Difference between revisions of "Newest History Reviews"

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[[Category:History|*]]
 
[[Category: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=John O'Connell
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|author=Clive Wilkinson
|title=For the Love of Letters: The Joy of Slow Communication
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|rating=5
|rating=4.5
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|genre=Travel
|genre=History
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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?
|summary=With the advent of mobile phones and e-mail, is there still a place for good old-fashioned letter-writing in the world today? John O'Connell certainly thinks there is, and has written a compelling argument in this book which, if you haven't put pen to paper for some time, may be enough to remind you of the benefits of slower correspondence in today's high-speed world.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721099</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Roger Osborne
 
|title=Of the People, By the People: A New History of Democracy
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=Most authors writing on the subject of democracy tend to concentrate on political theory. Osborne approaches the subject from the historical angle instead, looking at different democracies from that of Greece in the sixth century BC, to the present day. 'Humanity's finest achievement', as Osborne calls it in the first sentence of his prologue, comes from the Greek words ''demos'' (people) and ''kratos'' (rule).  It had its origins in the system devised in ancient Athens, the earliest in the world which did not first operate through complex relations of kinship and deference, as had others up to then.  Parallels would be seen in Rome a few centuries later.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950623</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B09BLBP3P8
|author=Karen Dolby
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|title=Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940
|title=Oranges and Lemons: Rhymes From Past Times
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|author=Frederic Seager
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Karen Dolby's book is a loving look at nursery rhymes from many different times and places, handily organised into groups like 'Monday's Child: The Rhythm of Days' and 'Oranges and Lemons: Songs and Games'. In addition to the rhymes themselves, Dolby sets them into context and tells us of the stories behind them.
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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>1843179598</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=3756228711
|author=Catherine Bailey
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|title=CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'
|title=The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mystery
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|author=Hans Bodmer
|rating=4.5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Like many an enthralling novel, this book starts with a death from natural causes yet in odd circumstances which initially leaves several questions unanswered.  In fact, in spite of the subtitle, and also knowing nothing about the family whose story it tells in part, I had to look through the book thoroughly before reading, to satisfy myself that it actually was non-fiction.
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|summary=''The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917559</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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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.  
|author=Patricia Malcolmson and Robert Malcolmson (Editors)
 
|title=The Diaries of Nella Last: Writing in War and Peace
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=This work brings together a selection of some of Nella Last's diary entries from the 1940's and 1950's.  She wrote from her home in Barrow-in-Furness as part of the Mass Observation project, writing a huge amount of material, some of which has already been published as ''Nella Last's War'', [[Nella Last's Peace: The Post-war Diaries of Housewife 49 by Patricia Malcolmson (Editor), Robert Malcolmson (Editor)|Nella Last's Peace]] and [[Nella Last in the 1950s: The Further Diaries of Housewife, 49 by Patricia Malcolmson and Robert Malcolmson (Editors)|Nella Last in the 1950s]]  This volume brings together the three previous collections, with new material too, taking the reader through the war years and on into post-war Britain.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668546X</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene
|author=Sarah Wise
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|title=Fritz and Kurt
|title=Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Many a family in Victorian England had a problem husband, wife, son or daughter whom they felt ought to be ‘locked away’.  Only occasionally if ever was it for totally unselfish reasons connected with their mental health and well-being.  More often than not it was to settle old scores, or so the family could get their hands on the victim’s fortune or business, or sometimes because, as the title of this book suggests, they were merely ‘inconvenient’.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847921124</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gavin Mortimer
 
|title=A History of Football in 100 Objects
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Sport
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Given how long it's been played and how many books have been written about it, any new history of football needs to have some kind of hook to make it stand out.  Gavin Mortimer may have found that, by presenting his history as ''A History of Football in 100 Objects''.  This prompts the question as to whether the whole of football could be reduced down to a mere century of objectsBut then, if [[From 0 to Infinity in 26 Centuries by Chris Waring]] can make a history of maths worth reading, I guess anything is possible.
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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 schoolKurt 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 switchBut 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 thereAnd us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250618</amazonuk>
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|isbn=024156574X
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Victoria Glendinning
 
|title=Raffles And the Golden Opportunity
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=Although Raffles has gone down in history as the founder of Singapore his roots were far from grand.  He had no advantages apart from his own drive and determination and his professional life began with a lowly clerkship with the East india Company, then as large and ungainly as many a governmentWhen he went abroad on behalf of the Company he quickly learned the merits of doing something and asking permission afterwards, not least because of the time taken to contact London and then receive a reply.  Even if all went well this could take the best part of a year - by which time the original question could well be academic.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686032</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Max Decharne
 
|title=Capital Crimes: Seven centuries of London life and murder
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=True Crime
 
|summary=True crime has been one of the great growth areas of publishing in the last few years.  As more than one author in the field as observed, everyone loves a good murder in a manner of speaking, and anybody who is looking for books on murders in London will find no lack of choice.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847945902</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sarah Herman
 
|title=The Classic Guide to Famous Assassinations (Classic Guides)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=If you ever wanted to know the details of famous assassinations, this is almost certainly the book you've been waiting for. In an easy to read style with lots of bullet points and box-outs, Sarah Herman talks us through history's most famous killings and failed attempts. Starting with Greek and Roman times, subsequent chapters move through religious and royal victims, revolutionaries, Russians and American politicians.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780950144</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Carola Hicks
 
|title=Girl in a Green Gown: The History and Mystery of the Arnolfini Portrait
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=The Arnolfini marriage portrait, as it is generally if perhaps inaccurately known, painted by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, signed and dated 1434, has long been one of the most popular and enigmatic paintings of its timeOf modest size, a little less than three feet high, it is one of the oldest surviving panel pictures to be painted in oils rather than tempera.  It is also regarded as the first work of art which simultaneously celebrates both middle-class comfort and monogamous marriage.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526891</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Tracy Borman
 
|title=Matilda: Wife of the Conqueror, first Queen of England
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=Writing the biography of any woman who lived as long ago as the eleventh century, even someone as illustrious as a Queen, is a pretty thankless taskThere will always be huge gaps in the knowledge available.  For example we do not know when Matilda was born, and likewise we do not have a precise date for her marriage, although we do know when she died.  No lifelike images of her are known, though evidence suggests that she was quite short of stature.  In a male-dominated society, there are approximate records of when her sons were born, but not her daughters.  Even more confusingly perhaps, many of the stories passed down to us throughout history are quite probably falseIt is hardly surprising that this appears to be the first full-length life of her yet to appear in English.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099549131</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=John Henry Phillips
|author=Robert Shepherd
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|title=The Search
|title=Westminster: A biography, from earliest times to the present
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=There seems to be no shortage of ways in which the history of London can be told, and as befitting an experienced historical and political biographer, Shepherd has found another interesting variation on the theme. In this superbly detailed and exhaustively researched volume, he brings us the story of Westminster, the royal capital that became the birthplace of parliamentary government and the centre of a world power. Over 1500 years ago it was Thorney Island, a secluded area on the banks of the Thames. It then became a village, yet a very grand one comprising a spiritual centre, a royal ceremonial stage and later a political capital, encompassing buildings such as the Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and 10 Downing Street. Against this stage has been enacted the history of a nation, of the monarchs and politicians who for better and worse shaped the events of the last thousand years.
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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>0826423809</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1472146182
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn= B09F4CTKJR
|author=Ann Wroe
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|title= Flights for Freedom
|title=Orpheus, The Song Of Life
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|author= Steven Burgauer
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
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|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Orpheus is one of the most memorable and recognisable figures of Greek mythology.  He was a legendary musician and poet, whose song could charm all living things and indeed the very stones of the earth. He had a dramatic life, including joining the Argonauts as they searched for the golden fleece.  Most memorably, he travelled to Hades to rescue his dead wife Eurydice from the underworld.  However, he was unable to obey Pluto’s command not to look at her.  He couldn’t resist turning around, only to see her sucked back into the depths and death.  This tale of romantic tragedy and thwarted love has intrigued and delighted artists and writers through the centuries, and they have portrayed Orpheus and his life in music, paintings, plays, poems, operas and films ever since.
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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>1845951689</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alison Maloney
 
|title=Bright Young Things
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=According to the summary I read of ''Bright Young Things'' before choosing the book to read, it 'takes a sweeping look at the changing world of the Jazz Age'. I was expecting it to be something of a narrative account of the Roaring Twenties – in actual fact, it's set out as a collection of trivia about the decade. Similarly, the 'first person accounts' mentioned on the inside front cover are limited to two or three sentence quotes.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753540975</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Neil Root
 
|title=Frenzy!: How the tabloid press turned three evil serial killers into celebrities
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=It was forever thus.  Only last year, 2011, did the ''News of the World'' and the ''Sunday Mirror'' stop being the double-headed monster of tabloid journalism, and very little was different in the 1950s, beyond the inclusion of boobies, and the fact the ''Mirror'' was then just the ''Sunday Pictorial''.  Both formed a duopoly for those in their audience seeking all the salacious details of the scandals of the day, and the crimes and criminals people would talk about over their breakfasts. Three men stood out in those days for the ways in which they achieved their notoriety, and this book is an account of their goings-on, and how the press reported the stories – at times paying large fortunes for the privilege.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099557762</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Robert O Bucholz and Joseph P Ward
 
|title=London: A Social and Cultural History, 1550-1750
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=It seems hard to visualise a time when London was just a city of no major importance, except as England’s capital.  The main thrust of this book is only about halfway through the Tudor area did it really rise to global prominence and come to dominate the economic, political, social and cultural life of the nation as it never had before – and arguably since.  By 1750 it had also surpassed Amsterdam as Europe’s financial and banking hub, and become 'a cornucopia of culture' through its vibrant concert and theatre life, to say nothing of a thriving and relatively free press.  Before long it would also become the home of the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts.  Lest this testimonial seems too gilded, we are reminded at the same time that the city was one of palaces and slums, concert halls and gin joints, churches and brothels, possibility and fear.  Good and evil were always side by side.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521896525</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gordon Weiss
 
|title=The Cage
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=The history of Ceylon, and latterly Sri Lanka has at its centre an undeniable contradiction. A nation which espoused and proclaimed peaceful Buddhism was caught in one of the bloodiest conflicts in the recent past, a conflict peppered with suicide bombings, mass killings, rapes, torture and imprisonment, and more than a hint of genocide. Gordon Weiss was intimately involved as a journalist and as the United Nations Spokesman in Sri Lanka for two years of the almost 40 years conflict, and has produced a detailed account of the background and eventual denouement of this conflict.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954847X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0578761718
|author=Frank McLynn
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|title=The Inspiring History of a Special Relationship
|title=The Road Not Taken: How Britain narrowly missed a revolution
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|author=Nancy Carver
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Since the Norman conquest, there have been no successful invasions of Britain. Yet according to this book, during that era the country has come close to revolution on seven occasions. These were the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, Jack Cade's rebellion of 1450, the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536, the English Civil War in the 1640s, the Jacobite rising in 1745-6, the Chartist Movement of the early Victorian era, and finally the General Strike of 1926.  In each case, social turbulence threatened the status quo but went no further. Why and how did they ultimately fail?
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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>0224072935</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1784385166
|author=Bernard Wasserstein
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|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany
|title=On the Eve: The Jews of Europe before the Second World War
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|author=Roger Moorhouse
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=The introduction to 'On the Eve' begins with the controversial statement, 'Nor is anti-Semitism, by itself, a satisfactory explanation of the Jew's predicament'. The author has written a history of the post-war Jewry called the ''Vanishing Diaspora'' but this book examines the collective failure by the Jewish people before 1939 'to attain at least some control over the threatening vagaries of fate'. It examines their failure to establish cohesive social links, political parties, hospitals, newspapers and schools. Jewish culture and religious practice weakened during the very period when they advocated loyalty to the states where they were citizens; the USSR, Poland, Germany and France. Their population too was in decline.  Wasserstein, who is a master at pointing out intriguing and surprising detail, explains that on the brink of annihilation, there were actually more Jews held in camps outside the Third Reich than within it.
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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>1846681804</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)
|author=Nigel Saul
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|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
|title=For Honour and Fame: Chivalry in England 1066-1500
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
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|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Chivalry, Saul tells us in the opening sentences of the preface, is associated first and foremost with the estate of knighthood and with fighting on horsebackIn this book he aims to present an account of English aristocratic society in the Middle Ages, from the Norman conquest to the first years of the Tudor dynasty, which puts chivalry centre-stage.
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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 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 sideThis book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951891</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1684056993
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0648684806
|author=Robert K Massie
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|title=Clara Colby: The International Suffragist
|title=Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman
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|author=John Holliday
|rating=4.5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Biography
 
|genre=Biography
|summary=Already known for major biographies of Nicholas and Alexandra, and of Peter the Great, Massie has now written an equally full and absorbing life of the late eighteenth-century reigning Empress.
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|summary=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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0679456724</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1783784350
|author=Eamon Duffy
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|title=This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History
|title=Saints, Sacrilege and Sedition
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|author=Esther Rutter
|rating=4
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|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=In the introduction to this book Eamon Duffy, Professor of the History of Christianity at Cambridge History, points out that all too often historians have written about the English Reformation from strongly polarised views. Taking two extreme examples, he cites one which states that the people of England, formerly happy medieval Catholics, were forced by King Henry to abandon their religion, and England was never merry again, alongside another which speaks of the English being oppressed by corrupt churchmen until King Henry gave them the Protestant nation for which they longed. On the following page, he suggests that it had long been an axiom of historical writing that the success of the Reformation in England was an inevitable consequence of the dysfunction and unpopularity of late medieval Catholicism. Such remarks were evidently made by writers with an axe to grind.  
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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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441181172</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1789017977
|author=Paul Winter
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|title=Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II
|title=Defeating Hitler: Whitehall's Top Secret Report on Why Hitler Lost the War
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|author=Wendy Williams
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Just how and why did Hitler lose the Second World War? The message in [[Fatherland by Robert Harris]] is that he spent too much effort killing Jews to concentrate on anything elseRemarkably, this look at more explicit reasons for the end of the Third Reich barely mentions the Holocaust.  What we have is ''Some Weaknesses in German Strategy and Organisation 1933-1945'' - a document drawn up by what would now have to be called Whitehall Mandarins, written during a year of war and a year of peace, that itemises for those with enough security clearance just what Hitler's chain of command was, and what his thinking was for each theatre of the WarIt was never Top Secret, but was classified for thirty years and has spent about as long waiting for this hardback version.
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|summary=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 ageFor 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>1441196358</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1980891117
|author=Jean-Paul Kauffmann
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|title=G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart
|title=A Journey to Nowhere: Among the Lands and History of Courland
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|author=John Webley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Travel
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|genre=Art
|summary=When I turn to travel writing, it is a healthy balance of that about places I have been to, and places I've not. But without sounding too big-headed it is seldom places I have never heard of in any context - especially those I have passed through, what's more. The 'nowhere' in focus here is Courland, which was more-or-less the coastal slither of the top of Latvia, and was once an independent Duchy.  In one fell swoop Kauffmann seems to become the only travel writer to have written a book about the place, at least for many a generation, and, it's pleasant to say, probably the best one could have hoped for.
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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>0857050362</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1789016304
|author=Penelope Hughes-Hallett
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|title=War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam
|title=The Immortal Dinner: A famous evening of genius and laughter in literary London, 1817
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|author=Melanie Martin
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=A book based around just one dinner sounds a little extraordinaryBut the host, painter Benjamin Robert Haydon, was no ordinary artist.  He was a friend of many of the major artistic and literary figures of the day, in addition to being an ambitious painter of historical scenesSadly, his ambition was not matched by popularity or good fortune, and despite or perhaps parly because an exaggerated belief in his own abilities, one and a half centuries after his death he is largely forgotten except for his suicide after years of despair, and perhaps his diary as well.
+
|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 occupationMost 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 circumspectIt's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956372X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1908745819
|author=Andrew Martin
+
|title=Surfacing
|title=Underground Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube
+
|author=Kathleen Jamie
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Although he was born in Yorkshire, Andrew Martin has long been enthralled by the London Underground. His father worked on British Rail, and Andrew himself therefore had free travel on the system as well as a Privilege Pass which entitled him to free first-class train travel on the national rail network. Having lived in London for twenty-five years, commuting to various newspaper offices in his employment as a journalist, a job which has included writing a regular magazine column, Tube Talk, he is well qualified to write this entertaining and enlightening social history of the world's most famous underground railway.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684773</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0857058320
|author=Mary Beard
+
|title=Lord Of All the Dead
|title=All in a Don's Day
+
|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Mary Beard's latest collection, 'All in a Don's Day', of her assembled blog pieces from 2009 until the end of 2011, covers similar concerns to her previous selection, [[It's A Don's Life by Mary Beard|It's a Don's Life]]. Professor Beard is a fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge and became Classics Professor at there in 2004. She is also an expert in Roman laughter, an interest which she fully indulges in the pages of her TLS blog. In her latest collection she bemoans the parlous current state of both Education and the Academy, and makes witty observations on matters as various as television chefs, what and how to visit in Rome and the art and worth of completing references in an age when only positive things may be said about postgraduate job-seekers.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685362</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=R I Moore
 
|title=The War On Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=At the end of the first millennium, Western Europe was a place which had barely ever encountered heresy. It took just a couple of centuries for it to become a major problem in the eyes of church leaders, leading to the persecution of individuals and groups. Was heresy such a fast-growing problem? In this volume, R I Moore provides a thoughtful analysis of the issues and makes a powerful case that many supposed heretics were merely victims of a paranoid church which created propaganda to justify so many deaths.
+
|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.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681960</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0008294011
|author=John Julius Norwich
+
|title=How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship
|title=The Popes: A History
+
|author=Ece Temelkuran
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Historian [[:Category:John Julius Norwich|John Julius Norwich]] (or Rt Hon/Viscount John Julius Norwich, to give him his full title) doesn't write the sort of history books one associates with school daysHe doesn't do dry and dustyIn fact ''The Popes: A History'' isn't ''just'' a history book but a romp through the ages with some great trivia nuggets scattered throughout the informative gold.
+
|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 knowWe 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>0099565870</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1788037812
|author=Emma Smith
+
|title=The Fraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908
|title=The Cambridge Shakespeare Guide
+
|author=Brian Anderson
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Home and Family
 
|summary=Does the world need another guide to Shakespeare's plays? There are plenty about and students these days have the added resource of the Internet to get the basics. However, if it does, then this is as good as any you will find. It's nicely written and beautifully clear and above all, succinct. In fact I'm doing a disservice to Emma Smith already by terming it a guide to his plays, because she also includes the poems and sonnets.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>052114972X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Peter Ackroyd
 
|title=London Under
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Peter Ackroyd is already well-known as a historian of London.  As a kind of adjunct to his mammoth work on the city, here we have a comparatively slender tome on one specific aspect.  Underneath the city is a world of its own, of springs, streams, Roman amphitheatres, Victorian sewers, gang hideouts, the creatures which have dwelt in its darkness from rats and eels to monsters and hosts, and last but not least the modern Underground railway system.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099287374</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Peter Ackroyd
 
|title=London: The Concise Biography
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=As is the case with his recent volume on Charles Dickens, Ackroyd's London is an abridged version of the full book originally published twelve years ago.  Nevertheless, at over 600 pages of fairly close print in paperback, it is still a very full read.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570386</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David Stafford
 
|title=Mission Accomplished: SOE and Italy 1943 - 1945
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=The work of the secret services is always going to be shady, dark and murky. Books like David Stafford's Mission Accomplished: SOE and Italy 1943 - 1945 make an effort to shine a light on the shadows and bring the facts into view. Stafford's admirably honest introduction claims that he has 'done [his] best to ensure that what appears here is accurate and truthful', but reminds his reader that 'history is indeed intrinsically messy'; even more so when his sources were writing with secrecy in mind.  
+
|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>0099531836</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1910593508
|author=Paul Bushkovitch
+
|title=Apollo
|title=A Concise History of Russia
+
|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Russia's recent history, especially since the end of the Cold War, has been so full of new developments that there is probably little if any limit to the number of fresh histories the market can absorb.  This most recent, from a Professor of History at Yale University, take a little over 450 pages to tell the story from the earliest days of Kiev Rus, the territory which was to become the ancestor of the present nation state around the 10th century AD, to Vladimir Putin's assumption of office as President in 2000.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521543231</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Chil Rajchman
 
|title=Treblinka: A Survivor's Memory
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Here comes yet another book about the Holocaust, and yet another with more than enough damning indictment of those events and their perpetrators, with more than enough horrific reportage to make your blood run cold, and with more than enough distinguishing features to make it a necessary purchase. The latter is partly down to where it came from - while Dachau started out as a camp for political prisoners, and Auschwitz I was a work camp based round barrack blocks that you can squint at and see a bad private school, this is coming from Treblinka, which was constructed purely and simply to kill.  It has rightly been called a 'conveyer-belt executioner's block'.
+
|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>1849163995</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1786331047
|author=Johanna Adorjan
+
|title=The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family
|title=An Exclusive Love
+
|author=Helen Rappaport
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=This moving memoir tells of the double suicide of both István (a Hungarian-Jewish form of Stephen) and his wife Vera one Sunday morning in October. The story 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 the systematic persecution 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 of the duty officer dated 15.10.91 with the discovery of their bodies in their bungalow in the Charlottenlund, a town of the Capital Region of Denmark. Entry is gained by a local locksmith who charged 297.02 kroner. It is the charm and lyricism with which this tale is related which makes this fateful, haunting and profoundly moving story about identity both sad and memorable.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552671</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David Loades
 
|title=The Tudors: History of a Dynasty
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=
 
For several years David Loades has written and published extensively about the Tudors, individually and collectively, 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 era.  As he and his publisher make clear in the preface, it is rather a study of Tudor policies.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441136908</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Francesca Beauman
 
|title=Shapely Ankle Preferr'd: A History of the Lonely Hearts Advertisement
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=You might think the Lonely Hearts ad a trivial matter. You might think it should appear in lower case and not be capitalised, but you'd be in disagreement with Ms Beauman, who gives a big L and a big H to it every time she writes of it in her survey of its history.  What's more, she gets to write about a lot more than just the contents of the adverts in this brilliant book.
+
|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>009951334X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Home and Family Reviews]]
|author=Roman Krznaric
 
|title=The Wonderbox: Curious Histories of How to Live
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary='How should we live?'  asks author Roman Krznaric.  To answer this ancient question, he looks to history.  'I believe that the future of the art of living can be found by gazing into the past', he says.  Creating a book which is as full of curiosities as a Renaissance 'Wunderkammer', he has a stab at the big questions:  love, belief, money, family, death.  The result is a pot-pourri of delights which left this particular reader stimulated and invigorated.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683939</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