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[[Category:History|*]]
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Betty LussierJacqueline Rose|title=Intrepid Woman: Betty Lussier's Secret War, 1942-1945Women in Dark Times
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Do we all have it in us? Would you as a Pole in 1940s Poland, who like as not had been 'educated' in The world of the unconscious is not the horrendous evil antagonist of Jews by your church - would you ignore Nazi death threats and countless opportunities for the wrong thing to be saidpolitical life, but its steadfast companion, for the truth to be let out, for betrayal - would you help a Jewish life survive?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1550280554</amazonuk>}}hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard LucasMary McCarthy|title=Axis Sally: The American Voice Memories of Nazi Germanya Catholic Girlhood
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary=Take one personable failed actressMary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', embittered by lack obsessively digging into the past to piece together the broken mosaic of success at home her life. She attributes her ''burning interest in the USApast'' to her orphanhood, and conspire to land as she lacked any second-hand memories from her living parents, who died in Germany as WW2 breaks outthe 1918 flu epidemic. What chance This memoir chronicles her becoming an Americanearly years, female Lord Haw-Haw, being paid by Germany to broadcast entertainingbeginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, dissuasive propaganda worldwide on shortwave radio? Anybody could guess it would take innumerable factorsMinnesota, circumstances where she lived under the harsh guardianship of her late father's Irish Catholic parents and events, her abusive Uncle Myers and they're all here in this entertainingAunt Margaret. Later, eye-opening she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and educational biographyher grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a different kind of upbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1935149431</amazonuk>1804271659
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Bunker1785633457|title=Making Haste from BabylonCharging Around: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Using hundreds of previously overlooked documents, British historian Nick Bunker tells Exploring the story Edges of the Pilgrim Fathers, starting from the religious climate in England which led to them leaving the country, and continuing through to show how they settled in America, trading beaver skins to let them settle in New England.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951182</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewby Electric Car|author=Alison Weir, Kate Williams, Sarah Gristwood and Tracy Borman|title=The Ring and the Crown: A History of Royal Weddings 1066-2011Clive Wilkinson|rating=45|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=The Ring and the Crown is Clive Wilkinson has a look at almost history of travelling by unconventional means with a thousand years of royal weddings, at how they've changed and how, in many ways, they've remained the samepreference for slow travel. Generally As he neared his eightieth birthday the weddings are idea of kings, queens or heirs to exploring the throne but sometimes there's a glimpse edges of how the minor royals have managed their nuptials. The book is lavishly illustrated and is probably as un-put-downable as anything which is basically a history book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091943779</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Shrabani Basu|title=Victoria and Abdul: The True Story of the Queen's Closest Confidant|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Abdul Karim was a 24-year-old assistant clerk at Agra Jail when he England in an electric car was granted the opportunity of a lifetime – to leave India, travel to England and find employment as personal attendant to the great Empress herself, Queen Victorianot totally outrageous. Within a year of her employing him and his introducing her to the delights of curryIn fact, she promoted him. He would no longer it should be a mere servant, pleasant holiday for Clive and henceforth he was now her teacher and clerkhis wife, or MunshiJoan, with responsibility for instructing her in Indian affairs and the Urdu language. To the dismay and ill-concealed anger of nearly all her family and household, he suddenly became one of the most conspicuous figures in the royal entourage.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752458531</amazonuk>shouldn't it?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Hopkins and Mary BeardB09BLBP3P8|title=The ColosseumNeville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=The Colosseum Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the most famous and instantly recognisable monument to have survived scrubbing from the popular imagination of the early days of World War II from 1939-40, known as the classical world''Phoney War''. Most readily associated with the gladiatorial games We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and contests between Churchill coming in to save the Christians day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and the lions so beloved by imperial Romeyet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book, it originally held over 50,000 spectators, a number now completely dwarfed by was of vital significance in how the four million or more visitors who come each yearwar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684706</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Jenkyns3756228711|title=Westminster AbbeyCDC: A Thousand Years of National Pageantry|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Few if any buildings in Britain personify history, and are steeped in so much, as Westminster Abbey. As the author says in his introduction, it is the most complex church in the world in terms of not only history but also functions and memories, perhaps the most complex building of any kind. In this compact paperback history, an updated edition of The happy years with a hardback first published in 2004, he tells the story very readably from its foundation by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century to the preparations for the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William in 2011.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685346</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alan Titchmarsh|title=When I Was A Nipper|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Therespectacular IT 's something about Alan Titchmarsh that you canPhenomena't help liking. He's got a wry sense of humour, seems unfailingly positive and, best of all, was born in my home town of Ilkley. You really can't get much better than that, now can you? 'When I Was A Nipper' is a look not just at his life in the fifties (although there ''is'' a lot about him) but about the way that things were then. There's an unspoken question about what we can learn from how we lived then and how we can apply this to our lives today. It's pure nostalgia only lightly seasoned with the reality of outside privies and harsh working conditions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184990152X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rodric Braithwaite|title=Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-89Hans Bodmer
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=In 1979, ''The history of the Soviet Union decided to move into Afghanistan, and special forces killed the Afghan president. What was initially planned as a fairly modest expedition which would see them stabilise the government, train up the army and police, and then withdraw within a year, turned into a war lasting nearly a decade which left both the Russian army and the Afghan civilians counting the cost development of IT could fill books of the intervention and with their lives changed foreverseveral hundred pages. What went wrong, and why has Afghanistan proved such a difficult place for foreign powers – ranging from the British in the 19th century, to the Russians in this book, to the current armies engaged in the country – to get any sort of foothold?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680549</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Duff Hart-DavisJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=The War That Never WasFritz and Kurt
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=In We start with the 1960'spair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, an Egyptian general with delusions of grandeur is trying doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to conquer do – kicking things around the Arab worldempty market place, starting with Yemen. The new Imamhelping the neighbours, having previously disobeyed being dutiful when it comes to the general's orders to assassinate his own father, synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has fled to make sure the hills. The British lamps are wary of getting officially involved so turn to more subtle channels. Jim Johnson, an underwriter turned on at Lloydtheir very Orthodox neighbours's who claims to have been arrested each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for attempted murder at the tender age of 8 when he attacked an Italian maid abusing using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a cat, light switch. But this is the man asked time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to run Hitler's will, and instead of having a secret operationnational vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. His response? ''Kristallnacht'I've nothing particular to do happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the next few daysround-ups of Jews. I might have a go.' Putting together a team These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of mercenariesan evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and his father are, he sends them to Yemen unknown initially to fight what will becomeeach other, as packed off on the subtitle of same train to Buchenwald and the book states, Britain's most secret battlestone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846058252</amazonuk>024156574X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adrian TinniswoodJohn Henry Phillips|title=Pirates Of Barbary: Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in the 17th-Century MediterraneanThe Search
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=In Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the early 17th century the North African coast was dirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a particularly dangerous place fair bit harder when you set out to sail near due find some specific thing. This book is a case of the latter, as our author promises to locate the prevalence topic of pirates there ready to plunder the cargo of shipstitular search. In this truly captivating account author Adrian Tinnisworth looks at these corsairs And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – focusing on Englishmen such as John Ward, who became so renowned that plays about him and Dutchman Simon Danseker managed to outsellKing Lear!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523868</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Charles Emmerson|title=The Future History of the Arctic: How climatesearch area is a wide one, resources and geopolitics are reshaping the northtarget might not exist any more – oh, and why it matters 's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the world|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Charles Emmerson examines the past history of Arctic explorationheroic old man's visit back to France, economic exploitation and development and our author has promised to find the policies of governments of countries which include Arctic territory (and others)landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, with the aim of understanding the present and predicting the future betterthat he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. He explains the apparently contradictory title in some detail in the Introduction. While history The secondary aim is about the past, 'ideas about the future have changed over time'. Alsoto erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the future vast majority of the Arctic will be shaped by its historywhom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099523531</amazonuk>1472146182
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alex ButterworthB09F4CTKJR|title=The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret AgentsFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=In deciding to write about political upheaval across Europe, including Russia, Alex Butterworth It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has chosen just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a massive topic for this entertaining bookyoung American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. So massive, This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in factCanada, that when I tried reading it without the first looking through to be attached to the RAF and the pen pictures at first to be sent into the start of skies to fight the main players I was quickly completely lostGermans in active combat. My mistake – the shortBut before that can happen, sharp, pen pictures, which cover sixteen pages and detail all Petrol has to master flying the major anarchists and secret agents are completely invaluable and helped my reading of the book enormouslynotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551926</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Giles Milton0578761718|title=Wolfram: The Boy Who Went To War|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Giles Milton's daughter was set the task of designing an heraldic shield which represented the most important elements of her family's history. Aware that one of her grandparents is German she included the only German symbol which she knew: a Swastika. It was this incident, which was an awkward mixture of funny and disquieting which brought about 'Wolfram: The Boy Who Went To War'. It's the story of Giles' father-in-law, Wolfram Aïchele, who was nine years old when Hitler came to power and who found himself caught up in a situation which was none Inspiring History of his making and didn't accord with his own beliefs. He was a man who wanted to be a sculptor or to paint, but he was forced to become a soldier.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340837888</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSpecial Relationship|author=Dudley Green|title=Patrick Bronte: Father of GeniusNancy Carver
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=There have been many biographies about Charlotte Brontë and her siblingsThe church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at least 1181, but very little about their fatherwhen it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, the original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It is tempting to speculate whether he would be quite so deserving of one if he had not been was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the father end of such its story: after a famous family. Yet Dudley Greenphenomenal fundraising effort, a retired Classics teacherthe stones from the church's walls were transported to Fulton, has demonstrated here that he did lead an interesting life himselfMissouri. Born in rural Ireland in 1777There, he spent his early years there before arriving in England in 1802 and settled in Yorkshire seven years laterthe grounds of Westminster College, where he remained the rest of his dayschurch was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454455</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Edward B Barbier1784385166|title=Scarcity and FrontiersThe Third Reich in 100 Objects: How Economies Have Developed Through Natural Resource ExploitationA Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Scarcity and Frontiers What is an ambitious, fascinating book the first image that examines how comes to mind when you think of the 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 worldThird Reich's economies have developed by exploiting natural resourcesfascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. Throughout historyIn this short volume, states have responded Roger Moorhouse has attempted to natural resource scarcity by developing new frontiersillustrate the period of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts. }}{{Frontpage|author=Lun Zhang, hence the Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes|rating=4. The book begins 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 development second half of their teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn't know of agriculture along the banks weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the Nile massacre and runs right through to the present daybirth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, finally questioning whether we are entering and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a new era general browser's context for the whole season of natural resource scarcityprotests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0521701651</amazonuk>1684056993
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Ashdown-Hill0648684806|title=Clara Colby: The Last Days of Richard IIIInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=The controversy surrounding King Richard III has meant path 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, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that there have been far more biographies about him than on any other pre-Tudor monarchshe received a good education, some extremely partisan both in exonerating him and out of school. She was the crimes laid at his dooronly child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, some (a minorityher family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was hard, it seems) more than keen as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to endorse join the Shakespearean portrait of family. Clara would only know her mother for a fiend few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in human shapechildbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and others steering Wisconsin was a middle courserude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454048</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Rappaport1783784350|title=EkaterinburgThis Golden Fleece: The Last Days of the RomanovsA Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=The city of Ekaterinburg It was December and Esther Rutter was once regarded as imperial Russiastuck in her office job, writing to people she's gateway to the eastd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. In 1918 it became symbolic with one of January was going to be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the most savage executions, or might one say liquidations, ever recorded in history – the cold-blooded annihilation length and breadth of the former Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, their children, the last remaining servants who had stayed British Isles with them in captivityoccasional forays abroad, discovering and their pet dogs.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520095</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts|title=Edgelands|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Around telling the middle story of the last century wool's history and how it had made and earlier, books about changed the English countryside seemed very much in voguelandscape. H.V. MortonShe's d grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - 'In Search of England' and associated titles spring readily to mind, but there were a wealth of others, by authors who seemed intent free-range child on discovering the land for themselvesfarm'' - and learned to spin, sometimes anxious to document it before it knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was gonein her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089021</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Clark1789017977|title=A Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World By Itself: A History of the British IslesWar II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=As one who has always felt most at ease with Ronnie Williams was the standard chronological approach son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to historywhether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, driven by events but he was already many years older than Ethel and major personalities, I found the close-on 700 pages of this volume fairly demanding reading in placeshe might well have shaved a few years off his age. It is divided into six parts, each by For a different contributor with while the editor himself writing family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the fourth. Each part is divided into Material Cultures, followed by essays on topics (not for all sections) on Religious Cultures; Religion, Nationalism 1929 Depression and Identity; and Political and National Culturesfive-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. What we have, therefore, is an overview of events One thing he did inherit from each period, more thorough in some instances than others, his father was his need to be well-turned-out and a certain amount of theorizing on the general social, political and even artistic backgroundthis would stay with him throughout his life. A straightforward history through He joined the ages – it is notarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712664963</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Hart1980891117|title=GallipoliG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryArt|summary=Early in 1915 the Allied Powers attempted to seize the Dardanelles, capture Constantinople and eliminate Turkey, who had joined the Central Powers, from the First World War. The campaign ended in failure and retreat, yet for many years it was portrayed as a brilliant strategy undermined by bad luck and incompetent commanders. This painstakingly-researched account shows that this George Engleheart was not the case. It was more a matter one of a wild scheme which was poorly planned and doomed from the start, compounding the Allies' problems by diverting large numbers leading portrait miniaturists of troops from attacking Germans on the Western FrontGeorgian London, where they would arguably have been better employed. In his introduction he calls the eight-month exercise 'an epic tragedy with an incredible heroic resilience displayed by a career lasting from the soldiers', yet ultimately 'a futile and costly sideshow for all 1770s to the combatantsRegency era.' It He was a huge drain on Allied military resourcesalso one of the most prolific, involving painting nearly half a million troops, with the British Empire losing about 2055,000 – 115,000 killed, wounded or missing and 90,000 evacuated sick – while miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the French lost 47,000names of each of his clients, and the Turkish over 251,000subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681596</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patrick Dillon and P J Lynch1789016304|title=The Story War and Love: A family's testament of Britainanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionHistory|summary=Author Patrick Dillon has put together a clear, well-written Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and beautifully concise story of Britainwas entranced by what she discovered, summing up the history particularly in ''The Diary of Britain Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and Ireland in a little over 320 pages. Significant events, ranging seven thousand Jews were deported from the Norman Conquest to city during the South Sea Bubblewar years, but only five thousand survived and groups of people ranging from highwaymen Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to the Romantic poets, are each dealt happen in a country with in between 1 and 3 pages written in Dillon's chatty, easy liberal values who were resistant to read styleGerman occupation. There are also maps, including Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those of who thought that the D-Day landings and Germans might reach the Civil War battles, a timeline for each major period (Middle Agescity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, Tudors, Stuarts, Georgians, Victorians and Twentieth Century) and some gorgeous illustrations by former Kate Greenaway winner PJ Lynch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406311928</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Edward Pearce|title=Pitt that the Elder: Man of War|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=William Pitt Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the Elderway that it did, 1st Earl of Chatham, and Prime Minister from 1766 to 1768, has come down to us through the ages but initial protests melted away as the great eighteenth century equivalent of Winston Churchill, one of the great men of the British Empire in its earlier days, and the man who led England triumphantly through the Seven Years War of 1756-63organisers became more circumspect. During the It'year s an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of victories' in 1759, Quebec was captured, the combined English and Prussian forces defeated the French at Minden, and the army won a famous victory at Quiberon Bay. For this, Pitt took – or was accorded by generations tens of historians – much thousands of the creditindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951433</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Judt1908745819|title=The Memory ChaletSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyHistory|summary=In 2008 the historian Tony Judt was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosisSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, a degenerative disorder but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that eventually results in complete paralysis for we didn't like the suffererbook. Unable That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to jot down ideas as they came to himhearing a book calling your name, Judt had to rely on his memory to hold them until he had the chance to dictate his words to somebody elserarely get it wrong. His memoryIn this case, which I was already good, became exceptionaltold why. The progress blurb speaks of the disorder left Judt unable to moveauthor considering ''an older, but no mental deterioration or lack less tethered sense of sensation occurred, which he describes as herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a mixed blessingbad description of where I am. He had Add to endure whole nights lying in that my love of the same positionnatural world, unable to roll over or even to scratch an itchof those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, a prisoner in his own bodyabout connection. To preserve his sanity during these tortuous nights he focussed Of course, this book had my name on events from his own past, linking then with other events and ideas it had never occurred to him were connected. It was during these reveries that the essays in The Memory Chalet were not only conceived, but also developed in their entiretywritten for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020966</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Johns0857058320|title=Death of a Pirate: British Radio Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and the Making of the Information AgeAnne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=If you are inclined ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to take your cues from the weekly reviews, as the witty poet Gavin Ewart once expressed the matter, you will doubtless find currently articles as varied as; Russell Brand predicting the imminent decline of uncover the BBC, various interpretations of liberalism author's lost ancestor's life and how these struggle death. Cercas is searching for expression the meaning behind his great uncle's death in Coalition Government policythe Spanish Civil War. There are concerns too about the legislation governing the internet and references back to the Sixties battles betweenManuel Mena, on the one handCercas' great uncle, is the unbridled self-expression of figure who looms large over the free market and, book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the other, the virtues of self-restraint in such matters as the re-examination centre of the Lady Chatterley trial, now fifty years ago. An unusual and quite intriguing this book, Death of is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a Pirate, about the development of intellectual property and piracy in radio touches on all these contemporary concerns in a dramatic way. It combines hero whilst having fought for the history of modern broadcasting with a crime story and consequent trialwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068609</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mary Beard0008294011|title=PompeiiHow to Lose a Country: The Life of a Roman Town7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=The introduction does not spare the reader of the horror of A little while ago a volcanic (Vesuvius) eruption friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the year 79 CE. As question ''Discuss the local residents literally ran for their lives clutching what they could easily carry ' factors which led to... '' I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a deadly, burning combination of gases, volcanic debris and molten rock travelling at huge speed ...good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' leaves the reader with an horrific mental imagewas leading to. All I think now that last minute panicking was in vainI do know. No We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one could survive such an onslaught. Nature at her very worst indeed, particularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684714</amazonuk>
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|genre=History
|summary=This book was first published Originally passed in France 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 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 late 1940s margins of society and studying homosexuality was an instant success. Much praise is heaped upon it as we see from common on the back cover; European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the line which resonates with mescientific understanding of homosexuality, is simply 'The Second Sex is required reading and beginning the struggle for anyone who believes in recognition and equality.' I happily put my hand up for that one, speaking, as it happens leading to the milestone legalisation of same- as a 'second sex' individualrelationships in 1967. It struck me that wouldn't it be interesting to also have a male reviewer give this book his thorough and undivided attention?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009949938X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Natalie Haynes1910593508|title=The Ancient Guide to Modern LifeApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins|rating=45
|genre=History
|summary=Haynes starts with This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the positive statement that we shouldn't throw passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and because of ancient history straight this, the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the bin, so to speakblanks. We should instead embrace it. It has lots These shortcuts are the only downside to tell us if only we would listen. Chapter 1 entitled ''Old World Order'' certainly grabbed my attention with the line ..book. If you'Can politicians really make ve ever read a positive difference to our lives ...' In 2010 when the role comic book adaptation of politicians is at an all-time low in the eyes of the voters, this is an excellent question to kick off a film you will be familiar with. We zoom right back in time and explore how the Athenians lived. Apparently they were rather forward-thinking slight feeling that there are scenes missing and progressive people with ideas which could easily be put into use today. They also enjoyed true democracy. When Haynes was talking about politics generally I liked another sweeping statement of hers where she says ' ..that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that history teaches us we could offer our politicians a hefty pay cut easily have been three times as long and still get plenty of perfectly competent candidates.' My inner voice was shouting out - make an immediate start on that one please. I won't spoil all the delicious details which led up to this attention-grabbing statement but it really is food for thoughtfelt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683238</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patricia Malcolmson and Robert Malcolmson (Editors)1786331047|title=Nella Last in the 1950s: The Further Diaries of Housewife, 49|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Nella Last wrote a regular diary for twenty-seven years. Two previous volumes, also edited by Patricia and Robert Malcolmson, deal with Race to Save the Second World War and immediate [[Nella Last's PeaceRomanovs: The Post-war Diaries of Housewife 49 by Patricia Malcolmson (Editor), Robert Malcolmson (Editor)|post-War years]]. Now this third book starts with selections from 1950 and covers four years of social change as Britain moves into Truth Behind the reign of Elizabeth II.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683505</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kwame Anthony Appiah|title=The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=In the Preface, Appiah believes that morality is an extremely important area of our lives as we live them today. He goes on by saying that itSecret Plans to Rescue Russia's all very well thinking about morality - our morals - our own code of living - but it's the ultimate action which truly matters. Well, I would certainly agree with that. And as Appiah digs deeper into his subject, he tells his readers that he was struck by similarities between, for example, ''the collapse of the duel, the abandonment of footbinding, the end of Atlantic slavery.'' In the following chapters he debates the issues of those three major areas of morality. They were, in short, moral issues on a very large scale.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393071626</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewImperial Family|author=Robert Temple|title=Egyptian Dawn: Exposing the Real Truth Behind Ancient EgyptHelen Rappaport|rating=3.5
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|summary=This is latest book from Robert Temple in The basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which he documents new theories on were deliberately obscured at the Ancient Egyptianstime for various reasons, have long since been established. There are some startling claims For the last few months of their lives in Russia the bookformer Tsar and Tsarina, not least regarding the Pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid their children and the proposal that there few remaining servants were held in fact two Egyptian civilisations that existed alongside each other increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. To prevent them from being rescued, in different parts of Egypt. If July 1918 the author is correct in revolutionary regime had them all of his assertions then it would certainly point shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the location of amazing new archaeological discoveries and shine a new perspective on how we view the Ancient Egyptians and the Pyramidsnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>071268414X</amazonuk>
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