Difference between revisions of "Newest History Reviews"

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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=David Loades
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|isbn=1785633457
|title=The Seymours of Wolf Hall: A Tudor Family Story
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|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car
|rating= 4.5
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|author=Clive Wilkinson
|genre= History
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|rating=5
|summary= In medieval times Wolf Hall or Wolfhall (or even Wulfhall), the long-since-demolished family seat in Wiltshire, was the home of the Seymour family. Their greatest triumph, followed by a speedy decline and fall, was part of Tudor history, and is thus the focus of this book.
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|genre=Travel
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445634953</amazonuk>
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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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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Philip Parker
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|isbn=B09BLBP3P8
|title= The Northmen’s Fury: A History of the Viking World
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|title=Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940
|rating= 4
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|author=Frederic Seager
|genre= History
 
|summary= In AD793, the Vikings arrived on our shores. Bringing death and destruction, they sacked the island monastery of Lindisfarne. Bloodthirsty warriors, they soon descended on northern Europe. However, for all their reputation as terrible and brutal thugs, the Vikings possessed a culture that was far more sophisticated than they are often given credit for, producing art, literature and long lasting kingdoms. Philip Parker describes how these people came to rule over much of Europe for nearly three centuries, in this fascinating and intriguing read.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551845</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Simon Wilcox
 
|title=Mudlark River: Down the Thames with a Victorian Map
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=Do you think finding a 19th century map would inspire you to walk the entire length of the Thames? Because that's what Simon Wilcox did. I think there's something impossibly romantic about that, don't you?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993016308</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Michael Williams
 
|title=The Trains Now Departed: Sixteen Excursions into the Lost Delights of Britain's Railways
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Beaching wasn't the only buffer to the fate of various train lines of our land – it could have been sheer managerial incompetence, the birth of the package air holiday, or even road-builders' bloody-minded spite that served to bring down the end of the line. Yes, the fact you can easily pepper your words with idiom from the world of trains shows how important they have been over the last two hundred years, and this book is geared around that as well, if happily cliché-free.  Our author takes us on a journey around various sites where train lines and elements of what once rode proudly upon them have been and gone.  So grab a platform ticket (RIP) and see what class of journey we're travelling in.
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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>1848094353</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=John George Freeman and Ronnie Scott (editor)
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|isbn=3756228711
|title=Three Men and a Bradshaw
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|title=CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'
 +
|author=Hans Bodmer
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=This book is quite the very time machine, and because of that some of its own history is needed in summary.  A year or two ago, our presenter Shaun Sewell was buying some private documents from the descendants of John George Freeman, to complete a set of illustrated travel journals he'd met with when risking a punt on the first few at auction.  He was intent on getting them published since finding them, and seemed to be the first person with that desire since they were first written in the 1870s.  Back then they were well-written, educative and entertaining looks at the early days of the travel industry, when for example piers were novel(ty) ways for the rail companies to justify sending people to the ends of the country where previously there had been little for them to do.  Here then is railwayana, travel and social history, all between two covers.  So even if this doesn't find the perfectly huge audience of some books, it will certainly raise interest in many households.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847947441</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Steven Nightingale
 
|title= Granada: The Light of Andalucia
 
|rating=4
 
|genre= History
 
|summary= Don't expect (as I did) a ''Parrot-in-the-Pepper-Tree'' type collection of comedic mishaps and tales about the joys -- and perils -- of joining a new community. This is, more than anything, a history book, albeit one in which the writer's deep love of his adopted home (Granada and, more specifically, the Albayzín, the district he lives in), his family and his neighbours makes every sentence sparkle. Even better, it's a history book that assumes no knowledge on the part of the reader. Steven Nightingale covers centuries of events in Spain, describing them with clarity and in a typically engaging style. He starts with the Moorish occupation of Spain in 711 and ends post-Civil War. Despite its vast chronological span, the book is more than a dry recounting of events and dates. Yes, that information is there, as befits any good history book. But Steven Nightingale's focus is more on the effects of these historical events, and the achievements of the times, particularly the ongoing legacy of the Moorish occupation. He writes in detail about Arabic poetry, the timeless nature of love, developments in maths, science and the arts, geometry in tiling, and much more.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1857886313</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Paul O'Keeffe
 
|title=Waterloo: The Aftermath
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=There have been several accounts of the battle of Waterloo and of the events that led up to it. But it is always interesting to discover a book which finds a different way of telling the tale, or in this case focusing more on what happened directly afterwards.
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|summary=''The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563797</amazonuk>
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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.  
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tom Buk-Swienty
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|author=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene
|title=1864: The forgotten war that shaped modern Europe
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|title=Fritz and Kurt
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=History
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The brief but bloody clash of arms between Denmark and Prussia which took place in 1864 has never been regarded as one of the major 19th century European wars, and I cannot recall having ever seen a single volume devoted to it so farIn this book, which forms the basis of a new TV drama series, Tom Buk-Swienty has done us a service in reminding us that it had a far greater political impact than we may have appreciated.
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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 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781252769</amazonuk>
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|isbn=024156574X
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jeremy Treglown
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|author=John Henry Phillips
|title=Franco's Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory Since 1936
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|title=The Search
|rating=3.5
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|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=With ''Franco’s Crypt'' Jeremy Treglown has taken a highly charged subject – life in Spain under Franco – and placed it under what to some might appear a somewhat revisionist microscope. His aim appears to be twofold: to consider the nature of collective memory, particularly in the light of the exhumations of mass graves that commenced earlier this century, and, secondly, to examine – and celebrate - Spain’s cultural output during Franco’s years as dictator.
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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>1784701157</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1472146182
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Derek Niemann
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|isbn= B09F4CTKJR
|title=A Nazi in the Family: The Hidden Story of an SS Family in Wartime Germany
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|title= Flights for Freedom
|rating=5
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|author= Steven Burgauer
|genre=Biography
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|rating=4.5
|summary=I'm sure someone somewhere has rewritten The Devil's Dictionary to include the following – ''family: noun; place where the greatest secrets are kept''. The Niemann family is no exception. It was long known that grandfather Karl was in Germany during the Second World War, people could easily work that out from the family biography.  Yet little was spoken of, apart from him being an office-bound worker, either in logistics or finance.  Since the War two of three surviving siblings had relocated to the Glasgow environs, and there was even a family quip concerning Goebbels and Gorbals (''family: noun; place where the worst things are spoken in the best way'').  What was a surprise to our author, and many of his relatives, was that things were a lot closer to the former than had been expected, for Karl was such an office worker – for the SS.  With a lot of family history finally out of the closet of silent mouths, and with incriminating photographic evidence revealed in unlikely ways, the whole truth can be known. But this is certainly not just of interest to that one small family.
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|genre=Historical Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780722222</amazonuk>
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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.
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jessie Childs
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|isbn=0578761718
|title=God's Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England
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|title=The Inspiring History of a Special Relationship
 +
|author=Nancy Carver
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=It goes almost without saying that sixteenth-century England, at the height of religious persecution, was a pretty perilous ageQueen Mary was notorious for the number of Protestants who were burnt at the stake for their beliefs during her five-year reign. A belief widely held by many (depending on your religion, as likely as not) was that during the forty-five years that ‘Good Queen Bess’ reigned, greater toleration held sway. This has recently been disproved beyond doubt by several historians, and this book likewise helps to underline the savagery towards Catholics that was endemic under her rule.
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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>1784700053</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=David Greene
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|isbn=1784385166
|title=Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia
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|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany
|rating=4.5
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|author=Roger Moorhouse
|genre=Politics and Society
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|rating=5
|summary=It's no mistake that the cover of my edition of this book is a photo where the Trans-Siberian Railway is horizontal in the frame.  It's well known for going east-west, left to right across the map of the largest country by far in the world.  9,288 kilometres from Moscow to the eastern stretches of Russia, it could only be a long, thin line across the cover, as it is in our imagination of it as a form of transport and a travel destination in its own right. So when this book mentions it as the spine or backbone of Russia a couple of times, that's got to be of a prone Russia – one lying down, not upright or active. David Greene, a stalwart of northern American radio journalism, uses this book to see just how active or otherwise Russia and Russians are – and finds their lying down to be quite a definite verdict, as well as a slight indictment.  It's no mistake either for this cover to have people in the frame alongside the train carriages, for the people met both riding and living alongside the tracks of the Railway are definitely the ribs of the piece.
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|genre=History
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883709</amazonuk>
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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. 
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Stephen Bates
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|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)
|title=1815: Regency Britain in the Year of Waterloo
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|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
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|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=The idea of taking a pivotal year from the past and devoting a whole book to the theme, embracing political, social and military history, is a very interesting oneStephen Bates did so successfully not long ago with ‘Two Nations: Britain in 1846’, and here he does the same again, taking a step three decades back.
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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 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 sideThis book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781858217</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1684056993
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lena Mukhina and Amanda Love Darragh (translator)
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|isbn=0648684806
|title=The Diary of Lena Mukhina: A Girl's Life in the Siege of Leningrad
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|title=Clara Colby: The International Suffragist
 +
|author=John Holliday
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
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|genre=Biography
|summary=If life as a girl of school-leaving age is hard enough, think about it when you're stuck in a great city under a horrendous siegeLena Mukhina's diary only covers half the 800-odd days the nightmare in Leningrad lasted, but so palpably singular were the circumstances that it feels like one is given the clearest insight into what it was like, courtesy of these pagesI've been there and never felt the ghost of the siege in the modern St Petersburg, anything like (for example) the ruination of Warsaw had lived on.  But a dreadful time this was.  At the peak times of Nazi oppression and aerial bombing, the city lost 2 or 3 residents' lives ''every minute'' of the day on averageThe city was desperate for fuel, and food – and this is a place where it can – and does here – snow in JuneWithout giving too much of the diet away, it's notable that later on Lena dreams of having a menagerie of small animals to live with – but no dogs or cats.
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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 brothersInstead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of schoolShe was the only child in the household and her childhood was gloriousBy 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 familyClara 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 arrivedAs the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144726987X</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jerry White
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|isbn=1783784350
|title=Zeppelin Nights: London in the First World War
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|title=This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History
 +
|author=Esther Rutter
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=It seems that only recently, with the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War upon us, that historians have really looked thoroughly at the social history aspect and the effect it had on the population at homeJerry White, who has already made a study of London over the last three centuries or so in previous titles, now turns his attention to life in the capital during those momentous four years.
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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 landscapeShe'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>0099556049</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=David Esterly
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|isbn=1789017977
|title=The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making
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|title=Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II
 +
|author=Wendy Williams
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
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|genre=History
|summary=Bouncing between his studio in upstate New York and the sites of various English sojourns, woodcarver David Esterly's seems to be an idyllic existence. Yet it's not all cosy cottages in the snow and watching geese and coyotes when he looks up from his workbench. There is an element of hard-won retreat from the trials of life in this memoir, but at the same time there is an argument for the essential difficulty of the artist's life. 'Carvers are starvers,' a wizened English carver once told him. Certainly there is no great fortune to be won from a profession as obscure as limewood carving, but the rewards outweigh the hard graft for Esterly.
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|summary=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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649191</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Emma Tennant, Hilary Bailey and David Elliott
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|isbn=1980891117
|title=Did We Meet on Grub Street?
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|title=G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart
|rating=3.5
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|author=John Webley
|genre=Entertainment
 
|summary=Essentially, the three authors (all of whom have long careers in the book industry) revel in the idea of being whining old curmudgeons who miss the good old days of publishing. This unashamed nostalgia provides the focus of the book and allows the writers to recount numerous anecdotes from their days in the publishing business. Whilst the primary audience for this book may well be students of creative writing and media studies, it also serves as an interesting exploration of an aspect of modern history: how a once-burgeoning industry is now a shell of its former self, much like a lot of manufacturing. Because of this, I was disappointed that no space was given to a consideration of how the rise of the e-book and Kindle has directly damaged both the sale of books and the potential for new books to be written (fewer real books sold = fewer financial advances paid to writers = fewer books written). Also, given the clear love of books as treasured artifacts, the dismissal of the Harry Potter phenomenon seems truculent, given the impetus the series gave to reading amongst both the young and adults.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704372983</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Van der Kiste
 
|title=The Prussian Princesses: The Sisters of Kaiser Wilhelm II
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
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|genre=Art
|summary=Kaiser Wilhelm II is well known and not for the best of reasons and he's certainly over-shadowed his six younger siblings. John Van der Kiste's first biography was of his father, Kaiser Friedrich III and he has also written about Emperor Wilhelm II so he is well placed to write about the three youngest children Kaiser Friedrich and Victoria, Princess Royal. Originally he intended to write about Friedrich's second daughter, but it quickly became obvious that the most satisfying biography - for reader and author - would be a biography of Victoria, Sophie and Margaret, their mother's ''kleebatt'' or trio, as they were known.
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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>B00QKROC9W</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1789016304
|author=Richard Weight
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|title=War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam
|title=MOD: From Bebop to Britpop, Britain's Biggest Youth Movement
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|author=Melanie Martin
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=''Mod'' is arguably a rather-overused term. First of all, there is the matter of establishing a precise definition''Modernism'', which was soon abbreviated for convenience, began as the working-class movement of a newly affluent nation.  Once the age of immediate post-war austerity was gone, the cult of a youth keen to shake off the drab conformity of life in 1950s Britain took hold.  It was more than anything else an amalgam of American music and European fashions, beginning as a popular cult and gradually becoming a mainstream culture.
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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 circumspect.  It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099597888</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Stian Bromark and Hon Khiam Leong (translator)
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|isbn=1908745819
|title=Massacre in Norway: The 2011 Terror Attack on Oslo and the Utoya Youth Camp
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|title=Surfacing
|rating=2.5
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|author=Kathleen Jamie
|genre=History
 
|summary=Anders Behring Breivik was 32 when he both planted a van bomb in Oslo's central government district to hit out at what he thought was 'Cultural Marxism', which killed 8, then left for an island in a lake 24 miles away, where a notably political youth gathering was enjoying itself.  He gunned down 69 people – more than one in ten of those at the camp – and wounded many scores more.  He also spammed countless people with another of his projects, a lengthy manifesto declaring his ideas about Islamisation and what he saw as a pernicious multiculturalism ruining his country.  His case was one of the more superlative events in modern Nordic history – as was the surprisingly lenient sentence for over 70 lives of just 21 years.  This is, as you'd expect, one of the many books to result from the case.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1612346685</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Dan Jones
 
|title=Magna Carta: The Making and Legacy of the Great Charter
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=For what do we – and by courtesy of a lengthy timeline in history, would the Americans likewise – most likely owe thanks to a spigurnel? What is the most revered legal document in history, which sets out the rights of man – but also has time to talk about widows' rights, fish traps, and to be both sexist and to discuss the importance to people's estates to debts owed Jewish moneylenders?  What will probably be the only notable historical experience of Britain in 1215, when we finally get diverted from thinking about WWI and discuss the 800 years of something else, even though the authority of no less than the Pope declared it null and void within ten weeks of its being finished?
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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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781858853</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Iain Gately
+
|isbn=0857058320
|title=Rush Hour
+
|title=Lord Of All the Dead
 +
|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Rush Hour.
+
|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.
 
500 Million commuters go through it every day, and it's hard to avoid - whether like me you're a jaded Londoner stuck in someone's armpit whilst attempting to read on a cramped tube, or trying to navigate busy country lanes in order to do the school run and get to work on time, we've probably all experienced it. But have you ever thought about the history of it?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781854068</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=James Evans
+
|isbn=0008294011
|title=Merchant Adventurers: The Voyage of Discovery that Transformed Tudor England
+
|title=How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship
 +
|author=Ece Temelkuran
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=We tend to associate the golden age of global navigation and exploration with the Elizabethan age and such luminaries as Drake, Raleigh and HawkinsThis book does us all a service in reminding us of the original pioneers, whom they overshadowed and who seem less well-remembered these days.
+
|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 knowWe 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>1780221029</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Emma Marriott
+
|isbn=1788037812
|title=A History of the World in Numbers
+
|title=The Fraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908
|rating=4
+
|author=Brian Anderson
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Make no mistake, this book does what it says on the cover. That also goes to say that it is ''not'' A History of the World ''of'' Numbers, or A History of the World's Numbers and what they might mean, as other books provide. This is a primer of the world's history, right from the earliest days of civilisation up to the close of World War Two, in handy bite-sized chunks, where the headline data can be given using a number.
+
|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>1782432175</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler
+
|isbn=1910593508
|author=Philip Ball
+
|title=Apollo
|rating=4.5
+
|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=Picture yourself in Nazi Germany, at any time of the Reich's powers. What do you do, and how do you behave?  Do you recognise the fact Jews are being oppressed and have been since the first days of the Nazi regime?  Do you do anything about this, or are you aware of the problems the country has had due to losing the Great War and having the whole Weimar Republic and hyperinflation, and just look after number one?  Now picture yourself as a scientist. All you've known your adult life has been to furthering your knowledge in, say, physics.  Do you again work purely for your own ends?  For the country's – knowing all about its rulers?  Or can you segregate your bosses and their leaders from your needs, and perhaps seek knowledge for the sake of the world?  It's probably not a conundrum that has hit you before, given its scientific bent, but it's worth looking at what was going on at that time. Which way did Planck walk?  Did Heisenberg have principles?
+
|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>0099581647</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Slideshow: Memories of a Wartime Childhood
+
|isbn=1786331047
|author=Marjorie Ann Watts
+
|title=The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family
|rating=3.5
+
|author=Helen Rappaport
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|genre=History
|summary=''Slideshow'' may seem an unusual title for a book about growing up during the Second World War, but author Marjorie Ann Watts is quick to explain why it was chosen. Her job as a book illustrator and artist requires astute observation skills and she has what might be known as a 'photographic memory', or a gift for recalling specific scenes from her past in great detail. She explains it this way:
+
|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.
 +
}}
  
'All I have to do is pull a 'slide' from the accumulated silt of memory...there it is: a varnish-clear image as vivid as the day it was recorded, however long ago.'
+
Move on to [[Newest Home and Family Reviews]]
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373599</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields
 
|author=Wendy Lower
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=If one were to describe the Nazi regime with one's own adjectives, I'm sure that sooner or later, after all the ruder and more pejorative emotional ones had been thought of, 'masculine' would come up.  Let's face it, it would be a scholar who could name any leading female Nazis beyond Eva Braun and Mrs Goebbels, who nobody I think has ever put at the forefront of actual policy, thinking or actions.  But there were females at the front – many thousands, it seems, taking themselves away from Germany with ideas of the ''Lebensraum'' being opened up out East; moving their skills as either secretary, nurse, teacher or just willing ''Hausfrau'' to the occupied territories, where… well, that would be telling.  This book is the one to read if you want that told, but it doesn't do it in the most brilliant way.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099572281</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Hitler's Last Witness: The Memoirs of Hitler's Bodyguard
 
|author=Rochus Misch
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=I am proud to declare an interest in all things Holocaust, one of the key areas of which was the last days of Hitler – the Downfall, if you like, way before youtube satirists.  So this book, from the man who for some unspecified years was the last eye-witness to have been in the Fuhrerbunker at the end of the Nazi regime, was always going to be a great read.  It remained that even after the foreword dismissed its own book, pointing out differences here to the canon of thought about the timings etc of April/May 1945, and declaring the author somewhat naïve in not being so aware, circumspect and authoritative about the major points of WWII.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848327498</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

1908745819.jpg

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

0857058320.jpg

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

0008294011.jpg

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