Tag: books

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Reveal: My Book About the Maratha War.

One of the reasons Historyland has had much less article content and has fallen dramatically back onto book reviews is because I’ve had no time to research or write blog content.

For the last year I’ve been occupied in a the completion of fond and long held dream; writing my own book. Last week I finally revealed the proposed cover art. There is still work to be done to get it ready for you but I’m very pleased with it.

‘Bullocks, Grain and Good Madeira,’ will be published by Helion and Co during the second half of 2020 , at the moment it is tentatively slated for November.

In the early part of the 19th century British Army’s in India operated on three main resources, Bullocks, Grain and large quantities of alcohol, often Madeira for Staff. The book tells the story of the 2nd Maratha War and the campaign against the Jat kingdom of Bharatpur.

Driven by first hand accounts, the book will present the Maratha army as it was, not a walkover but a formidably organised and equipped foe, equal but no longer as effective to the Native infantry of the East India Company.

A great motive for starting was the common perception that the armies opposing the EIC were poor things in comparison to European armies. In writing the book, I discovered great swathes of information, regarding the war in it’s entirety and it’s aftermath, that have not been made widely available.

A host of personal stories came to light as well, some familiar and others less so, but all offering the opportunity to see this conflict as an example of Indian warfare at it’s toughest.

As it stands of this moment, BGGM (AKA Project Begum as I codename it) will be available by the end of 2020. It will be illustrated by the wonderful brush of Christa Hook, an artist whose work I have loved since I first saw it in the Osprey Campaign book about Corunna.

I hope you like the cover, and I hope you’ll buy the book when it comes out. There will be more on this in the future, plus perhaps some content on how I went about writing it.

See you soon for another Adventure in Historyland, Josh.

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Book Review: Peace on Earth by David Boyle.

Peace on Earth: The Christmas Truce of 1914.

  • Format: Kindle Editionxmastruce
  • File Size: 511 KB
  • Print Length: 71 pages
  • Publisher: Endeavour Press (30 Nov 2014)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B00QFN18Z2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Peace-Earth-Christmas-Truce-1914-ebook/dp/B00QFN18Z2

Most people seem to have some opinion about the “Christmas Truce”, from conspiracy theorists to idealists, it’s not a subject that has gone unnoticed in the 100 years since it happened.
In fact for those of us with only a basic knowledge of the “Great War” this event has attained such an, almost mythical status that many of us must have wondered “So what’s the deal with that then?”.
David Boyle has written a delightful little “Kindle Single” about the Christmas Truce of 1914. It is short, I read it easily within one day in two sittings, but it’s good stuff and if you’ve been mulling over what your opinion is on those controversial centenary TV ads then I think I’ve found a good Wikipedia alternate.
Boyle presents us with a fluid narrative heavily salted with good first hand account backup that is necessary for the telling of this story. Yet the author isn’t trying to put a spin on the legendary tale, or framing a personal opinion, he’s presenting what is generally known about the truce basically in the way people saw it back then. He doesn’t question sources, he doesn’t dig too deeply beyond what they say, it’s certainly not a myth busting job, once or twice he hints at odd coincidences but never over indulges in deep analysis.
The truce is shown here coming not out of a mad spontaneous rush of goodwill all along the line, but as an sporadic, semi predictable series of random events over the period from 24th to about the 30th and the New Year, that were something of a natural progression of the behaviour of many front line units on both sides during the winter of 1914.
In a short space of time Boyle gives us the “Deal” about what happened, what it meant to people, from rank and file to the high command and, what effect the spirit that sparked it affected the next few years of the war.
Don’t get the impression that it’s a syrupy waffle of sentiment, the poignancy of the thing is that for the men in many sectors it was business and usual, it is a brief attempt to show the truce in the way people saw it, leaving the reader to achieve their own opinion about it and about how to proceed from here. For those interested in finding out more there’s a helpful sources page at the back.

I found this one of the best E-reads I’ve ever read, well researched, thoughtfully written and convincingly told. It’s a great light Christmas read for military history fans, and would make an equally nice gift, and I highly recommend it for people wanting a little background and perspective.

Merry Christmas.
Josh.

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Book Review: The Opium War by Julia Lovell.

Hardcover: 480 pages
Publisher: Picador (2 Sep 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0330457470
ISBN-13: 978-0330457477
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Opium-War-Dreams-Making/dp/0330457470/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0book cover

Appearance and handling:
The rich red dust-jacket fairly jumps from any shelf it is placed on. A delicate, significance laden, Poppy graces the front over a scene from the first war. The hardback is heavy and definitely a showy number but be careful how you hold it, because the publishers unwisely went with embossed guilt lettering, not only on the front but on the spine as well, which rubs off removing all but subtle traces of the writing. I’ve tried different hand postures but the only ones that work are very uncomfortable. Inside it’s got some nice illustrations in two sections, with the usual ratio of pictures to page, relatively generic maps of course, and a few black and white images scattered in between.

Review:
A more accurate name for this book would have been: “The Opium War, Causes & Consequences.” In that the main focus is not so much on the conduct of the wars, but the trigger mechanisms, socio-political ramifications and cultural significance of the conflicts.

Julia Lovell does a fine job of this and convincingly show’s how China was violently thrust into the modern world, and how, later, it took control of its past to secure its destiny. Initially the British and the Chinese face off as two nations, each imbued with its own sense of moral, cultural and racial superiority, both unwilling to understand or compromise with the other.

Triggered by the hot topic of the Opium trade, the ensuing clashes of arms leaves China with its moral superiority intact, but very little else, and a bruising road of rebellion, revolution and reform begins, which, due to the ideological hijack of the historical record by the Communist party, all leads back to the Opium War, which is at the root of Chinese attitudes to the world.

The book tries to encompass quite a large subject into a short space, 361 reading pages by my count, the rest is notes, index and maps. Not only does Lovell try to tell the tale of the Opium Wars but she also includes the Taiping & Boxer Rebellions, an interesting study of how “sinophobia” gripped the west in the late 19th century, and even a skim over the tumultuous events of the 20th century too.

This book therefore is perfectly good for a reader, new to the subject as I was, and wants an overview of the causes and of how they impact the world today. Despite its name though, the book is not a military history.

Comment on the lack of the sort of detail in the battle’s and campaigns military historians would prefer I will omit, I have already said this is not actually a military history. Suffice to say that “Breech loading percussion muskets” were not used against the Chinese by the British army in the 1840’s and it was not a company of the 37th Foot that got surrounded during the Sanyuanli Incident, it was one from the 37th Madras Native Infantry.

The main bulk of the text is taken up with what I have called causes and consequences, and the 1st war, the second getting but a chapter, but this is because the 2nd War was not directly caused by Opium, not in the same way the first was, and hardly merits the name, note the name of this book is not pluralised.

I believe this book will give a reader a good comprehension of the effects of European interference in China, and of the many varying factors that affected the decisions and actions of the participants involved, it will also show you how China’s modern journey began.

Josh.

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My Beloved Brontosaurus by Brian Switek book review.

Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (7 May 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0374135061
ISBN-13: 978-0374135065
http://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Beloved-Brontosaurus-Favorite-Dinosaurs/dp/0374135061

brontob

 

I have now come to the conclusion that most if not all of those Dinosaur Encyclopaedias that I got when I was a kid were outdated by the time they even got on the shelves. This is just one of the realisations I have come to after reading “My Beloved Brontosaurus” by Brian Switek.

It’s a slim volume with dazzling cover art that realises every Dino fan’s most nurtured dream, the author crouching in the benign posture, with a bouquet of lush swamp flowers in his hand, and looking up with curiosity and affection at the giant head of an appreciative Brontosaurus that is gently taking the popular palaeontologists offering with the grateful sincerity I have often seen in doting horses.

If you get the hardback edition then this touching cover folds out into a poster, that is double sided and shows the reality of the scene, as Brian looks on at a museum display in a vast grey hall, imagining the other side.
It is lightly illustrated with some quirky black and whites, and each chapter has a nice National Geographic feature piece feel to it.

You shouldn’t feel too sad about the duality of the cover though, because this is a wonderful book, and you will probably enjoy every page you turn to. The more modern history of the human race distracted me from my own Dino Mania sometime after 2005, (a subject I might well write about some time now I’ve read this), but re-caught the Mesozoic-palaeo bug (some of which you will literally encounter in these pages) sometime last year, after my latent Dinosaur interests slowly rebuilt itself.

This book therefore is excellent for those of you who lost track of our scaly (and now not so scaly) friends and want to sit down and ask “So, what’s new?”. I must say I enjoyed catching up with my old compadres and meeting some new ones, through this book. Even though I was never a fan of Brontosaurus; I am much more of an Iguanodon man, and have been before they were movie stars in Disney’s Dinosaur. My own prejudice aside this is also a great book if you want a concise overview of how our view of Dinosaurs have changed from the 80’s (and sometimes a little further back) to 2012. That’s right, buy it fast, before this book, like all those sometimes poorly illustrated discount “Big Book” of Dino’s, too becomes outdated. What else is it? It’s a real Palaeontologist talking about his job, and his own personal journey from his first encounter with the late lamented “Brontosaurus” to now, along the way, Dinosaur enthusiasts will not fail to connect with his many stories of growing up with Dino culture, and seeing how both creature and human changed and grew alongside each other as ideas and conceptions changed.

For those of us in Britain, this book, unlike the only other work of popular Palaeontology that I have ever seen in this country, (Dino Gangs), this little jaunt through time is going to have to be another dent in the mainstream book store market, as it is only available offline (that I have seen) in the US, for about $26, nevertheless I highly recommend it for those of you who now want a little bit more from your Dinos than the standard bargain, top trumps stat titles offer.

You will not regret going “On the road with old bones, new science, and our favourite Dinosaurs” (I’m just happy he mentioned Iggy a few times)

Josh.