Featured Review

Periodically I shall highlight a review from this site due to some relevance that I perceive as being appropriate.

29th January 2025 - 

In the days since Donald Trump took office in the US I have been reflecting on the nature of fascist ideology and how, despite the lessons of history, it can be allowed to flourish.  Imagine telling a soldier amid the Second World War that one day one of the President's closest toadies would stand on stage and do a Nazi salute and then having to explain to that soldier how we let this happen.  Imagine telling it to a Holocaust survivor immediately after the war.  Now, I'm not an American and therefore couldn't participate in their democratic process, but the idea that the rest of the world has no responsibility to oppose the injustices being perpetrated by Trump's administration is exactly the thinking that allowed Hitler to thrive.

If you want to read an excellent Star Wars book that makes these points far more eloquently than I can, then I highly recommend the following:

Star Wars: The Rise And Fall Of The Galactic Empire 

by Doctor Chris Kempshall

In the wake of Emperor Palpatine's return and defeat (in 'The Rise of Skywalker') Resistance historian Beaumont Kin sets out to examine the history of the Galactic Empire in an attempt to understand how it and its atrocities could have found a foothold in the galaxy a second time.

Now, cards on the table, I HATE the Sequel Trilogy but the premise of this book I found genuinely engaging.  Written by a real-world war historian, taking on the persona of an in-universe historian its overall premise is this:  We all grew up with stories of how awful the Nazis were, so how have we let the same evil rise up again?

If that's not the perfect message for these times in which right-wing populism is on the increase across the world (here in the UK, in particular, we've literally just had a whole string of fascistically-motivated riots by right-wing pricks), then I don't know what is.  This is a historian and the Star Wars brand standing up and saying "Dear Star Wars fans, beware the dangers of apathy!".  On that alone, I would rate this book incredibly highly.

However, this book isn't just its message.  Here we get the first in-depth history of the Star Wars galaxy (or at least 60-ish years of it) written under the new Canon.  There were similar tomes in the Expanded Universe, but none written as though it were an actual history book, examining motives, consequences and drawing conclusions to the observations.  This is a Star Wars book that dares to treat Star Wars fans as intelligent adults, capable of pondering complex themes and, in that way, this book is very much aimed at the same audience who thought 'Andor' was pure brilliance.  People like me, for example.

As well as tying together the various movies, TV shows, novels and comics of the new canon, this book also sneaks plenty of little Easter Eggs in for long-term fans of the old Expanded Universe canon (AKA 'Legends').  I was therefore delighted to see things like the destruction of Caamas, the Battle of Derra IV and Hiram Drayson (of all people) brought over into the official canon.  This is a book that acknowledges that a great deal of good content about the Empire, the Rebellion and the New Republic is there to be mined in the 40-ish years of Star Wars stories told before Disney bought the rights.

The only reason I've not given this a perfect score is that, like pretty much every real-world history book I've ever read, this book can occasionally be a bit dry and repetetive of certain ideas.  It adds to the authenticity, but detracts from the overall pleasure of reading.

4 out of 5