Living and Dying in a Lancashire Cotton Town
REVIEW BY REBECCA GOWLAND The town of Blackburn in Lancashire was a key player in Britain’s industrial cotton boom, which saw a quadrupling of its inhabitants during the first half of the
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Landscapes of Kingship in Early Medieval Ireland, AD 400-1150
REVIEW BY FINBAR McCORMICK This book is the first interdisciplinary analysis of early Irish kingship based on both historical and archaeological sources; it was formerly the preserve of just historians. This new
Defined by Stones: 50 extraordinary rocky places that connect our prehistoric ancestors to northern landscapes
REVIEW BY ROB IXER This is the second landscape book by Jackson to be published this year and is in many respects a prequel to his earlier Rocks on the Edge of
Reframing the ‘Desert Frontier’: studies in the ancient Near East and northern Arabia in honour of David Kennedy
REVIEW BY MATTHEW SYMONDS This volume honours Professor David Kennedy, a pioneering scholar of ancient Arabia and Rome’s eastern frontier, by bringing together 21 scholarly contributions examining both the archaeology of the
Ice Age art now
REVIEW BY OSCAR MORO ABADIA This publication was created to accompany the British Museum Partnership Exhibition Ice Age art now, held at Cliffe Castle Museum in summer 2025. The exhibition showcased the
Between Two Rivers: ancient Mesopotamia and the birth of history
REVIEW BY TIMOTHY MATNEY The academic world inhabited by Sumerologists and Assyriologists is highly specialised and largely inaccessible for even the hardiest lovers of history. The texts themselves are fragmentary, often pieced
Battle of the Arctic: the maritime epic of World War Two
REVIEW BY NICK HEWITT Developing a fresh interpretation for a well-charted subject area is always a challenge, as this reviewer knows only too well. I therefore approached Hugh Sebag-Montefiore’s reconsideration of the
Mavericks: empire, oil, revolution and the forgotten battle of World War One
REVIEW BY JONATHAN EATON Despite the vast literature on the First World War, there remain important aspects of the conflict that have yet to be fully explored. In recent years, a series
Soviet Secret Police Chiefs, 1917-1953: commissars of fear
REVIEW BY ANDRÉ VAN LOON To get straight to the point: the strength of Soviet Secret Police Chiefs lies in its weakness. It is an engrossing read and yet a partial historical
V-Force: Britain’s nuclear bombers and the Cold War
REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD Growing up near RAF Scampton at the height of the Cold War, in my formative years the delta-winged Avro Vulcan was a familiar sight. Soaring overhead with what
The Stones of Britain: a history of Britain through its geology
REVIEW BY ROB IXER This is a peculiar hybrid of a book. It is a pretty good generalised account of British ‘historical geology’, namely a description of the occurrence of all the
Neolithic Tombs of Wales
REVIEW BY KEITH RAY Neolithic Tombs of Wales is a revised edition of a book with similar scope that was published 20 years ago by the same publisher. It is fundamentally a
A Medieval Cabinet of Curiosities
REVIEW BY KK The title of this book explains it all. Reading it is like stepping into a dimly lit, 19th-century hall of curiosities, with various unusual artefacts covering every available surface.
Magic in Roman Britain
REVIEW BY MIRANDA ALDHOUSE-GREEN This monograph examines the important, yet underestimated subject of the magical objects that form part of the archaeological footprint left by Roman Britons. It focuses on – so
Excavations in the Roman Legionary Fortress at Caerleon: the Priory Field store building
REVIEW BY TOBY DRIVER From the outset, the authors of this impressive research report remind us of the importance both of Caerleon Roman fortress and of the excavations and evaluations carried out
The House of Wolf
Review KK This debut novel by Tony Robinson, of Time Team and Blackadder fame, takes us on a tour of 9th-century Europe: from the Holy Roman Emperor’s royal residence at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen)
The Egyptian Book of the Dead
REVIEW BY ANDREW FULTON This volume is part of a series of books of ancient texts that Amber Books are publishing in hardback using traditional Chinese bookbinding methods that were first developed
Contemporary Art and the Display of Ancient Egypt
REVIEW BY HILARY FORREST This thoroughly researched book contains a wealth of material, and covers the frequently discussed question of how Egyptological displays should be planned and designed, both culturally and ethically.
The Amarna Letters: The Syro-Levantine Correspondence
REVIEW BY MICHAEL TUNNICLIFFE This important work claims to be the first authoritative edition to combine both transliteration and translation of the Amarna Letters since their publication by Norwegian linguist J A