Newest History Reviews
History
Nazi Millionaires: The Allied Search for Hidden SS Gold by Kenneth D Alford and Theodore P Savas
We are all doubtless aware of the six million or so dead at the hands of the Nazis, both through death camps and death squads. We are all probably conscious that before they were taken to the forests to be shot, or to the train station, never to be seen again, the Jewish and other communities captured in the Holocaust were ransacked for everything they had. It started early, of course, with the denial of rights for Jewish people to own businesses, then houses, paintings, other valuables, cash - and in the end their own gold dental fillings. The story of what happened to everything is as complex as retelling the ends of six million people, but this book opens up several windows on to those stories, through the more notable examples. Full review...
Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Our Times by Sarah Bradford
As a biographer who has previously written substantial biographies of the Queen (published in 1996), of her father George VI, and her daughter-in-law Diana, Sarah Bradford needs little introduction. At around 260 pages of text, this is barely half the length of her other titles, and probably aimed more at the general reader with an eye on the Diamond Jubilee market. Full review...
Signing Their Rights Away by Denise Kiernan
Many Americans believe that the Declaration of Independence is the cornerstone of the American democracy, the fountain-head of the American Way of Life and the American Dream. The 4th of July is the national holiday and often thought to be the single most important date in American history. Full review...
Da Vinci's Ghost: The untold story of Vitruvian Man by Toby Lester
As the number of popular non-fiction titles grows, the authors on the hunt for new-book material often use a concept approach, trying to come up with an USP for a new title. This uniqueness is often achieved by adopting an obscure subject, or an unusual perspective from which to view a popular theme. Full review...
Safe As Houses? A Historical Analysis of Property Prices by Neil Monnery
Neil Monnery was asked to become a trustee of a local charity with most of its assets in local residential property. Over the years this had yielded good results and the charity was concerned as to whether or not they should continue on the same basis or diversify and Monnery said that he would look into this. That discussion was the genesis for this book as he began to research the history of house prices – in the UK and elsewhere – for as far back as he could go to establish whether or not house were, well, as safe as houses. Full review...
Shadow of the Titanic by Andrew Wilson
Lesson one in writing non-fiction articles and journalism seems to be to find out what is topical. April 2012 is the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic, and there are going to be hoards of people finding it topical to celebrate that. Lesson two seems to be to find your own unique angle on the story. Wilson approaches the Titanic disaster by sinking her at the end of chapter one, for he looks more at the lives of the people on board, and how they took the calamity and dealt with it. Full review...
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An intimate history of the first world war by Peter Englund
In simple terms the First World War, like most (if not all) conflicts has come down to us largely as a four-year sequence of events, an acknowledgement of defeat by one side, and a peace agreement. Yet there are many different ways of telling its history, and as Englund tells us in his preface, this is not a book about what it was, but about what it was like. Though a series of snapshots in words, he shows us various stages of the conflict and its effect on people. His emphasis is not so much events and processes, but more the feelings, impressions, experiences and moods of individuals caught up in the period. Full review...
Machiavelli: A Life Beyond Ideology by Paul Oppenheimer
Machiavelli, 'the first philosopher to define politics as treachery', has probably been better known as an adjective, Machiavellian being a synonym for duplicity in statecraft, than as a historical person. Interestingly, the term 'Machiavel' became common in English usage as an adjective and noun around 1570, although none of his works were translated into the language for another seventy years or so after that. Full review...
A History of English Food by Clarissa Dickson Wright
Writing a history of English food, and to some extent drink, must be a daunting task, but as an experienced TV presenter (as one of the Two Fat Ladies with the late Jennifer Paterson) and as one who was born in the post-war rationing world in 1947, Clarissa Dickson Wright is well placed to do so. Full review...
MetaMAUS by Art Spiegelman
Before the Holocaust was turned into a child-like near-fable for all, and before it was the focus of superb history books such as this, it became a family saga of a father relating his experiences to a son, who then drew it all - featuring animals not humans - Maus. To celebrate the twenty-five years since then, we have this brilliant look back at the creation of an equally brilliant volume. Full review...
Philip Ardagh's Book of Kings, Queens, Emperors and Rotten Wart-Nosed Commoners by Philip Ardagh
If you deem a good children's historical trivia book to be one that tells you, the adult, something they didn't know about historical trivia, then this is a good example. I didn't know George V broke his pelvis when his horse fell on him, startled by some post-WWI huzzahs. I didn't know Charles VI of France nearly got torched in some drunken bacchanal. The length of time Charlemagne sat on a throne (over 400 whole years (even if he wasn't wholly whole all that time)) was news to me, as was the raffle that was held (more or less) for being the unknown soldier. Therefore this is a good book for children and the adults willing to instill some historical trivia into them. Full review...
Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder
The first chapter is enough. I don't mean the preface, or introduction, that mean you start reading chapter one about an hour in, but chapter one itself, detailing as it does the way Stalin blatantly enforced collectivization on Ukraine's farms, thus killing off millions of local civilians. The seed stock ended up being taken away as part of the grain quota to feed the rest of the Soviet Union, and hardly anybody failed to go without at some point as a result. The first chapter here, then, is more than enough in telling us what we didn't know, explaining perfectly lucidly yet academically how and why what happened happened, and at times of quite gruesome anecdote and contemporary reportage, churning our stomachs and making us have second thoughts about reading on. Full review...
Empire: What Ruling the World Did to the British by Jeremy Paxman
In the 21st century, the British Empire may be an anachronism, something for which hand-wringing politicians and church leaders may be ever ready to apologise. Many of us have grown up just as the last imperial remnants were crumbling away. Yet its legacy is everywhere, and for better or worse will always be part of the very fabric of Britain. As Jeremy Paxman demonstrates in this excellent overview, published as a curtain-raiser to his series on the subject, it is never very far away from us. After a period of trying to distance ourselves from it, we seem to be on the verge of coming to terms with the simple truth that it was not so bad as it has sometimes been painted. Moreover, it should be remembered that even if Britain emerged from the Second World War battered and broke, it still possessed sufficient imperial presence to become one of the Permanent Five on the United Nations Security Council. Full review...
The Glorious First of June: Fleet Battle in the Reign of Terror by Sam Willis
To be frank, I was not expecting a lot from this account of a famous maritime battle. Marine warfare histories can be rather dull, with lists of ships and mind-numbing detail that may appeal if you have an intimate knowledge of a warship's anatomy, but quite deathly for the rest of us. But I was gripped from the first page to the last by this really insightful account not just of the battle but of the whole political and historical events which inspired it. Full review...
A History of England in 100 Places: From Stonehenge to the Gherkin by John Julius Norwich
There are many different ways of telling the history of England (indeed just England, not Wales and Scotland, as the author makes clear). This takes a very simple and very effective approach to the matter, by focusing on a hundred specific places which somehow illustrate the nation's progress from prehistoric times to today, in chronological order. Full review...
The Sun King by Nancy Mitford
Nancy Mitford assumes that you'll need no introduction to Louis XIV, who ascended the throne when he was four years old and reigned for well over seventy two years. To put him in context his reign began before Charles I was executed in Whitehall, lasted through the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth, the reigns of Charles I, James II, William III and into the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne. He bridged the gap between the middle ages and the early modern era. Full review...
The Friar of Carcassonne: Revolt Against the Inquisition in the Last Days of the Cathars by Stephen O'Shea
It starts with a painting. The painting isn't the point: the subject is. In the Autumn of 1319 a Franciscan Friar stands before his accusers. Entitled L'Agitateur du Languedoc the artwork portrays the trial of Bernard Délicieux, the eponymous Friar of Carcassonne. Although O'Shea veers clear of telling us the outcome of the trial, one cannot help feeling that it wasn't an acquittal. Such things tended not to go down in history quite so resoundingly. Not in those days. Full review...
Finding Poland by Matthew Kelly
Looking at any historical map of Poland anyone may see how its borders have changed over the centuries. Where will you find the Polish home? One answer must be that it is founded deep in the hearts of the Polish people who fought for the liberty and the integrity of the Polish homeland. Now consider the promontory of land around Vilnius, or Wilno as it was then known, which was contained inside Poland in 1921. It was an area in which the small market town of Hruzdowa, comprising some 52 buildings and just large enough to warrant a town hall, was situated. These wild borderlands – known as the Kresy - were fought over for centuries by Austrians, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and Lithuanians. It was here that Matthew Kelly's great-grandfather, who had imbibed the values and élan of the dashing officer class, Rafal Ryzewscy, came to teach with his clever young wife, Hanna. They were deeply committed to progress through education and to peaceably raising their two little daughters. However, the dreadful and calamitous year of 1939, was approaching when Hitler and Stalin partitioned Poland in the most cynical pact. Full review...
How to Climb Mont Blanc in a Skirt: A Handbook for the Lady Adventurer by Mick Conefrey
Scott, Amundsen, Bleriot, Stanley and Livingstone, John Glenn, et all - any child should be drummed out of school if they can't name half a dozen explorers, travel pioneers and adventurers. But give them a gold star if they can name a single female entrant to history's list. Hence this book, for while some mountains have been topped by a lady first of all, and some landmark achievements by the guys have been quickly followed by the gals, there is just too much ground to be made up in recognising what the fairer sex have done in the world of, well, going round our world. Full review...
A Magnificent Disaster: The Failure of the Market Garden, the Arnhem Operation, September 1944 by David Bennett
Operation Market Garden, September 1944 is encapsulated for most people in the Hollywood movie "A Bridge Too Far" which, like most movies, gets some of it right and some of it wrong.
Such anyway is Bennett's assessment. So what is the true story of what one Major Norton called a magnificent disaster, perhaps consciously echoing that judgement on the charge of the Light Brigade in a far earlier conflict "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre"? Full review...
Swimming in the Steno Pool: A Retro Guide to Making It in the Office by Lynn Peril
The subtitle of this book suggests a survival guide to secretarial work. However, this is definitely not a handbook, but an examination of the portrayal of the job and those who do it in the media and in handbooks over the last 100 years. It is an American book and all the references are to handbooks, media, popular fiction and advertising from the US, but as a secretary in Britain, I still found it relevant, interesting and very entertaining. Full review...
The Moon and Madness by Niall McCrae
A book entitled The Moon and Madness has the potential to be a pile of New Age hokum. This learned and academic treatise by Niall McCrae is very far from hokum, and there is not a whiff of New Age hanging over it. We probably all have an old folklore image in our minds of lunatics in the asylum howling at the full moon. Of course, the very word 'lunatic' has its origins in the moon. McCrae tries to separate myth and fact in this fascinating book. Full review...
Tower by Nigel Jones
If you had to name one particular artefact which personifies the history of England, it would be hard to choose anything more appropriate than the building which has at various times been a castle, a palace, a prison, a torture chamber, and execution site, an armoury, and is now the most visited tourist attraction in the nation. Full review...
The First Ladies of Rome: The Women Behind the Caesars by Annelise Freisenbruch
Perhaps the most shocking thing to be gleaned from this fascinating history of the women who surrounded the Caesars is how easily their reputations were created, moulded and destroyed. Any woman who put a foot out of line in a culture where men held almost all the power could be accused of a litany of crimes which bore curious similarities with those of many another woman in similar circumstances. Incest and adultery were charges regularly levied against them, and the very fact that the details were identical in almost every case should give rise to suspicion about their accuracy. And yet history has accepted and spread these scandals as fact. Full review...
The Other Side of the Night: The Carpathia, the Californian, and the Night the Titanic Was Lost by Daniel Allen Butler
It's now almost a century since the loss of the Titanic and although much has been written about almost every aspect of that dreadful night one point has remained a mystery. When the wireless operator on the 'unsinkable' Titanic radioed that the ship had hit an iceberg, had too few lifeboats for all passengers and was sinking fast there were two ships in the vicinity. Captain Arthur Rostron on the Carpathia responded to the distress signal and hastened to the Titanic's aid. But Captain Stanley Lord of the Californian did not respond. The ship's radio officer had retired for the night and Lord failed to take decisive action later that night when told about distress flares from the Titanic. The controversy as to why the two captains should have acted so differently has raged across the intervening years. Full review...
Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan by D R Thorpe
The great-grandson of a crofter, and son-in-law of a Duke, Harold Macmillan was born in London in 1894. Despite the well-to-do aristocratic background, his years as a young adult were marked by bad experiences in the trenches which left him with lifelong war wounds, and his early service as a Conservative Member of Parliament by the plight of the unemployed in his first constituency of Stockton. He had much in common with another future Prime Minister, Winston Churchill; both had American mothers, and both were mavericks who were elected as Conservatives but refused to toe the party line too steadfastly. Full review...
A Short History of England by Simon Jenkins
Most of us see history rather like a cloud. We're aware of the great mass of it, seeing some parts more clearly than others, but perhaps struggling to bring it into a straight line. Some parts we will have studied at school, or read about out of interest but these parts will be balanced by other periods when we will be woefully ignorant of some of the most basic facts. I've studied the Tudors in some depth at various points in my life – but I would struggle to tell you much about the Stuarts. What was needed was a concise history of England in one volume and written for the adult reader who would simply like to be more informed, but not over-burdened. Full review...
The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life by Bettany Hughes
We don't know much about Socrates. For someone whose ideas are still so relevant so long after his death, his life is something of a mystery. He didn't like to write things down, and so Hughes begins this book by saying that it may have something of a 'Socrates-sized hole' in it. What we do see is the city of Athens, and the hugely important changes which were going on there while Socrates was alive. In Athens we see the beginnings of democracy, the seedlings of some of the ideas that we take for granted today, such as freedom of speech, and the right to a fair trial. This was an important time in the development of modern values, and Socrates was an important man. He was not only a brilliant thinker, he was also a man that didn't quite fit, infuriating to converse with, yet fascinating to be around. Full review...
Calamities and Catastrophes: The Ten Absolutely Worst Years in History by Derek Wilson
As Wilson rightly points out, history is generally written by the winners. This book turns the tables by looking at ten of the worst episodes from the point of view of those who were on the losing side, from the sixth to the late twentieth centuries. Starting with the plague and war of 541-2 which accelerated the collapse of the Roman Empire, to the recent Rwandan genocide in which the death toll over just a few months probably exceeded a million, history has had an uncomfortable habit of repeating itself. Full review...
Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler's Capital, 1939-45 by Roger Moorhouse
Berlin at War is an account of the day to day lives of the ordinary people of Berlin, the then capital of Nazi Germany, during the Second World War. Berlin was heavily bombed throughout much of the war, and suffered greatly as the symbolic target of Allied forces at the end. Full review...
Elbow Grease: How our Grandmothers and Great-Grandmothers Kept House by Jacqueline Percival
Sometimes I look at the housework that needs to be done and it seems like a mountain that has to be climbed. It's not until I look back at the work that my mother, her mother and even my great grandmother had to do to keep the house clean and free of pests as well as doing all the laundry that I realise that my problems are more of a molehill and a lot less strenuous than their daily grind ever was. Jacqueline Percival has taken a look back at the way that things really were for the women who went before us – and in those days housework generally was down to the woman in the house. Full review...
A Serious Endeavour: Gender, Education and Community at St Hugh's, 1886-2011 by Laura Schwartz
'A Serious Endeavour' is an account of the role of one Oxford college in the history of higher education for women. When it was first founded in 1886 there were very different views on what such education should be, even among its supporters. The university would not even grant female students degrees until 1920, and students were allowed to choose their own course of study and whether they would take formal exams or not before this. Full review...
The Damnation of John Donellan: A Mysterious Case of Death and Scandal in Georgian England by Elizabeth Cooke
Truth is stranger than fiction - but it is not always this gripping. The Boughtons of Lawford Hall, Warwickshire, have a colourful history, including the ghost of One-Handed Boughton, who haunted their land long before this new misfortune befell them. With marriages creating more branches of family, delicate relationships abound and help to shape the complex events detailed in the book. We begin with Sir Theodosius Boughton, heir to the estate when he comes of age, suffering from venereal disease. He is obliged to take medication and is well known for neglecting the recommendations of physicians. One fateful morning, he takes a new medicine, and dies in agony. Full review...
Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
Stacey Schiff's biography starts more of less from Cleopatra's infamous meeting with Caesar, where she sneaks into his rooms in a sack. This is one of the most popular images of Cleopatra in the public consciousness and Schiff happily refutes the image of her emerging as a well polished seductress, pointing out that anyone who had been carried in a sack for a considerable period of time will more likely be fairly dishevelled. Schiff takes us through from this moment up to Cleopatra's much dramatised death, and beyond, to the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Full review...
The Golden Cage: Three Brothers, Three Choices, One Destiny by Shirin Ebadi
Dr Ebadi is currently living in exile, fearing for her safety, should she return to Iran in the foreseeable future. Her Prologue describes a violent and bloody reaction to what was a peaceful situation involving wives, mothers and sisters. Boulders and large stones were thrown at elderly, defenseless women without a moment's hesitation. A taste of things to come? Full review...
How to Survive the Titanic or the Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay by Frances Wilson
As I read 'How to Survive the Titanic' I was conscious that we're only a matter of months away from the centenary of the sinking – and a slew of media to mark the occasion. Given that the subject has been mined extensively over the years it will be interesting to see whether there's anything new to be said about the tragedy. It's a subject which has always fascinated me – and it was with a sense of anticipation that I opened the book. Full review...
The Burma Campaign: Disaster into Triumph 1942-45 by Frank McLynn
I'm no military historian; I'm not really interested in war. In the Second World War, if push came to shove, I would probably have claimed pacificism. But when this paperback version of the recently published hardback came up, by prolific and highly-esteemed historian Frank McLynn, I just had to read it. The subject is very special in our family, because “Grandad was there”. Grandad fought over the tennis court at Kohima, and he has carried the trauma in his head to this day. Frank McLynn describes that particular battle as “... a scene from Hieronymus Bosch out of Passchendaele”. I knew I had to steel myself to read this book, and was very pleased that the author wrote sensitively about the reality of close combat for lily livers like mine. Full review...
