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[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author= John Casson Clive Wilkinson|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and William D Rubinsteinhis wife, Joan, shouldn't it?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B09BLBP3P8|title= Sir Henry Neville Was ShakespeareChamberlain's War: The EvidenceHow Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager|rating= 4.5

|summary= Debunking Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the Bard popular imagination of Avon on the grounds that he did not write early days of World War II from 1939-40, known as the plays attributed ''Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in to him save the day. Very little time is nothing new. This scholarly work, based spent on several years' research this period in cultural reflections and new evidenceyet, is by no means the first to suggest otherwiseas Frederic Seager argues in this book, and provides a compelling argument as to who really it was of vital significance in how the authorwar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445654660</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clinton Romesha3756228711|title=Red PlatoonCDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer|rating=54

|summary= When ''The history of the soldiers development of Red Platoon arrived at Combat Outpost Keating, in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan, the vulnerabilities IT could fill books of the outpost were frighteningly obviousseveral hundred pages.'' Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. It was surrounded on all sides by steep and wooded hills, giving the Taliban excellent vantage points He has chosen to observe the outpost and fire into it; tell us about the helicopter landing zoneshort, essential for bringing in supplies and evacuating the woundedbut explosive, was situated outside the base across a river; and the perimeter was too large to be sufficiently defended. These weaknesses were also obvious to history of the TalibanControl Data Company, and on the 3rd October 2009CDC, just after dawn, they launched a full-out assault to capture the basefor whom he worked. Red Platoon is It's a first-hand account of the frantic battle that followedfascinating tale, written by Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha who received the Medal told in a mixture of Honor for his actionstechnological summary and wry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848094647</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Teresa ColeJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title= Henry V: The Life of the Warrior King & the Battle of AgincourtFritz and Kurt|rating= 4.5|genre= BiographyConfident Readers|summary= Henry V We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is remembered as one of Englandgoing to cave to Hitler's greatest warrior kingswill, not least as and instead of having a result of his immortalisation national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. ''Kristallnacht'' happened in the play by Shakespeare (Vienna just as much as well in Germany, as by two film versions did all the round-ups of the drama)Jews. Ironically he was one These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of several great-grandchildren of Edward IIIan evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and as he was considered relatively unimportant at the time of his birthfather are, unknown initially to each other, exactly when he arrived in packed off on the world was not recorded same train to Buchenwald and two different dates have been giventhe stone quarry there. It was And us wondering how the deposition of his father's childless cousin Richard II in 1399 which placed him directly in titular event for the line adult variant of succession.all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445655411</amazonuk>024156574X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kathryn Warner John Henry Phillips|title=Isabella of France: The Rebel Queen Search|rating= 5|genre= History|summary= Ask almost anyone what they know about Isabella, Queen of King Edward II. The chances are that they will tell you she was ‘the she-wolf of France’ who was so infuriated by her gay husband’s propensity for disastrous favourites that she took a lover and they conspired to depose him, then have him murdered in captivity. The truth is somewhat different. To use an old cliché, if you throw enough mud it will stick. A good deal has adhered to this seemingly much-maligned couple over the years.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445647400</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Penrose Halson|title=Marriages Are Made in Bond Street: True Stories from a 1940's Marriage Bureau|rating=4

|summary=Audrey Parsons had no desire Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the dirt looking to marry. Her mother, however, had quite different ideas and was insistent that her daughter find a husbandwhat you can find, as their would often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be no place for her at the family farm a fair bit harder when she was olderyou set out to find some specific thing. Frustrated by her lack This book is a case of optionsthe latter, Audrey bowed as our author promises to pressure and went to stay with her uncle in India in locate the hope topic of finding a husbandthe titular search. When she arrived she was overwhelmed by all of And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the male attention she received. In search area is a wide one, the coloniestarget might not exist any more – oh, eligible women were few and far between and men were desperate for wivesit's underwater, when he cannot dive. Although she didnLatching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the heroic old man't s visit back to France, our author has promised to find a husband, she hit upon an idea the landing craft that would kill two birds with one stone: she would find wives for these lonely mendelivered him to Normandy, whilst at the same time creating a business and that would allow her the financial independence she cravedhe was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The Marriage Bureau was bornsecondary 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>1447282620</amazonuk>1472146182

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Popham B09F4CTKJR|title=The Lady and the Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's Struggle Flights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|genre=BiographyHistorical Fiction|summary=On 13 November 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest after spending 15 of It's the previous 21 years as a prisoner later stages of Burma's military junta. Political reforms soon followed, culminating with Suu (as she prefers to be known) being elected to parliament. The West rejoiced; leaders, business men, World War I and tourists poured in; and Suu the United States has just entered the pantheon of modern-day political heroesconflict. Burma was Petrol Petronus is a burgeoning democracy, young American who has signed up and Suu joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was a saint. In realitythe first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, as Peter Popham argues in 'The Lady the first to be attached to the RAF and the Generals'first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the situation was far more complexnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846043719</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Kristie Dean0578761718|title= On the Trail The Inspiring History of the Yorks|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= Just when you wondered whether there was room on your shelves for another book on the Yorkist dynasty, here comes a very enterprising addition. Part biography, part travel guide, this is a guidebook comprising a tour of various places at home and abroad associated with the major figures. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445647133</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewSpecial Relationship|author=Edith Hall|title=The Ancient Greeks: Ten Ways They Shaped the Modern WorldNancy Carver|rating= 4.5

|summary= Reading Edith Hall's book on The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the Ancient GreeksCity of London from at least 1181, when it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, develops a deep respect for the power of poetry. No poet original church was more effective destroyed in this regard than Homer recounting the sea adventures contained Great Fire of London in the ''The Odyssey''1666. It shaped the self-definition of was rebuilt in Portland stone from a nation and engendered self-confidence. The mariners set out in their beautiful ships across design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the Aegean fire and established colonies to the Westthen survived for centuries until World War II, in when it was again ruined by bombs during the Mediterranean as far as Blitz. But that wasn't the Pillars end of Herculesits story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, to the East as far as stones from the Levant and built trading cities in natural harbours along the fertile edges of the Black Seachurch's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. They wereThere, as Plato wrote in the Phaedogrounds of Westminster College, ''around the sea, like frogs church was rebuilt and ants around today serves as a pond.'' They were encouraged by Delphic oracles and inspired by the company of diving dolphinsmemorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009958364X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lyuba Vinogradova and Arch Tait (translator)1784385166|title=Defending the MotherlandThe Third Reich in 100 Objects: The Soviet Women Who Fought Hitler's AcesA Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse|rating=2.5

|summary=If What is the first image that comes to mind when you picture a wartime fighter ace in your mind, chances are it will hold think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a few certain characteristics. The chutzpah on the face concentration camp? None of a Han Solo, a fluffy pilot's jacket perhaps, the swagger these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of a person who's faced and dealt death and come out the other side only stronger, someone who can carry off the look of pilotThird Reich's goggles – and whatever your visual impression, pretty much certainly a malefascist regime in all its iniquity. But consider the Soviet war machine, facing the Nazis easily absorbing Ukrainian territories some objects and closing on Moscow with surprising rapidityimages from that time may be less familiar to you. This is a country where all jobs are gender neutralIn this short volume, and where young girls fresh out Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of school had been building the Moscow Underground stations. No wonder, then, that that place and that cause were the locations for the world's first, and apparently, only female air regimentsThird Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051954</amazonuk> 

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= John AubreyLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title= Brief LivesTiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes|rating= 4.5|genre= BiographyGraphic Novels|summary= John Aubrey I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was a modest man, an antiquarian and playing out – someone in the inventor second half of modern biographytheir teens has other priorities, you know. His lives I certainly didn't know of the prominent figures weeks of his generation include Shakespeare, Milton, protests and Sir Walter Raleigh. Funny, illuminating hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and full the birth of historical detailsthe Tank Man image, they have I didn't know how the area had long been plundered by historians a venue for centuriespolitical protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. Here Aubrey This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's biographical writings are collected, painting a series of unforgettable portraits of context for the characters whole season of his day – all more alive and kicking than protests back in a conventional history book1989. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784870331</amazonuk>1684056993

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lauren Johnson0648684806|title= So Great a PrinceClara Colby: England and the Accession of Henry VIIIThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryBiography|summary= King Henry VII, whose victory at the battle The path of Bosworth in 1485 brought Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the curtain down on USA. At the Wars time she was just three-years-old but because of the Rosessome childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, brought peace who doted on her and stability to saw that she received a divided countrygood education, but his last few years were marked by corruption both in and repressionout of school. When he died She was the only child in 1509the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, there were hopes that his eighteenher family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-year-old heirwest of the United States and life was hard, now Henry VIII, would mark the end of medieval England as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the start of a new erafamily. The age of Protestantism Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and the Renaissance would indeed fulfil these aspirationsdied in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. Lauren Johnson's book examines in fascinating detail As the transitional year between the old eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and the newWisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178185985X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Delia Garratt and Tara Hamling (editors)1783784350|title=Shakespeare and the Stuff of LifeThis Golden Fleece: Treasures from the Shakespeare Birthplace TrustA Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter

|summary=You remember that thing the British Museum did a few years back, where they picked the best of the best they owned – 100 objects that most epitomised both the riches of the place It was December and the cultures it Esther Rutter was designed stuck in her office job, writing to represent? Well, it seems that idea has legspeople she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. It’s been repeated, The job frustrated her and even, for the purpose of illuminating just one man – and you can probably guess that man was Mr Shakespeareher knitting did not soothe her mind. There has indeed been a project January was going to pick be a hundred limelights to illuminate his texts time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and his timesbreadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, although for discovering and telling the purpose story of this book they have been whittled down to fifty – wool's history and how it had made and arranged by theme according to Jaqueschanged the landscape. She' d grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - 'Seven Ages of Man' speech from a free-range child on the farm''As You Like It'- and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. And the chances are, seeing as the results are almost more powerful here than This was in the best museum, you will like it very much indeedher blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1474222269</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peggy Caravantes1789017977|title=Marooned in the ArcticRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=54|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=Misogynists are manmadeRonnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. And if anyone was in a position There's some doubt as to hate men and the lot whether or not they put on their shoulders, it was Ava Blackjack. Her surname spoke of an abusive man she had a son by, but it was her time with four other men that made for one of the last centurywere ever married or even Harry's more remarkable stories. An Inuit nativebirthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but one brought up in a city and with English lessons, she he was invited on an excursion alongside already many other 'Eskimo' years older than Ethel and four intrepid Westerners, to the uninhabited Wrangel Island, perched he might well have shaved a few years off the northern Siberian coasthis age. They were there just For a while the family was quite well-to stick a flag -do but disaster struck in it the 1929 Depression and call it British, even if they were pretty much fully American and Canadian, and the chap whose ideas these all were bore an Icelandic name; she was along five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to provide native expertise, especially waterproof fur clothinga very different lifestyle. And that One thing he did inherit from his father was it – none of her kin joined her, leaving her in one tent his need to be well-turned-out and four men in another, in one of the world's most remote and inhospitable placesthis would stay with him throughout his life. And that was just He joined the start of her worries…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1613730985</amazonuk>army at eighteen in 1942.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Margaret MacMillan1980891117|title= History's PeopleG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: Personalities and A year in the Pastlife of George Engleheart|author=John Webley|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryArt|summary= According to George Engleheart was one of the 19th century historian Thomas Carlyleleading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, 'with a career lasting from the history 1770s to the Regency era. He was also one of the world is but the biography most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of great men'King George III). Historian Margaret McMillan acknowledges in her introduction to this volume, based on a series Throughout most of recent lectures, 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 advancestime he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, and suggests that there subsequently transcribed them into what is no right or wrong answerreferred to as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781255121</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David P Colley1789016304|title=Seeing the Warand Love: The Stories Behind the Famous Photographs from World War IIA family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=45

|summary=As anybody could tellMelanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, a still photograph is only part particularly in ''The Diary of the truth, if Ann Frank'' but then realised thather own family's stories were equally fascinating. There is a beforehand we don't seeA hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and an after we can only fantasise about unless we know otherwiseMartin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Take Most people believed that the famous image of wartime grunts pushing occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the flag pole upright – an icon of city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the War Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the Pacific for the US soldiersway that it did, and but initial protests melted away as the films made about Iwo Jima sinceorganisers became more circumspect. But other images of the war have been just as long-lasting, and the people in the photos donIt't always have movies s an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of their full story arc. This book is a collection tens of the images, and a corrective to that narrative lack, giving much more thousands of a full biography with which to pay tributeindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1611687268</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timothy W Ryback1908745819|title=Hitler's First Victims: And One Man's Race for JusticeSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45

|summary=Four Sometimes when peoplesuggest that you read a certain book, taken to a sheltered corner of the place theytell you ''this one has your name on it''re trapped. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, and shot in but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the back of the head by fresh-faced guards and soldiers with far too little book. That's a rare experience of anything. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, let alone treating other men on the rarely get it wrong end of a gun. In this case, I was told why. Three people The blurb speaks of the author considering ''unceremoniously dumped, like slain gamean older, on the floor less tethered sense of a nearby ammunition shedherself.'' – the fourth had two hellish days with at least one bullet wound to the brain before he passed away Older. All four over-worked from being in a Nazi establishment, all four probably killed merely for being JewishLess tethered. Not a remarkable story, itThat's horrid to think, due to there being about six million cases not a bad description of this happeningwhere I am. What is remarkable about this instance is Add to that it was my love of the firstnatural world, at of those aspects of the incredible time poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of April 1933all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. And if it seems the first in a long chain of such murders, you It was written for me. It would think people might have noticed that at the time, and tried found its way to do something about itme eventually. Well, they didI am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700169</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jason Burke0857058320|title=The New Threat From Islamic Militancy|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Barely a day passes without Islamic militancy making headlines somewhere in the world, and yet it can be a hard subject to grasp. The sudden rise of Islamic State and their campaign of shocking violence both in the Middle East and further afield has left many confused and fearful, and has provoked a sometimes extreme political response. In "The New Threat From Islamic Militancy", Jason Burke, a journalist with two decades of experience reporting on the Islamic world, attempts to correct the many misconceptions about Islamic extremism to give a true understanding of Lord Of All the threat we now face.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784701475</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewDead|author=Simon Horobin|title=How English Became English: A short history of a global languageJavier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|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 Lord Of All the first place, but hardly any of you would recognise it as Haitian Creole. But pretty much all of the words in the two sentences have come into English through one way or another, through an invasion either literal or lingual. Dead''Angle'' – the Anglo-Saxons were the first speakers of what we now call Old English, which is pretty much impenetrable – certainly harder a journey to read than Creole. The ''konfizyon'' in uncover the author's lost ancestor'lang''uage are equally easy to decipher, s life and the second half death. Cercas is pretty close to searching for the French with what seems a German verb meaning behind his great uncle's death in itthe Spanish Civil War. If you do use regular EnglishManuel Mena, that's what youCercas're doing – using French with some Germangreat uncle, and Latin, and Indian, and is the figure who looms large over the rest, even if thatbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's only as far as vocabulary goes; our grammar is too Germanic to be called anything butforces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. It's The question at the centre of this stage one reels out the old gag about English being the 'lingua franca' and thus proves that however global English book is, it doesn't really stand as its own entity if you give whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the slightest scrutinywrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0198754272</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jason Quinn and Naresh Kumar0008294011|title=World War TwoHow to Lose a Country: Against the Rising Sun (Campfire Graphic Novels)The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran

|genre=Children's Non-Fiction History|summary=World War Two – so often A little while ago a lesson subject for our primary school children, even after all this timefriend 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.. Nazis, Soviets, Pearl Harbor – but wait. '' That last I agreed that she was right and wasn't just the clarion call to the Americans to join in with the rest of our Allies – certain whether it was a mere episode in a fuller story – the half of the war good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was never seen by those in Europe, beyond the fact the British Empire was certainly changed foreverleading to. The War in the Pacific is something I was certainly never taught much about in school, at any agethink now that I do know. And hereWe are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a graphic novel version flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the tale from a publisher in India that can serve at last 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as a salutary lessonhen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9381182051</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lewis Helfand and Lalit Kumar Sharma1788037812|title=World War Two: Under the Shadow The Fraternity of the Swastika (Campfire Graphic Novels)Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=45|genre=Children's Non-FictionHistory|summary=One of Originally passed in 1885, the most common subjects at primary schoollaw that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, getting restrictions on for same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three generations since it happened, is books on the nature of course World War Twohomosexuality appeared. It has They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the impact that sixty million dead people deserve – but only if it's taught correctlyheterosexual Havelock Ellis. One Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the ways to present it is this bookUK, which comes from a slightly surprising place so the publications of these men were hugely significant – an Indian publisher completely new contributing to me – but succeeds in being remarkably competentthe scientific understanding of homosexuality, complete and really quite readablebeginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9381182140</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Stacy Schiff1910593508|title= The Witches: Salem 1692Apollo|rating= 5|genre= History|summaryauthor= 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 taleMatt Fitch, 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 Chris Baker and fifty years earlier.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147460224X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Roger Moorhouse|title=The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941Mike Collins|rating=3.5

|summary=Before WWII started, you didn't really have peace. Tensions had hardly settled down since This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Great War, Moon landings and there had been conflicts several times since, particularly in what would become the Theatre of War in eastern Europe. Nazi Germany and passion for the Soviet regime were already at loggerheadssubject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, with the former supporting Japanese aggression in eastern AsiaChris Baker and Mike Collins. They were bedfellows in evil, but very much on opposing sides. But with things stirring like never before under Hitler's expansionist activities, This is a story we know well and despite numerous instances because of this side talking to , the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that potential enemy about we can fill in the other, Nazi and Communist seemed to be firm foesblanks. Both had publicly been denouncing These shortcuts are the other – only downside to the Soviets deeming Nazis one side of the same corrupt, capitalist coin as us Brits, the Hitlerites already equating Communism with Jewrybook. But from under that period when the sides were If you''pouring buckets ve ever read a comic book adaptation of shit on each other's heads'' (sorry for a film you will be familiar with the language, but it’s me quoting Stalin, believe it or not) came an extraordinary Pact – one of slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a handful in fact, graphic novel that deemed Germany and Russia non-aggressors could easily have been three times as long and collaborators, - just in time for them to share Poland between themselves. The initial document was still felt too short, but had an impact to affect 50 million people then, and many millions now – and yet it's hardly been the subject of a full look before now.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099571897</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hugh Bicheno1786331047|title=Battle RoyalThe Race to Save the Romanovs: The Wars of Lancaster and York, 1450-1464 (Wars of Truth Behind the Roses Book 1)Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport|rating=4.5

|summary=Lancastrian Henry VI is an ailing kingThe basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, have long since been established. Politically his popularity waivers as he spends English money on apparently fruitless wars For the last few months of their lives in France Russia the former Tsar and physically his poor mental health translates as unreliability Tsarina, their children and physical weaknessfew remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. His queenTo prevent them from being rescued, Marguerite d'Anjou is determined to shore up any shortfall for in July 1918 the sake of the country revolutionary regime had them all shot and her children but bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the House of York has other ideasnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe. And so begins bloody (and rather fascinating) civil war…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781859655</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author= Benedict Rogers|title= Burma: A Nation at the Crossroads|rating= 3.5|genre= History|summary= Benedict Rogers is a human rights activist and journalist with an expert insight into Burma, gathered first-hand on journeys to regions off the beaten track. Burma is a country under the iron rule of a succession of military regimes, struggling with over half a century of suffering, much unknown to the wider international audience.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846044464</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Allan Metcalf|title=From Skedaddle to Selfie: Words of the Generation|rating=3.5|genre=Trivia|summary=I have 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, and their ideas of generations. The authors of those posited the idea that all those archetypical generations – 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 the interplay of just four different kinds, running (with only one exception) in regular order. I don't really hold much store by that, and I certainly didn't know we'd started one since 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 decade.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>019992712X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Stephen Halliday|title=Cathedrals and Abbeys (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=What makes a cathedral? It's not automatically the principal church 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, as did Chelmsford. It's not the seat of a bishop – Glasgow has the building but not the person, and hasn't had a bishop since 1690. It's not a minster – that's something completely different, and if you can understand the sign 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 much, 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 have are by-passable, for this successfully defines a cathedral as somewhere of major importance, fine trivia and greatly worthy of our attention.|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 a claim as any to the title. In British history she was unique in that she not only lived to see her husband defeated in civil war, but also sentenced to death and 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, 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 Move 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, [[Newest Home and the places that she talks about, this is no mere travel guide. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445646846</amazonuk>}}Family Reviews]]