134,727
edits
Changes
no edit summary
[[Category:History|*]]
__NOTOC__
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura SchwartzJacqueline Rose|title=A Serious Endeavour: Gender, Education and Community at St Hugh's, 1886-2011|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary='A Serious Endeavour' is an account of the role of one Oxford college in the history of higher education for women. When it was first founded Women in 1886 there were very different views on what such education should be, even among its supporters. The university would not even grant female students degrees until 1920, and students were allowed to choose their own course of study and whether they would take formal exams or not before this. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668515X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Elizabeth Cooke|title=The Damnation of John Donellan: A Mysterious Case of Death and Scandal in Georgian England|rating=5|genre=History|summary=Truth is stranger than fiction - but it is not always this gripping. The Boughtons of Lawford Hall, Warwickshire, have a colourful history, including the ghost of One-Handed Boughton, who haunted their land long before this new misfortune befell them. With marriages creating more branches of family, delicate relationships abound and help to shape the complex events detailed in the book. We begin with Sir Theodosius Boughton, heir to the estate when he comes of age, suffering from venereal disease. He is obliged to take medication and is well known for neglecting the recommendations of physicians. One fateful morning, he takes a new medicine, and dies in agony.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668482X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stacy Schiff|title=Cleopatra: A Life|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Stacey Schiff's biography starts more of less from Cleopatra's infamous meeting with Caesar, where she sneaks into his rooms in a sack. This is one of the most popular images of Cleopatra in the public consciousness and Schiff happily refutes the image of her emerging as a well polished seductress, pointing out that anyone who had been carried in a sack for a considerable period of time will more likely be fairly dishevelled. Schiff takes us through from this moment up to Cleopatra's much dramatised death, and beyond, to the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075353956X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Shirin Ebadi|title=The Golden Cage: Three Brothers, Three Choices, One DestinyDark Times
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=As I read 'How to Survive the Titanic' I was conscious that we're only a matter The world of months away from the centenary of the sinking – and a slew of media to mark the occasion. Given that the subject has been mined extensively over the years it will be interesting to see whether there's anything new to be said about the tragedy. It's a subject which has always fascinated me – and it was with a sense of anticipation that I opened the book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809222</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frank McLynn|title=The Burma Campaign: Disaster into Triumph 1942-45|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=I'm no military historian; I'm unconscious is not really interested in war. In the Second World War, if push came to shove, I would probably have claimed pacificism. But when this paperback version antagonist of the recently published hardback came up, by prolific and highly-esteemed historian Frank McLynnpolitical life, I just had to read it. The subject is very special in our familybut its steadfast companion, because “Grandad was there”. Grandad fought over the tennis court at Kohima, and he has carried the trauma in his head to this day. Frank McLynn describes that particular battle as “... a scene from Hieronymus Bosch out of Passchendaele”. I knew I had to steel myself to read this book, and was very pleased that the author wrote sensitively about the reality of close combat for lily livers like mine.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551780</amazonuk>}}hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert KnappMary McCarthy|title=Invisible Romans: Prostitutes, Outlaws, Slaves, Gladiators, Ordinary Men and Women … the Romans that History ForgotMemories of a Catholic Girlhood
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary=This academic title by Robert KnappMary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', Professor Emeritus at obsessively digging into the past to piece together the University of California, will be welcomed by serious students broken mosaic of her life. She attributes her ''burning interest in the Roman Empire. It goes without saying that this research provides a valuable supplement past'' to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who died in the existing academic literature1918 flu epidemic. From the meticulous attention to detailThis memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I suspect that amassing where she lived under the material was a labour harsh guardianship of love over a lifetime of analysing more prominent Roman citizensher late father's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. Clues have been inferred from classical literatureLater, culled from epitaphs she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and deduced from archaeological finds (particularly Pompeii), since hardly any evidence her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a different kind of ordinary folks' lives has otherwise survivedupbringing. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846684013</amazonuk>1804271659
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin Mitchell1785633457|title=Jacobs BeachCharging Around: The Mob, Exploring the Garden, and the Golden Age Edges of Boxing|rating=5|genre=Sport|summary=Despite not being a particular fan of the sport of boxing, Kevin Mitchell's compelling knowledge of the personalities involved in the fight game in the 20th century, coupled with a staccato writing style which got my attention quickly and kept it to the very last page, meant this book actually rose far above my expectations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224075098</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewEngland by Electric Car|author=John Dickie|title=Blood Brotherhoods: The Rise of the Italian MafiasClive Wilkinson
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=There can be few people who are unaware Clive Wilkinson has a history of the 'mafia' particularly as the word is used as travelling by unconventional means with a catch-all to cover preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the Italian criminal fraternity – and by extension idea of exploring the off-shoots which have spread throughout the world – but the south edges of Italy has three major mafiasEngland in an electric car was not totally outrageous. Sicily is the birthplace of and home to Cosa NostraIn fact, whilst Naples it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and its hinterland hosts the camorra. In Calabriahis wife, possibly the poorest region of ItalyJoan, youshouldn'll find the 'ndrangheta. There are plenty of myths and legends about the birth of the criminal organisations, but Professor John Dickie has looked at their early history from 1851 through to the liberation of Italy at the end of the Second World War. He looks at their rituals and their methods and much of what you will read has been a secret until now.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340963921</amazonuk>t it?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alex KershawB09BLBP3P8|title=To Save a PeopleNeville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat of Jewish ancestry, was without doubt one Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of the heroes early days of World War II from 1939-40, known as the Second World ''Phoney War''. This bookWe remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, by one of the war's foremost modern historiansbreaking out, tells and Churchill coming in to save the story day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this book, it was of his humanitarian work which began with his posting to Budapest vital significance in July 1944how the war played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539136</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Wheen3756228711|title=Dot-Dash To Dot.ComCDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=The Premise is simple: take twelve men (and unfortunately they are all men, but that's not the author's fault) who have achieved high office and look at each The history of them. Firstly, take a look at the road to the high office, then how they performed once they reached their goal and finally a look at their private lifedevelopment of IT could fill books of several hundred pages. Suetonius did it first when he wrote ''The Twelve Caesars'' and now Nigel Hamilton has taken the same journey with ''American Caesars'', a remarkably in-depth look at twelve consecutive American presidents from the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, starting with Franklin D Roosevelt and finishing with George W Bush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520419</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard HolmesJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Churchill's Bunker: The Secret Headquarters at the Heart of Britain's VictoryFritz and Kurt
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=NowadaysWe start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when there is a security threat it seems comes to be mandatory the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to whisk 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 workmanlike as a light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and other important personages off instead of having a national vote to a secret location deep inside a mountain or keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in a distant forestGermany, but Churchill fought his war – our war – from a series as did all the round-ups of basement rooms right Jews. These in their turn leave the heart of London younger Kurt at home with his mother and within sight sisters anxious to hear word of Buckingham Palace and an evacuation to Britain or the Houses of Parliament. The Cabinet War Rooms didn't have their own air supplyUS, were infested with vermin while Fritz and lacked proper toilet facilitieshis father are, unknown initially to each other, but they were Churchill's choicepacked off on the same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. He spent a few nights down in the CWR but usually lived in And us wondering how the No 10 Annex upstairs – throughout titular event for the worst adult variant of the bombing.all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846682312</amazonuk>024156574X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild EastJohn Henry Phillips|authortitle=Martin SixsmithThe Search
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=As a former BBC correspondent Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in Moscow at the time that dirt looking to find what you can find, 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 some specific thing. This book is a case of the Cold War was endinglatter, Sixsmith as our author promises to locate the topic of the titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is in a unique position wide one, the target might not exist any more – oh, and it's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to write a history of Russiaparticular D-Day veteran through helping the heroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, based partly on research and partly on his own experiencesthat he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, after having witnessed at first hand some the vast majority of the upheavals in recent years which play whom perished. Who else would make such an important part promises to someone in the story.their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849900728</amazonuk>1472146182
}}
{{Frontpage|isbn= B09F4CTKJR|title= Flights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ben Shephard0578761718|title=The Long Road Home: The Aftermath Inspiring History of the Second World Wara Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=In The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the immediate aftermath City of London from at least 1181, when it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, the Second original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War Europe II, when it was in tatters, and millions again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the end of its citizens story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were stranded far from hometransported to Fulton, Missouri. How to cope with these Displaced Persons was one of There, in the biggest issues grounds of Westminster College, the immediate post-war period. In 'The Long Road Home' Ben Shephard tells their storychurch was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712600590</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen Blixen1784385166|title=Out Of AfricaThe Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=The Home Intelligence Department had been set up by What is the government first image that comes to assess home morale by studying immediate reactions mind when you think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to specific events and to find out public opinion on important issues, including pacifism. One reason for this was 'to provide a basis for publicityconcentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Third Reich', that is, to plan propaganda and test s fascist regime in all its effectivenessiniquity. The reports drew on various sources, including Mass Observation, a market research style Wartime Social Survey, staff listening to conversations on the way to work, But some objects and visiting pubs and other places where lots of people went and talked images from that time may be less familiar to each otheryou.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548747</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Betty Lussier|title=Intrepid Woman: Betty Lussier's Secret WarIn this short volume, 1942-1945|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Betty Lussier was born in Alberta, Canada. At Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the height period of the depression her father bought a Maryland farm at a bank foreclosure sale, they crossed the border to the States and settled down to the hard life Third Reich through one hundred of raising dairy cattle and the crops needed to feed themits material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1591144493</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Martin PughLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=Speak for Britain!Tiananmen 1989: A New History of the Labour PartyOur Shattered Hopes
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=Since I never really followed the Labour Representation Committee came into existence events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in February 1900, the party in Britain which it spawned second half of their teens has had a chequered and often contrary existenceother priorities, you know. IronicallyI 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, as Pugh demonstrates, while it may have I didn't know how the area had long been formed to represent the workersa venue for political protest, it never became and I didn't know more than a fully working class partyspit about the people involved on either side. James Keir Hardie may have been This book is practically flawless in giving a genuine socialist, but some general browser's context for the whole season of the senior figures who followed were recruited from middle and upper-class Conservative backgroundsprotests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099520788</amazonuk>1684056993
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Benjamin Mandelkern0648684806|title=Escape from the NazisClara Colby: The Incredible and Inspiring Saga of Two Young Jews on the Run in World War II PolandInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=3.54
|genre=Biography
|summary=Do we all have it The 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 she received a good education, both in us? and out of school. Would you as a Pole She was the only child in 1940s Polandthe household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, who like as not her family had been 'educated' become pioneer farmers in the horrendous evil mid-west of Jews by your church - the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would you ignore Nazi death threats and countless opportunities only know her mother for a few months: she was married for the wrong thing to be saidfifteen years, had ten pregnancies, for seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the truth to be let outeldest girl, for betrayal - a heavy burden would you help fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a Jewish life survive?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1550280554</amazonuk>rude awakening.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bernard Porter1783784350|title=The Battle of the StylesThis Golden Fleece: Society, Culture and the Design of a new Foreign Office, 1855 - 61|rating=3.5|genre=A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|summary=Back in the 1850s it was mooted that Whitehall required some new public buildings, primarily in the form of a new Foreign Office. Such matters are never quite so simple as deciding on the need and arranging the construction and completion: there was to be debate, occasionally about the need for a new building but primarily about the form it should take and the style in which it should be built. This proved to be acrimonious and devious and came to be known as 'The Battle of the Styles'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441167390</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Richard Lucas|title=Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi GermanyEsther Rutter|rating=45
|genre=History
|summary=Take one personable failed actress, embittered by lack of success at home It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in the USAher office job, writing to people she'd never met and conspire to land preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her living in Germany as WW2 breaks outmind. What chance her becoming an American, female Lord Haw-Haw, being paid by Germany January was going to broadcast entertaining, dissuasive propaganda worldwide on shortwave radio? Anybody could guess it be a time for making changes and she decided that she would take innumerable factorstravel the length and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, circumstances discovering and events, telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and theychanged the landscape. She're all here d grown up on a sheep farm in this entertainingSuffolk - '' a free-range child on the farm'' - and learned to spin, eye-opening knit and weave from her mother and educational biographyher mother's friend. This was in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1935149431</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Bunker1789017977|title=Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims Ronnie and Their WorldHilda's Romance: A Towards a New HistoryLife after World War II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Using hundreds of previously overlooked documents, British historian Nick Bunker tells Ronnie Williams was the story son of the Pilgrim Fathers, starting from the religious climate in England which led to them leaving the country, Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and continuing through Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to show how whether or not they settled in America, trading beaver skins were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to let them settle have been born in New England.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951182</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alison Weir1863, Kate Williams, Sarah Gristwood but he was already many years older than Ethel and Tracy Borman|title=The Ring and the Crown: A History of Royal Weddings 1066-2011|rating=4|genre=History|summary=The Ring and the Crown is he might well have shaved a look at almost a thousand few years of royal weddings, at how they've changed and how, in many ways, they've remained the sameoff his age. Generally For a while the weddings are of kings, queens or heirs family was quite well-to the throne -do but sometimes there's a glimpse of how disaster struck in the minor royals have managed their nuptials. The book is lavishly illustrated 1929 Depression 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 24five-year-old assistant clerk at Agra Jail when he was granted the opportunity of a lifetime – to leave India, travel Ronnie had to England and find employment as personal attendant adjust to the great Empress herself, Queen Victoriaa very different lifestyle. Within a year of her employing him and One thing he did inherit from his father was his introducing her need to the delights of curry, she promoted him. He would no longer be a mere servant, well-turned-out and henceforth he was now her teacher and clerk, or Munshi, this would stay with responsibility for instructing her in Indian affairs and the Urdu languagehim throughout his life. To He joined the dismay and ill-concealed anger of nearly all her family and household, he suddenly became one of the most conspicuous figures army at eighteen in the royal entourage1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752458531</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Hopkins and Mary Beard1980891117|title=The ColosseumG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryArt|summary=The Colosseum is George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the most famous and instantly recognisable monument 1770s to have survived from the classical worldRegency era. Most readily associated with He was also one of the gladiatorial games and contests between the Christians and the lions so beloved by imperial Romemost prolific, it originally held over 50painting nearly 5,000 spectators, a number now completely dwarfed by miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the four million or more visitors who come names of each yearof his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684706</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Jenkyns1789016304|title=Westminster AbbeyWar and Love: A Thousand Years family's testament of National Pageantryanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Few if any buildings Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in Britain personify historyoccupied 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 city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and are steeped Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in so much, as Westminster Abbeya country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. As Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the author says in his introductioncity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, it is that the most complex church Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the world in terms of not only history way that it did, but also functions and memories, perhaps initial protests melted away as the most complex building of any kindorganisers became more circumspect. In this compact paperback history, It's an updated edition atrocity on a vast scale but made up of 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 tens of thousands of Kate Middleton and Prince William in 2011individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685346</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Titchmarsh1908745819|title=When I Was A NipperSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45
|genre=History
|summary=ThereSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it's something about Alan Titchmarsh '. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that you canwe didn't help likinglike the book. HeThat's got a wry sense of humourrare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, seems unfailingly positive andrarely get it wrong. In this case, best I was told why. The blurb speaks of allthe author considering ''an older, was born in my home town less tethered sense of Ilkleyherself. You really can't get much better than that, now can you? ' Older. Less tethered. That'When s not a bad description of where I Was A Nipper' is a look not just at his life in am. Add to that my love of the fifties (although there ''is'' a lot about him) but about natural world, of those aspects of the way poetic and lyrical that things were then. There's an unspoken question are about what we can learn from how we lived then style not form, and how we can apply substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to our lives todayme eventually. It's pure nostalgia only lightly seasoned with the reality of outside privies and harsh working conditionsI am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184990152X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rodric Braithwaite0857058320|title=Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-89Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=In 1979, ''Lord Of All the Soviet Union decided Dead'' is a journey to move into Afghanistan, uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and special forces killed the Afghan presidentdeath. What was initially planned as a fairly modest expedition which would see them stabilise Cercas is searching for the government, train up meaning behind his great uncle's death in the army and policeSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, and then withdraw within a yearCercas' great uncle, turned into a war lasting nearly a decade which left both is the Russian army and figure who looms large over the Afghan civilians counting the cost of the intervention and with their lives changed foreverbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. What went wrong, and Cercas ruminates on why has Afghanistan proved such a difficult place his uncle fought for foreign powers – ranging from this dictator. The question at the British in the 19th century, to the Russians in centre of this book, is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the current armies engaged in the country – to get any sort of foothold?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680549</amazonuk>wrong side.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephanie Williams0008294011|title=Running the ShowHow to Lose a Country: Governors of the British Empire 1857-1912The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=For some, the glory days of the British Empire A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were the closing living through what in years of to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the Victorian era and question ''Discuss the 19th centuryfactors which led to... '' Government ministers in London, I agreed that she was right and doubtless Queen Victoria herself, would glance at wasn't certain whether it was a map good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to. I think now that I do know. We are in danger of the world losing democracy and bask in reflected glory at the generous expanses whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of land coloured reda better one, particularly as the 'the empire where the sun never setsbenevolent dictator' is as rare as hen', to use the old clichés teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918040</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Duff Hart-Davis1788037812|title=The War That Never WasFraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=45
|genre=History
|summary=In the 1960'sOriginally passed in 1885, an Egyptian general with delusions of grandeur is trying to conquer the Arab worldlaw that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, starting with Yemenrestrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. The new ImamBetween 1891 and 1908, having previously disobeyed three books on the general's orders to assassinate his own fathernature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, has fled to as well as the hillsheterosexual Havelock Ellis. The British are wary Exploring the margins of getting officially involved so turn to more subtle channels. Jim Johnsonsociety and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, an underwriter at Lloyd's who claims to have been arrested for attempted murder at but barely talked about in the tender age of 8 when he attacked an Italian maid abusing a catUK, is so the man asked publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to run a secret operation. His response? 'I've nothing particular to do in the next few days. I might have a go.' Putting together a team scientific understanding of mercenarieshomosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, he sends them leading to Yemen to fight what will become, as the subtitle milestone legalisation of the book states, Britain's most secret battlesame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846058252</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Tinniswood1910593508|title=Pirates Of Barbary: CorsairsApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Conquests Chris Baker and Captivity in the 17th-Century MediterraneanMike Collins
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=In This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the early 17th century Moon landings and the 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 this, the North African coast was authors take a particularly dangerous place to sail near due few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to the prevalence book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of pirates a film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that there ready to plunder the cargo of shipsare scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. In this truly captivating account author Adrian Tinnisworth looks at these corsairs – focusing on Englishmen such This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as John Ward, who became so renowned that plays about him long and Dutchman Simon Danseker managed to outsellKing Lear!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523868</amazonuk>still felt too short.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charles Emmerson1786331047|title=The Future History of Race to Save the ArcticRomanovs: How climate, resources and geopolitics are reshaping The Truth Behind the north, and why it matters Secret Plans to the worldRescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport|rating=45
|genre=History
|summary=Charles Emmerson examines The basic facts about the past history deaths of Arctic explorationNicholas and Alexandra, economic exploitation and development and the policies of governments some of countries which include Arctic territory (and others)were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, with have long since been established. For the aim last few months of understanding their lives in Russia the present former Tsar and predicting the future betterTsarina, their children and few remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. He explains To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the apparently contradictory title revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in some detail in the Introduction. While history is about the pastcircumstances which, 'ideas about once the future have changed over time'. Alsonews was confirmed beyond all doubt, the future of the Arctic will be shaped by its historyhorrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523531</amazonuk>
}}