Review: Brick History
Posted by Huw,
It seems that Warren Elsmore likes to keep busy. Not only does he help organise the largest LEGO shows in the UK, tour the country with his Brick City exhibition and take on commissions for LEGO models, he's also been authoring at least one book every year for the last 4 years.
His latest title, Brick History: Amazing historical scenes to build from LEGO, has just been published.
It's a 256-page paperback, the same format and size as his other titles: Brick City, Brick Wonders, Brick Flicks and Brick Wheels, and if you have any of those you will know what to expect as it's really just 'more of the same', which isn't a bad thing.
As its title suggests the book showcases models depicting key events in history, from the Big Bang to the royal wedding of William and Kate. Many have been built by Warren (and his team) especially for the book but there are also some well-known models constructed by others included.
The scenes are accompanied by a small piece of text explaining the event and are usually spread across two pages. Generally they are very well photographed and presented.
Interspersed with the scenes are instructions for building related historical artifacts such as a Viking shield, Leonaro Da Vinci's flying machine, a gold rush era pick axe, a tea crate, the Golden Hind, a sextant and a smallpox vaccine/test tubes, as shown below.
I haven't counted but there are probably around 30 such instructions which are well presented and easy to follow. However, there are very few that I feel compelled to build, they are just not as inspiring as, say, vehicles, buildings or animals. Nevertheless, some of them illustrate useful building techniques that might be new to many readers.
If you are a fan of Warren's earlier works then you will know what to expect from this one and you won't be disappointed. It's a nice book to flick through and while the mini-model instructions are not as inspiring as in some of his other books, you may still find something of interest to build.
It's available now from Amazon.com ($14.47) and Amazon.co.uk (£13.48, but much cheaper from 3rd party sellers). The US version is published by a different publisher and has a green cover but is the same inside.
An interview with Warren has just been published which you might find interesting.
Thanks to The History Press for sending me a copy to review, which is an expression of my own opinions.
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10 comments on this article
Ooh I love his books! They're always so interesting. I'll add this to my "must buy" list.
Actually, a sextant seems inspiring enough for me. I might give it a go some day when I have all the parts.
This would have been a good book if the captions were better. They're too juvenile and overtly politically correct. There's even a factual error: contrary to what this book says, ships use GPS nowadays, not sextants.
I believe they are still carried on board for when all else fails.
Yes, the text is juvenile but then it's probably appropriate for the intended audience.
This seems like it will be a nice inspiration book for me; I like historical themes best and I have Brick City so I know the quality of Warren's work.
Sounds... pretty interesting, actually. I might give it a look.
I have enjoyed his previous books and look forward to this one. But is it just me or does the Royal Wedding of William and Kate not measure up to say the Big Bang and other historical events?
For those in the UK, I quickly checked, and the cheapest is 9.18 (6.38+2.80 shipping).
I love the sextant. I will have to attempt a build. I just bought ten sextants and twenty 2102-D star identifiers for use in class as this skill is still taught to our nautical students. GPS may be the norm but professional navigators can still use a sextant and chronometer to determine their position at sea. It is still a mandatory requirement to teach this subject.
@ Falconer18: I think Warren was recycling photos of his commission for William's wedding from the London section of "Brick City", and I can't blame him: it's a fun model, which he kindly provided instructions for on pp 110-115.
but Huw, how could you talk of History and LEGO, especially during this Easter week, without mentioning the stop-motion movie created by primary school children? Just google "easter rising lego cork school": it's quite charming.