Nonfiction
Nelson: The Sword of Albion
“Then something surprising happened,” writes this beguiling author. It certainly does, not only on that occasion but throughout. Falling in…
Child-sized History: Fictions of the Past in U.S. Classrooms
What books should middle school teachers and parents choose that accurately reflect history? In the 21st century, factual accuracy about…
A Less Boring History of the World
Horrible History for adults is the best way I can pithily describe this. It is a breakneck gallop through all…
Journeys on the Silk Road: Desert Explorer, Buddha’s Secret Library, and the Unearthing of the World’s Oldest Printed Book
Sir Marc Aurel Stein, a Hungarian-born British foreign service archaeologist who led early 1900s expeditions in central Asia, could have…
The Joy of Sexus
Anyone who reads or writes about the ancient world has to wonder how human sexuality was expressed in those days. …
The Graves Are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People
John Kelly’s account of the Irish potato famine is a thoroughly researched and smoothly written story of the events that…
Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer
In the acknowledgements, Michael Keane describes his work as focused on General George S. Patton’s “formative and guiding principles”. To…
Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962
This extraordinary and important book is based on 20 years of research on the horrific failure of the Great Leap…
The Cook’s Tale: Life Below Stairs As It Really Was
This nonfiction book will appeal to admirers of BBC series Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs. Beyond the atmosphere it offers…
The Historical Novel in Nineteenth-Century Europe: Representations of Reality in History and Fiction
Hamnett sets himself two major tasks. The first might be more intriguing to the casual reader: to explain why the…
About our Reviews
Over the last 15 years The Historical Novels Review (the society’s print magazine for our members) has published reviews of some 12,000 historical fiction books. We plan to upload them all and make them searchable here.
