a book about what it '''was'''venue for political protest, but about what it was and I didn'''like'''. Though t know more than a series of snapshots in words, he shows us various stages of spit about the conflict and its effect people involved on peopleeither side. His emphasis This book is not so much events and processes, but more practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the feelings, impressions, experiences and moods whole season of individuals caught up protests back in the period1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846683424</amazonuk>1684056993
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Oppenheimer0648684806|title=MachiavelliClara Colby: A Life Beyond Ideology The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=MachiavelliThe 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'the first philosopher t allowed to define politics as treachery'sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, has probably been better known as an adjectiveshe remained with her grandparents, Machiavellian being who doted on her and saw that she received a synonym for duplicity good education, both in statecraft, than as a historical personand out of school. Interestingly, She was the term 'Machiavel' became common only child in English usage as an adjective the household and noun around 1570her childhood was glorious. By contrast, although none her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of his works were translated into the language 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 another seventy a few months: she was married for fifteen years or so , had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after thatClara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847252214</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clarissa Dickson Wright1783784350|title=This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History of English Food|author=Esther Rutter
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Writing a history of English foodIt 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 some extent drink, must be a daunting tasktime for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, but as an experienced TV presenter (as one 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 - ''Two Fat Ladiesa free-range child on the farm'' with the late Jennifer Paterson) - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and as one who her mother's friend. This was born in the post-war rationing world in 1947, Clarissa Dickson Wright is well placed to do soher blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905211856</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Art Spiegelman1789017977|title=MetaMAUS|rating=5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Before the Holocaust was turned into [[The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne|a child-like near-fable for all]], Ronnie and before it was the focus of superb history books such as [[Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder|this]], it became a family saga of a father relating his experiences to a son, who then drew it all - featuring animals not humans - [[Maus by Art Spiegelman|Maus]]. To celebrate the twenty-five years since then, we have this brilliant look back at the creation of an equally brilliant volume.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916838</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philip Ardagh|title=Philip ArdaghHilda's Book of Kings, Queens, Emperors and Rotten Wart-Nosed Commoners|rating=3.5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=If you deem Romance: Towards a good children's historical trivia book to be one that tells you, the adult, something they didn't know about historical trivia, then this is a good example. I didn't know George V broke his pelvis when his horse fell on him, startled by some post-WWI huzzahs. I didn't know Charles VI of France nearly got torched in some drunken bacchanal. The length of time Charlemagne sat on a throne (over 400 whole years (even if he wasn't wholly whole all that time)) was news to me, as was the raffle that was held (more or less) for being the unknown soldier. Therefore this is a good book for children and the adults willing to instill some historical trivia into them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330471732</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNew Life after World War II|author=Timothy Snyder|title=Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and StalinWendy Williams|rating=54
|genre=History
|summary=The first chapter is enoughRonnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. I donThere't mean the preface, s some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or introduction, that mean you start reading chapter one about an hour even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in1863, but chapter one itself, detailing as it does the way Stalin blatantly enforced collectivization on Ukraine's farms, thus killing he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off millions of local civilianshis age. The seed stock ended up being taken away as part of For a while the grain quota family was quite well-to feed the rest of -do but disaster struck in the Soviet Union, 1929 Depression and hardly anybody failed five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to go without at some point as a resultvery different lifestyle. The first chapter here, then, is more than enough in telling us what we didn't know, explaining perfectly lucidly yet academically how and why what happened happened, 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 times of quite gruesome anecdote and contemporary reportage, churning our stomachs and making us have second thoughts about reading oneighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551799</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Paxman1980891117|title=EmpireG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: What Ruling A year in the World Did to the Britishlife of George Engleheart|author=John Webley|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryArt|summary=In George Engleheart was one of the 21st centuryleading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the British Empire may be an anachronism, something for which hand-wringing politicians and church leaders may be ever ready 1770s to apologisethe Regency era. Many He was also one of us have grown up just as the last imperial remnants were crumbling away. Yet its legacy is everywheremost prolific, painting nearly 5, and for better or worse will always be part 000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of the very fabric them being of BritainKing George III). As Jeremy Paxman demonstrates in this excellent overview, published as a curtain-raiser to his series on Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the subject, it is never very far away from us. After a period names of trying to distance ourselves from it, we seem to be on the verge each of coming to terms with the simple truth that it was not so bad as it has sometimes been painted. Moreoverhis clients, it should be remembered that even if Britain emerged from the Second World War battered and broke, it still possessed sufficient imperial presence subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to become one of the Permanent Five on the United Nations Security Councilas his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919578</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam Willis1789016304|title=The Glorious First War and Love: A family's testament of June: Fleet Battle anguish, endurance and devotion in the Reign of Terroroccupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=To be frank, I Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was not expecting a lot from this account of a famous maritime battle. Marine warfare histories can be rather dullentranced by what she discovered, with lists particularly in ''The Diary of ships and mind-numbing detail Ann Frank'' but then realised that may appeal if you have an intimate knowledge of a warshipher own family's anatomy, but quite deathly for the rest of usstories were equally fascinating. But I was gripped A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the first page to city during the last by this really insightful account not just of the battle war years, but of the whole political only five thousand survived and historical events which inspired it. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849160384</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Julius Norwich|title=A History of England Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in 100 Places: From Stonehenge a country with liberal values who were resistant to the Gherkin|rating=4German occupation.5|genre=History|summary=There are many different ways of telling Most people believed that the history of England (indeed just England, not Wales and Scotland, as occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the author makes clear). This takes a very simple and very effective approach to Germans might reach the mattercity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, by focusing on a hundred specific places which somehow illustrate that the nation's progress from prehistoric times Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to today, escalate in chronological order.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546068</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nancy Mitford|title=The Sun King|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Nancy Mitford assumes the way that you'll need no introduction to Louis XIVit did, who ascended but initial protests melted away as the throne when he was four years old and reigned for well over seventy two yearsorganisers became more circumspect. To put him in context his reign began before Charles I was executed in Whitehall, lasted through the English Civil War, Oliver CromwellIt's Commonwealth, the reigns an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of Charles I, James II, William III and into the beginning tens of the reign thousands of Queen Anne. He bridged the gap between the middle ages and the early modern eraindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099528886</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen O'Shea1908745819|title=The Friar of Carcassonne: Revolt Against the Inquisition in the Last Days of the Cathars|rating=4|genre=History|summary=It starts with a painting. The painting isn't the point: the subject is. In the Autumn of 1319 a Franciscan Friar stands before his accusers. Entitled ''L'Agitateur du Languedoc'' the artwork portrays the trial of Bernard Délicieux, the eponymous Friar of Carcassonne. Although O'Shea veers clear of telling us the outcome of the trial, one cannot help feeling that it wasn't an acquittal. Such things tended not to go down in history quite so resoundingly. Not in those days.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668319X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSurfacing|author=Matthew Kelly|title=Finding PolandKathleen Jamie
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Looking at any historical map of Poland anyone may see how its borders have changed over the centuries. Where will Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you find the Polish home? One answer must be that ''this one has your name on it is founded deep in the hearts of the Polish people who fought for the liberty and the integrity of the Polish homeland''. Now consider the promontory of land around VilniusMostly we take them at their word, or Wilno as not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it was then known, which was contained inside Poland in 1921turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. It was an area in which the small market town of Hruzdowa, comprising some 52 buildings and just large enough People who are sensitive to warrant hearing a town hallbook calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was situatedtold why. These wild borderlands – known as The blurb speaks of the Kresy - were fought over for centuries by Austriansauthor considering ''an older, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and Lithuaniansless tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. It was here that Matthew KellyThat's great-grandfathernot a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, who had imbibed of those aspects of the values poetic and élan lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of the dashing officer classall, Rafal Ryzewscyabout connection. Of course, came this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to teach with his clever young wife, Hanname eventually. They were deeply committed I am pleased to progress through education and to peaceably raising their two little daughters. However, the dreadful and calamitous year of 1939, was approaching when Hitler and Stalin partitioned Poland in the most cynical pacthave it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515997</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mick Conefrey0857058320|title=How to Climb Mont Blanc in a Skirt: A Handbook for Lord Of All the Lady AdventurerDead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
|summary=Scott, Amundsen, Bleriot, Stanley and Livingstone, John Glenn, et all - any child should be drummed out of school if they can't name half a dozen explorers, travel pioneers and adventurers. But give them a gold star if they can name a single female entrant to history's list. Hence this book, for while some mountains have been topped by a lady first of all, and some landmark achievements by the guys have been quickly followed by the gals, there is just too much ground to be made up in recognising what the fairer sex have done in the world of, well, going round our world.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851688412</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=David Bennett
|title=A Magnificent Disaster: The Failure of the Market Garden, the Arnhem Operation, September 1944
|rating=3.5
|genre=History
|summary=Operation Market Garden, September 1944 ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is encapsulated searching for most people the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Hollywood movie "A Bridge Too Far" whichSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, like most moviesCercas' great uncle, gets some of it right and some of it wrongis the figure who looms large over the book.  Such anyway is BennettHe died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's assessmentforces. So what is Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the true story centre of what one Major Norton called this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a magnificent disaster, perhaps consciously echoing that judgement on hero whilst having fought for the charge of the Light Brigade in a far earlier conflict "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre"?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>193514989X</amazonuk>wrong side.
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lynn Peril0008294011|title=Swimming in the Steno PoolHow to Lose a Country: A Retro Guide The 7 Steps from Democracy to Making It in the OfficeDictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=The subtitle of this book suggests A little while ago a survival guide friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to secretarial work. However, this is definitely not a handbook, but an examination of come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the portrayal of question ''Discuss the job and those who do it in the media and in handbooks over the last 100 yearsfactors which led to... It is an American book and all the references are to handbooks, media, popular fiction and advertising from the US, but as a secretary in Britain, '' I still found it relevant, interesting agreed that she was right and very entertaining.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393338541</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Niall McCrae|title=The Moon and Madness|rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary=A book entitled wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn'The Moon and Madnesst know what all 'this' has the potential was leading to be a pile of New Age hokum. This learned and academic treatise by Niall McCrae is very far from hokum, and there is not a whiff of New Age hanging over it I think now that I do know. We probably all have an old folklore image are in our minds danger of lunatics in the asylum howling at the full moon. Of courselosing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the very word 'lunaticbenevolent dictator' has its origins in the moon. McCrae tries to separate myth and fact in this fascinating bookis as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845402146</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nigel Jones1788037812|title=TowerThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=If you Originally passed in 1885, the law that had to name one particular artefact which personifies 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 history nature of Englandhomosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, it would be hard to choose anything more appropriate than as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the building which has at various times been a castleEuropean Continent, a palacebut barely talked about in the UK, a prison, a torture chamberso the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and execution sitebeginning the struggle for recognition and equality, an armoury, and is now leading to the most visited tourist attraction milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in the nation1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091936659</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Annelise Freisenbruch1910593508|title=The First Ladies of Rome: The Women Behind the CaesarsApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Perhaps This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the most shocking thing to be gleaned from this fascinating history of Moon landings and the women who surrounded passion for the Caesars is how easily their reputations were createdsubject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, moulded Chris Baker and destroyedMike Collins. Any woman who put This is a foot out story we know well and because of line 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 culture where men held almost all the power could be accused comic book adaptation of a litany of crimes which bore curious similarities film you will be familiar with those of many another woman in similar circumstances. Incest and adultery were charges regularly levied against them, the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and the very fact that the details were identical in almost every case should give rise to suspicion about their accuracydialogue has been trimmed. And yet history has accepted This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and spread these scandals as factstill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523930</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Daniel Allen Butler1786331047|title=The Other Side of Race to Save the NightRomanovs: The Carpathia, Truth Behind the Californian, and the Night the Titanic Was LostSecret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport|rating=45
|genre=History
|summary=It's now almost a century since The basic facts about the loss deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the ''Titanic'' and although much has time for various reasons, have long since been written about almost every aspect of that dreadful night one point has remained a mysteryestablished. When For the wireless operator on last few months of their lives in Russia the 'unsinkable' Titanic radioed that the ship had hit an icebergformer Tsar and Tsarina, had too their children and few lifeboats for all passengers and was sinking fast there remaining servants were two ships held in the vicinityincreasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. Captain Arthur Rostron on the ''Carpathia'' responded to the distress signal and hastened to To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the Titanic's aid. But Captain Stanley Lord of the ''Californian'' did not respond. The ship's radio officer revolutionary regime had retired for the night them all shot and Lord failed bayoneted to take decisive action later that night when told about distress flares from death in circumstances which, once the Titanic. The controversy as to why the two captains should have acted so differently has raged across the intervening yearsnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1935149857</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=D R Thorpe|title=Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=The great-grandson of a crofter, and son-in-law of a Duke, Harold Macmillan was born in London in 1894. Despite the well-Move on to-do aristocratic background, his years as a young adult were marked by bad experiences in the trenches which left him with lifelong war wounds, and his early service as a Conservative Member of Parliament by the plight of the unemployed in his first constituency of Stockton. He had much in common with another future Prime Minister, Winston Churchill; both had American mothers, [[Newest Home and both were mavericks who were elected as Conservatives but refused to toe the party line too steadfastly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844135411</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Simon Jenkins|title=A Short History of England |rating=4|genre=History|summary=Most of us see history rather like a cloud. We're aware of the great mass of it, seeing some parts more clearly than others, but perhaps struggling to bring it into a straight line. Some parts we will have studied at school, or read about out of interest but these parts will be balanced by other periods when we will be woefully ignorant of some of the most basic facts. I've studied the Tudors in some depth at various points in my life – but I would struggle to tell you much about the Stuarts. What was needed was a concise history of England in one volume and written for the adult reader who would simply like to be more informed, but not over-burdened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684617</amazonuk>}}Family Reviews]]