Reviews of History Books »

Long overdue

Advantages: Fascinating reading
Disadvantages: -

...been late in coming, and a little less forceful in affect and event. Perhaps history is to blame here -- the Welsh have been only marginally protected by geography; the mountainous area was difficult terrain to conquer, but the supply lines to those mountains were relatively easy to maintain and sustain, unlike the trek to the northern reaches of Scotland or crossing the sea into Ireland, areas that (however much English history might want to contradict ...
...so fortunate. Indeed, it is a miracle that the Welsh survive. The Scots lost land, language and independence, but retained administrative and legal systems separations that preserved many aspects of nationhood. The Irish never completely lost independence. The Welsh, however, lost practically everything of nationhood, and barely sustained an independent culture. Thus, when the 'nations' of the British Isles began to re-exert their independent interpretations ...

frkurt 06.09.2005 · Read Full Review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of A History of Wales - John Davies

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Only a TRACE of information

Advantages: Colour coded for ease of use
Disadvantages: No real information on how to find the things spoken about

...the process. I bought the Who Do You Think You Are - Trace your family history back to the Tudors about a month ago now and was hoping it would give me some valuable tips on how to continue my search. I'm afraid to say however I was thoroughly disappointed. However for the sake of this review I will start with the books good points. The book is split into three sections: 1/Discovering your early ancestors 2/Their life and times and 3/Where to go ...
...of information, which is made easier by the fact that each section has a different colour; red, green and blue respectively. Another point to note is that the book does contain celebrity case-studies within it to give the reader an idea of what can be found out and a rough idea of how to go about it. The final good point about the book is the last section, which contains a list of useful but more importantly up-to-date website address. A list of ...

MI9to5 03.09.2008 · Read Full Review
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Review of Who Do You Think You Are?: Trace Your Family History Back to the Tudors: Bk. 3 - Nick Barratt, Anton Gill

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1000 years of immigration...

Advantages: -
Disadvantages: -

...has become a big name in the world of TV in recent years, partly due to the new status afforded charismatic history presenters and also through writing such popular documentaries as In The Footsteps of Alexander the Great and Conquistadors. But alongside his high profile TV work, Wood has written a string of successful books aimed at both the leyman and student alike. In Search Of The Dark Ages spans a thousand year stretch of British history from ...
...takes each of these incursions in turn and examines the causes and effects of each. The period from the Roman period through the Dark Ages and ending with the Norman overlords, is one with very little writing by the indigenous population and thus a lot of source material is based on the perspective of those viewing the situation from afar. It is for this reason that the period is open to some of the most distorted interperations of history, but ...

steerpyke 03.01.2005 · Read Full Review
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Review of In Search of the Dark Ages - Michael Wood

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Love,sex and marriage

Advantages: brilliant!
Disadvantages: wanted to know more.

...been interested in history and the Tudor period is my favourite so this book really appealed to me. The reviews on the back cover claimed that the book was an entertaining account of Henry V11’s complicated domestic history, full of interesting detail. It was the promise of interesting detail taken from reliable sources, which persuaded me to buy this book as opposed to other accounts on offer. So heres a brief taster of what this book has to offer, ...
...The content ********** At the front of the book is a really well detailed chronology starting from 1485 when Henry Tudor wins the battle of Bosworth Field and the Tudor Dynasty begins to 1558 when Elizabeth1 comes to the throne. Part 1 of the book is devoted to Katherine of Aragon, Henry’s wife for over 20 years. There is a wealth of excellent data about this queen as she was a princess in her own right. The book charts her life from her early ...

anwar 12.09.2004 · Read Full Review
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Review of The Six Wives of Henry VIII - Alison Weir

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I'm in the Mood for Dancing....

Advantages: Superbly written and engaging, a fascinating subject
Disadvantages: None

...Waller’s “A Time to Dance, a Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518” explores the strange outbreaks of spontaneous and prolonged feverish dancing that occurred in parts of western Europe during the middle ages. Known medically as “chorea” there are a good number of documented cases of this over a couple of centuries but Waller focuses on the outbreak in Strasbourg in 1518, most notable because literally hundreds of people ...
...in turn. Waller paints a fascinating portrait of medieval Strasbourg and the conditions in which its citizens lived. He looks at the corrupt domination of the church in which priests sold pardons to finance their lavish lifestyles and prostitutes commonly lived in monasteries in order to keep the monks happy and some Dominican monks approached the Bishop of Strasbourg to complain that they felt they were being made to work too hard. He also writes ...

fizzytom 21.06.2009 · Read Full Review
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Review of A Time to Dance, a Time to Die - John Waller

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