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Search results for Barbara Taylor.
The Somme: The Epic Battle in the Soldiers’ own Words and Photographs
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By Richard van Emden Pen and Sword, 2016, £20.00 hb, £11.99 pb and £15.00 e–book, 355pp, fully illustrated throughout, index. ISBN: 9–781– 473–855–21 2 Review by Barbara Taylor Richard van Emden is an ‘everyman’ author. He has published many titles that need no repetition here. His work is very popular and it seems that this book is an almo…
Blackest of Lies
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By Bill Aitken CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015, Paperback, £10.297pp. Also available on Kindle. ISBN: 978-1-511498-813-5 Book Review by Barbara Taylor This is a first novel. The author is a former RAF officer, who became fascinated by Donald McCormick’s 1959 book; The Mystery of Lord Kitchener’s Death, From page one it h…
The Emperors: How Europe’s Rulers were destroyed by The First World War
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By Gareth Rusell Amberley Publishing, 2015, £9.99, 227pp, soft covers; illustrated plus notes, bibliography and index Also available in hardback. ISBN 978-1-4456-5020-0 Book review by Barbara Taylor To understand how the First World War came about, it is necessary to understand the way in which regimes in the main empires involved operated. …
The Three Emperors: Three Cousins, Three Empires and the road to World War One
By Miranda Carter Penguin Books, 2010, £10.99, 498pp, soft covers; illustrated plus notes, bibliography and index. Also available as an EBook. ISBN 978-0-141-01998-7 Book Review by Barbara Taylor Miranda Carter reveals Wilhelm’s many lapses of tact and diplomacy. (I laughed out loud at many.) Nicholas II was weak, totally unfit to be an emp…
Secrets in a Dead Fish
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By Melanie King Bodleian Library, 2014. ; £8.99, 102 pp, inc Glossary and Notes ISBN 978-1-85124-260-3 Book review by Barbara Taylor This small volume is sub-titled The Spying Game in the First World War. ‘Game’ might be a word that springs to mind when reading this book. To modern eyes, with Facebook, GPS devices and sophisticated digital means…
Why 1914? The causes of the Great War. A narrative history.
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By Derek Robinson Book Review by Barbara Taylor Whistle Books, 2014, £8, 200pp, soft covers; index. Also available as a Kindle edition. I am surprised that there is no ISBN number in the book. Mr Robinson is a graduate of Cambridge University and I had imagined he had taught history, although his career was spent mostly in journalism and authors…
The Three Emperors: Three Cousins, Three Empires and the road to World War One by Miranda Carter
Penguin Books, 2010, £10.99 (2010 pricing) 498pp, soft covers; illustrated plus notes, bibliography and index. Also available as an eBook. ISBN 978-0-141-01998-7 Miranda Carter describes Wilhelm’s lack of lack of tact and diplomacy, that Nicholas II was weak, horrified when his hearty father Alexander III died unexpectedly (of Bright’s Diseas…
The Zeppelins: An Illustrated History by Phil Carradice
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This does exactly what it says in the title. It offers a concise history of the development of the Zeppelin airship from its inception, carrying passengers and as an unwieldy weapon of war. Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a Prussian career soldier and an observer in the American Civil War, had seen the advantages of balloons for observation. An intel…
The Unknown Warrior: A special magazine for members from The Western Front Association
On the evening of 10 November 1920 a train pulled into Platform 8 of London’s Victoria Station. An honour guard and deep reverence surrounded the arrival of the Unknown Warrior, somebody’s father, somebody’s son, a nameless everyman from the Western Front. The event itself has stirred the imagination ever since. The Warrior’s burial next day at We…
Children at War 1914–1918 by Vivien Newman
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£14.99, Pen and Sword, Barnsley 2019. 176pp, soft covers, 50 ills. incl. endnotes, bibliography and index. Also available as Kindle edition. ISBN: 9781473821071 This anthology of children’s remembrance and later writing on the Great War is wider ranging than the last I reviewed in Stand To! some two years ago. This covers all the warring nati…
British Prisoners of War in First World War Germany by Oliver Wilkinson
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Cambridge University Press, £66.99 hb (Amazon 2018), 322pp, 25 ills, incl. abbreviations, bibliog., index. Also available as Kindle edition. ISBN: 978–110–719–942–2 [First reviewed in Stand To! No.112 June 2018] The numbers of prisoners of war, on all sides, proved to be a major aspect of twentieth century warfare. Not least over 185,000 Brit…
In Which They Served by Richard Cullen
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£25.00, Unicorn, London, 2020, 336pp hardback, ills throughout, 9 maps. Notes sources and index. ISBN 978 1 9134 9103 1 [This review first appeared in the July 2021 issue of Stand To! No.123]. This unusual book is about five very different people told through the story of their medals. The author started collecting medals as a schoolboy, but…