Reviews

A Spy In The Archives: A Memoir of Cold War Russia By Sheila Fitzpatrick I.B. Tauris Moscow, June 1968. A young Oxford doctoral student is outed as a spy in a Soviet newspaper. It could have been a devastating event for an ambitious young academic but, in a comic twist worthy of an Evelyn Waugh novel, the episode seems to …

The Life of Major Lanoe Hawker VC DSO 1890-1916 By Tyrrel M Hawker MC Pen & Sword, 2013 Lanoe Hawker accomplished a great deal in his 26 years. Awarded both the Distinguished Service Order and Victoria Cross, prolific inventor, and commander of an RFC squadron, he was eventually shot down by the Red Baron in 1916. From a military family, …

If Louis Blake Duff is to be believed, Colonel Frederick Gustavus Burnaby ‘missed by a hair’s breadth getting into the main channels of history’.   This is short-sighted and Dr John W. Hawkins’ impressive new book well and truly rebukes the notion. It would be fair to say that, like many figures celebrated in their time through a grasp of the zeitgeist …

The New Architecture and the Bauhaus Walter Gropius Faber & Faber, 1935 JULY IS A quiet time of year for the appearance of that fragile commodity, a new book. Titles launched in the summer may be liable to being appraised by second string reviewers; the book-buying public is apt to be on holiday. Nevertheless, in July 1935 Faber issued The …

The Gin Lane Gazette Adrian Teal Unbound (2013) What an Age! What a time to walk the Earth! At the end of the eighteenth century, London was a gleaming metropolis with a population of well over a million, whose inhabitants had their fill of coffee houses, ale houses, theatres, pleasure gardens and masquerades. Londoners could spend their days reading the latest …

The Great War Handbook: A Guide for Family Historians & Students of the Conflict By Geoff Bridger Pen & Sword  In 2014 a four-year commemoration will begin to mark the centenary of a conflict which changed the world forever, leaving more than 16 million dead. In many ways, World War I needs little introduction. It is familiar to us not …

With the centenary of World War l approaching, historian and journalist TONY BOULLEMIER reviews a book that gets to the bottom of its causes. First published in 1991, DREADNOUGHT – Britain, Germany and the coming of the Great War, by Robert K. Massie is well worth revisiting. Being American, he can view it from a neutral angle. Indeed, he looks …

The Devil’s Carnival: The First Hundred Days of Armageddon, 1st Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers August – December 1914 John Mason Sneddon  Reveille Press, 2013   This account of the opening salvos of the First World War differs from many books based on personal diaries in that it draws on the experiences of three men rather than just one. The three diarists, all …

The Quintinshill Conspiracy: The Shocking True Story Behind Britain’s Worst Rail Disaster By Jack Anthony Richards and Adrian Searle Pen and Sword Books (Oct 2013) On 22nd May 1915, the greatest railway tragedy this country has ever seen occurred at a remote signal box just outside Gretna Green. Perhaps the greater tragedy, as Jack Richards’ and Adrian Searle’s fascinating “The …

Beastly London: A History of Animals in the City By Hannah Velten Reaktion Books In 1900 there were an estimated 200,000-700,000 working horses in London. In 1947 the Ministry of Transport banned all horse-drawn vehicles from using major London routes in peak traffic hours. The world changed fast and we forgot. Until very recently, London was not just packed with …