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[[Category:New Reviews|History]]__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony Summers1785633457|title=Not In Your LifetimeCharging Around: The Assassination of JFK|rating=4.5|genre=True Crime|summary=Originally published as ''The Kennedy Conspiracy'', Anthony Summers has massively revised the text, updated it with Exploring the latest evidence and it's been republished as ''Not in Your Lifetime: The Assassination Edges of JFK'' which refers to the statement made England by Chief Justice Earl Warren who was asked if the truth about what happened would come out. He said that it would, but added the rider that ''it might not be in your lifetime''. Fifty years on most of the people directly involved are now dead, but the truth has not officially emerged. In fact, it's difficult to avoid the thought that the US government would prefer that it did not see the light of day. Further documents are due to be released in 2017, but, in the meantime Anthony Summer has examined what is available, investigated on his own behalf and given us this comprehensive book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755365429</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Great Britain's Great War|author=Jeremy Paxman|rating=5|genre=History|summary=Throughout the nineteenth century, Britain was regularly at war with one or more overseas nation, be it France, Russia, South Africa or elsewhere. These conflicts generally passed the public by, except for families who had loved ones serving overseas. When the declaration of war against Germany was announced to the crowds in London in August 1914, it was assumed that once again most people would not be affected, and that it would probably be over by Christmas. This was proved wrong on both counts. A weary conflict dragged on for four long years, and nobody in Britain escaped from the long shadow which it cast.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919616</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder That Changed the WorldElectric Car|author=Greg King and Sue WoolmansClive Wilkinson

|genre=BiographyTravel|summary=Possibly no assassination in Clive Wilkinson has a history can have had such momentous consequences of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the history idea of exploring the world as that edges of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, in June 1914. It was their killing which led directly to the outbreak of the First World WarJoan, just six weeks later.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230759572</amazonuk>shouldn't it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B09BLBP3P8|title=The First Bohemians: Life and Art in LondonNeville Chamberlain's Golden AgeWar: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Vic GatrellFrederic Seager

|summary=It was in the eighteenth century that an area of London consisting of about half a square mile, from Soho Received wisdom and Leicester Square across Covent Garden’s Piazza simplified narrative often lead to Drury Lane, and down misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from Long Acre to the Strand, with Covent Garden at popular imagination of the very centreearly days of World War II from 1939-40, became what has in modern times been recognised known as the world’s first creative ‘bohemia’''Phoney War''. This was where the cream of Britain’s significant artists, actors, poetsWe remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, novelistswar breaking out, and dramatists of Churchill coming in to save the age lived day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and workedyet, side by side with the city’s chief market tradersas Frederic Seager argues in this book, craftsmen, shopkeepers, rakes, pickpockets and prostitutes. One might say that all human life it was hereof vital significance in how the war played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846146771</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=3756228711|title=Inventing the EnemyCDC: Essays on EverythingThe happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Umberto EcoHans Bodmer

|summary=Imagine a sumptuous Italian feast in the sunlit-bathed ancient countryside near Milan. Next to you a gentleman talks and eats with furious energy. He tells of Dante, Cicero, and St Augustine and quotes a multitude of obscure troubadours from the Middle Ages. He repeats himself, gestures flamboyantly, nudges you sharply in the ribs, belches and even breaks wind. His conversation contains nuggets of information but in the flow of his discourse there is a fondness for iteration and reiteration. He throws bones over his shoulder and when he reaches the cheese course - definitely too much information on the mouldy bacteria! When you finally get up things the elderly gentleman has said prompt your imagination. You are better informed, intrigued and prodded to examine his discourse again and again, even if only to challenge what you have heard. Such are the effects of reading Eco’s essays in ''Inventing the Enemy''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553945</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Crooked Timber Of Humanity|author=Isaiah Berlin|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=''The Crooked Timber history of Humanity'' is a collection the development of essays by philosopher Isaiah Berlin, born in Riga, to, later in life, become an Oxford student and one IT could fill books of the institutionseveral hundred pages.'s more notable alumni, continuing to influence the university by, among other things, cofounding Wolfson College. Altogether, the collection presents Berlin's observations of Western thought. The history of morals in the West was of particular interest to Berlin, as well as how these morals informed the more obvious changes in philosophy, literature, culture and much more.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845952081</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|title=A Very British Murder: the Story of a National Obsession|author=Lucy Worsley|rating=4Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that.5|genre=True Crime|summary=The British are an illogical race. Short of genocide, murder is He has chosen to tell us about the worstshort, most shocking crime an individual can commitbut explosive, yet it has become a kind history of commodity which over the last years has been endlessly packaged as a mass market entertainment industry. We buy newspapers and magazines with blow-by-blow accounts of dreadful true life casesControl Data Company, we read thrillersCDC, watch TV drama series and documentariesfor whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, and we can take part told in murder mystery evenings and weekends at pubs a mixture of technological summary and hotelswry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849906343</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=1912: The Year the World Discovered AntarcticaJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|authortitle=Chris TurneyFritz and Kurt

|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=If you read those products designed We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to make you a published authordo – kicking things around the empty market place, helping the neighbours, one way being dutiful when it comes to start according the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to so many of 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 look ahead for cave to Hitler's will, and instead of having a pertinent anniversarynational vote to keep the Nazis out, research or know your subject well, and write well invite them in with open arms. ''Kristallnacht'' happened in advance and Vienna just as popularly much as you can on whatever in Germany, as did all the subject isround-ups of Jews. Make no mistakeThese 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, however – Chris Turneywhile Fritz and his father are, even if he would appear to have followed that dictum unknown initially to the lasteach other, is no chancer with packed off on the eye same train to Buchenwald and the temporary relevancestone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845952103</amazonuk>024156574X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark WhiteJohn Henry Phillips|title=Kennedy: A Cultural History of an American IconThe Search|rating=45

|summary=During his lifetime John Fitzgerald Kennedy created an image of himself that dazzled and which has largely remained intact despite the steady leakage of information over Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the years which could have been expected dirt looking to tarnishfind what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. It could Archaeology must be argued that - much a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. This book is a case of the latter, as in our author promises to locate the case topic of Elvis Presley and Princess Diana - death was an excellent career movethe titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, but Mark White examines the way the image was built uptarget might not exist any more – oh, then maintained and it's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D- after Day veteran through helping the heroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the assassination - burnishedlanding craft that delivered him to Normandy, reinforced and protectedthat 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?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1441161864</amazonuk>1472146182

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Armchair Nation: An intimate history of Britain in front of the TVB09F4CTKJR|authortitle=Joe Moran|rating=4.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=All of us have a love-hate affair with television, or ‘the idiot lantern’. Hardly anybody who has ever owned a set, or been part of a family which has had one, can envisage life without it. It has been a source of endless entertainment and escape from the drudge of everyday life, while at some time it has irritated most of us beyond measure. Love it or loathe it, it has always been part of the fabric of our existence. While to a certain extent it has been superseded by online services which have supplemented if not overtaken or usurped part of its role, its iconic status is unlikely to disappear Flights for the foreseeable future.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683912</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Anti-Judaism: A History of a Way of ThinkingFreedom|author=David NirenbergSteven Burgauer

|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=Initially It's the choice of title seemed an odd one on account later stages of World War I and the more widely used term, anti-Semitism. The distinction is quickly made though, that unlike United States has just entered the latter, anti-Judaism does not need real Jews to flourish, but is fuelled by an idea aloneconflict. In fact this Petrol Petronus is a core tenet of Nirenberg’s thesisyoung American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. Throughout history This company was the idea of ‘Judaism’ is raised as an existential spectre first US Aero Squadron to be trained in societies where there may Canada, the first to be no Jewish members at all. This is a chilling reality, attached to the RAF and Nirenberg charts the course of how this came first to besent 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>1781851131</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0578761718|title=Victoria's Madmen: Revolution and AlienationThe Inspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Clive BloomNancy Carver

|summary=Despite the revisionist work of a few writers and historians, our prevailing image The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the Victorian age has generally been one City of staid conformity, superiority and stuffinessLondon from at least 1181, during which only a few dissenters put their heads above the parapet. Clive Bloom sums when it up rather succinctly on the was first page as a ‘monolith of steam and class conflictmentioned in records. Sadly, antimacassars and aspidistras’. A page later, he describes the nineteenth century – most original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of which London in 1666. It was covered rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the Victorian era – as one divided fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by three groups, namely those who represented bombs during the old Georgian decadence, the young Turks eager for reform, and finally a group who felt an allegiance to Blitz. But that wasn't the world end of their forebears but were forced to exist in its story: after a world of confirming moralism and priggishness. The young Turksphenomenal fundraising effort, he concludes, ultimately won.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230313825</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Inferno Decoded: The essential companion to the myths, mysteries and locations of Dan Brownstones from the church's Inferno|author=Michael Haag|rating=4|genre=Entertainment|summary=Here be spoilerswalls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. Not so much in my reviewThere, but certainly in its subjectthe grounds of Westminster College, a very quickly produced companion guide to the latest [[:Category:Dan Brown|Dan Brown]] blockbuster. It's not so much a page-by-page guide, but certainly church was rebuilt and today serves as an educational and intelligent look at the background a memorial to the biggest-selling book of 2013Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251800</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1784385166|title=The Black CountThird Reich in 100 Objects: Glory, revolution, betrayal and the real Count A Material History of Monte CristoNazi Germany|author=Tom ReissRoger Moorhouse

|summary=While What is the novels first image that comes to mind when you think of Alexandre Dumas, like ''the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Three Musketeers'' and ''Nazi salute? The Count gate to a concentration camp? None of Monte Cristo'', weren't true, these are comfortable images but they were based on a real hero - Dumasare emblematic of the Third Reich's own fatherfascist regime in all its iniquity. Born the son of a slave But some objects and a French noblemanimages from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, General Alexandre Dumas would go on Roger Moorhouse has attempted to rise to fame and fortune during illustrate the French Revolution, only to face racism, betrayal, and a rivalry with Napoleon Bonaparte which would eventually lead to period of the virtual disappearance from history Third Reich through one hundred of this incredible figureits material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575132</amazonuk> 

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Tutankhamen's Curse: The Developing History of an Egyptian KingLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|authortitle=Joyce TyldesleyTiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes

|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|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 side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.|isbn=1684056993}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0648684806|title=Clara Colby: The striking cover International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick'Tutankhamen’s Curses 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' certainly has 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 way good education, both in and out of arresting school. She was the reader’s attentiononly child in the household and her childhood was glorious. The iconic golden funeral mask peers 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 from an ink-black background when she and those heavily-lined Egyptian eyes seem her grandparents eventually went to stare eerily into join the soul of 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 beholdereldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861971664</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1783784350|title=This Golden Fleece: A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha MousaJourney Through Britain's Knitted History|author=A T WilliamsEsther Rutter

|summary=Almost ten years ago on a Sunday morning back It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in September 2003her office job, British Troops raided a hotel in Basrawriting to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. It January was going to be a difficult period in time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of the occupationBritish Isles with occasional forays abroad, six months on from discovering and telling the U.S. led invasion. Temperatures were more than 50 degrees centigrade. Members story of the Queenwool's Lancashire Regiment (QLR) took ten suspects in for questioning from a hotel in the vicinity of insurgent weaponry. The Iraqis were hooded, plasticuffed, forced into stress positions history and subjected to karate chops how it had made and kidney punches by changed the Britishlandscape. Other men and officers watched, walked by or wondered at the stench that resulted from vicious punishment. After 36 hours of torture, She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a 26 yearfree-old hotel receptionist lay dead by asphyxiation. His grossly disfigured body bore 93 individual injuries. There are now in range child on the region of another 250 individualsfarm'' - and learned to spin, men knit and women, whose families are making legal claims to have been killed weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in further encounters with British patrols or prison guardsher blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575116</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1789017977|title=The Shadow King: The Bizarre Afterlife of King TutRonnie and Hilda's MummyRomance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Jo MarchantWendy Williams|rating=54

|summary=''Now, if I'd Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (knownas Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry'<br>''They'd line up just s birthdate: he claimed to see himhave been born in 1863,''<br>''I'd taken all my money''<br>''And bought me but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a museumfew years off his age.'' These lyrics, taken from For a popular Steve Martin song, perfectly epitomize a phenomenon first described while the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the New York Times, February 19231929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. The craze came One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be known as ''Tutwell-turned-Mania'' out and even now, ninety years later, there is something about the boy-king this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the golden mask that ignites the imagination and curiosity of each subsequent generationarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306821338</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1980891117|title=The Last BattleG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart|author=Stephen HardingJohn Webley

|genre=HistoryArt|summary=May 4, 1945 saw George Engleheart was one of the unconditional surrender leading portrait miniaturists of all German troops in Germany in Northwest GermanyGeorgian London, with a career lasting from the Netherlands, Denmark and Bavaria1770s to the Regency era. Berlin had surrendered two days earlier. A few more areas remained officially at war, but even He was also one of the most diehard supporter must have realised Germany had fallen. The war was overprolific, to most soldierspainting nearly 5, although VE day would be delayed for a few more days000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). But the Throughout most implausible battle of that time he carefully recorded the second world war was about to begin. Had ''The Last Battle'' been fiction, I would have scoffed at the unlikely alliance featured in this book as too unbelievable. A final battle played out in isolated Austrian castle was to rescue French VIPs held as honour prisoners. They were to be protected by the oddest ensemble names of soldiers ever known. A ranking member each of the S.S., a decorated Wehrmacht officer and his troopsclients, the Austrian resistance and a few American soldiers against a suicidal S.S. troop bent on carrying subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as many killings as possible before the inevitable endhis fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306822083</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1789016304|title=The Riddle War and Love: A family's testament of the Labyrinthanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Margalit FoxMelanie Martin

|summary=Meet Linear B. It's the name given Melanie Martin read about what happened to an ancient writing system Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered , particularly in 1900, and has stuck ever since ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then. If you need to know more, itrealised that her own family's a linear style of writingstories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and is linked Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to Linear Ahappen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. There, Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that's the Germans might reach the city were convinced that cleared up. But it took an awful long time to clear anything more up – while people knew some things about Linear Bthey would soon be pushed back, and why and how they got that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to be holding it escalate in their hands, the actual language way that it containeddid, and its meaning, was a truly intellectual challengebut initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It was five whole decades of obscurity, annoyingly secretive archaeologists and more, between Sir Arthur Evans finding Linear B on copious clay tablets 's an atrocity on Crete, and its interpretation. In between those two landmarks was an unsung American heroine, and this book is both an incredibly readable guide to everything regarding Linear B, and a study vast scale but made up of tens of her contributionthousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251320</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Dimbleby1908745819|title=Destiny in the Desert: The Road to El Alamein - the Battle that Turned the TideSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=4.5

|summary=El Alamein is Sometimes when people suggest that you read a totemic British battlecertain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, standing as but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it does with others which turned turns out that we didn't like the tide of our fortunesbook. 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 Allies were still smarting from blurb speaks of the effects author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of Dunkirk and harbouring the knowledge that had Hitler elected to press his advantage then the situation could have been very differentherself. '' Churchill is often quoted as saying that there were no victories before El Alamein and no defeats afterwardsOlder. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. This isn't true - 'it seemed Add to that' is generally omitted from my love of the beginning natural world, of those aspects of the quote - but it does sum up the fact poetic and lyrical that the battle turned the tide are about style not form, and substance most of ''perception'' as well as the fortunes of warall, about connection. Of course, which this book had my name on it. It was quite an achievement written for fighting which took place on land me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to which none of the major participants had any legitimate claimhave it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684455</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0857058320|title=Ruta's ClosetLord Of All the Dead|author=Keith Morgan with Ruth Kron SigalJavier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=A Holocaust memoir. There, I've said it, and in one fell swoop I've consigned this book to Lord Of All the Dead'' is a niche market, and a small – and very much over-supplied – audience. Such books do find it difficult journey to get their heads above uncover the parapet author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the voice within heard, and it seems they have slowly filled meaning behind his great uncle's death in all the gaps in Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the available knowledge about figure who looms large over the Holocaustbook. But thatHe died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's the point that makes those words sound churlish – every life that survived that nightmare has to fill in a gap, and account forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for those who committed this dictator. The question at 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 centre of location, this book certainly does serve is whether it is possible for his great uncle to fill in be a wider gap in our perception of WWII than mosthero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906509263</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008294011|title=How to Lose a Country: The Double Cross System 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=J C MastermanEce Temelkuran|rating=4.5

|summary=This 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 ''VintageDiscuss the factors which led to...'' re-issue of Masterman I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn's account of the work of the Twenty Committee is subtitled the t know what all 'classic account of World War Two Spy-Mastersthis'was leading to. I think now that I do know. ThatWe are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a somewhat misleading tease. The book isnflawed system I can't really about the spy-masters, very little information is given about those recruitingthink of a better one, turning, running and protecting particularly as the spies. More information - but again relatively little - 'benevolent dictator' is given about the spies themselvesas rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099578239</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris West1788037812|title=First ClassThe Fraternity of the Estranged: A History of Britain The Fight for Homosexual Rights in 36 Postage StampsEngland, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary=As Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a philatelist and lover of history, I approached crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this book with even more curiosity than usual. The subtitle suggested a very intriguing approachtime, but would it work? I’m glad to report that it restrictions on same-sex relationships didnot go unchallenged.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224095463</amazonuk>}}  {{newreview|author=Gavin Mortimer|title=A History Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of Cricket in 100 Objects|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=[[A History of Football in 100 Objects homosexuality appeared. They were written by Gavin Mortimer|A History two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of Football in 100 Objects]] society and studying homosexuality was a brave attemptcommon on the European Continent, but was slightly let down by being a little too clinical. Being a game imbued with passionbarely talked about in the UK, so the book lacked this which took some publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the edge off it. Cricketscientific understanding of homosexuality, 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 and beginning the struggle for five centuriesrecognition and equality, narrowing it down leading to just 100 objects is no less an undertaking than for footballthe milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689406</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Polly Morland1910593508|title=The Society of Timid Souls: 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>}} {{newreviewApollo|author=Paul Strathern|title=The Spirit of Venice: From Marco Polo to Casanova|rating=4|genre=History|summary=There are several ways of telling the history of the republic of Venice, which is generally regarded as the first great economic and naval power of the western world. Strathern has chosen to do so largely through the lives of various famous (and also infamous) people from Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century to what he calls its destructionMatt Fitch, 'both political Chris Baker and symbolic', at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797. On the whole, the major events such as its wars are covered fairly briefly. An exception, fittingly enough, is made in the case of a chapter on the war which began its decline in the fifteenth century, when it tried to hold Thessalonica against the Ottomans, and sent ships to help defend Constantinople against the Turkish army but found itself heavily defeated in the subsequent lengthy war, as a result of which it lost most of its possessions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951921</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Peter Hart|title=The Great WarMike Collins

|summary=There are certain aspects of world history that we are duty-bound This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to teach to each generation. World War I was called 'The Great War' for a reason; it changed the world scene irrevocably Moon landings and is regarded as the single most important event of passion for the twentieth century. The war introduced dreadful new weapons designed to slaughter as many people as possible with maximum efficiencysubject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, resulting in tens of millions of deathsChris Baker and Mike Collins.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682460</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mark Palmer|title=Made to last: The This is a story we know well and because of Britain's best-known shoe firm|rating=4this, the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks.5|genre=Business and Finance|summary=From its founding by These shortcuts are the Quaker brothers Cyrus and James Clark in only downside to the Somerset village book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of Street, to its present-day status as a global shoe brand, film you will be familiar with the name of Clark slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has weathered many a storm as it draws close to its bicentenarybeen trimmed. This account of the company, by is a distant kinsman of the two original founders, has drawn heavily on the archives graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and on in-depth interviews with the family to tell the full storystill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685206</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emily Cockayne1786331047|title=Cheek by JowlThe Race to Save the Romanovs: A History of Neighbours|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=As Emily Cockayne emphasises at the beginning of The Truth Behind the first chapter, almost everyone has a neighbour; if you have a neighbour, you are one yourself; and neighbours can enrich or ruin our lives. In this engaging book, she takes various case studies and anecdotes of living side by side in Britain from around 1200 Secret Plans to the present day.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546949</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewRescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Ian Mortimer|title=The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan EnglandHelen Rappaport

|summary=For many of us, The basic facts about the Elizabethan age which comprised almost half deaths of the Tudor era seems bathed in sunlightNicholas and Alexandra, the gilded era some of Queen Elizabeth's 'sceptred isle'. It was the period in which Gloriana presided over Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of were deliberately obscured at the globetime for various reasons, have long since been established. For the defeat last few months of their lives in Russia the Spanish Armadaformer 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 literary epoch of Shakespearerevolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, Marloweonce the news was confirmed beyond all doubt, Spenser and Sidneyhorrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542072</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Tony Judt and Timothy Snyder|title=Thinking the Twentieth Century|rating=4.5|genre=History|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 Judt, best known for his 2005 ''Postwar''. This collaboration of the older and the younger thinker engenders the spoken book ''Thinking the Twentieth Century'', a rather intriguing exploration of said time period. Each of its ten chapters begins with Judt’s narrative of a specific point 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 latter.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956355X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Cathryn J Prince|title=Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff|rating=4|genre=History|summary=There is no pun intended when I describe the ship ''Wilhelm Gustloff'' as stern. It just seems from looking at her hard and rigid lines that if you were to design a ship that the Nazi party would use as an ideological tool, to take their favoured workers Move on pleasure cruises around the Mediterranean, you would naturally end up with something that looked like her. However fate had it that within years she became a hospital ship, and it wasn't much longer after that that she was stationed in the northern Polish port now known as Gdynia, ready to help in a major evacuation of thousands of desperate, starving and fevered people fleeing the advancing Soviet army. All they wanted to do was to avoid the perilous snowy overland route to get a few miles along the coast, but they weren't to know that within hours of sailing the ''Wilhelm Gustloff'' would be torpedoed, [[Newest Home and many thousands would perish in the near-frozen Baltic waters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023034156X</amazonuk>}}Family Reviews]]