Researching Local History: Your Guide to the Sources, by Stuart A. Raymond

This book is going to cost me so much money! No, not the price of the book (which is very good value indeed, given current book prices), but many of the other books and journals that Raymond mentions. I was unaware of several of the journals and I also now have a long shopping list of books. To be fair, though, several of the journals he mentions make older issues freely available online.

If you are really interested in researching history yourself, rather than reading stuff written by others, this book is invaluable. Before finishing Chapter 2, I was weeping with joy because I’d bookmarked a website containing stuff I’d previously been told wasn’t available online. (Private Bills of Parliament authorising the construction of railways in the 1800s, since you ask!) By the end of the book, I had many more bookmarked sites. Stuart Raymond has been studying local history for over 50 years and REALLY knows his sources. 

The book is structured well, with chapters covering a wide range of aspects of historical research. The chapter, “Preliminaries to Research” tells the reader where to find sources about sources. That is, it suggests bibliographies, websites, specialist libraries and societies that can provide lists of sources for your chosen topic. The Museum of English Rural Life was a new one for me. That one chapter contains references to:

100+ Webpages

50+ Books

10 journal articles

“People and Population” doesn’t just mention the usual suspects such as the births, marriages and deaths registers, but also sites like www.histpop.org that give summary reports based upon census information. Several chapters refer the reader to articles in scholarly journals such as the Agricultural History Review, where the issues from 1953-2018 are freely available online.

The chapters inevitably overlap. The Domesday Book, for example, appears several times. That’s understandable: it tells us who lived somewhere and what they did; what the land was used for; how much it was worth; etc. Initially, I was a little impatient with the numerous references to the National Archives guides but then I realised that Raymond’s one line reference to a well-written comprehensive 2–3-page guide prevents his book being much, much longer and more expensive. Thank you, Mr Raymond!

Do I have any quibbles? Yes – and you will share this first one... There’s not enough about MY area of research. I guess it depends upon your chosen area of research. I’m interested in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, so all the references to muster rolls and manorial court records won’t help me. I wanted more about municipal records of Urban District Councils, for example. However, it is highly unreasonable to expect an author to deliver a general guide that greatly assists everyone and also gives huge detail about every specialist area. As the introduction warns, “In a book of this length, it is not possible to deal with all the sources and topics that might be of interest to local historians. Nor is it possible to provide the detail that might be thought desirable.”

Secondly, a book published in 2022 probably ought to refer to GIS databases such as ukdataservice.ac.uk. And thirdly, although Raymond rightly mentions the excellent British Newspaper Archive, he doesn’t warn the reader about the often-appalling quality of the OCRed text that often thwarts searches for specific phrases.

I cannot believe how useful this book is and I’m about to recommend it to everyone on my MA degree course. Thank you, Pen and Sword, for sending me an early copy to review – and thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr Raymond for writing this book.

- Colin

Hardback, £16.99.

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Spies in Canaan, by David Park

A thought-provoking, unique novel by Irish author David Park, following fictional character Mikey Miller. The novel is a little slow to grip you, but once hooked you’re engrossed in the plot and will not want to put it down.

The first half of the book follows Mikey as he works as a junior diplomat for the American forces in Vietnam, during the Vietnamese war. Park fantastically sets the scene, describing a humid, adventurous, and tense Saigon, as seen through Mikey’s eyes. As the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong close in on the city, Mikey is offered an exciting yet nerve-wracking opportunity to advance his career with a somewhat dubious role in espionage. However, drip-by-drip he becomes more and more disillusioned by his superiors and what ‘America’ are doing in Vietnam. As things come to a head, he feels increasingly out of control and out of the loop, and unable to provide any answers to the Vietnamese who have been promised lives in America for their loyalty, but are now being left on their own.

The second half of the book cuts to forty years later, where a widowed and retired Mikey is forced to reflect on his and others actions in Vietnam. The Vietnamese evacuee crisis is paralleled now with the immigrants illegally coming into America today, and Mikey is forced to confront his regrets and actions. 

Whilst set in Vietnam and America, this novel provokes one to think about the refugee crisis around the world; in Afghanistan, Ukraine, the Channel crossings, and how we as a society, and as individuals, are facing the catastrophes. Mikey’s soul searching cannot help but reflect one’s own soul searching in these times. 

A thoroughly enjoyable read that I highly recommend.   

4/5 stars

- Lauren

Lauren reviewed the proof edition of "Spies in Canaan."

It has now been published in Hardback, at £16.99.

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The Half Life of Valery K, by Natasha Pulley

Written by the bestselling author of ‘The Watchmaker of Filigree Street’, Natasha Pulley’s ‘The Half Life of Valery K’ is a fascinating book inspired by a real Russian closed city, Ozersk. Located in Chelyabinsk Oblast, it was the birthplace of the Soviet nuclear weapons program, created in 1948 during the Cold War. Codenamed ‘City 40’ until 1994, it is now said to be one of the most contaminated places on the planet, referred to by some as the “graveyard of the Earth”. That is not to say that no-one lives there; in fact, the last recorded 2010 consensus estimates that the population is 82,164 people. Despite the Russian government giving the city’s inhabitants many privileges, it comes at an inevitable cost. Researchers suggest that half a million people in Ozersk and its surrounding area have been exposed to five times as much radiation as those living in the areas of Ukraine affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986.

Pulley centres the story around biochemist Valery Kolkhanov who is initially kept prisoner in a Siberian Gulag, a forced labour camp. There is a real sense of repression from the Russian government as the conditions of the camp are akin to the atrocious Nazi concentration camps and yet many of the inmates are innocent. We then follow Valery’s journey being transferred to a secret facility called ‘City 40’ (bearing resemblance to the real ‘City 40’ explained above) to finish his prison sentence. Valery is tasked with conducting further research studying the long-term effects of radiation on the surrounding area from the city’s nuclear plant, but it is unclear the true extent of the radiation as Valery is very much kept in the dark by his fellow scientists and the officials from Moscow.

Pulley expertly interweaves a spider web of misinformation and lies, to create a scene of mystery upon which the gradual discovery of truth is found by Valery. It is exciting to read as we, the reader, find out what is really going on alongside the characters which creates a unique feeling of attachment to the book and its protagonists, thus keeping the reader guessing.

Due to the mystery element of the storyline, it was immensely captivating, especially due to the veins of truth and real-event association this book possesses. It reminded me of aspects from the Chernobyl disaster as the reader is presented with a landscape of secrets, upon which it is unclear exactly what information people know and who holds the ultimate influence. Similar to the Chernobyl disaster, this book explores the way that people find it hard to believe something they cannot physically see. In this scenario, the danger of radiation is dismissed until it is too late and even then, the various resulting deaths are carried off as heart attacks. I think the concept of disbelief and misinformation is particularly interesting, as elements of this cognitive bias are inevitably part of human nature so the cumulative effects of this cognition can be recognised even in today’s society. Thus, Pulley manages to shed light on the intricacies of human behaviour from a general standpoint as well as homing in on the story of City 40. 

At times, this story is hard to read due to the harrowing effects of radiation sickness, as well as the resulting frustration from the protagonist and reader alike, of the KGB’s purposeful disbelief of the serious danger from radiation. Yet, Pulley achieves the right balance by sowing into the story more uplifting elements of determination and resilience, as the protagonists Shenkov and Valery continue the fight for survival, even when their situation is dire. This acts as a much-needed reminder of the power of the human spirit, especially poignant after the years of Covid we have all experienced.

Overall, I found ‘The Half Life of Valery K’ an immensely captivating book that I would recommend to anyone, as the historical reality behind the characters is ever-present at the back of the reader’s mind, thereby adding a unique dimension to the read. As Pulley herself says in the afterword of the book: “Shenkov and Valery are fictional, but almost everything that happens to them is real”.

- Scarlett

Radical Victorians, by James Hobson

Radical Victorians by James Hobson tells us about a group of Victorians (obvs!) who defied convention in various ways: espousing vegetarianism, teetotalism, cremation, women’s legal equality and many other views that were ahead of their time. The individuals are:

- Anna Kingsford

- Frances Power Cobbe

- Ann Jane Carlile

- Florence Cook

- Sir Henry Thompson

- Isabelle Holmes

- Elizabeth Wolstenholme-Elmy

- Richard Pankhurst

- George Drysdale

- Annie Besant

- Edward Truelove

- Charles Bradlaugh

- Josephine Butler

- W.T. Stead

- Stuart Headlam

- Keir Hardie

- Henry Hyndham

- Sir Charles Dilke

- Francis Dalton

To my shame, I had only heard of five of them and, as I read Hobson’s book, I realised I actually knew very little about those few. This is perhaps not surprising. Hobson has chosen people who change the future but (mostly) didn’t live to see their views accepted. Thus, the book excludes Florence Nightingale and Charles Darwin – their views were radical when first proposed but were fairly mainstream when Queen Victoria died. Francis Dalton was a great scientist but made one huge misjudgement: eugenics. Whilst the basic science may be correct - racehorses can be bred for stamina, potatoes can be bred to resist blight - the moral consequences are shudderingly deplorable. Modern cancel culture is writing him out of history, which is a shame, as he did achieve some great things: the first weather map in a newspaper; breakthroughs in fingerprint technology and statistical methods.

Hobson sets the context for each life, explaining the standard contemporary views and showing how unusual the above team seemed to other Victorians. Many of them had the luxury of wealthy parents and could afford to throw themselves whole-heartedly into fighting for good causes - as Hobson puts it, they were part of “the leisured intellectual elite.” Some, however, like Keir Hardie, the founder of the Independent Labour Party, were desperately poor.

That brings me onto my one cavil with the book. Many - most? All? - of the cast list were known to each other, and they pop up in each other’s chapters. The trouble is, I can’t remember whether, when we read about Elizabeth Wolstenholme-Elmy going to see the work of Josephine Butler, we have read about Butler yet or not! And there are thirty-five mentions of Charles Bradlaugh before we reach the chapter dedicated to him. It’s all good stuff, but the interconnectedness makes it confusing. I know E.M. Forster told us to “Only connect!” but I sometimes wonder if Hobson has taken the instruction to extremes!

The book is well-written and provides a lot of interesting information about each life. It’s not as dry as you might expect. I shall read it again, and I know I’ll get more out of it on a second or third reading.

- Colin

Hardback, £25. Publishing date: 30-05-22. Pre-order with us now!

The Georgians, by Penelope J. Corfield

This book left me stunned. How can one person, even an Emeritus Professor like Corfield, know so much about so many topics – and have the skill to fit them together in this highly, highly readable Rubik’s cube? She admits in the introduction that the book has taken many years to complete and I can believe it. I have seldom read a book that covers so much so well.

The book comprises five parts:
I. The Georgian Debating an Age of Change
II. The Georgians Experiencing Change in Daily Life
III. The Georgians Ruling and Resisting
IV. The Georgians in Social Ferment
V. The Georgians Viewed Long

Oh, and approximately sixty pages of erudite endnotes.

 As can be deduced from that structure, Corfield shows us how things changed over the long eighteenth century, illustrating points with the stories of individuals; citing books; and at the end of each chapter, suggesting further reading; a list of places to visit in person or online; and even a Youtube performance of The Rivals. She makes the point that Georgians were aware of change, and were keen to share their views about it, for better or worse. Corfield goes back to sources and debunks several myths.

Based upon Corfield’s book, my belief is that the reason it’s so interesting to look back and study the Georgian Age was because, as she states, the numbers of both men and women who were literate and numerate overtook – for the first time in Britain’s history – the numbers of the illiterate and innumerate. That increase in people who COULD write, translated into an increase in the numbers who DID write – and hence we have so much more evidence of contemporary thoughts and beliefs than we do for previous ages.

But it is such a comprehensive book and so well argued that you might have a different view – and so might I, the next time I read it. And I shall re-read it, probably several times – and certainly keep it as my “go to” reference book for ALL aspects of life from the 1690s to the 1830s.

- Colin

Hardback, £25. Find it in the history section!

Flush, by Virginia Woolf

Anyone who's visited the store with their perfect pooch in tow can testify to the fact that I am a passionate advocate for dogs. As a cause, it is my number one! More dogs, fewer humans, that's what I always say! AND more books about dogs. 

Virginia Woolf, the icon that she is, wrote a book about a dog. A real dog! Elizabeth Bennett Browning's dog, whose name was Flush. The perfect cocker spaniel; a beautiful soul, a wonderful companion. This books lends itself both as a biography for Flush, but also for Elizabeth Bennett Browning, albeit with a lot of creative liberties taken, of course. We see her life progress, only as it comes to affect Flush: how much attention he's getting, what sort of walks he's been on. It's such a charming concept, and it was lovely read over Christmas... for the most part.

Poor Flush, as dogs usually are, was merely swept up in the lives of the humans around him. I felt sorry for Flush for a sizeable chunk of this book. It transpires that Elizabeth had what we would now recognise to be Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. And since she spent most of her time alone in her bedroom, resting, so did Flush. The poor little tyke, for years, merely sat on the sofa beside her. As a dog owner myself, I couldn't imagine condemning any dog to this docile life, let alone a spaniel! Have you ever met a spaniel? They're mental! And this is just the beginnings of the stresses and traumas that Flush endures throughout the course of his life.

During troubling times for Flush, the book became very difficult to read. The vivid description from his point of view was disarming and upsetting, to say the least. I found myself furious with the humans who left sweet Flush to his fate. It was quite grounding to see our actions through the eyes of an innocent and loyal animal, and reminded me how wholly they rely on us for their happiness and health.

This book was surprisingly well fleshed out, considering the narrator is a spaniel, and it was just nice to allow myself to be swept up in the story, and not question its accuracy too much. It was both a lovely and a haunting read for a dog-lover. Only proceed if you can keep your furry little friend close by for quick squeezes and snuggles when things get tough for Flush!

- Sian

Paperback, £2. Find it in the classics section!

Stranger in the Shogun's City, by Amy Stanley

Stranger In The Shogun's City focuses on the daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno. Born in 1804 in Japan's snow country, she defied convention by running away from her family to Edo, which we now call Tokyo, following her third divorce. Through the letters she sent home, we see her forge her own path in life.

Woven around Tsuneno's story is the history of Edo and Japan at the time. The world was changing and soon Japan would also be changing. The people featured are also gone, which is a sobering thought, but I love that part of them now lives on through the pages of this book.

Overall this was a really interesting and compelling book. Whilst this is essentially a history book, the narrative following Tsuneno and her family added an additional human element. You become invested in her life and want to know how she fares. Considering all that is left of her are the few letters she sent home, and some of the replies, Stanley manages to build up a rounded picture of her personality and impulsive temperament. 

That being said sometimes I felt that Stanley overplayed the "she might have" narrative. The fact is that we don't know a lot of what Tsuneno was thinking, and whilst it is interesting to speculate, there were a few chapters where I felt we were given too many options of what she might have thought, and I found it grating.

But that is a minor grumble really. Overall, this was incredibly well researched, as demonstrated by the extensive notes and bibliography, and is a love letter to Edo, a place which no longer exists. 

I would like to read more from Stanley and would especially like to learn more about her research into Tsuneno and Edo.

- Jenny, @budgetbooklover on Instagram 

Paperback, £9.99. Find it in the History section!