Newest History Reviews
History
The Making of Modern Britain: From Queen Victoria to V.E. Day by Andrew Marr
This book, and the BBC TV series which complements it, must confirm Andrew Marr's status as one of the most entertaining and compulsive historian-cum-presenters working today. His previous project, on postwar Britain, was hard to fault, and anyone who enjoyed that will certainly relish this. Full review...
For College, Club & Country - A History of Clifton Rugby Football Club by Patrick Casey and Richard I Hale
Clifton Rugby Football Club can proudly trace its history back to the very emergence of the sport of rugby union. Founded in September 1872, the same year that William Webb Ellis, who is reputed to have been the rebellious Rugby schoolboy who first ran with the ball, died. In reality, it is highly likely that the Webb Ellis story is something of a spin job on behalf of Rugby School, although it did mean that Rugby School was able to impose its rules on the game at a time when most public schools had their own rules for playing versions of the game. Full review...
Modernism: The Lure of Heresy - From Baudelaire to Beckett and Beyond by Peter Gay
It is impossible not to be impressed by the sheer scope of cultural historian Peter Gay's 2007 study of Modernism, newly released in this paperback edition. He notes in the introduction that it is not a 'comprehensive history' but rather 'a study of its rise, triumphs, and decline'. What is remarkable though, is the attempt to include the whole gamut of artistic fields in this coherent study. Full review...
Jonathan Wild: Conman and Cutpurse by John Van der Kiste
Born towards the end of the seventeenth century Jonathan Wild was to become the eighteenth century's most famous criminal, plying his trade in a rather curious fashion. He was born in Wolverhampton of parents described as mean but honest. It seems likely that he first travelled to London as the servant of a lawyer where he was eventually to settle, leaving his wife and child to fend for themselves. It was whilst serving a term of imprisonment in Wood Street Compter that he mixed with the cream of London's criminal underclass and learned the rudiments of his trade. Full review...
Obama Music by Bonnie Greer
This is an interesting read, but unless I'm missing something, the focus of the book seems a little difficult to grasp. It's best if I start with the author's intentions as set out in her Prologue. It is a mixture of tales of her own life growing up on the South Side, she writes, interspersed with stories and observations about Obama, linking it with the music, musicians and music scene, past and present, including hip hop, country, classical, and rock'n'roll. All of these, she notes, were heard on the President's Inauguration Day. To them she adds the blues, gospel, soul and jazz of the South Side, when the people began to build the great institutions and great solidarity that enabled him to become the most powerful man on the planet. Full review...
1415: Henry V's Year of Glory by Ian Mortimer
The medieval, in fact time-honoured, view of King Henry V as one of England's greatest heroes was propagated though not originated by Shakespeare, and again more recently to some extent by Olivier's portrayal in film. At least one historian has called him the greatest man that ever ruled England. Full review...
The Fourth Part of the World: The Epic Story of History's Greatest Map by Toby Lester
In 2003 a map was bought for $10 million, the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical document, by the Library of Congress, where it is now on permanent public display. No ordinary map, this is sometimes described as America's birth certificate. It is the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th century, and was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much that he was inspired to discover more, and this book is the result. Full review...
The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of Portugal by Jenifer Roberts
Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born in during the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly. Full review...
The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After by Steven M Gillon
The assassination of President Kennedy came at a pivotal moment in my life and for more than forty years I've read most of what has been written about the event. It's been of variable quality, but the books fed the curiosity of people entranced by the charismatic young President who died so publicly. I'd come to the point of wondering if there was anything new to be said, but Stephen Gillom has looked at what happened from an unusual and largely overlooked angle – the first twenty four hours of Lyndon Johnson's Presidency. Full review...
A Royal Affair: George III and His Troublesome Siblings by Stella Tillyard
King George III was not the luckiest of English sovereigns. America, and then his sons, in that order, gave him no end of grief, and the last few years of his life were clouded by madness. It is thus often overlooked that, before these troubles arose to haunt this most conscientious monarch, he also had a thankless task in trying to control his siblings. Full review...
When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies by Andy Beckett
Having grown up during the era and followed the major news stories in the papers as they happened, I was fascinated to find everything (well, nearly everything) in the 500-page narrative that comprises this book. It was quite a rocky ride from the election of Edward Heath in June 1970 through the three-day week, record British inflation and the IMF rescue, industrial disputes and picket battles at Saltley and Grunwick, the Gay Liberation Front and the stirrings of the green movement, the rise of Arthur Scargill, and the discovery of North Sea oil. Then there was the survival of James Callaghan's minority administration despite the odds, and thanks largely to his adroit handling of the situation in keeping both Tony Benn and the Lib-Lab pact on board, followed by the winter of discontent, culminating in Thatcher at No 10. Full review...
The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer
What would happen if we twenty-first century people took a trip back in time to the fourteenth century? It would be very like visiting another country. Even our landscape would be greatly changed. Ian Mortimer takes this approach and, applying his theory of living history, treats his readers to an objective and entertaining view of one of the most stereotypical centuries in medieval history. The fourteenth century has not only castles, knights, tournaments, and wars, but also gave birth to many of the creative minds associated with medieval England like Chaucer and the Gawain-poet. Full review...
The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir
Wot? More Tudors? Sorry, yes. Come on, be honest: you love 'em, I love 'em, we all love 'em.
My favourite writer of popular history is adding to the market writing for a third time about possibly history's most dramatic rise and fall - that of Anne Boleyn, second of Henry VIII's six wives. The book covers only a very short period, covering her arrest, trial and execution. She had been the scandal of Europe, this woman; had captured a king, unseated a queen, and promoted a new religion. Her fall couldn't have been swifter, harder or more ruthless and her little neck was severed on a scaffold at the Tower of London. Full review...
Elizabeth's Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen by Tracy Borman
So many biographies have been written about the life and times of England's longest-lived and longest reigning sovereign that one might wonder whether there is anything new left to say about her. However Tracy Borman has found an interesting new angle – by telling the story of her life through the women closest to her. Full review...
Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary
I enjoyed history at school and whilst we didn't always work our way through it chronologically I came, over time, to have a working knowledge of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. I knew about the rise of Christianity and spoke knowledgeably about medieval England, the Renaissance and the Reformation but was perhaps less taken by the Industrial Revolution and all that followed. I was au fait with the east but it was mainly from the perspective of exploration – or even exploitation. It was an education based on the virtues of the solid, white, English, Christian middle classes and it completely ignored histories from the perspective of other religions. Full review...
Dillinger's Wild Ride: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number One by Elliott J Gorn
John Dillinger was born and brought up in Indiana. His childhood was no better and no worse than most but the early part of his adult life was to be blighted by a spell in prison when he was convicted of an attack on a man in a botched hold-up. Hoping for leniency he pleaded guilty but was sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment, whilst the man with him pleaded not guilty and when convicted received a shorter sentence. It's easy to see where Dillinger's contempt for the law was spawned. Full review...
The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism by Anthony Read
In 1919 the world was an extremely unstable place. They say history often repeats itself, and there were parallels with 1789 - but on a far greater scale.
During the First World War, with the Russian revolution and the overthrow of the Tsarist regime, one tyranny was supplanted by another which was even worse. Lenin took the new upstart socialist republic out of the conflict, accepting unbelievably harsh peace terms from Germany in order to save and nurture the still fragile Bolshevik revolution. Consolidating his power was no easy task. Much as the people might have been glad to see the end of imperial Russia (if not the cold-blooded butchery of the former sovereign, his consort and their children), they were less than enthusiastic about Bolshevism, which secured only 24% of the votes in the new assembly. Lenin dealt promptly with the problem by shutting the assembly down. Full review...
The Dangerous Book of Heroes by Conn Iggulden and David Iggulden
For most of us (well, for me certainly) the word 'hero' summons an image of capes, spandex and garish primary colours. Conn and David Iggulden have written a book about the other kind – the every day heroes from history, who achieve incredible things without the aid of superpowers.
From household names like Horatio Nelson and Winston Churchill, to lesser known people, like Aphra Behn and Hereward the Wake, The Dangerous Book of Heroes covers a comprehensive range of characters from the history of the British Empire. From campaigners for political change, brilliant battle strategists to daring explorers, each and every one of the people in this book lived brilliant lives and changed the world forever. Full review...
Vermeer's Hat: The seventeenth century and the dawn of the global world by Timothy Brook
If a picture paints a thousand words, then Timothy Brook provides the dictionary we can use to make sense of the vocabulary. Using five paintings by the seventeenth century Delft artist Johannes Vermeer along with a blue and white porcelain plate and the works of two of Vermeer's contemporaries, Brook demonstrates how the far flung corners of the seventeenth century world were drawn together by the ambitions of European merchants and the ability of Asia, Africa and the Americas to provided the materials to fulfil them. Full review...
Hops and Glory: One Man's Search for the Beer That Built the British Empire by Pete Brown
Being a beer writer can't be the easiest route to respect in journalism. But with this book Pete Brown has done much to counter the sceptical, even dismissive, attitudes which must surround his trade and its subject matter. He has attempted to combine a history of British imperialism and the brewing industry with the comic 'quest' genre of travel writing. Against all the odds, he has largely succeeded. Full review...
The Templars: History and Myth: From Solomon's Temple to the Freemasons by Michael Haag
Despite being very descriptive, the title of 'The Templars: History and Myth: From Solomon's Temple to the Freemasons' still doesn't cover the full scope of Michael Haag's book. Notwithstanding its relatively modest page count, Templars not only manages to place the fascinating tale of the Knights' astonishing rise and spectacular fall in a rich historical context, but also provides an entertaining account of the Templars' 'afterlife': from the Masonic lore of the title to novels, films and games to conspiracy theories. There is also a travel guide and good list of source materials for further reading. Full review...
The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe by Andrew Wheatcroft
The battle for Europe which Andrew Wheatcroft describes in such vivid detail is the culmination of a power struggle between the Ottoman empire, based in Constantinople, and the Habsburg domain in Vienna, which had lasted for around 250 years prior to the final solution. These two centuries and more of struggle between them led to the decision by the sultan of Turkey, hungry for more territory, and his ministers in 1682 to lead their army against the Habsburgs at Vienna with the ultimate objective of capturing the city, and the ensuing siege a year later. Some historians have seen this as a crucial moment in the history of conflicts between the east and the west, although others consider its status as one of the defining events somewhat over-estimated. Whatever the truth of the matter, the book that tells the story is a vivid chronicle of war in the 17th century. Full review...
The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis by Matthew Cobb
Allo, Allo, The Secret Army and numerous films have painted a fairly romantic picture of the resistance — beret-wearing men and women who dart about blowing up trains and shooting Nazis. The reality, according to Matthew Cobb's The Resistance, was somewhat different. Full review...
Sealing Their Fate: 22 Days That Decided the Second World War by David Downing
In this detailed volume, David Downing makes a convincing argument that in the brief 22-day period between 17 November and 8 December 1941, the actions of the various Axis powers and their Allied opponents marked the beginning of the end of a war that still had several years left to run – the turning point famously described by Churchill as the end of the beginning. After Pearl Harbor, America entered the war, making it a true world war - though it was actually Hitler that declared war on America, ironically – on 11 December, just after these events take place. Sealing Their Fate opens with the launch of the Japanese fleet and ends with that same fleet's attack on Pearl Harbor, but it's not specifically about Japan and America. Full review...
Nelson, Hitler and Diana by Richard D Ryder
Was Horatio Nelson, a navy officer of great renown, forever thrusting himself into the limelight, doing it because his mother passed away when he was nine? Was Hitler overly affected by his father dying in a time of paternal disapproval, and a kind of Oedipal reaction to being the man in the house making him suffer when she herself died? And can Diana, Princess of Wales' parents' divorce lead to a claim she was a sufferer of borderline personality disorder? Full review...
Enemies of Books by William Blades, Randolph G. Adams, Bagher Bachchha (Editor)
William Blades, a Victorian printer and bibliographer, is best remembered as the biographer of William Caxton. He also wrote this very concise work on the threats to books from such enemies as fire, water, gas and heat, dust and neglect, and ignorance and bigotry. In the process he slips in several interesting historical facts. The chapter on fire notes the vast destruction of books in the Great Fire of London in 1666, as well as in the Gordon Riots just over a century later, and closer to his own time, the destruction of a priceless law library at Strasbourg, ravaged by the shells of the German army during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. Full review...
The World of Vanity Fair - Bertram Fletcher Robinson by Paul R Spiring (Editor)
Every now and then, you comes across a really sumptuous book, where just turning and looking at the pages takes you into another world.
Such is the case with this one. Vanity Fair was a gentler Victorian forerunner of Private Eye. Subtitled, A Weekly Show of Political, Social, and Literary Wares, it appeared between 1868 and 1914. Like the more successful, longer-lasting Punch, it began with radical aspirations, intending to expose what [the editor] perceived to be the vanities of the elite social classes. However its satire was gently humorous rather than malicious, and almost everybody who was portrayed in its pages was flattered. Full review...
Can I Come Home, Please? by Phil Robins
Using the sound archives of the Imperial War Museum and other primary sources, this affecting volume gives an overview of the progress of Nazism as seen through the eyes of children in different parts of Europe. The simplicity of the language used in the transcribed interviews means it is accessible to children from Y6, yet remains useful to GCSE students as a succinct, linear timeline of WW2. Full review...
St Peter's (Wonders of the World) by Keith Miller
It is huge: not only in space but in time and structure; and in the non-material sphere of the complex interplay of meanings, symbols and significances. Miller's book, intentionally combining cultural and political history, art criticism and travel writing, manages to reflect that hugeness without weighting the reader down with too much austere detail. Full review...
The Smell of the Continent by Richard Mullen and James Munson
When Frances Trollope landed at Calais in the 1830s, she overheard a conversation between two travellers, the younger commenting on the dreadful smell, the older and more experienced telling him it was the smell of the continent. Full review...
Farewell To The East End by Jennifer Worth
I am interested in social history and, as a mother, the job of midwives fascinates me. Combining these two subjects, Farewell to the East End is a riveting read. The author Jennifer Worth was a midwife and nurse, working with the nuns at Nonnatus House in the East End of London and this volume (her third book on this topic) covers the 1950s. Full review...
Becoming Queen by Kate Williams
It's a story which has been told by many authors during the last century. The Victorian age, or at any rate the woman who gave her name to the era, came about largely if not wholly because of a crisis of sorts among King George III's family. By the time his seven surviving sons reached middle age, they had managed to produce one legitimate child between them, namely Princess Charlotte. Her unexpected death, and the need for at least some if not all of the others to do their dynastic duty and produce an heir or two, resulted in an undignified mass scramble to the altar. Edward, Duke of Kent won the lottery. It was he and his wife, a widow with two small children by her first marriage, whose daughter Victoria became the saviour of the royal succession. Full review...
The Queen's Knight by Martyn Downer
The title sounds more indicative of a novel by Dorothy Dunnett or Jean Plaidy than a biography. Then a brief prologue starts the story at the very end, when Queen Victoria receives the unexpected news of the death of Sir Howard Elphinstone. An equally short first chapter gives us a glimpse of the man some thirty years earlier in the thick of battle at the Crimea. Only after that do we 'reach' his birth in 1829. Sometimes rules are meant to be broken, and it's a good way of introducing this very interesting life. As the husband of his subject's great-great-granddaughter, the author is well qualified to write it. Full review...
Ruth Maier's Diary: A Young Girl's Life Under Nazism by Ruth Maier, Jamie Bulloch (Translator) and Jan Erik Vold (Editor)
I was looking forward to reading Ruth Maier's Diary as I am interested in the history surrounding World War Two and its victims and survivors. I am especially fascinated by social history and how the lives of ordinary people were affected by events beyond therir control.
Ruth was born in 1920 and died on arrival in Auschwitz in 1942, aged only twenty-two. She was born in Austria and lived there with her parents and sister, Judith. But in 1939, life there was becoming much harder for Jews, so Judith was sent to England and Ruth to Norway, where she lived with the Strom family in Lillestrom. Full review...
Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing by Katherine Ashenburg
Although maybe not the first book you'd be drawn to – a history of personal hygiene perhaps doesn't seem that appealing – but if you had overlooked this excellent book, you would have missed out on an enjoyable and informative book, full of fascinating facts and a jolly good read.
Attitudes towards and rituals of cleanliness have certainly changed over the last two thousand years and this book chronicles many of them, largely in Europe and the US. Cultural differences with regard to cleanliness and body odour (and yes, Napoleon and Josephine do get a mention here, although it transpires that they both took daily baths) are discussed at length, from the Greeks and Romans to the present day. Full review...
The Strategy Of Antelopes: Rwanda After the Genocide by Jean Hatzfeld
Life offers me smiles, and I owe it my gratitude for not having abandoned me in the marshes.
I've known the defilement of a bestial existence.
Who's going to say that word, forgiveness? It's outside of human nature.
So say some of the survivors of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, when 800,000 Tutsis were murdered by their fellow Hutu citizens. Jean Hatzfeld talked to both Tutsis and Hutus then, publishing two award-winning books. In The Strategy of Antelopes, he returns to Rwanda to talk to the same people and explore life after genocide. Full review...
Darwin's Armada: Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle for the Theory of Evolution by Iain McCalman
A look at Darwin's journey on The Beagle, as well as journeys by Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley and Alfred Wallace. Darwin's Armada provides a broad overview that strikes a different tone to other books in a crowded market. Casual readers who usually steer clear of non-fiction will enjoy it. Full review...
The Last Witch of Langenburg: Murder in a German Village by Thomas Robisheaux
In rural Germany, a long long time ago… A woman passes through the village, handing out good cheer and cakes. One family dismiss the food, and even their dog is seen to avoid it. She visits a second family, and urges Anna, a young new mother, still convalescing as is the norm, to try one of the cakes. Anna does. But the friends by her bedside seem to think this might not be a good idea. They may be correct, as before the night is out she is dead. Full review...
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
This hefty tome, the cover tells us, is 'the book that inspired Barack Obama'. For what it's worth, Obama's name appears no less than nine times on the cover and spine, while Lincoln's appears only six, and that of the author a mere two. Full review...
The Ruin of the Roman Empire by James J O'Donnell
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is the traditional starting point for those studying the demise of Rome. Gibbon's masterwork suggests that the great empire collapsed in large part due to violent invasions from barbarians such as the Visigoths, Vandals and other non-Romans. In The Ruin of the Roman Empire classical scholar James J. O'Donnell, in line with much modern revisionist thinking, turns this argument on it head. Rather than being a destructive influence, the barbarian kings within the empire tried to retain the good things about Roman rule. The real blame for the fall of Rome can in fact be attributed to Emperor Justinian. Full review...
A Journey Through Ruins: The Last Days of London by Patrick Wright
My good mood evaporated when Sue, my Bookbag partner, asked me if I'd read and review A Journey Through Ruins. She was right to ask because Thatcher's Britain is certainly an area of interest to me. The thing is, times are depressing enough. Margaret Hilda's neo-liberal legacy is crashing around us. Jobless queues are lengthening. Roofs are disappearing from over people's heads. The rampant cronyism and venal nature of our economic and political elites are slowly exposing themselves in ways likely to send my blood pressure soaring. Full review...
