Reviews

Civic Ceremony and Religion in Medieval Bruges c. 1300-1520

danny.millum — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:37:55 +0000

When Pero Tafur visited Bruges in 1438 he had a keen eye for the material wealth of the town and the splendor in which its citizens seemed to indulge. In his famous travel diary he noted that ‘without doubt, the goddess of luxury has great power here, but it is not a place for poor men, who would be badly received here.

Oceania Under Steam: Sea Transport and the Cultures of Colonialism, c.1870–1914

danny.millum — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:03:39 +0000

In Ocean Under Steam Frances Steel explores the impact of the 19th-century sea transport revolution in one of the extremities of the British Empire, the South Pacific Ocean. Published as part of the Manchester University Press ‘Studies in Imperialism’ series, under the general editorship of John MacKenzie, this is a self-consciously ‘de-centred’ imperial history.

The Birth of the Past

danny.millum — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:30:52 +0000

As Geoffrey Elton put it, ‘The future is dark; the present is burdensome; only the past, dead and finished, bears contemplation’.(1) We take the concept of ‘the past’ for granted, yet Schiffman argues that the notion of the past as a concept ‘began only fairly recently, during the Renaissance, and did not culminate until the eighteenth century, after which it acquired its commonsensical status’ (p. 1). Although this book is the product of over 30 years of reading, Schiffman says in the rather flowery ‘Gestation’ (a.k.a.

The Triumph of the Dark: European International History, 1933-1939

danny.millum — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:00:38 +0000

In the beginning was Hitler.

The Chanson d'Antioche: An Old French Account of the First Crusade

danny.millum — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:03:50 +0000

In the Middle Ages a series of Old French knightly-spoken poems known as chansons de geste, devoted to the subject of crusades, took shape in the north of France. In the past few centuries these texts, sometimes known collectively as the Old French Crusade Cycle, have been subjected to critical scrutiny by literary scholars and philologists, almost all of which has been published in French. However, aside from a few notable exceptions, Anglophone historians of the crusades have been notoriously reluctant to engage with these texts in their research.

Becoming Neapolitan. Citizen Culture in Baroque Naples

danny.millum — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:52:27 +0000

In his New Year’s address for 2012 the British Prime Minister sought to rally a demoralized people saddled with debts, recession, and unemployment in the face of a continuing policy of wholesale transfer of assets from public to private, by reminding them of the forthcoming Olympic Games and the Queen’s Jubilee.

Reversing Babel. Translation among the English during an Age of Conquests, c. 800 to c. 1200

danny.millum — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:39:45 +0000

Medieval people traced the multiplicity of languages back to the story in Genesis of the tower of Babel, built by humans. God punished their arrogance by scattering them to the four winds so that each could not understand the language of his neighbour. From the sons of Noah were descended 72 peoples with 72 languages. The difficulty that English was not numbered among them was circumvented by the helpful discovery that a son of Noah, Sceaf, was born on the Ark and was the ancestor of the Anglo-Saxon kings.

Albert. A Life

danny.millum — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:23:44 +0000

At a time when the book as a physical object is apparently under threat, one point about Jules Stewart’s Albert is that it forms part of the counter-attack. It is beautifully produced. Its front cover shows a photograph of Albert of stunning reality, revealing in particular the much-noted clarity of the Prince’s eyes. The typeface, line spacing and page layout – and not least the reasonable price – make this inviting as a readable object. The 16 pages of images and photographs at the heart of the book are useful and supportive of the text.

What it Means to be Human: Reflections from 1791 to the Present

danny.millum — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:57:56 +0000

And whenever we abuse that reason, and act beneath the character and dignity of a rational creature, we lose the divine image in that respect; we have nothing to denominate us men but outward shape; or, in other words, we become brutes in the shapes of men.(1)

Bourgeois Consumption: Food, Space and Identity in London and Paris, 1850-1914

danny.millum — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:44:25 +0000

Over the past generation of scholarship, the history of consumption and material culture has emerged as a rich subfield of European history. From Victoria de Grazia and Ellen Furlough’s groundbreaking anthology, The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective (1997) to Daniel Roche’s monumental History of Everyday Things (1997 French ed., 2000 English trans.), scholars of consumption have deepened our understanding of modern European law, politics, art, and culture through detailed attention to the goods that mediated social relationships.

The Making of British Socialism

danny.millum — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:03:57 +0000

Histories of British socialism are nothing new, with classic studies in the field going back to G. D. H. Cole.(1) Mark Bevir’s new book, however, comes from a slightly different perspective, in that it focuses on the ‘making’ of British socialism in, broadly, the final quarter of the 19th century.

An Accidental Utopia? Social Mobility and the Foundations of an Egalitarian Society, 1880-1940

danny.millum — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:26:33 +0000

The Caversham Project has been a long-running and detailed historical investigation of work and community, social structure, class and gender in the southern suburbs of Dunedin, New Zealand. With a strong, indeed rigorous, quantitative basis the project has generated an impressive list of books, essays and working papers over the last 20 years. An Accidental Utopia? is described by the authors as the final instalment, and they note that its subject, social mobility, was the issue around which the project was initially conceived.

Managing the Body: Beauty, Health and Fitness in Britain, 1880-1939

danny.millum — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:30:42 +0000

Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska’s new history of the body, health and fitness in Britain is a wide-reaching and detailed study of relevant cultural practices and government policies between the Victorian period and the eve of the Second World War.

Ritual and Space in the Middle Ages. Proceedings of the Harlaxton Symposium 2009

danny.millum — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:16:36 +0000

This collection of essays, first presented at the Harlaxton Symposium in 2009, brings together a range of researchers interested in the intellectual and cultural history of Europe, under two equally broad and controversial themes. Frances Andrews's introduction goes some way to binding the ideas together.

Contending Visions of the Lone Star State: Debating Texas’ Identity

danny.millum — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:35:52 +0000

Texas is in the midst of an identity crisis. Some historians, such as Walter Buenger in Path to a Modern South, argue that Texas has a strong connection to the South. Others, like Glen Ely in his new book Where the West Begins, contend that Texas – especially West Texas – is closely linked to the American West. Moreover, some historians believe that Texas is unique and defies historical categorization, echoing back to Texas’ days as a Republic.

Morbid Curiosities: Medical Museums in Nineteenth-Century Britain

danny.millum — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:09:26 +0000

In November of 2011, I listened to Dr Samuel Alberti present a paper on ‘Body parts in Bart's’ – one of a series of seminars held in St Bartholomew’s pathological museum in West Smithfield. The museum is a cavernous room surrounded on all sides by glass specimen jars, making the visitor feel it is they who are as much under scrutiny as the specimens themselves.

Castlereagh: Enlightenment, War, and Tyranny

danny.millum — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:01:46 +0000

Viscount Castlereagh’s reputation had a very bad 19th century. Irish nationalists called him a turncoat and a tyrant for the role he played in suppressing the 1798 Rising as Chief Secretary at Dublin Castle. An indifferent public speaker in the heroic age of parliamentary oratory, the Whig opposition twitted him for his malapropisms. Just about everybody who didn’t know him and many who did thought him a cold fish – arrogant, aloof, disdainfully aristocratic. Compared to his dazzling successor at the Foreign Office, George Canning, Castlereagh seemed a bit of a bore.

Remembering the Road to World War Two

danny.millum — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:58:02 +0000

In Remembering the Road to World War Two Patrick Finney (a student of 20th-century international history, history and theory, and collective memory) writes an impressive and informative account, not of the origins of the Second World War, but of the way historians and others have remembered those origins. At the same time he describes the way in which historical debates about the origins of the war have been used to shape and promote national identity.

American Property: A History of How, Why, and What We Own

danny.millum — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:44:14 +0000

The slipperiness of just what Stuart Banner is addressing in American Property is one of his key themes. Property has meant different things to different people in different times; ideas about it ‘have always been contested and have always been in flux’ (p. 3). Similar things could be said of sugar, coal, and cotton.(1) In structure and tone, Banner’s book fits quite comfortably into the genre of commodity history. It is anecdotal, vernacular, and sometimes polemical. It alternates between specific interests, e.g.

Witchcraft and Colonial Rule in Kenya, 1900-1950

danny.millum — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:07:26 +0000

Katherine Luongo introduces her monograph Witchcraft and Colonial Rule in Kenya by discussing the ‘Wabenda trials’ in Elspeth Huxley’s novel Murder at Government House. Set in an imaginary East African colony, the story centered on a woman killed for alleged witchcraft practices. The novel mirrored the non-fictional events of the Wakamba trials, sparking a dialogue on what constituted law, order and justice in a colonial state. These serve as the central themes of Luongo’s text.

Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia

danny.millum — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:32:51 +0000

In September of 1934, an incredulous (or perhaps simply amused) Dutch official wrote from Batavia to his mentor in Leiden telling of the most incredible journey made by a family of Sundanese from West Java.

This England: Essays on the English Nation and Commonwealth in the Sixteenth Century

danny.millum — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:14:30 +0000

This volume collects and revises a series of articles by Patrick Collinson, which were first published between 1994 and 2009. It therefore systematically assembles a number of previously independent arguments, in order to provide a coherent vision of the way 16th-century Englishmen – and most of Collinson’s subjects are men – imagined their nation. Although the germs of these ideas were initially delivered together as a lecture series given at the University of Richmond, Virginia, this book represents the first time that his mature thoughts appear together in print.

The Age of Social Democracy. Norway and Sweden in the Twentieth Century

danny.millum — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:28:51 +0000

To write a general history of two neighbouring countries spanning 100 years is no easy task. Furthermore, in 1905 Norway became independent of Sweden, meaning that there was no natural linkage between the two, geography apart. Sejersted has overcome this hurdle by emphasizing the prevalence of social democracy in both nations in the 20th century, and this comparative work therefore has a clear angle of interest for readers across the globe.

Das SS-Helferinnenkorps: Ausbildung, Einsatz und Entnazifizierung der weiblichen Angehörigen der Waffen-SS 1942-1949

danny.millum — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:51:00 +0000

The SS-Helferinnenkorps, the women who volunteered to support the SS, and who formed a female Nazi elite, have to date been the subject of minimal research. Until now, very little was known about these women, where they came from, why they volunteered, how they were trained, where they worked, and what became of them after the war. Until now, because Jutta Mühlenberg seeks to redress this balance and answer those questions in her 576-page tome on the subject. This hefty volume extensively covers everything anyone would ever want to know about the SS-Helferinnenkorps – and more.

Sex Before the Sexual Revolution: Intimate Life in England 1918-1963

danny.millum — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:26:13 +0000

This readable and accessible book has secured an impact beyond the academic world, becoming the Guardian book of the week in March 2011 and drawing positive reviews in both the academic and non-academic press. Sex Before the Sexual Revolution uses oral history to explore sex and love among married couples in the two generations before the oral contraceptive pill became available in Britain.

Tejanos and the American Dream

danny.millum — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:08:54 +0000

Historians have not been kind to Tejanos—at least until the present generation. Many have marginalized or maligned them to diminish their importance in Texas history, or to rewrite Texas history to emphasize Anglo achievements. Andrés Tijerina, in Tejano Empire: Life on the South Texas Ranchos (Clayton Wheat Williams Texas Life Series), brings Tejano culture and values to life for modern readers who may be oblivious to their existence and their importance in Texas and Tejano history.

A People of One Book: the Bible and the Victorians

danny.millum — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:49:50 +0000

Timothy Larsen’s purpose in writing A People of One Book is to demonstrate the extent to which the Bible dominated Victorian thought and culture. He claims that this has yet to be fully grasped, and endeavours to prove his thesis by offering a detailed examination of how Scripture was central to the experience of divergent groupings in Victorian England. In order to achieve this objective, Professor Larsen has adopted a case studies approach to the subject, examining the lives and intellectual histories of representative figures from different religious and irreligious traditions.

Debating the Cultural Revolution in China

danny.millum — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 12:18:15 +0000

In Western imaginations, the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–76) – in which one of the world’s oldest, most elaborate cultures began destroying itself, in which a successful, disciplined political organisation tore its own heart out, and in which colleagues and classmates turned murderously on each other – stands among the landmarks of the recent Chinese past.

Moscow as city and metaphor

danny.millum — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 11:52:47 +0000

Penelope Fitzgerald’s historical novel The Beginning of Spring, set in Moscow in 1913 but written at the height of perestroika, conveys an ambivalence familiar to those of us who spent time there during the Gorbachev years. Much in the Moscow she describes is grimy and discouraging: the oppressive bureaucracy; the ugly, derelict buildings; and, for much of the year, the gray, wet, depressing weather.

Nun’s (not) on the run

danny.millum — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 11:22:36 +0000

The challenge in writing a comparative review of Kate Lowe’s fine study of early modern Italian convents Nuns’ Chronicles and Convent Culture with Sarah Dunant’s gripping novel Sacred Hearts is to find ways of making sense of the experience of reading both beyond stating the obvious. They are both about the religious life of women in a particular time (early modern) and in one country (Italy).