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[[Category:New Reviews|History]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreview|title=The Last EscaperFrontpage|author=Peter TunstallJacqueline Rose|rating=4.5|genretitle=History|summary=''The Last Escaper'' opens differently to many of the great escape biographies that were released soon after the war as it is told some 70 years later. Peter Tunstall was an RAF pilot who was shot down and spent many years as a Prisoner Of War across occupied Europe, including Women in Colditz. He lived through the war, but also lived through many decades of peace. Will these years of the relative quiet life lesson the tales of bravery and dare doing of the war? Of course not!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>071564923X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Shop Girls|author=Elee SeymourDark Times

|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=Heyworth's Department Store.'The world of the unconscious is not the antagonist of political life, but its steadfast companion, the hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…''

The chances areWomen in Dark Times is Jacqueline Rose's homage to courageous women throughout history, you have never heard particularly women of it before. I know that I hadn'tthe 21st, before I picked up this book20th and 19th centuries. And yetHer historical and political backdrop is, there was a timethus, not so long agoexpansive, when everyone in Cambridge would have been familiar yet she navigates it with Heyworthintelligence and an acknowledgment that feminism's, even if they couldn't afford lengthy mission is a testament to shop there themselves. Smaller than most department stores, it offered high-end fashionits successes, childrenswear and millinery, with a staff of smiling, smartly-dressed sales assistants ready to cater to the customernot its failures: ''s every whim. It seems sad that with the passing ongoing force of generations, the very existence of the store seems to have slipped away from the collective consciousness; ask most people in Cambridge if they remember Heyworthfeminism''s and the majority response would be negative.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751554960</amazonuk>1804271713

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth DrewMary McCarthy|title=Washington Journal: reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon's downfallMemories of a Catholic Girlhood|rating=54|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary=In early August 1974 I was in what was then Yugoslavia. There was a group of usMary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', all interested in obsessively digging into the political news, but essentially cut off from past to piece together the outside world apart from the previous day's English newspapers which arrived mid morningbroken mosaic of her life. It was on the 11th of August that one of our number dashed onto the beach yelling She attributes her ''Heburning interest in the past's resigned. He's RESIGNED!!!'' No one had to her orphanhood, as she lacked any need to ask second-hand memories from her parents, who he was talking aboutdied in the 1918 flu epidemic. We'd all been following This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the news about Richard Nixonharsh guardianship of her late father's doings Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and wrongdoings for a yearAunt Margaret. Later, she moved to Seattle to live with no one certain that he would be forced out of office. The investigative journalism (oh, for the days when journalists uncovered rather than merely covered) was done by Carl Bernstein her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and Bob Woodward, but some her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a different kind of the most insightful reportage came from Elizabeth Drew writing for ''The New Yorker''upbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715649167</amazonuk>1804271659

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=Golden ParasolCharging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Wendy Law-YoneClive Wilkinson

|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=If you look her up Wendy Law-Yone is described as Clive Wilkinson has a Burmese-born American authorhistory of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. That ''Burmese-born American'' might be an accurate description As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of her current citizenship, but it barely hints at exploring the ethnic mix edges of her heritageEngland in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, nor of her personal closeness (through her father) to her original homeland's struggle it should be a pleasant holiday for freedom Clive and democracy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555999</amazonuk>his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B09BLBP3P8|title=The Great Neville Chamberlain's War: The People's StoryHow Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Isobel CharmanFrederic Seager|rating=4.5

|summary=During this centenary year, we have seen many ways of telling the Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history of . One such is the conflict which broke out among scrubbing from the Great Powers popular imagination of Europe and soon involved all four corners the early days of World War II from 1939-40, known as the world''Phoney War''. This volumeWe remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, based on a recent ITV series of war breaking out, and Churchill coming in to save the same title, approaches it from an angle which I have not seen beforeday. It follows the course of events over the four years through the lettersVery little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, memoirs and diaries of about a dozen individuals as Frederic Seager argues in this book, it presents their story against the background was of fighting on vital significance in how the continental mainland, and of bereavement, shortages and more at homewar played out. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847947255</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=3756228711|title=Elizabeth of YorkCDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Alison WeirHans Bodmer|rating=4.5

|summary=Elizabeth ''The history of York could have ruled England were she not a woman and were she not born in the fifteenth century. Oldest daughter development of Edward IV, she was the heiress of the Yorkist dynasty after the death of Richard III at Bosworth (and her own younger brothers in the Tower IT could fill books of London)several hundred pages. Henry VII, the first Tudor king and victor by conquest, had at best a tenuous claim to the English throne. He legitimised it by his marriage to Elizabeth and proclaimed it through the Tudor rose, that joining of the emblems of York and Lancaster. Elizabeth's marriage to Henry produced one of our most famous kings in Henry VIII.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546477</amazonuk>}}'

{{newreview|title=A Broken World: Letters, diaries and memories of the Great War|author=Sebastian Faulks and Hope Wolf|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Sebastian Faulks and Dr Hope Wolf have expertly brought together this far-reaching collection of memories, diaries, letters and postcards written during and after the First World WarAuthor Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. While Faulks is He has chosen to tell us about the author of novels such as ''Birdsong'' and ''Charlotte Gray''short, Dr Hope Wolf is a research fellow in English at the University of Cambridgebut explosive, whose doctoral research focused on archives at the Imperial War Museum. The combination history of such a respected author, whose most famous (and arguably his best) novel is set in the First World WarControl Data Company, and an academic whose expertise is the in the same areaCDC, means that this fascinating collection hits all the right notesfor whom he worked. It's commemorativea fascinating tale, poignant told in a mixture of technological summary and very humanwry anecdote.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091954223</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Greatest Escape: How one French community saved thousands of lives from the NazisJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|authortitle=Peter GroseFritz and Kurt|rating=34|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=We've read it before start with the pair of brothers Fritz and been gratefulKurt, and now we can read it againtheir muckers, and for doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the same reasons – educationalempty market place, entertainmenthelping the neighbours, moralistic – we can be gratefulbeing dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. WeKurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours've probably all heard how one place or circumstance each Friday night – most famously, Oscar Schindlerthe 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 factory – led to will, and instead of having a major underhand rescue operation national vote to keep Jews from being the victims of the Final Solution Nazis out, invite them in World War Twowith open arms. This book is a further example''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, but one as did all the round-ups of a whole French district being complicit in helping defy the Nazi authoritiesJews. Centred around Le Chambon-sur-Lignon These in their turn leave the heart of southern France, a very rural community based around Huguenot Protestants younger Kurt at home with their own experiences his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of religious persecution decided en masse an evacuation to act as shelter for a whole host of people – mostly children rescued from transit and internment camps elsewhere in FranceBritain or the US, while Fritz and the Jewish victims of the Vichy government rules demanding they be stateless orhis father are, worseunknown initially to each other, victims of a certain one-way packed off on the same train rideto Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. But beyond becoming an idyllic place to hide out in plain view, And us wondering how the towns and villages also conspired to actively export titular event for the Jews themselves – to places adult variant of safety.all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1857886267</amazonuk>024156574X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Mill GirlsJohn Henry Phillips|authortitle=Tracy JohnsonThe Search

|summary=Archaeology cannot be child's play, when you'The Mill Girls'' 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 collection case of the latter, as our author promises to locate the topic of true stories based on interviews with women who worked at Lancashire's cotton mills during the war yearstitular search. Leaving school at And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the tender age of 14search area is a wide one, the girls were thrown headlong into the world of worktarget might not exist any more – oh, and it's underwater, at a time when jobs were plentiful and the benefits culture we know today was non-existenthe cannot dive. The choice was Latching on to a simple one: work or starve. Conditions were harshparticular D-Day veteran through helping the heroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the mills noisylanding craft that delivered him to Normandy, dangerous and dirty and pay that he was lowlucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. Despite thisThe secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, many the vast majority of the women look back at whom perished. Who else would make such promises to someone in their time 'in mill' with warm fondness and nostalgia.nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091958288</amazonuk>1472146182

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn= B09F4CTKJR|title=Money: The Unauthorised BiographyFlights for Freedom|author=Felix MartinSteven Burgauer|rating=4.5|genre=Business and FinanceHistorical Fiction|summary=Occasionally books are not exactly what they seemIt's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. When I picked this Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up, read the blurb and began joined the contents inside, I 17 Aero Squadron. This company was expecting a kind of biography or history of money through the ages. The opening chapterfirst US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, a brief sketch of the economy of first to be attached to the Pacific island of Yap RAF and how it worked, seemed the first to confirm this. It tells us how in be sent into the late nineteenth century Yap, east of skies to fight the Philippine Islands, had an unwieldy coinage consisting of stone wheels around 12ft Germans in diameter, called feiactive combat. The population did not carry these aroundBut before that can happen, let alone own them like we possess pounds and pence, as they were part of a sophisticated system of credit managementPetrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099578522</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0578761718|title=How Britain Kept Calm and Carried On: Real-life stories from the Home FrontThe Inspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Anton RipponNancy Carver

|summary=My generation is now The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at saturation point with 'Keep Calm and Carry On' posters and all least 1181, when it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, the original church was destroyed in the accompanying variationsGreat Fire of London in 1666. So much so, I It was surprised to learn rebuilt in Portland stone from this book a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the fire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that wasn't the now ubiquitous poster was never actually distributed. The poster had been planned as part end of its story: after a campaign phenomenal fundraising effort, the stones from the church's walls were transported to raise moraleFulton, but after they were printedMissouri. There, in the government felt it would have been seen as patronisinggrounds of Westminster College, given that Britons were doing exactly that without the government message church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to bolster them upWinston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178243190X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1784385166|title=TudorThe Third Reich in 100 Objects: The Family StoryA Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Leanda de LisleRoger Moorhouse

|summary=With so many recent books published on various aspects What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of Tudor history, it becomes harder the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to find a new angle or approach to the subject. Leanda de Lisle has thus pulled off the almost-impossible. Her starting point is not the battle concentration camp? None of Bosworth and Henry Tudor’s claiming these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the throne as King Henry VII Third Reich's fascist regime in 1485, but an event nearly fifty years earlier, the death all its iniquity. But some objects and funeral of Catherine de Valoisimages from that time may be less familiar to you. The widow of King Henry VIn this short volume, Catherine married secondly Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the Welsh squire Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur, known to posterity as Owen Tudor. Their elder son Edmund later married Margaret Beaufort, a descendant period of John of Gaunt, the Third Reich through one hundred of King Edward III’s several sons, and it was the only child of this union, born when his mother was a mere girl thirteen years of age, who would become the victor on Bosworth Fieldits material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009955528X</amazonuk> 

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Francis RussellLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=101 Places in Italy Tiananmen 1989: A Private Grand TourOur Shattered Hopes

|genre=TravelGraphic Novels|summary=Initially I struggled to describe this book. It's not a guide book: maps are intended only to give you a rough idea never really followed the events of where Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the townssecond half of their teens has other priorities, cities and villages are - even major rivers are not shownyou know. There are no opening times I certainly didn't know of museums or other details which the visitor might need weeks of protests and whilst it's a tremendous help to hunger strikes from the students before the tourist there's a sense throughout massacre and the book birth of their being people who are best avoided if at all possible. November and February seem to be the best months Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for your visit in many cases. The 101 places youpolitical protest, and I didn'll visit in the book are given no wider importance t know more than a spit about the works of art within thempeople involved on either side. Finally I accepted that the subtitle of the This book - is practically flawless in giving a general browser''A Private Grand Tour'' was s context for the most appropriatewhole season of protests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908524324</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreview|title=Steaming to Victory: How Britain's Railways Won the WarFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Williams|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Soon after the end of the First World War, the British railways entered what is generally regarded as their golden age, with the heyday of the ‘Big Four’ companies, the LNER (London and North Eastern), LMS (London, Midlands and Scottish), GWR (Great Western) and Southern Railways. By 1939 they were beginning to lose their virtual monopoly of land-based transport to lorries, buses and coaches. Nevertheless, as war became increasingly inevitable, they played a vital part in the preparation to keep the country moving, keeping industry and the war effort supplied, helping in the evacuation of Dunkirk, or as their press office put it in a pamphlet of 1943, 'tackling the biggest job in transport history'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099557673</amazonuk>}} {{newreview0648684806|title=Clara Colby: The Boys In The Boat: An Epic Journey to the Heart of Hitler's BerlinInternational Suffragist|author=Daniel James BrownJohn Holliday|rating=4.5

|summary=You seeThe 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, Jesse Owens had it easy – all he had she wasn't allowed to do was run fastsail with her parents and three brothers. AlrightInstead, he did have to face unknown hardshipshe remained with her grandparents, heinous prejudice at home who doted on her and abroadsaw that she received a good education, both in and make sure he was fast enough to outdo the rest out of his compatriots then the world's best to win gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, but others who wished to do the same had to do moreschool. People such as those rowers She was the only child in the coxed eights squad – people such as young Joe Rantzhousehold and her childhood was glorious. He certainly By contrast, her family had to face hardship, the prejudice borne by those become pioneer farmers in the moneyed east coast yacht clubs against an upstart from mid-west of the NW USAUnited States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and when he got her grandparents eventually went to compete he join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had to use so many more musclesten pregnancies, seven surviving children and operate at varying tempi, with the temperament of the weather and water against him, all died in perfect synchronicity with seven other beefcakeschildbirth not long after Clara arrived. Despite rowing being As the second greatest ticket at those Gameseldest girl, Joe's story is a lot less well known, heavy burden would fall on Clara and probably Wisconsin was a lot more entertainingrude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447210980</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1783784350|title=The Last Days of DetroitThis Golden Fleece: Motor Cars, Motown and the Collapse of an Industrial GiantA Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Mark BinelliEsther Rutter|rating=45

|summary=Moving back to his native DetroitIt was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, Mark Binelli tries writing to see where it all went wrong for a city which was once people she''America's capitalist dream town'' but has shrunk more significantly than anywhere else in the country over recent yearsd never met and preparing spreadsheets. How The job frustrated her and even her knitting did this happennot soothe her mind. January was going to be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and what effect has telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the landscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the residents there? Is the decline irreversiblefarm'' - and learned to spin, or can those who want to bring about a changed knit and weave from her mother and improved Detroit succeed?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553880</amazonuk>her mother's friend. This was in her blood.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1789017977|title=Penny Loaves Ronnie and Butter CheapHilda's Romance: Britain in 1846Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Stephen BatesWendy Williams|rating=4.5

|summary=Until I picked up this bookRonnie Williams was the son of Thomas 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, I would never but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have really thought of 1846 as shaved a few years off his age. For a pivotal while the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-year in British history-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. Stephen Bates has proved convincingly He joined the army at eighteen in these pages that if it was not exactly a watershed one, it nevertheless marked an era of change1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781852545</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1980891117|title=Books that Changed the WorldG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: The 50 Most Influential Books A year in Human Historythe life of George Engleheart|author=Andrew TaylorJohn Webley

|genre=EntertainmentArt|summary=Oh George Engleheart was one of the pleasure whenleading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, as with a book reviewer, one can simply point career lasting from the 1770s to the title and say – 'yup, that'Regency era. Or, I suppose, as in He was also one of the non-existent follow-upmost prolific, Adverts That Changed the Worldpainting nearly 5, simply repeat the mantra 'it does exactly what it says on the tin'000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). This paperback edition Throughout most of the six year old original, fresh with several typos they had that time to iron out alongside putting in Seamus Heaney's departure, makes life even easier, given that subtitle. I'm sure he carefully recorded the more bibliophilic are already soldnames of each of his clients, and there subsequently transcribed them into what is little influence I can bear on thingsreferred to as his fee book. I will, however, soldier on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782069429</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1789016304|title=Letters to the MidwifeWar and Love: Correspondence with the author A family's testament of ''Call the Midwife''anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Jennifer WorthMelanie Martin|rating=45

|summary=[[:Category:Jennifer Worth|Jennifer Worth]]Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, author particularly in ''The Diary of the bestselling Ann Frank''but then realised that her own family'Call s stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the Midwife''war years, sadly passed away but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in May 2011 following a short illnesscountry with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Her books have gained a great deal of popularity 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 escalate in recent years with their mixture of warmththe way that it did, sadness and humour based on her experiences working but initial protests melted away as a midwife in the East End of Londonorganisers became more circumspect. It''Letters to the Midwife'' features some s an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of the treasured letters received by Worth from former work colleagues and fans thousands of her books. The resulting book is a rich testament to a life lived fully and to a very special lady whose memories have managed to inspire and touch so manyindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297869086</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert A Caro1908745819|title=The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of AscentSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie

|genre=AutobiographyHistory|summary=ItSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's only a matter of days since rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I finished listening to [[was told why. The Years blurb speaks of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power by Robert A Caro|The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power]]the author considering ''an older, the first part less tethered sense of Robert A Caroherself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's definitive work on the President and despite having just spent over forty hours on the book not a bad description of where I wanted to learn moream. I was torn though - Add to that my love of the second book in a series is not often as good as natural world, of those aspects of the first poetic and it struck me lyrical that these might are about style not be the form, and substance most exciting years in Johnson's lifeof all, about connection. Was Of course, this book going to be the link which took us had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to the more exciting times? me eventually. Not a bit of I am pleased to have itfall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00GSHD0U6</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert A Caro0857058320|title=The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to PowerLord Of All the Dead|ratingauthor=5|genre=Biography|summary=Lyndon Baines Johnson was the 36th President of the United States, preceded by John F Kennedy and succeeded by Richard Nixon, with both being remembered most for the way they left office. His five-year term in office was overshadowed at the start by the Kennedy assassination Javier Cercas and increasingly blighted by the debacle which was Vietnam, but there was something about Johnson which always intrigued me: how does a poor boy from Texas hill country without an exceptional Anne McLean (or even 'good'translator) education become president of the United States? 'The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power' tells you all that you need to know.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00GSHTJZQ</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=London Bridge in America: The Tall Story of a Transatlantic Crossing|author=Travis Elborough

|summary=The concept of people from overseas countries buying ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and owning old and long-established British industries and works of art death. Cercas is not newsearching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Yet one of Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the most unusual sales of book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this kind occurred in March 1968dictator. It was a time of British economic crisis (where and when have we heard that before) and The question at the ‘I’m Backing Britain’ campaign, and a time when the concept centre of heritage was unfashionable and the authorities seemed this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to attach more value to modernity than to relics of the Regency and be a hero whilst having fought for the Victorian agewrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099565765</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Born in Siberia0008294011|authortitle=Tamara Astafieva, Michael Darlow and Debbie Slater|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=I tend How to shy away from reviewing book titles, but this time it seems appropriate – here it's Lose a title that doesn't tell you the half of the story. As much as Tamara Astafieva was born in Siberia, and returned there several times, for many different reasons and with many very different outcomes, this is much more of a picture of the Soviet Union as we in Britain think of it – Moscow, a bit of Saint Petersburg, and little else. That's not a fault – and again it's not half of the story. Country: The story here is so complex, so rich with detail and incident, and itself came about in such an unusual way, that any summary of the book has its work cut out in defining its many qualities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373343</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives!: A World without World War I7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Richard Ned LebowEce Temelkuran

|summary=On 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 question ''Discuss the first page of this book, we are given a summary of events from August 2014factors which led to... '' Queen Elizabeth is hosting a reception for Prince Harry I agreed that she was right and his bride, wasn't certain whether it was a niece of the German Kaiser at Balmoral, while the governor-general of India is involved in preparations for the next Commonwealth Gamesgood or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to. I think now that I do know. This brief glimpse We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a fantasy world is followed by flawed system I can't think of a swift resumé of the twentieth centurybetter one, particularly as everything actually happened, and of changes in the world order wrought by both world wars. Chapter two tells of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie at Sarajevo in June 1914, the final catalyst which precipitated the First World War'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1137278536</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788037812|title=Hundred DaysThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Nick LloydBrian Anderson|rating=45

|summary=Nick Lloyd is Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a historiancrime remained in place for 82 years. WellBut during this time, actually he's a lecturer in ''Defence Studies'' at Kings College London restrictions on same- based at sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the Joint Services Command margins of society and Staff College studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in Shrivenhamthe UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, Wiltshireleading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670920061</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1910593508|title=Hanns and Rudolf: The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of AuschwitzApollo|author=Thomas HardingMatt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins

|summary=There have been so many books written on the subject of Egyptology, it would be hard This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to imagine that anything new could be said on the matter. However, TV presenter Moon landings and researcher Bob Brier, a self-confessed Egyptophile, has managed to approach the topic from a unique perspective passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by allowing us a glimpse of his fascinating collection of all things EgyptianMatt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins. The collection This is an eclectic mix a story we know well and because of objectsthis, including jewellery, private letters from Howard Carter, tobacco packaging, books, posters and tea-setsthe authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the blanks. In Brier’s collection, his ornate Josiah Wedgwood Egyptian set sits proudly on These shortcuts are the shelf next only downside to Barbie of the Nile and a cheap King Tut cologne bottlebook. As he puts it: If you'we all know ve ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that something can be so bad there are scenes missing and that it’s gooddialogue has been trimmed. The true collector has no shameThis is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1137278609</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1786331047|title=FredThe Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's WarImperial Family|author=Andrew DavidsonHelen Rappaport|rating=3.5

|summary=''Fred's War'' is The basic facts about the story deaths 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 Nicholas and carefree faces become gauntAlexandra, lined and battle-worn as some of which were deliberately obscured at the war progressestime for various reasons, although there is still laughter at timeshave long since been established. The simple warmth For the last few months of a roaring fire brings such obvious pleasure, that their lives in a way Russia 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 nourishmentformer Tsar and Tsarina, instead yielding only a harvest of death their children and despair. It shows men wading few remaining servants were held in water nearly to their knees or scurrying like animals in the muckincreasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. The pictures show the true horror of trench warfare To prevent them from being rescued, in a way words can not, but thankfully they show only July 1918 the lulls between battles. There are no scenes of horror as men are blown to bits. I think the men of this time revolutionary regime had too much respect them all shot and bayoneted to photograph comrades death in circumstances which, once the throes of deathnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, or horrified their relatives 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 camaraderieEurope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721811</amazonuk>

{{newreview|title=Winter|author=Adam Gopnik|rating=4|genre=Reference|summary=In this collection of five essays, each one offering a unique and fascinating perspective Move on the season of winter, Adam Gopnik takes the reader on a captivating journey, exploring history, art and society, through ''Romantic Winter'', ''Radical Winter'', ''Recuperative Winter'', ''Recreational Winter'' to [[Newest Home and ''Remembering Winter''. 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>}}Family Reviews]]