Page 75 - BBC History - September 2017

Books / Paperbacks

PAPERBACKS

following such harmless end, and condemned Russia to a Small and niggling errors
Nicholas II: The Last Tsar hobbies as photography. As tyranny far worse than the rule (Shakespeare was 34 in 1598,
by Michael Paterson ruler of the world’s largest land, of the Romanovs. not 35; Mary Lamb killed her
Robinson, 256 pages, £9.99 he was completely incapable of mother not her father) should
living up to the destiny he was Nigel Jones is a historian, journalist be fixed for the next edition,
This year’s fated to follow. He did his duty and biographer because this is a delightful book
centenary of the by his own dim lights, but was and deserves a long shelf life.
Russian Revolu- lost in a modern world he did
tion has revived not begin to understand. Londonopolis: A Curious Nick Rennison is a writer whose
interest in the Though acknowledging History of London books include A London Year: 365
Romanov Nicholas’s glaring faults – his by Martin Latham Days of City Life in Diaries, Journals
dynasty that the dithering, his pig-headed Batsford Ltd, 224 pages, £8.99 and Letters (Frances Lincoln, 2013)
upheaval swept away. Michael resistance to progress and his
Paterson’s brief life of the support of savage repression to Beginning with
ineffectual last tsar is unusual in keep his feudal autocracy in Neanderthals, The Sutton Hoo Story:
taking a sympathetic, indeed place – Paterson is too inclined singing to Encounters with Early
indulgent, view of Nicholas, to sentimentalise his subject’s communicate England
stressing his homely human private roles as a doting father to with one another by Martin Carver
qualities and good intentions his sick son and, above all, his as they roamed Boydell & Brewer, 256 pages, £19.99
rather than the manifold failings subservience to his reactionary the Thames
that doomed him, his family wife Alexandra. valley 500,000 years ago, and Sutton Hoo –
and his country. Fluently written and in- ending with Hindu Londoners the site of the
Nicholas was the wrong man formed by a deep knowledge of in the 21st century, campaigning remarkably rich
in the wrong time and place. Russia, the book nonetheless is to scatter the ashes of their dead boat burial first
Lacking the strong character of confusingly organised themati- in the river, Martin Latham’s excavated in the
his iron-fisted father, Alexander cally rather than chronologi- idiosyncratic but highly 1930s, the
III, the last tsar fatally and cally, and Paterson tends to enjoyable book covers a lot of treasures of
blindly followed Alexander’s assume that all readers share his territory. Well-known stories which now adorn the British
repressive policies when only pro-tsarist views. As a result from the capital’s past, such as Museum – sums up the mystery
radical reform could have saved there is little information on the those of the foundation of Bart’s and majesty of the early
the regime. Isolated from his revolutionary movements that Hospital by Henry I’s court Anglo-Saxon period. It is more
people, Nicholas was only inevitably brought the imperial jester and Peter the Great’s than one ship though – it’s a
happy as a family man family to their cruel and bloody trashing of John Evelyn’s complex multi-period burial
Deptford house, prove worth site, with other rich graves and
Doomed tsar revisiting, and there are plenty an enigmatic group of ‘sand-
Nicholas II “was of less familiar ones too. men’ execution victims.
the wrong man in Latham introduces readers to Martin Carver is the man to
the wrong time Lord Balmerino, stopping to buy tell the tale, having led research
and place”
gooseberries on his way to there for many years and
execution; to the caricaturist published widely on it. He charts
James Gillray, drawing the what has been found since the
prime minister Pitt the Younger first investigations and details
as a toadstool on a dunghill; and the latest interpretations in a
to the now-abandoned station clear and engaging style. What
on the Central Line which leaps out is how much we have
closed because it only had six learnt and how far understand-
passengers a day. He also ing has changed since those early
includes a fascinating chapter on digs. As Carver notes: “Archaeol-
alchemists and astrologers like ogy is not just a matter of
John Dee, and the Prussian digging things up, finding
ship’s surgeon Sigismund parallels and putting them in a
Bacstrom who had a laboratory museum.” This book shows the
in the East End. Latham rightly truth of that.
BRIDGEMAN emphasises their often unac- Dave Musgrove is content director
knowledged contributions to the
of BBC History Magazine
history of science in the city.

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