Offa: the quality of Mercia, Richard Stone, RSE Publishing, 2012, 34p, ISBN 978-0-9536-5273-0. £4-50. Available post-free from Richard Stone at 33 Arden Road, Barton-under-Needwood DE13 8LE, cheques made payable to ‘Richard Stone'. Offa was first and foremost king of Mercia [757-796] but he also had an undoubted national and international...

Olympic Visions; Images of the Games through History, Mike O'Mahony (Reaktion Books, London, 2012) 176pp., hardback, £22.00, 116 illustrations of which 50 are colour, ISBN 978 1 06189 910 1 The modern Olympic Games have become a world phenomenon since their beginning in 1896 and it has been a signal...

Out of Birmingham: George Dixon (1820-98), Father of Free Education, James Dixon, Brewin Books, 2013, 264p [hardback and paperback].James Dixon is to be congratulated on the tenacity with which he pursued every scrap of evidence to produce this life of his ancestor, George Dixon.  From Yorkshire to Australasia, James has left...

Pacts and Alliances in History. Diplomatic Strategy and the Politics of Coalitions, edited by Melissa P. Yeager and Charles Carter, I.B. Tauris, 2012, 295 pp., £59.95, ISBN 9781848857735A valuable collection on pacts and alliances, the building blocs of diplomacy and statecraft. Based on a conference held at the Mershon Center...

Painting the Town. Scottish Urban History in Art, E. Patricia Dennison, Stuart Eydmann, Annie Lyell, Michael Lynch and Simon Stronach, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2013, hardback, ISBN 978 1 90833 204 2This beautifully illustrated volume amply lives up to its publisher's claim on its dust jacket of displaying...

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...

Palmerston: A Biography David Brown (Yale University Press), 2010   576pp., £25 paper, ISBN 978-0-300-11898-8Palmerston was a politician who was rather like a slow-burning fuse: it took a long time for him to reach the explosive heights of political power.  Born in 1784, he was Secretary for War for nearly two...

Paradise in Chains: The Bounty Mutiny and the Founding of Australia, Diane Preston, Bloomsbury, 2018, 333pp., £25 hard, ISBN 978-1-63286-610-3 William Bligh hold the unenviable record of having suffered two mutinies in his career. The story of the mutiny on the Bounty in April 1789 and of William Bligh's and his men's survival...

Pashas: Traders and Travellers in the Islamic World.James Mather. Yale University Press. 2011, 302p. ISBN: 978-0-300-12639-6. £12.99At a time when much attention is focussed on events in the Arab world, the issuing of James Mather's 2009 book in paperback format is very appropriate. He deals with the neglected history of...

Passchendaele 1917: The Tommies’ Experience of the Third battle of Ypres, Robert J. Parker, Amberley, 2017, 288p, £20-00. ISBN 978-1-4456-5571-0 This very coherent commentary and analysis of what we know as the ‘Passchendaele’ campaign in 1917 is sub-titled ‘The Tommies’ Experience of the Third battle of Ypres’ but in reality...

Pembrokeshire: Journeys and Stories, Trevor Fishlock and Jeremy Moore, 2011, Gomer Press, 156p, ISBN 9781848510869, £19-99.This book will interest those who have some experience of the Pembrokeshire countryside and coast but equally it sets the scene well for those who are not yet familiar with this south-western corner of Wales....

Houses of the Weald and Downland: People and Houses of South-east England c.1300-1900, Danae Tankard, Carnegie Publishing Ltd, 2012, paperback, 214p, 100 illustrations (30 in full colour), ISBN 978-1-859362-0-6, £14.99. The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum opened in 1970 with the aim of rescuing representative examples of vernacular buildings...

Perilous Glory: The Rise of Western Military Power by John France(Yale University Press), 2011 438pp., £25 hard, ISBN 978-0-300-12074-5Is there such a thing as a Western art of war?  The best-selling historian and political commentator argued that there was and for many his views have become almost an article of faith. ...

Petit’s Tours of Old Staffordshire, Philip Modiano, RPS Publications, 2019, 180p [with 185 images], £14-00. ISBN 978-1-9164931-0-0 Occasionally a remarkable book appears on a most unexpected topic. Philip Modiano’s research into the life and creative output of the Reverend John Louis Petit is just one such work. Modiano presents this...

Pillboxes and Tank Traps, Bernard Lowry, Shire Library, 2014,64p, £7-95.  ISBN 978-0-74781-356-9.There are two types of local history: what specifically happens in a particular location as compared with the patterns which emerge from widescale research at a local level. This book on Pillboxes and Tank Traps has had a particular...

Plague, Pestilence and Pandemic: Voices from History, [ed] Peter Furtado, Thames and Hudson, 2021, 335p, £20-00. ISBN 978-0-500-25258-1. This book is very timely in its arrival. Peter Furtado, the former Editor of History Today, has provided us with two approaches to the issue of Plague, Pestilence and Pandemic. In the...

Poland and the Second World War 1938-48, Evan McGilvray, Pen and Sword, 2019, 344p, £25-00. ISBN 9781473834101. For those of us who understood that the Polish Partitions of the 18th Century had removed the reality of a Polish state from the map of Europe and that at the end of the...

Political Pamphlets & Sermons from Wales, 1790-1806 by Marion Löffler with Bethan Jenkins (University of Wales Press), 2014 322pp., £24.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-78316-100-3 In the aftermath of the outbreak of the French Revolution, there was an intense political debate across Britain about the nature of government and the question of...

Politics, Society and Homosexuality in Post-War Britain: the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 and its significanceKeith Dockray Fonthill Media, 2017, 96 pp., £14.99. ISBN 978-1-78155-624-5  This book is a good introduction to the legislation concerning and the Establishment attitudes towards gay or ‘homosexual’ society from the latter half of the...

Pontifex Maximus: A Short History of the Popes, Christopher Lascelles, Crux Publishing, 2017, 375pp., £9.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-909979-45-1 This book is aimed at the general reader who is short on time and seeks an accessible overview unencumbered by ecclesiastical jargon and scholarly controversies. Frank McLynn, author of Genghis Khan, Napoleon and...