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[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Robert Kershaw1785633457|title= 24 Hours at the Somme|rating= 5|genre= Reference|summary=''They came past one by one...walking lumps of clay, with torn clothing, hollow cheeks and sunken eyes...There was a dreadful weariness, but a wildness burning in their fevered eyes, showing what this appalling hand to hand fighting had cost them. Utterly unforgivable for me...'' So goes the description of the men, the ''ghosts,'' at the end of Charging Around: Exploring the first day Edges of the Somme. July 1 2016 will mark 100 years since this most bloody of battles took place. It was supposed to be the optimistic 'Big Push' that would end the Great War, but England by sunset of the first day the British casualties numbered 57,470. The battle would rage until November that year, with the total number of casualties on all sides exceeding one million.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753555476</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewElectric Car|author=Christopher McGrath|title=Mr Darley's Arabian: High Life, Low Life, Sporting Life: A History of Racing in 25 HorsesClive Wilkinson

|genre=SportTravel|summary=All thoroughbred racehorses are descended from one Clive Wilkinson has a history of just three stallions which came to England about three hundred years ago; The Byerley Turk, The Darley Arabian and The Godolphin Arabiantravelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. The last century or so has seen a decline in As he neared his eightieth birthday the lines from the first and last idea of these stallions, to exploring the extent that some 95% edges of all thoroughbreds worldwide - England in an electric car was not just in England - are descended from The Darley Arabiantotally outrageous. In fact, which was originally bought in Aleppo from Bedouin tribesmen it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and shipped to Yorkshire in 1704his wife, by Thomas DarleyJoan, who died, in difficult financial circumstances before he could follow his horse home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848549830</amazonuk>shouldn't it?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Wade GrahamB09BLBP3P8|title=Dream CitiesNeville Chamberlain's War: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the WorldHow Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager

|genre= History|summary=Between 1950 Received wisdom and 2014 the world's urban population increased from 746 million simplified narrative often lead to 3.9 billionmisconceptions about history. The urbanising trend One such is set to continue with the United Nations predicting that by scrubbing from the middle popular imagination of the century 66% early days of us will be city dwellersWorld War II from 1939-40, a massive six billion peopleknown as the ''Phoney War''. How have city planners We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and architects tried Churchill coming in to cope with save the recent surge? How can they avoid repeating mistakes from the past? Both day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book, it was of those questions are considered vital significance in Dream Cities – Seven Urban Ideas That Shape The World, Wade Graham's excellent field guide to how the modern worldwar played out. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445659735</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kathleen Chater3756228711|title= CDC: The Reformation in 100 Factshappy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary=''The Reformation was one history of the major events, if not themes development of IT could fill books of European history, several hundred pages.'' Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that . He has decisively shaped chosen to tell us about the short, but explosive, history of the modern worldControl Data Company, CDC, and has inevitably provided material for many a detailed account in printwhom he worked. This handy little volume, one of It's a new series from Amberleyfascinating tale, reduces told in a very complex subject to a series mixture of short chapters which make an ideal introductiontechnological summary and wry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445651343</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= John Casson Jeremy Dronfield and William D RubinsteinDavid Ziggy Greene|title= Sir Henry Neville Was Shakespeare: The EvidenceFritz and Kurt|rating= 4.5|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary= Debunking We start with the Bard pair of Avon on brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the grounds that he did not write empty market place, helping the plays attributed neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to him is nothing newthe synagogue choir and at a vocational school. This scholarly work, based Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on several yearsat their very Orthodox neighbours' research each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and new evidence, workmanlike as a light switch. But this is by no means the first time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to suggest otherwiseHitler's will, and provides instead of having a compelling argument national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to who really was hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and his father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and the authorstone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445654660</amazonuk>024156574X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clinton RomeshaJohn Henry Phillips|title=Red PlatoonThe Search

|summary= When the soldiers of Red Platoon arrived at Combat Outpost KeatingArchaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in Nuristan Provincethe dirt looking to find what you can find, Afghanistanoften knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. This book is a case of the latter, as our author promises to locate the vulnerabilities topic of the outpost were frighteningly obvioustitular search. It was surrounded on all sides by steep and wooded hillsAnd he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, giving the Taliban excellent vantage points to observe the outpost target might not exist any more – oh, and fire into it; the helicopter landing zone's underwater, essential for bringing in supplies and evacuating the wounded, was situated outside the base across when he cannot dive. Latching on to a river; and particular D-Day veteran through helping the perimeter was too large heroic old man's visit back to be sufficiently defended. These weaknesses were also obvious France, our author has promised to find the Talibanlanding craft that delivered him to Normandy, and on the 3rd October 2009, just after dawn, they launched a full-out assault that he was lucky to capture the basesurvive when it sank from beneath him. Red Platoon The secondary aim is to erect a first-hand account of the frantic battle that followedmemorial to everyone else aboard, written by Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha who received the Medal vast majority of Honor for his actionswhom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848094647</amazonuk> 1472146182

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Teresa ColeB09F4CTKJR|title= Henry V: The Life of the Warrior King & the Battle of AgincourtFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer|rating= 4.5|genre= BiographyHistorical Fiction|summary= Henry V is remembered as one of EnglandIt's greatest warrior kings, not least as a result the later stages of his immortalisation in World War I and the play by Shakespeare (as well as by two film versions of United States has just entered the drama)conflict. Ironically he was one of several great-grandchildren of Edward III, Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and as he joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was considered relatively unimportant at the time of his birthfirst US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, exactly when he arrived in the world was not recorded first to be attached to the RAF and two different dates have been given. It was the deposition of his father's childless cousin Richard II in 1399 which placed him directly 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 line of successionnotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445655411</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kathryn Warner 0578761718|title=Isabella The Inspiring History of France: The Rebel Queen a Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= Ask almost anyone what they know about IsabellaThe church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at least 1181, Queen of King Edward IIwhen it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, The chances are that they will tell you she the original church was ‘the she-wolf destroyed in the Great Fire of France’ who London in 1666. It was so infuriated rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by her gay husband’s propensity Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for disastrous favourites centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that she took wasn't the end of its story: after a lover and they conspired phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were transported to depose himFulton, Missouri. There, then have him murdered in captivity. The truth is somewhat different. To use an old clichéthe grounds of Westminster College, if you throw enough mud it will stick. A good deal has adhered the church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to this seemingly much-maligned couple over the yearsWinston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445647400</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Penrose Halson1784385166|title=Marriages Are Made The Third Reich in Bond Street100 Objects: True Stories from a 1940's Marriage BureauA Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse|rating=45

|summary=Audrey Parsons had no desire What is the first image that comes to marry. Her mother, however, had quite different ideas and was insistent that her daughter find a husband, as their would be no place for her at the family farm mind when she was older. Frustrated by her lack you think of options, Audrey bowed the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to pressure and went to stay with her uncle in India in the hope a concentration camp? None of finding a husband. When she arrived she was overwhelmed by all these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the male attention she receivedThird Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. In the colonies, eligible women were few But some objects and far between and men were desperate for wivesimages from that time may be less familiar to you. Although she didn't find a husbandIn this short volume, she hit upon an idea that would kill two birds with one stone: she would find wives for these lonely men, whilst at Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the same time creating a business that would allow her period of the financial independence she craved. The Marriage Bureau was bornThird Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447282620</amazonuk> 

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter Popham Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=The Lady and the GeneralsTiananmen 1989: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's Struggle for FreedomOur Shattered Hopes

|summary=On 13 November 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was released from house arrest after spending 15 of probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the previous 21 time she was just three-years as a prisoner -old but because of Burma's military junta. Political reforms soon followedsome childhood ailment, culminating with Suu (as she prefers wasn't allowed to be known) being elected to parliamentsail with her parents and three brothers. The West rejoiced; leaders Instead, business menshe remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and tourists poured saw that she received a good education, both in; and Suu entered the pantheon out of modern-day political heroesschool. Burma She was a burgeoning democracythe only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and Suu life was a saint. In realityhard, as Peter Popham argues in 'The Lady Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the Generals'family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the situation eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was far more complexa rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846043719</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Kristie Dean1783784350|title= On the Trail of the Yorks|rating= 4.5|genre= This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted 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>}}{{newreview|author=Edith Hall|title=The Ancient Greeks: Ten Ways They Shaped the Modern WorldEsther Rutter|rating= 5

|summary= Reading Edith Hall's book on the Ancient Greeks, develops a deep respect for the power of poetry. No poet It was December and Esther Rutter was more effective stuck in this regard than Homer recounting the sea adventures contained in the 'her office job, writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The Odyssey''job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. It shaped the self-definition of January was going to be a nation time for making changes and engendered self-confidence. The mariners set out in their beautiful ships across she decided that she would travel the Aegean length and established colonies to breadth of the WestBritish Isles with occasional forays abroad, in discovering and telling the Mediterranean as far as the Pillars story of Hercules, to the East as far as the Levant wool's history and how it had made and built trading cities in natural harbours along changed the fertile edges of the Black Sealandscape. They were, as Plato wrote She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the Phaedo, farm''around the sea- and learned to spin, like frogs knit and ants around a pondweave from her mother and her mother's friend.'' They were encouraged by Delphic oracles and inspired by the company of diving dolphins This was in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009958364X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lyuba Vinogradova and Arch Tait (translator)1789017977|title=Defending the Motherland: The Soviet Women Who Fought HitlerRonnie and Hilda's AcesRomance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=2.54

|summary=If you picture a wartime fighter ace in your mind, chances are it will hold to a few certain characteristicsRonnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. The chutzpah on the face of a Han Solo, a fluffy pilotThere's jacket perhaps, the swagger of a person whosome doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's faced and dealt death and come out the other side only strongerbirthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, someone who can carry off the look of pilot's goggles – but he was already many years older than Ethel and whatever your visual impression, pretty much certainly he might well have shaved a malefew years off his age. But consider For a while the Soviet war machine, facing family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the Nazis easily absorbing Ukrainian territories 1929 Depression and closing on Moscow with surprising rapidityfive-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. This is a country where all jobs are gender neutral, One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and where young girls fresh out of school had been building the Moscow Underground stationsthis would stay with him throughout his life. No wonder, then, that that place and that cause were He joined the locations for the world's first, and apparently, only female air regimentsarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051954</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= John Aubrey1980891117|title= Brief Lives|rating= 4|genre= Biography|summary= John Aubrey was a modest man, an antiquarian and the inventor of modern biography. His lives of the prominent figures of his generation include Shakespeare, Milton, and Sir Walter Raleigh. Funny, illuminating and full of historical details, they have been plundered by historians for centuries. Here Aubrey's biographical writings are collected, painting a series of unforgettable portraits of G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the characters life of his day – all more alive and kicking than in a conventional history book. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784870331</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewGeorge Engleheart|author= Lauren Johnson|title= So Great a Prince: England and the Accession of Henry VIIIJohn Webley|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryArt|summary= King Henry VII, whose victory at George Engleheart was one of the battle leading portrait miniaturists of Bosworth in 1485 brought Georgian London, with a career lasting from the curtain down on 1770s to the Wars Regency era. He was also one of the Rosesmost prolific, brought peace and stability to a divided countrypainting nearly 5, but his last few years were marked by corruption and repression000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). When Throughout most of that time he died in 1509, there were hopes that his eighteen-year-old heir, now Henry VIII, would mark carefully recorded the end names of medieval England and the start each of a new era. The age of Protestantism his clients, and the Renaissance would indeed fulfil these aspirations. Lauren Johnson's subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book examines in fascinating detail the transitional year between the old and the new.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178185985X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Delia Garratt and Tara Hamling (editors)1789016304|title=Shakespeare War and the Stuff Love: A family's testament of Life: Treasures from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trustanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=You remember that thing the British Museum did a few years backMelanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, where they picked the best particularly in ''The Diary of the best they owned – 100 objects Ann Frank'' but then realised that most epitomised both her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the riches of city during the place war years, but only five thousand survived and the cultures it was designed Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to represent? German occupation. Well, it seems Most people believed that idea has legs. It’s been repeated, the occupation could never happen: even, for those who thought that the Germans might reach the purpose of illuminating just one man – and you can probably guess city were convinced that man was Mr Shakespeare. There has indeed been a project to pick a hundred limelights to illuminate his texts and his timesthey would soon be pushed back, although for that the purpose of this book they have been whittled down Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to fifty – and arranged by theme according to Jaques' 'Seven Ages of Man' speech from ''As You Like It''. And escalate in the chances areway that it did, seeing but initial protests melted away as the results are almost organisers became more powerful here than in the best museum, you will like it very much indeedcircumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1474222269</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peggy Caravantes1908745819|title=Marooned in the ArcticSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie

|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=Misogynists are manmade. And if anyone was in Sometimes when people suggest that you read a position to hate men and the lot certain book, they put tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their shouldersword, it was Ava Blackjack. Her surname spoke of an abusive man she had a son byor not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it was her time with four other men turns out that made for one of we didn't like the last centurybook. That's more remarkable storiesa rare experience. An Inuit nativePeople who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, but one brought up in a city and with English lessonsrarely get it wrong. In this case, she I was invited on told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an excursion alongside many other older, less tethered sense of herself.'Eskimo' and four intrepid Westerners, Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the uninhabited Wrangel Islandnatural world, perched off of those aspects of the northern Siberian coast. They were there just to stick a flag in it poetic and call it Britishlyrical that are about style not form, even if they were pretty much fully American and Canadiansubstance most of all, and the chap whose ideas these all were bore an Icelandic about connection. Of course, this book had my name; she on it. It was along written for me. It would have found its way to provide native expertise, especially waterproof fur clothingme eventually. And that was I am pleased to have it – none of her kin joined her, leaving her in one tent and four men in another, in one of the world's most remote and inhospitable placesfall onto my path so quickly. And that was just the start of her worries…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1613730985</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Margaret MacMillan0857058320|title= History's People: Personalities and Lord Of All the PastDead|rating= 4.5|genreauthor= History|summary= According to the 19th century historian Thomas Carlyle, 'the history of the world is but the biography of great men'. Historian Margaret McMillan acknowledges in her introduction to this volume, based on a series 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 advances, Javier Cercas and suggests that there is no right or wrong answer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781255121</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=David P Colley|title=Seeing the War: The Stories Behind the Famous Photographs from World War IIAnne McLean (translator)

|summary=As anybody could tell, a still photograph is only part of ''Lord Of All the truth, if that. There Dead'' is a beforehand we donjourney to uncover the author't see, s lost ancestor's life and an after we can only fantasise about unless we know otherwisedeath. Take Cercas is searching for the famous image of wartime grunts pushing the flag pole upright – an icon of meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War in the Pacific for the US soldiers. Manuel Mena, and the films made about Iwo Jima since. But other images of the war have been just as long-lastingCercas' great uncle, and is the people in figure who looms large over the photos donbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco't always have movies made s forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of their full story arc. This this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a collection of hero whilst having fought for the images, and a corrective to that narrative lack, giving much more of a full biography with which to pay tributewrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1611687268</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timothy W Ryback0008294011|title=Hitler's First VictimsHow to Lose a Country: And One Man's Race for JusticeThe 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran|rating=4.5

|summary=Four people, taken to A little while ago a sheltered corner of the place they're trapped, and shot friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in the back of the head years to come would be discussed by fresh-A level history students when faced guards and soldiers with far too little experience of anything, let alone treating other men on the wrong end of a gun. Three people ''unceremoniously dumped, like slain game, on the floor of a nearby ammunition shedquestion '' – Discuss the fourth had two hellish days with at least one bullet wound factors which led to the brain before he passed away. ..'' All four over-worked from being in I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a Nazi establishment, good or bad thing that we didn't know what all four probably killed merely for being Jewish. Not a remarkable story, it's horrid this' was leading to think, due to there being about six million cases of this happening. What is remarkable about this instance is I think now that it was the first, at the incredible time of April 1933I do know. And if We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it seems the first in 's a long chain flawed system I can't think of such murdersa better one, you would think people might have noticed that at particularly as the time, and tried to do something about it. Well, they did'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700169</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jason Burke1788037812|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 Fraternity of the world, and yet it can be a hard subject to grasp. Estranged: The sudden rise of Islamic State and their campaign of shocking violence both Fight for Homosexual Rights 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 worldEngland, attempts to correct the many misconceptions about Islamic extremism to give a true understanding of the threat we now face.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784701475</amazonuk>}}{{newreview1891-1908|author=Simon Horobin|title=How English Became English: A short history of a global languageBrian Anderson|rating=45

|summary=Angle se yon lang konfizyonOriginally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. Mwen konnenBut during this time, paske mwen li liv sa a tout sou lirestrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. NowBetween 1891 and 1908, I know a lot three books on the nature of you understood that, homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and it's thanks to a certain search engine's 'translate' facility that it exists here in the first placeJohn Addington Symonds, but hardly any of you would recognise it as Haitian Creolewell as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. But pretty much all Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the words European Continent, but barely talked about in the two sentences have come into English through one way or anotherUK, through an invasion either literal or lingual. ''Angle'' – so the Anglo-Saxons publications of these men were the first speakers of what we now call Old English, which is pretty much impenetrable hugely significant – certainly harder contributing to read than Creole. The ''konfizyon'' in the ''lang''uage are equally easy to decipherscientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the second half is pretty close to the French with what seems a German verb in it. If you do use regular English, that's what you're doing – using French with some German, and Latin, struggle for recognition and Indianequality, and the rest, even if that's only as far as vocabulary goes; our grammar is too Germanic leading to be called anything but. It's at this stage one reels out the old gag about English being the 'lingua franca' and thus proves that however global English is, it doesn't really stand as its own entity if you give it the slightest scrutinymilestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0198754272</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jason Quinn and Naresh Kumar1910593508|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>}}{{newreviewApollo|author=Lewis Helfand and Lalit Kumar Sharma|title=World War Two: Under the Shadow of the Swastika (Campfire Graphic Novels)|rating=4|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=One of the most common subjects at primary schoolMatt Fitch, getting on for three generations since it happened, 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 in being remarkably competent, complete Chris Baker 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 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, 1939-1941Mike 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 Move 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>}}[[Newest Home and Family Reviews]]