Stalin’s Englishman: the Lives of Guy Burgess by Andrew Lownie - Hodder and Stoughton, 2015. 432 pp, £9-99. ISBN 978-1-473-62738-3 Andrew Lownie has given us the first proper biography of Guy Burgess, the fruit of twenty years of meticulous research including over 100 interviews.  He has followed the traditional approach,...

Stoke-on-Trent in 50 Buildings, Mervyn Edwards, Amberley, 2018, 96p,       £14-99. ISBN 978-1-4456-7781-1 Mervyn Edwards records that there are fewer than 200 listed buildings in Stoke-on-Trent. The limited number of listed buildings is an immediate indication of the constraints under which he has been making his selection of fifty buildings for...

Storied Ground. Landscape and the Shaping of English National Identity, Paul Readman, Cambridge University Press, hardback, 2018, ISBN 9781108424738 This wide-ranging and stimulating book ‘uncovers why landscape matters so much to the English people, exploring its particular importance in shaping English national identity amid the transformations of modernity’. The obvious...

Suffragettes. How Britain's women fought and died for the right to vote, Amberley, 2014, paperback, 192 pp.,£9.99 ISBN 1445633909 This readable, engaging, pocket-sized, introductory overview of the women's suffrage movement is extensively illustrated with images drawn from publisher's archive and author's collection, some of the most distinctive from record offices...

Facing History and Ourselves is excited to announce a new study guide. Teaching Red Scarf Girl has been developed to help classrooms explore essential Facing History themes, including conformity, obedience, prejudice and justice. Red Scarf Girl, Ji-li Jiang's engaging memoir, provides an insightful window into the first tumultuous years of...

Ten Cities that Led the World: From Ancient Metropolis to Modern Megacity, Paul Strathern, Hodder and Stoughton, 2022, 260p, £25-00. ISBN 978-1-529-35934-2. This book has such a level of coherence and insight that it will be read in a single session. Any book that manages to encompass the notion of...

Thames Mudlarking: Searching for London’s Lost Treasures, Jason Sandy and Nick Stevens, Shire, 2021, 96pp, £9-99. ISBN 9781784424329.  For two hours every day low tide exposes what this book calls ‘the ‘longest archaeological site in Britain’. Erosion and riverboat activity regularly reveal new artefacts. Henry Mayhew, in London Labour and...

The 1916 Irish Rebellion by Briona Nic Dhiarmada (Cork University Press), 2016 205pp., £19.99 hard, ISBN 978-1-78205-191-6 In the centenary of the Easter Rising, it is hardly surprising that there has been an upsurge of publications and re-publications on this seminal event in Irish history.  Like the rebellions in 1798,...

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 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 Book of the Poppy, Chris McNab, The History Press, Stroud, paperback, ISBN 9780750982481 As Remembrance Day is commemorated in 2018 one hundred years on from the ending of hostilities, this concise and evocative compact volume, first published in hardback in 2014 and now reissued in paperback, provides an illuminating...

The Bride’s Trunk: A story of War and Reconciliation, Ingrid Dixon, Cloudshill Press, 2016, 219p, £7-99 [or £4-97 Kindle]. ISBN 978-9935080-2-8 A cornerstone of historical research is the identification of primary sources. Instinctively, most of the time, we think in terms of documentary sources, stretching back into past centuries. Every...

The British Census, Simon Smith, Shire Publications, 2021, 64p, £8-99. ISBN 978-1-78442-457-2 This is timely and informative. Simon Smith has very carefully placed the British Census in the wider perspective of historical processes of collecting data about people’s lives over the centuries. The narrative is clear and well-organized, and there...

Michael A. Flower, (editor) (Cambridge University Press), 2017, 520 pp, £ 26.99, paper, ISBN 978-1-107-65215-6. Herodotus and Thucydides, though not household names, are probably known by most teachers of history, even if they are unlikely to have read or analysed their ‘Histories’. The same cannot be said of the philosopher...

The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, Volume 1: 1700-1870 by Roderick Floud, Jane Humphries and Paul Johnson (editors) (Cambridge University Press), 2014 495pp., £29.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-107-63143-4 The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, Volume 2: 1700-1870 (Cambridge University Press), 2014586pp., £29.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-107-68673-1 These two volumes are...

The Cambridge History of South Africa: Volume 1, From Early Times to 1885 by Carolyn Hamilton, Bernard K. Mbenga and Robert Ross (eds.)(Cambridge University Press), 2010 466pp., £80 hard, ISBN 0-978-521-51794-2I am writing this review an hour before England's first match of the World Cup in the ‘Rainbow Nation'.  For...

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 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 Common Story: A history of Tooting Common, [ed] Katy Layton-Jones, Wandsworth Council’s Tooting Common Heritage Project, 2019, 132p, £10-00 from the Tooting History Group [or downloadable free via link on the Tooting History Group page]. A few miles from the Historical Association office, a substantial and easily accessible open...

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...