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[[Category:History|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|History]]==History==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der Kiste1785633457|title=Sons, Servants and StatesmenCharging Around: The Men in Queen Victoria's LifeExploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyTravel|summary=Like the first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary have been written about Queen Victoria, but John Van der Kiste Clive Wilkinson has taken the unusual step a history of using the men in her life to illuminate some dark corners which might other wise have remained unexploredtravelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. Of course As he neared his eightieth birthday the most famous man in her life, husband and Prince Consort Albert isn't 'son, servant or statesman' as promised by idea of exploring the title edges of the book, but he established a trendEngland in an electric car was not totally outrageous. VictoriaIn fact, often regarded as it should be a difficult woman to pleasepleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, would always have a man in her life who wouldJoan, to a greater or lesser extent, dominate her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>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 neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the seventeenth century Jonathan Wild was synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to become 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 a light switch. But this is the eighteenth centurytime just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's most famous criminalwill, and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out, plying his trade invite them in a rather curious fashionwith open arms. He was born in Wolverhampton of parents described as ''mean but honestKristallnacht''happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of Jews. It seems likely that he first travelled These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to London as the servant hear word of a lawyer where he was eventually an evacuation to settleBritain or the US, leaving while Fritz and his wife father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and child to fend for themselvesthe stone quarry there. It was whilst serving a term of imprisonment in Wood Street Compter that he mixed with And us wondering how the cream of London's criminal underclass and learned titular event for the rudiments adult variant of his trade.all this could come about…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848682190</amazonuk>024156574X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bonnie GreerJohn Henry Phillips|title=Obama Music|rating=3|genre=History|summary=This is an interesting read, but unless I'm missing something, the focus of the book seems a little difficult to grasp. It's best if I start with the author's intentions as set out in her Prologue. It is a mixture of tales of her own life growing up on the South Side, she writes, interspersed with stories and observations about Obama, linking it with the music, musicians and music scene, past and present, including hip hop, country, classical, and rock'n'roll. All of these, she notes, were heard on the President's Inauguration Day. To them she adds the blues, gospel, soul and jazz 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906558248</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ian Mortimer|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 St Mary Aldermanbuy had existed in the City of London from at a pivotal moment least 1181, when it was first mentioned in my life and for more than forty years I've read most of what has been written about the eventrecords. Sadly, It's been of variable quality, but the books fed original church was destroyed in the curiosity Great Fire of people entranced London in 1666. It was rebuilt in Portland stone from a design by Sir Christopher Wren soon after the charismatic young President who died so publiclyfire and then survived for centuries until World War II, when it was again ruined by bombs during the Blitz. IBut that wasn'd come to t the point end of wondering if there was anything new to be saidits story: after a phenomenal fundraising effort, but Stephen Gillom has looked at what happened the stones from an unusual and largely overlooked angle – the first twenty four hours of Lyndon Johnsonchurch's Presidencywalls were transported to Fulton, Missouri. There, in the grounds of Westminster College, the church was rebuilt and today serves as a memorial to Winston Churchill.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>046501870X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stella Tillyard 1784385166|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Royal Affair: George III and His Troublesome Siblings|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=King George III was not the luckiest of English sovereigns. America, and then his sons, in that order, gave him no end of grief, and the last few years Material History of his life were clouded by madness. It is thus often overlooked that, before these troubles arose to haunt this most conscientious monarch, he also had a thankless task in trying to control his siblings.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099428563</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNazi Germany|author=Andy Beckett |title=When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the SeventiesRoger Moorhouse
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Having grown up during What is the era and followed the major news stories in first image that comes to mind when you think of the papers as they happened, I was fascinated Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to find everything (well, nearly everything) in the 500-page narrative that comprises this book. It was quite a rocky ride from the election concentration camp? None 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 the stirrings these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the green movement, the rise of Arthur Scargill, Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquity. But some objects and the discovery of North Sea oilimages from that time may be less familiar to you. Then there was the survival of James Callaghan's minority administration despite the oddsIn this short volume, and thanks largely Roger Moorhouse has attempted to his adroit handling illustrate the period of the situation in keeping both Tony Benn and the Lib-Lab pact on board, followed by the winter Third Reich through one hundred of discontent, culminating in Thatcher at No 10its material artefacts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057122136X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian Mortimer Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval EnglandTiananmen 1989: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth CenturyOur Shattered Hopes|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=What would happen if we twenty-first century people took a trip back I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in time to the fourteenth century? It would be very like visiting another countrysecond half of their teens has other priorities, you know. Even our landscape would be greatly changed. Ian Mortimer takes this approach I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and, applying his theory of living history, treats his readers to an objective hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and entertaining view of one the birth of the most stereotypical centuries in medieval history. The fourteenth century has not only castlesTank Man image, knights, tournamentsI didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and wars, but also gave birth to many of I didn't know more than a spit about the creative minds associated with medieval England like Chaucer and people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the Gawain-poetwhole season of protests back in 1989.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845950992</amazonuk>1684056993
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alison Weir0648684806|title=The Lady in the TowerClara Colby: 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>}} {{newreviewInternational Suffragist|author=Tracy Borman |title=Elizabeth's Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin QueenJohn 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 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 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 Kathleen Jamie|rating=3.5
|genre=History
|summary=Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''Allo. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, Allobut rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That'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 author considering ''The Secret Armyan older, less tethered sense of herself.'' and numerous films have painted Older. Less tethered. That's not a fairly romantic picture bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the resistance — beret-wearing men poetic and women who dart lyrical that are about blowing up trains style not form, and shooting Nazissubstance most of all, about connection. The realityOf course, according this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to Matthew Cobb's ''The Resistance'', was somewhat differenthave it fall onto my path so quickly. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737123X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Downing 0857058320|title=Sealing Their Fate: 22 Days That Decided Lord Of All the Second World WarDead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=In this detailed volume, David Downing makes a convincing argument that in ''Lord Of All the brief 22-day period between 17 November and 8 December 1941, the actions of the various Axis powers and their Allied opponents marked the beginning of the end of Dead'' is a war that still had several years left journey to run – uncover the turning point famously described by Churchill as author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the end of meaning behind his great uncle's death in the beginning''Spanish Civil War. After Pearl HarborManuel Mena, America entered the war, making it a true world war - though it was actually Hitler that declared war on America, ironically – on 11 DecemberCercas' great uncle, just after these events take place. ''Sealing Their Fate'' opens with is the launch of figure who looms large over the Japanese fleet and ends with that same fleetbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's attack forces. Cercas ruminates on Pearl Harbor, but why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is whether it's not specifically about Japan and Americais possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847371310</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard D Ryder0008294011|title=Nelson, Hitler and Diana|rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary=Was Horatio Nelson, How to Lose 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 Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy 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>}} {{newreviewDictatorship|author=William Blades, Randolph G. Adams, Bagher Bachchha (Editor) |title=Enemies of BooksEce Temelkuran
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=William Blades, A little while ago a Victorian printer and bibliographer, is best remembered as friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question ''Discuss the biographer of William Caxtonfactors which led to... '' He also wrote 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 very concise work on the threats ' was leading 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 factsI think now that I do know. The chapter on fire notes the vast destruction of books We are in the Great Fire danger of London in 1666, as well as in the Gordon Riots just over losing democracy and whilst it's a century later, and closer to his own time, the destruction flawed system I can't think of a priceless law library at Strasbourgbetter one, ravaged by particularly as the shells of the German army during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904799361</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul R Spiring (Editor) 1788037812|title=The World Fraternity of Vanity Fair the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891- Bertram Fletcher Robinson1908|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=It is huge: not only Originally passed in space but 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time , restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and structure; 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the non-material sphere UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the complex interplay scientific understanding of meaningshomosexuality, symbols and significances. Miller's book, intentionally combining cultural beginning the struggle for recognition and political historyequality, art criticism and travel writing, manages leading to reflect that hugeness without weighting the reader down with too much austere detailmilestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861979088</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Mullen and James Munson1910593508|title=The Smell of the ContinentApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=When Frances Trollope landed at Calais in This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to the 1830s, she overheard a conversation between two travellers, Moon landings and the younger commenting on passion for the dreadful smellsubject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, the older Chris Baker and more experienced telling him it was ''the smell of'' ''the continent''Mike Collins.|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 This is a story we know well andbecause of this, as the authors take a mother, few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the job of midwives fascinates meblanks. Combining these two subjects, ''Farewell These shortcuts are the only downside to the East Endbook. If you'' is ve ever read a riveting read. The author Jennifer Worth was comic book adaptation of a midwife and nurse, working film you will be familiar with the nuns at Nonnatus House in the East End of London slight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and this volume (her third book on this topic) covers the 1950sstill felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297844652</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Williams1786331047|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 Race to Save the era, came about largely if not wholly because of a crisis of sorts among King George III's family. By the time his seven surviving sons reached middle age, they had managed to produce one legitimate child between them, namely Princess Charlotte. Her unexpected death, and the need for at least some if not all of the others to do their dynastic duty and produce an heir or two, resulted in an undignified mass scramble to the altar. Edward, 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 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=Romanovs: 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 Truth Behind 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 Secret Plans to be broken, and it's a good way of introducing this very interesting life. As the husband of his subjectRescue Russia's great-great-granddaughter, the author is well qualified to write it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>055215508X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewImperial Family|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 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>}} {{newreview|author=Katherine Ashenburg|title=Clean: An Unsanitised History of WashingHelen Rappaport
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Although maybe not The basic facts about the first book you'd be drawn to – a history deaths 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 Nicholas and informative bookAlexandra, full some of fascinating facts and a jolly good readwhich were deliberately obscured at the time for various reasons, have long since been established. Attitudes towards and rituals of cleanliness have certainly changed over For the last two thousand years and this book chronicles many few months of them, largely their lives in Europe and Russia the US. Cultural differences with regard to cleanliness former Tsar and body odour (and yesTsarina, Napoleon their children and Josephine do get a mention herefew remaining servants were held in increasingly squalid, although it transpires that they both took daily baths) are discussed at lengthhumiliating captivity. To prevent them from being rescued, from in July 1918 the Greeks revolutionary regime had them all shot and Romans bayoneted to death in circumstances which, once the present daynews was confirmed beyond all doubt, horrified their relatives in Europe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681014</amazonuk>
}}