Book Reviews
Here are a selection of book reviews which previously appeared in Open History. If you want to read up to date reviews why not join the Society? As a member you will receive a copy of every Open History magazine.
Birmingham and the Black Country
In our study of history there are some landmark volumes which are referred to by a sort of short hand. Local historians have key secondary...
Mehmet the Conqueror and Constantinople: A Portrait of Youth and Ambition
By Christopher Eimer, Spink Books Hardback, £25.00. ISBN 9781912667 666. Available from www.spinkbooks.comMehmet II was barely twenty-one years old...
Roman Britain’s Missing Legion: What really happened to IXHispana?
by Simon Elliott, Pen & Sword Books LtdThe unexplained disappearance of the legio IX Hispana (also known as the Ninth) from historical records...
The Ratline: Love, Lies and Justice on the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive
As a title, ‘The Ratline’ is a slight misnomer, as the escape route for Nazi fugitives takes up only a minor part of the book — and much of that is...
Righting the Wrong- Mary Macarthur 1880-1921 The Working Woman’s Champion.
Cathy Hunt is a well known Midland historian who specialises in the history of labour together with the work of women. The book is the product of...
King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa
The author, Adam Hochschild, an American journalist and historian, whose particular interest are human rights and social justice, tells a gruesome...
Daughters of the Winter Queen: Four Remarkable Sisters
This book is set mainly in central Europe and highlights the causes and some of the actions of ‘one of the most destructive conflicts in human...
Richard III: Loyalty Binds Me
It is unusual for a history story to be accorded the lead position on the British television news. This has happened on a number of occasions in...
The Fiddle
Appropriately, I am writing about this review on World Holocaust Day. The story commences in St Petersburg at a momentous time in Russia’s history —...
Sacred Britannia: The Gods and Rituals of Roman Britain
Book Author: MIRANDA ALDHOUSE GREEN Review by: Antonio Battagliotti Miranda Aldhouse-Green’s Sacred Britannia casts a huge shadow. It manages to be...
Sicily: Heritage of the World
Review by Antonio Battagliotti Sicily has been a crossroads of different cultures with a history that is about three thousand years long. During...