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[[Category:History|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter DoggettJacqueline Rose|title= Electric Shock: From the Gramophone to the iPhone - 125 Years of PopWomen in Dark Times|rating=54|genre=EntertainmentBiography|summary= For many ''The world of usthe unconscious is not the antagonist of political life, but its steadfast companion, it the hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must be difficult begin…'' Women in Dark Times is Jacqueline Rose's homage to imagine a life without recorded musiccourageous women throughout history, particularly women of the 21st, 20th and 19th centuries. Millions of us must have grown up withHer historical and political backdrop is, thus, even toexpansive, yet she navigates it with intelligence and an acknowledgment that feminism's lengthy mission is a very varied soundtrack consisting of one genre after another. In this booktestament to its successes, Peter Doggett takes a marvellous broad sweep through and not its failures: ''the history ongoing force of popular music from the end feminism''.|isbn=1804271713}} {{Frontpage|author=Mary McCarthy|title=Memories of a Catholic Girlhood|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', obsessively digging into the nineteenth century past to piece together the present day, from wax cylinders to streaming servicesbroken mosaic of her life. A rather maudlin ditty She attributes her ''burning interest in the past'After The Ball'to her orphanhood, by Charles K. Harrisas she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, is regarded as who died in the first modern popular song (well1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, it was modern beginning with her orphanhood in 1891) – Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the first harsh guardianship of her late father's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. Later, she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a different kind of millionsupbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184792218X</amazonuk>1804271659
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Rappaport1785633457|title=Caught in Charging Around: Exploring the RevolutionEdges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryTravel|summary= Few cities have experienced Clive Wilkinson has a year more dramatic than Petrograd in 1917history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. The city, now known as St Petersburg, went through two revolutions: As he neared his eightieth birthday the first a popular uprising that brought down idea of exploring the Romanov dynasty, the second a Bolshevik coup that led to the formation edges of the Soviet UnionEngland in an electric car was not totally outrageous. At the timeIn fact, Petrograd was home to it should be a large expatriate community, including diplomats, journalists, pleasant holiday for Clive and businessmen. Many kept diaries or wrote letters home, vividly describing the chaos unfolding at their doorstep. In Caught in the Revolutionhis wife, Helen Rappaport draws on this material to give a gripping first-hand account of the Russian RevolutionJoan, as told by those who lived through shouldn't it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091958954</amazonuk>?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Melissa MohrB09BLBP3P8|title= Holy Sh*tNeville Chamberlain's War: A brief history of swearing |rating= 3.5|genre= History|summary= Holy Sh*t as the name suggests looks at both swearing, in Biblical terms, to swearing, also usually in Biblical terms but with rather more emphasis on the act, rather than the deity. This book takes the reader on a journey from the Old Testament, when swearing your allegiance to the one true God was a prerequisite for staying alive, to the Middle Ages where swearing on the same God was punishable by rather grisly death. That takes care of the Holy, now onto the part you are really interested inHow Great Britain Opposed Hitler, the Sh*t. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>019049168X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview1939-1940|author=Jenifer Roberts|title=The Beauty of Her Age: A Tale of Sex, Scandal and Money in Victorian EnglandFrederic Seager
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyHistory|summary= The name Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of Yolande Stephens (nee Duvernay) is not that wellthe early days of World War II from 1939-40, known in as the annals of Victorian England''Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, but behind it lies an enthralling rags-and Churchill coming in to-riches sagasave the day. How did a young girl born into poverty Very little time is spent on this period in Paris become one of the most celebrated ballerinas of her time cultural reflections and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in Englandthis book, and after that one it was of the richest women vital significance in how the country, with a fortune on her death which rivalled that of Queen Victoria?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445653206</amazonuk>war played out.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gordon Stevens3756228711|title=The OriginalsCDC: The Secret History of the Birth of the SAShappy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer|rating=54
|genre=History
|summary= ''The SAS is a regiment shrouded in secrecy. Since its spectacular rise to fame during history of the Iranian Embassy siege in 1978, it has become a part development of IT could fill books of myth and folkloreseveral hundred pages. The paradox '' Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that more words have probably been written . He has chosen to tell us about this organisation than any other military unit in the world. Some are well researchedshort, but explosive, and have a genuine historical perspective on history of the regiments operations and activities. Others are pure fantasyControl Data Company, which add littleCDC, other than further the mystique of a regiment that lives in the shadowsfor whom he worked. It''The Originals'' provides s a fresh perspective. It tells the story of the birth of the SASfascinating tale, by the people who were there. In told in a series mixture of long forgotten interviews, the regiment is brought to life with fresh insight technological summary and wonderful anecdoteswry anecdote. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091901820</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Steven GunnJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title= Charles Brandon: Henry VIII's Closest FriendFritz and Kurt|rating= 3.54|genre= HistoryConfident Readers|summary=Charles BrandonWe start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, Duke of Suffolkand their muckers, was almost unique doing things any Jewish lad in Tudor history in that he was 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 close friend 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 companion – in fact workmanlike as a light switch. But this is the closest – of King Henry VIII throughout time just before the latterAustrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's reignwill, never really fell and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out of favour, and had invite them in with open arms. ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the good fortune to die peacefully round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his bedmother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the US, just eighteen months before while Fritz and his notoriously capricious royal patronfather are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445656345</amazonuk>024156574X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hugh Sebag-MontefioreJohn Henry Phillips|title=Somme: Into the BreachThe Search|rating=45
|genre=History
|summary=One-hundred years ago this monthArchaeology cannot be child's play, on when you're scraping in the 1st of July 1916dirt looking to find what you can find, the most notorious battle in the history of the British army began at 07:20 with the detonation of often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a huge mine under the Hawthorn Redoubtfair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. The Battle This book is a case of the Somme had begunlatter, and by as our author promises to locate the end topic of the first day titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the British had suffered nearly 60search area is a wide one,000 casualtiesthe target might not exist any more – oh, 20and it's underwater,000 of whom were killedwhen he cannot dive. Published Latching on to mark a particular D-Day veteran through helping the centenary of heroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the battlelanding craft that delivered him to Normandy, Somme: Into the Breach by historian Hugh Sebag-Montefiore and that he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a comprehensive account memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of the conflict told primarily by the soldiers who fought whom perished. Who else would make such promises to someone in it.their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670918385</amazonuk>1472146182
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter RexB09F4CTKJR|title=William the Conqueror: The Bastard of NormandyFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer
|rating=4.5
|genre=History Historical Fiction|summary= The basic facts It's the later stages of William World War I's life are inevitably as clouded as those surrounding and the Norman conquest, United States has just entered the events and politics which led conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up to it, and joined the aftermath17 Aero Squadron. As Peter Rex makes clear This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in his introduction, any surviving sources are inevitably very incomplete. MoreoverCanada, 'the writing of first to be attached to the history of RAF and the eleventh century requires first to be sent into the historian skies to attempt fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to provide motives and explanations for events that are only sketchily described at best'master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445660172</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catherine Hickley0578761718|title=The Munich Art Hoard: Hitler's Dealer and His Secret LegacyInspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=One The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the most newsworthy events City of London from at least 1181, when it was first mentioned in modern art history happened seemingly by chancerecords. Sadly, When tax police raided the house original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of an aged man London in Munich it 1666. It was because they assumed he had been moving too much money about and paying no tax – this six months rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after he was seen on the train between Bavaria fire and Switzerland with 'nearly too much' cash. The investigators had no casethen survived for centuries until World War II, but he had something much more complex and rich – a massive legacy of 20th Century German and European artwhen it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that collection had wasn't the end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were transported to have an origin – one of dubious and at times nefarious beginningsFulton, and one that could have quite a rich and convoluted backgroundMissouri. HickleyThere, in these pages, gives us much in the way grounds of context as well as ironing out those convolutionsWestminster College, so this story is both of interest to Nazi historians the church was rebuilt and art scholars – as well today serves as a memorial to those larger numbers who just like a good story told wellWinston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0500292574</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Scott1784385166|title=Ancient WorldsThe Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary= History can be perceived as a dusty academic backwater. Often viewed as an irrelevance in our modern world, as we race through What is the daily events of our lives. It is a subject first image that has suffered greatly in our education system, where there has always been a tendency comes to teach mind when you think of the subject in isolation, only focussing on Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the events that have shaped our own national identity. Michael ScottThird Reich's new book offers a refreshing changefascist regime in all its iniquity. ''Ancient Worlds'' is thought provoking history for the general readerBut some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. Well researched and with a persuasive argumentIn this short volume, he explores Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the interactions across three differing cultures. Interactions that provide a new perspective on our modern worldThird Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091958814</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alexandra HarrisLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title= WeatherlandTiananmen 1989: Writers and artists under English skiesOur Shattered Hopes|rating= 4.5|genre= ReferenceGraphic Novels|summary=The story I never really followed the events of English culture over a thousand years can be told as Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the story second half of changing ideas about the weathertheir teens has other priorities, you know. A sweeping panorama, I certainly didn''Weatherland'' explores how writers t know of the weeks of protests and artists, looking up at hunger strikes from the students before the same skies massacre and walking in the brisk airbirth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, have felt very different things. A journey through centuries and cultures, Harris walks I didn't know more than a spit about the reader through misty moor and foggy fen, lays with them people involved on bright sunlit beaches, treks with them to stormy summits, and introduces them to either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a fascinating cast general browser's context for the whole season of writers, artists and cultural figures along the wayprotests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0500292655</amazonuk>1684056993
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jem Duducu0648684806|title= Forgotten HistoryClara Colby: Unbelievable Moments from the PastThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating= 4.5|genre= HistoryBiography|summary=The numerous highwayspath of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, byways she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and tangents three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the chronicle only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of our the United States and life on earth provide was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the raw rata family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for any number of alternative historiesfifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in this book Jem Duducu has trawled magnificently through childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the ages from several centuries BC up to the present dayeldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445656345</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martin Wall1783784350|title= The Anglo-Saxons in 100 FactsThis Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= As one of the generation who It was December and Esther Rutter was introduced stuck in her office job, writing to English history through the people she'Kings d never met and Queens' principle, preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. January was going to be a time for making changes and thoroughly enjoyed it, I have long since regarded she decided that she would travel the period between length and breadth of the Roman invasion British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the Norman conquest as a bit story of a blurwool's history and how it had made and changed the landscape. For me it is She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a rather murky area, punctuated by free-range child on the likes of Hengist farm'' - and Horsalearned to spin, Alfred the Great knit and Ethelred the Unready, not to mention the Athelstans, Edgars, Egberts weave from her mother and others who are so often little more than namesher mother's friend. In order words, what exactly did they do? This admirable title brings it all into focuswas in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445656388</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Robert Kershaw1789017977|title= 24 Hours at the SommeRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating= 54|genre= ReferenceHistory|summary=''They came past one by one...walking lumps Ronnie Williams was the son of clay, with torn clothing, hollow cheeks Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and sunken eyes..Ethel Wall. There was a dreadful weariness's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a wildness burning in their fevered eyes, showing what this appalling hand to hand fighting had cost themfew years off his age. Utterly unforgivable for me...'' So goes For a while the description of family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the men, the ''ghosts,'' at the end of the first day of the Somme. July 1 2016 will mark 100 years since this most bloody of battles took place1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. It One thing he did inherit from his father was supposed his need to be the optimistic 'Big Push' that well-turned-out and this would end the Great War, but by sunset of the first day the British casualties numbered 57,470stay with him throughout his life. The battle would rage until November that year, with He joined the total number of casualties on all sides exceeding one millionarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753555476</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher McGrath1980891117|title=Mr Darley's Arabian: High Life, Low Life, Sporting LifeG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A History of Racing in 25 Horses|rating=5|genre=Sport|summary=All thoroughbred racehorses are descended from one of just three stallions which came to England about three hundred years ago; The Byerley Turk, The Darley Arabian and The Godolphin Arabian. The last century or so has seen a decline year in the lines from the first and last of these stallions, to the extent that some 95% life of all thoroughbreds worldwide - not just in England - are descended from The Darley Arabian, which was originally bought in Aleppo from Bedouin tribesmen and shipped to Yorkshire in 1704, by Thomas Darley, who died, in difficult financial circumstances before he could follow his horse home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848549830</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewGeorge Engleheart|author=Wade Graham|title=Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the WorldJohn Webley
|rating=4.5
|genre= HistoryArt|summary=Between 1950 and 2014 George Engleheart was one of the world's urban population increased leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from 746 million the 1770s to 3the Regency era.9 billionHe was also one of the most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). The urbanising trend is set to continue with the United Nations predicting Throughout most of that by time he carefully recorded the middle names of the century 66% each of us will be city dwellershis clients, a massive six billion people. How have city planners and architects tried subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to cope with the recent surge? How can they avoid repeating mistakes from the past? Both of those questions are considered in Dream Cities – Seven Urban Ideas That Shape The World, Wade Graham's excellent field guide to the modern worldas his fee book. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445659735</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kathleen Chater1789016304|title= The Reformation in 100 Facts|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary=The Reformation was one of the major events, if not themes War and Love: A family's testament of European history, that has decisively shaped the modern worldanguish, endurance and has inevitably provided material for many a detailed account devotion in print. This handy little volume, one of a new series from Amberley, reduces a very complex subject to a series of short chapters which make an ideal introduction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445651343</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewoccupied Amsterdam|author= John Casson and William D Rubinstein|title= Sir Henry Neville Was Shakespeare: The EvidenceMelanie Martin|rating= 4.5
|genre=History
|summary= Debunking Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the Bard of Avon on city during the grounds that he did war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not write the plays attributed understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to him is nothing newGerman occupation. This scholarly workMost people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, based on several years' research and new evidence, is by no means that the first Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to suggest otherwiseescalate in the way that it did, and provides a compelling argument but initial protests melted away as to who really was the authororganisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445654660</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clinton Romesha1908745819|title=Red PlatoonSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary= When the soldiers of Red Platoon arrived Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at Combat Outpost Keatingtheir word, in Nuristan Province, Afghanistanor not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the vulnerabilities of the outpost were frighteningly obviousbook. That's a rare experience. It was surrounded on all sides by steep and wooded hillsPeople who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, giving the Taliban excellent vantage points to observe the outpost and fire into rarely get it; the helicopter landing zonewrong. In this case, essential for bringing in supplies and evacuating I was told why. The blurb speaks of the woundedauthor considering ''an older, was situated outside the base across less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a river; and the perimeter was too large to be sufficiently defendedbad description of where I am. These weaknesses were also obvious Add to that my love of the Talibannatural world, of those aspects of the poetic and on the 3rd October 2009lyrical that are about style not form, just after dawnand substance most of all, they launched a full-out assault to capture the baseabout connection. Red Platoon is a first-hand account of the frantic battle that followedOf course, this book had my name on it. It was written by Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha who received the Medal of Honor for his actionsme. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848094647</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Teresa Cole0857058320|title= Henry V: The Life of the Warrior King & Lord Of All the Battle of AgincourtDead|ratingauthor= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary= Henry V is remembered as one of England's greatest warrior kings, not least as a result of his immortalisation in the play by Shakespeare Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (as well as by two film versions of the dramatranslator). Ironically he was one of several great-grandchildren of Edward III, and as he was considered relatively unimportant at the time of his birth, exactly when he arrived in the world was not recorded 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 in the line of succession.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445655411</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Kathryn Warner |title=Isabella of France: The Rebel Queen |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
|genre=History
|summary=Audrey Parsons had no desire ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to marryuncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Her mother, however, had quite different ideas and was insistent that her daughter find a husband, as their would be no place Cercas is searching for her at the family farm when she was oldermeaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Frustrated by her lack of optionsManuel Mena, Audrey bowed to pressure and went to stay with her Cercas' great uncle in India in , is the hope of finding a husband. When she arrived she was overwhelmed by all of figure who looms large over the male attention she receivedbook. In the colonies, eligible women were few and far between and men were desperate He died relatively young whilst fighting for wivesFrancisco Franco's forces. Although she didn't find a husband, she hit upon an idea that would kill two birds with one stone: she would find wives Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for these lonely men, whilst this dictator. The question at the same time creating centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a business that would allow her hero whilst having fought for the financial independence she craved. The Marriage Bureau was bornwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447282620</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Popham 0008294011|title=How to Lose a Country: The Lady and the Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's Struggle for Freedom7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=On 13 November 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest after spending 15 of the previous 21 A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years as a prisoner of Burma's military junta. Political reforms soon followed, culminating with Suu (as she prefers to come would be known) being elected discussed by A level history students when faced with the question ''Discuss the factors which led to parliament. The West rejoiced; leaders, business men, and tourists poured in; and Suu entered the pantheon of modern-day political heroes. Burma .'' I agreed that she was a burgeoning democracy, right and Suu wasn't certain whether it was a saintgood or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to. I think now that I do know. In reality, as Peter Popham argues We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it'The Lady and the Generalss a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the situation was far more complex'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846043719</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Kristie Dean1788037812|title= On the Trail The Fraternity of the YorksEstranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= Just when you wondered whether there was room Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on your shelves for another book same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the Yorkist dynastynature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, here comes a very enterprising additionas well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Part biographyExploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, part travel guidebut barely talked about in the UK, this is a guidebook comprising a tour so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of various places at home homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and abroad associated with equality, leading to the major figuresmilestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445647133</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Edith Hall1910593508|title=The Ancient Greeks: Ten Ways They Shaped the Modern WorldApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins|rating= 5
|genre=History
|summary= Reading Edith Hall's book on the Ancient Greeks, develops This incredible graphic novel is a deep respect for love letter to the power of poetry. No poet was more effective in this regard than Homer recounting Moon landings and the sea adventures contained in passion for the ''The Odyssey''subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins. It shaped the self-definition of This is a nation story we know well and engendered self-confidence. The mariners set out in their beautiful ships across because of this, the Aegean and established colonies to the West, authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the Mediterranean as far as blanks. These shortcuts are the Pillars of Hercules, only downside to the East as far as the Levant and built trading cities in natural harbours along the fertile edges of the Black Seabook. They were, as Plato wrote in the Phaedo, If you''around ve ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the sea, like frogs slight feeling that there are scenes missing and ants around that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a pond.'' They were encouraged by Delphic oracles graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and inspired by the company of diving dolphinsstill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009958364X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lyuba Vinogradova and Arch Tait (translator)1786331047|title=Defending The Race to Save the MotherlandRomanovs: The Soviet Women Who Fought HitlerTruth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's AcesImperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport|rating=2.5
|genre=History
|summary=If you picture a wartime fighter ace in your mind, chances are it will hold to a few certain characteristics. The chutzpah on the face of a Han Solo, a fluffy pilot's jacket perhaps, basic facts about the swagger deaths of a person who's faced and dealt death Nicholas and come out the other side only strongerAlexandra, someone who can carry off the look some of pilot's goggles – and whatever your visual impression, pretty much certainly a male. But consider the Soviet war machine, facing the Nazis easily absorbing Ukrainian territories and closing on Moscow with surprising rapidity. This is a country where all jobs are gender neutral, and where young girls fresh out of school had been building the Moscow Underground stations. No wonder, then, that that place and that cause which were deliberately obscured at the locations time for the world's firstvarious reasons, and apparently, only female air regimentshave long since been established.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051954</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= John Aubrey|title= Brief Lives|rating= 4|genre= Biography|summary= John Aubrey was a modest man, an antiquarian and For the inventor last few months of modern biography. His their lives of in Russia the prominent figures of his generation include Shakespeare, Milton, former Tsar and Sir Walter Raleigh. FunnyTsarina, illuminating their children and full of historical detailsfew remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, they have been plundered by historians for centurieshumiliating captivity. Here Aubrey's biographical writings are collectedTo prevent them from being rescued, painting a series of unforgettable portraits of in July 1918 the characters of his day – revolutionary regime had them all more alive shot and kicking than bayoneted to death in a conventional history book. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784870331</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Lauren Johnson|title= So Great a Prince: England and the Accession of Henry VIII|rating= 4.5|genre= History|summary= King Henry VIIcircumstances which, whose victory at once the battle of Bosworth in 1485 brought the curtain down on the Wars of the Rosesnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, brought peace and stability to a divided country, but his last few years were marked by corruption and repression. When he died in 1509, there were hopes that his eighteen-year-old heir, now Henry VIII, would mark the end of medieval England and the start of a new era. The age of Protestantism and the Renaissance would indeed fulfil these aspirations. Lauren Johnson's book examines horrified their relatives in fascinating detail the transitional year between the old and the newEurope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178185985X</amazonuk>
}}
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