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[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=Empress Dowager CixiCharging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Jung ChangClive Wilkinson

|genre=BiographyTravel|summary=It’s easy to see why Jung Chang selected Cixi as the focal point Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for her study of China’s tumultuous modern historyslow travel. Cixi is a truly fascinating woman, one As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of few human beings whose existence can be honestly said to have shaped exploring the course edges of historyEngland in an electric car was not totally outrageous. Cixi’s biography is not only In fact, it should be a fascinating read due to her own political machinationspleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, but also because of the immense transformations that occurred in China during her lifetime. Jung Chang offers a detailed exploration of the period from Cixi’s entrance to court in 1852 to her death in 1908Joan, during which time the ancient dynastic customs of China gave way to the advent of the industrial age.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087436</amazonuk>shouldn't it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B09BLBP3P8|title=The Explorer GeneNeville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Tom CheshireFrederic Seager|rating=4.5

|summary=''The Explorer Gene'' relates Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the remarkable story of three generations of scrubbing from the Piccard family, each popular imagination of whom managed to push the boundaries early days of travel and break new frontiers. The grandfatherWorld War II from 1939-40, Auguste Piccard was known as the first human to enter the stratosphere, using en experimental balloon of his own invention''Phoney War''. His later workWe remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, designing submarineswar breaking out, enabled his son Jacques and Churchill coming in to become save the first person to descend to the bottom of the infamous Mariana trench, setting a world record for the deepest diveday. Grandson Bertrand became the first person to fly around the world Very little time is spent on this period in a balloon cultural reflections and now seeks to break new records by means yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book, it was of a solar-powered craft that he intends to pilot all the way around vital significance in how the earthwar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780720890</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn and Tom Pinfold3756228711|title=Tudor Monastery FarmCDC: Life in rural England 500 The happy years agowith a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer

|summary=Think of it as time travel. Three professional historians have travelled back some five hundred years to put what they've learned into practice. On a monastery farm they've experienced what it was really like in rural Tudor England. It's a book to accompany The history of the BBC television series but it's still a rich and rewarding experience if - like me - you missed the showdevelopment of IT could fill books of several hundred pages. There's a wealth of experience between the three authors and they write about what they each know best and it's all supplemented by some sumptuous photographs of Bayleaf Farm in west Sussex and the surrounding farmland.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849906920</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|title=High Minds: The Victorians and Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us about the Birth short, but explosive, history of Modern Britain|author=Simon Heffer|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Between 1840 and 1880 British life and society underwent a gradual but major change. Young adults in the latter year would have seen a very different country from that in which an earlier generation came to maturity. The land in which povertyControl Data Company, diseaseCDC, squalor and injustice were endemicfor whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, and told in which the Chartists had agitated for fairer rights for all, had been largely transformed by the modernising factors a mixture of social upheaval technological summary and industrial changewry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847946771</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony SummersJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Not In Your Lifetime: The Assassination of JFKFritz and Kurt|rating=4.5|genre=True CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Originally published as ''The Kennedy Conspiracy''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, Anthony Summers has massively revised helping the textneighbours, updated being dutiful when it with comes to the latest evidence synagogue choir and itat a vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours's been republished 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''Not in Your Lifetime: The Assassination s will, and instead of JFK'' which refers having a national vote to keep the statement made by Chief Justice Earl Warren who was asked if the truth about what happened would come Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. He said that it would, but added the rider that ''it might not be in your lifetimeKristallnacht''. Fifty years on most of the people directly involved are now deadhappened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, but as did all the truth has not officially emergedround-ups of Jews. In fact, it's difficult These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to avoid the thought that Britain or the US government would prefer that it did not see the light of day. Further documents , while Fritz and his father are due , unknown initially to be released in 2017each other, but, in packed off on the meantime Anthony Summer has examined what is available, investigated on his own behalf same train to Buchenwald and given the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this comprehensive book.could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755365429</amazonuk>024156574X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Great Britain's Great WarJohn Henry Phillips|authortitle=Jeremy PaxmanThe Search

|summary=Throughout Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the dirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. This book is a case of the nineteenth centurylatter, Britain was regularly at war with as our author promises to locate the topic of the titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one or , the target might not exist any more overseas nation– oh, be and it France, Russia's underwater, South Africa or elsewherewhen he cannot dive. These conflicts generally passed Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the public byheroic old man's visit back to France, except for families who had loved ones serving overseas. When the declaration of war against Germany was announced our author has promised to find the crowds in London in August 1914, it was assumed landing craft that once again most people would not be affecteddelivered him to Normandy, and that he was lucky to survive when it would probably be over by Christmassank from beneath him. This was proved wrong on both counts. A weary conflict dragged on for four long yearsThe secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, and nobody in Britain escaped from the long shadow which it castvast majority of whom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670919616</amazonuk>1472146182

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn= B09F4CTKJR|title=The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder That Changed the WorldFlights for Freedom|author=Greg King and Sue WoolmansSteven Burgauer|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyHistorical Fiction|summary=Possibly no assassination in history can have had such momentous consequences for It's the history later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the world as that of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and his wife Sophie joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in SarajevoCanada, the capital of Bosnia, first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in June 1914active combat. It was their killing which led directly But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the outbreak of the First World War, just six weeks laternotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230759572</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0578761718|title=The First Bohemians: Life and Art in London's Golden AgeInspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Vic GatrellNancy Carver

|summary=It was The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the eighteenth century that an area City of London consisting of about half a square mile, from Soho and Leicester Square across Covent Garden’s Piazza to Drury Lane, and down from Long Acre to the Strand, with Covent Garden at the very centreleast 1181, became what has when it was first mentioned in modern times been recognised as the world’s first creative ‘bohemia’records. Sadly, This the original church was where destroyed in the cream of Britain’s significant artists, actors, poets, novelists, and dramatists Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the age lived fire and workedthen survived for centuries until World War II, side when it was again ruined by side with bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the city’s chief market tradersend of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, craftsmenthe stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, shopkeepersMissouri. There, rakesin the grounds of Westminster College, pickpockets the church was rebuilt and prostitutes. One might say that all human life was heretoday serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846146771</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1784385166|title=Inventing the EnemyThe Third Reich in 100 Objects: Essays on EverythingA Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Umberto EcoRoger Moorhouse|rating=45

|summary=Imagine a sumptuous Italian feast in What is the sunlit-bathed ancient countryside near Milan. Next first image that comes to mind when you think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a gentleman talks and eats with furious energy. He tells concentration camp? None of Dante, Cicero, and St Augustine and quotes a multitude these are comfortable images but they are emblematic 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 Third Reich's fascist regime in the flow of his discourse there is a fondness for iteration and reiterationall its iniquity. He throws bones over his shoulder But some objects and when he reaches the cheese course - definitely too much information on the mouldy bacteria! When images from that time may be less familiar to you finally get up things the elderly gentleman has said prompt your imagination. You are better informedIn this short volume, intrigued and prodded Roger Moorhouse has attempted to examine his discourse again and again, even if only to challenge what you have heard. Such are illustrate the effects period of reading Eco’s essays in ''Inventing the Enemy''Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553945</amazonuk> 

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Crooked Timber Of HumanityLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|authortitle=Isaiah BerlinTiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes

|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=''The Crooked Timber I never really followed the events of Humanity'' is a collection of essays by philosopher Isaiah Berlin, born Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in Riga, to, later in life, become an Oxford student and one the second half of the institution's more notable alumni, continuing to influence the university by, among their teens has other thingspriorities, cofounding Wolfson Collegeyou know. Altogether, the collection presents Berlin I certainly didn's observations t know of Western thought. The history the weeks of morals in protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the West was birth of particular interest to Berlinthe Tank Man image, as well as I didn't know how these morals informed the more obvious changes in philosophyarea had long been a venue for political protest, literature, culture and much I didn't know morethan 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845952081</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0648684806|title=A Very British MurderClara Colby: the Story of a National ObsessionThe International Suffragist|author=Lucy WorsleyJohn Holliday|rating=4.5|genre=True CrimeBiography|summary=The British are an illogical racepath of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. Short At the time she was just three-years-old but because of genocidesome childhood ailment, murder is the worstshe wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, most shocking crime an individual can commitshe remained with her grandparents, yet it has become who doted on her and saw that she received a kind good education, both in and out of commodity which over school. She was the only child in the last years has been endlessly packaged as a mass market entertainment industryhousehold and her childhood was glorious. We buy newspapers and magazines with blow-byBy contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-blow accounts west of dreadful true the United States and life caseswas hard, we read thrillersas Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, watch TV drama series and documentarieshad ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and we can take part died in murder mystery evenings childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and weekends at pubs and hotelsWisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849906343</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1783784350|title=1912This Golden Fleece: The Year the World Discovered AntarcticaA Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Chris TurneyEsther Rutter|rating=45

|summary=If you read those products designed to make you a published authorIt was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, one way writing to start according people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. January was going to so many be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of them is to look ahead for a pertinent anniversary, research or know your subject wellthe British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of wool's history and write well in advance how it had made and as popularly as you can on whatever changed the subject islandscape. Make no mistake, however – Chris Turney, even if he would appear to have followed that dictum She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the farm'' - and learned to the lastspin, is no chancer with the eye to the temporary relevanceknit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845952103</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark White1789017977|title=KennedyRonnie and Hilda's Romance: A Cultural History of an American IconTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|summary=During his lifetime John Fitzgerald Kennedy created an image Ronnie Williams was the son of himself that dazzled Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and which has largely remained intact despite the steady leakage of information over the years which could have been expected to tarnishEthel Wall. It could be argued that - much 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 case of Elvis Presley and Princess Diana - death was an excellent career move1863, but Mark White examines the way the image he was built up, then maintained and - after the assassination - burnished, reinforced already many years older than Ethel and protected.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441161864</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Armchair Nation: An intimate history of Britain in front of the TV|author=Joe Moran|rating=4.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=All of us he might well have shaved 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 itfew years off his age. It has been For 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 family was quite well-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 for -do but disaster struck in the foreseeable future.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683912</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Anti1929 Depression and five-year-Judaism: A History of old Ronnie had to adjust to a Way of Thinking|author=David Nirenberg|rating=4very different lifestyle.5|genre=History|summary=Initially the choice of title seemed an odd one on account of the more widely used term, anti One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-Semitism. The distinction is quickly made though, that unlike the latter, antiturned-Judaism does not need real Jews to flourish, but is fuelled by an idea alone. In fact out and this is a core tenet of Nirenberg’s thesiswould stay with him throughout his life. Throughout history He joined the idea of ‘Judaism’ is raised as an existential spectre army at eighteen in societies where there may be no Jewish members at all. This is a chilling reality, and Nirenberg charts the course of how this came to be1942. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851131</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1980891117|title=Victoria's MadmenG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: Revolution and AlienationA year in the life of George Engleheart|author=Clive BloomJohn Webley

|genre=HistoryArt|summary=Despite the revisionist work of a few writers and historians, our prevailing image George Engleheart was one of the Victorian age has generally been one leading portrait miniaturists of staid conformity, superiority and stuffinessGeorgian London, during which only with a few dissenters put their heads above career lasting from the parapet. Clive Bloom sums it up rather succinctly on 1770s to the first page as a ‘monolith of steam and class conflict, antimacassars and aspidistras’Regency era. A page later, he describes the nineteenth century – most of which He was covered by the Victorian era – as also one divided by three groups, namely those who represented of the old Georgian decadencemost prolific, the young Turks eager for reformpainting nearly 5, and finally a group who felt an allegiance to the world 000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of their forebears but were forced to exist in a world them being of confirming moralism and priggishnessKing George III). The young Turks, Throughout most of that time he concludescarefully recorded the names of each of his clients, ultimately wonand subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230313825</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Inferno Decoded: The essential companion to the myths, mysteries and locations of Dan Brown's Inferno1789016304|authortitle=Michael Haag|rating=4|genre=Entertainment|summary=Here be spoilers. Not so much in my review, but certainly in its subject, a very quickly produced companion guide to the latest [[:CategoryWar and Love:Dan Brown|Dan Brown]] blockbuster. ItA family's not so much a page-by-page guide, but certainly serves as an educational and intelligent look at the background to the biggest-selling book testament of 2013.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251800</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Black Count: Gloryanguish, revolution, betrayal endurance and the real Count of Monte Cristodevotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Tom ReissMelanie Martin

|summary=While the novels of Alexandre DumasMelanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, like ''The Three Musketeers'' and particularly in ''The Count Diary of Monte CristoAnn Frank'', werenbut then realised that her own family't true, they s stories were based on a real hero - Dumas's own fatherequally fascinating. Born A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the son of a slave and a French nobleman, General Alexandre Dumas would go on to rise to fame and fortune city during the French Revolutionwar years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to face racism, betrayal, and happen in a rivalry country with Napoleon Bonaparte which liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would eventually lead never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the virtual disappearance from history of this incredible figureorganisers became more circumspect.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575132</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Tutankhamen It's Curse: The Developing History of an Egyptian King|author=Joyce Tyldesley|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=The striking cover atrocity on a vast scale but made up of 'Tutankhamen’s Curse' certainly has a way tens of arresting the reader’s attention. The iconic golden funeral mask peers out from an ink-black background and those heavily-lined Egyptian eyes seem to stare eerily into the soul thousands of the beholderindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861971664</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1908745819|title=A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha MousaSurfacing|author=A T WilliamsKathleen Jamie

|summary=Almost ten years ago on Sometimes when people suggest that you read a Sunday morning back in September 2003certain book, British Troops raided a hotel in Basrathey tell you ''this one has your name on it''. It was a difficult period in the occupationMostly we take them at their word, or not, six months on from but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the Ubook.SThat's a rare experience. led invasionPeople who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. Temperatures were more than 50 degrees centigradeIn this case, I was told why. Members The blurb speaks of the Queenauthor considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's Lancashire Regiment (QLR) took ten suspects in for questioning from not a hotel in the vicinity bad description of insurgent weaponrywhere I am. The Iraqis were hooded, plasticuffed, forced into stress positions and subjected Add to karate chops and kidney punches by that my love of the British. Other men and officers watchednatural world, walked by or wondered at of those aspects of the stench poetic and lyrical that resulted from vicious punishmentare about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. After 36 hours of tortureOf course, a 26 year-old hotel receptionist lay dead by asphyxiationthis book had my name on it. His grossly disfigured body bore 93 individual injuries It was written for me. There are now in the region of another 250 individuals, men and women, whose families are making legal claims It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have been killed in further encounters with British patrols or prison guardsit fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575116</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0857058320|title=The Shadow King: The Bizarre Afterlife of King Tut's MummyLord Of All the Dead|author=Jo MarchantJavier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)|rating=54

|summary=''Now, if ILord Of All the Dead'd known''<br>''They'd line up just is a journey to see him,uncover the author's lost ancestor'<br>''I'd taken all my money''<br>''And bought me a museums life and death.Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle'' These lyrics, taken from a popular Steve Martin song, perfectly epitomize a phenomenon first described s death in the New York TimesSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, February 1923. The craze came to be known as ''Tut-Mania'Cercas' and even now, ninety years latergreat uncle, there is something about the boy-king with figure who looms large over the golden mask that ignites 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 imagination and curiosity centre of each subsequent generationthis book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306821338</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008294011|title=How to Lose a Country: The Last Battle7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Stephen HardingEce Temelkuran

|summary=May 4, 1945 saw the unconditional surrender of all German troops A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in Germany in Northwest Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Bavaria. Berlin had surrendered two days earlier. A few more areas remained officially at war, but even the most diehard supporter must have realised Germany had fallen. The war was over, years to most soldiers, although VE day come would be delayed for a few more days. But discussed by A level history students when faced with the most implausible battle of question ''Discuss the second world war was about factors which led to begin. Had ..''The Last Battle 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 ' been fiction, this' was leading to. I think now that I would have scoffed at the unlikely alliance featured in this book as too unbelievabledo know. A final battle played out We are in isolated Austrian castle was to rescue French VIPs held as honour prisoners. They were to be protected by the oddest ensemble danger of soldiers ever known. A ranking member losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of the S.S., a decorated Wehrmacht officer and his troopsbetter one, particularly as the Austrian resistance and a few American soldiers against a suicidal S.S. troop bent on carrying 'benevolent dictator' is as many killings rare as possible before the inevitable endhen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306822083</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788037812|title=The Riddle Fraternity of the LabyrinthEstranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Margalit FoxBrian Anderson

|summary=Meet Linear B. It's the name given to an ancient writing system discovered Originally passed in 19001885, and has stuck ever since then. If you need to know more, it's the law that had made homosexual relations a linear style of writing, and is linked to Linear A. There, that's that cleared upcrime remained in place for 82 years. But it took an awful long during this time to clear anything more up – while people knew some things about Linear B, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and why and how they got to be holding it in their hands1908, three books on the actual language it contained, nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and its meaningJohn Addington Symonds, was a truly intellectual challengeas well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. It was five whole decades Exploring the margins of obscurity, annoyingly secretive archaeologists society and more, between Sir Arthur Evans finding Linear B studying homosexuality was common on copious clay tablets on Cretethe European Continent, and its interpretation. In between those two landmarks was an unsung American heroinebut barely talked about in the UK, and this book is both an incredibly readable guide so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to everything regarding Linear Bthe scientific understanding of homosexuality, and a study beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of her contributionsame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251320</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=Jonathan Dimbleby|title=Destiny in the Desert: The Road to El Alamein - the Battle that Turned the Tide|rating=4.5|genre=History|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 and harbouring the knowledge that had Hitler elected to press his advantage then the situation could have been very different. Churchill 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 from the beginning of the quote - but it does sum up the fact that the battle turned the tide of ''perception'' as well as the fortunes of war, which was quite an achievement for fighting which took place on land to which none of the major participants had any legitimate claim.Frontpage|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846684455</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1910593508|title=Ruta's ClosetApollo|author=Keith Morgan with Ruth Kron Sigal|rating=4|genre=History|summary=A Holocaust memoir. There, I've said itMatt Fitch, Chris Baker and in one fell swoop I've consigned this book to a niche market, and a small – and very much over-supplied – audience. Such books do find it difficult to get their heads above the parapet and the voice within heard, and it seems they have slowly filled in all the gaps in the available knowledge about the Holocaust. But that's the point that makes those words sound churlish – every life that survived that nightmare has to fill in a gap, and account for those who committed the crimes and those that helped out and rescued a survivor, and serve as monument to those six million gaps it created. Luckily, mostly on account of location, this book certainly does serve to fill in a wider gap in our perception of WWII than most.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906509263</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Double Cross System |author=J C MastermanMike Collins

|summary=This ''Vintage'' re-issue of Masterman's account incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and because of this, the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the work of blanks. These shortcuts are the Twenty Committee is subtitled only downside to the 'classic account of World War Two Spy-Masters'book. ThatIf you's ve ever read a somewhat misleading tease. The comic book isn't really about adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the spy-masters, very little information is given about those recruiting, turning, running slight feeling that there are scenes missing and protecting the spiesthat dialogue has been trimmed. More information - but again relatively little - This is given about the spies themselvesa graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099578239</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris West1786331047|title=First ClassThe Race to Save the Romanovs: A History of Britain in 36 Postage StampsThe Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport

|summary=As a philatelist The basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and lover Alexandra, some of historywhich were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, I approached this book with even more curiosity than usualhave long since been established. The subtitle suggested a very intriguing approach, but would it work? I’m glad to report that it did.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224095463</amazonuk>}}  {{newreview|author=Gavin Mortimer|title=A History For the last few months of Cricket their lives in 100 Objects|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=[[A History of Football Russia the former Tsar and Tsarina, their children and few remaining servants were held in 100 Objects by Gavin Mortimer|A History of Football in 100 Objects]] was a brave attemptincreasingly squalid, but was slightly let down by humiliating captivity. To prevent them from being a little too clinical. Being a game imbued with passionrescued, in July 1918 the book lacked this revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which took some of , once the edge off it. Cricketnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, whilst inspiring passion amongst devotees, has a slightly more laid back following; one that may work better horrified their relatives in this format. That said, being a game that has been played for five centuries, narrowing it down to just 100 objects is no less an undertaking than for footballEurope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689406</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Polly Morland|title=The Society of Timid Souls: Or, How Move on to be Brave|rating=3.5|genre=Reference|summary='I see no reason why the shy [[Newest Home 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>}}Family Reviews]]