Difference between revisions of "Newest History Reviews"

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{{Frontpage
|title=Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs
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|isbn=1785633457
|author=Bob Brier
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|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car
|rating=3.5
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|author=Clive Wilkinson
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|rating=5
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|genre=Travel
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|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=B09BLBP3P8
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|title=Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940
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|author=Frederic Seager
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=There have been so many books written on the subject of Egyptology, it would be hard to imagine that anything new could be said on the matter. However, TV presenter and researcher Bob Brier, a self-confessed Egyptophile, has managed to approach the topic from a unique perspective by allowing us a glimpse of his fascinating collection of all things Egyptian. The collection is an eclectic mix of objects, including jewellery, private letters from Howard Carter, tobacco packaging, books, posters and tea-sets. In Brier’s collection, his ornate Josiah Wedgwood Egyptian set sits proudly on the shelf next to Barbie of the Nile and a cheap King Tut cologne bottle. As he puts it: 'we all know that something can be so bad that it’s good. The true collector has no shame.'
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|summary=Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of the early days of World War II from 1939-40, known as the ''Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in to save the day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book, it was of vital significance in how the war played out.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1137278609</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=3756228711
|title=Fred's War
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|title=CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'
|author=Andrew Davidson
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|author=Hans Bodmer
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=''Fred's War'' is  the story of the 1st Cameronians actions in the 1st world war from 1914 -1915. The pictures themselves tell their own story. They show the happy young and carefree faces become gaunt, lined and battle-worn as the war progresses, although there is still laughter at times. The simple warmth of a roaring fire brings such obvious pleasure, that in a way the joy itself is heart-breaking. Photos like this make one wonder however they ever coined the name ''The Great War''. This looks anything but great. It shows the desolation of ploughed fields which should have been planted to provide nourishment, instead  yielding only a harvest of death and despair. It shows men wading in water nearly to their knees or scurrying like animals in the muck. The pictures show the true horror of trench warfare in a way words can not, but thankfully they show only the lulls between battles. There are no scenes of horror as men are blown to bits. I think the men of this time had too much respect to photograph comrades in the throes of death, or in agony with wounds. This is not the horror of the battlefield or the immediate aftermath, but instead of mind-numbing cold, hunger and filth - of living conditions so bleak death itself might not seem such a bad option. But it isn't all doom and gloom. There are happier scenes as Fred is an officer and billeted comfortably at times. There is also the delight of a death narrowly missed and simple scenes of camaraderie.
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|summary=''The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721811</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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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.  
|title=Winter
 
|author=Adam Gopnik
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Reference
 
|summary=In this collection of five essays, each one offering a unique and fascinating perspective on the season of winter, Adam Gopnik takes the reader on a captivating journey, exploring history, art and society, through ''Romantic Winter'', ''Radical Winter'', ''Recuperative Winter'', ''Recreational Winter'' and ''Remembering Winter''. In each essay, Gopnik focuses on one or two central themes, whilst also touching on surrounding ideas. For example, in Romantic Winter his central topics are art and poetry, however, issues such as changing society, technology, sex and culture are also explored, in relation to these pivotal notions. He also includes two sections featuring collections of artwork to illustrate his viewpoints, which add a charming, individual touch to this book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780874472</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene
|author=Jonathan Mayo
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|title=Fritz and Kurt
|title=The Assassination of JFK Minute by Minute
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=History
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=President John F Kennedy had been warned about going to Dallas - he himself  referred to it as 'nut country' - but, conscious of the upcoming 1964 presidential elections, he needed to bring some support from the city onside and that was why he and the First Lady found themselves in the motorcade which swept into Dealey Plaza on 22 November 1963There can be few people who are not aware of what happened next, but Jonathan Mayo has presented a chronology of events over the next four days (''four days, three murders, hundreds of stories'', as the cover says) demonstrating the pressure under which the officials involved were working and the dreadful impact of what happened..
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|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 switchBut 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 titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721854</amazonuk>
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|isbn=024156574X
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=John Henry Phillips
|author=David G Coleman
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|title=The Search
|title=The Fourteenth Day: JFK and the Aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis
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|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=The commonly-held view of history would have us believe that the Cuban Missile Crisis began in mid-October 1962 and concluded on 28 October, with the world heaving a collective sigh of relief and moving on to think of other things. The truth is, of course, rather different and the crisis rumbled on for weeks and months to come, occasionally almost bubbling to the boil again as Kennedy and Krushchev fenced with each other. Historian David G Coleman has used the secret White House recordings to take us into the Oval Office and listen to what really went on.
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|summary=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 latter, as our author promises to locate the topic of the titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, the target might not exist any more – oh, and 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 France, our author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and that 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393346803</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1472146182
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn= B09F4CTKJR
|title=The War that Ended Peace: How Europe abandoned peace for the First World War
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|title= Flights for Freedom
|author=Margaret MacMillan
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|author= Steven Burgauer
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
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|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=One could argue that the main title of this book is slightly questionable. Throughout the half-century or so before the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, Europe had rarely been free from conflict, with the Franco-Prussian, Graeco-Turkish and Balkan wars for a start. Nevertheless, the majority of the continent was at peace with itself and most of its neighbours during this period.
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|summary=It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent 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>184668272X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0578761718
|author=Vincent Bugliosi
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|title=The Inspiring History of a Special Relationship
|title=Parkland
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|author=Nancy Carver
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=''Parkland'' is not just a book about history but a book ''with'' a history.  Vincent Bugliosi published ''Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy''  in 2007 with much of the book being based on his preparation for a mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald which was shown on British televisionThis book was an exhaustive look at what happened in Dallas and at subsequent events such as the trial of Jack Ruby and the conspiracy theories which have abounded in the intervening fifty years.  ''Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy'' was published in June 2008 and is - as the title suggests - restricted to what happened on 22 November 1963 and the following three days. ''Parkland'' is the film tie-in version of that book.
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|summary=The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at least 1181, when it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, the original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, in the grounds of Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393347338</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1784385166
|author=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee and Howard Webster
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|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany
|title=Canton Elegy: A Father's Letter of Sacrifice, Survival and Love
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|author=Roger Moorhouse
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
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|genre=History
|summary=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee, known in his childhood as Ah Nom, was born early in the twentieth century in the village of Dai Waan in rural China. His father died when he was young and he lived with his grandmother, mother and 'Little Uncle', who was only a matter of months older than Ah Nom. They'd become friends as they grew older, but when his Grandfather returned after a long absence in America there as a distinct rivalry between the two.  Then Grandfather revealed his reason for returning home - he intended to take the boys to America to be educated.  It was a wonderful opportunity and Ah Nom left the village and his mother not knowing when he would see either again.
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|summary=What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts. 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780285736</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)
|author=Max Adams
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|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
|title=The King in the North: The Life and Times of Oswald of Northumbria
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
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|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Born in 604 and around for only 38 years, Oswald didn't live that long but he packed a lot in.  Born into Bernician royalty, Oswald the teenager had to flee with his mother and siblings when his father Aelfrith was killed at the Battle of the River IdleAny noble wanting to beat his way to the top would naturally kill Oswald's family and so an obscure upbringing in Ireland seemed the answer.  However, Oswald grows strong and bides his time until he comes home and clears his own path, ruling Northumbria for 8 years until his own untimely demise.  During those 8 years he united kingdoms, helped establish Christianity and became the inspiration of writers as disparate as St Bede and TolkienAs Oswald became St Oswald he left behind as many legends as historical events and this book seeks to separate the man from the myth while explaining the time we call the Dark Ages in the brutally separated lands that we now call Great Britain and Ireland.
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|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 knowI 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 sideThis book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781854181</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1684056993
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0648684806
|title=Empress Dowager Cixi
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|title=Clara Colby: The International Suffragist
|author=Jung Chang
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|author=John Holliday
|rating=5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Biography
 
|genre=Biography
|summary=It’s easy to see why Jung Chang selected Cixi as the focal point for her study of China’s tumultuous modern history. Cixi is a truly fascinating woman, one of few human beings whose existence can be honestly said to have shaped the course of history. Cixi’s biography is not only a fascinating read due to her own political machinations, 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 1908, during which time the ancient dynastic customs of China gave way to the advent of the industrial age.
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|summary=The path of 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 and out of school.  She was the only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. 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 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, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived.  As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087436</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1783784350
|title=The Explorer Gene
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|title=This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History
|author=Tom Cheshire
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|author=Esther Rutter
|rating=4
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|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=''The Explorer Gene'' relates the remarkable story of three generations of the Piccard family, each of whom managed to push the boundaries of travel and break new frontiers. The grandfather, Auguste Piccard was the first human to enter the stratosphere, using en experimental balloon of his own invention. His later work, designing submarines, enabled his son Jacques to become the first person to descend to the bottom of the infamous Mariana trench, setting a world record for the deepest dive. Grandson Bertrand became the first person to fly around the world in a balloon and now seeks to break new records by means of a solar-powered craft that he intends to pilot all the way around the earth.
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|summary=It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind.  January was going to be a time for making changes and 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'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the farm'' - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend.  This was in her blood.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780720890</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1789017977
|author=Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn and Tom Pinfold
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|title=Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II
|title=Tudor Monastery Farm: Life in rural England 500 years ago
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|author=Wendy Williams
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Think of it as time travelThree professional historians have travelled back some five hundred years to put what they've learned into practiceOn a monastery farm they've experienced what it was really like in rural Tudor EnglandIt's a book to accompany the BBC television series but it's still a rich and rewarding experience if - like me - you missed the showThere'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.
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|summary=Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel WallThere'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, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his ageFor a while the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyleOne thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his lifeHe joined the army at eighteen in 1942.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849906920</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1980891117
|title=High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain
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|title=G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart
|author=Simon Heffer
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|author=John Webley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
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|genre=Art
|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 poverty, disease, squalor and injustice were endemic, and in which the Chartists had agitated for fairer rights for all, had been largely transformed by the modernising factors of social upheaval and industrial change.
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|summary=George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the 1770s to the Regency era. He was also one of the most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that 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>1847946771</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1789016304
|author=Anthony Summers
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|title=War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam
|title=Not In Your Lifetime: The Assassination of JFK
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|author=Melanie Martin
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=True Crime
 
|summary=Originally published as ''The Kennedy Conspiracy'', Anthony Summers has massively revised the text, updated it with the latest evidence and it's been republished as ''Not in Your Lifetime: The Assassination of JFK'' which refers to the statement made 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
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|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 elsewhereThese 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 ChristmasThis 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.
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|summary=Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupationMost 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 never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspectIt's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919616</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1908745819
|title=The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder That Changed the World
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|title=Surfacing
|author=Greg King and Sue Woolmans
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|author=Kathleen Jamie
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=Possibly no assassination in history can have had such momentous consequences for the history of the world as that of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria 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 War, just six weeks later.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230759572</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The First Bohemians: Life and Art in London's Golden Age
 
|author=Vic Gatrell
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=It was in the eighteenth century that an area 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 centre, became what has in modern times been recognised as the world’s first creative ‘bohemia’This was where the cream of Britain’s significant artists, actors, poets, novelists, and dramatists of the age lived and worked, side by side with the city’s chief market traders, craftsmen, shopkeepers, rakes, pickpockets and prostitutesOne might say that all human life was here.
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|summary=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 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 author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am.  Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on itIt was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually.  I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846146771</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0857058320
|title=Inventing the Enemy: Essays on Everything
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|title=Lord Of All the Dead
|author=Umberto Eco
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|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|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''.
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|summary=''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553945</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008294011
|title=The Crooked Timber Of Humanity
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|title=How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship
|author=Isaiah Berlin
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|author=Ece Temelkuran
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=''The Crooked Timber of Humanity'' is a collection of essays by philosopher Isaiah Berlin, born in Riga, to, later in life, become an Oxford student and one of the institution'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.
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|summary=A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question ''Discuss the factors which led to...'' I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to.  I think now that I do know.  We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845952081</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1788037812
|title=A Very British Murder: the Story of a National Obsession
+
|title=The Fraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908
|author=Lucy Worsley
+
|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=5
|genre=True Crime
 
|summary=The British are an illogical race.  Short of genocide, murder is the worst, most shocking crime an individual can commit, yet it has become a kind 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 cases, we read thrillers, watch TV drama series and documentaries, and we can take part in murder mystery evenings and weekends at pubs and hotels.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849906343</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=1912: The Year the World Discovered Antarctica
 
|author=Chris Turney
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=If you read those products designed to make you a published author, one way to start according to so many of them is to look ahead for a pertinent anniversary, research or know your subject well, and write well in advance and as popularly as you can on whatever the subject is.  Make no mistake, however Chris Turney, even if he would appear to have followed that dictum to the last, is no chancer with the eye to the temporary relevance.
+
|summary=Originally passed in 1885, the law 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. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845952103</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1910593508
|author=Mark White
+
|title=Apollo
|title=Kennedy: A Cultural History of an American Icon
+
|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
|genre=History
 
|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 the years which could have been expected to tarnish.  It could be argued that - much as in the case of Elvis Presley and Princess Diana - death was an excellent career move, but Mark White examines the way the image was built up, then maintained and - after the assassination - burnished, reinforced 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 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 for the foreseeable future.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683912</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Anti-Judaism: A History of a Way of Thinking
 
|author=David Nirenberg
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Initially the choice of title seemed an odd one on account of the more widely used term, anti-Semitism. The distinction is quickly made though, that unlike the latter, anti-Judaism does not need real Jews to flourish, but is fuelled by an idea alone. In fact this is a core tenet of Nirenberg’s thesis. Throughout history the idea of ‘Judaism’ is raised as an existential spectre 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 be.
+
|summary=This 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 blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to the book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851131</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Victoria's Madmen: Revolution and Alienation
 
|author=Clive Bloom
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Despite the revisionist work of a few writers and historians, our prevailing image of the Victorian age has generally been one of staid conformity, superiority and stuffiness, during which only a few dissenters put their heads above the parapet. Clive Bloom sums it up rather succinctly on the first page as a ‘monolith of steam and class conflict, antimacassars and aspidistras’. A page later, he describes the nineteenth century – most of which was covered by the Victorian era – as one divided by three groups, namely those who represented the old Georgian decadence, the young Turks eager for reform, and finally a group who felt an allegiance to the world of their forebears but were forced to exist in a world of confirming moralism and priggishness.  The young Turks, he concludes, ultimately won.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230313825</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Inferno Decoded: The essential companion to the myths, mysteries and locations of Dan Brown's Inferno
 
|author=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 [[:Category:Dan Brown|Dan Brown]] blockbuster.  It'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 of 2013.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251800</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1786331047
|title=The Black Count: Glory, revolution, betrayal and the real Count of Monte Cristo
+
|title=The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family
|author=Tom Reiss
+
|author=Helen Rappaport
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=While the novels of Alexandre Dumas, like ''The Three Musketeers'' and ''The Count of Monte Cristo'', weren't true, they were based on a real hero - Dumas's own father. Born the son of a slave and a French nobleman, General Alexandre Dumas would go on to rise to fame and fortune during the French Revolution, only to face racism, betrayal, and a rivalry with Napoleon Bonaparte which would eventually lead to the virtual disappearance from history of this incredible figure.
+
|summary=The basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, have long since been established. For the last few months of their lives in Russia the former 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 revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the news was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575132</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Home and Family Reviews]]
|title=Tutankhamen's Curse: The Developing History of an Egyptian King
 
|author=Joyce Tyldesley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=The striking cover of 'Tutankhamen’s Curse' certainly has a way 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 of the beholder.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861971664</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha Mousa
 
|author=A T Williams
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Almost ten years ago on a Sunday morning back in September 2003, British Troops raided a hotel in Basra. It was a difficult period in the occupation, six months on from the U.S. led invasion. Temperatures were more than 50 degrees centigrade. Members of the Queen'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 and subjected to karate chops and kidney punches by the British. Other men and officers watched, walked by or wondered at the stench that resulted from vicious punishment. After 36 hours of torture, a 26 year-old hotel receptionist lay dead by asphyxiation. His grossly disfigured body bore 93 individual injuries. There are now in the region of another 250 individuals, men and women, whose families are making legal claims to have been killed in further encounters with British patrols or prison guards.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575116</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 12:03, 20 March 2023

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Review of

Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car by Clive Wilkinson

5star.jpg Travel

Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it? Full Review

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Review of

Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940 by Frederic Seager

4.5star.jpg History

Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of the early days of World War II from 1939-40, known as the Phoney War. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in to save the day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book, it was of vital significance in how the war played out. Full Review

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Review of

CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena' by Hans Bodmer

4star.jpg History

The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.

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. Full Review

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Review of

Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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 titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about… Full Review

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Review of

The Search by John Henry Phillips

5star.jpg History

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 latter, as our author promises to locate the topic of the titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, the target might not exist any more – oh, and 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 France, our author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and that 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? Full Review

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Review of

Flights for Freedom by Steven Burgauer

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent 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. Full Review

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Review of

The Inspiring History of a Special Relationship by Nancy Carver

4.5star.jpg History

The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at least 1181, when it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, the original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, in the grounds of Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill. Full Review

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Review of

The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany by Roger Moorhouse

5star.jpg History

What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.  Full Review

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Review of

Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes by Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

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. Full Review

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Review of

Clara Colby: The International Suffragist by John Holliday

4star.jpg Biography

The path of 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 and out of school. She was the only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. 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 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, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening. Full Review

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Review of

This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History by Esther Rutter

5star.jpg History

It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. January was going to be a time for making changes and 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'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - a free-range child on the farm - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in her blood. Full Review

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Review of

Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II by Wendy Williams

4star.jpg History

Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas 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, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942. Full Review

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Review of

G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart by John Webley

4.5star.jpg Art

George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the 1770s to the Regency era. He was also one of the most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book. Full Review

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Review of

War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam by Melanie Martin

5star.jpg History

Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in The Diary of Ann Frank but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. 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 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 thousands of individual tragedies. Full Review

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Review of

Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie

5star.jpg History

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 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 author considering an older, less tethered sense of herself. Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly. Full Review

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Review of

Lord Of All the Dead by Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

4star.jpg History

Lord Of All the Dead is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side. Full Review

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Review of

How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship by Ece Temelkuran

4.5star.jpg History

A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question Discuss the factors which led to... I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to. I think now that I do know. We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth. Full Review

1788037812.jpg

Review of

The Fraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908 by Brian Anderson

5star.jpg History

Originally passed in 1885, the law 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. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967. Full Review

1910593508.jpg

Review of

Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins

5star.jpg History

This 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 blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to the book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short. Full Review

1786331047.jpg

Review of

The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family by Helen Rappaport

5star.jpg History

The basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, have long since been established. For the last few months of their lives in Russia the former 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 revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the news was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe. Full Review

Move on to Newest Home and Family Reviews