Blog Posts

The following reviews of possible interest to followers of The British and Irish Studies Intelligencer were published in December in the Institute of Historical Research's e-journal Reviews in History.

Firstly Pat Starkey welcomes an important addition to the growing literature on child migration, with her review (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1033) of Child, Nation, Race and Empire. Child Rescue Discourse, England, Canada and Australia, 1850-1915 by Shurlee Swain and Margot Hillel.

Next we have a review article by an old friend of the IHR, David Renton, who casts his eye (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1035) over two recent works on fascism and anti-fascism between the wars – Oswald Mosley and the New Party by Matthew Worley and Varieties of Anti-Fascism: Britain in the Inter-War Period edited by Nigel Copsey and Andrzej Olechnowicz.

Chris Berg surveys (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1039) the historiography of combat resilience in the First World War.

We then move to the 12th century, and Edmund King’s new biography King Stephen, which our reviewer David Crouch finds (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1038) judges Stephen the king harshly, even as it strives to be fair to Stephen the man.

Next, Mark Crowley believes (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1037) readers will understand significantly more about the struggle for female suffrage and its consequent impact after reading Pat Thane and Esther Breitenbach’s edited collection Women and Citizenship in Britain and Ireland in the Twentieth Century: What Difference did the Vote Make?

Matthew McKean reviews (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1036) ProQuest’s British Periodicals Collections I and II, which he welcomes as resources that both enhance history teaching and research, and allow researchers opportunities to do what would have been difficult, if not impossible, with traditional print resources.

Brian Harrison tackles (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1040) No Turning Back: The Peacetime Revolutions of Post-War Britain by Paul Addison – and suggests it may lack the sparkle of his previous books like The Road to 1945.

Finally Ariel Hessayon enjoys a superb inter-disciplinary collaboration, as he describes (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1043) The Complete Works of Gerrard Winstanley, edited by Thomas N. Corns, Ann Hughes, David Loewenstein.

As always, all comments or suggestions should be sent to [email protected].

Danny Millum
Deputy Editor, Reviews in History / Editorial Assistant (Web) Institute of Historical Research University of London Senate House Malet Street LONDON WC1E 7HU
t: +44 (0)20 7862 8812
f: +44 (0)20 7862 8754
e: [email protected]

The following reviews of possible interest to followers of H-Albion were published in January on Reviews in History.

Firstly Malcolm Gaskill enjoys a fitting tribute to an outstanding contributor to the social and cultural history of early modern England, as he reviews The Extraordinary and the Everyday in Early Modern England: Essays in Celebration of the Work of Bernard Capp, edited by Garthine Walker and Angela McShane.

Next Alison Twells recommends a successful and stimulating set of essays focusing on women's agency in their encounter with Christian discourses – Women, Gender and Religious Cultures in Britain, 1800–1940, edited by Jacqueline deVries and Sue Morgan.

Moving to the 17th century, Stephen Roberts reviews a well-produced snapshot of current scholarship in this area, Royalists and Royalism during the Interregnum, edited by Jason McElligott and David L. Smith.

Arnold Horner then recommends John Rocque’s Dublin: A Guide to the Georgian City (the work of historian Colm Lennon and art historian John Montague), which he believes will be of interest not just to students of Dublin, but to a wider audience interested in city development and city planning.

Finally we have Liberal Intellectuals and Public Culture in Modern Britain, 1815-1914: Making Words Flesh by Bill Lubenow, which our reviewer Julia Stapleton finds a rich and tightly argued book showing conclusively how the values that emerged from the loosening of the shackles of confessionalism were instrumental in the reordering of both public and private space.

As always, all comments or suggestions should be sent to [email protected].

Best wishes

Danny

Danny Millum
Deputy Editor, Reviews in History

The following reviews of possible interest to readers were published in December in the Institute of Historical Research's e-journal Reviews in History (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews).

Firstly, Gary Magee and Andrew Thompson’s ‘Empire and Globalisation: Networks of People, Goods and Capital in the British World’, c.1850–1914, is reviewed by Stuart Ward.

Elizabeth Tilley’s discusses ‘The Punch Brotherhood: Table Talk and Print Culture in Mid-Victorian London’ by Patrick Leary.

Two major new digital resources, ‘The Illustrated London News Historical Archive, 1842–2003’  and ‘London Lives 1690–1800’, are also reviewed, by Peter Sinnema and Ben Heller respectively.

From the field of medieval history we have a review by Mark Hagger of an accessible and engaging book on the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, Ann Williams’ ‘The World Before Domesday: The English Aristocracy 900–1066’.

‘Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales: Life, Death and Commemoration’, an edited collection produced by Steven Gunn and Linda Monckton, is recommended as a richly detailed monograph by Simon Lambe.

Turning to the Victorian era, we have Richard Gaunt’s ‘Sir Robert Peel: the Life and Legacy’. Our reviewer Robert Saunders believes that this book will serve as a useful introduction to one of Britain’s most enigmatic political figures.

Elsewhere Daniel Spence recommends a work which uses individual testimonies to bring out the broader issues surrounding Africans in the Second World War, ‘Fighting for Britain: African Soldiers in the Second World War’ by David Killingray.

And finally, the IHR’s very own Matt Phillpott praises an important addition to the debate concerning early modernity and modernity, in his review of Phil Withington’s ‘Society in Early Modern England: The Vernacular Origins of Some Powerful Ideas’.

As always, all comments or suggestions should be sent to [email protected].

The following reviews of possible interest to followers of the Intelligencer were published in October in the Institute of Historical Research’s e-journal Reviews in History (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews).

Our featured review (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/971) this month is Leonard Schwarz’s take on Julie Flavell’s 'When London Was Capital of America', set at a time when people on both sides of the Atlantic viewed the city as their capital.

A very different London is the setting for Frank Mort’s 'Capital Affairs: London and the Making of the Permissive Society', in which the city serves as an urban prism bringing into focus changes in personal and sexual lives taking place in this period. Read Nigel Rapport’s review here (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/968).

Then we have two very different books on injury and woundedness. The first, 'Containing Trauma: Nursing Work in the First World War' by Christine Hallett, deals with this from the perspective of nurses in the Great War (the review by Anne Crowther can be found here (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/972)).Meanwhile the second, Sarah Covington’s 'Wounds, Flesh, and Metaphor in Seventeenth-Century England', set three hundred years earlier, is concerned instead with wounds as metaphors. It’s reviewed for us (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/974) by Victoria Sparey.

We also have a discussion (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/976) between Greg Smith and Drew Gray of the latter’s 'Crime, Prosecution and Social Relations: The Summary Courts of the City of London in the Late Eighteenth Century', which our reviewer found a fresh and welcome contribution to our understanding of the role of law in 18th-century London.

Then Joseph Monteyne takes on (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/978) 'Printed Images in Early Modern Britain: Essays in Interpretation', an impressive new edited volume which ranges across a number of disciplinary boundaries.

Next Sally Sokoloff finds a new book on POW families casts light on a hitherto neglected field, as she reviews (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/981) 'War and Welfare: British Prisoner of War Families, 1939-45' by Barbara Hately-Broad.

Lastly this month on the book front Vic Gammon is slightly disappointed (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/980) by a new book on the historical and cultural study of popular song, Robin Ganev’s 'Songs of Protest, Songs of Love: Popular Ballads in Eighteenth-Century Britain'.

The first of two digital resources covered this month is the online appearance of that venerable institution 'Mass Observation, and Mass Observation Online' is both enjoyed and recommended (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/969) by our reviewer Nick Hubble. Then we have the 'London Transport Museum Film Collection Online', which our reviewer Barbara Schmucki (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/982) recommends as a collection of films which is both an invaluable source and immensely entertaining.

A list of all our British and Irish history reviews can be found here: http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/subject/geographical-area/britain-and-ireland

As always, all comments or suggestions should be sent to [email protected].