nathanjhunt's reviews
142 reviews

This was my 19th book finished in 2025.

Another HH book about WWII? That's the last thing we needed - there's so many of them! I just assumed this book was about the whole history of spies... what a boring idea to focus on one tiny period in history.

The layout was very monotonous, dull and repetitive - we get it... Almost anything could conceal a bomb or weapon, no need to say it time and time again in each chapter.

For such a short book, it was a bit of a slog.

This was my 18th book finished in 2025.

It was alright, I don't have much more to say about it.

This was my 17th book finished in 2025.

So I really like that the newer HH books are looking at more modern history. But unfortunately, I just found this book really... Dull! It all just seemed very samey; barely any variety in the lay out, and half the book seemed to be bullet points.

I also spotted a couple sloppy spelling mistakes in the text.

I was baffled that the last twenty pages were just a preview of another HH book. Did they really run out of things to say about cars, so they had to fill the rest with advertisements of their other books?

This was my 15th book finished in 2025. 

I liked this book, don't get me wrong. But I have a few complaints.

The references to slavery in this book are certainly a better depiction than what was shown in older HH books (ie, not talking about it at all), but it's still so surface level in this book. 

Secondly, stop calling Native Americans "Indians"! Your colonial mindset is showing. Sure, I appreciate you're not sugarcoating Columbus and therefore exposing him as the slave trader he is (I read his book), but the author referring to the slaves with the derogatory and ignorant name bestowed upon them by their enslaver feels so ick. They were the Arawak people, natives of the Americas, NOT Indians. And Columbus enslaved them all until every single one was dead. Genocide. So you can show a little respect to them. The same goes for all references to Native Americans in the book - it's such dated and offensive language.

The author also seems to attempt to justify the treatment of native populations, saying they "deserved it" by how they acted. This is such a Euro-centric and colonial view point, and I thought we were past this old mindset by now.

I spotted quite a few errors in the text: double words, missing punctuation, missing spaces between words. It just seemed sloppy.

What I loved about this book was the fact that parts of history were highlighted from areas never usually covered by HH; China, Africa, North America. There definitely needs to be more focus on these places in the future of HH books. Sure, I knew about most of these "days", but some were new to me.

There was just about enough to gain my interest and do my own further research if I wanted to. But there seemed to be such inconsistency with how much was written for each "day". Some were just brushed over, whilst others had more focus.

This was my 16th book finished in 2025.

This was a fun one - fast and concise. I definitely enjoyed it more than the Knights one.

This was my 8th book finished in 2025.

I found a lot of the contents of this book have been in other HH books, so it got a bit dull reading the same information and stories.

It was okay. I think I'm a bit biased because I find the middle ages a bit boring.

This was my 3rd book finished in 2025.

This isn't an era of history I have much interest in, but I thought the book was engaging and well-laid out. I learned a few things along the way - not bad.

I particularly liked that it showed both sides of the war - although I would have liked more focus on WHY exactly the Germans felt they were "in the right", as stated in the book.

This was my 43rd book finished in 2024.

I was excited to read this, as I love London and have a big interest in the Thames. 

Well, the book was alright. Seemed a bit disjointed, but there were plenty of interesting bits.

This was my 37th book finished in 2024.

I didn't really like this one. It was a bit all over the place and I found it a little difficult to engage with.

The lines between history and mythology are a bit blurred at the start, and he seems to confuse the reader by being very vague between Maya and Aztec people. He also seems to use "Mexican" and "Aztec" interchangeably - which is obviously incorrect. At one point, he even calls them "Indians" - horribly dated language.

I swear 80% of the book was about sacrificing. I didn't seem to learn anything, as the only thing I can remember is "the Aztecs loved human sacrifice". I went to Mexico City (Tenochtitlan) last year, and there was so much more to see and learn about than human sacrifice. This book would make you think that's literally all they did.

Ultimately, it was quite Euro-centric and judgemental.

This was my 35th book finished in 2024.

I really wanted to like this book, but I was really quite disappointed. The blurb makes it sound more exciting than it ultimately was.

I completely understand that this was not meant to be a novel - it simply inspired latter ones. It was written to be read by learned societies, the government, the navy etc. Therefore there are a lot of notes and time spent on directions, wind speed, weather... Things that are just dull and irrelevant today.

It was interesting to read about other cultures and places, but a few extra footnotes would have helped with the understanding.

At the end of the day, I've read more interesting naval narratives.