Grimoires

Grimoires: A History of Magic Books
Owen Davies
(Oxford University Press)

A story of magic spells including ancient Egypt, medieval sorcery, Scandinavian witchcraft, West African folk religion and the Santa Muerte cult prevalent among Mexico’s drug gangs. Also provides an insight into the history of religion, early science, publishing and censorship.

Assassins

Steven Parissien (Quercus)

The story of twenty centuries of political murder, from the Roman era to the present, including accounts of some of the most infamous assassinations in history, from the slaying of Julius Caesar in 44BC to the shooting of President Kennedy in 1963.

History of Men’s Fashion

Nicholas Storey (Pen & Sword)

A history of men’s fashion, which explores what to wear, where to purchase it and where to be seen wearing it, as well as revealing some of history’s worse fashion errors.

Cruelty: Human evil and the human brain

Kathleen Taylor (Oxford University Press)

A study of the nature and origins of cruelty, which draws together aspects of psychology, sociology, philosophy and neuroscience, illustrated with examples from history and the arts.

Ordinary People as Mass Murderers

ed. Olaf Jensen and Claus-Christian W. Szejnmann (Palgrave Macmillan)

A collection of essays, which presents an overview of the current state of research on the question of how ordinary people come to participate in mass murder.

Paracelsus: Medicine, Magic and Mission at the End of Time

Charles Webster
Yale University Press

An account of the life and works of Theophrastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), the physician, natural magician, radical activist of the early Reformation and commentator on the social and religious issues of his day.

New book review from our current issue: Orgasm and the West

Robert Muchembled
Translated by Jean Birrell
Polity Press

The penis and breast, masturbation and bestiality: the 21st century has seen an outpouring of books about sexed bodies. Here, the author aims to write a history of the West through the orgasm.

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New book review from our current issue: Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds

Jeffrey Richards
Continuum

‘The very last thing Gladiator was about was actual Roman history’, writes Jeffrey Richards in his book about Hollywood’s renewed interest in the ancient world. Ridley Scott’s film is principally entertainment, not education.

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New book review from the current issue: The Curse of History

Jeremy Black
The Social Affairs Unit

Never has the past been so present in contemporary society. Whether it be the History Channel, the explosion of museums and monuments, or the media’s obsession with anniversaries and personal roots, history is everywhere.

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From Demons to Dracula: Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth

Matthew Beresford
Reaktion Books

A study of the vampire myth in literature, history and art, from its beginnings in the demons of the ancient world to Hollywood blockbusters, which seeks to explain our fascination with this creature.

Mavericks: Commanders Who Changed the Course of History

Robert Harvey
Constable

Based on twelve individual portraits, an insight into the minds and actions of military mavericks, such as Clive of India, George Washington, Horatio Nelson, and George Patton, who helped change the course of military history.

Man and Horse: Four thousand years of the mounted warrior, Andrew Sinclair (The History Press)

A history of the spread of equine culture from Asia through Europe to Africa and the Americas, which reveals the significance of the bond between human and horse and the different ways the horse has impacted on war, culture and society.

Eat My Dust: Early Women Motorists, Georgine Clarsen (The John Hopkins University Press)

Focusing on the personal stories of women from the United States, Britain, Australia and colonial Africa from the early days of motoring until 1930, a study of the influence of the car on the lives and careers of women in the earliest decades of the twentieth century, which locates these women motorists within wider twentieth-century debates about class, gender, sexuality race and nation.