If the Allies Had Fallen. Sixty Alternate Scenarios of World War II by Dennis Showalter and Harold C. Deutsch. Frontline Books, 2010, hardback, 304 pp, £19.99, ISBN 9781848325661The joint editors of this stimulating collection of explorations of alternative military strategies of the Second World War, Dennis Showalter and Harold Deutsch,...

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...

Ships and Shipbuilders. Pioneers of Design and Construction by Fred M. Walker. Seaforth Publishing, 2010, hardback, 256pp, £25.00, ISBN 9781848320727 This useful reference book offers biographical assessments of the contribution to shipbuilding of more than 130 notable engineers, scientists, philosophers, businessmen, shipwrights, naval architects and inventors who influenced ship design...

Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler's Capital 1939-45, Roger Moorhouse, Bodley Head, 2010, 432p, 38 photographs, ISBN 9780224080712, £25-00.In the popular mind Berlin will be seen as the capital of the Third Reich, at the heart of Hitler's aggressive and repressive regime. Roger Moorhouse has researched the ‘mood'...

She-wolves, Helen Castor, Faber and Faber, 2010, 474p, ISBN 978-0-571-23705-0, £20-00.The central focus of Helen Castor's She-wolves is the fact that, when Edward VI died in 1553, every one of his potential successors within the Tudor line was a woman. Unlike in France, there was no clear bar to a...

The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land, Thomas Asbridge, (Pocket Books, London, Sydney, New York, Toronto, first published by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd., 2010) xvi, 767pp., paperback, £9.99, ISBN 978 1 41652 608 7This edition is by Pocket Books but this substantial volume will scarcely fit into anyone's...

In Ishmael's House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands, Martin Gilbert, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2010) xxiii, 424pp., hardback, £25, ISBN 978 0 7210 3369 8This is a remarkable book by Sir Martin Gilbert, a bestselling author.  He refers to the Biblical story of Ishmael and...

The Priest and the Playwright! Parallel Lives in Edwardian London, M. F. Brown, (Pen Press, Brighton, 2009) v, 181pp., paperback, £7.99, ISBN 978 1 906710 63 7This is a record of two very different characters - the American socialite and author, Pearl Craigie, and this author's great-uncle, a Scottish priest,...

Hitler's Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant as a Young Man in Vienna Brigitte Hamann (I.B. Tauris), 2010   482pp., £12.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-84885-277-8First published in 1999 and reissued with a short forward by Hans Mommsen, Brigitte Hamann considers the formative years that Hitler spent in Vienna as a means of trying...

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...

From Democrats to Kings: The Downfall of Athens to the Epic Rise of Alexander the Great, Michael Scott (Icon Books 2010, previously published in 2009) xix, 294pp., paperback, £8.99, ISBN 978 1 84031 131 2This is the first book by Michael Scott, currently Moses and Mary Finley & Fellow of...

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 Franciscans in the Middle Ages, Michael Robson (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge and New York first published 2006, reprinted in paperback 2009) xiv, 239 pp., paperback £16.99, ISBN 978 1 8436 35158This book, by the Director of Studies in Theology at St Edmund's College, Cambridge, surveys the history of the...

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...

Hopes and Fears for the Future in Early Modern Sweden, 1500-1800, edited by Petri Karonen (Suomalaisen kirjallisauden Seura, Finnish Literature Society, Helsinki, 2009) 370pp., softback, £26.50, ISBN 978 952222 142 1Some fifteen scholars working in Sweden and Finland have contributed to this book under the editorship of Petri Karonen, Professor...

A Soldier of the Seventy-First, Joseph Sinclair, Frontline Books, 2010, 160 pp., £19.99Based on the 1831 issue, this is a work well known from the abridged 1975 edition published by Leo Cooper. Shorter than two pages, Stuart Reid's introduction does not offer much, which is unfortunate as he is a...

Edward II by Seymour Phillips (Yale English Monarchs, Yale University Press), 2010 679pp., £25 hard, ISBN 978-0-300-15657-7Stuck between two of the greatest medieval English monarchs his father Edward I, the ‘Hammer of the Scots' and his son Edward III, it is hardly surprising that Edward II has gained the reputation...

Ireland: A History by Thomas Bartlett(Cambridge University Press), 2010625pp., £25 hard, ISBN 0-978-521-19720-5There are many good histories of Ireland such as the Oxford History of Ireland series, the two volumes by Connolly on the early modern period and Paul Bew on the period after 1789 but we lack a well-written...

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...

Saladin: Hero of Islam by Geoffrey Hindley(Pen & Sword), 2010 208pp., £12.99 paper, ISBN 1-84884203-1Originally published in 1976 and republished thirty years later with additions to the bibliography to bring it up-to-date, this is a highly serviceable study of Saladin, the most effective of the Islamic leaders to oppose the...