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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Thomas AsbridgeJacqueline Rose|title=The Crusades: The War for the Holy LandWomen in Dark Times|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=The word 'Crusades' has been misappropriated and often used in various other contexts over the passing years. In their original meaning they were a series The world of holy wars during the medieval era between unconscious is not the Christian and Muslim worldantagonist of political life, but its steadfast companion, fighting for dominion over the Holy Land between 1095 and 1291 as the defenders hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…'' Women in Dark Times is Jacqueline Rose's homage to courageous women throughout history, particularly women of western civilization formed expeditions travelling across the face of the known world from Europe21st, 20th and 19th centuries. Her historical and political backdrop is, thus, expansive, their sole aim being yet she navigates it with intelligence and an acknowledgment that feminism's lengthy mission is a testament to conquer its successes, and defend an isolated swathe not its failures: ''the ongoing force of territory centred on Jerusalemfeminism''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0743268601</amazonuk>1804271713
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KisteMary McCarthy|title=Sons, Servants and Statesmen: The Men in Queen Victoria's LifeMemories of a Catholic Girlhood|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=Like Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', obsessively digging into the first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary have been written about Queen Victoria, but John Van der Kiste has taken past to piece together the unusual step broken mosaic of using the men in her life to illuminate some dark corners which might other wise have remained unexplored. Of course She attributes her ''burning interest in the most famous man in her life, husband and Prince Consort Albert isnpast't 'sonto her orphanhood, servant or statesman' as promised by she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who died in the title of the book1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, but he established a trend. Victoriabeginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, often regarded as a difficult woman to pleaseMinnesota, would always have a man in where she lived under the harsh guardianship of her late father's Irish Catholic parents and her life who wouldabusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. Later, she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a greater or lesser extent, dominate herdifferent kind of upbringing.|amazonukisbn=1804271659}}{{Frontpage|isbn=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>1785633457|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew MarrB09BLBP3P8|title=The Making of Modern Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain: From Queen Victoria to V.E. DayOpposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic Seager
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=This book, Received wisdom and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about history. One such is the BBC TV series which complements itscrubbing from the popular imagination of the early days of World War II from 1939-40, must confirm Andrew Marr's status known as one of the most entertaining and compulsive historian-cum-presenters working today''Phoney War''. His previous projectWe remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, on postwar Britainwar breaking out, was hard and Churchill coming in to faultsave the day. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yet, and anyone who enjoyed that will certainly relish as Frederic Seager argues in thisbook, it was of vital significance in how the war played out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230709427</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patrick Casey and Richard I Hale3756228711|title=For College, Club & Country - A History of Clifton Rugby Football ClubCDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans Bodmer
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Clifton Rugby Football Club can proudly trace its ''The history back to the very emergence of the sport development of rugby union. Founded in September 1872, the same year that William Webb Ellis, who is reputed to have been the rebellious Rugby schoolboy who first ran with the ball, died. In reality, it is highly likely that the Webb Ellis story is something IT could fill books of a spin job on behalf of Rugby School, although it did mean that Rugby School was able to impose its rules on the game at a time when most public schools had their own rules for playing versions of the gameseveral hundred pages.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312756</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KisteJeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene|title=Jonathan Wild: Conman Fritz and CutpurseKurt
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=Born towards We start with the end 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 seventeenth century Jonathan Wild was neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to become the eighteenth century's most famous criminal, plying his trade in synagogue choir and at a rather curious fashion. He was born in Wolverhampton of parents described as ''mean but honest''vocational school. It seems likely that he first travelled Kurt has to London make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as the servant of a lawyer where he was eventually to settle, leaving his wife and child to fend for themselveslight switch. It was whilst serving a term of imprisonment in Wood Street Compter that he mixed with But this is the cream of London's criminal underclass and learned time just before the rudiments of his trade.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848682190</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bonnie Greer|title=Obama Music|rating=3|genre=History|summary=This Austrian leader is an interesting read, but unless Igoing to cave to Hitler'm missing somethings will, the focus and instead of the book seems having a little difficult national vote to graspkeep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. It's best if I start with the author's intentions Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as set out in her PrologueGermany, as did all the round-ups of Jews. It is a mixture of tales of her own life growing up on These in their turn leave the South Side, she writes, interspersed younger Kurt at home with stories his mother and observations about Obama, linking it with sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the musicUS, musicians while Fritz and music scenehis father are, past and present, including hip hop, country, classicalunknown initially to each other, packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and rock'n'rollthe stone quarry there. All of these, she notes, were heard on And us wondering how the President's Inauguration Day. To them she adds titular event for the blues, gospel, soul and jazz adult variant of the South Side, when the people began to build the great institutions and great solidarity that enabled him to become the most powerful man on the planet.all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906558248</amazonuk>024156574X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian MortimerJohn Henry Phillips|title=1415: Henry V's Year of GloryThe Search
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=The medievalArchaeology cannot be child's play, when you're scraping in fact time-honouredthe dirt looking to find what you can find, view of King Henry V as one of England's greatest heroes was propagated though often knowing there should be something there but not originated by Shakespeare, and again more recently always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some extent by Olivier's portrayal in filmspecific thing. At least one historian has called him ''This book is a case of the greatest man that ever ruled England''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079921</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|latter, as our author=Toby Lester|title=The Fourth Part promises to locate the topic of the World: The Epic Story of Historytitular search. And he really hasn's Greatest Map|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=In 2003 a map was bought t made it easy for $10 million, himself – the highest price ever paid publicly for search area is a historical documentwide one, by the Library of Congresstarget might not exist any more – oh, where and it is now on permanent public display. No ordinary map, this is sometimes described as America's birth certificateunderwater, when he cannot dive. It is Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in heroic old man's visit back to France, our author has promised to find the 16th centurylanding craft that delivered him to Normandy, and that he was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much that he was inspired secondary aim is to erect a memorial to discover moreeveryone else aboard, and this book is the resultvast majority of whom perished.Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>1472146182
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenifer RobertsB09F4CTKJR|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of PortugalFlights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyHistorical Fiction|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the richest conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and most opulent city in Europe, Maria joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married US Aero Squadron to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen be trained in 1777. A conscientious womanCanada, she had the misfortune first to be born in during attached to the 'age of reason', when church RAF and state were vying for supremacythe first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. Instinctively a supporter of the old religionBut before that can happen, with a humanitarian approach Petrol has to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine master flying the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantlynotoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steven M Gillon0578761718|title=The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours AfterInspiring History of a Special Relationship|author=Nancy Carver
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=The assassination church of President Kennedy came at a pivotal moment St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in my life and for more than forty years I've read most of what has been written about the event. It's been City of variable qualityLondon from at least 1181, but the books fed the curiosity of people entranced by the charismatic young President who died so publiclywhen it was first mentioned in records. Sadly, I'd come to the point of wondering if there original church was anything new to be said, but Stephen Gillom has looked at what happened from an unusual and largely overlooked angle – destroyed in the first twenty four hours Great Fire of Lyndon Johnson's PresidencyLondon in 1666.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>046501870X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stella Tillyard |title=A Royal Affair: George III and His Troublesome Siblings|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=King George III It was not rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the luckiest of English sovereigns. America, fire and then his sonssurvived for centuries until World War II, in when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. But that order, gave him no wasn't the end of griefits story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, and the last few years of his life stones from the church's walls were clouded by madness. It is thus often overlooked that, before these troubles arose transported to haunt this most conscientious monarchFulton, he also had a thankless task in trying to control his siblingsMissouri.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099428563</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andy Beckett |title=When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies|rating=5|genre=History|summary=Having grown up during the era and followed the major news stories in the papers as they happenedThere, I was fascinated to find everything (well, nearly everything) in the 500-page narrative that comprises this book. It was quite a rocky ride from the election grounds of Edward Heath in June 1970 through the three-day weekWestminster College, record British inflation and the IMF rescue, industrial disputes and picket battles at Saltley and Grunwick, the Gay Liberation Front and the stirrings of the green movement, the rise of Arthur Scargill, and the discovery of North Sea oil. Then there church was the survival of James Callaghan's minority administration despite the odds, rebuilt and thanks largely today serves as a memorial to his adroit handling of the situation in keeping both Tony Benn and the Lib-Lab pact on board, followed by the winter of discontent, culminating in Thatcher at No 10Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057122136X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mortimer 1784385166|title=The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval EnglandThird Reich in 100 Objects: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth CenturyMaterial History of Nazi Germany|author=Roger Moorhouse
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=What would happen if we twenty-is the first century people took a trip back in time image that comes to mind when you think of the fourteenth centuryThird Reich? 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 Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to an objective and entertaining view a concentration camp? None of one these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the most stereotypical centuries Third Reich's fascist regime in medieval historyall its iniquity. The fourteenth century has not only castles, knights, tournaments, But some objects and warsimages from that time may be less familiar to you. In this short volume, but also gave birth Roger Moorhouse has attempted to many illustrate the period of the creative minds associated with medieval England like Chaucer and the Gawain-poetThird Reich through one hundred of its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950992</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alison WeirLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=The Lady in the TowerTiananmen 1989: The Fall of Anne BoleynOur Shattered Hopes|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=Wot? More Tudors? SorryI never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, yesyou know. Come on, be honest: you love 'em, I love certainly didn'em, we all love 'em. My favourite writer t know of the weeks of popular history is adding to protests and hunger strikes from the students before the market writing for a third time about possibly history's most dramatic rise massacre and fall - that the birth of Anne Boleynthe Tank Man image, second of Henry VIIII didn's six wives. The book covers only a very short period, covering her arrest, trial and execution. She t know how the area had long been the scandal of Europe, this woman; had captured a king, unseated a queenvenue for political protest, and promoted a new religion. Her fall couldnI didn't have been swifter, harder or know more ruthless and her little neck was severed than a spit about the people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a scaffold at general browser's context for the Tower whole season of Londonprotests back in 1989. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224063197</amazonuk>1684056993
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy Borman 0648684806|title=Elizabeth's WomenClara Colby: The Hidden Story of the Virgin QueenInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=So many biographies have been written about the life and times The path of EnglandClara Dorothy Bewick's longestlife was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-lived years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and longest reigning sovereign three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that one might wonder whether there is anything new left to say about she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the household and herchildhood was glorious. However Tracy Borman has found an interesting new angle – by telling By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the story mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her life through grandparents eventually went to join the women closest to family. Clara would only know hermother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082264</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tamim Ansary 1783784350|title=Destiny DisruptedThis Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History of the World Through Islamic Eyes|author=Esther Rutter
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=I enjoyed history at school It was December and whilst we didn't always work our way through it chronologically I came, over timeEsther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to have a working knowledge of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and Romanseven her knitting did not soothe her mind. I knew about January was going to be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the rise length and breadth of Christianity and spoke knowledgeably about medieval Englandthe British Isles with occasional forays abroad, the Renaissance discovering and telling the Reformation but was perhaps less taken by the Industrial Revolution story of wool's history and all that followed. I was au fait with the east but how it was mainly from had made and changed the perspective of exploration – or even exploitationlandscape. It was an education based She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the virtues of the solid, whitefarm'' - and learned to spin, English, Christian middle classes knit and it completely ignored histories weave from the perspective of other religionsher mother and her mother's friend. This was in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586486063</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elliott J Gorn 1789017977|title=DillingerRonnie and Hilda's Wild RideRomance: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number OneTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=John Dillinger Ronnie Williams was born the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and brought up in IndianaEthel Wall. His childhood There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was no better already many years older than Ethel and no worse than most but he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while the early part of his adult life family was quite well-to be blighted by a spell -do but disaster struck in prison when he was convicted of an attack on the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a man in a botched hold-upvery different lifestyle. Hoping for leniency One thing he pleaded guilty but did inherit from his father was sentenced his need to a lengthy term of imprisonment, whilst the man be well-turned-out and this would stay with him pleaded not guilty and when convicted received a shorter sentencethroughout his life. It's easy to see where Dillinger's contempt for He joined the law was spawnedarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0195304837</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony Read 1980891117|title=The World on FireG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: 1919 and A year in the Battle with Bolshevism life of George Engleheart|author=John Webley
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryArt|summary=In 1919 the world George Engleheart was an extremely unstable place. They say history often repeats itself, and there were parallels with 1789 - but on a far greater scale. During the First World War, with the Russian revolution and the overthrow one of the Tsarist regime, one tyranny was supplanted by another which was even worse. Lenin took the new upstart socialist republic out leading portrait miniaturists of the conflictGeorgian London, accepting unbelievably harsh peace terms with a career lasting from Germany in order the 1770s to save and nurture the still fragile Bolshevik revolutionRegency era. Consolidating his power He was no easy task. Much as the people might have been glad to see the end of imperial Russia (if not the cold-blooded butchery also one of the former sovereignmost prolific, his consort and their children)painting nearly 5, they were less than enthusiastic about Bolshevism, which secured only 24% 000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of the votes in the new assemblyKing George III). Lenin dealt promptly with Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the problem by shutting the assembly downnames of each of his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844138321</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Conn Iggulden and David Iggulden1789016304|title=The Dangerous Book War and Love: A family's testament of Heroesanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=35
|genre=History
|summary=For most of us (wellMelanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, for me certainly) the word particularly in 'hero' summons an image The Diary of capes, spandex and garish primary coloursAnn Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. Conn A hundred and David Iggulden have written a book about seven thousand Jews were deported from the other kind – city during the every day heroes from historywar years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who achieve incredible things without were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the aid of superpowers. From household names like Horatio Nelson and Winston Churchilloccupation 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 lesser known peopleescalate in the way that it did, like Aphra Behn and Hereward but initial protests melted away as the Wake, organisers became more circumspect. It''The Dangerous Book of Heroes'' covers s an atrocity on a comprehensive range vast scale but made up of characters from the history tens of the British Empire. From campaigners for political change, brilliant battle strategists to daring explorers, each and every one thousands of the people in this book lived brilliant lives and changed the world foreverindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000726092X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timothy Brook 1908745819|title=Vermeer's Hat: The seventeenth century and the dawn of the global world|rating=4|genre=History|summary=If a picture paints a thousand words, then Timothy Brook provides the dictionary we can use to make sense of the vocabulary. Using five paintings by the seventeenth century Delft artist Johannes Vermeer along with a blue and white porcelain plate and the works of two of Vermeer's contemporaries, Brook demonstrates how the far flung corners of the seventeenth century world were drawn together by the ambitions of European merchants and the ability of Asia, Africa and the Americas to provided the materials to fulfil them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681200</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSurfacing|author=Pete Brown |title=Hops and Glory: One Man's Search for the Beer That Built the British EmpireKathleen Jamie|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 Solomon's Temple to the Freemasons' still doesn't cover the full scope of Michael Haag's book. Notwithstanding its relatively modest page count, ''Templars'' not only manages to place the fascinating tale of the Knights' astonishing rise and spectacular fall in a rich historical context, but also provides an entertaining account of the Templars' 'afterlife': from the Masonic lore of the title to novels, films and games to conspiracy theories. There is also a travel guide and good list of source materials for further reading.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681537</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andrew Wheatcroft |title=The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe|rating=4.5|genre=History|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 the ensuing siege a year later. Some historians have seen this as a crucial moment in the history of conflicts between the east and the west, although others consider its status as one of the defining events somewhat over-estimated. Whatever the truth of the matter, the book that tells the story 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 who dart about blowing up trains and shooting Nazis. The reality, according to Matthew Cobb's ''The Resistance'', 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 Sometimes when people suggest that you read a convincing argument that in the brief 22-day period between 17 November and 8 December 1941certain book, the actions of the various Axis powers and their Allied opponents marked the beginning of the end of a war that still had several years left to run – the turning point famously described by Churchill as they tell you ''the end of the beginningthis one has your name on it''. After Pearl HarborMostly we take them at their word, America entered the waror not, making but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a true world war - though rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was actually Hitler that declared war on Americatold why. The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, ironically – on 11 December, just after these events take placeless tethered sense of herself. ''Sealing Their Fate Older. Less tethered. That'' opens with s not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the launch natural world, of those aspects of the Japanese fleet poetic and ends with lyrical that same fleet's attack are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on Pearl Harbor, but it's not specifically about Japan and America.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847371310</amazonuk> It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard D Ryder0857058320|title=Nelson, Hitler Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and DianaAnne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=William Blades, a Victorian printer and bibliographer, ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is best remembered as the biographer of William Caxton. He also wrote this very concise work on the threats to books from such enemies as fire, water, gas and heat, dust and neglect, and ignorance and bigotry. In the process he slips in several interesting historical facts. The chapter on fire notes the vast destruction of books in the Great Fire of London in 1666, as well as in the Gordon Riots just over a century later, and closer journey to his own time, uncover the destruction of a priceless law library at Strasbourg, ravaged by the shells of the German army during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904799361</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul R Spiring (Editor) |title=The World of Vanity Fair - Bertram Fletcher Robinson|rating=5|genre=Biography |summary=Every now and then, you comes across a really sumptuous book, where just turning 's lost ancestor's life and looking at the pages takes you into another worlddeath. Such Cercas is searching for the case with this one. ''Vanity Fair'' was a gentler Victorian forerunner of ''Private Eye'meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. SubtitledManuel Mena, Cercas''A Weekly'' ''Show of Politicalgreat uncle, Social, and Literary Wares'', it appeared between 1868 and 1914. Like is the more successful, longer-lasting ''Punch'', it began with radical aspirations, intending ''to expose what'' [figure who looms large over the editor] ''perceived to be the'' ''vanities of the elite social classes''book. However its satire was gently humorous rather than malicious, and almost everybody who was portrayed in its pages was flattered.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312535</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Phil Robins |title=Can I Come Home, Please?|rating=4.5|genre=ChildrenHe died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's Non-Fiction |summary=Using the sound archives of the Imperial War Museum and other primary sources, forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this affecting volume gives an overview of the progress of Nazism as seen through the eyes of children in different parts of Europedictator. The simplicity question at the centre of the language used in the transcribed interviews means this book is whether it is accessible possible for his great uncle to children from Y6, yet remains useful to GCSE students as be a succinct, linear timeline of WW2hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407109030</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Miller0008294011|title=St Peter's (Wonders of the World)How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=It is huge: not only A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in space but in time and structure; years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question ''Discuss the 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 that I do know. We are in the non-material sphere of the complex interplay danger of meanings, symbols losing democracy and significances. Millerwhilst it's booka flawed system I can't think of a better one, intentionally combining cultural and political history, art criticism and travel writing, manages to reflect that hugeness without weighting particularly as the reader down with too much austere detail'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861979088</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Mullen and James Munson1788037812|title=The Smell Fraternity of the ContinentEstranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=When Frances Trollope landed at Calais Originally passed in 1885, the 1830s, she overheard law that had made homosexual relations a conversation between two travellerscrime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, the younger commenting restrictions on the dreadful smell, the older and more experienced telling him it was ''the smell of'' ''the continent''same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230741908</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jennifer Worth|title=Farewell To The East End|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=I am interested in social history Between 1891 and1908, as a mother, three books on the job nature of midwives fascinates mehomosexuality appeared. Combining these They were written by two subjectshomosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, ''Farewell to as well as the East End'' is a riveting readheterosexual Havelock Ellis. The author Jennifer Worth was a midwife and nurse, working with Exploring the nuns at Nonnatus House in the East End margins of London society and this volume (her third book studying homosexuality was common on this topic) covers the 1950s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297844652</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kate Williams|title=Becoming Queen|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=It's a story which has been told by many authors during the last century. The Victorian age, or at any rate the woman who gave her name to the eraEuropean Continent, came but barely talked about largely if not wholly because of a crisis of sorts among King George III's family. By in the time his seven surviving sons reached middle ageUK, they had managed to produce one legitimate child between them, namely Princess Charlotte. Her unexpected death, and so the need for at least some if not all publications of the others to do their dynastic duty and produce an heir or two, resulted in an undignified mass scramble these men were hugely significant – contributing to the altar. Edwardscientific understanding of homosexuality, Duke of Kent won the lottery. It was he and his wife, a widow with two small children by her first marriage, whose daughter Victoria became beginning the saviour of the royal succession.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099451824</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Martyn Downer|title=The Queen's Knight|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The title sounds more indicative of a novel by [[:Category:Dorothy Dunnett|Dorothy Dunnett]] or Jean Plaidy than a biography. Then a brief prologue starts the story at the very end, when Queen Victoria receives the unexpected news of the death of Sir Howard Elphinstone. An equally short first chapter gives us a glimpse of the man some thirty years earlier in the thick of battle at the Crimea. Only after that do we 'reach' his birth in 1829. Sometimes rules are meant to be broken, struggle for recognition and it's a good way of introducing this very interesting life. As the husband of his subject's great-great-granddaughterequality, the author is well qualified leading to write it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>055215508X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ruth Maier, Jamie Bulloch (Translator) and Jan Erik Vold (Editor)|title=Ruth Maier's Diary: A Young Girl'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 milestone legalisation 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 twentysame-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 sex relationships in Lillestrom1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552141</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katherine Ashenburg1910593508|title=Clean: An Unsanitised History of WashingApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Although maybe not This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the first book you'd be drawn to – a history of personal hygiene perhaps doesn't seem that appealing – but if you had overlooked this excellent book, you would have missed out on an enjoyable Moon landings and informative bookthe passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, full of fascinating facts Chris Baker and Mike Collins. This is a jolly good read. Attitudes towards story we know well and rituals because of cleanliness have certainly changed over the last two thousand years and this book chronicles many of them, largely the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in Europe and the USblanks. These shortcuts are the only downside to the book. Cultural differences If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with regard to cleanliness the slight feeling that there are scenes missing and body odour (and yes, Napoleon and Josephine do get that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a mention here, although it transpires graphic novel that they both took daily baths) are discussed at length, from the Greeks could easily have been three times as long and Romans to the present daystill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681014</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Hatzfeld1786331047|title=The Strategy Of AntelopesRace to Save the Romanovs: Rwanda After The Truth Behind the GenocideSecret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family|author=Helen Rappaport
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=''The Decline basic facts about the deaths of Nicholas and Fall Alexandra, some of which were deliberately obscured at the Roman Empire'' is the traditional starting point time for those studying various reasons, have long since been established. For the demise last few months of Rome. Gibbon's masterwork suggests that the great empire collapsed their lives in large part due to violent invasions from barbarians such as Russia the Visigothsformer Tsar and Tsarina, Vandals their children and other non-Romans. In ''The Ruin of the Roman Empire'' classical scholar James J. O'Donnell, few remaining servants were held in line with much modern revisionist thinkingincreasingly squalid, turns this argument on it headhumiliating captivity. Rather than To prevent them from being a destructive influencerescued, in July 1918 the barbarian kings within the empire tried revolutionary regime had them all shot and bayoneted to retain death in circumstances which, once the good things about Roman rule. The real blame for the fall of Rome can news was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in fact be attributed to Emperor JustinianEurope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861979355</amazonuk>
}}
