Those Who Are About To Die - review
24 hours in the life of a history book author: Gladiators and the Writing Mind... Chapter 1: Tempus Postmeridianum (Afternoon). Oxford, England The author pauses, waiting for his muses to gather. The...
Popular history book reviews
A blog reading and reviewing popular history books. We review great (hopefully!) new (probably...) history (certainly 🙂) books.
Latest posts
New history books in July 2026
It is hot here in the UK and in Europe. That means that I am reading less as I prefer to cycle into work rather than get the (extremely hot) London underground, which is my most reliable free time for...
The Rage of Party - review
The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries are probably among the most significant periods in English and British history, yet they do not loom large in the national consciousness. The years...
New history books in June 2026
Ok here's what we've got from last month (published in the UK in hardback). With the World Cup in full swing and England not yet out of it, I'm pleased to see at least one football history book on the...
The Black Death - review
I, Agnolo di Tura, called the Fat, buried my five children with my own hands... It is impossible for the human tongue to recount the awful thing. Indeed, one who did not see such horribleness can be...
The Four Heavens - review
Most human societies tend towards hierarchies: someone at the top giving orders, and everyone else at least pretending to follow the rules. And we tell each other stories to justify to ourselves why...
New history books in May 2026
Here's the list from last month (history books published here in the UK in hardback): only nine but a wide range of topics. A couple I am curious about are: This Little World: A New History of Tudor...
The Coming Storm - review
In my professional life I come across people ruminating on the state of the world - usually with the objective of trying to make some money out of it. These cogitations often emphasise the parallels...
New history books in April 2026
A nice collection of books from last month (published in the UK in hardback) ranging across time and space. Three I am particularly attracted to are: The Black Death: A Global History, by Thomas...
New history books in March 2026
A veritable cornucopia1 of new history books out last month, with no fewer than 18 new titles identified from my exhaustive scraping of the internet. Here are a few that I have my eye on with two of...
Oliver Cromwell - review
There is general agreement, first, that Cromwell is one of the great figures of British history, and yet also, second, that the nature of that greatness is shrouded in paradox Ronald Hutton,...
We the People - review
Asked in 2025 whether he had a duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution Trump said, 'I don't know.' >>> Jill Lepore, We the People This book was a birthday present from our website founder,...
The Wolf Age - review
In my children’s primary school the virtue of resilience is explicitly encouraged.1 Picking yourself up, dusting yourself down and having another go is indeed important in life. However one area where...
New history books in February 2026
A slightly sparser list of new history books this month (Feb 2026, in hardback in the UK). The two that I am curious to find out a bit more about are: Red Dawn Over China: How Communism Conquered a...
On Pedantry - review
Of splendid books I own no end But few that I can comprehend. I cherish books from various ages And keep the flies from off the pages. Sebastian Brant, The Ship of Fools (1494) The rhyme...
New history books in Jan 2026 (and Dec 2025)
I have combined January and Decemeber to give myself a break over xmas. However it turns out that there was not much out in December anyway and a much greater number in January so it worked out well....
Rhyme and Reason - review
Hail-stones as big as eggs apace down fell, And some much bigger, as I hear some tell: Who took them up as they lay on the ground, And measured, they were found eight inches round. ~ And fourteen...
An Accidental History of Tudor England - review
Disclaimer: the reviewer is an ex-student of Professor Steven Gunn. The English were, historically, good at paperwork. As a solicitor myself, this is something which I greatly admire. By the late...