New Books in British Studies

Joseph Harley and Vicky Holmes eds., "Objects of Poverty: Material Culture in Britain from 1700" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

03 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Joseph Harley joins Jana Byars to talk about the book he edited with Vicky Holmes, Objects of Poverty: Material Culture in Britain from 1700 (Blooms...

Anna Nyburg and Charmian Brinson eds., "Refugees from Nazism to Britain in Trade, Industry, and Engineering" (Brill, 2025)

02 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Refugees from Nazism to Britain in Trade, Industry, and Engineering (Brill, 2025) is a book in German Studies that explores the intricacies and ...

Matt Houlbrook, "Songs of Seven Dials: An Intimate History of 1920s and 1930s London" (Manchester UP, 2025)

02 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How has central London changed in the last 100 years? In Songs of Seven Dials An Intimate History of 1920s and 1930s London (Manchester UP, 2025)...

Is a River Alive?: A Conversation with Robert Macfarlane

01 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hailed in the New York Times as "a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler," Robert Macfarlane brings his g...

The Library of Lost Maps: An Archive of a World in Progress

01 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At the heart of University College London lies a long-forgotten map library packed with thousands of maps and atlases. Professor James Cheshire stumbl...

Jacob Bloomfield, "Drag: A British History" (U California Press, 2023)

29 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Drag: A British History (University of California Press, 2023) is a groundbreaking study of the sustained popularity and changing forms of male drag ...

Radio ReOrient 13.7: "Linguistics, Citizenship and Belonging,” with Kamran Khan, hosted by Claudia Radiven and Marchella Ward

28 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Claudia Radiven and Chella Ward talked with Kamran Khan about linguistics, citizenship and belonging. The conversation travelled from...

Marion Turner, "The Wife of Bath: A Biography" (Princeton UP, 2023)

27 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ever since her triumphant debut in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath, arguably the first ordinary and recognisably real woman in English ...

Tom White, "Bad Dust: A History of the Asbestos Disaster" (Repeater, 2025)

23 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Once used extensively in schools, hospitals, and housing, asbestos has taken the lives of millions. Bad Dust: A History of the Asbestos Disaster (Re...

Karen Auman, "The Good Forest: The Salzburgers, Success, and the Plan for Georgia" (U Georgia Press, 2024)

20 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Good Forest: The Salzburgers, Success, and the Plan for Georgia (U Georgia Press, 2024) explores some of Georgia’s earliest settlers, the Sal...

Max Adams and Colm O’Brien, "Northumbria AD 367-867: Earth Hall, Ring Gift and Heaven’s Field" (Birlinn, 2025)

18 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The story of the lands between the Forth and Humber from the end of the Roman period to the Viking kingdom of York is one of the most richly fascinati...

13.5 - John Holmwood

14 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Claudia Radiven and Saeed Khan spoke with Professor John Holmwood about the UK’s Prevent policy, part of the Counter Terror Strateg...

Tracy Borman, "The Stolen Crown: Treachery, Deceit and the Death of the Tudor Dynasty" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2025)

12 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the long and dramatic annals of British history, no transition from one monarch to another has been as fraught and consequential as that which ende...

Dag Nikolaus Hasse, "What Is European? On Overcoming Colonial and Romantic Modes of Thought" (Amsterdam UP, 2025)

11 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It is common to define Europe by its democratic, scientific, religious, and cultural traditions. But in What is European? On Overcoming Colonial and ...

Jenny C. Mann, "The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime" (Princeton UP, 2021)

08 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s guest is Jenny Mann, who has a new book titled The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime (Princeton University ...

Georgios Giannakopoulos, "The Interpreters: British Internationalism and Empire in Southeastern Europe, 1870-1930" (Manchester UP, 2025)

06 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Georgios Giannakopoulos, Lecturer in Modern History at City St. George's, University of London, is the author of The Interpreters: British Intern...

Jessica Campbell, "The Brontës and the Fairy Tale" (Ohio UP, 2024)

01 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Brontës and the Fairy Tale (Ohio UP, 2024) by Dr. Jessica Campbell is the first comprehensive study devoted to the role of fairy tales and folkl...

Aria Fani, "Reading Across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism" (U Texas Press, 2024)

31 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The dynamic and interconnected ways Afghans and Iranians invented their modern selves through literature. Contrary to the presumption that literary n...

159 Glenn Patterson: You Can Choose Who You Are (JP, DC)

30 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Belfast, good fences can make for bad neighbors. David Cunningham ( Wash U. sociologist, author of There’s Something Happening Here and Klan...

Edmond Smith, "Ruthless: A New History of Britain’s Rise to Wealth and Power, 1660-1800" (Yale UP, 2025)

28 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Was Britain’s industrial revolution the result of its machines, which produced goods with miraculous efficiency? Was it the country’s natural abun...

Deana Heath, "Colonial Terror: Torture and State Violence in Colonial India" (Oxford UP, 2021)

26 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Focusing on India between the early nineteenth century and the First World War, Colonial Terror explores the centrality of the torture of Indian bod...

Julia Fawcett, "Movable Londons: Performance and the Modern City" (U Michigan Press, 2025)

25 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In September 1666, a fire sparked in a bakery on Pudding Lane grew until it had destroyed four-fifths of central London. The rebuilding efforts that f...

Karl Ittmann, "Fuelling Empire: The British Imperial Oil Complex, 1886-1945" (Oxford UP, 2025)

14 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, British companies used the resources of empire to create an imperial oil industry that controlled 20% of glo...

Nick Higham, "Mavericks: Empire, Oil, Revolution and the Forgotten Battle of World War One" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

10 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As the First World War drew to a close and regimes began to collapse across Europe, British officials plotted a daring campaign to send an unlikely ba...

Zara Anishanslin, "The Painter's Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution" (Harvard UP, 2025)

07 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The war that we now call the American Revolution was not only fought in the colonies with muskets and bayonets. On both sides of the Atlantic, artists...

Virginia Woolf, "The Life of Violet: Three Early Stories" (Princeton UP, 2025)

07 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1907, eight years before she published her first novel, a twenty-five-year-old Virginia Woolf drafted three interconnected comic stories chroniclin...

Erin M.B. O'Halloran, "East of Empire: Egypt, India, and the World Between the Wars" (Stanford UP, 2025)

02 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Between the First and Second World Wars, activists across the British Empire began to think about what their homes might look like as independent nati...

Matt Myers, "The Halted March of the European Left: The Working Class in Britain, France, and Italy, 1968-1989" (Oxford UP, 2025)

30 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The European left seemed to be in rude health during the 1970s. Never had so many political parties committed to representing the working class been i...

Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth, "Lady Charlotte Schreiber, Extraordinary Art Collector" (Lund Humphries, 2025)

27 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Lady Charlotte Schreiber, Extraordinary Art Collector (Lund Humphries, 2025) emphasises Lady Charlotte Schreiber (1812-1895) — also known as Lady C...

Elizabeth E. Imber, "Uncertain Empire: Jews, Nationalism, and the Fate of British Imperialism" (Stanford UP, 2025)

26 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Following the British conquest of Ottoman Palestine, Jews across the British Empire—from Jerusalem to Johannesburg, London to Calcutta—found thems...

Rosinka Chaudhuri, "India's First Radicals: Young Bengal and the British Empire" (India Viking, 2025)

25 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1831, the India Gazette wrote about a group of radical young thinkers that it credited for an upheaval in social and religious politics in Calcut...

Fiona J. Mackenzie, "The Cadence of a Song: The Life of Margaret Fay Shaw" (Birlinn, 2025)

25 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The American-born folklorist and musician Margaret Fay Shaw’s passion for the Hebrides led her to the island of South Uist in 1929 and then to Canna...

Emily Vine, "Birth, Death, and Domestic Religion in Early Modern London" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

24 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Early modern London has long been recognised as a centre of religious diversity, yet the role of the home as the setting of religious practice for all...

Katherine L. French, "Household Goods and Good Households in Late Medieval London: Consumption and Domesticity After the Plague" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)

23 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Black Death that arrived in the spring of 1348 eventually killed nearly half of England's population. In its long aftermath, wages in London rose ...

Stuart McHardy, "Scotland's Sacred Goddess: Hidden in Plain Sight" (Luath, 2025)

21 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Scotland’s Sacred Goddess: Hidden in Plain Sight (Luath Press, 2025), Stuart McHardy delves into the rich tapestry of pre-Christian Scottish be...

Marcus Rediker, "Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea" (Penguin Group, 2025)

20 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Conspiracy, mutiny and liberation on America’s waterfront by the award-winning author of The Slave Ship. Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History o...

Eleanor Conlon and Martin Vaux, "The Three Ravens Folk Tales: New Tellings of Half-forgotten Stories from England's 39 Historic Counties" (The History Press, 2025)

18 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Do you know the legends of the giants who ruled England before the first human kings? What about the demon dog Black Shuck who terrorized sixteenth-ce...

Devika Shankar, "An Encroaching Sea: Nature, Sovereignty and Development at the Edge of British India, 1860-1950" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

12 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ecological and political instability have time and again emerged as catalysts for risky development projects along India's south-west coastline. In ...

David Welsh, "The Social Railway and Its Workers in Europes Modern Era, 1880-2023: Moments of Fury, Ramparts of Hope" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Social Railway and Its Workers in Europe’s Modern Era, 1880-2023: Moments of Fury, Ramparts of Hope (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. David Welsh exami...

Anna Strhan and Rachael Shillitoe, "Growing Up Godless: Non-Religious Childhoods in Contemporary England" (Princeton UP, 2025)

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What do children believe in? In Growing Up Godless: Non-Religious Childhoods in Contemporary England (Princeton UP, 2025) Anna Strhan, a Reader...

William Kelleher Storey, "The Colonialist: The Vision of Cecil Rhodes" (Oxford UP, 2025)

08 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Cecil John Rhodes became one of the most influential people in the history of the British Empire. He made a fortune in South Africa by leading the wor...

Peter Lamont, "Radical Thinking: How to See the Bigger Picture" (Swift Press, 2024)

07 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Radical Thinking: How to See the Bigger Picture (Swift Press, 2024) is a book about how you view the world. It's about the things that shape you...

Edward Stanley et. al., "A North American Tour Journal 1824-1825: The Making of a Prime Minister" (Sutton Publishing, 2025)

06 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A North American Tour Journal 1824-1825: The Making of a Prime Minister (Sutton Publishing, 2025) follows Edward Stanley's 1824-25 journey through N...

Jeremy Black, "British Politics and Foreign Policy, 1744-57" (Routledge, 2016)

05 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The years between 1744 and 1757 were a testing time for the British government as political unrest at home exploded into armed rebellion, whilst on th...

Matthew Bowser, "Containing Decolonization: British Imperialism and the Politics of Race in Late Colonial Burma" (Manchester UP, 2025)

04 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Containing Decolonization: British Imperialism and the Politics of Race in Late Colonial Burma (Manchester University Press, 2025), historian Mat...

Steven Veerapen, "Witches: A King's Obsession" (Birlin, 2025)

03 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Witches – whether broomstick-riding spell-casters or Wiccan earth-worshippers – have been culturally relevant for centuries. For centuries, too, b...

David Woodman, "The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom" (Princeton UP, 2025)

02 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom (Princeton University Press, 2025) by Professor David Woodman is a foundational biog...

Rhys Kaminski-Jones, "Welsh Revivalism in Imperial Britain, 1707-1819: True Britons and Celtic Empires" (Boydell & Brewer, 2025)

01 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the long eighteenth century, as Britain grappled with the aftermath of the 1707 Acts of Union and consolidated a global empire, Welsh ‘Cambro-Bri...

Steven Gunn and Tomasz Gromelski, "An Accidental History of Tudor England: From Daily Life to Sudden Death" (Hachette UK, 2025)

29 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How did ordinary people live in Tudor England? This unique history unearths the ways they died to find out.Uncovering thousands of coroners' reports, ...

Faisal Chaudhry, "South Asia, the British Empire, and the Rise of Classical Legal Thought: Toward a Historical Ontology of the Law" (Oxford UP, 2024)

28 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

South Asia, the British Empire, and the Rise of Classical Legal Thought: Toward a Historical Ontology of the Law (Oxford UP, 2024) considers the leg...

Agnes Arnold-Forster, "The Cancer Problem: Malignancy in Nineteenth-Century Britain" (Oxford UP, 2021)

27 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Agnes Arnold-Forster's book The Cancer Problem: Malignancy in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Oxford UP, 2021) offers the first medical, cultural, and s...

Anders M. Greene-Crow, "Austerity Measures: The Poetics of Food Insecurity in Early Modern English Literature" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)

27 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

My guest today is Anders M. Greene-Crow. Anders teaches at the Woods College of Advancing Studies and is a former Professor of English at Boston Colle...

Jérémy Filet, "The Jacobites and the Grand Tour: Educational Travel and Small-States' Diplomacy" (Manchester UP, 2025)

26 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Jacobites and the Grand Tour: Educational travel and small-states' diplomacy (Manchester University Press, 2025) by Dr. Jérémy Filet is the fir...

Timothy Barnard, "Imperial Creatures: Humans and Other Animals in Colonial Singapore, 1819-1942" (NUS Press, 2019)

26 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Imperial Creature: Humans and Other Animals in Colonial Singapore, 1819-1942 (National University of Singapore Press, 2019), Timothy Barnard explor...

Peter K. Andersson, "The Dandy: A People's History of Sartorial Splendour" (Oxford UP, 2025)

25 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A history of the dandy from below, from Beau Brummell and Baudelaire to Bowie and Bolan... and beyond. The historical figure of the dandy has commonly...

Timothy Messer-Kruse, "Slavery’s Fugitives and the Making of the United States Constitution" (LSU Press, 2024)

23 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Slavery's Fugitives and the Making of the United States Constitution (LSU Press, 2024) unearths a long-hidden factor that led to the Constitutional...

Michelle P. Brown, "Bede and the Theory of Everything" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

23 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Bede and the Theory of Everything (Reaktion Books, 2023) investigates the life and world of Bede (c. 673–735), foremost scholar of the early Middle...

Daniel Lomas, "The Secret History of UK Security Vetting from 1909 to the Present" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

22 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Using newly available government records, private papers, and documents obtained through Freedom of Information, The Secret History of UK Vetting fro...

Gill Plain, "Agatha Christie: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2025)

22 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Agatha Christie is a global bestseller. Her work has been translated into over 100 languages and adapted for stage and screen. Christie's writing life...

Kathleen Wilson, "Strolling Players of Empire: Theater and Performances of Power in the British Imperial Provinces, 1656–1833" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

21 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why did Britons get up a play wherever they went? In Strolling Players of Empire: Theater and Performances of Power in the British Imperial Provinces...

Mariya Grinberg, "Trade in War: Economic Cooperation Across Enemy Lines" (Cornell UP, 2025)

21 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trade between belligerents during wartime should not occur. After all, exchanged goods might help enemies secure the upper hand on the battlefield. Ye...

Sandra Hempel, "Controlling Women: The Untold Story of Britain's First Female Police Force" (Hurst, 2025)

15 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Violence against women is out of control. Conviction rates for rape are so low that most survivors think it pointless to report, or later regret doing...

Ahmad Shokr, "Harvests of Liberation: Cotton, Capitalism, and the End of Empire in Egypt" (Stanford UP, 2025)

10 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Harvests of Liberation offers a critical reinterpretation of Egypt’s path to decolonization through the lens of its most important export crop: cot...

Manuel Barcia, "The Yellow Demon of Fever: Fighting Disease in the 19th-Century Transatlantic Slave Trade" (Yale UP, 2020)

09 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As we now know, epidemics and pandemics are not new phenomena. In her new book The Yellow Demon of Fever: Fighting Disease in the 19th-Century Transat...

David D. Hall, "The Puritans: A Transatlantic History" (Princeton UP, 2019) 

06 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This book is a sweeping transatlantic history of Puritanism from its emergence out of the religious tumult of Elizabethan England to its founding role...

Marcus Gibson, "The Greatest Force: How RAF Bomber Command Became the No.1 Factor in Britain’s Total, Destructive Defeat of Nazi Germany" (2025)

03 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this podcast Richard Lucas interviews Marcus Gibson, author of The Greatest Force: How RAF Bomber Command Became the No.1 Factor in Britain’s T...

Philip Cunliffe, "The National Interest: Politics After Globalization" (Polity Press, 2025)

03 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Globalization is over. With US president Donald Trump pursuing an 'America First' agenda in trade and foreign policy, everyone now recognises the urge...

Camilla Fitzsimons, "Rethinking Feminism in Ireland" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

02 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Camilla Fitzsimons teaches at Maynooth University and is the author of Community Education and Neoliberalism in 2017 as well as Repealed: Ireland's ...

Chris Washington, "Nonbinary Jane Austen" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)

02 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Nonbinary Jane Austen, Chris Washington theorizes how Jane Austen envisions a nonbinary future that traverses the two-sex model of gender that...

Hannah Charnock, "Teenage intimacies: Young Women, Sex and Social Life in England, 1950-80" (Manchester UP, 2025)

02 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Teenage Intimacies offers a new account of the ‘sexual revolution’ in mid-twentieth century England. Rather than focusing on ‘Swinging London’...

Sasha D. Pack, "The Deepest Border: The Strait of Gibraltar and the Making of the Hispano-African Border" (Stanford UP, 2019)

01 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book, The Deepest Border: The Strait of Gibraltar and the Making of the Hispano-African Border(Stanford, 2019), Sasha D. Pack considers the...

Mark Vernon, "Awake!: William Blake and the Power of the Imagination" (Hurst & Co., 2025)

31 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the 200 years since Blake's death, the visionary artist, poet and writer has become a household name, often beloved. Yet many struggle to comprehen...

Jessica Ratcliff, "Monopolizing Knowledge: The East India Company and Britain's Second Scientific Revolution" (Cambridge UP, 2025))

28 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the book Monopolizing Knowledge: The East India Company and Britain’s Second Scientific Revolution (Cambridge UP, 2025), author Jessica Ratclif...

Glenn Richardson, "WOLSEY" (Routledge, 2020)

28 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Through a thematic and broadly chronological approach, WOLSEY (Routledge, 2020) offers a fascinating insight into the life and legacy of a man who ...

Jessica Patterson, "Religion, Enlightenment and Empire: British Interpretations of Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century"

19 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the second half of the eighteenth century, several British East India Company servants published accounts of what they deemed to be the original...

Jubilee (1978)

19 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the ninth episode of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell traces the trans-Atlantic movement of artists associated with punk culture in New York and ...

Meegan Kennedy, "Writing Embodiment in Victorian Microscopy: Beautiful Mechanism" (Oxford UP, 2025)

18 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Writing Embodiment in Victorian Microscopy: Beautiful Mechanism (Oxford UP, 2025) by Dr. Meegan Kennedy examines a revolutionary period in microscopi...

Lily Hamourtziadou, "Body Count: The War on Terror and Civilian Deaths in Iraq" (Bristol UP, 2021)

16 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Body Count: The War on Terror and Civilian Deaths in Iraq (Bristol University Press, 2021), Lily Hamourtziadou’s investigation into civilian victi...

Ian Stewart, "The Celts: A Modern History" (Princeton UP, 2025)

15 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Before the Greeks and Romans, the Celts ruled the ancient world. They sacked Rome, invaded Greece, and conquered much of Europe, from Ireland to Turke...

Renay Richardson and Arisa Loomba, "Human Resources: Slavery and the Making of Modern Britain" (Profile Books, 2025)

15 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ordinary items take on new meanings when you cast them in different light. The origins of tea, coffee and sugar are well known, but when you discover ...

Juliet Rix, "London's Statues of Women" (SafeHaven Books, 2025)

14 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

No-one can fail to notice how many statues of Great Men there are around London: stern politicians, military generals, imperial adventurers . . . But ...

Juliet Rix, "London's Statues of Women" (SafeHaven Books, 2025)

14 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

No-one can fail to notice how many statues of Great Men there are around London: stern politicians, military generals, imperial adventurers . . . But ...

Rosemary Goring, "Exile: The Captive Years of Mary, Queen of Scots" (Berlinn, 2025)

12 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From the moment Mary, Queen of Scots set foot on English soil in 1568 until her execution at Fotheringhay Castle on 8 February 1587, she was the priso...

Joseph Valente, "Irish Shame: A Literary Reckoning" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)

11 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The first edited collection dedicated to the historical specifics of Irish shame Offers an anatomy of Irish shame as a cultural predicament Com...

John Eldevik, "Reading Prester John: Cultural Fantasy and Its Manuscript Contexts" (Arc Humanities Press, 2024)

06 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Reading Prester John: Cultural Fantasy and its Manuscript Contexts by John Eldevik During the Middle Ages, many Europeans imagined that there exist...

Kevin Guyan, "Rainbow Trap: Queer Lives, Classifications and the Dangers of Inclusion" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

05 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Rainbow Trap: Queer Lives, Classifications and the Dangers of Inclusion (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Kevin Guyan reveals how the fight for LGBTQ equalit...

Jennifer Crane, "'Gifted Children' in Britain and the World: Elitism and Equality Since 1945" (Oxford UP, 2025)

04 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Who are 'gifted' children? In ‘Gifted Children’ in Britain and the World: Elitism and Equality since 1945 Jennifer Crane, a senior lecturer in ...

Craig E. Bertolet and Susan Nakley eds., "The Routledge Companion to Global Chaucer" (Routledge, 2024)

02 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Routledge Companion to Global Chaucer (Routledge, 2024) offers 40 chapters by leading scholars working with contemporary, theoretical, and textua...

Sam Dalrymple, "Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia" (HarperCollins UK, 2025)

02 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait – ...

Sarah Bull, "Selling Sexual Knowledge: Medical Publishing and Obscenity in Victorian Britain" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

30 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What is the relationship between medicine and commerce? In Selling Sexual Knowledge: Medical Publishing and Obscenity in Victorian Britain (Cambrid...

Sarah Kenny, "Growing Up and Going Out: Youth Culture, Commerce, and Leisure Space in Post-War Britain" (Manchester UP, 2025)

29 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sarah Kenny Growing up and going out: Youth culture, commerce and leisure space in post-war Britain Manchester University Press 2025 How did young pe...

Matthew Allen, "Drink and Democracy: Alcohol and the Political Imaginary in Colonial Australia" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)

23 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The nineteenth-century spread of democracy in Britain and its colonies coincided with an increase in alcohol consumption and in celebratory public din...

Vivian Kong, "Multiracial Britishness: Global Networks in Hong Kong, 1910–45" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

22 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to be British? To answer this, Multiracial Britishness: Global Networks in Hong Kong, 1910–45 (Cambridge UP, 2023) by Dr. Vivian...

Amin Ghaziani, "Long Live Queer Nightlife: How the Closing of Gay Bars Sparked a Revolution" (Princeton UP, 2024)

22 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this exhilarating journey into underground parties, pulsating with life and limitless possibility, acclaimed author Amin Ghaziani unveils the unexp...

John Barr, "1960s University Buildings: The Golden Age of British Modern Architecture" (Lund Humphries, 2025)

21 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The 1960s continue to hold an almost mythical place in Western culture, particularly in Britain, where change was widespread and infiltrated many aspe...

Claire Pierson, "Women's Troubles: Gender and Feminist Politics in Post-Agreement Northern Ireland" (Manchester University Press, 2025)

21 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How do feminist movements develop and organise in ethno-nationally divided societies? How does this challenge our understandings of contemporary fourt...

Alice Hunt, "Republic: Britain's Revolutionary Decade, 1649–1660" (Faber and Faber, 2024)

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Alice Hunt’s Republic: Britain’s Revolutionary Decade 1649-1650 (Faber and Faber, 2024) takes a chronological look at the current events, perso...

Emily Webber, "Mining Men: Britain's Last Kings of the Coalface" (Penguin, 2025)

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The story of the last generation of British miners: fathers and sons, brothers and comrades, big hitters and broken men, strikers and scabs. Mining M...

Sarah Bilston, "The Lost Orchid: A Story of Victorian Plunder and Obsession" (Harvard UP, 2025)

11 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1818, a curious root arrived in a small English village, tucked—seemingly by accident—in a packing case mailed from Brazil. The amateur botanis...

Quinn Slobodian and Philip J. Stern on Political Economy

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

• Philip J. Stern, Empire, Incorporated. The Corporations That Built British Colonialism (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press in 2023), by. ...