Tony Rennell

A surprisingly entertaining book. Surprisingly because Rennell writes quite a dry book, not sensationalising the story of Victoria's death, or attempting to get too personal. Rather, he takes the reader through Victoria's last days, her death and the funeral, relating aspects from the point of view of those close to Victoria and the press. He never directly writes political analysis, but rather hints at it, only occasionally drawing parallels with the modern British monarchy. By taking one show more small episode - lasting only a year really - Rennell manages to explore various facets of Victorian life and it's legacy.
The most striking point in this book is the fact that no-one seemed prepared for Queen Victoria's death, which is amazing considering the woman was in her eighties! But it also entertainingly covers the small facts - the internal squabbles within the large and extended royal family; the fact the Queen was a bit of a glutton until her final illness; the boy who flicked a match and set fire to a man's hat while the public watched the funeral procession move through London. Rennell manages to steer a course between the academic and the `dumbing down' sometimes prevalent in modern day `popular history'. Rather, he just sticks to the facts and supposes his readers are intelligent enough to understand and interpret them. show less

Brilliantly researched story of Allied PoWs last months in captivity in Germany, as they were marched from place to place under often terrible conditions. The authors draw on many personal diaries and recollections as well as official sources to bring to life these amazing stories, of what was the last desperate days of the Third Reich and the PoWs attempts to survive, until Allied troops reached them. A fitting tribute to these previously unsung heroes who never received their due recognition.

My dad was a POW during WWII and was on one of the forced marches described in this book. It filled in some of the gaps for me about what he endured.

As World War II drew to a close, hundreds of thousands of British and American prisoners of war, held in camps in Nazi-occupied Europe, faced the prospect that they would never get home alive. In the depths of winter their guards harried them on marches out of their camps and away from the armies advancing into the heart of Hitler's defeated Germany. Hundreds died from exhaustion, disease and starvation. "The Last Escape" is told through the testimony of those men.