Hadrian’s Wall: Creating Division

In this stimulating addition to the burgeoning literature of Hadrian’s Wall, Matthew Symonds, editor of Current World Archaeology, brings fresh emphases to the study of this endlessly fascinating Roman monument in the north of Britain, and in doing so shows that continuing research on the frontier constantly alters the way…

Greenwich at Work: people and industries through the years

Situated on the bank of the Thames near central London, Greenwich was once a hub of industrial activity, with bustling docks and hundreds of manufacturing, maritime, and riverside trades. The waterway itself is relatively quiet now, and while the area’s rich past is very much still evident – with its…

Timeline: the archaeology of the South Wales Gas Pipeline

Underpinning this comparatively slim volume is a remarkable archaeological programme. The South Wales Gas Pipeline was constructed in 2005-2007, extending from the Pembrokeshire coast to Gloucestershire. It was not a direct route: the Brecon Beacons lay in the way. So in three stages, across Welsh coastal lowlands, in an exaggerated…

50 Finds of Early Medieval Coinage

In this latest publication in the ‘50 Finds’ series from the Portable Antiquities Scheme, John Naylor draws on a selection of 50 early medieval coins from the 10,000 recorded in the PAS database to present a sweeping yet engaging history of developments in trade, religion, and the rise and fall…

Megaliths and Geology

One of the essentials of building a megalithic chambered burial monument is the choice of materials used to construct it. It is now considered that stone (boulders, stone erratics and fragments, and quarried stone) used in the construction of megaliths was carefully chosen for its colour, lustre, shape, size, and texture,…

Olga Tufnell’s ‘Perfect Journey’

When 22-year-old Olga Tufnell set off on her first ‘perfect journey’ in 1927 – to join Flinders Petrie’s expedition in Egypt – she had little training in archaeology beyond several years assisting the Petries with their annual exhibition. Over the years that followed, she became an experienced and respected archaeologist,…

The Dignity of Labour: image, work and identity in the Roman world

Immediately beyond the Porta Maggiore in Rome, at a busy intersection, lies the impressive tomb of Eurysaces, a baker who lived through the last days of the Roman Republic. In the ensuing centuries, his lavish funerary monument was swallowed up by the Aurelianic city walls and remained largely hidden until…

Special Forces in World War II

Elite units played an essential if often obscure role during the Second World War. In this new illustrated book, with more than 120 colour and black-and-white images, Michael E Haskew charts units from across the globe, regardless of nation or allegiance. As well as famous contingents such as the US…

Blood and Iron: the rise and fall of the German Empire 1871-1918

Just over halfway through her excellent new book on Germany between the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War, Katja Hoyer tells the story of the ‘Captain of Köpenick’ incident. In 1906, an petty criminal called Wilhelm Voigt went around town buying second-hand clothes that made up a captain’s uniform.…

The Spitfire Kids

Despite depictions of the Battle of Britain as a campaign waged by grown-up men and women, the average age of an RAF fighter pilot at the height of the Second World War was just 20 – with those involved in aircraft construction the same age, if not younger. Alasdair Cross…

Nuclear Folly: a new history of the Cuban Missile Crisis

A crisis over a small island south of the mainland United States in the autumn of 1962 was the closest the world ever came to a devastating nuclear war. Award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy, who recently chronicled the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, revisits this terrifying episode of Cold War drama, in which…

Facing the Mountain: the forgotten heroes of the Second World War

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor of 80 years ago not only brought the United States into a war, but provoked a wave of hostility to Japanese immigrants and their children across America. Daniel James Brown here explores the lives of four Japanese-American families and their sons, who became soldiers,…

Churchill and Son

What did the leaders of the ‘Big Three’ superpowers during the Second World War have in common? Well, Franklin Roosevelt’s five children went through 19 marriages between them. Meanwhile, Stalin laughed off his son’s suicide attempt and chronically neglected his daughter. But it is Winston Churchill who is the topic…

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