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[[Category:History|*]]
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Toby LesterEdward W Said|title=The Fourth Part Representations of the World: The Epic Story of History's Greatest MapIntellectual
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=In 2003 a map was bought for $10 million, Edward Said's ''Representations of the highest price ever paid publicly for Intellectual'' is less a historical document, by the Library strict theory of Congress, where it is now on permanent public display. No ordinary map, this is sometimes described as America's birth certificatewhat intellectuals are and more a passionate argument for what they should be. It is Said clearly rejects the sole survivor comfortable image of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th century, and was discovered by accident in some archives in intellectual as a German castle in 1901detached expert speaking only to other specialists. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much that Instead, he was inspired to discover moreinsists on the intellectual as a public figure, often awkward, abrasive, and this book unpopular, who speaks truth to power even when it is the resultinconvenient or risky.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>1804272248
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenifer RobertsJacqueline Rose|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of PortugalWomen in Dark Times|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time ''The world of the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become unconscious is not the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedroantagonist of political life, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them)its steadfast companion, and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born in during the hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stella Tillyard Mary McCarthy|title=A Royal Affair: George III and His Troublesome SiblingsMemories of a Catholic Girlhood
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=King George III was not Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', obsessively digging into the past to piece together the luckiest broken mosaic of English sovereignsher life. AmericaShe attributes her ''burning interest in the past'' to her orphanhood, and then his sonsas she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who died in the 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in that orderMinneapolis, gave him no end of griefMinnesota, and where she lived under the last few years harsh guardianship of his life were clouded by madnessher late father's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. It is thus often overlooked thatLater, before these troubles arose she moved to Seattle to haunt this most conscientious monarch, he also had live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a thankless task in trying to control his siblingsdifferent kind of upbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099428563</amazonuk>1804271659
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy Beckett 1785633457|title=When the Lights Went OutCharging Around: Britain in Exploring the SeventiesEdges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=Having grown up during the era and followed the major news stories in the papers as they happened, I was fascinated to find everything (well, nearly everything) in the 500-page narrative that comprises this book. It was quite Clive Wilkinson has a rocky ride from the election history of Edward Heath in June 1970 through the three-day week, record British inflation and the IMF rescue, industrial disputes and picket battles at Saltley and Grunwick, the Gay Liberation Front and travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the stirrings idea of exploring the green movement, the rise edges of Arthur Scargill, and the discovery of North Sea oilEngland in an electric car was not totally outrageous. Then there was the survival of James Callaghan's minority administration despite the oddsIn fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and thanks largely to his adroit handling of the situation in keeping both Tony Benn and the Lib-Lab pact on boardwife, followed by the winter of discontentJoan, culminating in Thatcher at No 10.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057122136X</amazonuk>shouldn't it?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mortimer B09BLBP3P8|title=The Time TravellerNeville Chamberlain's Guide to Medieval EnglandWar: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century|rating=5|genre=History|summary=What would happen if we twenty-first century people took a trip back in time to the fourteenth century? It would be very like visiting another country. Even our landscape would be greatly changed. Ian Mortimer takes this approach and, applying his theory of living history, treats his readers to an objective and entertaining view of one of the most stereotypical centuries in medieval history. The fourteenth century has not only castles, knights, tournaments, and warsHow Great Britain Opposed Hitler, but also gave birth to many of the creative minds associated with medieval England like Chaucer and the Gawain1939-poet.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950992</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1940|author=Alison Weir|title=The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn|rating=5|genre=History|summary=Wot? More Tudors? Sorry, yes. Come on, be honest: you love 'em, I love 'em, we all love 'em. My favourite writer of popular history is adding to the market writing for a third time about possibly history's most dramatic rise and fall - that of Anne Boleyn, second of Henry VIII's six wives. The book covers only a very short period, covering her arrest, trial and execution. She had been the scandal of Europe, this woman; had captured a king, unseated a queen, and promoted a new religion. Her fall couldn't have been swifter, harder or more ruthless and her little neck was severed on a scaffold at the Tower of London. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224063197</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tracy Borman |title=Elizabeth's Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin QueenFrederic Seager
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=I enjoyed history at school Received wisdom and whilst we didn't always work our way through it chronologically I came, over time, simplified narrative often lead to have a working knowledge of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. I knew misconceptions about the rise of Christianity and spoke knowledgeably about medieval England, the Renaissance and the Reformation but was perhaps less taken by the Industrial Revolution and all that followedhistory. I was au fait with One such is the east but it was mainly scrubbing from the perspective popular imagination of exploration – or even exploitation. It was an education based on the virtues early days of World War II from 1939-40, known as the solid''Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, war breaking out, whiteand Churchill coming in to save the day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, Englishas Frederic Seager argues in this book, Christian middle classes and it completely ignored histories from was of vital significance in how the perspective of other religionswar played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586486063</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elliott J Gorn 3756228711|title=Dillinger's Wild RideCDC: The Year That Made Americahappy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena's Public Enemy Number One|author=Hans Bodmer
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=John Dillinger was born and brought up in Indiana. His childhood was no better and no worse than most but ''The history of the early part development of his adult life was to be blighted by a spell in prison when he was convicted IT could fill books of an attack on a man in a botched hold-upseveral hundred pages. Hoping for leniency he pleaded guilty but was sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment, whilst the man with him pleaded not guilty and when convicted received a shorter sentence. It's easy to see where Dillinger's contempt for the law was spawned.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0195304837</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Timothy Brook Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Vermeer's Hat: The seventeenth century Fritz and the dawn of the global worldKurt
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=If a picture paints a thousand wordsWe start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, then Timothy Brook provides helping the dictionary we can use neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to make sense of sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the vocabularySabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. Using five paintings by But this is the seventeenth century Delft artist Johannes Vermeer along with a blue and white porcelain plate and time just before the works of two of VermeerAustrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's contemporarieswill, Brook demonstrates how the far flung corners and instead of having a national vote to keep the seventeenth century world were drawn together by Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the ambitions round-ups of European merchants Jews. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the ability of AsiaUS, Africa while Fritz and his father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the Americas same train to provided Buchenwald and the materials to fulfil themstone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846681200</amazonuk>024156574X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pete Brown John Henry Phillips|title=Hops and Glory: One Man's The Search for the Beer That Built the British Empire|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Being a beer writer can't be the easiest route to respect in journalism. But with this book Pete Brown has done much to counter the sceptical, even dismissive, attitudes which must surround his trade and its subject matter. He has attempted to combine a history of British imperialism and the brewing industry with the comic 'quest' genre of travel writing. Against all the odds, he has largely succeeded.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230706355</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Haag |title=The Templars: History and Myth: From Solomon's Temple to the Freemasons|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Despite being very descriptive, the title of 'The Templars: History and Myth: From SolomonArchaeology cannot be child's Temple to the Freemasonsplay, when you' still doesn't cover re scraping in the full scope 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 Michael Haag's book. Notwithstanding its relatively modest page countthe latter, ''Templars'' not only manages as our author promises to place locate the fascinating tale topic of the Knightstitular search. And he really hasn' astonishing rise and spectacular fall in t made it easy for himself – the search area is a rich historical contextwide one, but also provides an entertaining account of the Templarstarget might not exist any more – oh, and it' s underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the heroic old man'afterlife': from s visit back to France, our author has promised to find the Masonic lore of the title landing craft that delivered him to novelsNormandy, films and games that he was lucky to conspiracy theoriessurvive when it sank from beneath him. There The secondary aim is also to erect a travel guide and good list memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of source materials for further readingwhom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846681537</amazonuk>1472146182
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Wheatcroft B09F4CTKJR|title=The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle Flights for EuropeFreedom|author= Steven Burgauer
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryHistorical Fiction|summary=The battle for Europe which Andrew Wheatcroft describes in such vivid detail is the culmination of a power struggle between the Ottoman empire, based in Constantinople, and the Habsburg domain in Vienna, which had lasted for around 250 years prior to the final solution. These two centuries and more of struggle between them led to the decision by the sultan of Turkey, hungry for more territory, and his ministers in 1682 to lead their army against the Habsburgs at Vienna with the ultimate objective of capturing the city, and It's the ensuing siege a year later. Some historians have seen this as a crucial moment in the history stages of conflicts between the east World War I and the west, although others consider its status as one of United States has just entered the defining events somewhat over-estimatedconflict. Whatever the truth of the matter, the book that tells the story Petrol Petronus is a vivid chronicle of war in the 17th century.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844137414</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matthew Cobb |title=The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis |rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=''Allo, Allo'', ''The Secret Army'' and numerous films have painted a fairly romantic picture of the resistance — beret-wearing men and women young American who dart about blowing has signed up trains and shooting Nazisjoined the 17 Aero Squadron. The reality, according to Matthew Cobb's ''The Resistance'', This company was somewhat different. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737123X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Downing |title=Sealing Their Fate: 22 Days That Decided the Second World War|rating=4|genre=History|summary=In this detailed volume, David Downing makes a convincing argument that first US Aero Squadron to be trained in the brief 22-day period between 17 November and 8 December 1941Canada, the actions of first to be attached to the various Axis powers RAF and their Allied opponents marked the beginning of first to be sent into the end of a war that still had several years left skies to run – fight the turning point famously described by Churchill as ''the end of the beginning''Germans in active combat. After Pearl Harbor, America entered the war, making it a true world war - though it was actually Hitler But before that declared war on Americacan happen, ironically – on 11 December, just after these events take place. ''Sealing Their Fate'' opens with Petrol has to master flying the launch of the Japanese fleet and ends with that same fleet's attack on Pearl Harbor, notoriously difficult but it's not specifically about Japan and Americamajestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847371310</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Richard D Ryder|title=Nelson, Hitler and Diana|rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary=Was Horatio Nelson, a navy officer of great renown, forever thrusting himself into the limelight, doing it because his mother passed away when he was nine? Was Hitler overly affected by his father dying in a time of paternal disapproval, and a kind of Oedipal reaction to being the man in the house making him suffer when she herself died? And can Diana, Princess of Wales' parents' divorce lead to a claim she was a sufferer of borderline personality disorder?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845401662</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Blades, Randolph G. Adams, Bagher Bachchha (Editor) 0578761718|title=Enemies The Inspiring History of Booksa Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=William Blades, a Victorian printer and bibliographer, is best remembered as The church of St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the biographer City of William Caxton. He also wrote this very concise work on the threats to books London from such enemies as fireat least 1181, water, gas and heat, dust and neglect, and ignorance and bigotry. In the process he slips when it was first mentioned in several interesting historical factsrecords. Sadly, The chapter on fire notes the vast destruction of books original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, as well as . It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the Gordon Riots just over a century later, fire and closer to his own timethen survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the destruction Blitz. But that wasn't the end of its story: after a priceless law library at Strasbourgphenomenal fundraising effort, ravaged by the shells of stones from the German army during church's walls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, in the Franco-Prussian war grounds of 1870Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904799361</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul R Spiring (Editor) 1784385166|title=The World Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Vanity Fair - Bertram Fletcher RobinsonNazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse
|rating=5
|genre=Biography History|summary=Every now and then, you What is the first image that comes across a really sumptuous book, where just turning and looking at the pages takes to mind when you into another world. Such is think of the case with this one. ''Vanity Fair'' was Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a gentler Victorian forerunner concentration camp? None of ''Private Eye''. Subtitled, ''A Weekly'' ''Show these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of Political, Social, and Literary Wares'', it appeared between 1868 and 1914. Like the more successful, longer-lasting Third Reich''Punch'', it began with radical aspirations, intending ''to expose what'' [the editor] ''perceived to be the'' ''vanities of the elite social classes''. However its satire was gently humorous rather than malicious, and almost everybody who was portrayed s fascist regime in all its pages was flatterediniquity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312535</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Phil Robins |title=Can I Come Home, Please?|rating=4But some objects and images from that time may be less familiar to you.5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction |summary=Using the sound archives of the Imperial War Museum and other primary sources, In this affecting short volume gives an overview , Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the progress of Nazism as seen Third Reich through the eyes one hundred of children in different parts of Europe. The simplicity of the language used in the transcribed interviews means it is accessible to children from Y6, yet remains useful to GCSE students as a succinct, linear timeline of WW2its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407109030</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Keith MillerLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=St Peter's (Wonders of the World)Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=It is huge: not only I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in space but in time the second half of their teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and structure; hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and in the non-material sphere birth of the complex interplay of meaningsTank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, symbols and significancesI didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. Miller This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's book, intentionally combining cultural and political history, art criticism and travel writing, manages to reflect that hugeness without weighting context for the reader down with too much austere detailwhole season of protests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1861979088</amazonuk>1684056993
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Mullen and James Munson0648684806|title=Clara Colby: The Smell of the Continent|rating=5|genre=History|summary=When Frances Trollope landed at Calais in the 1830s, she overheard a conversation between two travellers, the younger commenting on the dreadful smell, the older and more experienced telling him it was ''the smell of'' ''the continent''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230741908</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewInternational Suffragist|author=Jennifer Worth|title=Farewell To The East EndJohn Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=The title sounds more indicative path of a novel by [[:Category:Clara Dorothy Dunnett|Dorothy Dunnett]] or Jean Plaidy than a biographyBewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. Then a brief prologue starts At the story at the very endtime she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, when Queen Victoria receives the unexpected news of the death of Sir Howard Elphinstoneshe wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. An equally short first chapter gives us Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a glimpse good education, both in and out of school. She was the man some thirty years earlier only child in the thick of battle at the Crimeahousehold and her childhood was glorious. Only after that do we 'reach' his birth By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in 1829the mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Sometimes rules are meant to be brokenClara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and it's a good way of introducing this very interesting lifedied in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the husband of his subject's great-great-granddaughtereldest girl, the author is well qualified to write ita heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>055215508X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ruth Maier, Jamie Bulloch (Translator) and Jan Erik Vold (Editor)1783784350|title=Ruth Maier's DiaryThis Golden Fleece: A Young GirlJourney Through Britain's Life Under Nazism|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=I was looking forward to reading Ruth Maier's Diary as I am interested in the history surrounding World War Two and its victims and survivors. I am especially fascinated by social history and how the lives of ordinary people were affected by events beyond therir control. Ruth was born in 1920 and died on arrival in Auschwitz in 1942, aged only twenty-two. She was born in Austria and lived there with her parents and sister, Judith. But in 1939, life there was becoming much harder for Jews, so Judith was sent to England and Ruth to Norway, where she lived with the Strom family in Lillestrom.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552141</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewKnitted History|author=Katherine Ashenburg|title=Clean: An Unsanitised History of WashingEsther Rutter
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Although maybe not the first book youIt 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 drawn to – a history of personal hygiene perhaps doesn't seem time for making changes and she decided that appealing – but if you had overlooked this excellent book, you she would have missed out on an enjoyable and informative book, full of fascinating facts and a jolly good read. Attitudes towards and rituals of cleanliness have certainly changed over travel the last two thousand years length and this book chronicles many breadth of them, largely in Europe and the US. Cultural differences British Isles with regard to cleanliness and body odour (and yes, Napoleon and Josephine do get a mention hereoccasional forays abroad, although it transpires that they both took daily baths) are discussed at length, from the Greeks discovering and Romans to telling the present day.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681014</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jean Hatzfeld|title=The Strategy Of Antelopes: Rwanda After the Genocide|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=story of wool''Life offers me smiles, s history and I owe how it my gratitude for not having abandoned me in had made and changed the marsheslandscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - ' ''I've known a free-range child on the defilement of a bestial existence.farm'' ''Who's going - and learned to say that word, forgiveness? It's outside of human nature.'' So say some of the survivors of the Rwandan genocide of 1994spin, when 800,000 Tutsis were murdered by their fellow Hutu citizens. Jean Hatzfeld talked to both Tutsis knit and Hutus then, publishing two award-winning books. In The Strategy of Antelopes, he returns to Rwanda to talk to the same people weave from her mother and explore life after genocide. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686865</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Iain McCalman|title=Darwinher mother's Armada: Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle for the Theory of Evolution|rating=3friend.5|genre=Biography|summary=A look at Darwin's journey on The Beagle, as well as journeys by Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley and Alfred Wallace. Darwin's Armada provides a broad overview that strikes a different tone to other books This was in a crowded market. Casual readers who usually steer clear of non-fiction will enjoy ither blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737266X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Thomas Robisheaux1789017977|title=The Last Witch of LangenburgRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Murder in Towards a German VillageNew Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=In rural Germany, a long long time ago… A woman passes through Ronnie Williams was the village, handing out good cheer son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and cakesEthel Wall. One family dismiss the foodThere'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 even their dog is seen to avoid ithe might well have shaved a few years off his age. She visits For a second while the family, was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and urges Anna, five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a young new mother, still convalescing as is the norm, to try one of the cakesvery different lifestyle. Anna does. But the friends by her bedside seem One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to think be well-turned-out and this might not be a good ideawould stay with him throughout his life. They may be correct, as before He joined the night is out she is deadarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393065510</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Doris Kearns Goodwin1980891117|title=Team G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of RivalsGeorge Engleheart|author=John Webley
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyArt|summary=This hefty tomeGeorge Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the cover tells us, is '1770s to the book that inspired Barack Obama'Regency era. For what it's worth, Obama's name appears no less than nine times on He was also one of the cover and spinemost prolific, while Lincoln's appears only sixpainting nearly 5, and 000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of the author a mere twoeach of his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043725</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James J O'Donnell1789016304|title=The Ruin War and Love: A family's testament of the Roman Empireanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=45
|genre=History
|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 Decline and Fall Diary of the Roman EmpireAnn Frank'' is the traditional starting point for those studying the demise of Rome. Gibbonbut then realised that her own family's masterwork suggests that stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the great empire collapsed in large part due to violent invasions from barbarians such as city during the Visigothswar years, Vandals but only five thousand survived and other non-Romans. In ''The Ruin of the Roman Empire'' classical scholar James J. O'Donnell, Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in line a country with much modern revisionist thinking, turns this argument on it headliberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Rather than being a destructive influence, Most people believed that the barbarian kings within occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the empire tried to retain Germans might reach the good things about Roman rule. The real blame for city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the fall of Rome can Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in fact be attributed to Emperor Justinian.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861979355</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Patrick Wright|title=A Journey Through Ruins: The Last Days of London |rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=My good mood evaporated when Suethe way that it did, my Bookbag partner, asked me if I'd read and review A Journey Through Ruinsbut initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. She was right to ask because Thatcher It's Britain is certainly an area atrocity on a vast scale but made up of interest to me. The thing is, times are depressing enough. Margaret Hilda's neo-liberal legacy is crashing around us. Jobless queues are lengthening. Roofs are disappearing from over people's heads. The rampant cronyism and venal nature tens of thousands of our economic and political elites are slowly exposing themselves in ways likely to send my blood pressure soaringindividual tragedies. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0199541949</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Grann1908745819|title=The Lost City of Z: A Legendary British Explorer's Deadly Quest to Uncover the Secrets of the AmazonSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Sometimes 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'For King and Country – Voices from s a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the First World Warauthor considering '' is an anthology older, less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of writings edited by Brian MacArthurwhere I am. It features around 450 pages Add to that my love of journalsthe natural world, poemsof those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, articles and memories substance most of those involved in WWI. These factual accounts cover all kinds of styles, lengths and subject matterabout connection. Of course, but each one is hopefully able this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to give the reader a real taste of a time most of us are too young me eventually. I am pleased to remember first-handhave it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349120293</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nechama Tec0857058320|title=Defiance|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=In this thoroughly researched history, Nechama Tec challenges the notion that European Jews went passively to their deaths during WW2. Instead, she presents us with a history of the activities of the Bielski brothers, headed by Lord Of All the charismatic Tuvia Bielski, which resulted in the saving of around 1,200 Jews who spent the latter part of WW2 hidden in nomadic villages in the forests of western Belorussia. No Jew was turned away by the Bielskis – the camp worked together to provide for the sick, elderly and children. Through mutual cooperation, great bravery and huge physical effort, these Polish Jews survived, turning notions of Jewish passivity on their head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0195385233</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDead|author=Thomas Buergenthal |title=A Lucky Child|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=I have read a lot of books on the Holocaust and many survivors' tales, as well as biographies Javier Cercas and memoirs of those who didn't survive – most famously, ''The Diary of Anne Frank''. So I was very interested to read A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal, who was only ten years old when he was incarcerated in Auschwitz in August 1944.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681782</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Quentin Letts |title=50 People Who Buggered Up BritainMcLean (translator)|rating=3.54
|genre=History
|summary=In ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a rather less permissive age, 20 or 30 years ago, I suspect that journey to uncover the author might have been at 's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the top of some peoplemeaning behind his great uncle's list of culprits for using that naughty b-worddeath in the Spanish Civil War. Good griefManuel Mena, manCercas' great uncle, you canis the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco't possibly have that in 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 great uncle to be a book title, what!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845298551</amazonuk>hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicola Sly 0008294011|title=Dorset Murders (True Crime History)How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Having examined A little while ago a number of true crime cases from Bristol friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in her [[Bristol Murders years to come would be discussed by Nicola Sly|last book]], A level history students when faced with the question ''Discuss the author factors which led to...'' I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to. I think now does the same for largely rural yet not always idyllic Dorsetthat I do know. Twenty two murders, committed between 1818 We are in danger of losing democracy and 1946whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, come under particularly as the microscope in these pages'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750951079</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Desmond and James Moore 1788037812|title=Darwin's Sacred CauseThe Fraternity of the Estranged: RaceThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=Popular ScienceHistory|summary=This probably won't be Originally passed in 1885, the only time you are told through 2009 law that it would have been Charles Darwin's 200th birthday had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this yeartime, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and that it is 150 years since ''On The Origin 1908, three books on the nature of Species'' first homosexuality appeared. This book however declares that second anniversary to be slightly They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of less importancesociety and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, when you factor but barely talked about in the biggest section UK, so the publications of his evolutionary thinking Darwin left out these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of that book – that homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of human evolutionsame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846140358</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stefan Aust1910593508|title=The Baader-Meinhof ComplexApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=There are not that many non-fiction books in translation concerning vaguely-remembered foreign terrorist gangs that become eminently faithfulThis incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the Moon landings and the passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, successful Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a story we know well and dramatic cinema filmsbecause of this, for the simple reason authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that it would be impossible we can fill in the blanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to make such movies from the great majority book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of such booksa film you will be familiar with the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. Here, though, it comes across This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as seeming almost easylong and still felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847920454</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adam Roberts1786331047|title=The Wonga CoupRace to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=The chances are that you've never heard basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra, some of Macias Nguema. You probably don't know his nephewwhich were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, Obiang Nguema eitherhave long since been established. They're certainly up there For the last few months of their lives in Russia the Premier League of killing former Tsar and disappearanceTsarina, alongside the likes of Pol Pot their children and modern day tyrants like Robert Mugabefew remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, humiliating captivity. The fact that the Nguemas are dictators To prevent them from being rescued, in July 1918 the tiny west African state of Equatorial Guinea meant they largely slipped off revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the radar of western consciousnessnews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682347</amazonuk>
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