12 saturday review Saturday December 4 2021 | the times
extraordinary place, being a writer of
deep complexity, immense imagination
and opulent prose. His cornucopia of
Antwerp’s abundant delights is as
voluptuous as the city itself.Operation Pedestal: The Fleet That
Battled to Malta 1942 by Max Hastings
William Collins, £25
In August 1942 the British sent 14
merchant ships, backed by more than
50 warships, with supplies to aid the
starving people of Malta. Only five cargo
ships eventually made it to the island.
That was nevertheless a victory, since
Operation Pedestal was an essential
display of fortitude at a critical moment
in the war. With sensitivity and dramatic
instinct Max Hastings provides a riveting
tale that reads like the best of maritime
fiction. Down in the bowels of these
ships we feel in our bones the torpedoes
hitting home.The Arab Conquests: The Spread
of Islam and the First Caliphates
by Justin Marozzi Head of Zeus, £18.99
Starting in AD632, a Muslim horde
poured forth from Mecca, vanquishing
everyone in its path. Over the next
century it established an Islamic
caliphate stretching from Kabul to the
Pyrenees, from Aden to Armenia. This
was “one of the greatest feats of arms in
history”, Justin Marozzi argues. A travel
writer and historian, he delivers drama
through fine writing, but also through
marvellous images. In this beautifulbook illustrations stir the imagination in
a way that mere words cannot.In the Shadow of the Empress: The
Defiant Lives of Maria Theresa, Mother
of Marie Antoinette, and Her
Daughters by Nancy Goldstone
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £25
Nancy Goldstone is fascinated with
families. In this book she concentrates
on Maria Theresa and three of her
daughters, including Marie Antoinette.
She understands that, underneath the
powder and pompadours, these women
were real people — powerful but
sensitive and vulnerable. The way they
lived their lives at home shaped how
they behaved on the world stage. This is
a virtuoso performance, with Goldstone
at the peak of her storytelling ability.
Intimately personal details pulse like
arterial blood beneath big events.Powers and Thrones: A New History
of the Middle Ages by Dan Jones
Head of Zeus, £25
Dan Jones is a big personality who
craves big challenges. In his latest
epic he tackles 1,100 years of history,
from the fall of Rome to the eve of
the Renaissance. We find ourselves
on familiar ground as he charts how
medieval people struggled with
migrations, pandemics, a fickle climate
and capricious rulers. Cumbersome
analysis is never allowed to ruin
great stories. It’s so delightful to
encounter a skilled historian of suchmagnificently designed and packed with
superb photos — a coffee-table book
that packs a powerful punch.Antwerp: The Glory Years
by Michael Pye Allen Lane, £25
In the 16th century Antwerp was
Europe’s marketplace, a tolerant, secular
city governed by money. It was a
spectacular place, a rogue’s paradise
where everything seemed possible. The
city’s story is as convoluted as its streets.
There is no single plot and there are no
straight narrative lines. Michael Pye is
the perfect chronicler of thisbooks of the year part II
Vanished empires, bloody conquests
Marauding Vikings,
lost dynasties and
American witch scares
— Gerard DeGroot
picks the best history
River Kings:
The Vikings from
Scandinavia to the
Silk Roads by Cat
Jarman William
Collins, £9.99
A carnelian
bead is found
in a box
containing
artefacts unearthed in a Repton
churchyard. It was discovered in a
9th-century Viking grave. So how did
a bead that originated in Gujarat end up
in Derbyshire? River Kings is a mystery
and an adventure, the tale of a quest
that took Cat Jarman from Repton to
Scandinavia, across the Baltic Sea, down
the Volga, over to Baghdad and finally to
India. This superb book is like a classical
symphony, perfectly composed and
exquisitely performed.
The Ruin of All Witches:
Life and Death in the New World
by Malcolm Gaskill Allen Lane, £20
Before Salem there was Springfield, the
site of America’s first witch scare.
Malcolm Gaskill discovered its story
accidentally. “Only rarely,” he reflects,
“do historians find such a fine-grained
microcosm of change, a grand narrative
told through the ordinary courses of
daily life.” This is micro-history at its
finest, a small story that exposes big
truths about the terrifying reality of
pioneer life. The dry detail of court
records, diaries and wills from the 17th
century is transformed into a perfectly
rendered story of greed and paranoia.
Brothers in Arms: One Legendary
Tank Regiment’s Bloody War from
D-Day to VE Day by James Holland
Bantam, £25
James Holland is a prolific chronicler
of war. His trademark approach is to
examine a single fighting unit, drilling
down to the personality of combat. In
this book he focuses on the Sherwood
Rangers, a tank regiment, from D-Day
to VE Day. For the Rangers, war was a
revolving door of slaughter; each new
death brought new men prepared to die.
The power of this book lies in the painful
intimacy Holland creates. We grow fond
of these men, and then they die.
Harlots, Whores & Hackabouts: A
History of Sex for Sale by Kate Lister
Thames & Hudson, £25
Kate Lister has followed her delightful A
Curious History of Sex with a sober but
still provocative history of the sex trade.
She exposes an ancient and persistent
injustice, namely the persecution of
workers deemed reprehensible and
essential. Across the ages and around
the world, the same themes of hypocrisy
and exploitation endlessly repeat. This is
a surprisingly beautiful volume, rough justice A witch trial in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692
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