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[[Category:History|*]]
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter GayJacqueline Rose|title=Modernism: The Lure of Heresy - From Baudelaire to Beckett and BeyondWomen in Dark Times
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=It ''The world of the unconscious is impossible not to be impressed by the sheer scope antagonist of cultural historian Peter Gaypolitical life, but its steadfast companion, the hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…'s 2007 study of Modernism, newly released in this paperback edition. He notes ' Women in the introduction that it Dark Times is not a Jacqueline Rose'comprehensive s homage to courageous women throughout history' but rather 'a study , particularly women of its rise, triumphsthe 21st, 20th and decline'19th centuries. What Her historical and political backdrop is remarkable though, thus, expansive, yet she navigates it with intelligence and an acknowledgment that feminism's lengthy mission is the attempt a testament to include its successes, and not its failures: ''the whole gamut ongoing force of artistic fields in this coherent studyfeminism''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099441969</amazonuk>1804271713
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KisteMary McCarthy|title=Jonathan Wild: Conman and CutpurseMemories of a Catholic Girlhood
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary=Born towards Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', obsessively digging into the end of the seventeenth century Jonathan Wild was past to become piece together the eighteenth century's most famous criminal, plying his trade in a rather curious fashionbroken mosaic of her life. He was born in Wolverhampton of parents described as She attributes her ''mean but honestburning interest in the past''. It seems likely that he first travelled to London her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who died in the servant of a lawyer where he was eventually to settle1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, leaving his wife and child to fend for themselves. It was whilst serving a term of imprisonment beginning with her orphanhood in Wood Street Compter that he mixed with Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the cream harsh guardianship of Londonher late father's criminal underclass 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 learned the rudiments her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a different kind of his tradeupbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848682190</amazonuk>1804271659
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bonnie Greer1785633457|title=Obama Music|rating=3|genre=History|summary=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 Charging Around: Exploring the President's Inauguration Day. To them she adds the blues, gospel, soul and jazz Edges 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906558248</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewEngland by Electric Car|author=Ian Mortimer|title=1415: Henry V's Year of GloryClive Wilkinson
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=The medieval, in fact time-honoured, view Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of King Henry V as one exploring the edges of England's greatest heroes in an electric car was propagated though not originated by Shakespearetotally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and again more recently to some extent by Olivier's portrayal in film. At least one historian has called him 'his wife, Joan, shouldn'the greatest man that ever ruled England''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079921</amazonuk>t it?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Toby LesterB09BLBP3P8|title=The Fourth Part of the World: The Epic Story of HistoryNeville Chamberlain's Greatest MapWar: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=In 2003 a map was bought for $10 million, Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical document, by popular imagination of the Library early days of CongressWorld War II from 1939-40, where it is now on permanent public display. No ordinary map, this is sometimes described known as Americathe ''Phoney War''s birth certificate. It is the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th centuryWe remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and was discovered by accident Churchill coming in some archives to save the day. Very little time is spent on this period in a German castle in 1901. The sale cultural reflections and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much that he was inspired to discover moreyet, and as Frederic Seager argues in this book is , it was of vital significance in how the resultwar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=3756228711
|title=CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'
|author=Hans Bodmer
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=''The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven M Gillon|title=The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=The assassination of President Kennedy came at a pivotal moment in my life Jeremy Dronfield 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>046501870X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stella Tillyard David Ziggy Greene|title=A Royal Affair: George III Fritz and His Troublesome SiblingsKurt
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyConfident Readers|summary=King George III was not We start with the luckiest pair of English sovereigns. Americabrothers Fritz and Kurt, and then his sonstheir muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in that order1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, gave him no end of griefhelping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the last few years of his life were clouded by madnessSabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. It But this is thus often overlooked that, the time just before these troubles arose the Austrian leader is going to haunt this most conscientious monarchcave to Hitler's will, he also had and instead of having a thankless task national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in trying 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 hear word of an evacuation to control Britain or the US, while Fritz and his siblingsfather 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>0099428563</amazonuk>024156574X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andy Beckett John Henry Phillips|title=When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the SeventiesThe Search
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Having grown up during the era and followed the major news stories Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the papers as they happeneddirt looking to find what you can find, I was fascinated often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find everything (wellsome specific thing. This book is a case of the latter, nearly everything) in as our author promises to locate the topic of the 500-page narrative that comprises this booktitular search. It was quite And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a rocky ride from wide one, the election of Edward Heath in June 1970 target might not exist any more – oh, and it's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the three-day weekheroic old man's visit back to France, record British inflation and our author has promised to find the IMF rescuelanding craft that delivered him to Normandy, industrial disputes and picket battles at Saltley and Grunwickthat he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the Gay Liberation Front and vast majority of whom perished. Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|isbn=1472146182}}{{Frontpage|isbn= B09F4CTKJR|title= Flights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It's the stirrings later stages of World War I and the green movement, United States has just entered the rise of Arthur Scargill, conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the discovery of North Sea oil17 Aero Squadron. Then there This company was the survival of James Callaghan's minority administration despite first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the odds, RAF and thanks largely the first to his adroit handling of be sent into the skies to fight the situation Germans in keeping both Tony Benn and the Lib-Lab pact on boardactive combat. But before that can happen, followed by Petrol has to master flying the winter of discontent, culminating in Thatcher at No 10notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057122136X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mortimer 0578761718|title=The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth CenturyInspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=What would happen if we twenty-The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at least 1181, when it was first century people took a trip back mentioned in time to the fourteenth century? It would be very like visiting another countryrecords. Sadly, Even our landscape would be greatly changedthe original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Ian Mortimer takes this approach It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire andthen survived for centuries until World War II, applying his theory when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the end of living historyits story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, treats his readers the stones from the church's walls were transported to an objective and entertaining view of one of the most stereotypical centuries in medieval historyFulton, Missouri. The fourteenth century has not only castlesThere, knights, tournamentsin the grounds of Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and wars, but also gave birth today serves as a memorial to many of the creative minds associated with medieval England like Chaucer and the Gawain-poetWinston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950992</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alison Weir1784385166|title=The Lady Third Reich in the Tower100 Objects: The Fall A Material History of Anne BoleynNazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=WotWhat is the first image that comes to mind when you think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? More TudorsThe gate to a concentration camp? Sorry, yes. Come on, be honest: you love 'em, I love 'em, we all love 'em. My favourite writer None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of popular history is adding to the market writing for a third time about possibly historyThird Reich's most dramatic rise fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and fall - images from that of Anne Boleyn, second of Henry VIII's six wivestime may be less familiar to you. The book covers only a very In this short periodvolume, covering her arrest, trial and execution. She had been Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the scandal period 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 Third Reich through one hundred of Londonits material artefacts. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224063197</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tracy Borman Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=Elizabeth's WomenTiananmen 1989: The Hidden Story of the Virgin QueenOur Shattered Hopes
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.
|isbn=1684056993
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0648684806
|title=Clara Colby: The International Suffragist
|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=So many biographies have been written about the life and times The path of EnglandClara Dorothy Bewick's longestlife was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-lived years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and longest reigning sovereign three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that one might wonder whether there is anything new left to say about she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the household and herchildhood was glorious. However Tracy Borman has found an interesting new angle – by telling By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the story mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her life through grandparents eventually went to join the women closest to family. Clara would only know hermother 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 eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082264</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tamim Ansary 1783784350|title=Destiny DisruptedThis Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History of the World Through Islamic Eyes|author=Esther Rutter
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=I enjoyed history at school It was December and whilst we didn't always work our way through it chronologically I came, over timeEsther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to have a working knowledge of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and Romanseven her knitting did not soothe her mind. I knew about January was going to be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the rise length and breadth of Christianity and spoke knowledgeably about medieval Englandthe British Isles with occasional forays abroad, the Renaissance discovering and telling the Reformation but was perhaps less taken by the Industrial Revolution story of wool's history and all that followed. I was au fait with the east but how it was mainly from had made and changed the perspective of exploration – or even exploitationlandscape. It was an education based She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the virtues of the solid, whitefarm'' - and learned to spin, English, Christian middle classes knit and it completely ignored histories weave from the perspective of other religionsher mother and her mother's friend. This was in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586486063</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elliott J Gorn 1789017977|title=DillingerRonnie and Hilda's Wild RideRomance: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number OneTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=John Dillinger Ronnie Williams was born the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and brought up in IndianaEthel Wall. His childhood There'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 no better already many years older than Ethel and no worse than most but he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while the early part of his adult life family was quite well-to be blighted by a spell -do but disaster struck in prison when he was convicted of an attack on the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a man in a botched hold-upvery different lifestyle. Hoping for leniency One thing he pleaded guilty but did inherit from his father was sentenced his need to a lengthy term of imprisonment, whilst the man be well-turned-out and this would stay with him pleaded not guilty and when convicted received a shorter sentencethroughout his life. It's easy to see where Dillinger's contempt for He joined the law was spawnedarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0195304837</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony Read 1980891117|title=The World on FireG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: 1919 and A year in the Battle with Bolshevism life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryArt|summary=In 1919 the world George Engleheart 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 one of the Tsarist regime, one tyranny was supplanted by another which was even worse. Lenin took the new upstart socialist republic out leading portrait miniaturists of the conflictGeorgian London, accepting unbelievably harsh peace terms with a career lasting from Germany in order the 1770s to save and nurture the still fragile Bolshevik revolutionRegency era. Consolidating his power He 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 also one of the former sovereignmost prolific, his consort and their children)painting nearly 5, they were less than enthusiastic about Bolshevism, which secured only 24% 000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of the votes in the new assemblyKing George III). Lenin dealt promptly with Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the problem by shutting the assembly downnames of each of his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844138321</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Conn Iggulden and David Iggulden1789016304|title=The Dangerous Book War and Love: A family's testament of Heroesanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=35
|genre=History
|summary=For most of us (wellMelanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, for me certainly) the word particularly in 'hero' summons an image The Diary of capes, spandex and garish primary coloursAnn Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. Conn A hundred and David Iggulden have written a book about seven thousand Jews were deported from the other kind – city during the every day heroes from historywar years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who achieve incredible things without were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the aid of superpowers. From household names like Horatio Nelson and Winston Churchilloccupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to lesser known peopleescalate in the way that it did, like Aphra Behn and Hereward but initial protests melted away as the Wake, organisers became more circumspect. It''The Dangerous Book of Heroes'' covers s an atrocity on a comprehensive range vast scale but made up of characters from the history tens of the British Empire. From campaigners for political change, brilliant battle strategists to daring explorers, each and every one thousands of the people in this book lived brilliant lives and changed the world foreverindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000726092X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timothy Brook 1908745819|title=Vermeer's Hat: The seventeenth century and the dawn of the global worldSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45
|genre=History
|summary=If Sometimes when people suggest that you read a picture paints a thousand wordscertain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, then Timothy Brook provides the dictionary but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we can use to make sense of didn't like the vocabularybook. That's a rare experience. Using five paintings by the seventeenth century Delft artist Johannes Vermeer along with People who are sensitive to hearing a blue and white porcelain plate and book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the works author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of two of Vermeerherself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's contemporaries, Brook demonstrates how the far flung corners not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the seventeenth century natural world were drawn together by , of those aspects of the ambitions of European merchants poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and the ability substance most of Asiaall, about connection. Of course, Africa and the Americas this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to provided the materials me eventually. I am pleased to fulfil themhave it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681200</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pete Brown 0857058320|title=Hops Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Glory: One Man's Search for the Beer That Built the British EmpireAnne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Despite being very descriptive, ''Lord Of All the title of Dead'The Templars: History and Myth: From Solomon's Temple is a journey to uncover the Freemasonsauthor' still doesns lost ancestor't cover s life and death. Cercas is searching for the full scope of Michael Haagmeaning behind his great uncle's bookdeath in the Spanish Civil War. Notwithstanding its relatively modest page countManuel Mena, Cercas''Templars'' not only manages to place great uncle, is the fascinating tale of figure who looms large over the Knightsbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco' astonishing rise and spectacular fall in a rich historical context, but also provides an entertaining account of s forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the Templars' 'afterlife': from the Masonic lore centre of the title to novels, films and games this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to conspiracy theories. There is also be a travel guide and good list of source materials hero whilst having fought for further readingthe wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681537</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Wheatcroft 0008294011|title=How to Lose a Country: The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=The battle for Europe which Andrew Wheatcroft describes in such vivid detail is the culmination of A little while ago a power struggle between the Ottoman empire, based friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what 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 come would be discussed by the sultan of Turkey, hungry for more territory, and his ministers in 1682 to lead their army against the Habsburgs at Vienna A level history students when faced with the ultimate objective of capturing question ''Discuss 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-estimatedfactors which led to. Whatever the truth of the matter, the book that tells the story is a vivid chronicle of war in the 17th century.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844137414</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matthew Cobb |title=The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis |rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=''Allo, Allo I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn', t know what all 'this'The Secret Army'' and numerous films have painted a fairly romantic picture was leading to. I think now that I do know. We are in danger of the resistance — beret-wearing men losing democracy and women who dart about blowing up trains and shooting Nazis. The reality, according to Matthew Cobbwhilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the 'The Resistancebenevolent dictator'is as rare as hen', was somewhat differents teeth. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737123X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Downing 1788037812|title=Sealing Their Fate: 22 Days That Decided the Second World War|rating=4|genre=History|summary=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 The Fraternity 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847371310</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Richard D Ryder|title=Nelson, Hitler and Diana|rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary=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?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845401662</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=William Blades, Randolph G. Adams, Bagher Bachchha (Editor) |title=Enemies of Books|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=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. Estranged: The chapter on fire notes the vast destruction of books Fight for Homosexual Rights in the Great Fire of London in 1666England, 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 Franco1891-Prussian war of 1870.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904799361</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1908|author=Paul R Spiring (Editor) |title=The World of Vanity Fair - Bertram Fletcher RobinsonBrian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=It is huge: not only Originally passed in space but 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time , restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and structure; 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the non-material sphere UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the complex interplay scientific understanding of meaningshomosexuality, symbols and significances. Miller's book, intentionally combining cultural beginning the struggle for recognition and political historyequality, art criticism and travel writing, manages leading to reflect that hugeness without weighting the reader down with too much austere detailmilestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861979088</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Mullen and James Munson1910593508|title=The Smell of the ContinentApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=When Frances Trollope landed at Calais in the 1830s, she overheard This incredible graphic novel is a conversation between two travellers, the younger commenting on the dreadful smell, love letter to the older Moon landings and more experienced telling him it was ''the smell of'' ''passion for the continent''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230741908</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jennifer Worth|title=Farewell To The East End|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=I am interested in social history subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and, as a mother, the job of midwives fascinates meMike Collins. Combining these two subjects, ''Farewell to the East End'' This is a riveting read. The author Jennifer Worth was a midwife story we know well and nurse, working with the nuns at Nonnatus House in the East End because of London and this volume (her third book on this topic) covers , the 1950s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297844652</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kate Williams|title=Becoming Queen|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=It's authors take a story which has been told by many authors during few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the last centuryblanks. The Victorian age, or at any rate These shortcuts are the woman who gave her name only downside to the era, came about largely if not wholly because book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a crisis of sorts among King George III's family. By film you will be familiar with 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, slight feeling that there are scenes missing 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 altarthat dialogue has been trimmed. Edward, Duke of Kent won the lottery. It was he This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and his wife, a widow with two small children by her first marriage, whose daughter Victoria became the saviour of the royal successionstill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099451824</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martyn Downer1786331047|title=The Queen's Knight|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The title sounds more indicative of a novel by [[:Category:Dorothy Dunnett|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 Race to be broken, and it's a good way of introducing this very interesting life. As Save the husband of his subject's great-great-granddaughter, Romanovs: The Truth Behind the author is well qualified Secret Plans to write it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>055215508X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ruth Maier, Jamie Bulloch (Translator) and Jan Erik Vold (Editor)|title=Ruth Maier's Diary: A Young GirlRescue Russia's Life Under Nazism|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552141</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Katherine Ashenburg|title=Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing|rating=5|genre=History|summary=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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681014</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewImperial Family|author=Jean Hatzfeld|title=The Strategy Of Antelopes: Rwanda After the GenocideHelen Rappaport
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|summary=''The Decline basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Fall Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the Roman Empire'' is the traditional starting point time for those studying various reasons, have long since been established. For the demise last few months of Rome. Gibbon's masterwork suggests that the great empire collapsed their lives in large part due to violent invasions from barbarians such as Russia the Visigothsformer Tsar and Tsarina, Vandals their children and other non-Romans. In ''The Ruin of the Roman Empire'' classical scholar James J. O'Donnell, few remaining servants were held in line with much modern revisionist thinkingincreasingly squalid, turns this argument on it headhumiliating captivity. Rather than To prevent them from being a destructive influencerescued, in July 1918 the barbarian kings within the empire tried revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to retain death in circumstances which, once the good things about Roman rule. The real blame for the fall of Rome can news was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in fact be attributed to Emperor JustinianEurope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861979355</amazonuk>
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