REVIEW BY CAROLINE ARBUCKLE MACLEOD As a professional female Egyptologist and archaeologist, I have learned more than perhaps necessary about the so-called ‘Fathers of Egyptology’, including their discoveries, biases, and eating habits. Their stories are of great adventurers, braving the…
REVIEW BY ANDREW SELKIRK Every year Professor Quinn has the task of sorting out applications from those wishing to study classics. Many of them say that they wish to study classics because Greece and Rome are ‘the roots of Western…
REVIEW BY JONATHAN EATON The legacy of the Vietnam War continues to haunt American policymakers for the example it provides of a major power drawn gradually yet inexorably into a grinding conflict with no clear pathway for withdrawal. Claiming to…
REVIEW BY TAYLOR DOWNING The military historian Peter Caddick-Adams has written this witty and enjoyable political biography of Winston Churchill. Unlike the multivolume authorised biography written mostly by Sir Martin Gilbert – which contained more than three million words –…
REVIEW BY AB Once characterised as a ‘Dark Age’, Britain’s early medieval period is dark no more. These days, impressions of the era have been transformed by headline finds like the intricate gold filigree metalwork from Sutton Hoo and the…
REVIEW BY RP This book takes on a challenging and complex period of British history, beginning with the political upheaval of the 3rd century, and ending with the arrival of St Augustine in 597. The long, entangled tale of emperors,…
REVIEW BY ADAM KLUPS Nicola Coldstream’s latest book showcases more than 40 ecclesiastical buildings in and around Gloucestershire, highlighting their fantastically diverse architectural styles and hidden treasures. The publication contains entries for places of worship in both rural and urban…
What and where is this Christian monument? If you know, email the Editor (peter@ancientegyptmagazine.com) before 31 December with your answer, giving your full name, address and contact number. As this is the Christmas issue, we will pick two lucky readers…
REVIEW BY SARAH GRIFFITHS This new British Museum publication explores the lives of the ancient Egyptians through objects held in the museum’s extensive Egyptology collection. Having first explained the basics (geography, the dynasty system, historical evidence, and the role of…
REVIEW BY ANNA GARNETT Following a publishing trend of making classic and out-of-print texts available to a wide general audience, this latest reprint was first published in 2006 but is now available in paperback for the first time. There are…
REVIEW BY GEORGE NASH In recent years there has been a lot of interest in unearthing the secrets of the diverse landscapes of the eastern Arabian Peninsula – lands that form the modern United Arab Emirates (UAE). Unsurprisingly, much of…
REVIEW BY ROBERT PORTASS It is not every day that one encounters a book that aims to overturn a paradigm and establish in its place the foundations of a new one; rarer still is it to find that the author…
REVIEW BY CALUM HENDERSON Lionel Watson was already married with four children when he murdered Phyllis Crocker, a woman he had met the previous year at the Hoover Factory in west London, in May 1941. He lied to eighbours that…
REVIEW BY ANDREW MULHOLLAND History is usually about people, while military strategy tends not to be, and can sometimes seem rather dry. This book by Phillips O’Brien reminds us that it is leaders who actually determine strategy, with all of…
REVIEW BY NICK HEWITT No matter how long you study a subject, there is always something new to learn, and this reviewer learned a great deal from Michael Barritt’s excellent account of ‘how Thomas Herd made hydrographic capability a crucial…
REVIEW BY STEPHEN ROBERTS One of the shoutouts on the cover of Dan Jones’ new biography of Henry V is courtesy of Dan Snow, which tickled me as I know the two historians have been mistaken for one another on…
REVIEW BY CHRISTOPHER CATLING Rather than inventing a landscape, Anne Buffoni has set this gripping adventure story within places that can be visited in the Cotswolds. Usefully, she includes itineraries at the end of the book to encourage readers to…
REVIEW BY NICOLA TRZASKA-NARTOWSKI Keeping up appearances seems to have been as much a part of the ritual of daily life in late Roman Britain as it is today. Combs are such personal items that it is not surprising that…
REVIEW BY LINDA MONCKTON In this book, seven chapters chart the development of heritage-led wellbeing and present research into six heritage sites across three countries (and continents). Heritage here means ‘visiting’ a heritage site, museum, or gallery. It is unusual…
REVIEW BY KATE GILES Do secret tunnels connect the ruins of ancient castles, churches, and lost monasteries across England? Are spiral staircases designed to favour the right-handed defenders of castles against disadvantaged attackers? And what about the strange burn marks…
REVIEW BY JONATHAN FINCH Corinne Fowler’s first book, Green Unpleasant Land (2020), explored the connections between England’s colonial histories and the rural landscape, sparking a backlash from those for whom the image of rural England is at the core of…
REVIEW BY ROB IXER This is a book for stone circle fans. After a brief but succinct account of prehistoric stone circle-building, the stones are described starting at the geographical (and perhaps interest-wise) top in Orkney, around the Ness of…
REVIEW BY SG The Oxbow Classics in Egyptology series is steadily building into a large library of facsimile volumes covering a wide range of topics (including reissues of typological catalogues by W M Flinders Petrie, as reviewed in AE 139),…
REVIEW BY SG This second Oxbow Classics facsimile explores the history of domestication and the role of agriculture in the social economy, based on what was current evidence when it was first published in 1994, before presenting a comprehensive catalogue…
REVIEW BY SARAH GRIFFITHS This is the second of the author’s planned trilogy on the last of Egypt’s dynasties (The Ptolemies: Rise of a Dynasty, the first of the series, was reviewed in AE 138). John D Grainger is a…
REVIEW BY GERALD PONTING The subtitle of this book is ‘A Guide to the Standing Stones’, but it is not a conventional guide-book. A detailed and considered tour of each part of Calanais – centre stone; circle; chambered cairn; east,…
REVIEW BY RP Unlike other books from the 50 Finds series, Kayt Hawkins’ volume explores objects that are grouped not by geographical location or chronological period, but instead collected as an assemblage under the broad theme of ‘childhood’. The majority…
REVIEW BY JIM LEARY Jack Cornish is Head of Paths at the British walking charity Ramblers and, like me, an advocate of old and lost paths, the overgrown and the abandoned. The Lost Paths charts some of Cornish’s journeys along…
REVIEW BY TIMOTHY DARVILL Archaeology is not just concerned with learning about the past – it is also about using our hard-won understandings to help inform the present and shape the future. Nowhere is this more urgent than with reference…
MHM’s round-up of the latest military history titles
REVIEW BY MATTHEW CHAMPION It is no surprise that any study of early English stone churches should focus on the county of Norfolk. With in excess of 650 medieval churches surviving to this day, the county is a microcosm of…
REVIEW BY MATTHEW SYMONDS Vindolanda is a marvel. It lies to the south of Hadrian’s Wall, and boasts a series of superimposed Roman forts and associated structures. The Vindolanda Trust has been investigating them for over 50 years, with this…
REVIEW BY JOHN REID The attraction of ancient Rome is as potent today as it has ever been – just turn on your TV or look at any popular history bookstand – and how can we resist such an alluring…
REVIEW BY ANNE MITCHELL Alice Albinia spent some weeks at the Ness of Brodgar in 2017, and she writes of her time there as part of her Orkney experience in the opening chapter of The Britannias: an island quest. It…
REVIEW BY JULIA BEST This engaging volume explores human interactions with birds from the end of the last Ice Age to around 1650 AD. An expert in avian zooarchaeology and the social meaning of birds, Serjeantson balances a data-rich exploration…
REVIEW BY EILEEN MURPHY Exploring the mortuary record for Ireland from 8000 BC to AD 400, Death in Irish Prehistory is an inspirational book. Professor Gabriel Cooney draws on his rich experience of Irish prehistory to provide a thought-provoking and…