History books

[lionhearted]

Anyone like to recommend their favourite history books, please?

Georgiana not like Georgina but as it's spelt, as if George Galloway and Princess Diana had bought a bungalow together

katiebl, that's great.

Ancebride.

*Acnebride, even.

Thanks for that acnebride! - don't think I've ever come across it in RL

mm actually it's wrong - not Georgianna like Diana but Georgi-ah-na.

I like the biographies Christopher Hibbert writes but maybe you have to be interested in the subject before you start? He has 2 great ones on Queen Victoria and Nelson.

Also Antonia Fraser is a good read. I read her book on the Gunpowder Plot earlier this year.

For me though the test is the subject matter, not the author. I love anything 18th century, social history from the 18th centruy onwards, WW1 and 2 stuff, naval history, medical stuff etc.

Just to muddy the waters still further, a Radio 4 programme about Georgiana pronounced her "Geor-jane-ah"...

One of my favourites is "Barrow's Boys" by Fergus Fleming, about the peace dividend at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. There were lots of naval officers on half pay and very little for them to do; Barrow was a civil servant at the Admiralty who had the bright idea of sending some of them off to explore the world. "Ninety Degrees North", also by Fergus Fleming, about the exploration of the North Pole is good too.

I also like "The World Turned Upside Down" by Christopher Hill about Levellers, Diggers and Ranters.