==History==
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{{newreview
|author=Roy Vickery
|title=Garlands, Conkers and Mother-Die: British and Irish Plant-Lore
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=For many centuries, plants have not only had practical uses as food, remedies, textiles and dyes, but have also symbolic and folkloric meaning in many different cultures. The term ''plant-lore'' has been coined to describe the profusion of the customs and beliefs associated with plants, and this book gathers together many of the plant-lore traditions of Britain and Ireland.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441101950</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Paul Mathieu
|summary='You have to learn to be hard men, to accept sacrifice without ever succumbing'. Such did Hitler say at the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies in the 1930s. He probably did not have in mind playing in goal at a FA Cup final with a broken neck, such is the lifetime of difference between the two references. But that lifetime, as packed and varied as it was, is in the pages of this ever-interesting and swiftly-devoured book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082884</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chris Skidmore
|title=Death and the Virgin: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=When Elizabeth I ascended the throne in November 1558, everyone's dominant concern was the matter of her taking an appropriate husband and securing the succession. The man most likely to become her husband was Robert Dudley, whom she made her Master of the Horse and entrusted with considerable responsibility for her coronation festivities. The fact that he was already married to Amy Robsart did little to quell the speculation, especially since she was believed to be dying of breast cancer.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297846507</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=R A Scotti
|title=The Lost Mona Lisa
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=One of the few things I remember from those writers' courses and advice books – and I can hear from here you wished I remembered more of them – was the merit in being aware of anniversaries, especially in your area of expertise, and having the ability to sell articles concerning historical events linked into centenaries, modern comparisons, and so on. Well, here is the book equivalent, and although it's early – it's looking back on the summer of 1911 – this stands as quality enough to deny any latecomers shelf room.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0553818309</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Greg Grandin
|title=Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=In 1927, the Ford Motor company bought a huge tract of land in Brazil, for the purpose of the company growing its own rubber for use in making its cars. They planted rubber trees and built a factory and houses, and a number of top managers from the company were posted to Fordlandia to run the operation. Huge amounts of money were pumped into Fordlandia, and Ford made great claims for their plans. However, the project was a spectacular failure, and it lasted less than twenty years.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848311478</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Dominique Lapierre
|title=A Rainbow in the Night
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=A book integrating otherwise piecemeal news stories picked up over the past forty years into a coherent explanation is always welcome. This book explores South Africa's history and development, from the earliest Dutch arrivals in 1652 to the first racially integrated elections in 1994.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818477</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Doug Stewart
|title=The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=In the late 18th century, keen to impress the Shakespeare-obsessed father who paid him little attention, 19 year old William Henry Ireland forged a couple of Elizabethan documents to show him. With the older man completely taken in, his child then pretended he'd found a trunk full of lost artefacts belonging to the Bard – love letters to Anne Hathaway, a declaration of his Protestant faith, the manuscript of King Lear, and even entirely new plays. Ireland fooled not only his father, but also many of the prominent Londoners of the time, including Robert Southey, James Boswell, and the future William IV.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818310</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jim Krane
|title=Dubai: The Story of the World's Fastest City
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=In the 1950's, Dubai contained just a few thousand inhabitants scraping a living. By 1985, it had grown, but Sheikh Mohammed was still laughed at when he said that he wanted to make it a popular destination for tourists. With the addition of artificial islands, the world's tallest building, an indoor ski slope, and much more, it's now one of the world's foremost cities - but as headlines showed last year, the stellar growth may have been extremely costly, in terms of finances, environmental problems, and the quality of life for some of its inhabitants.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848870094</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Frances Stonor Saunders
|title=The Woman Who Shot Mussolini
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Most British titled families of the 19th and 20th centuries have produced their fair share of rebels. Yet few came as close to changing the course of European history as the Honourable Violet Gibson, one of eight children of Baron Ashbourne, a Protestant Anglo-Irish peer and MP in Disraeli's government during the 1870s.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571239773</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Josephine Wilkinson
|title=The Early Loves of Anne Boleyn
|rating=3.5
|genre=History
|summary=Before her marriage to King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn had already been courted by three suitors, any of whom might have become her husband - and possibly saved her from her eventual end on the scaffold. The first was her Irish cousin James Butler, later Earl of Ormond, whom she was at one time intended to marry in order to settle a family dispute over the title and estates of the Earldom of Ormond. After their marriage negotiations came to an end in the face of legal obstacles, she became betrothed to Henry Percy, heir to the Duke of Northumberland. With a little help from the scheming Cardinal Wolsey, the Duke, who had little time for his son, insisted that any idea of marriage between them should be dismissed forthwith. Soon after this the poet Thomas Wyatt became enamoured of her, but by this time there was fierce competition from his sovereign, and her destiny was sealed.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848684304</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Caroline Moorehead
|title=Dancing to the Precipice : Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French Revolution
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Two hundred years ago, with the fall of the monarchy and the Napoleonic wars, France underwent one cataclysmic change after another. There were many who witnessed and experienced the volatile age at first hand, but few left a more detailed record than the subject of this biography, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pin.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Van der Kiste
|title=William and Mary: Heroes of the Glorious Revolution
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=At school I remember spending a lot of time on the Tudors and the early Stuarts – obviously great favourites of the history teacher and then galloping unceremoniously through the intervening years until we reached another ''meaningful'' period – the Victorian era. The importance of William and Mary was completely overlooked in favour of a quick mention of the fact that William wasn't in direct line of succession to the throne and Mary had never wanted to marry him in the first place. Their successor, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>
}}