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[[Category:New Reviews|History]]__NOTOC__ <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{adsense2}}Frontpage__NOTOC__{{newreview|isbn=1785633457|title=The Shadow KingCharging Around: The Bizarre Afterlife Exploring the Edges of King Tut's MummyEngland by Electric Car|author=Jo MarchantClive Wilkinson

|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=''Now, if I'd known''<br>''They'd line up just to see him,''<br>''I'd taken all my money''<br>''And bought me Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a museumpreference for slow travel.'' These lyrics, taken from a popular Steve Martin song, perfectly epitomize a phenomenon first described As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in the New York Timesan electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, February 1923. The craze came to it should be known as ''Tut-Mania'' a pleasant holiday for Clive and even nowhis wife, ninety years laterJoan, there is something about the boy-king with the golden mask that ignites the imagination and curiosity of each subsequent generation.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306821338</amazonuk>shouldn't it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B09BLBP3P8|title=The Last BattleNeville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Stephen HardingFrederic Seager

|summary=May 4, 1945 saw Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the unconditional surrender popular imagination of all German troops in Germany in Northwest Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Bavaria. Berlin had surrendered two early days earlier. A few more areas remained officially at warof World War II from 1939-40, but even the most diehard supporter must have realised Germany had fallen. The war was over, to most soldiers, although VE day would be delayed for a few more days. But known as the most implausible battle of the second world war was about to begin. Had ''The Last BattlePhoney War'' been fiction. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, I would have scoffed at the unlikely alliance featured in this book as too unbelievable. A final battle played war breaking out , and Churchill coming in isolated Austrian castle was to rescue French VIPs held as honour prisoners. They were to be protected by save the oddest ensemble of soldiers ever knownday. A ranking member of the S.S., a decorated Wehrmacht officer Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and his troopsyet, the Austrian resistance and a few American soldiers against a suicidal S.S. troop bent on carrying as many killings as possible before Frederic Seager argues in this book, it was of vital significance in how the inevitable endwar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306822083</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|author=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=The Riddle Fritz and Kurt|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|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 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 Labyrinthtitular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|isbn=024156574X}}{{Frontpage|author=Margalit FoxJohn Henry Phillips|title=The Search

|summary=Meet Linear B. ItArchaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the name given dirt looking to an ancient writing system discovered in 1900find what you can find, and has stuck ever since thenoften knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. If Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you need set out to know more, it's find some specific thing. This book is a linear style case of writingthe latter, and is linked as our author promises to Linear Alocate the topic of the titular search. There, thatAnd he really hasn's that cleared up. But t made it took an awful long time to clear anything easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, the target might not exist any more up – while people knew some things about Linear Boh, and why and how they got 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 be holding it in their handsFrance, our author has promised to find the actual language it containedlanding craft that delivered him to Normandy, and its meaning, that he was a truly intellectual challengelucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. It was five whole decades of obscurity, annoyingly secretive archaeologists and more, between Sir Arthur Evans finding Linear B on copious clay tablets on Crete, and its interpretation. In between those two landmarks was an unsung American heroine, and this book The secondary aim is both an incredibly readable guide to everything regarding Linear Berect a memorial to everyone else aboard, and a study the vast majority of her contributionwhom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781251320</amazonuk>1472146182

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan DimblebyB09F4CTKJR|title=Destiny in the Desert: The Road to El Alamein - the Battle that Turned the TideFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|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 It's the effects later stages of Dunkirk World War I and harbouring the knowledge that had Hitler elected to press his advantage then United States has just entered the situation could have been very differentconflict. Churchill Petrol Petronus is often quoted as saying that there were no victories before El Alamein a young American who has signed up and no defeats afterwardsjoined the 17 Aero Squadron. This isn't true - 'it seemed that' is generally omitted from company was the beginning of first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the quote - but it does sum up first to be attached to the fact that RAF and the battle turned first to be sent into the tide of ''perception'' as well as skies to fight the fortunes of warGermans in active combat. But before that can happen, which was quite an achievement for fighting which took place on land Petrol has to which none of master flying the major participants had any legitimate claimnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684455</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0578761718|title=Ruta's ClosetThe Inspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Keith Morgan with Ruth Kron SigalNancy Carver|rating=4.5

|summary=A Holocaust memoir. ThereThe church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at least 1181, I've said when it, and was first mentioned in one fell swoop I've consigned this book to a niche marketrecords. Sadly, and a small – and very much over-supplied – audience. Such books do find it difficult to get their heads above the parapet and original church was destroyed in the voice within heard, and it seems they have slowly filled Great Fire of London in all the gaps 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the available knowledge about fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the HolocaustBlitz. But thatwasn's t the point that makes those words sound churlish – every life that survived that nightmare has to fill in end of its story: after a gapphenomenal fundraising effort, and account for those who committed the crimes and those that helped out and rescued a survivorstones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, and serve as monument to those six million gaps it createdMissouri. LuckilyThere, mostly on account in the grounds of locationWestminster College, this book certainly does serve the church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to fill in a wider gap in our perception of WWII than mostWinston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906509263</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1784385166|title=The Double Cross System Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany|author=J C MastermanRoger Moorhouse

|summary=This ''Vintage'' re-issue What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of Masterman's account the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a concentration camp? None of the work these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Twenty Committee is subtitled the 'classic account of World War Two Spy-MastersThird Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. That's a somewhat misleading teaseBut some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. The book isn't really about the spy-mastersIn this short volume, very little information is given about those recruiting, turning, running and protecting Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the spies. More information - but again relatively little - is given about period of the spies themselvesThird Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099578239</amazonuk> 

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris WestLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=First ClassTiananmen 1989: A History of Britain in 36 Postage StampsOur Shattered Hopes|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=As a philatelist 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 lover the birth of historythe Tank Man image, I approached this book with even didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more curiosity than usuala spit about the people involved on either side. The subtitle suggested This book is practically flawless in giving a very intriguing approach, but would it work? I’m glad to report that it didgeneral browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224095463</amazonuk>1684056993

  {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gavin Mortimer0648684806|title=A History of Cricket in 100 ObjectsClara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|genre=SportBiography|summary=[[A History The path of Football 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 100 Objects by Gavin Mortimer|A History and out of Football school. She was the only child in 100 Objects]] was a brave attempt, but the household and her childhood was slightly let down by being a little too clinicalglorious. Being a game imbued with passionBy contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the book lacked this which took some mid-west of the edge off itUnited States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. CricketClara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, whilst inspiring passion amongst devoteeshad ten pregnancies, has a slightly more laid back following; one that may work better seven surviving children and died in this formatchildbirth not long after Clara arrived. That said As the eldest girl, being a game that has been played for five centuries, narrowing it down to just 100 objects is no less an undertaking than for footballheavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689406</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Polly Morland1783784350|title=The Society of Timid SoulsThis Golden Fleece: Or, How to be BraveA Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating=3.5|genre=ReferenceHistory|summary='I see no reason why the shy It was December and timid Esther Rutter was stuck in any community couldn’t get together her office job, writing to people she'd never met and help each otherpreparing spreadsheets.'  The above words were uttered in 1943 by a gentleman called Bernard Gabrieljob frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. Mr Gabriel January was going to be a piano player who founded a unique clubtime 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'The Society of Timid Soulsd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' that encouraged timid performers and feara free-wracked musicians to come in out of range child on the cold farm'' - and learned to playspin, to criticise knit and weave from her mother and be criticised in order to conquer that old bogey of stage frighther mother's friend.' The method evidently worked, as many a timid soul claimed to be cured by these unorthodox methods and club membership grew considerably This was in the years that followedher blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251908</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Strathern1789017977|title=The Spirit of VeniceRonnie and Hilda's Romance: From Marco Polo to CasanovaTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|summary=There are several ways of telling Ronnie Williams was the history son of the republic of VeniceThomas 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, which is generally regarded as the first great economic but he was already many years older than Ethel and naval power of the western worldhe might well have shaved a few years off his age. Strathern has chosen For a while the family was quite well-to -do so largely through but disaster struck in the lives of various famous (1929 Depression and also infamous) people five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century his father was his need to what he calls its destruction, 'both political be well-turned-out and symbolic', at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797this would stay with him throughout his life. On He joined the whole, the major events such as its wars are covered fairly brieflyarmy at eighteen in 1942. An exception, fittingly enough, is made }}{{Frontpage|isbn=1980891117|title=G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the case life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley|rating=4.5|genre=Art|summary=George Engleheart was one of a chapter on the war which began its decline in the fifteenth centuryleading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, when it tried to hold Thessalonica against with a career lasting from the Ottomans, and sent ships 1770s to help defend Constantinople against the Turkish army but found itself heavily defeated in Regency era. He was also one of the subsequent lengthy warmost prolific, painting nearly 5, as a result 000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of which it lost King George III). Throughout most of its possessionsthat 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>1845951921</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Hart1789016304|title=The Great Warand Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=There are certain aspects of world history that we are duty-bound Melanie Martin read about what happened to teach to each generation. Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War I II and was called entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Great WarDiary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family' for a reason; it changed the world scene irrevocably s stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and is regarded as seven thousand Jews were deported from the single most important event of city during the twentieth century. The war introduced dreadful new weapons designed years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to slaughter as many happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people as possible with maximum efficiencybelieved 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, resulting 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 millions thousands of deathsindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682460</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Palmer1908745819|title=Made to last: The story of Britain's best-known shoe firm|rating=4.5|genre=Business and Finance|summary=From its founding by the Quaker brothers Cyrus and James Clark in the Somerset village of Street, to its present-day status as a global shoe brand, the name of Clark has weathered many a storm as it draws close to its bicentenary. This account of the company, by a distant kinsman of the two original founders, has drawn heavily on the archives and on in-depth interviews with the family to tell the full story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685206</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSurfacing|author=Emily Cockayne|title=Cheek by Jowl: A History of NeighboursKathleen Jamie|rating=4.5

|summary=As Emily Cockayne emphasises 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 beginning 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 first chapterauthor considering ''an older, almost everyone has less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a neighbour; if you have a neighbourbad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, you of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are one yourself; about style not form, and neighbours can enrich or ruin our livessubstance most of all, about connection. In Of course, this engaging book, she takes various case studies and anecdotes of living side by side in Britain from around 1200 had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to the present dayhave it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546949</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mortimer0857058320|title=The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan EnglandLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)|rating=54

|summary=For many of us, ''Lord Of All the Elizabethan age which comprised almost half of the Tudor era seems bathed in sunlight, Dead'' is a journey to uncover the gilded era of Queen Elizabethauthor's lost ancestor'sceptred isle's life and death. It was Cercas is searching for the period in which Gloriana presided over Sir Francis Drakemeaning behind his great uncle's circumnavigation of death in the globeSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the defeat of figure who looms large over the Spanish Armada, and 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 literary epoch centre of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser and Sidneythis book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542072</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Judt and Timothy Snyder0008294011|title=Thinking the Twentieth CenturyHow to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran

|summary=In emulating historians from his geographical area of interest, Timothy Snyder poses questions A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to, and discusses ideas come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with, the highly esteemed British historian and writer Tony Judt, best known for his 2005 question ''PostwarDiscuss the factors which led to...''. This collaboration of the older I agreed that she was right and the younger thinker engenders the spoken book wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn'Thinking the Twentieth Centuryt know what all 'this', a rather intriguing exploration of said time periodwas leading to. I think now that I do know. Each We are in danger of its ten chapters begins with Judt’s narrative losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a specific point in his personal lifebetter one, and continues into debates of specific facets of history; a healthy mix of thematic and chronological approaches particularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is used for the latteras rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956355X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cathryn J Prince1788037812|title=Death in The Fraternity of the BalticEstranged: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm GustloffFight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=45

|summary=There is no pun intended when I describe Originally passed in 1885, the ship ''Wilhelm Gustloff'' as sternlaw 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. It just seems from looking at her hard Between 1891 and rigid lines that if you were to design a ship that the Nazi party would use as an ideological tool1908, to take their favoured workers three books on pleasure cruises around the Mediterraneannature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, you would naturally end up with something that looked like heras well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. However fate had it that within years she became a hospital ship, Exploring the margins of society and it wasn't much longer after that that she studying homosexuality was stationed common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the northern Polish port now known as GdyniaUK, ready so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to help in a major evacuation of thousands the scientific understanding of desperatehomosexuality, starving and fevered people fleeing beginning the advancing Soviet army. All they wanted to do was to avoid the perilous snowy overland route struggle for recognition and equality, leading to get a few miles along the coast, but they weren't to know that within hours milestone legalisation of sailing the ''Wilhelm Gustloff'' would be torpedoed, and many thousands would perish same-sex relationships in the near-frozen Baltic waters1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023034156X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Frankopan1910593508|title=The First Crusade: The Call from the EastApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins|rating=3.5

|summary=At This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the passion for the now famous Council subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and because of Clermont in November 1095this, Pope Urban II responded to calls of distress from the eastern Byzantine Empire by issuing the dramatic call to arms authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that sparked we can fill in the First Crusadeblanks. But there These shortcuts are at least two sides the only downside to every story, especially in historythe book. Western histories If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the Crusades have concentrated on slight feeling that Council there are scenes missing and the journeys of Crusaders across Europe: Peter Frankopan's 'The Call from the East' instead draws attention to Emperor Alexios I Komnenus that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and the plight of his Byzantine Empirestill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555034</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher de Bellaigue1786331047|title=Patriot of PersiaThe Race to Save the Romanovs: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Very British CoupThe Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport

|summary=A good historian will take a single important fact The basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and make good use of it to expound his general thesis. De Bellaigue demonstrates this masterfully when he statesAlexandra, 'Between 1876 and 1915 a quarter some of which were deliberately obscured at the world changed ownership, with a half a dozen European states taking the lion’s share.' Persia, however, during this time was judged to be too poor to be worth occupying. It had, for instancevarious reasons, only a have long since been established. For the last few miles months of railway track. Secondly, their lives in Russia the former Tsar and Britain both had schemes for control but Tsarina, their mutual animosity gave the Persians room for manoeuvre. The latter children and few remaining servants were skilled at playing each off against the other and obtaining concessionsheld in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. HoweverTo prevent them from being rescued, the conflict sharpened over the control of a critical resource, oil. This was controlled upon the outbreak of the First World War by the major share held in July 1918 the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to become BPdeath in circumstances which, held by once the British. It news was Muhammad Mossadeghconfirmed beyond all doubt, one of the first liberals of the Middle East was determined that this resource beneath his native land had to belong to his own peoplehorrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540487</amazonuk>