The Human Kind, Alexander Baron, with an introduction by Sean Longden  (Black Spring Press, 2011) xvii, 160pp., paperback, £9.99, ISBN 978 0 948238 47 5This is a work of fiction, written as a series of short stories but it is based on the author's actual experience of war.  It tells...

The Industrial Revolution, Britain, 1770-1810, Jonathan Downs Shire Living Histories, 2010, paperback, 88 pp, £8.99, ISBN 9780747807810This brief study of Britain's Industrial Revolution during the forty years from 1770 to 1810 offers a shorter chronological window than say Jane Humphries recently published ground breaking study of Child Labour in the...

The Kings and Queens of Scotland, Timothy Venning, Amberley Publishing, 2015, paperback, 336 pp., £9.99, ISBN 9781445648194 This informative illustrated history of the Scottish monarchy explains the origins of the kingdom of the Scots, commenting that it was ‘the last of the non-Anglo-Saxon states of Britain to survive as a...

Peter Darley, The King’s Cross Story. 200 Years of History in the Railway Lands, The History Press, Stroud, 2018, paperback, £20.00, ISBN 978 0 7509 8579 6 Simon Bradley in his foreword to Peter Darley’s ground-breaking exploration of the Great Northern Railway’s celebrated terminus at King’s Cross explains how this...

The Kitchener Enigma. The Life and Death of Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, 1850-1916, Trevor Royle, The History Press, 2016, hardback, £25.00, pp. 416, ISBN 9780750967297 Trevor Royle’s bold, masterly, highly readable biography of one of the most recognisable faces or more specifically moustaches of the First World War, originally published...

The Last Vikings: The Epic Story of the Great Norse Voyagers by Kirsten A. Seaver(I.B. Tauris), 2010 277pp., £18.99, hard, ISBN 978-1-84511-869-3There has been a proliferation of studies of the Vikings in the past decade most of which has focussed on their impact on Britain and mainland Europe.  This excellent...

The Last of Africa’s Cold War Conflicts: Portuguese Guinea and its Guerrilla Insurgency, Al J. Venter, Pen and Sword, 2020, 210p, £25-00. ISBN 9781526772985 This book offers more than its title suggests. It is an analysis of how the longest-standing colonial power in Africa suddenly retreated after a domestic ‘coup’...

The Life and Thought of Herbert Butterfield: History, Science and God by Michael Bentley(Cambridge University Press), 2011 381pp., £50, hard, ISBN 978-1-10700-397-2During the 1950s, the History establishment was dominated by the likes of Lewis Namier, Hugh Trevor-Roper, A.J.P. Taylor and Herbert Butterfield.  Apart from Taylor whose essays and many of...

The Making of a University. The Path to Higher Education in Huddersfield, John O’Connell, University of Huddersfield Press, 2016 ISBN 978-1-86218-054-3 John O’Connell’s eminently readable and characteristically trenchant survey of the foundations and development of the precursor institutions which became the University of Huddersfield from 1992 is essential reading for...

The Man Who Was Saturday: The Extraordinary Life of Airey NeavePatrick Bishop; William Collins, 2019, 291 pp, £20.00ISBN 978-0-00-830904-6  Patrick Bishop has written a well-researched, judiciously fair and readable account of a man who combined wartime heroism with a political career which transformed itself from mediocrity to significance late in life.  War...

The Medieval Household: Daily Living c.1150-c.1450, Geoff Egan (Medieval Finds from Excavations in London, 6, Boydell Press in Association with Museum of London, first published 1988 new edition 2010) xiv, 342pp, hardback, £30.00, $60.00  ISBN 978 184383 5431Egan is a noted student of the subject. Since the publication of the...

Adam Budd, (ed.) The Modern Historiography Reader: Western Sources (Routledge, 2008) 534pp., £24.99 paper, ISBN 978-0-415-45887-0This excellent book provides a guide to European and North American developments in historical writing since the eighteenth century through a collection of well-chosen sources.  The book begins with the Enlightenment and moves through subjects...

The Mother of the Brontës, Sharon Wright, Pen and Sword, 2019, 182p, £19-99. ISBN 978-1-52673-848-6 With the three Brontë sisters having an international reputation for their creativity and with the parsonage at Haworth having become a literary shrine to their success, the question arises as to what were the ingredients...

The Nevills of Middleham. England’s Most Powerful Family in the Wars of the Roses, K.L. Clark, History Press, 2016, £19.99, hardback, ISBN 9780750963657 The Wars of the Roses are rarely studied in detail even in Lancashire and Yorkshire where probably more people today would be better acquainted with the current...

The Origins of the English Parliament 924-1327, J. R. Maddicott (Oxford University Press, 2010) xv, 526pp., hardback, £30, ISBN 978 0 19 958550 2J. R. Maddicott, a Fellow of the British Academy and former joint editior of the English Historical Review, was Fellow and Tutor of Exeter College, Oxford, from...

The Ottoman Culture of Defeat: The Balkan Wars and their Aftermath by Eyal Ginio (Hurst and Company London), 2016 376pp., £50 hard, ISBN 978-1-84904-541-4 When the first Balkan War broke out in October 1912, few Ottomans anticipated that it would prove to be a climactic turning point for the Empire...

The Palestinians and British Perfidy: The Tragic Aftermath of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, C.W.R. Long, Sussex Academic Press, 2018, 307p, £75-00. ISBN 1845198961978. One of the hazards of modern-day British politics, an experience shared by politicians in both of our main political parties, is to express a view or...

The Parish Atlas of England: All Early Ordnance Survey 6-inch Maps Traced Over, (ed) T.C.H. Cockin, Malthouse Press, 2017, 898p, £60.00*, ISBN 978-1-907364-10-5. *The Parish Atlas of England is available to Historical Association members at the special price of £45.00 direct from the publishers: The Malthouse Press, Grange Cottage, Malthouse Lane,...

The Pen y Gwryd Hotel: Tales from the Smoke Room, [ed] Rob Goodfellow, Jonathan Copeland and Peter O’Neill,  Gomer Press,  2016,  260p,  £14-99.  ISBN 9781785621499. This is self-evidently not a conventional historical work. The book comprises over sixty different personal reminiscences and comments about a remote hotel in Snowdonia.  However...

The People's War: reliving Life on the Home Front in World War II, by Felicity Goodall Reader's Digest, £25, hardback, pub Oct 2008, ISBN: 9780276443916.Reviewed by Alf WilkinsonThis large hard-back book is very much a library and/or reference book. Its main attraction is the collection of photographs and posters, many...