The Real Mrs Beeton. The Story of Eliza Acton, Sheila Hardy, The History Press, 2011, hardback, 223 pp, £16.99, ISBN 9780752461229; Napoleon's Chicken Marengo. Creating the Myth of the Emperor's Favourite Dish, Andrew Uffindell, Frontline Books, 2011, hardback, 276 pp., £19.99 ISBN9781848325784 In twenty-first century austerity Britain there has been...

Craig Cabell, Graham A. Thomas and Allan Richards (Pen & Sword), 2012   192 pp., £19.99 hard, ISBN 978-1-84415-959-8 Edward Teach ‘Blackbeard' is one of the best known yet tantillisingly difficult to pin down because there have been so many accounts of his short, bloody career.  This new study looks for...

Ivan Berend - (Cambridge University Press), 2012 528pp., £23.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-107-68999-2 There has long been a need for a textbook on the ways in which the economy developed in nineteenth century Europe.  This new transnational survey answers that need exploring the regional differences that shaped the economic course of...

Amy Licence - (Amerberley Press), 2013 256 pp., £20 hard, ISBN 978-1-4456-0961-4 Elizabeth of York was the wife of Henry VII and the mother of the dynasty with three of her children becoming monarchs in their own right: Henry VIII succeeded his father; Margaret became Queen of Scotland and Mary...

Poor Relief and Community in Hadleigh, Suffolk 1547-1600: volume 12 Studies in Regional and Local History, Marjorie Keniston McIntosh, University of Hertfordshire Press, 2013, hardback, 188p, 31 tables, 4 figures, ISBN 978-1-907396-91-5, £35.00.  [paperback version to follow later in the year] ‘The poor always ye have with you,' we are...

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...

The Road Past Mandalay, John Masters, 1961 [reissued 2012] Cassell Military Paperback; ISBN: 978-0-3043-6157-1 The Road Past Mandalay forms the second volume of autobiography by John Masters, covering the period of the Second World War. When war broke out, John Masters was already a junior officer in the Indian Army,...

The White Rose of Stalingrad: The Real-life Adventure of Lidiya Vladimirovna Litvyak, the Highest scoring Female Air Ace of All Time, Bill Yenne, Osprey Publishing, 2013, 319p, ISBN 9781849088107. £20-00.The title of this extraordinary book does not fully convey the full breadth of what this book reveals and explores.It does...

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 Great War Explained: A Simple Story and Guide,Philip Stevens, Pen and Sword Books, 2012,  222p, £19.99.ISBN: 978-1-84884-764-4.As we approach the centenary of the outbreak of The Great War in 1914, no doubt many books will appear on its causes and the events in it. This book is a good...

Fighter Pilot, by Paul Richey.Orion Books, ISBN 978-0-3043-6339-1, re-issued 2012, £8.99.This is the story of an RAF pilot who went to France in September 1939 to support the BEF. The book, first published in 1941, is based on his diary through the Phoney War and then the Blitzkreig, and ends...

The Point Blank Directive, L. Douglas Keeney, Osprey Publishing, 2012, 272 p, £20.00.  ISBN: 978-1-84908-933-3 This book is about the air war over Germany from 1943 and the complicated preparations for D Day in June 1944. For many months, the Allied air attacks on Germany were the only way of...

The Tudors, Richard Rex, Amberley, 2012, paperback, 256 pp., £9.99, ISBN 9781445607009; Margaret of York the Diabolical Duchess, Amberley Publishing, 2012, paperback, 256 pp., £10.99, ISBN 9781445608198; Thomas Cromwell. Henry VIII's Henchman, J. Patrick Coby, Amberley, 2012, hardback, 278 pp., £20.00, ISBN 97801445607757 Richard Rex's popular introductory survey of the...

Being a Historian: An Introduction to the Professional World of History - James M. Banner, Jr (Cambridge University Press, 2012) 267pp., £18.99 paper, ISBN 978-1107697287 Based on the author's more than fifty years as a professional historian in academic and other capacities, Being a Historian is a book that both...

Slavery in Yorkshire: Richard Oastler and the campaign against child labour in the Industrial Revolution - John A. Hargreaves and E. A. Hilary Haigh, (eds.) (University of Huddersfield), 2012 238pp., rrp £24 paper , ISBN 978-1-86218-107-6. The book is also available at £20 here... In Kirkheaton churchyard near Huddersfield there...

Cosmo Lang: Archbishop in War and Crisis, Robert Beaken, I.B. Taurus, 2012, hardback, 300 pp., £25.00, ISBN 9781780763552Cosmo Lang's historical reputation as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1928-42, as his most recent successor Rowan Williams observes in an astute foreword to this new revisionist biography, has suffered not only from contemporary...

Armies of the Napoleonic Wars, edited by Gregory Fremon-Barnes, Pen and Sword Books Ltd, 2011, hardback, 271 pp., £25.00 ISBN 9781848840676; Walcheren 1809. The Scandalous Destruction of a British Army, Martin R. Howard, Pen and Sword Military, 2012, hardback, 242 pp., £19.99 ISBN 9781848844681; Russian Eyewitness Accounts of the Campaign...

Attlee: A Life in Politics, Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (I. B. Taurus & Co., London and New York, 2012, first published in hardback 2010) xviii, 329pp., paperback, £12.99, ISBN 978 1 78076 215 9 Attlee gave the impression of being shy yet he is often thought of as the greatest prime minister...

The Gypsy ‘Menace', Populism and the New Anti-Gypsy Politics, Michael Stewart (editors preface by Misha Glenny (Hurst& Co., London, 2012) 382pp., paperback, £18.95, ISBN 978 1 84904 220 8 Attitudes to Roma and Gypsies in many EU countries have changed considerably in the last five years or so.  Increasingly the...

King John: an Underrated King, Graham E. Seel (Anthem Press, London and New York, 2012) xiv, 230pp., paperback £12.99, ISBN 978 0 85728 518 8 Graham Seel, Head of History at St. Paul's School, London, has produced this very readable account of one of the most controversial figures in English...