|summary=The great famine of Ireland in the 1840s was a major disaster and a tragedy. As a result, about a million of its citizens died from starvation and a further million emigrated, with so many perishing en route that it was said ''you can walk dry shod to America on their bodies.'' The net total was about a quarter of the existing population. Yet as Irish historian Tim Pat Coogan argues in this account, the famine was more than a tragedy. The title indicates a fierce polemic, and the thrust of his book is that the British government of the day was not merely responsible for exacerbating the famine conditions through mismanagement and failure to respond adequately to the failure of the potato crop, but in fact deliberately engineered a food shortage in what was one of the earliest cases of ethnic cleansing.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230109527</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John O'Connell
|title=For the Love of Letters: The Joy of Slow Communication
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=With the advent of mobile phones and e-mail, is there still a place for good old-fashioned letter-writing in the world today? John O'Connell certainly thinks there is, and has written a compelling argument in this book which, if you haven't put pen to paper for some time, may be enough to remind you of the benefits of slower correspondence in today's high-speed world.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721099</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Roger Osborne
|title=Of the People, By the People: A New History of Democracy
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Most authors writing on the subject of democracy tend to concentrate on political theory. Osborne approaches the subject from the historical angle instead, looking at different democracies from that of Greece in the sixth century BC, to the present day. 'Humanity's finest achievement', as Osborne calls it in the first sentence of his prologue, comes from the Greek words ''demos'' (people) and ''kratos'' (rule). It had its origins in the system devised in ancient Athens, the earliest in the world which did not first operate through complex relations of kinship and deference, as had others up to then. Parallels would be seen in Rome a few centuries later.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950623</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Karen Dolby
|title=Oranges and Lemons: Rhymes From Past Times
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Karen Dolby's book is a loving look at nursery rhymes from many different times and places, handily organised into groups like 'Monday's Child: The Rhythm of Days' and 'Oranges and Lemons: Songs and Games'. In addition to the rhymes themselves, Dolby sets them into context and tells us of the stories behind them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843179598</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Catherine Bailey
|title=The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mystery
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Like many an enthralling novel, this book starts with a death from natural causes yet in odd circumstances which initially leaves several questions unanswered. In fact, in spite of the subtitle, and also knowing nothing about the family whose story it tells in part, I had to look through the book thoroughly before reading, to satisfy myself that it actually was non-fiction.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917559</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Patricia Malcolmson and Robert Malcolmson (Editors)
|title=The Diaries of Nella Last: Writing in War and Peace
|rating=3.5
|genre=History
|summary=This work brings together a selection of some of Nella Last's diary entries from the 1940's and 1950's. She wrote from her home in Barrow-in-Furness as part of the Mass Observation project, writing a huge amount of material, some of which has already been published as ''Nella Last's War'', [[Nella Last's Peace: The Post-war Diaries of Housewife 49 by Patricia Malcolmson (Editor), Robert Malcolmson (Editor)|Nella Last's Peace]] and [[Nella Last in the 1950s: The Further Diaries of Housewife, 49 by Patricia Malcolmson and Robert Malcolmson (Editors)|Nella Last in the 1950s]] This volume brings together the three previous collections, with new material too, taking the reader through the war years and on into post-war Britain.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668546X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sarah Wise
|title=Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Many a family in Victorian England had a problem husband, wife, son or daughter whom they felt ought to be ‘locked away’. Only occasionally if ever was it for totally unselfish reasons connected with their mental health and well-being. More often than not it was to settle old scores, or so the family could get their hands on the victim’s fortune or business, or sometimes because, as the title of this book suggests, they were merely ‘inconvenient’.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847921124</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gavin Mortimer
|title=A History of Football in 100 Objects
|rating=4
|genre=Sport
|summary=Given how long it's been played and how many books have been written about it, any new history of football needs to have some kind of hook to make it stand out. Gavin Mortimer may have found that, by presenting his history as ''A History of Football in 100 Objects''. This prompts the question as to whether the whole of football could be reduced down to a mere century of objects. But then, if [[From 0 to Infinity in 26 Centuries by Chris Waring]] can make a history of maths worth reading, I guess anything is possible.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250618</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Victoria Glendinning
|title=Raffles And the Golden Opportunity
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Although Raffles has gone down in history as the founder of Singapore his roots were far from grand. He had no advantages apart from his own drive and determination and his professional life began with a lowly clerkship with the East india Company, then as large and ungainly as many a government. When he went abroad on behalf of the Company he quickly learned the merits of doing something and asking permission afterwards, not least because of the time taken to contact London and then receive a reply. Even if all went well this could take the best part of a year - by which time the original question could well be academic.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686032</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Max Decharne
|title=Capital Crimes: Seven centuries of London life and murder
|rating=4.5
|genre=True Crime
|summary=True crime has been one of the great growth areas of publishing in the last few years. As more than one author in the field as observed, everyone loves a good murder in a manner of speaking, and anybody who is looking for books on murders in London will find no lack of choice.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847945902</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sarah Herman
|title=The Classic Guide to Famous Assassinations (Classic Guides)
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=If you ever wanted to know the details of famous assassinations, this is almost certainly the book you've been waiting for. In an easy to read style with lots of bullet points and box-outs, Sarah Herman talks us through history's most famous killings and failed attempts. Starting with Greek and Roman times, subsequent chapters move through religious and royal victims, revolutionaries, Russians and American politicians.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780950144</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Carola Hicks
|title=Girl in a Green Gown: The History and Mystery of the Arnolfini Portrait
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=The Arnolfini marriage portrait, as it is generally if perhaps inaccurately known, painted by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, signed and dated 1434, has long been one of the most popular and enigmatic paintings of its time. Of modest size, a little less than three feet high, it is one of the oldest surviving panel pictures to be painted in oils rather than tempera. It is also regarded as the first work of art which simultaneously celebrates both middle-class comfort and monogamous marriage.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526891</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tracy Borman
|title=Matilda: Wife of the Conqueror, first Queen of England
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Writing the biography of any woman who lived as long ago as the eleventh century, even someone as illustrious as a Queen, is a pretty thankless task. There will always be huge gaps in the knowledge available. For example we do not know when Matilda was born, and likewise we do not have a precise date for her marriage, although we do know when she died. No lifelike images of her are known, though evidence suggests that she was quite short of stature. In a male-dominated society, there are approximate records of when her sons were born, but not her daughters. Even more confusingly perhaps, many of the stories passed down to us throughout history are quite probably false. It is hardly surprising that this appears to be the first full-length life of her yet to appear in English.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099549131</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Robert Shepherd
|title=Westminster: A biography, from earliest times to the present
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=There seems to be no shortage of ways in which the history of London can be told, and as befitting an experienced historical and political biographer, Shepherd has found another interesting variation on the theme. In this superbly detailed and exhaustively researched volume, he brings us the story of Westminster, the royal capital that became the birthplace of parliamentary government and the centre of a world power. Over 1500 years ago it was Thorney Island, a secluded area on the banks of the Thames. It then became a village, yet a very grand one comprising a spiritual centre, a royal ceremonial stage and later a political capital, encompassing buildings such as the Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and 10 Downing Street. Against this stage has been enacted the history of a nation, of the monarchs and politicians who for better and worse shaped the events of the last thousand years.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0826423809</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ann Wroe
|title=Orpheus, The Song Of Life
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Orpheus is one of the most memorable and recognisable figures of Greek mythology. He was a legendary musician and poet, whose song could charm all living things and indeed the very stones of the earth. He had a dramatic life, including joining the Argonauts as they searched for the golden fleece. Most memorably, he travelled to Hades to rescue his dead wife Eurydice from the underworld. However, he was unable to obey Pluto’s command not to look at her. He couldn’t resist turning around, only to see her sucked back into the depths and death. This tale of romantic tragedy and thwarted love has intrigued and delighted artists and writers through the centuries, and they have portrayed Orpheus and his life in music, paintings, plays, poems, operas and films ever since.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951689</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alison Maloney
|title=Bright Young Things
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=According to the summary I read of ''Bright Young Things'' before choosing the book to read, it 'takes a sweeping look at the changing world of the Jazz Age'. I was expecting it to be something of a narrative account of the Roaring Twenties – in actual fact, it's set out as a collection of trivia about the decade. Similarly, the 'first person accounts' mentioned on the inside front cover are limited to two or three sentence quotes.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753540975</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Neil Root
|title=Frenzy!: How the tabloid press turned three evil serial killers into celebrities
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=It was forever thus. Only last year, 2011, did the ''News of the World'' and the ''Sunday Mirror'' stop being the double-headed monster of tabloid journalism, and very little was different in the 1950s, beyond the inclusion of boobies, and the fact the ''Mirror'' was then just the ''Sunday Pictorial''. Both formed a duopoly for those in their audience seeking all the salacious details of the scandals of the day, and the crimes and criminals people would talk about over their breakfasts. Three men stood out in those days for the ways in which they achieved their notoriety, and this book is an account of their goings-on, and how the press reported the stories – at times paying large fortunes for the privilege.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099557762</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Robert O Bucholz and Joseph P Ward
|title=London: A Social and Cultural History, 1550-1750
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=It seems hard to visualise a time when London was just a city of no major importance, except as England’s capital. The main thrust of this book is only about halfway through the Tudor area did it really rise to global prominence and come to dominate the economic, political, social and cultural life of the nation as it never had before – and arguably since. By 1750 it had also surpassed Amsterdam as Europe’s financial and banking hub, and become 'a cornucopia of culture' through its vibrant concert and theatre life, to say nothing of a thriving and relatively free press. Before long it would also become the home of the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts. Lest this testimonial seems too gilded, we are reminded at the same time that the city was one of palaces and slums, concert halls and gin joints, churches and brothels, possibility and fear. Good and evil were always side by side.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521896525</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gordon Weiss
|title=The Cage
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=The history of Ceylon, and latterly Sri Lanka has at its centre an undeniable contradiction. A nation which espoused and proclaimed peaceful Buddhism was caught in one of the bloodiest conflicts in the recent past, a conflict peppered with suicide bombings, mass killings, rapes, torture and imprisonment, and more than a hint of genocide. Gordon Weiss was intimately involved as a journalist and as the United Nations Spokesman in Sri Lanka for two years of the almost 40 years conflict, and has produced a detailed account of the background and eventual denouement of this conflict.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954847X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Frank McLynn
|title=The Road Not Taken: How Britain narrowly missed a revolution
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Since the Norman conquest, there have been no successful invasions of Britain. Yet according to this book, during that era the country has come close to revolution on seven occasions. These were the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, Jack Cade's rebellion of 1450, the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536, the English Civil War in the 1640s, the Jacobite rising in 1745-6, the Chartist Movement of the early Victorian era, and finally the General Strike of 1926. In each case, social turbulence threatened the status quo but went no further. Why and how did they ultimately fail?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224072935</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Bernard Wasserstein
|title=On the Eve: The Jews of Europe before the Second World War
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=The introduction to 'On the Eve' begins with the controversial statement, 'Nor is anti-Semitism, by itself, a satisfactory explanation of the Jew's predicament'. The author has written a history of the post-war Jewry called the ''Vanishing Diaspora'' but this book examines the collective failure by the Jewish people before 1939 'to attain at least some control over the threatening vagaries of fate'. It examines their failure to establish cohesive social links, political parties, hospitals, newspapers and schools. Jewish culture and religious practice weakened during the very period when they advocated loyalty to the states where they were citizens; the USSR, Poland, Germany and France. Their population too was in decline. Wasserstein, who is a master at pointing out intriguing and surprising detail, explains that on the brink of annihilation, there were actually more Jews held in camps outside the Third Reich than within it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681804</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Nigel Saul
|title=For Honour and Fame: Chivalry in England 1066-1500
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Chivalry, Saul tells us in the opening sentences of the preface, is associated first and foremost with the estate of knighthood and with fighting on horseback. In this book he aims to present an account of English aristocratic society in the Middle Ages, from the Norman conquest to the first years of the Tudor dynasty, which puts chivalry centre-stage.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951891</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Robert K Massie
|title=Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Already known for major biographies of Nicholas and Alexandra, and of Peter the Great, Massie has now written an equally full and absorbing life of the late eighteenth-century reigning Empress.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0679456724</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Eamon Duffy
|title=Saints, Sacrilege and Sedition
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=In the introduction to this book Eamon Duffy, Professor of the History of Christianity at Cambridge History, points out that all too often historians have written about the English Reformation from strongly polarised views. Taking two extreme examples, he cites one which states that the people of England, formerly happy medieval Catholics, were forced by King Henry to abandon their religion, and England was never merry again, alongside another which speaks of the English being oppressed by corrupt churchmen until King Henry gave them the Protestant nation for which they longed. On the following page, he suggests that it had long been an axiom of historical writing that the success of the Reformation in England was an inevitable consequence of the dysfunction and unpopularity of late medieval Catholicism. Such remarks were evidently made by writers with an axe to grind.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441181172</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Paul Winter
|title=Defeating Hitler: Whitehall's Top Secret Report on Why Hitler Lost the War
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Just how and why did Hitler lose the Second World War? The message in [[Fatherland by Robert Harris]] is that he spent too much effort killing Jews to concentrate on anything else. Remarkably, this look at more explicit reasons for the end of the Third Reich barely mentions the Holocaust. What we have is ''Some Weaknesses in German Strategy and Organisation 1933-1945'' - a document drawn up by what would now have to be called Whitehall Mandarins, written during a year of war and a year of peace, that itemises for those with enough security clearance just what Hitler's chain of command was, and what his thinking was for each theatre of the War. It was never Top Secret, but was classified for thirty years and has spent about as long waiting for this hardback version.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441196358</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jean-Paul Kauffmann
|title=A Journey to Nowhere: Among the Lands and History of Courland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Travel
|summary=When I turn to travel writing, it is a healthy balance of that about places I have been to, and places I've not. But without sounding too big-headed it is seldom places I have never heard of in any context - especially those I have passed through, what's more. The 'nowhere' in focus here is Courland, which was more-or-less the coastal slither of the top of Latvia, and was once an independent Duchy. In one fell swoop Kauffmann seems to become the only travel writer to have written a book about the place, at least for many a generation, and, it's pleasant to say, probably the best one could have hoped for.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050362</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Penelope Hughes-Hallett
|title=The Immortal Dinner: A famous evening of genius and laughter in literary London, 1817
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=A book based around just one dinner sounds a little extraordinary. But the host, painter Benjamin Robert Haydon, was no ordinary artist. He was a friend of many of the major artistic and literary figures of the day, in addition to being an ambitious painter of historical scenes. Sadly, his ambition was not matched by popularity or good fortune, and despite or perhaps parly because an exaggerated belief in his own abilities, one and a half centuries after his death he is largely forgotten except for his suicide after years of despair, and perhaps his diary as well.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956372X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Andrew Martin
|title=Underground Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Although he was born in Yorkshire, Andrew Martin has long been enthralled by the London Underground. His father worked on British Rail, and Andrew himself therefore had free travel on the system as well as a Privilege Pass which entitled him to free first-class train travel on the national rail network. Having lived in London for twenty-five years, commuting to various newspaper offices in his employment as a journalist, a job which has included writing a regular magazine column, Tube Talk, he is well qualified to write this entertaining and enlightening social history of the world's most famous underground railway.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684773</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mary Beard
|title=All in a Don's Day
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Mary Beard's latest collection, 'All in a Don's Day', of her assembled blog pieces from 2009 until the end of 2011, covers similar concerns to her previous selection, [[It's A Don's Life by Mary Beard|It's a Don's Life]]. Professor Beard is a fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge and became Classics Professor at there in 2004. She is also an expert in Roman laughter, an interest which she fully indulges in the pages of her TLS blog. In her latest collection she bemoans the parlous current state of both Education and the Academy, and makes witty observations on matters as various as television chefs, what and how to visit in Rome and the art and worth of completing references in an age when only positive things may be said about postgraduate job-seekers.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685362</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=R I Moore
|title=The War On Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=At the end of the first millennium, Western Europe was a place which had barely ever encountered heresy. It took just a couple of centuries for it to become a major problem in the eyes of church leaders, leading to the persecution of individuals and groups. Was heresy such a fast-growing problem? In this volume, R I Moore provides a thoughtful analysis of the issues and makes a powerful case that many supposed heretics were merely victims of a paranoid church which created propaganda to justify so many deaths.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681960</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Julius Norwich
|title=The Popes: A History
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Historian [[:Category:John Julius Norwich|John Julius Norwich]] (or Rt Hon/Viscount John Julius Norwich, to give him his full title) doesn't write the sort of history books one associates with school days. He doesn't do dry and dusty. In fact ''The Popes: A History'' isn't ''just'' a history book but a romp through the ages with some great trivia nuggets scattered throughout the informative gold.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099565870</amazonuk>
}}
