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Pen & Sword TBR Pile Review: Hitler’s Housewives, by Tim Heath

Format: 232 pages, Hardcover
Published: May 19, 2020 by Pen and Sword History
ISBN: 9781526748072 (ISBN10: 152674807X)

Blurb

The meteoric rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party cowed the masses into a sense of false utopia. During Hitler’s 1932 election campaign over half those who voted for Hitler were women. Germany’s women had witnessed the anarchy of the post-First World War years, and the chaos brought about by the rival political gangs brawling on their streets. When Hitler came to power there was at last a ray of hope that this man of the people would restore not only political stability to Germany but prosperity to its people.

As reforms were set in place, Hitler encouraged women to step aside from their jobs and allow men to take their place. As the guardian of the home, the women of Hitler’s Germany were pinned as the very foundation for a future thousand-year Reich. Not every female in Nazi Germany readily embraced the principle of living in a society where two distinct worlds existed, however with the outbreak of the Second World War, Germany’s women would soon find themselves on the frontline.

Ultimately Hitler’s housewives experienced mixed fortunes throughout the years of the Second World War. Those whose loved ones went off to war never to return; those who lost children not only to the influences of the Hitler Youth but the Allied bombing; those who sought comfort in the arms of other young men and those who would serve above and beyond of exemplary on the German home front. Their stories form intimate and intricately woven tales of life, love, joy, fear and death. Hitler’s Housewives: German Women on the Home Front is not only an essential document towards better understanding one of the twentieth century’s greatest tragedies where the women became an inextricable link, but also the role played by Germany’s women on the home front which ultimately became blurred within the horrors of total war.

This is their story, in their own words, told for the first time.

Pen & Sword Review: Yearbook of Astronomy 2023, Edited by Brian Jones

Edited by Brian Jones
Imprint: White Owl
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9781399018449
Published: 1st August 2022
£18.99

Blurb

Maintaining its appealing style and presentation, the Yearbook of Astronomy 2023 contains comprehensive jargon-free monthly sky notes and an authoritative set of sky charts to enable backyard astronomers and sky gazers everywhere to plan their viewing of the year’s eclipses, comets, meteor showers and minor planets as well as detailing the phases of the Moon and visibility and locations of the planets throughout the year. To supplement all this is a variety of entertaining and informative articles, a feature for which the Yearbook of Astronomy is known. Presenting the reader with information on a wide range of topics, the articles for the 2023 edition include, among others, The Incomparable Sir Patrick Moore; Shining a Light on Jupiter’s Atmosphere; A Brief History of the End of the Universe; The Closing of Historic Observatories; The Ability to Believe: Bizarre Worlds of Astronomical Antireality; Optical SETI at Harvard; The Future of Spaceflight; and Male Family Mentors for Women in Astronomy: Caroline and William Herschel.

This iconic publication made its first appearance way back in 1962, shortly after the dawning of the Space Age. Now into its seventh decade of production, the Yearbook continues to be essential reading for anyone lured and fascinated by the magic of astronomy and who has a desire to extend their knowledge of the Universe and the wonders it plays host to. The Yearbook of Astronomy is indeed an inspiration to amateur and professional astronomers alike, and warrants a place on the bookshelf of all stargazers and watchers of the Universe.

My Review

This book is a comprehensive yearbook covering the skies of both northern and southern hemispheres, with monthly notes and a wide selection of articles. It’s a slickly produced, full-colour, yearbook that will appeal to astronomy enthusiasts.

I found it fascinating, although my knowledge of astronomy is not as extensive as I would like it to be. I think I have learnt something from reading this book.

Pen & Sword TBR Pile Review: Victorian Fashions For Women, by Neil R Storey & Fiona Kay

Hardcover, 248 pages
Published June 30th 2022 by Pen & Sword History
ISBN:1399004166 (ISBN13: 9781399004169)

Blurb

Victorian Fashions for Women explores the British styles and clothing throughout the long reign of Queen Victoria, from the late 1830s to the first years of the 20th century. Within are a superb overview of the dresses, hats, hair styles, corsetry, undergarments shoes and boots that combined to present the prevailing styles for each decade. From those who had enough money to have day and evening wear and clothes for sports and outdoor activities, to those with limited income and wardrobes or labouring folk with little more than the clothes they stood up in.

All decades are illustrated with original photographs, adverts and contemporary magazine features from the authors’ own remarkable collections, accompanied by a knowledgeable and informative text that describes the fashions, their social history context and influences reflected in the clothes of the time. Laid out in a clear and easy-to-follow chronological order, the key features of styles, decoration and accoutrements will help family historians to date family photographs and will provide a useful resource for students and costume historians or for anyone with a love of fashion and style to enjoy.

My Review

Review number five of the day. Don’t collapse everyone; I know I’ve posted a lot of reviews today, but I stack them up until I find a day to do all the reviews. Today is the day. I woke up early and I’ve had to stay up to wait for my post to be delivered. It was parcels, of meds and sweets. I needed more inhalers. This hot weather is screwing with my asthma so badly that I’m having to use them a lot more than usual. Since I’m awake and haven’t gone back to bed yet, I need to get these reviews done.

As you may know, I enjoy studying history and every area of life has something to tell us about history and society in different time periods, whether it’s food or military actions. Clothes are quite important facets of society and dress history is a growing area. I have visited the V&A museum in the past and was fascinated by the work that went into historical clothing. I also enjoy watching videos on YouTube by dress historians and reenactors, like Morgan Donner, Nicole Rudolph, Abby Cox and Bernadette Banner. It’s an unexpected turn for my interests, I know, because generally I don’t have much interest in clothes, beyond my swimming costumes and fancy underwear. It’s all about comfort for me.

Honestly, upper- and middle-class Victorian clothes look really uncomfortable! Heavy, fussy, and over-decorated. The figure was changed by adding padding and frames, rather than changing the body. Over seventy years fashions and figure changed in a variety of ways, from materials used to the type underwear worn. It really is quite interesting. This book is definitely focused on the dress of middle and upper-class women, because it is those women who could afford the clothes in fashion plates and fashion magazines. The development of fashion magazines and the production of paper patterns in magazines is also mentioned; I have quite a few modern patterns from magazines so the early history of these useful items is interesting to me. It shows that women were making their own fashionable clothes and using the new mechanical sewing machines that were starting to become available to the home sewer. It shows that high fashion was available to everyone if they had the money for material and time to sew.

I would have liked more information on working class clothing and fashions, which were covered only briefly, but I understand the limitations given the information available and the remaining material culture. The writing got a little sludgy at times but wasn’t bad.

Pen & Sword TBR Pile Review: Revolting Recipes From History, by Seren Charrington-Hollins

Hardcover, 216 pages
Published June 16th 2022 by Pen and Sword History
ISBN:1526773023 (ISBN13: 9781526773029)

Blurb

Nothing causes a stir on social media platforms like a topical discussion on the latest food trend. Modern-day chefs like to think that they are creative and often claim to push boundaries of food creation, but if we want to explore real culinary creativity then we need to look to our ancestors.

Writer and food historian, Seren Charrington-Hollins delves into the history of culinary experimentation to bring us some of the weirdest and most stomach-churning food delicacies to ever grace a dining table. She uncovers the rather gruesome history behind some everyday staples, uncovers bizarre and curious recipes, whilst casting light on foods that have fallen from culinary grace, such as cows udders and tripe; showing that revulsion is just a matter of taste, times and perhaps knowledge.

From pickled brains to headcheese, through to songbirds and nymphs’ thighs, this book explores foods that have evoked disgust and delight in diners depending on culinary perspective.

So pull up a chair, unfold your napkin and get ready for a highly entertaining and enlightening journey to explore what makes a recipe revolting? Be warned; you’ll need a strong stomach and an open mind.

My Review

I actually managed to read and finish a book Pen & Sword sent me within a couple of months of getting it! Actually, I have another one I’ll review soon. I’ve still got a massive Pen & Sword pile to read. I will, eventually get through them all. I read another book by this author, about tea in 2020.

So, why did I read and finish this one so quickly?

Food! I like good food, I like to cook, and I find food a fascinating way to understand societies. Why would anyone eat some of the stuff they have if they didn’t need to? For instance garum sauce – hugely popular in ancient Rome, made of fermented fish. Basically fish left to rot in terracotta pots. Nope, not eating that. Who first thought to try it? And who thought of eating bovine digestive tracts (tripe)? Who gutted a cow and thought, ooh, that looks lovely? Only someone really desperate would consider pigs ears, surely?

And that’s just the stuff people chose to eat.

Imagine thinking you were going to get a decent bit of tinned ham and it turned out to be rotten because the tin wasn’t sealed properly. And you’re on a three year mission to chart the North West Passage. Eurgh! I liked the details about the history of food and the changes in diet over the centuries. It’s mostly Anglo-centric although there are some European and North American stories.

There were some sections that put me right off some foods and some I’m pleased I’ve never eaten. Like goose liver pate. That’s just cruel.

The book started off really strongly but by the last chapter it began to waver a bit and felt like it was unfinished. However, generally a good introduction to food history.

Pen & Sword Review: Not So Virtuous Victorians, by Michelle Rosenberg & Sonia D. Picker

38508163. sy475 — Paperback, 80 pages
Published July 30th 2018 by Pen & Sword Books
ISBN:1526700913 (ISBN13: 9781526700919)

Blurb

What springs to mind when you think of British Victorian men and women? Manners, manners and more manners. Behaviour that was as rigid and constricted as the corsets women wore. From iron-knicker sexual prudery to men so uptight they furtively released their pent up emotions in opium dens and prostitute hot spots. All, of course, exaggerated clichés worthy of a Victorian melodrama. Each generation loves to think it is better than the last and loves to look aghast at the horrifying trends of their ancestors. But are we really any different?

This glimpse at life for Victorian men and women might make millennials think again. Men and women were expected to live very differently from one another with clearly defined roles regardless of class. However, lift the skirts a little and not only will you see that they didn’t wear knickers but they were far less repressed than the persistent stereotypes would have us believe. The Victorians were as weird and wonderful as we are today. From fatal beauty tips to truly hysterical cures for hysteria to grave robbers playing skittles with human bones, we have cherry picked some of the more entertaining glimpses into the lives led by our Victorian brothers and sisters.

Pen & Sword Pile Reviews

I’ve got four for you this evening; I’ve been saving them up. Pen & Sword send me a lot of books, ones I’ve agreed to review, but you know how it is, my eyes are bigger than my belly when it comes to books, so I generally have to read a few at a time then review them all in groups. Sometimes there’s even a theme.

Today there is a theme. Daily life in various historical periods. I’ve just finished reading ‘How to survive in Ancient Egypt’, which I had been waiting on to do this set of reviews.

Pen & Sword Review: The History of Video Games, by Charlie Fish

55182782 — By Charlie Fish
Imprint: White Owl
Pages: 120
Illustrations: 150 colour illustrations
ISBN: 9781526778970
Published: 28th May 2021

This book is a potted history of video games, telling all the rollercoaster stories of this fascinating young industry that’s now twice as big globally than the film and music industries combined. Each chapter explores the history of video games through a different lens, giving a uniquely well-rounded overview.

Packed with pictures and stats, this book is for video gamers nostalgic for the good old days of gaming, and young gamers curious about how it all began. If you’ve ever enjoyed a video game, or you just want to see what all the fuss is about, this book is for you.

There are stories about the experimental games of the 1950s and 1960s; the advent of home gaming in the 1970s; the explosion – and implosion – of arcade gaming in the 1980s; the console wars of the 1990s; the growth of online and mobile games in the 2000s; and we get right up to date with the 2010s, including such cultural phenomena as twitch.tv, the Gamergate scandal, and Fortnite.

But rather than telling the whole story from beginning to end, each chapter covers the history of video games from a different angle: platforms and technology, people and personalities, companies and capitalism, gender and representation, culture, community, and finally the games themselves.

My Review

This book was sent to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

I hang around with gamers. It would be nice to have some idea of what they’re babbling on about. This book provides a history of computer games from several different angles. I found this a useful way of understanding the developments, especially the chapters about console development and about culture.

There are lots of pictures, some quite nostalgic – my sister had an original game boy with Tetris and Super Mario for instance. The biographies of important people involved in games and console development were interesting. A couple of them are definitely autistic.

There was quite a bit of detail and the references are fairly extensive so as a place to start, this potted history is a good one.

Unfortunately, the two chapters I was really interested in were truncated. Between pages 65 and 81 – most of the chapters on the important personalities of games development and gender and representation in games – had been replaced by a repeat of the previous chapter, on console development. I understand that I got an an ARC so errors happen, but it is disappointing.

Pen & Sword Review: A History of The Undead: Mummies, Vampires and Zombies, by Charlotte Booth

Are you a fan of the undead? Watch lots of Mummy, zombie and vampire movies and TV shows? Have you ever wondered if they could be ‘real’?

This book, A History of the Undead, unravels the truth behind these popular reanimated corpses.

Starting with the common representations in Western Media through the decades, we go back in time to find the origins of the myths. Using a combination of folklore, religion and archaeological studies we find out the reality behind the walking dead. You may be surprised at what you find.

My Review

Thanks to Rosie Crofts at Pen & Sword for my review copy. I’m going to read the author’s book about ancient Egypt next.

The Rosie Synopsis

The book is divided into seven chapters, two each on mummies, two on zombies and three on vampires. The author covers the literary and film history of the undead in one chapter and then the folklore in the second chapter. In the vampire section Booth also covers the modern ‘vampires’ – people who think they’re vampires or live a ‘vampire lifestyle’.

The Good

I liked the way the author wrote the chapters as individual essays, because they can be dipped into, and the illustrations. It is a good introduction to the subject, and the author states that it is an introduction not the be-all-end-all on the subject.

The Not-So-Good

Despite my enjoyment of academic texts, I found it was a bit dry at times and there were some errors in reference to some of the televsion series.

It would have been good to have a summation chapter drawing all the thought lines together.

The Verdict

Not a bad introduction to the subject.

Pen and Sword TBR Pile Review: Balloons and Airships, by Anthony Burton

This book tells the often dramatic and always fascinating story of flight in lighter than air machines. For centuries man had dreamed of flying, but all attempts failed, until in 1782 the Montgolfier brothers constructed the world’s first hot air balloon The following year saw the first ascent with aeronauts – not human beings but a sheep, a duck and a cockerel. But it was not long before men and women too took to the air and became ever more adventurous. The aeronauts became famous giving displays before crowds of thousands, often accompanied by special effects.

In the early years, ballooning was a popular pastime, but in the 19th century it found a new use with the military. Balloons were used to send messages out during the Siege of Paris and later found a role as observation balloons for the artillery. But their use was always limited by the fact that they were at the mercy of the wind. There were numerous attempts at steering balloons, and various attempts were made to power them but it was the arrival of the internal combustion engine that saw the balloon transformed into the airship. The most famous developer of airships was Graf von Zeppelin and the book tells the story of the use of his airships in both peacetime and at war. There were epic adventures including flights over the poles and for a time, commercial airships flourished – then came the disaster of the Hindenburg. Airships still fly today and ballooning has become a hugely popular pastime.

Pen & Sword Review: The Last Days of Steam, by Malcolm Clegg

The Last Days of British Steam — By Malcolm Clegg
Imprint: Pen & Sword Transport
Pages: 144
Illustrations: 200 black and white illustrations
ISBN: 9781526760425
Published: 7th August 2020

This volume covers the final decade of British steam, looking at steam traction in a wide variety of geographical locations around the British Railways network.

The book covers a wide variety of classes of locomotives, that were withdrawn during the last decade of steam traction, some examples of which are now preserved.

Malcolm Clegg has been taking railway pictures since the early 1960s and has access to collections taken by friends who were recording the steam railway scene during this period.

This book is a record of his and other people’s journeys during the last decade of steam in the 1960s.

My Review

This book is a collection of photographs from the 1960s of steam engines. The author has clearly been taking pictures for a long time and this was an interesting time in British transport. When the rest of the world was moving to diesel and electric, Britain stayed with steam. Then the government destroyed the network in favour of motorways and private transport, because the minister in charge had a vested interest in road building. New engines were scrapped when they still had thirty years of working life in them. What a travesty!

The book is substantial and covers a large range of engines, with captions giving details of the engine pictured and the place, if known. The images are in black and white which adds to the nostalgia of the book. The book is glossy and substantial, which is useful for those who are interested in trains of the era, reconstruction and reclamation of trains that they might find, or railway model enthusiasts.