Tag: history

Review – Pyramids

Posted February 1, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments

Review – Pyramids

Pyramids

by Joyce Tyldesley

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 288
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

From the development of monumental architecture around 3,000 BC to the fabulous edifices that rose up from the desert plains of Giza, Pyramids chronicles how and why Egypt's pharaohs built on so grand a scale. Joyce Tyldesley, writer, lecturer and broadcaster on Ancient Egypt, cuts away modern myth and prejudice to reveal the truth behind the conception, design and constructiion of these astonishing structures. By tracing Egypt's pyramid-building society back to its roots, Tyldesley not only shows how and why the Egyptians built pyramids, but how the pyramids helped to build Egypt itself.

Joyce Tyldesley’s Pyramids is a non-sensational deep-dive into the pyramids, how they were built (not in architectural detail, admittedly, but with some explanations of e.g. levelling them, how they used bedrock, etc), what they were built for, and basically everything we know about them and the sacred landscapes around them. There’s a bit of general Egyptian history as well to add context, but it’s mostly about the remains and what we can discover from them, and what they might have meant to the builders.

It’s pretty thorough, and though I could’ve wished for colour illustrations, there are some black and white illustrations and diagrams where it helps to illustrate the text (though the text isn’t organised to flow around them very well).

If you’re a huge fan of ancient Egyptians and the pyramids, this is worthwhile. I found it fascinating, and clearly-written, but it might be a bit dry if you don’t have a deep interest in the subject. It doesn’t really discuss any of the conspiracy theories except very briefly to dismiss them, except for digging a bit into the so-called Pyramid Inch.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – The Green Ages

Posted January 29, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Review – The Green Ages

The Green Ages: Medieval Innovations in Sustainability

by Annette Kehnel

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 352
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

Fishing quotas on Lake Constance. Common lands in the UK. The medieval answer to Depop in the middle of Frankfurt.

These are all just some of the sustainability initiatives from the Middle Ages that Annette Kehnel illuminates in her astounding new book, The Green Ages. From the mythical-sounding City of Ladies and their garden economy to early microcredit banks and rent-a-cow schemes, Kehnel uncovers a world at odds with what we might think of as the typical medieval existence.

Pre-modern history is full of inspiring examples and concepts that open up new horizons. And we urgently need them as today's challenges - finite resources, the twilight of consumerism, growing inequality - threaten what we have come to think of as a modern way of living sustainably.

This is a revelatory look at the past that has the power to change our future.

Annette Kehnel’s The Green Ages is trying to offer a way forward for society based on examples of the past — not necessarily saying they’re fully transferrable, or that everyone can simply swear themselves to eternal poverty, or anything like that, but to show that there are ways forward that aren’t endless profit. That “progress” doesn’t have to look like this. I admire the sentiment, and I even agree that some aspects of the past are worth re-examining and potentially emulating, or at least adapted.

That said, her examples are either deeply naive or very disingenuous, or a mixture of both. For example, to promote communal, self-sufficient living, she uses the examples of the Benedictines and the Cistercians — which famously became extremely wealthy, at the very least, if not outright exploitative. She says the sale of indulgences was an early form of crowdfunding, and I think this quotation is a good one to show how weird her interpretations are:

Indulgences worked roughly like modern crowdfunding initiatives, with all the attendant opportunities as well as risks. They were used to finance major infrastructure and creative projects, and sustained some of the most important Renaissance artsists, from Raphael to Michelangelo. Yet they also show that the crowd’s patience can eventually run out, and were a major trigger factor for the Reformation.

This is just… bizarre.

In the end, where I have my own understanding of a subject, I can tell that she’s completely misunderstanding the past. I can’t evaluate all of her examples for myself, but based on what I can evaluate, I trust none of it.

It’s a nice idea for a book, but it just… doesn’t hold up to the most cursory critique (because believe me, my grasp on history is often tenuous where it doesn’t directly intersect my literary knowledge).

Rating: 1/5 (“didn’t like it”)

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Review – The Meteorites

Posted January 28, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments

Review – The Meteorites

The Meteorites: Encounters With Outer Space & Deep Time

by Helen Gordon

Genres: History, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 265
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

From your window you can see the stars and distant planets: light years away, it's easy to think that our existences and theirs will never intersect. Yet meteorites - mysterious, irregular rocks of sometimes immense value - connect us with the vastness of the universe. They may have brought the first life to our planet, and today they still reveal extraordinary scientific insights.

Helen Gordon reveals the fascinating stories of fallen meteorites and the lives they've touched - from collectors to kings, scientists to farmers. She meets amateur astronomers and gem dealers, goes meteorite hunting across rooftops and learns what objects moving through space can tell us about the fragility of life on Earth.

Helen Gordon’s The Meteorites is an exploration of what meteorites are and what they’ve meant to humanity. It digs into some of the science around meteorites, but also discusses historical meteorites (collected long after they fell) both scientifically and socially, and meteorites that were adapted by people of the past into keepsakes and monuments, and other modern ways of engaging with meteorites (like collecting them).

For me, there was maybe a bit more focus on the social side of meteorite-appreciation than I was interested in. People wanting to appreciate the aesthetics of meteorites and use them for decorations aren’t that interesting to me — for many of them, meteorites are like any prestigious art object, a way to show off. Some are interested in the rarity, whether or not the meteorites are beautiful. Ludicrous amounts of money changes hands, with some specimens getting lost to science. Gordon writes about non-scienticist collectors in quite a few chapters, and while some are responsible and willing to share their meteorites for testing etc, I have questions about treating meteorite collection like a hobby.

Mind you, citizen science around micrometeorites could be pretty cool and useful, so I guess it’s not so clear-cut.

Anyway, where it stuck to the more scientific stuff I was more interested, but I didn’t particularly feel connected with the whole… sense of wonder, numinous, connection-to-the-cosmos type bits. I get that more through doing science or reading about people doing science, generally; the idea of standing where a significant meteorite fell is fairly uninteresting to me.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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Review – The Wrong Stuff

Posted January 20, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – The Wrong Stuff

The Wrong Stuff: How The Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned

by John Strausbaugh

Genres: History, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 272
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

A witty, deeply researched history of the surprisingly ramshackle Soviet space program, and how its success was more spin than science.

In the wake of World War II, with America ascendant and the Soviet Union devastated by the conflict, the Space Race should have been over before it started. But the underdog Soviets scored a series of victories--starting with the 1957 launch of Sputnik and continuing in the years following--that seemed to achieve the impossible. It was proof, it seemed, that the USSR had manpower and collective will that went beyond America's material advantages. They had asserted themselves as a world power.

But in The Wrong Stuff, John Strausbaugh tells a different story. These achievements were amazing, yes, but they were also PR victories as much as scientific ones. The world saw a Potemkin spaceport; the internal facts were much sloppier, less impressive, more dysfunctional. The Soviet supply chain was a disaster, and many of its machines barely worked. The cosmonauts aboard its iconic launch of the Vostok 1 rocket had to go on a special diet, and take off their space suits, just to fit inside without causing a failure. Soviet scientists, under intense government pressure, had essentially made their rocket out of spit and band aids, and hurried to hide their work as soon as their worldwide demonstration was complete.

With a witty eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, John Strausbaugh takes us behind the Iron Curtain, and shows just how little there was to find there.

I gave serious thought to simply not finishing John Strausbaugh’s The Wrong Stuff by just 32 pages in. It was already apparent that he was completely incapable of giving the Soviet space programme a single word of praise, even for ingenuity with outdated and clunky tech (and ingenuity they certainly seem to have had).

As far as I can tell — having cautiously read on — he holds all those who worked for the Soviet space programme in contempt. It doesn’t matter if they were compelled or willing, whether they were frightened or fanatic, whether they lived or died. Rarely did I detect any hint of sympathy or admiration.

Now, I’m not saying the Soviet space programme should be above critique. It shouldn’t be (nor should NASA). And there were bodges and mistakes, and a great deal of luck, even behind their successes. That’s not in question. But the bias is so thick, and the sources so completely absent (aside from a “further reading” section, not even divided into chapters, there is absolutely no indication of any sourcing), that it’s impossible to trust.

It doesn’t help that he also snidely (and wrongly) dismisses Wally Funk’s flight, claiming she didn’t get into space. The Kármán line is at 100km; Blue Origin reached 107km in that flight, clearing the bar. Wally Funk went to space at last, and this smug dickhead couldn’t even look that up, claiming incorrectly that the flight peaked at 76km.

He’s also kind of a dick about Tereshkova. Not that she sounds like a delight (and not to excuse her politics), but then she wouldn’t sound like a delight, described like this.

All in all, I did gain an appreciation for the Soviet space programme’s bodgery and luck at some key junctures, wasn’t surprised by the general slipshod nature of the whole endeavour, and found Strausbaugh at best a jerk and poor researcher, and at worst, perhaps a propagandist liar still trying to fight the Cold War.

Rating: 1/5 (“didn’t like it”)

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Review – The Far Edges of the Known World

Posted January 9, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Review – The Far Edges of the Known World

The Far Edges of the Known World: A New History of Ancient Civilisations

by Owen Rees

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 314
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

When Ovid was exiled from Rome to a border town on the Black Sea, he despaired at his new bleak and barbarous surroundings. Like many Greeks and Romans, Ovid thought the outer reaches of their world was where civilisation ceased to exist. Our fascination with the Greek and Roman world, and the abundance of writing that we have from it, means that we usually explore the ancient world from this perspective too. Was Ovid's exile really as bad as he claimed? What was it truly like to live on the edges of these empires, on the boundaries of the known world?

Taking us along the sandy caravan routes of Morocco to the freezing winters of the northern Black Sea, from Co-Loa in the Red River valley of Vietnam to the rain-lashed forts south of Hadrian's Wall, Owen Rees explores the powerful empires and diverse peoples in Europe, Asia and Africa beyond the reaches of Greece and Rome. In doing so, he offers us a new, brilliantly rich lens with which to understand the ancient world.

Thanks to archaeological excavations, we now know that the borders of the empires we consider the 'heart' of civilisation were in fact thriving, vibrant cultures – just not ones we might expect. This is where the boundaries of 'civilised' and 'barbarians' began to dissipate; where the rules didn't always apply; where normally juxtaposed cultures intermarried; and where nomadic tribes built their own cities.

Owen Rees’ The Far Edges of the Known World was a random choice from the library, and I had a good time with it. The premise is that we know a lot about the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, and how they viewed the other peoples they bumped up against (and sometimes invaded), but most of what we know about those other peoples is what the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians have recorded.

But of course there’s more there in archaeology, in other accounts, and by reading between the lines. Rees doesn’t dig deeply into any one location/group of people, and is careful to note the limitations of the evidence he does discuss, but he does his best to give us a less biased picture of these other worlds.

It’s hard to pick a favourite, but I think maybe the stuff about the various areas in Ukraine. It’s a part of the world I haven’t read much about in general, but which has come up in a few recent books, and broadened my horizons a little!

I mostly found the book very accessible, but did find toward the end that my attention kept wandering for some reason; I think that was me, and not the book — Rees’ writing is fine and easy to read.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – Fabulous Frocks

Posted January 1, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Fabulous Frocks

Fabulous Frocks

by Jane Eastoe, Sarah Gristwood

Genres: Fashion, History, Non-fiction
Pages: 200
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

No item of clothing has endured for longer than the dress. Yet the last century alone has seen the most radical changes of style—hemlines swinging from ankle to thigh, outlines alternating between the body-hugging and the bell—and our fascination with the frock has not gone away. From Gres’ draping to Dior’s New Look, from Mary Quant’s mini to Hussein Chalayan’s mechanical marvels, this book looks at the dress in 20th-century fashion. Thematic chapters—Changes, Feminine, Sex, Must-Haves, Fantasy, Classical, and Art—set out the inspirations and implications for each new change alongside the stunning photography. It has been more than 80 years since Coco Chanel invented the little black dress, but most women still have one in their wardrobes today. It’s been decades since women discovered trousers and separates, but many women dream of wearing a glorious, glamorous gown at least once, whether it’s on a Hollywood red carpet, or on her wedding day.

Jane Eastoe and Sarah Gristwood’s Fabulous Frocks is lovely, covering roughly 100 years of famous and fabulous dresses. Photos of many of them are included, and the text explains their significance well… though it also mentions many dresses that aren’t pictured, which I sometimes found frustrating because I don’t have an encyclopaedic knowledge of what dresses look like. It also doesn’t signpost which dresses are pictured, so sometimes I found myself turning back a few pages to reread what they said about a specific dress, to give it a bit more context.

Still, that’s quibbling. I found it an accessible and interesting history of the dress, touching on different themes and inspirations, and highlighting the cyclical nature of some fashions (“classical” inspirations come back again and again). The photos are great, usually not of the dresses on their own but the dresses as they were worn, e.g. by Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, etc, etc. I find that a bit more helpful than the same dresses preserved and posed on a mannequin.

Those who are fans of the Great British Sewing Bee might enjoy this to fill in some of the gaps, and learn a bit more about some of the designers that get mentioned (such as the perennial favourite when discussing bias-cut gowns, Madeleine Vionnet).

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – City of Ravens

Posted December 22, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – City of Ravens

City of Ravens

by Boria Sax

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 206
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

Tales tell of how Charles II, fearful of ancient legends that Britain will fall if the ravens at the Tower of London ever leave their abode, ordered that the wings of the six ravens be clipped. But the truth is that the ravens only arrived at the Tower in 1883, when they were brought in as props in tales of Gothic horror that were told to tourists. The legend itself originated from the summer of 1944, when ravens in London were used as unofficial spotters for enemy bombs and planes.

Boria Sax gives us the first book to tell the true story of the ravens, which has far more high drama than any of the tales the tourists get to hear. Its heroes are the raven couple Grip and Mable, who eloped from the Tower together after World War II, leaving it empty and prompting fears that the British Empire would end; Jackie, who kept watch at a brewery; McDonald, who was murdered; and Thor, who could not accept his loss of flight. For over a century, the ravens have been symbols of cruelty, avatars of fate—and cuddly national pets. But Sax shows us how the ravens have come to represent Britain's natural heritage, without which any nation would be impoverished. This informing and reflective volume addresses the need to connect with animals and the natural world and shows us the human need for wonder at nature.

Boria Sax’s “history” of the ravens of the Tower of London, City of Ravens, is pretty slight. While he uses plenty of sources for what he does say, and I don’t doubt his assertion that the tradition of the ravens in the Tower as known today is fairly recent in date… I had big problems with linking that tradition to the tradition of Bran the Blessed based on no more than the coincidence of name (Bran = raven) and place (the Tower of London).

It’s not the whole of his theory, but it’s one of the more interesting ones, and it’s mostly unsupported. Given that Welsh mythology is comparatively unknown now even after several translations of The Mabinogion and slightly wider knowledge of the Welsh triads, and an amount of scholarly interest in them, I have doubts that they were known at the time the tradition grew up again. I’d be ready to see evidence, but as far as I can tell Sax presents none, just “it can’t be a coincidence”.

Yes, yes it can. Sources, please.

It’s not a bad short read, but otherwise not revelatory.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

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Review – The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club

Posted December 12, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club

The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club

by Christopher de Hamel

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 616
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

The illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages are among the greatest works of European art and literature. We are dazzled by them and recognize their crucial role in the transmission of knowledge. But we generally think much less about the countless men and women who made, collected and preserved them through the centuries, and to whom they owe their existence.

This entrancing book describes some of the extraordinary people who have spent their lives among illuminated manuscripts over the last thousand years. A monk in Normandy, a prince of France, a Florentine bookseller, an English antiquary, a rabbi from central Europe, a French priest, a Keeper at the British Museum, a Greek forger, a German polymath, a British connoisseur and the woman who created the most spectacular library in America - all of them were participants in what Christopher de Hamel calls the Manuscripts Club.

This exhilarating fraternity, and the fellow enthusiasts who come with it, throw new light on how manuscripts have survived and been used by very different kinds of people in many different circumstances. Christopher de Hamel's unexpected connections and discoveries reveal a passion which crosses the boundaries of time. We understand the manuscripts themselves better by knowing who their keepers and companions have been.

In 1850 (or thereabouts) John Ruskin bought his first manuscript 'at a bookseller's in a back alley'. This was his reaction- 'The new worlds which every leaf of this book opened to me, and the joy I had in counting their letters and unravelling their arabesques as if they had all been of beaten gold - as many of them were - cannot be told.' The members of de Hamel's club share many such wonders, which he brings to us with scholarship, style, and a lifetime's experience.

The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club is quite the chonker. Christopher de Hamel has chosen a number of people whose lives were intimately wrapped up in manuscripts — from those who wrote them to modern curators — and given them a chapter each, delving into how manuscripts were used and regarded in their lifetimes and by them specifically.

It’s quite the undertaking, and sadly lacking in terms of representation of women: it’s hard to believe that only men and Belle da Costa Greene could be considered worthy representatives for this manuscripts club. Christine de Pizan surely warrants more than a glancing mention, for example, and brings a somewhat unique perspective as one of the few women who made a living for herself by writing in her era.

Nonetheless, it’s quite fun to explore these people and how they shared their manuscripts, what they might’ve said if meeting the author (though sometimes I found this bit of each chapter a little bit cringe; felt like self-insert fanfic). He picks not just manuscript writers and collectors, but also a forger, though he’s a little too ready to diagnose a historical figure with a mental illness based on absolutely zero expertise whatsoever. Even a doctor would be reluctant to get too into the weeds on that.

That said, it’s a bit weird to have that conversation with Anselm which is basically self-insert fanfic…

The book is gorgeously illustrated, with full-colour illustrations, sometimes embedded into the text, sometimes a full page spread. It’s a beautiful book.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – The Secret Life of LEGO Bricks

Posted December 8, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – The Secret Life of LEGO Bricks

The Secret Life of Lego Bricks: The Inside Story of a Design Icon

by Daniel Konstanski

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 342
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Building the ordinary into the extraordinary – brick by brick.

This first official book for Adult Fans of LEGO takes the reader on a visually stunning journey from the very earliest hollow bricks to the complex shapes and building techniques of today.

LEGO® bricks are design icons and marvels of engineering. Virtually unchanged for over fifty years, the brick is still at the very centre of ethos: each brick connects to every other brick, allowing the construction of almost anything you can imagine. LEGO minifigures may be the friendly faces of the LEGO world, but bricks in all their different shapes and forms are its very foundation.

The Secret Life of LEGO Bricks explores the brick’s rich history in full colour and unparalleled detail. Granted unprecedented access by the LEGO Group, Daniel Konstantski has interviewed design masters, element testers and the so-called ‘rock stars’, the set designers, to reveal for the first time how and why new LEGO bricks are made.

This is the book the fans have always wanted: a truly behind-the-scenes look at the story of the beloved LEGO brick and the company which makes it, with a wealth of exclusive visual material from the LEGO Archive in Billund.

LEGO fans have long wanted to learn the inside story of beloved LEGO bricks from inside the LEGO Group: to have long-standing questions answered and see the veil pulled back on how LEGO elements and products came to market – or didn’t – through the LEGO brick’s 70 year history. Such an authoritative telling of the story has never been possible – until now.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Daniel Konstanski’s The Secret Life of LEGO Bricks digs into a lot of the things that make LEGO tick: the nuts and bolts of how the bricks work (like their “clutch power”) as well as the company, the principles behind it, etc. I had no idea how “controversial” some bricks were within LEGO (like moulded animals rather than built animals), or about some of the partnerships and lines they’ve done.

There’s quite a bit of technical detail, and even though I’m not a huge LEGO fan myself, I found it a fascinating read because of the way it digs into the processes of design and bringing out new bricks and sets, the constraints on them, and the ethos of the company. It’s well-illustrated with lots of examples and sketches, as well. I can definitely think of a nerd who’s going to get this from me for Christmas.

And of course, if you’re a mega fan of LEGO, this is likely to go double for you.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – Nineteenth-Century Fashion in Detail

Posted December 8, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Nineteenth-Century Fashion in Detail

Nineteenth-Century Fashion in Detail

by Lucy Johnston

Genres: Fashion, History, Non-fiction
Pages: 144
Series: Fashion in Detail
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

From the delicate embroidery on ballgowns to the vibrant synthetic colors of crinolines, the major themes of 19th-century fashion are explored as never before in this exquisite book. Featuring specially commissioned color photographs of garments from the V&A's superb collection and many close-up details, alongside accurate line drawings of each garment's underlying structure, the book's 150 pieces capture the opulence and variety of this fascinating era.

Nineteenth-Century Fashion in Detail is very much what it says on the tin, discussing the fashions of the nineteenth century through the V&A’s collection, in a series of themed chapters that discuss different trends in fashion.

As usual with this series, the photography is great and there are line sketches of the garments as well to help you envision how they look as a whole — but quite often the whole garment is not pictured, only parts of it, which can be more than a little frustrating (especially to someone who can’t visualise things well).

There are some lovely choices, and I always enjoy when they point out the specifics of the garment in question too (e.g. that you can see traces of unpicking where a gown has been remodelled to suit a new fashion), rather than just discussing generalities.

It’s a nice volume, but again, I just have that little niggle about not showing the full garments!

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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