Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jason Burke1785633457|title=The New Threat From Islamic MilitancyCharging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=45|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=Barely Clive Wilkinson has a day passes without Islamic militancy making headlines somewhere 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 the worldan electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, and yet it can should be a hard subject pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B09BLBP3P8|title=Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to graspmisconceptions about history. The sudden rise One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of Islamic State and their campaign the early days of shocking violence both in World War II from 1939-40, known as the Middle East and further afield has left many confused and fearful''Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and has provoked a sometimes extreme political responseChurchill coming in to save the day. In "The New Threat From Islamic Militancy"Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, Jason Burkeas Frederic Seager argues in this book, a journalist with two decades it was of experience reporting on the Islamic world, attempts to correct vital significance in how the many misconceptions about Islamic extremism to give a true understanding of the threat we now facewar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784701475</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Horobin3756228711|title=How English Became EnglishCDC: A short history of The happy years with a global languagespectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer

|summary=Angle se yon lang konfizyon. Mwen konnen, paske mwen li liv sa a tout sou li. Now, I know a lot of you understood that, and it's thanks to a certain search engine's 'translate' facility that it exists here in The history of the first place, but hardly any development of you would recognise it as Haitian Creole. But pretty much all IT could fill books of the words in the two sentences have come into English through one way or another, through an invasion either literal or lingualseveral hundred pages. ''Angle'' – the Anglo-Saxons were the first speakers of what we now call Old English, which  Author Hans Bodmer is pretty much impenetrable – certainly harder to read than Creolequite right about that. The ''konfizyon'' in the ''lang''uage are equally easy to decipher, and the second half is pretty close He has chosen to tell us about the French with what seems a German verb in it. If you do use regular Englishshort, that's what you're doing – using French with some Germanbut explosive, and Latinhistory of the Control Data Company, and Indian, and the restCDC, even if that's only as far as vocabulary goes; our grammar is too Germanic to be called anything butfor whom he worked. It's at this stage one reels out the old gag about English being the 'lingua franca' a fascinating tale, told in a mixture of technological summary and thus proves that however global English is, it doesn't really stand as its own entity if you give it the slightest scrutinywry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0198754272</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jason Quinn Jeremy Dronfield and Naresh KumarDavid Ziggy Greene|title=World War Two: Against the Rising Sun (Campfire Graphic Novels)|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction |summary=World War Two – so often a lesson subject for our primary school children, even after all this time. Nazis, Soviets, Pearl Harbor – but wait. That last wasn't just the clarion call to the Americans to join in with the rest of our Allies – it was a mere episode in a fuller story – the half of the war that was never seen by those in Europe, beyond the fact the British Empire was certainly changed forever. The War in the Pacific is something I was certainly never taught much about in school, at any age. And here's a graphic novel version of the tale from a publisher in India that can serve at last as a salutary lesson.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9381182051</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Lewis Helfand Fritz and Lalit Kumar Sharma|title=World War Two: Under the Shadow of the Swastika (Campfire Graphic Novels)Kurt

|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=One 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 most common subjects empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at primary a vocational school, getting . Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for three generations since it happened, is of course World War Twousing anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. It has But this is the time just before the impact that sixty million dead people deserve – but only if itAustrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's taught correctlywill, and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. One ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the ways younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to present it is this bookhear word of an evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and his father are, which comes from a slightly surprising place – an Indian publisher completely new unknown initially to me – but succeeds in being remarkably competenteach other, complete packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and really quite readablethe stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>9381182140</amazonuk>024156574X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Stacy SchiffJohn Henry Phillips|title= The Witches: Salem 1692Search|rating= 5|genre= History|summary= Like most people I know the story of Salem through the very particular lens of _The Crucible_. That particular lens was the very current witch-hunt that was going on at the time. Arthur Miller's play is rightly seen as an allegory of the McCarthyism in 1950s America – but having read Schiff's more academic approach to the source tale, it's easy to see that Miller's drama is much more about the hunting down of the 'red menace' than about what might have happened in New England two hundred and fifty years earlier.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147460224X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Roger Moorhouse|title=The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941|rating=3.5

|summary=Before WWII startedArchaeology cannot be child's play, when you didn't really have peace. Tensions had hardly settled down since re scraping in the Great Wardirt looking to find what you can find, and often knowing there should be something there had been conflicts several times since, particularly in but not always confident what would become the Theatre of War in eastern Europe. Nazi Germany and the Soviet regime were already at loggerheads, with the former supporting Japanese aggression in eastern AsiaArchaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. They were bedfellows in evil, but very much on opposing sides. But with things stirring like never before under Hitler's expansionist activities, and despite numerous instances This book is a case of this side talking to that potential enemy about the otherlatter, Nazi and Communist seemed as our author promises to be firm foes. Both had publicly been denouncing the other – locate the Soviets deeming Nazis one side topic of the same corrupt, capitalist coin as us Brits, the Hitlerites already equating Communism with Jewrytitular search. But from under that period when the sides were And he really hasn''pouring buckets of shit on each other's heads'' (sorry t made it easy for himself – the languagesearch area is a wide one, but it’s me quoting Stalin, believe it or the target might not) came an extraordinary Pact exist any more – one of a handful in factoh, that deemed Germany and Russia non-aggressors and collaboratorsit's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D- just in time for them Day veteran through helping the heroic old man's visit back to share Poland between themselves. The initial document was shortFrance, but had an impact our author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to affect 50 million people thenNormandy, and many millions now – and yet that he was lucky to survive when it's hardly been sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the subject vast majority of a full look before nowwhom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099571897</amazonuk>1472146182

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hugh BichenoB09F4CTKJR|title=Battle Royal: The Wars of Lancaster and York, 1450-1464 (Wars of the Roses Book 1)Flights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=Lancastrian Henry VI is an ailing king. Politically his popularity waivers as he spends English money on apparently fruitless wars in France and physically his poor mental health translates as unreliability and physical weakness. His queen, Marguerite dIt'Anjou is determined to shore up any shortfall for s the sake later stages of the country World War I and her children but the House of York United States has other ideas. And so begins bloody (and rather fascinating) civil war…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781859655</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author= Benedict Rogers|title= Burma: A Nation at just entered the Crossroads|rating= 3conflict.5|genre= History|summary= Benedict Rogers Petrol Petronus is a human rights activist young American who has signed up and journalist with an expert insight into Burma, gathered first-hand on journeys to regions off joined the beaten track17 Aero Squadron. Burma is a country under This company was the iron rule of a succession of military regimes, struggling with over half a century of sufferingfirst US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, much unknown to the wider international audience.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846044464</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Allan Metcalf|title=From Skedaddle first to Selfie: Words of the Generation|rating=3.5|genre=Trivia|summary=I have be attached to go a roundabout way to introducing this book, so bear with me. It stems partly from dictionaries and the etymology of the language we use, but more so if anything from a different couple of books, RAF and their ideas of generations. The authors of those posited the idea that all those archetypical generations – first to be sent into the Baby Boomers, the Millennials, and those before, in between and since – have their own cyclical pattern, and the history of humanity has been and will be formed by skies to fight the interplay of just four different kinds, running (with only one exception) Germans in regular orderactive combat. I don't really hold much store by But before thatcan happen, and I certainly didn't know we'd started one since Petrol has to master flying the Millennials – who the heck decides such things, for one? ''Somebody must have put out an order'', as someone here says of something else. But in the same way as generations get defined by collective persons unknown, so do words – and those words are certainly a clue to what was important, predominant and of course spoken in each decadenotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>019992712X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Halliday0578761718|title=Cathedrals and Abbeys (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)The Inspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver

|summary=What makes a cathedral? It's not automatically the principal The church of anywhere that is made a city – St Davids is a village Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of 2London from at least 1181,000 people, and wasn't always a city, but always had a cathedralwhen it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, as did Chelmsford. It's not the seat original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of a bishop – Glasgow has the building but not the person, and hasn't had a bishop since 1690London in 1666. It's not was rebuilt in Portland stone from a minster – that's something completely different, design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and if you can understand the sign in the delightful Beverley Minster describing the differencethen survived for centuries until World War II, that I saw only when it was again ruined by bombs during the other month, you're a better man I, Gunga DinBlitz. Luckily this book doesnBut that wasn't touch on minsters much, and we can understand abbeysthe end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, so it's only the vast majority of this book that is saddled with stones from the definition problem. Itchurch's clearly not a real problemwalls were transported to Fulton, and those it does have are by-passableMissouri. There, for this successfully defines a cathedral as somewhere in the grounds of major importanceWestminster College, fine trivia the church was rebuilt and greatly worthy of our attentiontoday serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910821047</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Dominic Pearce1784385166|title= Henrietta MariaThe Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary=The phrase 'tragic Queen' What is an often overused one, but the French princess who became first image that comes to mind when you think of the second Stuart Queen Consort 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 Britain surely has as strong a claim as any to the titleThird Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. In British history she was unique in But some objects and images from that she not only lived time may be less familiar to see her husband defeated in civil waryou. In this short volume, but also sentenced Roger Moorhouse has attempted to death and in effect judicially murderedillustrate the period of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445645475</amazonuk> 

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Zoe Bramley|title= The Shakespeare Trail|rating= 4|genre= Trivia|summary= It has been 400 years since William ShakespeareLun Zhang, the man heralded as the greatest writer in the English languageAdrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and England's national poet, died. Shakespeare has made a profound mark on our culture and heritage, yet many aspects of his life remain in the shadows, and many places throughout England have forgotten their association with him. Here, Zoe Bramley takes the reader on a journey through hundreds of places associated with Shakespeare – many whose connections will come as a surprise to most. Filled with intriguing titbits of information about Shakespeare, Elizabethan England, and the places that she talks about, this is no mere travel guide. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445646846</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Stephen HallidayEdward Gauvin (translator)|title=London (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes

|genre=TriviaGraphic Novels|summary= What makes a city? Is I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the materials, such as the very London Stone itself, second half of mythological repute, that their teens has moved around several timesother priorities, and now forms part of a WH Smithyou know. I certainly didn's branch? (This has nothing, t know of course, on Temple Bar, which has also been known to walk.) Is it the people – the butchers [[Jack the Ripper: CSI: Whitechapel by John Bennett weeks of protests and Paul Begg|(Jack hunger strikes from the Ripper)]], students before the bakers (or whoever set fire to the entire city from Pudding Lane) massacre and the candlestick makers? Is it birth of the infrastructureTank Man image, from I didn't know how the Underground, whose one-time boss got area had long been a medal from Stalin venue for his successpolitical protest, to and I didn't know more than a spit about the London Bridge itself, that people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in its own wanderlust means itgiving a general browser's highly unlikely the Thames will freeze again? However you define a city, London certainly has a lot going context for it as regards weird and wonderful, and the trivial yet fascinating. And, luckily for us, so has this bookwhole season of protests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910821020</amazonuk>1684056993

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Stephen Halliday0648684806|title=London Underground (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)Clara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|genre=TravelBiography|summary= From initial worries about smuttyThe 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, enclosed air 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 pungent smell to decades of human hair good education, both in and engine grease causing escalator fires; from just a few lines connecting London termini to major jaunts out into Metro-land for of school. She was the only child in the suburbia-bound commuters; household and from a few religious-minded if financially dodgy her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer investment managers to Crossrail; farmers in the history mid-west of the world's most extensive underground system (even United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when a majority is actually above ground) is fascinating she and her grandparents eventually went to manyjoin the family. This book is Clara would only know her mother for a repository of much that is entirely trivialfew 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, but is also pretty much thoroughly interestinga heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910821039</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julian Holland1783784350|title=Railways (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating=35|genre=TravelHistory|summary=How It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and when preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did Laurel not soothe her mind. January was going to be a time for making changes and Hardy replace she decided that she would travel the Duke length and breadth of York (George VI)? They reopened the RomneyBritish Isles with occasional forays abroad, Hythe discovering and Dymchurch Railway when peacetime resumed, at whose launch telling the latter story of wool's history and how it had officiated before made and changed the Warlandscape. WhatShe's the worst that can happen when you travel internationally and arrive d grown up on a London goods train with no further destination documents? Well, if yousheep farm in Suffolk - ''re an unidentifiable Peruvian mummy you can get buried as an unknown corpse before a free-range child on the invoice turns up farm'' - and learned to prove you were wanted in Belgium. After so many miles and so much dramaspin, it's no surprise odd facts knit and fun trivia derive weave from our countryher mother and her mother's trainsfriend. This book is designed to be an ideal source of quick articles and fun mini-essays for use was in the smallest room.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910821004</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Paddy Hayes|title= Queen of Spies|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= Paddy Hayes has created an extensive account of the life and career of an extraordinary female spy. Daphne Park has faced sexism, brutality and betrayal. She has bravely stood against terror, charmed diplomats and navigated her way through the then alien Soviet Russiablood. Hers is an incredible life, one that brings the nail-biting and seat teetering that we expect from a spy story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715650432</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanne Parker1789017977|title=Britannia Obscura: Mapping BritainRonnie and Hilda's Hidden LandscapesRomance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|summary=What shape do you assume Britain to be? Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. If you merely go by the current map, youThere're holding yourself ransom by the secessionists wanting devolution, and changes s some doubt as to the boundaries within Britain, but doesnwhether or not they were ever married or even Harry't the place go beyond that outline on the page? Remember, it used s birthdate: he claimed to be connected to mainland Europehave been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and once we'd sorthe might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while the family was quite well-ofto-settled into one kingdom on our shores [[Divorced, Beheaded, Died...: The History of Britain's Kings do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and Queens in Bitefive-year-Sized Chunks by Kevin Flude|the people in charge]] were also ruling over parts of Franceold Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. And of course – the twoOne thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-dimensional plan of the British Isles is nowhere near the real story, for we have many coastal waters, we have airspace, out and we have a large subterranean territorythis would stay with him throughout his life. You can definitely throw away He joined the imagined space of Britain, for the reality is far granderarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700002</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Suzannah Lipscomb1980891117|title= The King is DeadG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryArt|summary= Shortly before his death in January 1547, King Henry VIII's last will and testament George Engleheart was readone of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, stamped and sealedwith a career lasting from the 1770s to the Regency era. It has remained He was also one of the most intriguing and contested documents in British historyprolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). This book examines it from every angle, and analyses Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the background against the last days names of each of the King's life his clients, and the events which followedsubsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784081922</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Ian Mortimer1789016304|title= Human RaceWar and Love: 10 Centuries of Change on Earth|rating=4|genre= History|summary= We are an astonishing species. Over the past millennium of plagues and exploration, revolution and scientific discovery, women's rights and technological advances, human society has changed beyond recognition. Best known for his ''Time Traveller's Guide'' history books, Ian Mortimer here gives the reader a whistle-stop tour through ten centuries. ''Human Race'' contains the lunar leaps and lightbulb moments that, for better or worse, have sent humanity swerving down a path that no-one could have predicted. The question here is which of the last ten centuries saw the greatest change in human history?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593386</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Catherine Hewitt|title= The Mistress of Paris|rating= 4|genre= Biography|summary= Born into poverty, no-one could have guessed that the girl who would one day be known as Valtesse de la Bigne would have achieved greatness. This is the tale of her rise to wealth and power – starting in a dress shop as a thirteen year old, but fast becoming a courtesan who would be fought over by some of the greatest men of her time. A woman who kept an air of mystery about many details of her life, Catherine Hewitt nevertheless paints an incredible story around the gaps, and this proves to be both a full and intriguing biography, and a fascinating portrait of the time period. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848319266</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Mary Beard|title= SPQR A History of Ancient Rome|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary=How do we know what really happened at any moment in history? At best we make educated guesses based on (often conflicting) evidence. The most striking aspect of Mary Beardfamily's new examination of Roman history is how far she goes to see all sides and all possible explanations testament of events. For exampleanguish, were the emperors Nero endurance and Caligula mad or simply the victims of their successors' smear campaign? What's behind all that nonsense about the city of Rome being founded by twin boys suckled by wolves? This is a book that explodes some of the myths and presents alternative answers. Mary Beard analyses the evidence to shed new light on how a small community grew to become an empire. Military force was important, but other threads devotion in the weave (such as social mobility and the effect of extending citizenship to many of the conquered) made the Roman experience unique. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683807</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewoccupied Amsterdam|author=Despina Stratigakos|title=Hitler at HomeMelanie Martin

|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 ''Please do not make Hitler look good.The Diary of Ann Frank'' Words to live by but then realised that the author of this volume received from her mother, a Kefalonian who knew Nazi abuse when she saw itown family's stories were equally fascinating. Rest assured that A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the book does not do thatwar years, but it certainly provides a much fresher, more eloquent only five thousand survived and interesting look at certain aspects of his life, and introduces us Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to someone else from the Nazi times – Gerdy Troost, happen in a country with liberal values who might as well be summarised as Hitler's interior designerwere resistant to German occupation. In picking apart Most people believed that the entire life of Troost, occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the nature of her work and how Germans might reach the buildings and décor she surrounded Hitler in became a part of his propaganda, we get a refreshingly new yet authoritative bookcity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that for those with an interest the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in this side of our recent history will easily be considered one of, if not theway that it did, best book of but initial protests melted away as the yearorganisers became more circumspect. The person who does come out with the laurels worn highest is our authorIt's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>030018381X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Elizabeth Norton1908745819|title= The Temptation Of Elizabeth Tudor|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary= Life, or rather survival, in Tudor England was a precarious business. Being close to the crown was anything but a guarantee of safety, as the fate of two of King Henry VIII's Queen's amply demonstrated. His second daughter Elizabeth led a charmed life and went on to reign as Queen for over forty years, but she too had some narrow escapes when her liberty if not her very existence was under threat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784081728</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewSurfacing|author=Alison Maloney|title=Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian ServantsKathleen Jamie

|summary=Life in Edwardian times is currently Sometimes when people suggest that you read a popular subjectcertain book, thanks in no small part to 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 thatwe didn't like the book. That' period drama currently showing its final series on ITVs 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 ''Life Below Stairsan older, less tethered sense of herself.'' examines Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the subject in greater detailnatural world, looking at documents of those aspects of the poetic and memoirs from the time to discover what life was really like for those in service. We learn lyrical that are about the strict hierarchy in the household style not form, and the duties expected substance most of each individualall, about connection. We see how much each member of staff Of course, this book had my name on it. It was paid and how workers were hired (and in many cases, fired) from their positionswritten for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. Welcome I am pleased to a slice of Edwardian life, served up with a delicious mix of period illustrations and newspaper clippings|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782434356</amazonuk>have it fall onto my path so quickly.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lucy Adlington0857058320|title= Stitches in Time: The Story of Lord Of All the Clothes We Wear Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|genre= History|summary=''Stitches in TimeLord Of All the Dead'' is a lively history of clothingjourney to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Riffling through Cercas is searching for the wardrobes of years gone by, costume historian Lucy Adlington reveals the stories underneath the clothes we wear meaning behind his great uncle's death in this tour of the history of fashion, ranging from ancient times to the present daySpanish Civil War. With beautiful illustrations and full colour photographsManuel Mena, Cercas''Stitches in Time'' great uncle, is a reminder of how the way we dress is inextricably bound up with considerations of aesthetics, sex, gender, class and lifestyle – and offers figure who looms large over the reader 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 chance centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to appreciate be a hero whilst having fought for the extraordinary qualities of the clothing we wear, and the rich history it has ledwrong side. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847947263</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jeffrey James0008294011|title= Edward IVHow to Lose a Country: Glorious Son of YorkThe 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= Medieval EnglandA 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 own game a flawed system I can't think of thronesa better one, particularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1788037812|title=The Wars Fraternity of the RosesEstranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=5|genre=History|summary=Originally passed in 1885, was at the centre of law that had made homosexual relations a turbulent agecrime remained in place for 82 years. In retrospect much of the history of medieval EnglandBut during this time, between the Norman conquest restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the advent nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the Tudors, seems to have been a chronicle of instability often verging on and sometimes erupting into rebellion or civil warheterosexual Havelock Ellis. The fifteenth-century conflicts between Exploring the houses margins of Lancaster society and Yorkstudying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, lasting intermittently for thirty yearsbut barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were more protracted and even more brutal than hugely significant – contributing to the restscientific understanding of homosexuality, with several fierce battles and sudden changes of fortune beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the two rival families, both descended from King Edward III. The rise, fall and rise again milestone legalisation of King Edward IV was a constant theme of the warssame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445646218</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Dan Jones1910593508|title= Realm Divided: A Year in the Life of Plantagenet EnglandApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= 1215 has gone down in history as This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the passion for the year of Magna Cartasubject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, the result of King John's increasingly discontented barons attempts to exert control over their wayward Chris Baker and stubborn monarchMike Collins. John had succeeded to the throne This is a story we know well and because of England in 1199this, at the end of an often turbulent century. His father, Henry II, had succeeded authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in restoring the authority of the crown after almost twenty years of civil war between blanks. These shortcuts are the supporters of two rival claimants only downside to the kingdombook. He had inherited If you've ever read a challenging set on both sides comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the Channel, slight feeling that there are scenes missing and within four years had that dialogue has been driven out of most of the French ones, notably the duchy of Normandytrimmed. Posterity would bestow on him the unflattering nicknames 'John Softsword' This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and later 'John Lackland'still felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781858829</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Jeffery1786331047|title=1916The Race to Save the Romanovs: A Global HistoryThe Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary=1916 was a pivotal year in modern history. It witnessed The basic facts about the Easter Rising in Dublindeaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, the battles some of Verdun and which were deliberately obscured at the Sommetime for various reasons, and have long since been established. For the election last few months of Woodrow Wilson as American President. Thesetheir lives in Russia the former Tsar and Tsarina, their children and several other events described few remaining servants were held in this book in detailincreasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. To prevent them from being rescued, were later seen as crucial staging points in July 1918 the course of revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the First World Warnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408834308</amazonuk>