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[[Category:History|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Francis O'Gorman1785633457|title= WorryingCharging Around: A Literary and Cultural HistoryExploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryTravel|summary= ‘’Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History’’ begins Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a familiar scene preference for anyone who experiences that persistent feeling slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of fretful panic: lying awake in exploring the early hours, unable to switch off, thoughts turning over edges of England in your headan electric car was not totally outrageous. If this common situation hits homeIn fact, ‘This book’it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, its author Francis O’Gorman writesJoan, ‘is for you.’|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144115129X</amazonuk>shouldn't it?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David LoadesB09BLBP3P8|title=The Seymours of Wolf HallNeville Chamberlain's War: A Tudor Family Story|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= In medieval times Wolf Hall or Wolfhall (or even Wulfhall)How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, the long1939-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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445634953</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Philip Parker|title= The Northmen’s Fury: A History of the Viking World|rating= 4|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>}}{{newreview1940|author=Simon Wilcox|title=Mudlark River: Down the Thames with a Victorian Map Frederic Seager
|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
|summary=Beaching wasn't Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the only buffer to scrubbing from the fate popular imagination of various train lines the early days of our land – it could have been sheer managerial incompetenceWorld War II from 1939-40, known as the birth of the package air holiday''Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, or even road-builders' bloody-minded spite that served and Churchill coming in to bring down save the end of the lineday. YesVery little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, 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 as Frederic Seager argues in 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 it was of journey we're travelling vital significance inhow the war played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848094353</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John George Freeman and Ronnie Scott (editor)3756228711|title=Three Men and CDC: The happy years with a Bradshawspectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer
|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>
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{{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>
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{{newreview
|author=Paul O'Keeffe
|title=Waterloo: The Aftermath
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=There have been several accounts ''The history of the battle development of Waterloo and IT could fill books of the events several hundred pages.'' Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that led up to it. But it is always interesting He has chosen to discover a book which finds a different way tell us about the short, but explosive, history of telling the Control Data Company, CDC, for whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, or told in this case focusing more on what happened directly afterwardsa mixture of technological summary and wry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563797</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom Buk-SwientyJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=1864: The forgotten war that shaped modern EuropeFritz and Kurt
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=The brief but bloody clash We start with the pair of arms between Denmark brothers Fritz and Kurt, and Prussia which took their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place in 1864 , helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has never been regarded 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 one of mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. But this is the time just before the major 19th century European warsAustrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and I cannot recall instead of having ever seen a single volume devoted national vote to it so farkeep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. In this book''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, which forms as did all the basis round-ups of a new TV drama seriesJews. 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, Tom Buk-Swienty has done packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us a service in reminding us that it had a far greater political impact than we may have appreciated.wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781252769</amazonuk>024156574X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy TreglownJohn Henry Phillips|title=Franco's Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory Since 1936The Search|rating=3.5
|genre=History
|summary=With Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you'Franco’s Crypt'' Jeremy Treglown has taken a highly charged subject – life re scraping in Spain under Franco – and placed it under 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 might appear specific thing. This book is a somewhat revisionist microscope. His aim appears to be twofold: case of the latter, as our author promises to consider locate the nature topic of collective memorythe titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, particularly in the light of the exhumations of mass graves that commenced earlier this centurytarget might not exist any more – oh, andit's underwater, secondlywhen 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 examine – Normandy, and celebrate - Spain’s cultural output during Franco’s years as dictatorthat he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of whom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784701157</amazonuk>1472146182
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Derek NiemannB09F4CTKJR|title=A Nazi in the Family: The Hidden Story of an SS Family in Wartime GermanyFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyHistorical Fiction|summary=I'm sure someone somewhere has rewritten The DevilIt's Dictionary to include the following – ''family: noun; place where later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the greatest secrets are kept''conflict. The Niemann family Petrol Petronus is no exceptiona young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. It was long known that grandfather Karl This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Germany during the Second World WarCanada, 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 first to be attached to the Glasgow environs, RAF and there was even a family quip concerning Goebbels and Gorbals (''family: noun; place where the worst things are spoken in first to be sent into the best way''). What was a surprise to our author, and many of his relatives, was that things were a lot closer skies to fight 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 Germans in unlikely ways, the whole truth can be knownactive combat. But this is certainly not just of interest before that can happen, Petrol has to that one small familymaster flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780722222</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jessie Childs0578761718|title=God's Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan EnglandThe Inspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=It goes almost without saying that sixteenth-century England, at The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the height City of religious persecutionLondon from at least 1181, when it was a pretty perilous agefirst mentioned in records. Sadly, Queen Mary the original church was notorious for destroyed in the number Great Fire of Protestants who were burnt at London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the stake fire and then survived for their beliefs during her five-year reign. A belief widely held by many (depending on your religioncenturies until World War II, as likely as not) when it was that again ruined by bombs during the forty-five years Blitz. But that ‘Good Queen Bess’ reignedwasn't the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, greater toleration held swayMissouri. This has recently been disproved beyond doubt by several historiansThere, in the grounds of Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and this book likewise helps today serves as a memorial to underline the savagery towards Catholics that was endemic under her ruleWinston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700053</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Greene1784385166|title=Midnight The Third Reich in Siberia100 Objects: A Train Journey into the Heart Material History of RussiaNazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyHistory|summary=It's no mistake that the cover of my edition of this book What is a photo where the Trans-Siberian Railway is horizontal in the frame. It's well known for going east-west, left first image that comes to right across the map mind when you think of the largest country by far in the world. 9,288 kilometres from Moscow Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to the eastern stretches of Russia, it could only be a long, thin line across the cover, as it is in our imagination concentration camp? None of it as a form these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of transport and a travel destination the Third Reich's fascist regime in all its own rightiniquity. So when this book mentions it as the spine or backbone of Russia a couple of times, But some objects and images from that's got time may be less familiar to be of a prone Russia – one lying down, not upright or activeyou. David Greene, a stalwart of northern American radio journalism, uses In this book to see just how active or otherwise Russia and Russians are – and finds their lying down to be quite a definite verdictshort volume, as well as a slight indictment. It's no mistake either for this cover Roger Moorhouse has attempted to have people in the frame alongside the train carriages, for the people met both riding and living alongside illustrate the tracks period of the Railway are definitely the ribs Third Reich through one hundred of the pieceits material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883709</amazonuk> 
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephen BatesLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=1815Tiananmen 1989: Regency Britain in the Year of WaterlooOur Shattered Hopes
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=The idea I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of taking a pivotal year their teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the past students before the massacre and devoting a whole book to the themebirth of the Tank Man image, embracing I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for politicalprotest, social and military history, is I didn't know more than a very interesting onespit about the people involved on either side. Stephen Bates did so successfully not long ago with ‘Two Nations: Britain This book is practically flawless in 1846’, and here he does giving a general browser's context for the same again, taking a step three decades whole season of protests backin 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781858217</amazonuk>1684056993
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lena Mukhina and Amanda Love Darragh (translator)0648684806|title=Clara Colby: The Diary of Lena Mukhina: A Girl's Life in the Siege of LeningradInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyBiography|summary=If The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life as a girl was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of school-leaving age is hard enoughsome childhood ailment, think about it when youshe wasn're stuck in a great city under a horrendous sieget allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Lena Mukhina's diary only covers half the 800-odd days the nightmare in Leningrad lastedInstead, she remained with her grandparents, but so palpably singular were the circumstances who doted on her and saw that it feels like one is given the clearest insight into what it was likeshe received a good education, courtesy both in and out of these pagesschool. I've been there and never felt She was the ghost of the siege only child in the modern St Petersburg, anything like (for example) the ruination of Warsaw had lived on. But a dreadful time this household and her childhood wasglorious. At By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the peak times mid-west of Nazi oppression the United States and aerial bombinglife was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the city lost 2 or 3 residents' lives ''every minute'' of the day on averagefamily. The city Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was desperate married for fuelfifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and food – and this is a place where it can – and does here – snow died in Junechildbirth not long after Clara arrived. Without giving too much of As the diet awayeldest girl, it's notable that later a heavy burden would fall on Lena dreams of having Clara and Wisconsin was a menagerie of small animals to live with – but no dogs or catsrude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144726987X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jerry White1783784350|title=Zeppelin NightsThis Golden Fleece: London in the First World WarA Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=It seems 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 only recently, with she would travel the centenary length and breadth of the outbreak of the First World War upon usBritish Isles with occasional forays abroad, that historians have really looked thoroughly at discovering and telling the social story of wool's history aspect and the effect how it had on made and changed the population at homelandscape. Jerry White, who has already made She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a study of London over free-range child on the last three centuries or so in previous titlesfarm'' - and learned to spin, now turns his attention to life knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in the capital during those momentous four yearsher blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099556049</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Esterly1789017977|title=The Lost CarvingRonnie and Hilda's Romance: A Journey to the Heart of MakingTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyHistory|summary=Bouncing between his studio in upstate New York and Ronnie Williams was the sites son of various English sojourns, woodcarver David EsterlyThomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's seems some doubt as to be an idyllic existence. Yet itwhether or not they were ever married or even Harry's not all cosy cottages birthdate: he claimed to have been born in the snow 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and watching geese and coyotes when he looks up from might well have shaved a few years off his workbenchage. There is an element of hard For a while the family was quite well-to-won retreat from the trials of life do but disaster struck in this memoir, but at the same time there is an argument for the essential difficulty of the artist's life. 'Carvers are starvers,' 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a wizened English carver once told himvery different lifestyle. Certainly there is no great fortune One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be won from a profession as obscure as limewood carving, but well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the rewards outweigh the hard graft for Esterlyarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649191</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emma Tennant, Hilary Bailey and David Elliott1980891117|title=Did We Meet on Grub Street?|rating=3.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Essentially, the three authors (all of whom have long careers in the book industry) revel G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the idea of being whining old curmudgeons who miss the good old days of publishing. This unashamed nostalgia provides the focus life 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>}}{{newreviewGeorge Engleheart|author=John Van der Kiste|title=The Prussian Princesses: The Sisters of Kaiser Wilhelm IIWebley
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyArt|summary=Kaiser Wilhelm II is well known and not for George Engleheart was one of the best leading portrait miniaturists of reasons and he's certainly over-shadowed his six younger siblingsGeorgian London, with a career lasting from the 1770s to the Regency era. John Van der Kiste's first biography He was also one of his fatherthe most prolific, painting nearly 5, Kaiser Friedrich 000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George 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 Throughout most of that time he intended to write about Friedrich's second daughter, but it quickly became obvious that carefully recorded the most satisfying biography - for reader and author - would be a biography names of each of Victoriahis clients, Sophie and Margaret, their mother's ''kleebatt'' or trio, subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as they were knownhis fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00QKROC9W</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Weight1789016304|title=MODWar and Love: From Bebop to Britpop, BritainA family's Biggest Youth Movementtestament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin
|rating=5
|genre=History
|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 ''Mod'' is arguably a rather-overused term. First of all, there is the matter The Diary of establishing a precise definition. Ann Frank''Modernismbut then realised that her own family'', which was soon abbreviated for convenience, began as s stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the working-class movement of a newly affluent nation. Once city during the age of immediate post-war austerity was goneyears, the cult of a youth keen but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to shake off the drab conformity of life happen 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099597888</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Stian Bromark and Hon Khiam Leong (translator)|title=Massacre in Norway: The 2011 Terror Attack on Oslo and the Utoya Youth Camp|rating=2.5|genre=History|summary=Anders Behring Breivik was 32 when he both planted a van bomb in Oslo's central government district country with liberal values who were resistant 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 itselfGerman occupation. He gunned down 69 Most people – more than one in ten of believed that the occupation could never happen: even those at who thought that the Germans might reach the camp – and wounded many scores more. He also spammed countless people with another of his projectscity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, a lengthy manifesto declaring his ideas about Islamisation and that the Amsterdammers would never allow what he saw happened to escalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as a pernicious multiculturalism ruining his country. His case was one of the organisers became more superlative events in modern Nordic history – as was the surprisingly lenient sentence for over 70 lives of just 21 yearscircumspect. This is, as youIt'd expect, one s an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of the many books to result from the caseindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1612346685</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dan Jones1908745819|title=Magna Carta: The Making and Legacy of the Great CharterSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=For what 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 – and by courtesy of ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a lengthy timeline in history, would the Americans likewise – most likely owe thanks rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a spigurnel? book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. What is The blurb speaks of the most revered legal document in historyauthor considering ''an older, which sets out the rights less tethered sense of man – but also has time to talk about widowsherself.'' rights, fish traps, and to be both sexist and to discuss the importance to people Older. Less tethered. That's estates not a bad description of where I am. Add to debts owed Jewish moneylenders? What will probably be that my love of the only notable historical experience natural world, of those aspects of Britain in 1215the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, when we finally get diverted from thinking about WWI and discuss the 800 years substance most of something elseall, even though the authority of no less than the Pope declared about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it null and void within ten weeks of . It was written for me. It would have found its being finished?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781858853</amazonuk>way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Iain Gately0857058320|title=Rush HourLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Rush Hour. 500 Million commuters go through it every day, and it''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's hard to avoid - whether like me youlost ancestor're a jaded Londoner stuck in someones life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's armpit whilst attempting to read on a cramped tube, or trying to navigate busy country lanes death in order to do the school run and get to work on timeSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, weis the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco've probably all experienced its forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. But have you ever thought about The question at the history centre of this book is whether it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781854068</amazonuk>is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Evans0008294011|title=Merchant AdventurersHow to Lose a Country: The Voyage of Discovery that Transformed Tudor England 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=We tend A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to associate come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the golden age of global navigation and exploration with question ''Discuss the Elizabethan age factors which led to...'' I agreed that she was right and such luminaries as Drake, Raleigh and Hawkinswasn'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. This book does us all We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a service in reminding us flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the original pioneers, whom they overshadowed and who seem less well-remembered these days'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780221029</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emma Marriott1788037812|title=A History The Fraternity of the World Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in NumbersEngland, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=45
|genre=History
|summary=Make no mistakeOriginally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this book does what it says time, restrictions on the coversame-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. That also goes to say that it is ''not'' A History of Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the World ''nature of'' Numbers, or A History of the World's Numbers homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and what they might meanJohn Addington Symonds, as other books providewell as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. This is a primer Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the world's historyEuropean Continent, right from but barely talked about in the earliest days UK, so the publications of civilisation up these men were hugely significant – contributing to the close scientific understanding of World War Twohomosexuality, in handy bite-sized chunksand beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, where leading to the headline data can be given using a numbermilestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782432175</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1910593508|title=Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under HitlerApollo|author=Philip BallMatt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Picture yourself in Nazi Germany, at any time of This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the passion for the Reich's powers. What do you dosubject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and how do you behave? Do you recognise the fact Jews are being oppressed Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and have been since the first days because of the Nazi regime? Do you do anything about this, or the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. These shortcuts are you aware of the problems the country has had due only downside to losing the Great War and having the whole Weimar Republic and hyperinflation, and just look after number one? Now picture yourself as a scientistbook. All If you've known your adult life has been to furthering your knowledge in, say, physics. Do ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you again work purely for your own ends? For will be familiar with the country's – knowing all about its rulers? Or can you segregate your bosses slight feeling that there are scenes missing and their leaders from your needs, and perhaps seek knowledge for the sake of the world? It's probably not a conundrum that dialogue has hit you before, given its scientific bent, but it's worth looking at what was going on at been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that timecould easily have been three times as long and still felt too short. Which way did Planck walk? Did Heisenberg have principles?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581647</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1786331047|title=SlideshowThe Race to Save the Romanovs: Memories of a Wartime ChildhoodThe Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Marjorie Ann WattsHelen Rappaport|rating=3.5
|genre=History
|summary=''Slideshow'' may seem an unusual title for a book The basic facts about growing up during the Second World Wardeaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, but author Marjorie Ann Watts is quick to explain why it was chosenhave long since been established. Her job as a book illustrator For the last few months of their lives in Russia the former Tsar and artist requires astute observation skills Tsarina, their children and she has what might be known as a 'photographic memory'few remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, or a gift for recalling specific scenes humiliating captivity. To prevent them from her past 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 great detailEurope. She explains it this way:}}
'All I have Move on 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.'|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 [[Newest Home 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>}}Family Reviews]]

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