The Medieval Gentry; Power, Leadership and Choice During the Wars of the Roses, Malcolm Mercer (Continuum, London & New York, 2010) ix, 173pp., hardback £65.00, ISBN 978 1 44119064 2This study has a bibliography of some fourteen pages listing sources, manuscript and printed, from London, Oxford and Dublin, primary and...

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...

The Medieval Traveller, Norbert Ohler, translated by Caroline Hillier (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge and New York, 2010, first published in German 1986, English translation 1989, this is a new edition) xv, 296pp., paperback, £19.99, $37.00, ISBN 978 1 84383507 3This classic study reminds us that where formerly it was believed...

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 Myth of Ancient Egypt, Charlotte Booth (Amberley Publishing, Stroud, 2011) 223pp., paperback, £18.99, $30.00, ISBN 978 1 4456 0274 5 This book might equally have been entitled The Myths of Ancient Egypt.  Charlotte Booth, a graduate of University College, London, who is a free-lance Egyptologist, has here investigated eight...

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 New Atlas of World History: Global Events at a Glance by John Haywood (Thames & Hudson), 2011252pp., £32 hard, ISBN 978-0-500-25185-0This historical atlas presents global history in a series of uniform world maps.  This allows complete and instant comparability between different periods and regions. For example, when did modern...

The New Ways of History: Developments in Historiography - Gelina Harlaftis, Nikos Karapidakis, Kostas Sbonias and Vaios Vaiopoulos, (eds.),(I.B. Tauris), 2010  260pp., £56.50, hard, ISBN 978-1-84885-126-9. Making sense of the past is always a challenge for historians; some might argue a fruitless task. In a world where people's actions are...

The Norman Conquest, Marc Morris, Windmill Books, 2013, 440 p.  Paperback £8.99. ISBN: 9780099537441 Marc Morris will be known to many from his appearances as a television historian and he was a very popular lecturer the recent Historical Association Conference at York. He been the main presenter on Castle but,...

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 Oxford Handbook of The History of Medicine by Jackson, Mark, (ed.) (Oxford University Press), 2011 672pp., £95, hard, ISBN 978-0-19-954649-7 In recent decades, the history of medicine has emerged as a vibrant focus of study within history and an area of vigorous debates about methods, themes, and sources.  The...

The Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution (Oxford University Press, New York, 2013), pp. 673 Edward Gray and Jane Kamensky (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution presents the reader with a range of new scholarship on a complex and dynamic subject, covering a chronological period ranging from pre-war...

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,...

Hugh Small, The Passion of Florence Nightingale, Amberley, 2010, paperback, 160pp, £18.99, ISBN 9781445600642This revised edition of Hugh Small's controversial biography of Florence Nightingale published in 1998, which first revealed the constraints faced by Nightingale in seeking to highlight conditions in the military hospitals at Scutari during the Crimean War,...

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 Peninsular War Atlas, Nick Lipscombe, Osprey Publishing,2014, 390p, £45-00.  ISBN 978-1-4728-0773-1.Nick Lipscombe's The Peninsular War Atlas is a fascinating exercise in mapping the British involvement in the IberianPeninsula, from 1808 until 1814. The maps and charts provided enable the reader to understand how the various campaigns unfolded, and the...

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...