Ann Boleyn, Aristocrats, Henry V and the Guise Family are among the historical subjects taken almost at random from the books published over this month and the next. The most popular historical subject, however, for this or any other month, is the Second World War. September may be the anniversary of the outbreak of the war, but authors and publishers need no extra encouragement.

Next week’s TLS, which focuses on history, will carry a combined review of two of the most widely praised books of the crop, by Max Hastings and Antony Beevor, who have found new things to say about D-Day and Winston Churchill. There will also be shorter consideration of more esoteric approaches to the war years, from suicide in Nazi Germany to the Whitehall bunker.

War cast its shadow long before the twentieth century, of course, and we will also consider a new history of the nastiest conflict from earlier times, the Thirty Years War. The past often seems a peculiarly bloody “different country”. No wonder R. G. Collingwood, the great historical philosopher whose Life will also be discussed, went in for the relative peace offered by bee-keeping. But for those whose appetite for destruction cannot be sated, publishers can offer two books on the Lancaster bomber, two on Rommel, several on the Battle of Britain, and numberless battalions on the Nazis.

David Horspool's new book The English Rebel was published last month.

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