Gideon Brough (I.B. Tauris), 2017, 313pp., £25 hard, ISBN 978-1-78453-593-3. Owain Glyn Dwr is a towering figure in Welsh history and military history. Initially a loyal subject of the king of England, he reluctantly took up arms against the Crown he had served leading the last war of Welsh independence...

The SAS in World War II - An Illustrated History, Gavin Mortimer.  Osprey Publishing, 2011, 256 pp, ISBN 978-1-84908-646-2, £20.With so much sensational literature being produced nowadays about Special Forces, it is good to find a book about the history of the Special Air Service (SAS) during World War 2,...

The Secret Queen. Eleanor Talbot The Woman who put Richard III on the Throne, John Ashdown-Hill, The History Press, Stroud, 2016, paper, £9.99 ISBN 9780750968461 This revised edition of a book first published in 2009 and reissued in 2010, with an advertising alert on the front cover promising ‘New Evidence...

The Slave Trade, James Walvin, Thames and Hudson History Files, 2011, paperback, 144 pp, £12.95, ISBN 9780500289174 This is a remarkably compact, beautifully illustrated book and pack on the transatlantic slave trade with the added attraction of ten facsimile documents ranging from a list of goods on a 1688 Dutch...

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...

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 Tudor Kitchen. What the Tudors Ate and Drank, Terry Breverton, Amberley Publishing, 2015, hardback, 352 pp., £20.00, ISBN 9781445648743 Henry VIII’s most characteristic pose at the banquet table in so many screen representations of his reign is hungrily gnawing at a chicken leg before casting the bone casually over...

The Victorian and Edwardian Schoolchild, Pamela Horn, Amberley, 2010, paperback, 192 pp, £16.99, ISBN 9781848688100; Life Below Stairs in the Twentieth Century, Pamela Horn, Amberley, 2010, paperback, 294 pp, £16.99, ISBN 9781848688124; Women in the 1920s, Pamela Horn, Amberley, 2010, paperback, 256 pp, £16.99, ISBN 9781848688117 Amberley are to be...

Jeremy Black, The War of 1812 in the age of Napoleon, Continuum, 2010, hardback, 256 pp, £25.00, ISBN 9780826436122Dedicated to William Hague, who since this book went to press has now assumed responsibility for Britain's conduct of Anglo-American relations in the second decade of the twenty-first century, Professor Jeremy Black's...

The Witch: A History of Fear from Ancient Times to the Present, Ronald Hutton, Yale University Press, 2017, 360pp., £25 hard, ISBN 978-0-300-22904-2 Why have societies across the globe feared witchcraft? This book delves deeply into its context, beliefs and origins in Europe's and global history.  Witches came to prominence –...

The Witches: Salem, 1692, a History by Stacy Schiff (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), 2015 496pp., £20 hard, ISBN 978-1-4766-0224-2 The early 1690s were years of considerable anxiety in the New England colonies that were faced with spectral threats and actual threats from Native Americans and from without by a resurgent English...

This Sovereign Isle: Britain In and Out of Europe, Robert Tombs, Allen Lane, 2021, 203 pp, £16.99. ISBN 978-0-241-48038-0  Robert Tombs is well-known for his works on French and English history and he has turned his hand to an admirably concise history of Britain’s relationship with its European neighbours from the...

Thomas Chippendale, Adam Bowett and James Lomax, Shire Publications, 2021, 64p, £8-99. ISBN 978-1-78442-477-0. Thomas Chippendale has a claim to be Britain’s most famous furniture designer and manufacturer. Although we will have seen examples of his exquisite work in country houses and museums, we will not necessarily know very much...

Tolkien in East Yorkshire 1917 - 1918: An Illustrated Tour,Phil Mathison, Dead Good Publications, 2012, £8.99.ISBN: 978-0-9562994-1-3Most people are familiar with the works of J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973). His writings, most notably "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings", have sold in millions of copies round the world and...

Tracing Your Ancestors in Lunatic Asylums: a Guide for Family Historians, Michelle Higgs, Pen and Sword, 2019,  196p, £14-99. ISBN 978 1 52674 485 2 My great-great-grandmother Emma Wood’s brother, Theophilus Wood, died in the Warwickshire Lunatic Asylum in 1871. It was his extraordinary fore-name that initially attracted my attention...

Tracing Your Family History with the Whole Family: A Family Research Adventure for All Ages, Robin C. McConnell, Pen and Sword, 2022, 151p, £14.99. ISBN 9781399013888. This is a very well-intentioned book, based on the exceptionally strong idea of inter-generational collaboration. Robin McConnell is very persuasive in his proposition that...

Tracing Your Liverpool Ancestors - A Guide for Family Historians, by Mike Royden. Pen and Sword, 2010, Paper, 456 pp, £14.99, ISBN 9781844159901This very useful guide for family historians tracing their Liverpool ancestry is firmly rooted in the belief that genealogical research is both enlivened and enhanced by an appreciation...

Tracing Your Poor Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians, Stuart A. Raymond, Pen and Sword, 2020, 196p, £14-99. ISBN 9781526742933 This is a very helpful aide memoire for anyone wishing to find out what their impoverished ancestors may have experienced. Inevitably it cannot provide precise answers to the most specific...

Tracing Your Prisoner Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians, Stephen Wade, Pen and Sword, 2020, 176p, £14-99. ISBN 9781526778529 This is part of a very helpful series that has been produced by Pen and Sword. In this volume Stephen Wade guides us into a potentially unfamiliar area of family and...

Travellers in the Third Reich. The Rise of Fascism through the Eyes of Everyday People, Julia Boyd. London: Elliott and Thompson Limited, 2017, 488 pp., ISBN 978 1 78396 381 2, £10.99 A well-written and interesting account that reflects not only a wideranging trawl through a range of sources but...