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[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreview|title=Fred's WarFrontpage|author=Andrew DavidsonJacqueline Rose|rating=3.5|genretitle=History|summary=''Fred's War'' is the story of the 1st Cameronians actions in the 1st world war from 1914 -1915. The pictures themselves tell their own story. They show the happy young and carefree faces become gaunt, lined and battle-worn as the war progresses, although there is still laughter at times. The simple warmth of a roaring fire brings such obvious pleasure, that in a way the joy itself is heart-breaking. Photos like this make one wonder however they ever coined the name ''The Great War''. This looks anything but great. It shows the desolation of ploughed fields which should have been planted to provide nourishment, instead yielding only a harvest of death and despair. It shows men wading in water nearly to their knees or scurrying like animals in the muck. The pictures show the true horror of trench warfare in a way words can not, but thankfully they show only the lulls between battles. There are no scenes of horror as men are blown to bits. I think the men of this time had too much respect to photograph comrades in the throes of death, or Women in agony with wounds. This is not the horror of the battlefield or the immediate aftermath, but instead of mind-numbing cold, hunger and filth - of living conditions so bleak death itself might not seem such a bad option. But it isn't all doom and gloom. There are happier scenes as Fred is an officer and billeted comfortably at times. There is also the delight of a death narrowly missed and simple scenes of camaraderie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721811</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Winter|author=Adam GopnikDark Times

|genre=ReferenceBiography|summary=In this collection ''The world of five essays, each one offering a unique and fascinating perspective on the season unconscious is not the antagonist of winterpolitical life, but its steadfast companion, Adam Gopnik takes the reader on a captivating journey, exploring history, art and society, through ''Romantic Winter'', ''Radical Winter'', ''Recuperative Winter'', ''Recreational Winter'' and ''Remembering Winterhidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…''. In each essay, Gopnik focuses on one or two central themes, whilst also touching on surrounding ideas. For example, in Romantic Winter his central topics are art and poetry, however, issues such as changing society, technology, sex and culture are also explored, in relation to these pivotal notions. He also includes two sections featuring collections of artwork to illustrate his viewpoints, which add a charming, individual touch to this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780874472</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Jonathan Mayo|title=The Assassination of JFK Minute by Minute|rating=4|genre=History|summary=President John F Kennedy had been warned about going Women in Dark Times is Jacqueline Rose's homage to Dallas - he himself referred to it as 'nut country' - butcourageous women throughout history, conscious particularly women of the upcoming 1964 presidential elections21st, he needed to bring some support from the city onside 20th and that was why he 19th centuries. Her historical and the First Lady found themselves in the motorcade which swept into Dealey Plaza on 22 November 1963. There can be few people who are not aware of what happened nextpolitical backdrop is, but Jonathan Mayo has presented a chronology of events over the next four days (''four daysthus, three murdersexpansive, hundreds of stories'yet she navigates it with intelligence and an acknowledgment that feminism's lengthy mission is a testament to its successes, as the cover says) demonstrating the pressure under which the officials involved were working and not its failures: ''the dreadful impact ongoing force of what happened.feminism''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780721854</amazonuk>1804271713

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David G ColemanMary McCarthy|title=The Fourteenth Day: JFK and the Aftermath Memories of the Cuban Missile Crisisa Catholic Girlhood

|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary=The commonly-held view Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', obsessively digging into the past to piece together the broken mosaic of history would have us believe that her life. She attributes her ''burning interest in the Cuban Missile Crisis began past'' to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who died in mid-October 1962 and concluded on 28 Octoberthe 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the world heaving a collective sigh harsh guardianship of relief her late father's Irish Catholic parents and moving on to think of other thingsher abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. The truth is, of courseLater, rather different and the crisis rumbled on for weeks and months she moved to come, occasionally almost bubbling Seattle to the boil again as Kennedy live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and Krushchev fenced her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with each other. Historian David G Coleman has used the secret White House recordings to take us into the Oval Office and listen to what really went ona different kind of upbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393346803</amazonuk>1804271659

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=The War that Ended PeaceCharging Around: How Europe abandoned peace for Exploring the First World WarEdges of England by Electric Car|author=Margaret MacMillanClive Wilkinson|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=One could argue that the main title Clive Wilkinson has a history of this book is slightly questionabletravelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. Throughout As he neared his eightieth birthday the half-century or so before idea of exploring the outbreak edges of hostilities England in 1914an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, Europe had rarely been free from conflictit should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, with the Franco-PrussianJoan, Graeco-Turkish and Balkan wars for a start. Nevertheless, the majority of the continent was at peace with itself and most of its neighbours during this period.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668272X</amazonuk>shouldn't it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vincent BugliosiB09BLBP3P8|title=ParklandNeville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager

|summary=''Parkland'' is not just a book Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history but a book ''with'' a history. Vincent Bugliosi published ''Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy'' in 2007 with much One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of the book being based on his preparation for a mock trial early days of Lee Harvey Oswald which was shown on British television. This book was an exhaustive look at what happened in Dallas and at subsequent events such World War II from 1939-40, known as the trial of Jack Ruby and the conspiracy theories which have abounded in the intervening fifty years. ''Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F. KennedyPhoney War'' was published . We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in June 2008 and is - as the title suggests - restricted to what happened on 22 November 1963 and save the following three daysday. ''Parkland'' Very little time is the film tie-spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in version this book, it was of that bookvital significance in how the war played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393347338</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee and Howard Webster3756228711|title=Canton ElegyCDC: A Father's Letter of Sacrifice, Survival and Love|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee, known in his childhood as Ah Nom, was born early in the twentieth century in the village of Dai Waan in rural China. His father died when he was young and he lived The happy years with his grandmother, mother and 'Little Unclea spectacular IT ', who was only a matter of months older than Ah Nom. TheyPhenomena'd become friends as they grew older, but when his Grandfather returned after a long absence in America there as a distinct rivalry between the two. Then Grandfather revealed his reason for returning home - he intended to take the boys to America to be educated. It was a wonderful opportunity and Ah Nom left the village and his mother not knowing when he would see either again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780285736</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Max Adams|title=The King in the North: The Life and Times of Oswald of NorthumbriaHans Bodmer|rating=4.5

|summary=Born in 604 and around for only 38 years, Oswald didn't live that long but he packed a lot in. Born into Bernician royalty, Oswald 'The history of the teenager had to flee with his mother and siblings when his father Aelfrith was killed at the Battle development of IT could fill books of the River Idleseveral hundred pages. Any noble wanting to beat his way to the top would naturally kill Oswald's family and so an obscure upbringing in Ireland seemed the answer. However, Oswald grows strong and bides his time until he comes home and clears his own path, ruling Northumbria for 8 years until his own untimely demise. During those 8 years he united kingdoms, helped establish Christianity and became the inspiration of writers as disparate as St Bede and Tolkien. As Oswald became St Oswald he left behind as many legends as historical events and this book seeks to separate the man from the myth while explaining the time we call the Dark Ages in the brutally separated lands that we now call Great Britain and Ireland.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781854181</amazonuk>}}'

{{newreview|title=Empress Dowager Cixi|author=Jung Chang|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=It’s easy Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to see why Jung Chang selected Cixi as tell us about the focal point for her study of China’s tumultuous modern short, but explosive, history. Cixi is a truly fascinating woman, one of few human beings whose existence can be honestly said to have shaped the course of historyControl Data Company, CDC, for whom he worked. Cixi’s biography is not only It's a fascinating read due to her own political machinationstale, but also because of the immense transformations that occurred told in China during her lifetime. Jung Chang offers a detailed exploration mixture of the period from Cixi’s entrance to court in 1852 to her death in 1908, during which time the ancient dynastic customs of China gave way to the advent of the industrial agetechnological summary and wry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087436</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Explorer GeneJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|authortitle=Tom CheshireFritz and Kurt

|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=''The Explorer Gene'' relates We start with the remarkable story of three generations 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 Piccard familyneighbours, each of whom managed being dutiful when it comes to push the boundaries of travel synagogue choir and break new frontiersat a vocational school. The grandfather, Auguste Piccard was Kurt has to make sure the first human to enter lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the stratosphere, Sabbath preventing them for using en experimental balloon of his own inventionanything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. His later work, designing submarines, enabled his son Jacques to become But this is the time just before the first person Austrian leader is going to descend cave to the bottom Hitler's will, and instead of having a national vote to keep the infamous Mariana trenchNazis out, invite them in with open arms. ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, setting a world record for as did all the deepest diveround-ups of Jews. Grandson Bertrand became These in their turn leave the first person younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to fly around hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the world in a balloon US, while Fritz and now seeks his father are, unknown initially to break new records by means of a solar-powered craft that he intends each other, packed off on the same train to pilot all Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the way around titular event for the earth.adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780720890</amazonuk>024156574X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn and Tom PinfoldJohn Henry Phillips|title=Tudor Monastery Farm: Life in rural England 500 years agoThe Search|rating=45

|summary=Think 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 is a case of it the latter, as time travel. Three professional historians have travelled back some five hundred years our author promises to put what they've learned into practicelocate the topic of the titular search. On a monastery farm theyAnd he really hasn've experienced what t made it was really like in rural Tudor England. It's easy for himself – the search area is a book to accompany wide one, the BBC television series but target might not exist any more – oh, and it's still underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a rich and rewarding experience if particular D- like me - you missed Day veteran through helping the show. Thereheroic old man's a wealth of experience between visit back to France, our author has promised to find the three authors and they write about what they each know best landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and that he was lucky to survive when it's all supplemented by some sumptuous photographs sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of Bayleaf Farm whom perished. Who else would make such promises to someone in west Sussex and the surrounding farmland.their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849906920</amazonuk>1472146182

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn= B09F4CTKJR|title=High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern BritainFlights for Freedom|author=Simon HefferSteven Burgauer

|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=Between 1840 It's the later stages of World War I and 1880 British life the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and society underwent a gradual but major changejoined the 17 Aero Squadron. Young adults in This company was the latter year would have seen a very different country from that in which an earlier generation came first US Aero Squadron to maturity. The land be trained in which poverty, disease, squalor and injustice were endemicCanada, the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in which the Chartists had agitated for fairer rights for allactive combat. But before that can happen, had been largely transformed by Petrol has to master flying the modernising factors of social upheaval and industrial changenotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847946771</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony Summers0578761718|title=Not In Your Lifetime: The Assassination Inspiring History of JFKa Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver

|genre=True CrimeHistory|summary=Originally published as ''The Kennedy Conspiracy'', Anthony Summers has massively revised church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the textCity of London from at least 1181, updated when it with was first mentioned in records. Sadly, the latest evidence and it's been republished as ''Not original church was destroyed in Your Lifetime: The Assassination the Great Fire of JFK'' which refers to London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the statement made fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by Chief Justice Earl Warren who was asked if bombs during the truth about what happened would come outBlitz. He said But that it would, but added wasn't the rider that ''it might not be in your lifetime''. Fifty years on most end of its story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, the people directly involved are now dead, but stones from the truth has not officially emerged. In fact, itchurch's difficult walls were transported to avoid the thought that the US government would prefer that it did not see the light of dayFulton, Missouri. Further documents are due to be released in 2017, butThere, in the meantime Anthony Summer has examined what is availablegrounds of Westminster College, investigated on his own behalf the church was rebuilt and given us this comprehensive booktoday serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755365429</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1784385166|title=Great Britain's Great WarThe Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Jeremy PaxmanRoger Moorhouse

|summary=Throughout What is the nineteenth centuryfirst image that 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 Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, Britain was regularly at war with Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the Third Reich through one or more overseas nationhundred of its material artefacts. }}{{Frontpage|author=Lun Zhang, be it FranceAdrien Gombeaud, Russia, South Africa or elsewhereAmeziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes|rating=4. These conflicts generally passed 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 public bysecond half of their teens has other priorities, except for families who had loved ones serving overseasyou know. When I certainly didn't know of the declaration weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of war against Germany was announced to the crowds in London in August 1914Tank Man image, it was assumed that once again most people would not be affectedI didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and that it would probably be over by ChristmasI didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. This was proved wrong on both counts. A weary conflict dragged on book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for four long years, and nobody the whole season of protests back in Britain escaped from the long shadow which it cast1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670919616</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0648684806|title=Clara Colby: The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder That Changed the WorldInternational Suffragist|author=Greg King and Sue WoolmansJohn Holliday|rating=54

|summary=Possibly no assassination 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 history can have and out of school. She was the only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had such momentous consequences for become pioneer farmers in the history mid-west of the world United States and life was hard, as that of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria Clara was to find out when she and his wife Sophie in Sarajevoher grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, the capital of Bosniahad ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in June 1914childbirth not long after Clara arrived. It was their killing which led directly to the outbreak of As the First World Wareldest girl, just six weeks latera heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230759572</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1783784350|title=The First BohemiansThis Golden Fleece: Life and Art in LondonA Journey Through Britain's Golden AgeKnitted History|author=Vic GatrellEsther Rutter|rating=4.5

|summary=It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in the eighteenth century that an area of London consisting of about half a square mileher office job, from Soho writing to people she'd never met and Leicester Square across Covent Garden’s Piazza to Drury Lane, preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and down from Long Acre to the Strand, with Covent Garden at the very centre, became what has in modern times been recognised as the world’s first creative ‘bohemia’even her knitting did not soothe her mind. This January was where going to be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the cream length and breadth of Britain’s significant artists, actors, poets, noveliststhe British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and dramatists telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the age lived landscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the farm'' - and workedlearned to spin, side by side with the city’s chief market traders, craftsmen, shopkeepers, rakes, pickpockets knit and weave from her mother and prostitutesher mother's friend. One might say that all human life This was herein her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846146771</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1789017977|title=Inventing the EnemyRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Essays on EverythingTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Umberto EcoWendy Williams

|summary=Imagine a sumptuous Italian feast in Ronnie Williams was the sunlit-bathed ancient countryside near Milanson of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. Next There's some doubt as to you a gentleman talks and eats with furious energy. He tells of Dante, Cicerowhether 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 St Augustine and quotes he might well have shaved a multitude of obscure troubadours from the Middle Agesfew years off his age. He repeats himself, gestures flamboyantly, nudges you sharply in For a while the ribs, belches and even breaks wind. His conversation contains nuggets of information family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the flow of his discourse there is 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a fondness for iteration and reiterationvery different lifestyle. He throws bones over One thing he did inherit from his father was his shoulder and when he reaches the cheese course need to be well-turned- definitely too much information on the mouldy bacteria! When you finally get up things the elderly gentleman has said prompt your imagination. You are better informed, intrigued out and prodded to examine this would stay with him throughout his discourse again and again, even if only to challenge what you have heardlife. Such are He joined the effects of reading Eco’s essays army at eighteen in ''Inventing the Enemy''1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553945</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1980891117|title=The Crooked Timber Of HumanityG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart|author=Isaiah BerlinJohn Webley

|summary=Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Crooked Timber Diary of HumanityAnn Frank''but then realised that her own family' is a collection of essays by philosopher Isaiah Berlins stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, born but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in Rigaa country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to, later escalate in lifethe way that it did, become an Oxford student and one of but initial protests melted away as the institution's organisers became more notable alumni, continuing to influence the university by, among other things, cofounding Wolfson Collegecircumspect. Altogether, the collection presents Berlin It's observations an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of Western thought. The history tens of morals in the West was thousands of particular interest to Berlin, as well as how these morals informed the more obvious changes in philosophy, literature, culture and much moreindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845952081</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|title=A Very British Murder: the Story of a National Obsession|author=Lucy Worsley|rating=4.5|genre=True CrimeFrontpage|summaryisbn=The British are an illogical race. Short of genocide, murder is the worst, most shocking crime an individual can commit, yet it has become a kind of commodity which over the last years has been endlessly packaged as a mass market entertainment industry. We buy newspapers and magazines with blow-by-blow accounts of dreadful true life cases, we read thrillers, watch TV drama series and documentaries, and we can take part in murder mystery evenings and weekends at pubs and hotels.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849906343</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1908745819|title=1912: The Year the World Discovered AntarcticaSurfacing|author=Chris TurneyKathleen Jamie|rating=45

|summary=If Sometimes when people suggest that you read those products designed to make you a published authorcertain book, they tell you ''this one way to start according to has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so many of them is unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to look ahead for hearing a pertinent anniversarybook calling your name, research or know your subject wellrarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the poetic and write well in advance lyrical that are about style not form, and as popularly as you can substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on whatever the subject isit. Make no mistake, however – Chris Turney, even if he It was written for me. It would appear to have followed that dictum found its way to the last, is no chancer with the eye me eventually. I am pleased to the temporary relevancehave it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845952103</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark White0857058320|title=Kennedy: A Cultural History of an American IconLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=During his lifetime John Fitzgerald Kennedy created an image of himself that dazzled and which has largely remained intact despite ''Lord Of All the steady leakage of information over the years which could have been expected Dead'' is a journey to tarnish. It could be argued that - much as in uncover the case of Elvis Presley author's lost ancestor's life and Princess Diana - death was an excellent career move, but Mark White examines . Cercas is searching for the way the image was built up, then maintained and - after the assassination - burnished, reinforced and protected.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441161864</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Armchair Nation: An intimate history of Britain meaning behind his great uncle's death in front of the TV|author=Joe Moran|rating=4.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=All of us have a love-hate affair with television, or ‘the idiot lantern’Spanish Civil War. Hardly anybody who has ever owned a setManuel Mena, or been part of a family which has had oneCercas' great uncle, can envisage life without it. It has been a source of endless entertainment and escape from is the drudge of everyday life, while at some time it has irritated most of us beyond measure. Love it or loathe it, it has always been part of figure who looms large over the fabric of our existencebook. While to a certain extent it has been superseded by online services which have supplemented if not overtaken or usurped part of its role, its iconic status is unlikely to disappear He died relatively young whilst fighting for the foreseeable futureFrancisco Franco's forces.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683912</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Anti-Judaism: A History of a Way of Thinking|author=David Nirenberg|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Initially the choice of title seemed an odd one Cercas ruminates on account of the more widely used term, anti-Semitismwhy his uncle fought for this dictator. The distinction is quickly made though, that unlike question at the latter, anti-Judaism does not need real Jews to flourish, but is fuelled by an idea alone. In fact centre of this book is a core tenet of Nirenberg’s thesis. Throughout history the idea of ‘Judaism’ whether it is raised as an existential spectre in societies where there may possible for his great uncle to be no Jewish members at all. This is a chilling reality, and Nirenberg charts hero whilst having fought for the course of how this came to bewrong side. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851131</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008294011|title=Victoria's MadmenHow to Lose a Country: Revolution and AlienationThe 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Clive BloomEce Temelkuran

|summary=Despite A little while ago a 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 revisionist work of a few writers and historians, our prevailing image of question ''Discuss the Victorian age has generally been one of staid conformity, superiority and stuffiness, during factors which only a few dissenters put their heads above the parapetled to.. Clive Bloom sums it up rather succinctly on the first page as a ‘monolith of steam and class conflict, antimacassars and aspidistras’. '' A page later, he describes the nineteenth century – most of which I agreed that she was covered by the Victorian era – as one divided by three groups, namely those who represented the old Georgian decadence, the young Turks eager for reform, right and finally wasn't certain whether it was a group who felt an allegiance good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to the world of their forebears but were forced to exist in a world of confirming moralism and priggishness. The young Turks, he concludes, ultimately wonI think now that I do know.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230313825</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Inferno Decoded: The essential companion to the myths, mysteries We are in danger of losing democracy and locations of Dan Brownwhilst it's Inferno|author=Michael Haag|rating=4|genre=Entertainment|summary=Here be spoilers. Not so much in my review, but certainly in its subject, a very quickly produced companion guide to the latest [[:Category:Dan Brown|Dan Brown]] blockbuster. Itflawed system I can's not so much t think of a page-by-page guidebetter one, but certainly serves particularly as an educational and intelligent look at the background to the biggest-selling book of 2013'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251800</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788037812|title=The Black CountFraternity of the Estranged: GloryThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, revolution, betrayal and the real Count of Monte Cristo1891-1908|author=Tom ReissBrian Anderson

|summary=While Originally passed in 1885, the novels of Alexandre Dumaslaw that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, like ''The Three Musketeers'' restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and ''The Count 1908, three books on the nature of Monte Cristo''homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, weren't true, they were based on a real hero - Dumas's own fatheras well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Born Exploring the son margins of a slave society and a French noblemanstudying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, General Alexandre Dumas would go on to rise to fame and fortune during but barely talked about in the French RevolutionUK, only so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to face racismthe scientific understanding of homosexuality, betrayaland beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, and a rivalry with Napoleon Bonaparte which would eventually lead leading to the virtual disappearance from history milestone legalisation of this incredible figuresame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575132</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1910593508|title=Tutankhamen's Curse: The Developing History of an Egyptian KingApollo|author=Joyce TyldesleyMatt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins|rating=4.5

|summary=The striking cover This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the 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 'Tutankhamen’s Curse' certainly has this, the authors take a way of arresting few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the reader’s attentionblanks. The iconic golden funeral mask peers out from an ink-black background and those heavily-lined Egyptian eyes seem These shortcuts are the only downside to stare eerily into the soul book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the beholderslight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861971664</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1786331047|title=A Very British KillingThe Race to Save the Romanovs: The Death of Baha MousaTruth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=A T WilliamsHelen Rappaport

|summary=Almost ten years ago on a Sunday morning back in September 2003The basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, British Troops raided a hotel in Basrahave long since been established. It was a difficult period in For the occupation, six last few months on from the U.S. led invasion. Temperatures were more than 50 degrees centigrade. Members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment (QLR) took ten suspects in for questioning from a hotel their lives in Russia the vicinity of insurgent weaponry. The Iraqis former Tsar and Tsarina, their children and few remaining servants were hooded, plasticuffedheld in increasingly squalid, forced into stress positions and subjected to karate chops and kidney punches by the Britishhumiliating captivity. Other men and officers watched, walked by or wondered at the stench that resulted To prevent them from vicious punishment. After 36 hours of torturebeing rescued, a 26 year-old hotel receptionist lay dead by asphyxiation. His grossly disfigured body bore 93 individual injuries. There are now in July 1918 the region of another 250 individualsrevolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, men and womenonce the news was confirmed beyond all doubt, whose families are making legal claims to have been killed horrified their relatives in further encounters with British patrols or prison guardsEurope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575116</amazonuk>

{{newreview|title=The Shadow King: The Bizarre Afterlife of King Tut's Mummy|author=Jo Marchant|rating=5|genre=History|summary=''Now, if I'd known''<br>''They'd line up just Move on to see him,''<br>''I'd taken all my money''<br>''And bought me a museum.'' These lyrics, taken from a popular Steve Martin song, perfectly epitomize a phenomenon first described in the New York Times, February 1923. The craze came to be known as ''Tut-Mania'' and even now, ninety years later, there is something about the boy-king with the golden mask that ignites the imagination [[Newest Home and curiosity of each subsequent generation.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306821338</amazonuk>}}Family Reviews]]