New books!

Bannockburn, 1314: A New History, Chris Brown (The History Press)
A history of the battle of Bannockburn in June 1314, which recreates the campaign and battle from the perspectives of both the Scots and the English and reconsiders the terrain where the battle was fought, providing a reassessment of the Scottish victory against the troops of Edward II.

Cultures of Violence, Ivan Evans (Manchester University Press)
An insight into the inherent violence of race relations in South Africa and the American South. By contrasting the ‘lynch culture’ of the South to the ‘bureaucratic culture of violence’ in South Africa, the book examines the logic of the racial state in the two contexts.

The Atmosphere of Heaven, Mike Jay (Yale University Press)
The story of Dr Beddoes and his fellow researchers at the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol who discovered the mind-altering properties of nitrous oxide, which reveals the influence of the Institution on the modern drug culture, attitudes towards objective and subjective knowledge, the development of anaesthetic surgery and the birth of the Romantic movement.

The Devil’s Workshop, Adolf Burger (Frontline Books)
A history of the world’s largest counterfeiting operation told by one of the last surviving witnesses, Adolf Burger, who, as an inmate of various concentration camps, was forced to forge British and American currency and other documents as part of the Nazi war effort.