Books like The Wars of the Roses — picked by fans

A new and heartbreaking history of World War II as told through the shocking experiences of zoos across the globe.

As Europe lurched into war in 1939, zookeepers started killing their animals. On September 1, as German forces invaded Poland, Warsaw began with its reptiles. Two days later, workers at the London Zoo launched a similar spree, dispatching six alligators, seven iguanas, sixteen southern anacondas, six Indian fruit bats, a fishing cat, a binturong, a Siberian tiger, five magpies, an Alexandrine parakeet, two bullfrogs, three lion cubs, a cheetah, four wolves, and a manatee over the next few months. Zoos… show more.

The eighteenth century saw more years of war than of peace. Though victimhood might jump most readily to mind when thinking about how this affected young people, it is only a small part of the picture. The Seven Years' War and the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars influenced how children played, learned, worked, and perceived the world around them, regardless of whether they were in the heart of the battle or far from the action.

Childhood and War in Eighteenth-Century Britain considers how British and foreign youngsters affected the waging of war, not only as stalwart camp followers, boy soldiers, patriotic… show more.