Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|History]]{{adsense2}}__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Ruta's Closet1785633457|author=Keith Morgan with Ruth Kron Sigal|ratingtitle=4|genre=History|summary=A Holocaust memoir. There, I've said it, and in one fell swoop I've consigned this book to a niche market, and a small – and very much over-supplied – audience. Such books do find it difficult to get their heads above the parapet and the voice within heard, and it seems they have slowly filled in all the gaps in the available knowledge about the Holocaust. But that's the point that makes those words sound churlish – every life that survived that nightmare has to fill in a gap, and account for those who committed Charging Around: Exploring the crimes and those that helped out and rescued a survivor, and serve as monument to those six million gaps it created. Luckily, mostly on account of location, this book certainly does serve to fill in a wider gap in our perception Edges of WWII than most.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906509263</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Double Cross System England by Electric Car|author=J C MastermanClive Wilkinson

|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=This ''Vintage'' re-issue of Masterman's account Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the work idea of exploring the Twenty Committee is subtitled the 'classic account edges of World War Two Spy-Masters'England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. That's In fact, it should be a somewhat misleading tease. The book isnpleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't really about the spy-masters, very little information is given about those recruiting, turning, running and protecting the spies. More information - but again relatively little - is given about the spies themselves.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099578239</amazonuk>it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris WestB09BLBP3P8|title=First ClassNeville Chamberlain's War: A History of How Great Britain in 36 Postage StampsOpposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager|rating=4.5

|summary=As a philatelist Received wisdom and lover simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of historythe 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, I approached as Frederic Seager argues in this book with even more curiosity than usual. The subtitle suggested a very intriguing approach, but would it work? I’m glad to report that it didwas of vital significance in how the war played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224095463</amazonuk>

  {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gavin Mortimer3756228711|title=A History of Cricket in 100 ObjectsCDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer

|genre=SportHistory|summary=[[A History ''The history of Football in 100 Objects by Gavin Mortimer|A History the development of Football in 100 Objects]] was a brave attempt, but was slightly let down by being a little too clinical. Being a game imbued with passion, the book lacked this which took some IT could fill books of the edge off it. Cricket, whilst inspiring passion amongst devotees, has a slightly more laid back following; one that may work better in this format. That said, being a game that has been played for five centuries, narrowing it down to just 100 objects is no less an undertaking than for footballseveral hundred pages.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689406</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Polly Morland|title=The Society of Timid Souls: Or, How Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to be Brave|rating=3.5|genre=Reference|summary='I see no reason why tell us about the shy and timid in any community couldn’t get together and help each other.' The above words were uttered in 1943 by a gentleman called Bernard Gabriel. Mr Gabriel was a piano player who founded a unique clubshort, but explosive, ''The Society of Timid Souls'' that encouraged timid performers and fear-wracked musicians to come in out history of the cold 'to playControl Data Company, CDC, to criticise and be criticised in order to conquer that old bogey of stage frightfor whom he worked.It' The method evidently workeds a fascinating tale, as many told in a timid soul claimed to be cured by these unorthodox methods mixture of technological summary and club membership grew considerably in the years that followedwry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251908</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul StrathernJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=The Spirit of Venice: From Marco Polo to CasanovaFritz and Kurt

|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=There are several ways We start with the pair of telling brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the history of empty market place, helping the republic of Veniceneighbours, which is generally regarded as being dutiful when it comes to the first great economic synagogue choir and naval power of the western worldat a vocational school. Strathern Kurt has chosen to do so largely through make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the lives of various famous (Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and also infamous) people from Marco Polo in workmanlike as a light switch. But this is the time just before the late thirteenth century Austrian leader is going to cave to what he calls its destructionHitler's will, 'both political and symbolic'instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out, at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte invite them in 1797with open arms. On the whole''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the major events such as its wars are covered fairly brieflyround-ups of Jews. An exception, fittingly enough, is made These in their turn leave the case younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of a chapter on an evacuation to Britain or the war which began its decline in the fifteenth centuryUS, while Fritz and his father are, when it tried unknown initially to hold Thessalonica against each other, packed off on the Ottomans, same train to Buchenwald and sent ships to help defend Constantinople against the Turkish army but found itself heavily defeated in stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the subsequent lengthy war, as a result adult variant of which it lost most of its possessions.all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845951921</amazonuk>024156574X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter HartJohn Henry Phillips|title=The Great WarSearch

|summary=There are certain aspects 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 world history that we are duty-bound the latter, as our author promises to teach to each generationlocate the topic of the titular search. World War I was called 'The Great WarAnd he really hasn' t made it easy for himself – the search area is a reason; it changed wide one, the world scene irrevocably target might not exist any more – oh, and is regarded as it's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the single most important event of heroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the twentieth centurylanding craft that delivered him to Normandy, and that he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The war introduced dreadful new weapons designed secondary aim is to erect a memorial to slaughter as many people as possible with maximum efficiencyeveryone else aboard, resulting in tens the vast majority of millions of deathswhom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846682460</amazonuk>1472146182

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark PalmerB09F4CTKJR|title=Made to last: The story of Britain's best-known shoe firmFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|genre=Business and FinanceHistorical Fiction|summary=From its founding by It's the Quaker brothers Cyrus later stages of World War I and James Clark in the Somerset village of Street, to its present-day status as United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a global shoe brand, young American who has signed up and joined the name of Clark has weathered many a storm as it draws close to its bicentenary17 Aero Squadron. This account of company was the companyfirst US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, by a distant kinsman of the two original founders, has drawn heavily on first to be attached to the archives RAF and on the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in-depth interviews with the family active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to tell master flying the full storynotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685206</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emily Cockayne0578761718|title=Cheek by Jowl: A The Inspiring History of Neighboursa Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver

|summary=As Emily Cockayne emphasises 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 beginning 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 first chapterfire and then survived for centuries until World War II, almost everyone has when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the end of its story: after a neighbour; if you have a neighbourphenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, you are one yourself; and neighbours can enrich or ruin our livesMissouri. In this engaging bookThere, in the grounds of Westminster College, she takes various case studies the church was rebuilt and anecdotes of living side by side in Britain from around 1200 today serves as a memorial to the present dayWinston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546949</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mortimer1784385166|title=The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan EnglandThird Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse

|summary=For many What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of us, the Elizabethan age which comprised almost half 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 Tudor era seems bathed in sunlight, the gilded era of Queen ElizabethThird Reich's 'sceptred isle'fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. It was In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period in which Gloriana presided over Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the globe, the defeat Third Reich through one hundred of the Spanish Armada, and the literary epoch of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser and Sidneyits material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542072</amazonuk> 

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tony Judt Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Timothy SnyderEdward Gauvin (translator)|title=Thinking the Twentieth CenturyTiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes

|summary=In emulating historians from his geographical area of interestIt was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, Timothy Snyder poses questions 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 discusses ideas with, she decided that she would travel the highly esteemed British historian length and writer Tony Judt, best known for his 2005 ''Postwar''. This collaboration breadth of the older British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the younger thinker engenders story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the spoken book landscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - ''Thinking a free-range child on the Twentieth Centuryfarm''- and learned to spin, a rather intriguing exploration of said time periodknit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. Each of its ten chapters begins with Judt’s narrative of a specific point This was in his personal life, and continues into debates of specific facets of history; a healthy mix of thematic and chronological approaches is used for the latterher blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956355X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cathryn J Prince1789017977|title=Death in the BalticRonnie and Hilda's Romance: The Towards a New Life after World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff|author=Wendy Williams

|summary=There is no pun intended when I describe Ronnie Williams was the ship ''Wilhelm Gustloff'' son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as sternHarry) and Ethel Wall. It just seems from looking at her hard and rigid lines that if you There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to design have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a ship that few years off his age. For a while the Nazi party would use as an ideological tool, family was quite well-to take their favoured workers on pleasure cruises around -do but disaster struck in the Mediterranean, you 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 naturally end up stay with something that looked like herhim throughout his life. However fate had it that within years she became a hospital ship, and it wasn't much longer after that that she was stationed He joined the army at eighteen in 1942.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1980891117|title=G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the northern Polish port now known as Gdynia, ready to help in a major evacuation life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley|rating=4.5|genre=Art|summary=George Engleheart was one of thousands the leading portrait miniaturists of desperateGeorgian London, starving and fevered people fleeing with a career lasting from the 1770s to the advancing Soviet armyRegency era. All they wanted to do He was to avoid also one of the perilous snowy overland route to get a few miles along the coastmost prolific, painting nearly 5, but they weren't to know 000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that within hours time he carefully recorded the names of sailing the ''Wilhelm Gustloff'' would be torpedoedeach of his clients, and many thousands would perish in the near-frozen Baltic waterssubsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023034156X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Frankopan1789016304|title=The First CrusadeWar and Love: The Call from the EastA family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=3.5

|summary=At the now famous Council of Clermont Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in November 1095occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, Pope Urban II responded to calls particularly in ''The Diary of distress Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the eastern Byzantine Empire by issuing city during the dramatic call 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 arms German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that sparked the First Crusade. But there are at least two sides Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to every story, especially escalate in history. Western histories of the Crusades have concentrated on way that Council and it did, but initial protests melted away as the journeys of Crusaders across Europe: Peter Frankopanorganisers became more circumspect. It's 'The Call from the East' instead draws attention to Emperor Alexios I Komnenus and the plight an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of his Byzantine Empireindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555034</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher de Bellaigue1908745819|title=Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Very British CoupSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie

|summary=A good historian will take Sometimes when people suggest that you read a single important fact and make good use of certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it to expound his general thesis''. De Bellaigue demonstrates this masterfully when he statesMostly 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'Between 1876 and 1915 a quarter of t like the world changed ownership, with book. That's a half rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a dozen European states taking the lion’s sharebook calling your name, rarely get it wrong.' Persia, howeverIn this case, during this time I was judged to be too poor to be worth occupyingtold why. It had, for instance The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, only a few miles less tethered sense of railway trackherself. Secondly, Russia and Britain both had schemes for control but their mutual animosity gave the Persians room for manoeuvre'' Older. The latter were skilled at playing each off against the other and obtaining concessionsLess tethered. However, the conflict sharpened over the control That's not a bad description of a critical resource, oilwhere I am. This was controlled upon Add to that my love of the outbreak natural world, of those aspects of the First World War by the major share held in the Anglo-Persian Oil Companypoetic and lyrical that are about style not form, later to become BPand substance most of all, held by the Britishabout connection. It was Muhammad MossadeghOf course, one of the first liberals of the Middle East was determined that this resource beneath his native land book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to belong me eventually. I am pleased to his own peoplehave it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540487</amazonuk>

{{Frontpage|isbn=0857058320|title=Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)|rating=4|genre=History|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. }}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Marc Morris0008294011|title=How to Lose a Country: The Norman Conquest7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran

|summary=When did 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 Norman conquest 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 England start losing democracy and end? This generous panoramic history takes whilst it's a wide sweep flawed system I can't think of almost a better one, particularly as the whole 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1788037812|title=The Fraternity of the eleventh century Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, although as the title indicates1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=5|genre=History|summary=Originally passed in 1885, the focal point is law that pivotal date of 1066had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. Morris begins his narrative at around the year 1000But during this time, a time when the Anglorestrictions on same-Saxon kingdoms were under threat from the Viking invasions from Alfred sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and Ethelred 1908, three books on the Unreadynature of homosexuality appeared. Having long been vulnerable to raids from ScandinaviaThey were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, England then had to contend with as well as the same from Franceheterosexual Havelock Ellis. The power struggles that followed Exploring the illness margins of society and death of studying homosexuality was common on the childless Edward European Continent, but barely talked about in the Confessor (who had nominated William of Normandy as his preferred successor in 1051)UK, so the apparent seizure publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the English throne by Harold Godwinson who then had himself crowned with remarkable hastescientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the invasion led by Harold’s brother Tostig and Harald Hardrada of Norway struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the death milestone legalisation of both the latter at Stamford Bridge, are dealt with same-sex relationships in painstaking detail1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099537443</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jerry White1910593508|title=London in the 18th centuryApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins|rating=4.5

|summary=White has already written accounts of London in This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the 19th Moon landings and 20th centuriesthe passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and this Mike Collins. This is the last in a planned trilogy. In 1700story we know well and because of this, according to an unnamed contemporary source, it was one of the ‘most Spacious, Populous, Rich, Beautiful, Renowned and Noble Citys authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we know of at this day can fill in the World’blanks. It was also These shortcuts are the only downside to the largest city in Europebook. By the end If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the century, it would double in extent slight feeling that there are scenes missing and population, and become the largest in the universethat dialogue has been trimmed. Carl Phillipp Moritz, This is a visitor from Germany in 1782, graphic novel that could climb St Paul's Cathedral easily have been three times as long and comment with amazement that he found it impossible to ascertain where London began or ended, ‘or where the circumjacent villages began; far as the eye could reach, it seemed to be all one continued chain’still felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847921809</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catherine Fletcher1786331047|title=The Divorce of Henry VIIIRace to Save the Romanovs: The Untold StoryTruth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport|rating=45

|summary=Henry VIII’s protracted divorce from Catherine The basic facts about the deaths of AragonNicholas and Alexandra, often referred to as ‘The King’s Great Matter’some of which were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, has have long since been described in detail many times beforeestablished. In this book on For the subject, last few months of their lives in Russia the focus is on the role of Italian diplomatformer Tsar and Tsarina, Gregorio Casali, ‘our man their children and few remaining servants were held in Rome’increasingly squalid, as the hardback edition was titledhumiliating captivity. In the prefaceTo prevent them from being rescued, Ms Fletcher explains that the average reader may be conversant with in July 1918 the basic facts of Henry revolutionary regime had them all shot and his six wivesbayoneted to death in circumstances which, but has probably never heard of Casalionce the news was confirmed beyond all doubt, who played a lengthy role horrified their relatives in the proceedingsEurope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554895</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Pam Weaver|title=Bath Times and Nursery Rhymes|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=In 1961, a young 16 year old girl called Pam Weaver embarks on a career path that will change her life. Fed up with the tedium of working Move on the broken biscuit counter at Woolworths, she decides to train for her NNEB. ''Bath Times and Nursery Rhymes'' sees Pam progress from a shy and awkward teenager to a competent and caring nursery nurse. Reluctant to stay too long in any position, Pam tries her hand at a variety of jobs, including her initial employment in a Council-run children’s home, working as a private nanny to a rich young widow [[Newest Home and an eventful but emotional stint in a premature baby ward.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007488440</amazonuk>}}Family Reviews]]