Book review

Book review: The Fifth Crusade by Thomas W. Smith

13 September 2026
Edoardo
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The Fifth Crusade by Thomas W. Smith

This is narrative history as it should be done: a story that’s as compelling to read as any novel but which is nevertheless deeply grounded in the primary sources with the necessary leavening of later scholarly analysis. It’s not actually an easy balance to pull off but Thomas Smith does so masterfully. He sets his stall out in the very first pages where he reconstructs the Crusader assault on a fortified stone tower squatting in the middle of the River Nile, guarding access to the vital port city of Damietta. Smith vividly brings the battle to life, plunging the reader into the reality of crusading, where knights far from home had to adapt to entirely new conditions and challenges. In this case, they adapted by building floating assault stations, lashing together boats and building siege towers on them to allow their knights direct access to the upper storey of the Ayyubid fort.

But not only does Smith bring these campaigning vignettes to vivid life, he also illuminates the context for the calling of the Fifth Crusade, the reasons for its enthusiastic adoption and the complex preparations necessary to transport thousands of knights and their accompanying logistics across Europe and the Mediterranean. Where Smith really shines, though, is in showing how a campaign that started so well slowly fell apart as the result of a cascade of poor decisions, each of little particular importance but ultimately fatal when they came together in the disastrous decision to march south on Cairo.

If you read just one book about the Fifth Crusade, read this one.

Book review: Venice and the Mongols by Nicola di Cosmo and Lorenzo Pubblici

7 September 2026
Edoardo
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Venice and the Mongols by Nicola di Cosmo and Lorenzo Pubblici

There are books of popular history. There are academic histories. And then there are books that straddle that divide. Venice and the Mongols attempts to do that and almost succeeds. Its success comes through the authors, despite being eminent professors, almost entirely escaping the usual word salad of academic writers, and the excellent translation by Sylvia Adrian Notini. The failure lies in the very specific focus of the book, which is both its strength and its weakness.

As a history of the trade relations between Venice and the Mongol Empire, it will surely become required reading; this is the best sort of forensic historical work, with not only qualitative investigation of the trade in goods as varied wax, dried fruit, wine and slaves, but detailed charts showing the equivalence of various weights and measures between Venice and the Mongol Empire.

However, the detail of the examination, and the breadth of the Mongol Empire, requires of the reader a reasonably thorough understanding of the politics and history of the region from the time of the Mongol invasions through to the rise of the Ottomans – and that’s a long time, a lot of people and quite a few fairly short-lived realms.

One myth that the book lays to rest is the recent notion that Marco Polo fabricated his memoirs, never having travelled further east than Persia. However, Polo’s knowledge of Chinese trading practices, down to specific details of areas as specific as Hangzhou’s tax revenue offices, proves that Polo was, indeed, what he claimed: a confidant and officer of the Great Khan.

This book is also what it claims to be: the best history yet written of Venice and the Mongol Empire.

Book review: Conquest by Ferdinand Addis

7 September 2026
Edoardo
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Conquest by Ferdinand Addis

There are some books that are defined by their titles. 1984. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Guns, Germs and Steel. However, there are others that are undone by their titles and Conquest is one of them. Any reader scanning the bookshelves would think this a detailed account of the Roman conquest of Britain – after all, that’s what it says on the cover! But in fact, the conquest only takes up about a quarter of the book.

A better, but less marketable title, would have been Britain: from prehistory to posthistory by way of the Roman occupation. What Addis does, and does brilliantly, is weave the history of Britain from a time before there was any history (that is, before any local historical records) into the wider history of Europe and then take that through the conquest, the centuries as a somewhat restive Roman province, through to the fall of the western Empire and the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons.

Addis is particularly good at bringing readers up to date with the astonishing results of aDNA testing, which is completely rewriting our understanding of the movements of people in prehistoric Europe. Archaeologists, suspicious of tales of the mass movements of people, have been busily reinterpreting all such migrations as cultural transfers. However, what is now clear is that many of these cultural transformations were indeed the result of one lot of people moving in and kicking out the previous residents: the Beaker folk and the Anglo-Saxons among them.

This is narrative history at its best but don’t believe what it says on the cover: the sweep of this book is truly panoramic, from the end of the Ice Age through to the start of modern Britain, and it deserves the widest readership. Hopefully, the title won’t put potential readers off.

Book review: Bunnyman by Will Sergeant

11 August 2026
Edoardo
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Bunnyman by Will Sergeant

Will Sergeant is a few years older than me and he played guitar in Echo and the Bunnymen, one of the bands that formed the sonic accompaniment as I sat in my teenage bedroom, drowning myself in teenage angst, ambitions and anxieties. At that age, music has a greater impact than at any other stage in life and the Bunnymen were one of the key influences in what I became. What’s more, I went to a lot of gigs when I was young and among those were some key Bunnymen concerts, including their legendary show at the Royal Albert Hall in 1984. So when I saw that Will Sergeant, of the fringe and the scowl and the jagged guitar, had written a memoir of his life as a Bunnyman, I wanted to read it – particularly as Sergeant wasn’t himself a particular hero. I would fight shy of reading the autobiography of my real musical heroes for fear that they would reveal the boots of clay, and the personal failings, that underlay their music. But Sergeant wasn’t Mac: he was the guy standing beside him on stage. It would be safe to read his memoir.

And indeed it was. This was an entertaining foray down shared experiences of growing up in the sixties and seventies: the bombed-out sites left over from World War II, the grey estates, the poor food, the general lack of supervision, the sudden crazes, from clackers to chopper bikes, and the appalling treatment by teachers in schools. It brought it all back.

Then Sergeant met the rest of the Bunnymen – well, apart from drummer Pete de Freitas, whose job was originally taken by a drum machine. It’s notable how things fell into place for the Bunnymen, who benefited from being in the right place at the right time, as well as interesting gossip on how the other Liverpool bands of the late 70s and early 80s, particularly how Julian Cope formed Teardrop Explodes.

There’s remarkably little rock ‘n’ roll excess – some desultory drug taking but really what comes through most strongly is how set on being cool Sergeant and the Bunnymen were – and how they succeeded.

It’s an enjoyable story that’s competently written, rather like listening to Sergeant reminisce at the pub.

Book review: Praise of Folly by Erasmus

3 July 2026
Edoardo
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Praise of Folly by Erasmus

Quite possibly the cleverest book ever written. Unfortunately, because of that, most of it sailed right over my head. However, if you have the same level of erudition as Erasmus, are fluent in Latin and Greek, and are up to speed with the political and theological disputes and questions of the early 16th century, this might well be the perfect book.

Book review: Writing the Uncanny edited by Dan Coxon and Richard Hirst

3 July 2026
Edoardo
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Writing the Uncanny, edited by Dan Coxon and Richard Hirst

Here’s something that’s uncanny in its own way: that I have now established, beyond doubt, that any essay that starts off by revisiting a guilt-filled Catholic childhood overseen by domineering nuns is going to be rubbish. Funnily enough, the one essay in this otherwise excellent collection that does so uncannily proves my theory. Unfortunately, it’s the second essay in the book and, having read it, I was minded to put the collection aside. However, I persevered and I’m glad I did: the other essays are all at least worthwhile and some are quite brilliant. I particularly enjoyed Robert Shearman’s deep dive into the uncomfortable connection between comedy and horror.

For writers seeking to write uncanny fiction, it’s worth pointing out that there’s not much in here about specific writing techniques designed to evoke the uncanny; the essays are more reflective and personal than that. But for interesting glimpses into how different writers view, and try to write, uncanny fiction, it’s invaluable.

3 July 2026
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review
Of Ants and Dinosaurs by Liu Cixin

So, what if, back in the Cretaceous, there was a hyper advanced twin civilisation, based on the dinosaurs doing the thinking and the ants doing the making? Admittedly, not something I’d ever considered (one or other, yes, but not both) but it’s the basis of Liu Cixin’s story.

Right, let’s go with it. All sorts of clever work arounds so that ants and dinosaurs, not naturally suited to communicating with each other, are able to do so. Indeed, this is the best part of the book, the set up, when these two very different communities start working out how to work together.

Unfortunately, after that we start getting into fairly heavy-handed political allegory and symbolism, which is quite uninteresting and actually less profound than the book’s playful beginning. Even so, it might have worked. But the problem is, we all know how the age of the dinosaurs ended: the end-of-the-world rock smashing into the sea just off the Yucatan Peninsula. If Liu Cixin had found some way to work this in as the end of dinosaur/ant civilisation then the whole parable might have worked. But he didn’t. Instead, he invents an entirely different ending, with war between the ant and dinosaur civilisations finishing off the Cretaceous rather than the meteor. It’s strange he didn’t go with what we know: he could have worked it into the climax simply by having the two civilisations essentially hurling space rocks at each other and then one going awol and hitting where it shouldn’t.

On the whole, a disappointment.

Book review: The Moon’s A Balloon by David Niven

3 July 2026
Edoardo
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The Moon’s a Balloon by David Niven

Ah, fickle fame. When I was young, David Niven was one of the most recognisable actors in the world. Everyone knew him, particularly in England. But now, when I ask my sons, none of them had ever heard of him. The same is probably true for most of the stars that pepper the pages of his memoir: Elizabeth Taylor, Laurence Olivier, James Stewart. Once, gods of the screen, now largely forgotten.

But if any of the young should ever open this book, they would find the most entertaining memoir. All right, it might feature people they have never heard of and films they’ve never seen, but the charm and the wit and the sheer comedy of many of the anecdotes will carry even those for whom the names carry no frisson of memory through the pages. It’s a delight. Niven brings his somewhat chaotic upbringing to vivid life, including the important part played in his growing up by a young lady with a generous heart, and then his somewhat unlikely route to Hollywood via the army. His portrait of 1930s Hollywood is fascinating and then – he goes to war. As soon as Britain declared war on Germany, Niven, by this point a major film star, leaves it all behind, sails back across the Atlantic and enlists.

And there, Niven stops. He tells us nothing at all about his time in the army, drawing a complete veil over that part of his life, before he returns to Hollywood and resumes the story, all wit, charm and glamour.

Niven was the consummate actor. His book is a performance and, as such, bears as much relationship to the real man as any part to the actor who plays it. But what an actor, and what a role: movie star in the Golden Age of Hollywood. How much is true? Who knows. But does it matter, when the lights roll and director cries, “Action!” Probably not.

Book review: Conquest by Ferdinand Addis

3 July 2026
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review
Conquest by Ferdinand Addis

There are some books that are defined by their titles. 1984. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Guns, Germs and Steel. However, there are others that are undone by their titles and Conquest is one of them. Any reader scanning the bookshelves would think this a detailed account of the Roman conquest of Britain – after all, that’s what it says on the cover! But in fact, the conquest only takes up about a quarter of the book.

A better, but less marketable title, would have been Britain: from prehistory to posthistory by way of the Roman occupation. What Addis does, and does brilliantly, is weave the history of Britain from a time before there was any history (that is, before any local historical records) into the wider history of Europe and then take that through the conquest, the centuries as a somewhat restive Roman province, through to the fall of the western Empire and the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons.

Addis is particularly good at bringing readers up to date with the astonishing results of aDNA testing, which is completely rewriting our understanding of the movements of people in prehistoric Europe. Archaeologists, suspicious of tales of the mass movements of people, have been busily reinterpreting all such migrations as cultural transfers. However, what is now clear is that many of these cultural transformations were indeed the result of one lot of people moving in and kicking out the previous residents: the Beaker folk and the Anglo-Saxons among them.

This is narrative history at its best but don’t believe what it says on the cover: the sweep of this book is truly panoramic, from the end of the Ice Age through to the start of modern Britain, and it deserves the widest readership. Hopefully, the title won’t put potential readers off.

The Reviews Are Coming In

25 March 2026
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review, Gabriele Tadino, The Man Who Stopped the Sultan
The Man Who Stopped the Sultan

The reviews are starting to come in for The Man Who Stopped the Sultan but this one, from Amazon in America, is possibly my favourite review:

Michael P Heller

An Amazing – and Entertaining – Work of History

March 13, 2026

I am writing this review not just as a medieval re-enactor of the Knights of St. John the Hospitallers, but as a re-enactor of Gabriele Tadino himself: This book was a Godsend. Even after having long-studied the life of Tadino for my role, this book contained information that I still never knew, written in a way that is both informative and entertaining. Too many history texts are dry and filled with facts that put you to sleep after only a few pages, whereas Albert has the rare ability to educate the reader and entertain him at the same time. If you are at all interested in medieval history, or medieval warfare, I recommend this book 100%.