Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Margaret MacMillan1785633457|title= History's PeopleCharging Around: Personalities and Exploring the PastEdges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryTravel|summary= According to the 19th century historian Thomas Carlyle, 'the Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the world is but idea of exploring the biography edges of great men'England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. Historian Margaret McMillan acknowledges in her introduction to this volumeIn fact, based on it should be a series of recent lecturespleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, that there is a long-standing debate in history over whether events are moved either by individuals or by economic and social changes or technological and scientific advancesJoan, and suggests that there is no right or wrong answer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781255121</amazonuk>shouldn't it?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David P ColleyB09BLBP3P8|title=Seeing the Neville Chamberlain's War: The Stories Behind the Famous Photographs from World War IIHow Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager|rating=4.5

|summary=As anybody could tell, a still photograph is only part of the truth, if that. There is a beforehand we don't see, Received wisdom and an after we can only fantasise simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about unless we know otherwisehistory. Take One such is the famous image scrubbing from the popular imagination of wartime grunts pushing the flag pole upright – an icon early days of the World War in the Pacific for the US soldiersII from 1939-40, and known as the films made about Iwo Jima since''Phoney War''. But other images of the We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war have been just as long-lastingbreaking out, and the people Churchill coming in to save the photos don't always have movies made of their full story arcday. This book Very little time is a collection of the imagesspent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, and a corrective to that narrative lackas Frederic Seager argues in this book, giving much more it was of a full biography with which to pay tributevital significance in how the war played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1611687268</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timothy W Ryback3756228711|title=HitlerCDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 's First Victims: And One ManPhenomena's Race for Justice|author=Hans Bodmer

|summary=Four people, taken to a sheltered corner of the place they're trapped, and shot in the back 'The history of the head by fresh-faced guards and soldiers with far too little experience development of anything, let alone treating other men on the wrong end IT could fill books of a gunseveral hundred pages. Three people ''unceremoniously dumped Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us about the short, like slain gamebut explosive, on the floor history of a nearby ammunition shed'' – the fourth had two hellish days with at least one bullet wound to the brain before Control Data Company, CDC, for whom he passed away. All four over-worked from being in a Nazi establishment, all four probably killed merely for being Jewish. Not a remarkable story, itIt's horrid to think, due to there being about six million cases of this happening. What is remarkable about this instance is that it was the firsta fascinating tale, at the incredible time of April 1933. And if it seems the first told in a long chain mixture of such murders, you would think people might have noticed that at the time, technological summary and tried to do something about it. Well, they didwry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700169</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jason BurkeJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=The New Threat From Islamic MilitancyFritz and Kurt

|genre=Politics and SocietyConfident Readers|summary=Barely a day passes without Islamic militancy making headlines somewhere 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 worldneighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and yet it can be at a hard subject vocational school. Kurt has to grasp. The sudden rise of Islamic State and make sure the lamps are turned on at their campaign of shocking violence both in very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Middle East Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and further afield has left many confused and fearfulworkmanlike as a light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and has provoked instead of having a sometimes extreme political responsenational vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. In "The New Threat From Islamic Militancy" ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, Jason Burke, a journalist as did all the round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with two decades his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of experience reporting on an evacuation to Britain or the Islamic worldUS, while Fritz and his father are, attempts unknown initially to correct each other, packed off on the many misconceptions about Islamic extremism same train to give a true understanding of Buchenwald and the threat we now facestone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784701475</amazonuk>024156574X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon HorobinJohn Henry Phillips|title=How English Became English: A short history of a global languageThe Search|rating=45

|summary=Angle se yon lang konfizyon. Mwen konnen, paske mwen li liv sa a tout sou li. NowArchaeology cannot be child's play, I know a lot of when you understood that, and it's thanks to a certain search engine's 'translate' facility that it exists here re scraping in the first placedirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but hardly any of not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you would recognise it as Haitian Creoleset out to find some specific thing. But pretty much all This book is a case of the words in the two sentences have come into English through one way or anotherlatter, through an invasion either literal or lingual. ''Angle'' – as our author promises to locate the Anglo-Saxons were topic of the first speakers of what we now call Old English, which is pretty much impenetrable – certainly harder to read than Creoletitular search. The And he really hasn''konfizyon'' in the ''lang''uage are equally t made it easy to decipher, and for himself – the second half search area is pretty close to the French with what seems a German verb in it. If you do use regular Englishwide one, that's what you're doing the target might not exist any more – using French with some Germanoh, and Latinit's underwater, and Indian, and when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the rest, even if thatheroic old man's only as far as vocabulary goes; visit back to France, our grammar is too Germanic author has promised to be called anything but. It's at this stage one reels out find the old gag about English being the 'lingua franca' landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and thus proves that however global English he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim isto erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, it doesn't really stand as its own entity if you give it the slightest scrutinyvast majority of whom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0198754272</amazonuk>1472146182

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jason Quinn and Naresh KumarB09F4CTKJR|title=World War Two: Against the Rising Sun (Campfire Graphic Novels)Flights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|genre=Children's Non-Historical Fiction |summary=It's the later stages of World War Two – so often I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a lesson subject for our primary school children, even after all this timeyoung American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. Nazis, SovietsThis company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, Pearl Harbor – but wait. That last wasn't just the clarion call first to the Americans be attached to join in with the rest of our Allies – it was a mere episode in a fuller story – RAF and the half of first to be sent into the war that was never seen by those in Europe, beyond the fact the British Empire was certainly changed forever. The War in skies to fight the Pacific is something I was certainly never taught much about Germans in school, at any ageactive combat. And here's a graphic novel version of the tale from a publisher in India But before that can serve at last as a salutary lessonhappen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9381182051</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lewis Helfand and Lalit Kumar Sharma0578761718|title=World War Two: Under the Shadow The Inspiring History of the Swastika (Campfire Graphic Novels)a Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionHistory|summary=One The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the most common subjects City of London from at primary schoolleast 1181, getting on for three generations since when it happenedwas first mentioned in records. Sadly, is of course World War Two. It has the impact that sixty million dead people deserve – but only if it's taught correctly. One of the ways to present it is this book, which comes from a slightly surprising place – an Indian publisher completely new to me – but succeeds original church was destroyed in being remarkably competent, complete and really quite readable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9381182140</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Stacy Schiff|title= The Witches: Salem 1692|rating= 5|genre= History|summary= Like most people I know the story Great Fire of Salem through the very particular lens of _The Crucible_London in 1666. That particular lens It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the very current witch-hunt that fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was going on at again ruined by bombs during the timeBlitz. Arthur MillerBut that wasn's play is rightly seen as an allegory t the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the McCarthyism in 1950s America – but having read Schiffchurch's more academic approach walls were transported to the source taleFulton, Missouri. There, it's easy to see that Miller's drama is much more about in the hunting down grounds of Westminster College, the 'red menace' than about what might have happened in New England two hundred church was rebuilt and fifty years earliertoday serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147460224X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1784385166|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany

|title=The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941|rating=3.5

|summary=Before WWII started, What is the first image that comes to mind when you didn't really have peace. Tensions had hardly settled down since the Great War, and there had been conflicts several times since, particularly in what would become the Theatre think of War in eastern Europe. Nazi Germany and the Soviet regime were already at loggerheads, with the former supporting Japanese aggression in eastern Asia. They were bedfellows in evil, but very much on opposing sides. But with things stirring like never before under Third Reich? Hitler's expansionist activities, and despite numerous instances of this side talking to that potential enemy about the other, ? A swastika? The Nazi and Communist seemed salute? The gate to be firm foes. Both had publicly been denouncing the other – the Soviets deeming Nazis one side a concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the same corrupt, capitalist coin as us Brits, the Hitlerites already equating Communism with JewryThird Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from under that period when the sides were ''pouring buckets of shit on each other's heads'' (sorry for the language, but it’s me quoting Stalin, believe it or not) came an extraordinary Pact – one of a handful in fact, that deemed Germany and Russia non-aggressors and collaborators, - just in time for them may be less familiar to share Poland between themselvesyou. The initial document was In this shortvolume, but had an impact Roger Moorhouse has attempted to affect 50 million people then, and many millions now – and yet it's hardly been illustrate the period of the subject Third Reich through one hundred of a full look before nowits material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099571897</amazonuk> 

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hugh BichenoLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=Battle RoyalTiananmen 1989: The Wars of Lancaster and York, 1450-1464 (Wars of the Roses Book 1)Our Shattered Hopes

|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=Lancastrian Henry VI is an ailing king. Politically his popularity waivers as he spends English money on apparently fruitless wars I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in France and physically his poor mental health translates as unreliability and physical weaknessthe second half of their teens has other priorities, you know. His queen, Marguerite dI certainly didn'Anjou is determined to shore up any shortfall for t know of the sake weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the country students before the massacre and her children but the House birth of York has other ideasthe 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. And so begins bloody (and rather fascinating) civil war…This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781859655</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Benedict Rogers0648684806|title= BurmaClara Colby: A Nation at the CrossroadsThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating= 3.54|genre= HistoryBiography|summary= Benedict Rogers is a human rights activist 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 journalist three brothers. Instead, she remained with an expert insight into Burmaher grandparents, gathered first-hand who doted on journeys to regions off her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the beaten trackhousehold and her childhood was glorious. Burma is a country under By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the iron rule 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 succession of military regimesfew months: she was married for fifteen years, struggling with over half a century of sufferinghad ten pregnancies, much unknown to seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the wider international audienceeldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846044464</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Allan Metcalf1783784350|title=From Skedaddle to SelfieThis Golden Fleece: Words of the GenerationA Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating=3.5|genre=TriviaHistory|summary=I have to go a roundabout way to introducing this book, so bear with me. It stems partly from dictionaries was December and the etymology of the language we use, but more so if anything from a different couple of booksEsther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and their ideas of generationspreparing spreadsheets. The authors of those posited the idea 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 all those archetypical generations – she would travel the Baby Boomers, length and breadth of the Millennials, and those before, in between and since – have their own cyclical patternBritish Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of wool's history of humanity has been and will be formed by how it had made and changed the interplay of just four different kinds, running (with only one exception) in regular orderlandscape. I donShe't really hold much store by that, and I certainly didnd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - 't know we'd started one since a free-range child on the Millennials – who the heck decides such things, for one? farm''Somebody must have put out an order'- and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother', as someone here says of something elses friend. 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 This was important, predominant and of course spoken in each decadeher blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>019992712X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Halliday1789017977|title=Cathedrals Ronnie and Abbeys (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=4.5

|summary=What makes a cathedral? It's not automatically Ronnie Williams was the principal church son of anywhere that is made a city – St Davids is a village of 2,000 people, and wasn't always a city, but always had a cathedral, Thomas Henry Williams (known as did Chelmsford. It's not the seat of a bishop – Glasgow has the building but not the person, Harry) and hasn't had a bishop since 1690Ethel Wall. ItThere's some doubt as to whether or not a minster – thatthey were ever married or even Harry's something completely different, and if you can understand the sign birthdate: he claimed to have been born in the delightful Beverley Minster describing the difference, that I saw only the other month, you're a better man I, Gunga Din. Luckily this book doesn't touch on minsters much1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and we can understand abbeys, so it's only the vast majority of this book that is saddled with the definition problem. It's clearly not a real problem, and those it does he might well have are by-passable, for this successfully defines shaved a cathedral as somewhere of major importance, fine trivia and greatly worthy of our attentionfew years off his age.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910821047</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Dominic Pearce|title= Henrietta Maria|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary=The phrase 'tragic Queen' is an often overused one, but the French princess who became the second Stuart Queen Consort of Britain surely has as strong For a claim as any to while the title. In British history she family was unique in that she not only lived quite well-to see her husband defeated in civil war, -do but also sentenced to death and disaster struck in effect judicially murdered.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445645475</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Zoe Bramley|title= The Shakespeare Trail|rating= 4|genre= Trivia|summary= It has been 400 years since William Shakespeare, the man heralded as the greatest writer in the English language, 1929 Depression and England's national poet, diedfive-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. Shakespeare has made a profound mark on our culture and heritage, yet many aspects of One thing he did inherit from his father was his life remain in the shadows, need to be well-turned-out and many places throughout England have forgotten their association this would stay with himthroughout his life. Here, Zoe Bramley takes He joined 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 guidearmy at eighteen in 1942. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445646846</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Stephen Halliday1980891117|title=London (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley

|genre=TriviaArt|summary= What makes a city? Is it George Engleheart was one of the materials, such as the very leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London Stone itself, of mythological repute, that has moved around several times, and now forms part of with a WH Smith's branch? (This has nothing, of course, on Temple Bar, which has also been known career lasting from the 1770s to walkthe Regency era.) Is it He was also one of the people – the butchers [[Jack the Ripper: CSI: Whitechapel by John Bennett and Paul Begg|(Jack the Ripper)]]most prolific, painting nearly 5, the bakers 000 miniatures altogether (or whoever set fire to the entire city from Pudding Laneover twenty of them being of King George III) and . Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the candlestick makers? Is it the infrastructure, from the Underground, whose one-time boss got a medal from Stalin for names of each of his successclients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to the London Bridge itself, that in its own wanderlust means it's highly unlikely the Thames will freeze again? However you define a city, London certainly has a lot going for it as regards weird and wonderful, and the trivial yet fascinating. And, luckily for us, so has this his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910821020</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Stephen Halliday1789016304|title=London Underground (Amazing War and Extraordinary Facts)Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=45|genre=TravelHistory|summary= From initial worries Melanie Martin read about smuttywhat happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, enclosed air with a pungent smell to decades particularly in ''The Diary of human hair Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and engine grease causing escalator fires; seven thousand Jews were deported from just a few lines connecting London termini to major jaunts out into Metro-land for the suburbia-bound commuters; city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and from Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a few religious-minded if financially dodgy pioneer investment managers country with liberal values who were resistant to Crossrail; German occupation. Most people believed that the history of 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 world's most extensive underground system (even when a majority is actually above ground) is fascinating Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to manyescalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. This book is It's an atrocity on a repository vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of much that is entirely trivial, but is also pretty much thoroughly interestingindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910821039</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julian Holland1908745819|title=Railways (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)Surfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=35|genre=TravelHistory|summary=How and Sometimes when did Laurel and Hardy replace the Duke of York (George VI)? They reopened the Romneypeople suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway when peacetime resumedor not, at whose launch but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the latter had officiated before the Warbook. WhatThat's the worst that can happen when you travel internationally and arrive on a London goods train with no further destination documents? Wellrare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, if you're an unidentifiable Peruvian mummy you can rarely get buried as an unknown corpse before the invoice turns up to prove you were wanted in Belgiumit wrong. In this case, I was told why. After so many miles and so much dramaThe blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, itless tethered sense of herself.''s no surprise odd facts and fun trivia derive from our country Older. Less tethered. That's trainsnot a bad description of where I am. This book is designed Add to be an ideal source that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of quick articles the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and fun mini-essays substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. It was written for use in the smallest roomme. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910821004</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Paddy Hayes0857058320|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 Russia. Hers is an incredible life, one that brings Lord Of All the nail-biting and seat teetering that we expect from a spy story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715650432</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewDead|author=Joanne Parker|title=Britannia Obscura: Mapping Britain's Hidden LandscapesJavier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=What shape do you assume Britain ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to be? If you merely go by uncover the current map, youauthor's lost ancestor're holding yourself ransom by the secessionists wanting devolution, s life and changes to death. Cercas is searching for the boundaries within Britain, but doesnmeaning behind his great uncle't s death in the place go beyond that outline on the page? RememberSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, it used to be connected to mainland Europe, and once weCercas'd sort-of-settled into one kingdom on our shores [[Divorcedgreat uncle, Beheaded, Diedis 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 History of Britain's Kings and Queens in Bite-Sized Chunks by Kevin Flude|question at the people in charge]] were also ruling over parts centre of France. And of course – the two-dimensional plan of the British Isles this book is whether it is nowhere near the real story, possible for we have many coastal waters, we have airspace, and we have his great uncle to be a large subterranean territory. You can definitely throw away the imagined space of Britain, hero whilst having fought for the reality is far granderwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700002</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Suzannah Lipscomb0008294011|title= How to Lose a Country: The King is Dead7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= Shortly before his death A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in January 1547, King Henry VIIIyears to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question ''Discuss the factors which led to...''s last will I agreed that she was right and testament wasn't certain whether it was read, stamped and sealeda good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to. I think now that I do know. It has remained one We are in danger of the most intriguing losing democracy and contested documents in British history. This book examines whilst it from every angle's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, and analyses particularly as the background against the last days of the King'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's life and the events which followedteeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784081922</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Ian Mortimer1788037812|title= Human Race: 10 Centuries The Fraternity 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 Estranged: The Fight for his ''Time Traveller's Guide'' history booksHomosexual Rights in England, Ian Mortimer here gives the reader a whistle1891-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>}}{{newreview1908|author= Catherine Hewitt|title= The Mistress of ParisBrian Anderson|rating= 45|genre= BiographyHistory|summary= Born into povertyOriginally passed in 1885, no-one could have guessed the law 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 had made homosexual relations a crime remained 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 timeplace for 82 years. 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 But during this proves to be both a full and intriguing biographytime, 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 restrictions on (often conflicting) evidencesame-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. The most striking aspect of Mary Beard's new examination of Roman history is how far she goes to see all sides Between 1891 and all possible explanations 1908, three books on the nature of eventshomosexuality appeared. For example, They were the emperors Nero written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and Caligula mad or simply John Addington Symonds, as well as the victims of their successors' smear campaign? What's behind all that nonsense about heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the city margins of Rome being founded by twin boys suckled by wolves? This is a book that explodes some of the myths society and presents alternative answers. Mary Beard analyses studying homosexuality was common on the evidence to shed new light on how a small community grew to become an empire. Military force was importantEuropean Continent, but other threads barely talked about in the weave (such as social mobility and UK, so the effect publications of extending citizenship these men were hugely significant – contributing to many the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the conquered) made struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the Roman experience uniquemilestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683807</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Despina Stratigakos1910593508|title=Hitler at HomeApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins

|summary=''Please do not make Hitler look good.'' Words This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to live the Moon landings and the passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by that the author of this volume received from her motherMatt Fitch, a Kefalonian who knew Nazi abuse when she saw itChris Baker and Mike Collins. Rest assured that the book does not do that, but it certainly provides This is a much fresher, more eloquent story we know well and interesting look at certain aspects because of his lifethis, and introduces us to someone else from the Nazi times – Gerdy Troost, who might as well be summarised as Hitler's interior designerauthors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. In picking apart These shortcuts are the entire life of Troost, only downside to the nature of her work and how the buildings and décor she surrounded Hitler in became book. If you've ever read a part comic book adaptation of his propaganda, we get a refreshingly new yet authoritative book, that for those with an interest in this side of our recent history film you will easily be considered one of, if not familiar with the, best book of the yearslight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. The person who does come out with the laurels worn highest This is our authora graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>030018381X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Elizabeth Norton1786331047|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 Race to Save the crown was anything but a guarantee of safety, as Romanovs: The Truth Behind the fate of two of King Henry VIII's QueenSecret Plans to Rescue Russia'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>}}{{newreviewImperial Family|author=Alison Maloney|title=Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian ServantsHelen Rappaport

|summary=Life in Edwardian times is currently a popular subject, thanks in no small part to ''that'' period drama currently showing its final series on ITV. ''Life Below Stairs'' examines The basic facts about the subject in greater detaildeaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, looking some of which were deliberately obscured at documents and memoirs from the time to discover what life was really like for those in servicevarious reasons, have long since been established. We learn about For the strict hierarchy last few months of their lives in Russia the household former Tsar and the duties expected of each individual. We see how much each member of staff was paid Tsarina, their children and how workers few remaining servants were hired (and held in many casesincreasingly squalid, fired) humiliating captivity. To prevent them from their positions. Welcome to a slice of Edwardian life, served up with a delicious mix of period illustrations and newspaper clippings|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782434356</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Lucy Adlington|title= Stitches in Time: The Story of the Clothes We Wear |rating=4|genre= History|summary=''Stitches in Time'' is a lively history of clothing. Riffling through the wardrobes of years gone bybeing rescued, costume historian Lucy Adlington reveals the stories underneath the clothes we wear in this tour of July 1918 the history of fashion, ranging from ancient times revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to the present day. With beautiful illustrations and full colour photographs, ''Stitches death in Time'' is a reminder of how the way we dress is inextricably bound up with considerations of aestheticscircumstances which, sex, gender, class and lifestyle – and offers once the reader the chance to appreciate the extraordinary qualities of the clothing we wearnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, and the rich history it has ledhorrified their relatives in Europe. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847947263</amazonuk>