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We read and review history books! Latest reviews and posts below โ†“

Byzantine Emperor Justinian
I, Emperor Justinian, welcome you to this website. Ciao!

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...

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The Crowd in the Early Middle Ages - review

Book cover for 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,...

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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...

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The Invention of Good and Evil - review

Book cover for 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 hasnโ€™t...

โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜†โ˜† (2024)

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

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The Wager - review

Book cover for 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˜…โ˜†โ˜† (2023)

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...

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The Mongol Storm - review

Book cover for 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...

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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

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...

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The Savage Storm - review

Book cover for The Savage Storm - review

Posted on: 11 October 2024

This book comes highly recommended, both for Second World War history buffs and those of us who have had relatively less exposure to military history. James Holland (a Second World War expert with his...

โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜† (2023)

Posted on: 1 October 2024

A great list this month, possibly the largest number of high quality history books published in a single month since my records began! (in 2019) There are four in particular that I'm looking out for,...

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