In the Context of Eternity. A Short History of the Christian Church, David Arnold, Grosvenor House Publishing Limited, 2015, paperback, 303 pp., £10.00, ISBN 9781781484487 This compact overview, by a recently elected Fellow of the Historical Association, combines erudition with accessibility and is a welcome addition to the history of...

Arthur and the Kings of Britain. The Historical Truth Behind the Myths, Miles Russell, Amberley Publishing, 2017, hardback, 320 pp., £20.00, ISBN 9781445662749  This exploration of the Dark Ages, as mediated by the twelfth century historian Geoffrey of Monmouth in his History of the Kings of Britain, written in 1136,...

The Comet Sweeper. Caroline Herschel’s Astronomical Ambition, Claire Brock, Icon Books, 2017, paperback, 292 pp., £8.99, ISBN 9781785781667 Caroline Herschel - sister of the royal astronomer William Herschel - qualifies to be regarded as no less a figure than ‘Britain’s first female professional scientist’, maintains Claire Brock in this lively account of...

The Trouble with Tea. The Politics of Consumption in the Eighteenth-Century Global Economy, Jane T. Merritt, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2017, paperback, 212 pp., £17.00, ISBN 9781421421537 No event in the American Revolution is perhaps more vividly recalled than the Boston tea party - to the extent that, as...

The Anatomy of a Traitor: The History of Espionage and Betrayal, Michael Smith, Aurum Press, 2017, 320p, £20.00. ISBN 978-1-78131-657-3. Although the sub-title of this book hints at a rather wider perspective, in essence this work is focused on very recent history, to the degree that this reviewer recognised most...

The Fighting Essex Soldier: Recruitment, war and society in the fourteenth century, [ed] Christopher Thornton, Jennifer Ward and Neil Wiffen, Essex Publications, 2017, 178p, £18-99. ISBN 978-1-909291-88-1. Ten years ago The Historian (97, Winter 2007, pp6-13) published an article entitled ‘What did you do in the Hundred Years War, Daddy?, with...

What’s the point of history? In a time when the value of studying the humanities is often questioned this book provides a genuine attempt to analyse how history impacts on people’s lives. The book explains how the past connects with its public, discussing the role which interpretations play in contributing to social and...

The Spies of Winter: the GCHQ Codebreakers who fought the Cold War, Sinclair McKay, Aurum Press, 2017, 346p, £9-99. ISBN 978-1-78131-298-8. For anyone interested in the wartime exploits and achievements of the code-breakers at Bletchley Park, this will be a compelling sequel. What Sinclair McKay offers is an exploration of...

Imperial Violence and the Path to Independence: India, Ireland and the Crisis of Empire by Shereen Ilahi (I.B. Tauris, 2016) 258pp., £ 59, ISBN 978-1-78453-130-0 In the aftermath of World War I, the British Empire was hit by two different crises on opposite sides of the world: the Jallianwala Bagh...

Lincoln in the Atlantic World, Louise L. Stevenson (Cambridge University Press), 2015 277pp., £21.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-107-52423-1 We tend to think of Abraham Lincoln as the almost archetypal American president, an individual who rose from log-cabin to the White House, who defended the Union against the threat posed by the...

Coffee: A Drink for the Devil by Paul Chrystal (Amberley Publishing), 2016 96pp., £9.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-4456-4939-2 In the Western world, coffee consumption is around one-third that of tap water and the poet T.S. Eliot commented that ‘I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.’ After petroleum, coffee is...

The Beauty of Her Age: A Tale of Sex, Scandal and Money in Victorian England by Jenifer Roberts (Amberley Publishing), 2016 276pp., £20 hard, ISBN 978-1-4456-5320-4 If you enjoy a good yarn full of sex, scandal and money then this is the book for you. It’s a rags to riches...

The Catholic Church and the Campaign for Catholic Emancipation in Ireland and England by Ambrose Macaulay (Four Courts Press, 2016) 416pp., £ 26.74, hard, ISBN 978-1-84682-600-9 Rather like the debate on the European Union…in many respects it was the Brexit of its day…the campaign for Catholic Emancipation divided society into...

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...

Sixties Ireland: Reshaping the Economy, State and Society, 1957-1973 by Mary E. Daly (Cambridge University Press), 2016 426pp., £19.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-316-50931-9 This provocative new history of Ireland during the long 1960s exposes the myths of Ireland’s modernisation. Mary Daly questions traditional interpretations which see these years as a time...

A Year in the Life of Medieval England by Toni Mount (Amberley Publishing), 2016 373pp., £20 hard, ISBN 978-1-4456-5239-9 The medieval centuries are often associated with dynastic struggles, grisly wars and the formidable influence of the Church. But what about the everyday experience of the royal subjects and common people?...

The Houses of History: A critical reader in history and theory by Anna Green and Kathleen Troup (2nd edition, Manchester University Press, 2016) 461pp., £17.99, paper, ISBN 978-0-7190-9621-1 The Houses of History is a clearly written introduction to the major theoretical approaches employed by historians. Historians, it was said I...

Sir Richard Tangye 1833-1906: A Cornish Entrepreneur in Victorian Birmingham, Stephen Roberts, Birmingham Biographies, 2015, 65p, £4-99. ISBN 9781512207910. For those interested in the industrial and commercial history of Birmingham, Eric Hopkins’ Birmingham: the First Manufacturing Town in the World 1760-1840 [1989] has been our essential starting point. In contrast...

Britain and the Arab Middle East: World War I and its aftermath by Robert H. Lieshout (I.B. Tauris, 2016) 510pp. £29.95, hard, ISBN 978-1-78453-583-4 In the long years since the invasion of Iraq, the short-lived ‘Arab Spring’, the unending civil wars in Syria, the meteoric rise of Islamic State and...

Early Medieval Kent 800-1220, Sheila Sweetinburgh (ed.) (Boydell Press Kent County Council), 2016 333pp., £50 hard, ISBN 978-0-85115-583-8. This is the tenth volume in the Kent History Project, supported by Kent County Council, that now covers the history of the county from the archaeology of the Anglo-Saxon period through to...