History books and reviews
All Books
Our Reviews
Opinion
We read and review history books! Latest reviews and posts below โ
The Eagle and the Hart - review
Posted on: 16 February 2025
This new book on Richard II and Henry IV, by Helen Castor (a former Cambridge fellow and TV broadcaster, specialising in English medieval and Tudor history) is a gripping drama of two closely...
โ โ โ โ โ (2024)
review
Republic - review
Posted on: 9 February 2025
The waiting is over. The soldiers on each side have finally marched into position, carrying their long pikes which they now lower to create an impenetrable wall of spikes. Many of the men are past...
โ โ โ โ โ (2024)
review
New history books in January 2025
Posted on: 3 February 2025
I spotted 14 new history books in the wild last month (in the UK, in hardback). I always like to see a diversity of topics and periods, and this batch has a good range, from the ancient Mediterranean...
new books
The Crowd in the Early Middle Ages - review
Posted on: 25 January 2025
The Crowd in the Early Middle Ages Shane Bobrycki, assistant professor of medieval history at the University of Vienna1, has written an excellent short (177 page) book about early medieval Europe,...
โ โ โ โ โ (2024)
review
New history books in December 2024
Posted on: 1 January 2025
It's the first post of the new year 2025 and unlike every other website on the internet I am going to start with a damp squib rather than a bang. Hopefully we will build to a crescendo over the coming...
new books
The Invention of Good and Evil - review
Posted on: 22 December 2024
The Invention of Good and Evil: A World History of Morality, by Hanno Sauer, has - I think - one of the best titles of any non-fiction book. Who could fail to be intrigued? After all who hasnโt...
โ โ โ โโ (2024)
review
A society which has lost belief in its capacity to progress in the future will quickly cease to concern itself with its progress in the past.
Review of E. H. Carr, What is History
The Wager - review
Posted on: 8 December 2024
My sailing experience is fairly limited, but I do remember a trip in the North Sea as a boy, painfully tacking back and forth as we inched up the Yorkshire coast. Landlubber that I was, I still...
โ โ โ โโ (2023)
review
New history books in November 2024
Posted on: 1 December 2024
I identified a mere nine history books published in the UK in November 2024 (excluding the hundreds of highly dubious titles with AI slop covers). Of the nine there is one I will be putting on my xmas...
new books
The Mongol Storm - review
Posted on: 24 November 2024
Hands up if you've heard of the Ilkhanate Empire? If you've got your hand up: well done (assuming you are not bluffing). For everyone else, and me included before reading Mongol Storm: Making and...
โ โ โ โ โ (2022)
review
GREAT CONSPIRACY. Today would have been one of the greatest events that France has ever known if conspiracy had had its way.
Review of Colin Jones, The Fall of Robespierre
New history books in October 2024
Posted on: 1 November 2024
I couldn't find too many new popular history books published in October. I'm not sure why they seem so thin on the ground, perhaps I have overlooked a few? All of those that I did find look well worth...
new books
Page 1 of 13 | Next