The Greatest Show on Earth: A History of the Circus by Linda Simon(Reakiton Books), 2014296pp., £29 hard, ISBN 978-1-78023-356-1The pantomime and the circus have long held a special place in people's imagination. Dazzling, clamorous and exotic, both are culturally evolving theatres of the improbable and impossible. From the days of...

The Cambridge History of the Second World War: Volume 1, Fighting the War by John Ferris and Evan Mawdsley (eds.)(Cambridge University Press), 2015 804pp., £ 99.99, hard, ISBN 978-1-107-03892-9Richard J. B. Bosworth and Joseph A. Maiolo, (eds.),The Cambridge History of the Second World War: Volume 1I, Politics and Ideology (Cambridge...

The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, Volume 1: 1700-1870 by Roderick Floud, Jane Humphries and Paul Johnson (editors) (Cambridge University Press), 2014 495pp., £29.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-107-63143-4 The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, Volume 2: 1700-1870 (Cambridge University Press), 2014586pp., £29.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-107-68673-1 These two volumes are...

The Golden Age of Arbitration: Dispute Resolution under Elizabeth I by Derek Roebuck (Holo Books), 2015365pp., £40, ISBN 978-0-9572153-0-6 Derek Roebuck has, over the last fifteen years, published four books on dispute arbitration covering the Greek, Roman, early English and Middle Age English periods. This new volume examines Elizabeth I's...

Descendancy: Irish Protestant Histories since 1795 by David Fitzpatrick(Cambridge University Press), 2014271pp., £65 hard, ISBN 978-1-1076-08093-5This book examines Protestant loss of power and self-confidence in Ireland since 1795, as process of ‘descendancy', a neat play on the Protestant ‘Ascendancy' in the eighteenth century. From the 1790s, there were a growing...

Under Fire: Essex and the Second World War 1939-1945, Paul Rusiecki, University of Hertfordshire Press, 2015, 320p, £18-99. ISBN 978-1-909291-28-7Paul Rusiecki has explored what happened to Essex during the Second World War in a remarkable manner. This book is in many ways more about the experience of the people who...

The Atlantic World by D'Maris Coffman, Adrian Leonard and William O'Reilly (editors) (Routledge), 2014 704pp., £150 hard, ISBN978-0-415-46704-9 As the meeting point between Europe, colonial America, and Africa, the history of the Atlantic world is a constantly shifting arena, but one which has been a focus of huge and vibrant...

An Illustrated Introduction to the Stuarts, Pamela Womack, Amberley, 2014, paperback, 96 pp, £9.99 ISBN 9781445637884 The publisher's blurb for this new ‘Illustrated Introductions' series from Amberley enquires engagingly of the reader: ‘Fascinated by history? Wish you knew more? The Illustrated Introductions are here to help. In this lavishly illustrated,...

Germany Ascendant: The Eastern Front 1915, Prit Buttar, Osprey Publishing, 2015, 448p, £20-00. ISBN 978-1-4728-0795-3 In this book Prit Buttar continues his analysis and narrative on what was happening on the Eastern Front in the Great War from his previous Collision of Empires: The War on the Eastern Front in...

Chartism: Localities, Spaces and Places, The Midlands and the South, Richard Brown, Authoring History, 2015, paperback, 403 pp., ISBN 9781501017247This volume focusing upon the local and regional dimension of Chartism in the Midlands and the South, is Richard Brown's sixth excursion into Chartism, which with a sequel print volume encompassing...

Palazzo Te. Giulio Romano's Masterwork in Mantua, Ugo Bazzotti, Thames and Hudson, 2013, hardback, 276 pp, £60.00, ISBN 9780500517109 Constructed for Frederico II Gonzaga between 1525 and 1536 Palazzo Te is celebrated as the masterpiece of the Renaissance artist, designer and architect Giulio Romano, the accomplished protégé and artistic executor...

King's College Chapel 1515-2015. Art, Music and Religion in Cambridge, Jean Michel Massing and Nicolette Zeeman (eds), Harvey Miller Publishers, 2014, hardback, 416 pp, ISBN 9781909400214King's College Chapel, Cambridge, world famous today for its celebrated Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, now broadcast annually around the world as a prelude...

Armies of the Greek-Turkish War 1919-22, Philip S Jowett, Osprey Publishing, 2015, £9.95, 48 pages, ISBN 978-1-4728-0684-0In his introduction to the Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (2014 edition) Sir Hew Strachan noted that warfare didn't end neatly because an armistice was agreed with Germany on 11 November...

The Chamberlains: Joseph, Austen and Neville 1936-1940, Roger Ward, Fonthill, 176p, £20-00. ISBN 978-1-78155-447-0 This book reflects Roger Ward’s extensive researches in to the local political history of Birmingham but it offers a much wider analysis as it explores the national contribution and role of the three Chamberlains. He makes...

With All For All: the Life of Simon de Monfort, Darren Baker, Amberley, 2015, 320p, £20-00. ISBN 978-1-4456-4574-2. This book provided an unusual perspective on the life and achievements of Simon de Montfort and the anniversary of his death at the Battle of Evesham seven hundred and fifty years ago....

Coventry and Warwickshire 1914-1919: Local Aspects of the Great War, Vol 2, [ed] by Chris Holland, Warwickshire Great War Publications, 2014, 172pp, £9.95. ISBN: 978-0-9574216-3-9. Available from Chris Holland, Plott Bungalow, Plott Lane, Stretton on Dunsmore, Rugby, CV23 9HR.Following on from Volume 1 in 2012, Chris Holland and his fellow...

The Dignity of Chartism: Essays by Dorothy ThompsonStephen Roberts (ed.) (Verso), 2015 xxx, 206pp, £14.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-78188-849-6The historian Dorothy Thompson, who died aged 87 in 2011, was best known for her writing on the social and cultural aspects of the nineteenth-century Chartist movement. The documents she edited in The...

The History of Leicester in 100 People, Stephen Butt,Amberley, 2013, paperback, 96 pp, £14.99 ISBN 9781445616858 A History of the World in 100 Objects has proved hugely influential in structuring a highly selective encyclopaedic perspective on global material culture as a window into various facets of the history ofhumanity. A variation...

Suffragettes. How Britain's women fought and died for the right to vote, Amberley, 2014, paperback, 192 pp.,£9.99 ISBN 1445633909 This readable, engaging, pocket-sized, introductory overview of the women's suffrage movement is extensively illustrated with images drawn from publisher's archive and author's collection, some of the most distinctive from record offices...

Mocking Men of Power: Comic Art in Birmingham 1861-1911, Stephen Roberts and Roger Ward, Birmingham Biographies, 2014, 147p, £8-99. ISBN 978-1502764560.This is a remarkable book which provides a perspective on the open society which emerged in 19th Century Britain, and which we have inherited richly, in which politicians were ridiculed...