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In her latest book, celebrated writer and BBC producer Deborah Cadbury (of the chocolate family) turns her attention to the final years of the Victorian era. Although Queen Victoria remained in mourning for her beloved husband, Prince Albert, from his untimely death in 1861 until her own death in 1901, her 42 grandchildren kept her extremely busy in the last few decades of her long reign. Finding appropriate spouses for them all was more than a mere family matter: The fate of European stability hung in the balance.

The plan, inspired by Prince Albert, was to export Britain’s constitutional monarchy throughout Europe by marrying British royalty into the various royal lines of Europe: Denmark, Prussia and Russia. If only the royals were so obedient! While some of Queen Victoria’s children and grandchildren were pliable (especially Vicky, her oldest daughter), others (like naughty Bertie and his children) were less so. Readers will need a scorecard to keep up with them all, but rest assured, there will be mistresses, euphemisms for sexually transmitted infections (poor Eddie’s “gout”) and general disobedience.

Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking is targeted at royal-watchers and viewers of BBC’s great biopic television series “Victoria.” It may also interest readers of the “what-if” school of history. What if Princess Vicky’s husband, Frederick, had lived to become the Emperor of Prussia? Would his liberal values have united Britain and Germany and forestalled the wars of the 20th century?

Ultimately, however, this is a rich history of Queen Victoria’s canny use of political power. ­“Grandmama’s” interest in the marriages of her children and grandchildren goes far beyond a doting mother’s dedication to her family: Matchmaking had the power to make and break empires—if only those being matched would do as they were told.

 

This article was originally published in the November 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In her latest book, celebrated writer and BBC producer Deborah Cadbury (of the chocolate family) turns her attention to the final years of the Victorian era. Queen Victoria's 42 grandchildren kept her extremely busy in the last few decades of her long reign. Finding appropriate spouses for them all was more than a mere family matter: The fate of European stability hung in the balance.

The mythical Knights Templar pervade popular culture: from the video game Assassin’s Creed to The Da Vinci Code and Game of Thrones. Warriors who lived like monks, the Templars have been inspiring legends from the time of their founding in the 11th century. In his new book, bestselling author Dan Jones aims to unpack the myths to get at the history of the Knights Templar.

The Templars were an order of Christian soldiers founded in 1119 to support the Crusades in the Middle East. Then, as now, the city of Jerusalem was both a site for religious pilgrimage and violent political dispute. Sponsored by the Catholic Church, the Crusades were in essence religious wars between Christian and Muslim armies for control of the Holy Land. Despite their vows of poverty and chastity, the Templars soon amassed great wealth, and during the two centuries of their greatest influence controlled much of the economic infrastructure of Europe. Their spectacular rise and fall as soldiers and bankers is the focus of Dan Jones’ carefully written and researched book.

The Templars exemplified the idea of militant Christianity, of the sword rather than the word. Dan Jones makes this the starting point of his narrative, emphasizing the Church-sanctioned violence of the era. This makes for sometimes-uncomfortable reading. It’s fun to read rollicking fiction about the Templars as defenders of the Holy Grail, but it’s sobering to read history about Christians killing in the name of God. Indeed, the Norwegian fascist Anders Breivik—who killed 77 people in an act of domestic terrorism in 2011— claimed to be part of a contemporary order of the Knights Templar.

The violent fanaticism lurking behind the image of the Knights Templar is an important reason for getting their story as historically accurate as possible. Dan Jones accomplishes this goal and more with The Templars.

In his new book, bestselling author Dan Jones aims to unpack the myths to get at the history of the Knights Templar.
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By his own admission, Michael Korda, the bestselling author and former editor at Simon & Schuster, enjoyed a privileged childhood growing up in England at the start of World War II. His uncle, Alexander Korda, was a famous film director and producer who ended up in the United States as a “first-class refugee” during World War II, while his mother was an actress and his father would later win an Academy Award for art direction. But war is war and children are children, and in this fine book that combines memoir and history, Korda describes the coming of the war, the fall of France and the “miracle” at Dunkirk in the measured tones of a true historian.

As Korda writes, “Keeping calm was seen as a patriotic duty, even as one crisis led inexorably to war—panic was the enemy.” British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy toward Hitler was a disaster. When war came, so did rationing and, eventually, evacuation for Korda. Meanwhile, the new prime minister, Winston Churchill, assessed the situation across the English Channel, announced it dire, and yet somehow managed to reassure the nation with a grim but defiant speech, which young Korda stayed up late to hear.

In his analysis of Dunkirk, Korda, like most everyone else, is baffled by Hitler’s decision to halt the advance of the German troops on British and French forces stranded on the beach, which essentially allowed the famous “Little Ships” to rescue countless men, even though a tremendous loss of life preceded the arrival of the boats. It may not have been a victory in the traditional sense of the word, but it was a triumph, nevertheless.

Alone is a masterful account of war, resiliency and England’s brave and defiant stand in a time of utter crisis.

In this fine book that combines memoir and history, Michael Korda describes the coming of the war, the fall of France and the “miracle” at Dunkirk in the measured tones of a true historian.
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Roger D. Hodge couldn’t get out of Texas fast enough. After a boyhood spent doing the things that a South Texas kid from a ranching family does—working with livestock, hell-raising in Mexico—he drove off to college at 18 and didn’t look back. He never planned to become what he calls a “professional Texan.”

But it’s not easy to extract your homeland from your heart. The legendary Texas borderland ranch culture is fading, and Hodge takes an unsparing look at how it developed, what it meant and how it’s dying in Texas Blood.

Texas Blood, a title that refers to the blood of Hodge’s ancestors and the blood of Southwestern violence, is a heady, sometimes humorous mélange of family history, memoir, research and travelogue. In the course of the book, Hodge retraces his forebears’ path south from Missouri, drives pretty much the entirety of the Rio Grande Valley, interviews border patrol agents and his grandma, hangs out with Mexican-American pilgrims at the Cristo Rey shrine and explains why Cormac McCarthy’s novels are more realistic than not.

Hodge’s first Texas ancestor, Perry Wilson, was a typical mid-19th-century roamer, making perilous journeys to California and Arizona as well as Texas. Wilson’s descendants stuck around the general vicinity of Del Rio, Texas. Hodge illustrates what their lives were like with contemporaneous books, letters and diaries, the most moving stories coming from ordinary settlers.

Border history is savage. Everyone was killing everyone: Spanish versus Native Americans, Comanches versus American settlers, scalp bounty hunters versus anyone they could pretend was a Native American. But people like the Wilson-Hodge clan worked incredibly hard and built a community worth remembering in a beautifully austere land.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Roger D. Hodge about Texas Blood.

This article was originally published in the October 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Roger D. Hodge couldn’t get out of Texas fast enough. After a boyhood spent doing the things that a South Texas kid from a ranching family does—working with livestock, hell-raising in Mexico—he drove off to college at 18 and didn’t look back. He never planned to become what he calls a “professional Texan.” But it’s not easy to extract your homeland from your heart. The legendary Texas borderland ranch culture is fading, and Hodge takes an unsparing look at how it developed, what it meant and how it’s dying in Texas Blood.

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Between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of a new century, a great transformation—technological, economic, social, cultural, religious and political—took place in the United States. The rise of wage labor led to bitter union and management confrontations. Reformers crusaded for women’s suffrage and Prohibition. Reconstruction brought official gains against slavery, but racism continued against black, Native American and Chinese populations. Contemporaneous historian of the time Henry Adams, from the family of early Adams presidents, believed that by the 1870s, American governance and even democracy itself had failed. The war had extended the role of the federal government, and there was widespread corruption in business and government, while capitalism thrived.

The latest title in the Oxford History of the United States series is the superb The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 by acclaimed historian Richard White. His brilliant and sweeping exploration focuses on the big picture as well as on individuals, including the true stories behind legends like John Henry, Buffalo Bill and another courageous and very impressive Henry Adams, a freed slave who fought racism in Louisiana. White touches on some deeply ingrained myths. “There is probably no greater irony than the emergence of the cowboy as the epitome of American individualism because cattle raising quickly became corporate.” The American West, often regarded as the heartland of individualism, was where some of the first government bureaucracies began. Railroads also were a symbol of the age, but they proved to be dangerous workplaces where a high number of fatalities occurred in the course of routine work. Railroads were often in financial distress, and by 1895, 25 percent of them were in receivership.

White’s masterful book offers a treasure trove of information about a pivotal time in American history, crafted with a compelling combination of well-written recreations of events and careful analysis based on the latest historical research. The Republic for Which It Stands is the best available guide to the period.

 

This article was originally published in the September 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

White’s masterful book offers a treasure trove of information about a pivotal time in American history, crafted with a compelling combination of well-written recreations of events and careful analysis based on the latest historical research. The Republic for Which It Stands is the best available guide to the period.

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Canadian journalist Deborah Campbell traveled to Damascus, Syria, in 2007 to report on the mass exodus of Iraqis into Syria in the wake of sectarian violence after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. There, she met an Iraqi woman named Ahlam who would not only change her life but also draw her into the very story on which she was reporting.

Campbell hired Ahlam as a “fixer,” a local who helps journalists arrange interviews, interprets and provides context to what journalists see and hear. Ahlam was one of the best: A smart, bold and kind mother of two, she spent her life helping others, even starting a school in her apartment for refugee girls. Not only was she an invaluable resource, she quickly became Campbell’s cherished friend.

A Disappearance in Damascus: Friendship and Survival in the Shadow of War is the fascinating account of both Ahlam’s story and Campbell’s life posing as a professor while working as an “undercover” journalist in Syria. Although the country’s civil war had yet to start, Syria was a dangerous place. One day, Ahlam was suddenly arrested and imprisoned, whisked away to an uncertain fate. Desperately worried and fearing that their work together may have contributed to Ahlam’s arrest, Campbell upended her life to try to help her friend. “Caught in a web of fear and suspicion,” she writes, “I wanted to run for cover but knew I had to stay and look for her.” In riveting, heartbreaking detail, Campbell seamlessly weaves together her own search and investigation with Ahlam’s horrific imprisonment and interrogation.

Campbell also provides an excellent primer on how the Middle East’s complex history has contributed to the area’s strife. This is an important, chilling book that explores the ongoing plight of Syria’s citizens and refugees, as well as the perilous struggles of the journalists who deliver their stories to the rest of the world.

 

This article was originally published in the September 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Canadian journalist Deborah Campbell traveled to Damascus, Syria, in 2007 to report on the mass exodus of Iraqis into Syria in the wake of sectarian violence after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. There, she met an Iraqi woman named Ahlam who would not only change her life but also draw her into the very story on which she was reporting.

Sons and Soldiers, the new offering from bestselling author Bruce Henderson, is a compelling account of Jewish refugees who came to the U.S., then returned to Germany to fight against Hitler. Nearly 2,000 German-born soldiers of the U.S. Army were sent to the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie in Maryland. Known as the “Ritchie Boys,” the soldiers were trained to use their language skills as interrogators in the field.

Although nonfiction, the book reads like a novel, as Henderson focuses on six young men, each with a harrowing personal story of escape from Germany. Martin Selling was especially lucky. In November 1938, as part of the violent campaign known as Kristallnacht, he was sent to Dachau for several months. Thanks to the efforts of an aunt, Selling was freed, and eventually made his way to America. Although he had experienced the horrors of Nazi interrogation firsthand, he developed a non-confrontational debriefing technique that uncovered information that saved American lives time and time again.

Getting to know the men as unique individuals adds depth to their later wartime experiences serving in campaigns such as D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge. Perhaps the most heartbreaking aspect is the young soldiers’ attempts to find friends and family members after the end of hostilities as they—and the world—came to realize the full horror of the Holocaust.

Based on interviews with the veterans and archival materials, Henderson has crafted a fascinating narrative that also serves as a somber reminder, once again, of the devastating personal toll that World War II exacted from innocent, loving families.

Sons and Soldiers, the new offering from bestselling author Bruce Henderson, is a compelling account of Jewish refugees who came to the U.S., then returned to Germany to fight against Hitler.

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Everyone’s got a food story, writes culinary historian Laura Shapiro, but most will never be told. Shaprio believes that one’s relationship with food typically defines who we are, and What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories profiles six vastly different women and their appetites: author, poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, sister of William; British chef Rosa Lewis, known as the “Queen of Cooks,” whose champions included King Edward VII; first lady Eleanor Roosevelt; Hitler’s mistress and eventual wife, Eva Braun; British novelist Barbara Pym; and writer and publisher Helen Gurley Brown. Each of these women is fascinating, and Shapiro’s carefully researched, astute writing sheds light on their unique places in history, as well as the culinary trends of their time.

Take, for example, Roosevelt, who proclaimed herself “incapable of enjoying food.” Shapiro asserts that instead, Roosevelt had “an intense relationship with food” all of her life, bringing the home economics movement to the White House while insisting on hiring “the most reviled cook in presidential history,” who served dishes like Shrimp Wiggle—shrimp and canned peas heated in white sauce, on toast.

Meanwhile, in Europe, Hitler’s consort, Braun, regularly sipped champagne while the rest of Europe suffered complete devastation. She adored treats but considered keeping her figure of utmost importance, eventually choosing to kill herself with cyanide rather than by gunshot so she could be a “beautiful corpse.”

British novelist Pym “was not a food writer, but she saw the world as if she were,” leaving behind diaries and 88 notebooks that proved to be a culinary historian’s dream, often including shopping lists and recipes. And while her literary characters sipped vast quantities of Ovaltine and tea, Pym showed in both her books and in her life that “good food can be found anywhere.”

Each of the six essays in Shapiro’s What She Ate is a culinary and historical delight. Feast on them slowly so as not to miss a crumb.

 

This article was originally published in the August 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories profiles six vastly different women and their appetites.

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Edwin Stanton, Abraham Lincoln's secretary of war, was very controversial. An effective administrator even while working under great pressure, he was lauded as crucial to the Union's success during the Civil War and for his leadership in initiating the Freedmen's Bureau. But he was criticized for his judgment, including the arrest and imprisonment of thousands for alleged "war crimes." Although they were not close friends, Lincoln spent more working time with Stanton than with any other cabinet member. One of Lincoln's private secretaries wrote that Lincoln "loved" and "trusted" Stanton and supported him despite withering attacks on some of his decisions.

In his compelling Stanton: Lincoln's War Secretary, Walter Stahr explores the life and work of this powerful man who was described by Lincoln's secretary of state, William Seward, as "good-hearted, devoted, patriotic," and "irritable, capricious, uncomfortable," who could be rude to everyone. Stanton was a surprise choice for the position when he was named the administration's second secretary of war, in 1861. One of the top lawyers in the country, he was a Democrat who served briefly as attorney general in President James Buchanan's administration. Among his primary responsibilities for Lincoln: persuade Congress to provide needed military funds; work effectively with governors who were responsible for army recruitment; cultivate editors and reporters because of the importance of public opinion; work with the president and generals on effective military strategy; and cooperate with other cabinet members on policy.

Stahr describes in detail the major role Stanton played after Lincoln was shot. A doctor attending Lincoln said that after the assassination, Stanton became "in reality the acting president of the United States." He took steps to protect the district and government leaders, informed military leaders and the press about Lincoln's death, and initiated the manhunt for the killer. Loyal to Lincoln's policies, after the war Stanton's differences with Andrew Johnson over policy implementation led to the latter's impeachment trial.

Stahr, author of the critically acclaimed and bestselling Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man, knows the Lincoln presidency well, and this new book brings vividly to life an often overlooked figure who made major contributions to the Lincoln presidency.

In his compelling Stanton: Lincoln's War Secretary, Walter Stahr explores the life and work of this powerful man.

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Patrick Henry is best known for his defiant words delivered in a May 1775 speech: “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” In his authoritative, detailed and absorbing Patrick Henry: Champion of Liberty, Jon Kukla explores Henry’s crucial public roles as an early leader of opposition to the Stamp Act and other repressive measures, as well as a key legislative strategist, an outstanding orator and, perhaps most importantly, a very effective five-term governor of Virginia, his first election to the position coming in 1776. At that time, Henry’s priority was to win the war against Britain and support the Congress and George Washington. After the war, Henry dealt with difficult situations of state and national authority including Native American warfare and a congressional conspiracy against Virginia’s vast western expansion interests.

Washington and Henry were colleagues for years in politics and war, a relationship that was strengthened by Henry’s loyal support of Washington in 1777-78 during an alleged plot to replace him as military commander. The mutual trust remained despite, 10 years later, Washington’s favoring of and Henry’s opposition to the ratification of the Constitution. Henry’s opposition was based on his ideas of liberty and federalism and his fear that the national government would become too powerful. He was instrumental in pushing for a Bill of Rights before James Madison championed the idea. As president, Washington offered Henry positions as secretary of state and as ambassador to Spain, but he declined both.

Henry was increasingly distressed as party politics came to play a more important role in governmental decisions. Henry and Washington felt that true patriots should be able to rise above partisan politics and make decisions based on disinterested commitment to the welfare of the community.

Kukla’s vivid recreation of Henry’s life and times enlightens readers about a man who was much more than his courageous words spoken in 1775.

 

This article was originally published in the July 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Patrick Henry is best known for his defiant words delivered in a May 1775 speech: “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” In his authoritative, detailed and absorbing Patrick Henry: Champion of Liberty, Jon Kukla explores Henry’s crucial public roles as an early leader of opposition to the Stamp Act and other repressive measures, as well as a key legislative strategist, an outstanding orator and, perhaps most importantly, a very effective five-term governor of Virginia, his first election to the position coming in 1776.

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In the early morning of May 13, 1862, the side-wheel steamboat Planter left its dock in the Charleston, South Carolina, harbor and eased past an array of heavily armed Confederate fortifications toward the open sea. The Planter was a local vessel that regularly plied those waters. The only thing that made this morning’s passage remarkable was that the runaway slave Robert Smalls was piloting the boat. His “cargo” consisted of 15 other slaves, among them his wife and children.

It was a daring escape, minutely planned and flawlessly executed. And it was the beginning of Smalls’ life as a free man. After surrendering his craft to the Union navy, along with crucial military intelligence, he continued to serve the Union cause as a pilot and as a spokesman for black equality. Endlessly imaginative and resourceful, Smalls was able, within less than two years of his escape, to buy the “master’s house” in which he and his mother had recently been slaves. (To compound this irony, years after the war ended, he invited members of his former master’s family to his home—once theirs—for a prolonged visit. They accepted but refused to eat at the same table with his family.)

Smalls, who learned to read relatively late in life, did not leave voluminous written records behind. But in Be Free or Die, Cate Lineberry has pieced together a coherent arc of Smalls’ story through contemporary newspaper accounts—he was heralded as a hero throughout the North—military and government records and biographies of those who worked with Smalls and knew him well. Lineberry sets these collected, fascinating details into a larger narrative about how the Civil War played out in the Union-occupied coastal areas of South Carolina.

 

This article was originally published in the July 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Be Free or Die chronicles the extraordinary achievements of Robert Smalls, who escaped slavery, became a Union officer and served in the House of Representatives.
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If Georg Neithardt had actually done his job in 1924, would the Nazis have come to power a decade later?

Neithardt was the dignified presiding judge who could have relegated Adolf Hitler to the dustbin of history when he and his fellow jurists convicted and sentenced Hitler in the treason trial that followed the Nazis' failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. Instead, Neithardt treated Hitler with the same patient leniency that one might accord a star quarterback caught jaywalking.

Far from stopping Hitler, the trial elevated his stature enormously. Author David King’s The Trial of Adolf Hitler is the first book-length account in English of how this happened, a powerful work that underlines what a pivot point the trial was—and how badly it went awry.

The international press dismissed the unsuccessful putsch of Nov. 8-9, 1923, as risible because it started in a beer hall. But the first exciting section of King’s account makes clear that it could very easily have led to civil war, if only Hitler hadn’t been too impetuous to wait for his allies in the Bavarian security forces to solidify their plans.

Neithardt wasn’t so much interested in helping Hitler as he was in protecting the senior Bavarian officials who had been trying to use Hitler’s followers in their own plot to overthrow the Weimar government in Berlin. The judges concealed the evidence of collusion and allowed Hitler to make bombastic, widely reported courtroom speeches, for fear that he might otherwise spill the beans. Then they sentenced him to a country-club prison, where he served less than six months.

Hitler was still an Austrian citizen then, and Neithardt was supposed to order him deported after his sentence. It never happened. The judge had a lot to answer for by the time he retired in 1937. Chancellor Hitler sent him a kind note, thanking him for his service.

If Georg Neithardt had actually done his job in 1924, would the Nazis have come to power a decade later?

Review by

The Quest for Z brings young readers the story of Percy Fawcett’s early 20th-century explorations in the Amazon, where he hoped to find the fabled, ancient city of “Z.” Readers know from 2015’s Tricky Vic: The Impossibly True Story of the Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower that Greg Pizzoli writes about complicated people with honesty and never condescends to young readers.

More than half of this book provides context and insight into scientific exploration at that time, from Fawcett’s obsession with exploring new lands to details about the Royal Geographical Society, then and now. Pizzoli includes background on Fawcett’s family, his training, his expeditions to South America from 1906 to 1924 and the dangers he faced. (There’s an anaconda fright as only Pizzoli could illustrate it.) Ultimately, after setting out in 1925 to find the lost city, Fawcett and his men disappeared and were never heard from again.

Sidebars expound further on certain topics, and Pizzoli’s bold mixed-media illustrations are uncluttered and informative. It all adds up to a complex and intriguing look at a man for whom European imperialism was unsuccessful—certainly a topic rarely addressed in most K-12 curricula. In a closing author’s note, Pizzoli discusses how his own trip to Central America inspired him to finish the book: “I felt overcome by how old the world is, how much there is to see, and how many people have come before us.”

This is an unusual biography of a complicated man.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Greg Pizzoli for The Quest for Z.

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

This article was originally published in the June 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The Quest for Z brings young readers the story of Percy Fawcett’s early 20th-century explorations in the Amazon, where he hoped to find the fabled, ancient city of “Z.” Readers know from 2015’s Tricky Vic: The Impossibly True Story of the Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower that Greg Pizzoli writes about complicated people with honesty and never condescends to young readers.

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