Changes

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul WinterJacqueline Rose|title=Defeating Hitler: Whitehall's Top Secret Report on Why Hitler Lost the WarWomen in Dark Times

|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=Just how and why did Hitler lose the Second World War? The message in [[Fatherland by Robert Harris]] is that he spent too much effort killing Jews to concentrate on anything else. Remarkably, this look at more explicit reasons for the end of the Third Reich barely mentions the Holocaust. What we have is ''Some Weaknesses in German Strategy and Organisation 1933-1945'' - a document drawn up by what would now have to be called Whitehall Mandarins, written during a year of war and a year of peace, that itemises for those with enough security clearance just what Hitler's chain of command was, and what his thinking was for each theatre The world of the War. It was never Top Secret, but was classified for thirty years and has spent about as long waiting for this hardback version.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441196358</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jean-Paul Kauffmann|title=A Journey to Nowhere: Among the Lands and History of Courland|rating=4.5|genre=Travel|summary=When I turn to travel writing, it unconscious is a healthy balance of that about places I have been to, and places I've not. But without sounding too big-headed it is seldom places I have never heard the antagonist of in any context - especially those I have passed throughpolitical life, what's more. The 'nowhere' in focus here is Courlandbut its steadfast companion, which was more-or-less the coastal slither of the top of Latvia, and was once an independent Duchy. In one fell swoop Kauffmann seems to become the only travel writer to have written a book about the hidden place, at least for many a generation, and, itor backdrop where any true revolution must begin…''s pleasant to say, probably the best one could have hoped for.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050362</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Penelope Hughes-Hallett|title=The Immortal Dinner: A famous evening of genius and laughter in literary London, 1817|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=A book based around just one dinner sounds a little extraordinary. But the host, painter Benjamin Robert Haydon, was no ordinary artist. He was a friend of many of the major artistic and literary figures of the day, in addition to being an ambitious painter of historical scenes. Sadly, his ambition was not matched by popularity or good fortune, and despite or perhaps parly because an exaggerated belief in his own abilities, one and a half centuries after his death he is largely forgotten except for his suicide after years of despair, and perhaps his diary as well.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956372X</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Andrew Martin|title=Underground Overground: A PassengerWomen in Dark Times is Jacqueline Rose's History homage to courageous women throughout history, particularly women of the Tube |rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Although he was born in Yorkshire21st, Andrew Martin has long been enthralled by the London Underground20th and 19th centuries. His father worked on British Rail, Her historical and Andrew himself therefore had free travel on the system as well as a Privilege Pass which entitled him to free first-class train travel on the national rail network. Having lived in London for twenty-five yearspolitical backdrop is, commuting to various newspaper offices in his employment as a journalistthus, a job which has included writing a regular magazine columnexpansive, Tube Talk, he yet she navigates it with intelligence and an acknowledgment that feminism's lengthy mission is well qualified a testament to write this entertaining its successes, and enlightening social history not its failures: ''the ongoing force of the worldfeminism''s most famous underground railway.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846684773</amazonuk>1804271713

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mary BeardMcCarthy|title=All in Memories of a Don's DayCatholic Girlhood

|summary=Mary BeardMcCarthy describes herself as an 's latest collection, 'All in a Donamateur architect's Day', obsessively digging into the past to piece together the broken mosaic of her assembled blog pieces from 2009 until the end of 2011, covers similar concerns to life. She attributes her previous selection, [[It's A Don's Life by Mary Beard|Itburning interest in the past's a Don's Life]]. Professor Beard is a fellow of Newnham Collegeto her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, Cambridge and became Classics Professor at there who died in 2004the 1918 flu epidemic. She is also an expert This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Roman laughterMinneapolis, an interest which Minnesota, where she fully indulges in lived under the pages harsh guardianship of her TLS blog. In late father's Irish Catholic parents and her latest collection she bemoans the parlous current state of both Education abusive Uncle Myers and the AcademyAunt Margaret. Later, and makes witty observations on matters as various as television chefs, what and how she moved to Seattle to visit in Rome live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and the art and worth her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a different kind of completing references in an age when only positive things may be said about postgraduate job-seekersupbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846685362</amazonuk>1804271659

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=R I Moore1785633457|title=The War On HeresyCharging Around: Faith and Power in Medieval EuropeExploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=45|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=At the end Clive Wilkinson has a history of the first millennium, Western Europe was travelling by unconventional means with a place which had barely ever encountered heresypreference for slow travel. It took just a couple of centuries for it to become a major problem in As he neared his eightieth birthday the eyes idea of church leaders, leading to exploring the persecution edges of individuals and groupsEngland in an electric car was not totally outrageous. Was heresy such a fast-growing problem? In this volumefact, R I Moore provides it should be a thoughtful analysis of the issues pleasant holiday for Clive and makes a powerful case that many supposed heretics were merely victims of a paranoid church which created propaganda to justify so many deaths.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681960</amazonuk>his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Julius NorwichB09BLBP3P8|title=The PopesNeville Chamberlain's War: A HistoryHow Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager

|summary=Historian [[:Category:John Julius Norwich|John Julius Norwich]] (or Rt Hon/Viscount John Julius Norwich, Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to give him his full title) doesn't write misconceptions about history. One such is the scrubbing from the sort popular imagination of history books one associates with school the early days. He doesn't do dry and dusty. In fact ''The Popes: A History'' isnof World War II from 1939-40, known as the 't 'Phoney War'just'' a history book but a romp through the ages with some great trivia nuggets scattered throughout the informative gold.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099565870</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Emma Smith|title=The Cambridge Shakespeare Guide|rating=5|genre=Home We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Family|summary=Does the world need another guide Churchill coming in to Shakespeare's plays? There are plenty about and students these days have the added resource of the Internet to get save the basicsday. HoweverVery little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, if it does, then as Frederic Seager argues in this is as good as any you will find. It's nicely written and beautifully clear and above allbook, succinct. In fact I'm doing a disservice to Emma Smith already by terming it a guide to his plays, because she also includes was of vital significance in how the poems and sonnetswar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>052114972X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Ackroyd3756228711|title=London UnderCDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer

|summary=Peter Ackroyd is already well-known as a historian of London. As a kind ''The history of adjunct to his mammoth work on the city, here we have a comparatively slender tome on one specific aspect. Underneath the city is a world development of its own, IT could fill books of springs, streams, Roman amphitheatres, Victorian sewers, gang hideouts, the creatures which have dwelt in its darkness from rats and eels to monsters and hosts, and last but not least the modern Underground railway systemseveral hundred pages.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099287374</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Peter Ackroyd|title=London: The Concise Biography|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=As is the case with his recent volume on Charles Dickens, Ackroyd's London is an abridged version of the full book originally published twelve years ago. Nevertheless, at over 600 pages of fairly close print in paperback, it is still a very full read.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570386</amazonuk>}}'

{{newreview|author=David Stafford|title=Mission Accomplished: SOE and Italy 1943 - 1945|rating=3Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that.5|genre=History|summary=The work He has chosen to tell us about the short, but explosive, history of the secret services is always going to be shadyControl Data Company, CDC, dark and murkyfor whom he worked. Books like David StaffordIt's Mission Accomplished: SOE and Italy 1943 - 1945 make an effort to shine a light on the shadows and bring the facts into view. Stafford's admirably honest introduction claims that he has 'done [his] best to ensure that what appears here is accurate and truthful'fascinating tale, but reminds his reader that 'history is indeed intrinsically messy'; even more so when his sources were writing with secrecy told in minda mixture of technological summary and wry anecdote. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531836</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul BushkovitchJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=A Concise History of RussiaFritz and Kurt|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=Russia's recent historyWe start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, especially since doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the end of empty market place, helping the Cold Warneighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has been so full of new developments that there is probably little if any limit to make sure the number of fresh histories lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the market can absorbSabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. This most recentBut this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, from a Professor and instead of History at Yale University, take having a little over 450 pages national vote to tell keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the story from round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the earliest days younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of Kiev Rusan evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and his father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the territory which was same train to become Buchenwald and the ancestor of stone quarry there. And us wondering how the present nation state around titular event for the 10th century AD, to Vladimir Putin's assumption adult variant of office as President in 2000.all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0521543231</amazonuk>024156574X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chil RajchmanJohn Henry Phillips|title=Treblinka: A Survivor's MemoryThe Search

|summary=Here comes yet another Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in the 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 about is a case of the Holocaustlatter, and yet another with more than enough damning indictment as our author promises to locate the topic of those events and their perpetratorsthe titular search. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide one, with the target might not exist any more than enough horrific reportage to make your blood run cold– oh, and with more than enough distinguishing features to make it a necessary purchase's underwater, when he cannot dive. The latter is partly down Latching on to where it came from a particular D- while Dachau started out as a camp for political prisonersDay 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, and Auschwitz I was a work camp based round barrack blocks that you can squint at and see a bad private school, this is coming from Treblinka, which he was constructed purely and simply lucky to killsurvive when it sank from beneath him. It has rightly been called The secondary aim is to erect a 'conveyer-belt executioner's block'memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of whom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849163995</amazonuk>1472146182

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Johanna AdorjanB09F4CTKJR|title=An Exclusive LoveFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer

|genre=BiographyHistorical Fiction|summary=This moving memoir tells of It's the double suicide of both István (a Hungarian-Jewish form later stages of Stephen) World War I and his wife Vera one Sunday morning in Octoberthe United States has just entered the conflict. The story Petrol Petronus is told by their granddaughter, Joanna Adorján a young American who has signed up and tells of her close fondness for them both but in particular with Vera, with whom joined the author shares many characteristics17 Aero Squadron. The story begins with This company was the systematic persecution of such Hungarian Jews first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Budapest under Canada, the Nazi occupation and describes their perilous flight first to be attached to Denmark after the Soviet occupation of Hungary in 1956. It ends with RAF and the police reports of first to be sent into the duty officer dated 15.10.91 with skies to fight the discovery of their bodies Germans in their bungalow in the Charlottenlundactive combat. But before that can happen, a town of Petrol has to master flying the Capital Region of Denmark. Entry is gained by a local locksmith who charged 297.02 kroner. It is the charm and lyricism with which this tale is related which makes this fateful, haunting and profoundly moving story about identity both sad and memorablenotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552671</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Loades0578761718|title=The Tudors: Inspiring History of a DynastySpecial Relationship|author=Nancy Carver

|summary=For several years David Loades has written and published extensively about The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the TudorsCity of London from at least 1181, individually and collectivelywhen it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, from almost every angle possible. This title is not a chronological biography or history of the five monarchs whose reigns gave their name to original church was destroyed in the eraGreat Fire of London in 1666. As he and his publisher make clear It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the prefacefire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it is rather a study of Tudor policieswas again ruined by bombs during the Blitz.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441136908</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Francesca Beauman|title=Shapely Ankle PreferrBut that wasn'dt the end of its story: A History of after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the Lonely Hearts Advertisement|rating=5|genre=History|summary=You might think stones from the Lonely Hearts ad a trivial matterchurch's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. You might think it should appear in lower case and not be capitalisedThere, but you'd be in disagreement with Ms Beaumanthe grounds of Westminster College, who gives a big L the church was rebuilt and today serves as a big H memorial to it every time she writes of it in her survey of its history. What's more, she gets to write about a lot more than just the contents of the adverts in this brilliant bookWinston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009951334X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roman Krznaric1784385166|title=The WonderboxThird Reich in 100 Objects: Curious Histories A Material History of How to LiveNazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse

|summary='How should we liveWhat is the first image that comes to mind when you think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute?' asks author Roman Krznaric. To answer this ancient question, he looks The gate to history. 'I believe that the future a concentration camp? None of the art these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of living can be found by gazing into the pastThird Reich', he sayss fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. Creating a book which is as full of curiosities as a Renaissance 'Wunderkammer'In this short volume, he Roger Moorhouse has a stab at attempted to illustrate the period of the big questions: love, belief, money, family, death. The result is a pot-pourri Third Reich through one hundred of delights which left this particular reader stimulated and invigoratedits material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683939</amazonuk> 

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=James PalmerLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=The Death of MaoTiananmen 1989: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Birth of the New ChinaOur Shattered Hopes

|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=Welcome to China, where I never really followed the populous are busy leaving a rural country full events of prosperous mineral resources and coal mines, and shoddily-built hydro-electric dams Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in environmentally dubious locations, for the burgeoningsecond half of their teens has other priorities, mechanised citiesyou know. But this isnI certainly didn't the birth know of 2012, it's the dawn weeks of 1976. Chairman Mao is dying, Premier Zhou Enlai has just died, protests and hunger strikes from the cauldron of power is being stirred as never students before. Among the momentous events massacre and the birth of the year however will be a huge earthquake directly centred on the city of TangshanTank Man image, which will kill something like two thirds of a million people.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571243991</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Phillip Thomas Tucker|title=Exodus From I didn't know how the Alamo|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=Remember the Alamo!  The war-cry of generations of Americans is based upon the idea of the hugely outnumbered defenders of the Texan mission against the marauding Mexicans standing in defence of an ideal until death.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1612000762</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Louise Foxcroft|title=Calories and Corsets: A history of dieting over two thousand years|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=We’re in that post-Christmas period when all the socialising and indulging is over and all you’re left with is area had long been a pasty, bloated, over-fed but under-nourished complexion, a wardrobe full of clothes just a little too tight and a new year’s resolution to Get Healthy. So it’s the perfect time venue for a new diet book to hit the shelves. The title of this one might make you think it’s going to be full of useful tipspolitical protest, and the cover does little to dispel this idea, groaning as it is with the weight of plump jellies, lavish cupcakes and even a decadent lobster or two, but take a moment to note the subtitle, if you will: ''I didn't know more than a history of dieting over 2000 years'''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684250</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kenneth D Alford and Theodore P Savas|title=Nazi Millionaires: The Allied Search for Hidden SS Gold |rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=We are all doubtless aware of spit about the six million or so dead at the hands of the Nazis, both through death camps and death squadspeople involved on either side. We are all probably conscious that before they were taken to the forests to be shot, or to the train station, never to be seen again, the Jewish and other communities captured This book is practically flawless in the Holocaust were ransacked giving a general browser's context for everything they had. It started early, of course, with the denial whole season of rights for Jewish people to own businesses, then houses, paintings, other valuables, cash - and protests back in the end their own gold dental fillings. The story of what happened to everything is as complex as retelling the ends of six million people, but this book opens up several windows on to those stories, through the more notable examples1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1935149350</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Bradford0648684806|title=Queen Elizabeth IIClara Colby: Her Life in Our TimesThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|summary=As 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 biographer who has previously written substantial biographies good education, both in and out of school. She was the Queen (published only child in 1996), of the household and her father George VIchildhood was glorious. By contrast, and her daughter-family had become pioneer farmers inthe mid-law Dianawest of the United States and life was hard, Sarah Bradford needs little introductionas Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. At around 260 pages of textClara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, this is barely half the length of her other titleshad ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and probably aimed more at died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the general reader with an eye eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on the Diamond Jubilee marketClara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>067091911X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Denise Kiernan1783784350|title=Signing Their Rights AwayThis Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating=45

|summary=Many Americans believe It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. January was going to be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the Declaration of Independence is the cornerstone length and breadth of the American democracyBritish Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the fountain-head of the American Way story of Life wool's history and how it had made and changed the American Dreamlandscape. The 4th of July is She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the national holiday farm'' - and often thought learned to be the single most important date spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in American historyher blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>159474520X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Toby Lester1789017977|title=Da VinciRonnie and Hilda's GhostRomance: The untold story of Vitruvian ManTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|summary=As Ronnie Williams was the number son of popular non-fiction titles growsThomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. 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 already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while the authors on family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the hunt for new1929 Depression and five-year-book material often use a ''concept'' approach, trying old Ronnie had to adjust to come up with an USP for a new titlevery different lifestyle. This uniqueness is often achieved by adopting an obscure subject, or an unusual perspective One thing he did inherit from which his father was his need to view a popular themebe well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684544</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neil Monnery1980891117|title=Safe As Houses? G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A Historical Analysis year in the life of Property PricesGeorge Engleheart|author=John Webley|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryArt|summary=Neil Monnery George Engleheart was asked to become a trustee one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a local charity with most of its assets in local residential property. Over the years this had yielded good results and career lasting from the charity was concerned as 1770s to whether or not they should continue on the same basis or diversify and Monnery said that he would look into thisRegency era. That discussion He was also one of the genesis for this book as most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he began to research carefully recorded the history names of each of house prices – in the UK his clients, and elsewhere – for as far back as he could go subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to establish whether or not house were, well, as safe as houseshis fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907994017</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Wilson1789016304|title=Shadow War and Love: A family's testament of the Titanicanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=45

|summary=Lesson one Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in writing non-fiction articles occupied Amsterdam during World War II and journalism seems to be to find out was entranced by what is topicalshe discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. April 2012 is the centenary of A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the sinking of city during the Titanicwar years, but only five thousand survived and there are going Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to be hoards of people finding it topical happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to celebrate thatGerman occupation. Lesson two seems to be to find your own unique angle on Most people believed that the story. Wilson approaches occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Titanic disaster by sinking her at Germans might reach the end of chapter onecity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, for he looks more at that the lives of Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the people on boardway that it did, and how they took but initial protests melted away as the calamity and dealt with itorganisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377300</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Englund1908745819|title=The Beauty and the Sorrow: An intimate history of the first world warSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=4.5

|summary=In simple terms the First World WarSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, like most (if not all) conflicts they tell you ''this one has come down to us largely as a four-year sequence of eventsyour name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, an acknowledgement of defeat by one sideor not, and but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a peace agreementrare experience. Yet there People who are many different ways of telling its history, and as Englund tells us in his preface, this is not sensitive to hearing a book about what calling your name, rarely get it '''wrong. In this case, I wastold why. The blurb speaks of the author considering '''an older, but about what it was '''likeless tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Though a series Add to that my love of snapshots in wordsthe natural world, he shows us various stages of those aspects of the conflict poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and 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 effect on peopleway to me eventually. His emphasis is not I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so much events and processes, but more the feelings, impressions, experiences and moods of individuals caught up in the periodquickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683424</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Oppenheimer0857058320|title=Machiavelli: A Life Beyond Ideology Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=Machiavelli, ''Lord Of All the first philosopher Dead'' is a journey to define politics as treacheryuncover the author', has probably been better known as an adjective, Machiavellian being a synonym s lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for duplicity the meaning behind his great uncle's death in statecraftthe Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, than as a historical person. InterestinglyCercas' great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the term book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco'Machiavel' became common in English usage as an adjective and noun around 1570, although none s forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his works were translated into great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the language for another seventy years or so after thatwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847252214</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clarissa Dickson Wright0008294011|title=A History of English FoodHow to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran|rating=4.5

|summary=Writing A little while ago a history of English food, and friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to some extent drink, must come would be a daunting task, but as an experienced TV presenter (as one of discussed by A level history students when faced with the question ''Two Fat Ladies'' with the late Jennifer Paterson) and as one who was born in Discuss the post-war rationing world in 1947, Clarissa Dickson Wright is well placed factors which led to do so.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905211856</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Art Spiegelman|title=MetaMAUS|rating=5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Before the Holocaust was turned into [[The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne|a child-like near-fable for all]], and before it was the focus of superb history books such as [[Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder|this]], it became a family saga of a father relating his experiences to a son, who then drew it all - featuring animals not humans - [[Maus by Art Spiegelman|Maus]]. To celebrate the twenty-five years since then, we have this brilliant look back at the creation of an equally brilliant volume.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916838</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philip Ardagh|title=Philip Ardagh's Book of Kings, Queens, Emperors ' I agreed that she was right and Rotten Wart-Nosed Commoners|rating=3.5|genre=Childrenwasn's Non-Fiction|summary=If you deem t certain whether it was a good children's historical trivia book to be one or bad thing that tells you, the adult, something they we didn't know about historical trivia, then what all 'this is a good example' was leading to. I didn't think now that I do know George V broke his pelvis when his horse fell on him, startled by some post-WWI huzzahs. We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I didncan't know Charles VI think of France nearly got torched in some drunken bacchanal. The length of time Charlemagne sat on a throne (over 400 whole years (even if he wasn't wholly whole all that time)) was news to mebetter one, particularly as was the raffle that was held (more or less) for being the unknown soldier. Therefore this 'benevolent dictator' is a good book for children and the adults willing to instill some historical trivia into themas rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330471732</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timothy Snyder1788037812|title=BloodlandsThe Fraternity of the Estranged: Europe between Hitler and StalinThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary=The first chapter is enough. I don't mean Originally passed in 1885, the preface, or introduction, law that mean you start reading chapter one about an hour had made homosexual relations a crime remained inplace for 82 years. But during this time, but chapter one itselfrestrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, detailing as it does three books on the way Stalin blatantly enforced collectivization on Ukraine's farms, thus killing off millions nature of local civilianshomosexuality appeared. The seed stock ended up being taken away They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as part of the grain quota to feed heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the rest margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the Soviet UnionEuropean Continent, and hardly anybody failed to go without at some point as a result. The first chapter here, then, is more than enough but barely talked about in telling us what we didn't knowthe UK, explaining perfectly lucidly yet academically how and why what happened happenedso the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and at times of quite gruesome anecdote beginning the struggle for recognition and contemporary reportageequality, churning our stomachs and making us have second thoughts about reading onleading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551799</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Paxman1910593508|title=Empire: What Ruling the World Did to the BritishApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins

|summary=In This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the 21st century, Moon landings and the passion for the British Empire may be an anachronismsubject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, something for which hand-wringing politicians Chris Baker and church leaders may be ever ready to apologiseMike Collins. Many of us have grown up just as the last imperial remnants were crumbling away. Yet its legacy This is everywhere, a story we know well and for better or worse will always be part of the very fabric because of Britain. As Jeremy Paxman demonstrates in this excellent overview, published as the authors take a curtain-raiser few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to his series on the subject, it is never very far away from usbook. After If you've ever read a period comic book adaptation of trying to distance ourselves from it, we seem to a film you will be on the verge of coming to terms familiar with the simple truth slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that it was not so bad as it dialogue has sometimes been paintedtrimmed. Moreover, it should be remembered This is a graphic novel that even if Britain emerged from the Second World War battered could easily have been three times as long and broke, it still possessed sufficient imperial presence to become one of the Permanent Five on the United Nations Security Councilfelt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919578</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam Willis1786331047|title=The Glorious First of JuneRace to Save the Romanovs: Fleet Battle in The Truth Behind the Reign of TerrorSecret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport

|summary=To be frankThe basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, I was not expecting a lot from this account some of a famous maritime battle. Marine warfare histories can be rather dullwhich were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, with lists of ships and mind-numbing detail that may appeal if you have an intimate knowledge of a warship's anatomy, but quite deathly for the rest of uslong since been established. But I was gripped from the first page to For the last by this really insightful account not just few months of their lives in Russia the battle but of the whole political former Tsar and historical events which inspired it. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849160384</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Julius Norwich|title=A History of England in 100 Places: From Stonehenge to the Gherkin|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=There are many different ways of telling the history of England (indeed just EnglandTsarina, not Wales their children and Scotlandfew remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, as the author makes clear)humiliating captivity. This takes a very simple and very effective approach to the matter, by focusing on a hundred specific places which somehow illustrate the nation's progress To prevent them from prehistoric times to todaybeing rescued, in chronological order.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546068</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nancy Mitford|title=The Sun King|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Nancy Mitford assumes that you'll need no introduction to Louis XIV, who ascended July 1918 the throne when he was four years old revolutionary regime had them all shot and reigned for well over seventy two years. To put him bayoneted to death in context his reign began before Charles I was executed in Whitehallcircumstances which, lasted through once the English Civil Warnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth, the reigns of Charles I, James II, William III and into the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne. He bridged the gap between the middle ages and the early modern erahorrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099528886</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Stephen O'Shea|title=The Friar of Carcassonne: Revolt Against the Inquisition in the Last Days of the Cathars|rating=4|genre=History|summary=It starts with a painting. The painting isn't the point: the subject is. In the Autumn of 1319 a Franciscan Friar stands before his accusers. Entitled ''L'Agitateur du Languedoc'' the artwork portrays the trial of Bernard Délicieux, the eponymous Friar of Carcassonne. Although O'Shea veers clear of telling us the outcome of the trial, one cannot help feeling that it wasn't an acquittal. Such things tended not Move on to go down in history quite so resoundingly. Not in those days.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668319X</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Home and Family Reviews]]