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[[Category:New Reviews|History]]__NOTOC__ <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{adsense2Frontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=5|genre=Travel|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?}}__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan DimblebyB09BLBP3P8|title=Destiny in the DesertNeville Chamberlain's War: The Road to El Alamein How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939- the Battle that Turned the Tide1940|author=Frederic Seager

|summary=El Alamein is a totemic British battle, standing as it does with others which turned the tide of our fortunes. The Allies were still smarting from the effects of Dunkirk Received wisdom and harbouring the knowledge that had Hitler elected simplified narrative often lead to press his advantage then the situation could have been very differentmisconceptions about history. Churchill One such is often quoted as saying that there were no victories before El Alamein and no defeats afterwards. This isn't true - 'it seemed that' is generally omitted the scrubbing from the beginning popular imagination of the quote early days of World War II from 1939- but it does sum up 40, known as the fact that the battle turned the tide of ''perceptionPhoney 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 well as the fortunes of warFrederic Seager argues in this book, which it was quite an achievement for fighting which took place on land to which none of vital significance in how the major participants had any legitimate claimwar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684455</amazonuk>

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. }}{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Ruta's ClosetJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|authortitle=Keith Morgan with Ruth Kron SigalFritz and Kurt

|summary=A Holocaust memoir. ThereArchaeology cannot be child's play, Iwhen you've said itre scraping in the dirt looking to find what you can find, and in one fell swoop I've consigned this 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 niche marketwide one, and a small the target might not exist any more – oh, and very much over-supplied – audienceit's underwater, when he cannot dive. Such books do find it difficult Latching on to get their heads above a particular D-Day veteran through helping the parapet and heroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the voice within heardlanding craft that delivered him to Normandy, and that he was lucky to survive when it seems they have slowly filled in all sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the gaps vast majority of whom perished. Who else would make such promises to someone in the available knowledge about the Holocausttheir nineties?|isbn=1472146182}}{{Frontpage|isbn= B09F4CTKJR|title= Flights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer|rating=4. But that5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It's the point that makes those words sound churlish – every life that survived that nightmare 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 fill be trained in a gapCanada, the first to be attached to the RAF and account for those who committed the crimes and those that helped out and rescued a survivor, and serve as monument first to be sent into the skies to those six million gaps it createdfight the Germans in active combat. LuckilyBut before that can happen, mostly on account of location, this book certainly does serve Petrol has to fill in a wider gap in our perception of WWII than mostmaster flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906509263</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0578761718|title=The Double Cross System Inspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=J C MastermanNancy Carver|rating=4.5

|summary=This ''Vintage'' re-issue of Masterman's account The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the work City of London from at least 1181, when it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, the Twenty Committee is subtitled original church was destroyed in the 'classic account 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 Two Spy-Masters'II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. That's a somewhat misleading tease. The book isnBut that wasn't really about the spy-mastersend of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, very little information is given about those recruitingthe stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, turningMissouri. There, running and protecting in the spies. More information - but again relatively little - is given about grounds of Westminster College, the spies themselveschurch was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099578239</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris West1784385166|title=First ClassThe Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Britain in 36 Postage StampsNazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse

|summary=As 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 philatelist 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 lover of history, I approached images from that time may be less familiar to you. In this book with even more curiosity than usual. The subtitle suggested a very intriguing approachshort volume, but would it work? I’m glad Roger Moorhouse has attempted to report that it didillustrate the period of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224095463</amazonuk> 

  {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gavin MortimerLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=A History of Cricket in 100 ObjectsTiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes|rating=4.5|genre=SportGraphic Novels|summary=[[A History I never really followed the events of Football Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in 100 Objects by Gavin Mortimer|A History the second half of Football in 100 Objects]] was a brave attempttheir teens has other priorities, but was slightly let down by being a little too clinicalyou know. Being a game imbued with passion, I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the book lacked this which took some birth of the edge off it. CricketTank Man image, whilst inspiring passion amongst devoteesI didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, has and I didn't know more than a slightly more laid back following; one that may work better spit about the people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in this format. That said, being giving a game that has been played general browser's context for five centuries, narrowing it down to just 100 objects is no less an undertaking than for footballthe whole season of protests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846689406</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Polly Morland0648684806|title=The Society of Timid SoulsClara Colby: Or, How to be Brave|rating=3.5|genre=Reference|summary='I see no reason why 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 club, ''The Society of Timid Souls'' that encouraged timid performers and fear-wracked musicians to come in out of the cold 'to play, to criticise and be criticised in order to conquer that old bogey of stage fright.' The method evidently worked, as many a timid soul claimed to be cured by these unorthodox methods and club membership grew considerably in the years that followed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251908</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewInternational Suffragist|author=Paul Strathern|title=The Spirit of Venice: From Marco Polo to CasanovaJohn Holliday

|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=There are several ways The path of telling Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the history of USA. At the republic time she was just three-years-old but because of Venicesome childhood ailment, which is generally regarded as the first great economic she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and naval power of the western worldthree brothers. Strathern has chosen to do so largely through the lives of various famous (Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and also infamous) people from Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century to what he calls its destructionsaw that she received a good education, 'both political in and symbolic', at the hands out of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797school. On She was the whole, only child in the major events such as its wars are covered fairly brieflyhousehold and her childhood was glorious. An exception, fittingly enoughBy contrast, is made her family had become pioneer farmers in the case mid-west of a chapter on the war which began its decline in the fifteenth centuryUnited States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when it tried she and her grandparents eventually went to hold Thessalonica against join the Ottomansfamily. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and sent ships to help defend Constantinople against the Turkish army but found itself heavily defeated died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the subsequent lengthy wareldest girl, as a result of which it lost most of its possessionsheavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951921</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Hart1783784350|title=The Great WarThis Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter

|summary=There are certain aspects of world history that we are duty-bound It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to teach to each generationpeople she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. World War I January was called 'The Great War' going to be a time for a reason; it changed making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of the world scene irrevocably British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and is regarded as telling the single most important event story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the twentieth centurylandscape. The war introduced dreadful new weapons designed She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the farm'' - and learned to slaughter as many people as possible with maximum efficiencyspin, resulting knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in tens of millions of deathsher blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682460</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Palmer1789017977|title=Made to last: The story of BritainRonnie and Hilda's best-known shoe firmRomance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=4.5|genre=Business and FinanceHistory|summary=From its founding by Ronnie Williams was the Quaker brothers Cyrus son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and James Clark 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 the Somerset village of Street1863, to its present-day status as a global shoe brand, the name of Clark has weathered but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a storm as it draws close to its bicentenaryfew years off his age. This account of the company, by For a distant kinsman of while the two original founders, has drawn heavily on family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the archives 1929 Depression and on infive-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-depth interviews out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the family to tell the full storyarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685206</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emily Cockayne1980891117|title=Cheek by JowlG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A History year in the life of NeighboursGeorge Engleheart|author=John Webley

|genre=HistoryArt|summary=As Emily Cockayne emphasises at George Engleheart was one of the beginning leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the 1770s to the first chapterRegency era. He was also one of the most prolific, almost everyone has a neighbour; if you have a neighbourpainting nearly 5, you are one yourself; and neighbours can enrich or ruin our lives000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). In this engaging bookThroughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, she takes various case studies and anecdotes of living side by side in Britain from around 1200 subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to the present dayas his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546949</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mortimer1789016304|title=The Time TravellerWar and Love: A family's Guide to Elizabethan Englandtestament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=For many of usMelanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, the Elizabethan age which comprised almost half of the Tudor era seems bathed particularly in sunlight, the gilded era ''The Diary of Queen ElizabethAnn Frank's 'sceptred islebut 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. It was Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the period in which Gloriana presided over Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of Germans might reach the globecity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the defeat of Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the Spanish Armadaway that it did, and but initial protests melted away as the literary epoch organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser and Sidneythousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542072</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Judt and Timothy Snyder1908745819|title=Thinking the Twentieth CenturySurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=4.5

|summary=In emulating historians from his geographical area of interest, Timothy Snyder poses questions to, and discusses ideas with, the highly esteemed British historian and writer Tony JudtSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, best known for his 2005 they tell you ''Postwarthis one has your name on it''. This collaboration of the older and the younger thinker engenders 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 spoken book . That''Thinking 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 Twentieth Centuryauthor considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a rather intriguing exploration bad description of said time periodwhere I am. Each Add to that my love of the natural world, of its ten chapters begins with Judt’s narrative those aspects of a specific point in his personal lifethe poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and continues into debates substance most of specific facets of history; a healthy mix of thematic and chronological approaches is used all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. It was written for the latterme. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956355X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cathryn J Prince0857058320|title=Death in Lord Of All the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm GustloffDead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=There is no pun intended when I describe the ship ''Wilhelm GustloffLord Of All the Dead'' as stern. It just seems from looking at her hard and rigid lines that if you were to design is a ship that the Nazi party would use as an ideological tool, journey to take their favoured workers on pleasure cruises around uncover the Mediterranean, you would naturally end up with something that looked like herauthor's lost ancestor's life and death. However fate had it that within years she became a hospital ship, and it wasnCercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle't much longer after that that she was stationed s death in the northern Polish port now known as GdyniaSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, ready to help in a major evacuation of thousands of desperateCercas' great uncle, starving and fevered people fleeing is the figure who looms large over the advancing Soviet armybook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. All they wanted to do was to avoid The question at the perilous snowy overland route centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to get be a few miles along the coast, but they weren't to know that within hours of sailing the ''Wilhelm Gustloff'' would be torpedoed, and many thousands would perish in hero whilst having fought for the near-frozen Baltic waterswrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023034156X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Frankopan0008294011|title=The First CrusadeHow to Lose a Country: The Call 7 Steps from the EastDemocracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran|rating=34.5

|summary=At the now famous Council of Clermont A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in November 1095, Pope Urban II responded years to calls of distress from come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the eastern Byzantine Empire by issuing question ''Discuss the dramatic call 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 arms . I think now that sparked the First CrusadeI do know. But there We are at least two sides to every story, especially in history. Western histories danger of the Crusades have concentrated on that Council losing democracy and the journeys of Crusaders across Europe: Peter Frankopanwhilst it's a flawed system I can'The Call from t think of a better one, particularly as the East' instead draws attention to Emperor Alexios I Komnenus and the plight of his Byzantine Empirebenevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555034</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher de Bellaigue1788037812|title=Patriot The Fraternity of Persiathe Estranged: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Very British CoupThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary=A good historian will take a single important fact and make good use of it to expound his general thesis. De Bellaigue demonstrates this masterfully when he statesOriginally passed in 1885, 'Between 1876 and 1915 a quarter of the world changed ownership, with law that had made homosexual relations a half a dozen European states taking the lion’s sharecrime remained in place for 82 years.' Persia, however, But during this time was judged to be too poor to be worth occupying. It had, for instance, only a few miles of railway trackrestrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. SecondlyBetween 1891 and 1908, Russia and Britain both had schemes for control but their mutual animosity gave three books on the Persians room for manoeuvrenature of homosexuality appeared. The latter They were skilled at playing each off against the other written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and obtaining concessions. HoweverJohn Addington Symonds, as well as the conflict sharpened over heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the control margins of a critical resource, oil. This society and studying homosexuality was controlled upon common on the outbreak of the First World War by the major share held European Continent, but barely talked about in the Anglo-Persian Oil CompanyUK, later so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to become BPthe scientific understanding of homosexuality, held by and beginning the British. It was Muhammad Mossadeghstruggle for recognition and equality, one of leading to the first liberals milestone legalisation of the Middle East was determined that this resource beneath his native land had to belong to his own peoplesame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540487</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Marc Morris1910593508|title=The Norman ConquestApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins|rating=4.5

|summary=When did the Norman conquest of England start and end? This generous panoramic history takes incredible graphic novel is a wide sweep of almost love letter to the whole of Moon landings and the eleventh century in England, although as passion for the title indicatessubject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, the focal point Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is that pivotal date a story we know well and because of 1066. Morris begins his narrative at around this, the year 1000, authors take a time when few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were under threat from blanks. These shortcuts are the Viking invasions from Alfred and Ethelred only downside to the Unreadybook. Having long been vulnerable to raids from Scandinavia, England then had to contend If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the same from Franceslight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. The power struggles This is a graphic novel that followed the illness and death of the childless Edward the Confessor (who had nominated William of Normandy could easily have been three times as his preferred successor in 1051), the apparent seizure of the English throne by Harold Godwinson who then had himself crowned with remarkable haste, the invasion led by Harold’s brother Tostig and Harald Hardrada of Norway long and the death of both the latter at Stamford Bridge, are dealt with in painstaking detailstill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099537443</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jerry White1786331047|title=London in The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the 18th centurySecret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport|rating=4.5

|summary=White has already written accounts The basic facts about the deaths of London in the 19th and 20th centuries, Nicholas and this is the last in a planned trilogy. In 1700, according to an unnamed contemporary sourceAlexandra, it was one some of which were deliberately obscured at the ‘most Spacious, Populous, Rich, Beautifultime for various reasons, Renowned and Noble Citys that we know of at this day in the World’have long since been established. It was also For the largest city last few months of their lives in Europe. By the end of Russia the century, it would double in extent former Tsar and populationTsarina, their children and become the largest few remaining servants were held in the universeincreasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. Carl Phillipp MoritzTo prevent them from being rescued, a visitor from Germany in 1782, could climb St Paul's Cathedral July 1918 the revolutionary regime had them all shot and comment with amazement that he found it impossible bayoneted to ascertain where London began or endeddeath in circumstances which, ‘or where once the circumjacent villages began; far as the eye could reachnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, it seemed to be all one continued chain’horrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847921809</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Catherine Fletcher|title=The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Henry VIII’s protracted divorce from Catherine of Aragon, often referred Move on to as ‘The King’s Great Matter’, has been described in detail many times before. In this book on the subject, the focus is on the role of Italian diplomat, Gregorio Casali, ‘our man in Rome’, as the hardback edition was titled. In the preface, Ms Fletcher explains that the average reader may be conversant with the basic facts of Henry [[Newest Home and his six wives, but has probably never heard of Casali, who played a lengthy role in the proceedings.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554895</amazonuk>}}Family Reviews]]