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An English Affair: Sex, Class and Power in the Age of Profumo
by Richard Davenport-Hines

Francis Beckett is enthralled by a study of the Profumo Affair – and what it says about England of the 1960

The Deadly Sisterhood
by Leonie Frieda

Jerry Brotton is disappointed by a study of powerful women in the Italian Renaissance

Medieval Pets
by Kathleen Walker-Meikle

Aleks Pluskowski praises a comprehensive exploration of domestic and captive animals in Britain in the Middle Ages

Songs of Innocence: The Story of British Childhood
by Fran Abrams

Sian Pooley considers an examination of shifting attitudes to British childhood, from the Victorian period to the present day

Family Secrets: Living with Shame from the Victorians to the Present Day
by Deborah Cohen

From disabled children to ‘bachelor uncles’, Joanna Bourke enjoys a history of the things that families have tried to brush under the carpet

Mr Foote's Other Leg: Comedy, Tragedy and Murder in Georgian London
by Ian Kelly

Hallie Rubenhold on a biography of an 18th-century actor and dandy

Fishing Fleet: Husband-Hunting in the Raj
by Anne de Courcy

Joanna Bourke enjoys a study of the women who went looking for love in India

Sinners? Scroungers? Saints? Unmarried Motherhood in 20th-Century England
by Pat Thane and Tanya Evans

Joanna Bourke looks back at how previous generations treated single mothers

A Country Merchant, 1495 – 1520: Trading and Farming at the End of the Middle Ag
by Christopher Dyer

Chris Given-Wilson welcomes a meticulously researched account of a 16th-century wool-broker, 'or brogger', John Heritage 

The Road Not Taken
by Frank McLynn

Nigel Jones takes issue with the arguments made in a provocative study of thwarted revolts