The History & Heritage Handbook

Heritage Hunter • £14.99/£24.99
heritagehunter.co.uk

The History & Heritage Handbook is a brand new guide to the huge range of heritage sites and organisations in the United Kingdom (plus the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man). It claims be the most comprehensive UK guide of its kind available, with almost 3500 places and organisations listed across more than 500 pages, thanks to a partnership with leading cultural events listing website Culture24.org.uk.

Whether you’re a tourist looking for somewhere interesting to spend an afternoon, a family historian needing key resources, or researching local or social history, the book is packed with details of places to visit as well as thousands of specialist archives, libraries and societies. It includes details of county record offices and family history societies. Each entry provides contact details and a brief description, often giving specific information about specialist collections. Now that summer is here, it’s the perfect companion for the heritage tourist.

Blood Cries Afar: The Magna Carta War and the Invasion of England 1215-1217

Sean McGlynn • £16.99
The History Press

Exactly 150 years after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, history came extremely close to repeating itself when another army set sail from the Continent with the intention of imposing foreign rule on England. This time the invasion force was under the command of Louis the Lion, son and heir of the powerful French king Philip Augustus. Taking advantage of the turmoil created in England by the civil war over Magna Carta and by King John’s disastrous rule, Prince Louis and his army of French soldiers and mercenaries allied with the barons of the English rebel forces. The prize was England itself. The invasion was one of the most dramatic episodes of British history.

This specially updated edition of Blood Cries Afar contains new material on the importance of the Magna Carta and the conflict that surrounded its birth. It tells a dramatic and violent but overlooked story, with a broad appeal to those interested in the history of England and France.

My Ancestor was a Leather Worker

Ian Waller • £9.99
Society of Genealogists

This book examines the history, processes, working conditions and records available for researching the various trades and occupations associated with leather work. The leather trade was at its height in the early to mid-1800s, and amongst our ancestors, we will invariably find leather tanners, curriers, merchants, shoemakers, saddle and harness makers, even cricket ball makers and sporran makers. These trades and many more are covered in this comprehensive guide.

Till the Boys Come Home: The First World War Through its Picture Postcards

Tonie & Valmai Holt • £25
Pen & Sword

This handsome and fascinating book uses hundreds of the immensely popular picture postcards of the ’14-18 period to document the course and effects of the Great War, with all its humour, suffering, patriotism, sentimentality and fervour.

This new edition of a classic book includes over 700 postcards, featuring many new and powerful propaganda images from nations on both sides of this epic conflict. Cards from around the world are all faithfully reproduced from the original, whether in dramatic black and white or in exuberant colour.

This is a rich treasure trove to be dipped into for pleasure or to be read seriously as a thematic and contemporary history of the war.