New Books in British Studies

Matthew Romaniello, "Enterprising Empires: Russia and Britain in Eighteenth-Century Eurasia" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

12 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book Enterprising Empires: Russia and Britain in Eighteenth-Century Eurasia (Cambridge University Press), Matthew Romaniello examines the w...

Patrick R. O'Malley, "The Irish and the Imagination of Race: White Supremacy Across the Atlantic in the Nineteenth Century" (U Virginia Press, 2023)

11 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Patrick R. O'Malley's book The Irish and the Imagination of Race: White Supremacy Across the Atlantic in the Nineteenth Century (U Virginia Press, 2...

Brandon Presser, "The Far Land: 200 Years of Murder, Mania and Mutiny in the South Pacific" (Icon Books, 2022)

10 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1808, an American merchant ship happened upon an uncharted island in the South Pacific and unwittingly solved the biggest nautical mystery of the e...

Matthew Kennedy, "On Elizabeth Taylor: An Opinionated Guide" (Oxford UP, 2024)

10 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the oceans of ink devoted to the monumental movie star/businesswoman/political activist Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (1932-2011), her beauty and not-s...

Eileen Botting, "The Wollstonecraftian Mind" (Routledge, 2019)

06 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Eileen Hunt Botting is Professor of Political Science at Notre Dame and co-editor with Sandrine Berges and Alan Coffee of the anthology The Wollstonec...

Virginia Chieffo Raguin, "The Illuminated Window: Stories Across Time" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

05 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Illuminated Window: Stories Across Times (Reaktion, 2023) is a unique journey through stained-glass installations that spans both time and place....

Jonathan Scott, "How the Old World Ended: The Anglo-Dutch-American Revolution, 1500-1800" (Yale UP, 2019)

31 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jonathan Scott is one of the most original interpreters of the early modern world. How the Old World Ended: The Anglo-Dutch-American Revolution, 1500-...

Gregg L. Frazer, "God against the Revolution: The Loyalist Clergy’s Case Against the American Revolution" (UP of Kansas, 2018)

31 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Not everyone was convinced by the arguments of patriots during the American revolution. Among those who retained some degree of loyalty to the British...

Erika Dyck, "Psychedelic Prophets: The Letters of Aldous Huxley and Humphry Osmond" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2018)

30 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked with historian Erika Dyck about Aldous Huxley, Humphry Osmond and their correspondence over a ten year period. Psychedelic Prophets: Th...

Michael Braddick, "The Common Freedom of the People: John Lilburne and the English Revolution" (Oxford UP, 2018)

30 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As historical topics, political revolutions come in and out of fashion. At the moment the American Revolution as an ideological struggle engages the p...

Genealogies of Modernity Episode 7: A Genealogy of Gun Violence

28 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The problem of gun violence is as old as guns themselves. According to historian Priya Satia, America’s present epidemic of gun violence has its roo...

Elena Schneider, "The Occupation of Havana: War, Trade and Slavery in the Atlantic World" (UNC Press, 2018)

27 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Histories of the British occupation of Havana in 1762 have focused on imperial rivalries and the actions and decisions of European planters, colonial ...

Huw Bennett, "Uncivil War: The British Army and the Troubles, 1966–1975" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

22 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Huw Bennett is a Reader in International Relations at Cardiff Unviersity. He specializes in strategic studies, the history of war, and intelligence st...

Helen Louise Cowie, "Victims of Fashion: Animal Commodities in Victorian Britain" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

21 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Animal products were used extensively in nineteenth-century Britain. A middle-class Victorian woman might wear a dress made of alpaca wool, drape hers...

Saving the Brontë Birthplace

19 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Where were the Brontë sisters actually born? If this was a quiz question, most people would give the wrong answer. Even standard books on the Brontë...

Jonathan Sumption, "Triumph and Illusion: The Hundred Years War, Vol. 5" (Faber & Faber, 2023)

14 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Triumph and Illusion (Faber & Faber, 2023) is the final volume of Jonathan Sumption's epic history of the Hundred Years War. It tells the story of...

Julian Go, "Policing Empires: Militarization, Race, and the Imperial Boomerang in Britain and the US" (Oxford UP, 2023)

12 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The police response to protests erupting on America's streets in recent years has made the militarization of policing painfully transparent. Yet, prop...

Stephen Legg, "Round Table Conference Geographies: Constituting Colonial India in Interwar London" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

10 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Stephen Legg's Round Table Conference Geographies: Constituting Colonial India in Interwar London (Cambridge UP, 2022) explores a major internationa...

Katharine M. Millar, "Support the Troops: Military Obligation, Gender, and the Making of Political Community" (Oxford UP, 2022)

08 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the past, it was assumed that men, as good citizens, would serve in the armed forces in wartime. In the present, however, liberal democratic states...

Fae Dussart, "In the Service of Empire: Domestic Service and Mastery in Metropole and Colony" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

07 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Despite recent research, the 19th-century history of domestic service in empire and its wider implications is underexplored. In the Service of Empire...

Hannah Carlson, "Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close" (Algonquin Books, 2023)

06 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It’s a subject that stirs up plenty of passion: Why do men’s clothes have so many pockets and women’s so few? In her captivating book Pockets: ...

Amy Matthewson, "Cartooning China: Punch, Power, & Politics in the Victorian Era" (Routledge, 2022)

06 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Amy Matthewson's Cartooning China: Punch, Power, & Politics in the Victorian Era (Routledge, 2022) explores the series of cartoons of China and...

Christopher A. Whatley and Joanna Hambly, "Salt: Scotland's Newest Oldest Industry" (Birlinn, 2023)

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Salt is a vital commodity. For many centuries it sustained life for Scots as seasoning for a diet dominated by grains (mainly oats), and for preservat...

Simon Joyce, "LGBT Victorians: Sexuality and Gender in the Nineteenth-Century Archives" (Oxford UP, 2022)

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It has been decades since Michel Foucault urged us to rethink "the repressive hypothesis" and see new forms of sexual discourse as coming into being i...

Hilary French, "Ballroom: A People’s History of Dancing" (Reaktion Books, 2022)

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the early twentieth century, American ragtime and the Parisian tango fuelled a dancing craze in Britain. Public ballrooms were built throughout the...

Sima Saigal, "The Second World War and North East India: Shadows of Yesteryears" (Routledge, 2022)

03 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sima Saigal's The Second World War and North East India: Shadows of Yesteryears (Routledge, 2022) discusses the untold story of North East India's r...

H. E. Sawyer, "I Am the Dark Tourist: Messenger of Remembrance" (Headpress, 2023)

03 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dark tourism is the practice of visiting sites associated with death and disaster. Participation is increasing, yet much of the machinations behind da...

Samiparna Samanta, "Meat, Mercy, Morality: Animals and Humanitarianism in Colonial Bengal, 1850-1920" (Oxford UP, 2021)

02 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Meat, Mercy, and Morality: Animals and Humanitarianism in Colonial Bengal, 1850-1920 (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Samiparna Samanta disenta...

John Zubrzycki, "Dethroned: The Downfall of India’s Princely States" (Hurst, 2024)

30 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Post-independence India had a big problem–about 40% of its land wasn’t, well, India. Instead, this land was in the hands of the princely states: R...

Richard Schoch, "Shakespeare’s House: A Window onto his Life and Legacy" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

29 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the wide realm of Shakespeare worship, the house in Stratford-upon-Avon where William Shakespeare was born in 1564 – known colloquially as the 'B...

Henrietta Harrison, "The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators Between Qing China and the British Empire" (Princeton UP, 2021)

28 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators Between Qing China and the British Empire (Princeton UP, 2021) is a fascinati...

G. H. Bennett, "The War for England's Shores: S-Boats and the Fight Against British Coastal Convoys" (US Naval Institute Press, 2023)

27 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The War for England's Shores: S-Boats and the Fight Against British Coastal Convoys (US Naval Institute Press, 2023) by Dr. G. H. Bennett examines th...

Andrekos Varnava, "British Cyprus and the Long Great War, 1914-1925: Empire, Loyalties and Democratic Deficit" (Routledge, 2020)

27 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Most of the Cypriot population, especially the lower classes, remained loyal to the British cause during the Great War and the island contributed sign...

Jennifer Maclure, "The Feeling of Letting Die: Necroeconomics and Victorian Fiction" (Ohio State UP, 2023)

25 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Feeling of Letting Die: Necroeconomics and Victorian Fiction (Ohio State UP, 2023), Jennifer MacLure explores how Victorian novels depict th...

Ian Smith, "Black Shakespeare: Reading and Misreading Race" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

24 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Black Shakespeare: Reading and Misreading Race (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Ian Smith urges readers of Othello, The Merchant of Venice, ...

Sarah E. Stoller, "Inventing the Working Parent: Work, Gender, and Feminism in Neoliberal Britain" (MIT Press, 2023)

24 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sarah E. Stoller, Inventing the Working Parent: Work, Gender, and Feminism in Neoliberal Britain (MIT Press, 2023) is the first historical examinati...

Tabitha Stanmore, "Love Spells and Lost Treasure: Service Magic in England from the Later Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

24 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Magic is ubiquitous across the world and throughout history. Yet if witchcraft is acknowledged as a persistent presence in the medieval and early mode...

Jenny Benham, "International Law in Europe, 700–1200" (Manchester UP, 2022)

24 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Was there international law in the Middle Ages? Using treaties as its main source, International Law in Europe, 700-1200 (Manchester University Pres...

Ruth Dalton, "Living in Houses: A Personal History English Domestic Architecture" (Lund Humphries, 2022)

22 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Living in Houses: A Personal History of English Domestic Architecture (Lund Humphries, 2022), Dr. Ruth Dalton presents a rich and rewarding histo...

Amy Harris, "Being Single in Georgian England: Families, Households, and the Unmarried" (Oxford UP, 2023)

21 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Being Single in Georgian England: Families, Households, and the Unmarried (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Amy Harris is the first book-length ...

Joe Lane, "Networks, Innovation, and Knowledge: the North Staffordshire Potteries, 1750-1851" (U of London, 2023)

20 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the industrial district of the North Staffordshire Potteries dominated the British earthenware industr...

Thomas Blake Earle, "The Liberty to Take Fish: Atlantic Fisheries and Federal Power in Nineteenth-Century America" (Cornell UP, 2023)

19 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Liberty to Take Fish: Atlantic Fisheries and Federal Power in Nineteenth-Century America (Cornell University Press, 2023), Dr. Thomas Blake E...

Christopher Lazarski, "Lord Acton for Our Time" (Northern Illinois UP, 2023)

18 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Extracting lessons for our current age, Christopher Lazarski focuses on liberty--how Acton understood it, what he thought was its foundation and neces...

Arupjyoti Saikia, "The Quest for Modern Assam: A History, 1942-2000" (India Allen Lane, 2023)

16 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The northeast Indian state of Assam has had a complex history. As independence loomed, Assam was a large British province, bordering the fellow Britis...

Jonathan Greenaway, "Theology, Horror and Fiction: A Reading of the Gothic Nineteenth Century" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

15 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When one thinks of your typical horror movie and it’s usual imagery, a number of tropes may come forward. Graveyards behind old cathedrals, crucifix...

Rebecca Hardie, "Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, and Women in Tenth-Century England" (Medieval Institute Publications, 2021)

14 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Æthelflæd (c. 870–918), political leader, military strategist, and administrator of law, is one of the most important ruling women in English hist...

Don Hollway, "Battle for the Island Kingdom: The Struggle for England's Destiny 1000-1066" (Osprey, 2023)

12 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In a saga reminiscent of Game of Thrones and Battle for the Island Kingdom: The Struggle for England's Destiny 1000-1066 (Osprey, 2023) reveals t...

Clive Young, "Unlocking Scots: The Secret Life of the Scots Language" (Luath Press, 2023)

12 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Unlocking Scots: The Secret Life of the Scots Language (Luath, 2023), Dr. Clive Young sets out to uncover the secret life of Scots – the centur...

Elizabeth DeYoung, "Power, Politics and Territory in the ‘New Northern Ireland’" (Liverpool UP, 2023)

11 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of the Good Friday Agreement, the redevelopment of the former Girdwood Army Barracks in North Belfast was hailed as a ‘symbol of hope’...

Helen Fry, "Women in Intelligence: The Hidden History of Two World Wars" (Yale UP, 2023)

07 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From the twentieth century onward, women took on an extraordinary range of roles in intelligence, defying the conventions of their time. Across both w...

Rory Coulter, "Housing and Life Course Dynamics: Changing Lives, Places and Inequalities" (Policy Press, 2023)

06 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Deepening inequalities and wider processes of demographic, economic, and social change are altering how people across the Global North move between ho...

Wm. Matthew Kennedy, "The Imperial Commonwealth: Australia and the Project of Empire, 1867-1914" (Manchester UP, 2023)

06 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Imperial Commonwealth: Australia and the Project of Empire, 1867-1914 (Manchester University Press, 2023) by Dr. Wm. Matthew Kennedy tells the st...

David Veevers, "The Great Defiance: How the World Took on the British Empire" (Ebury Press, 2023)

04 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The story of the British Empire is a familiar one: Britain came, it saw, it conquered, forging a glorious world empire upon which the sun never set. I...

Empires, States, Corporations: A Discussion with Historians Philip J. Stern and Quinn Slobodian

03 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Adam Smith wrote that, “Political economy belongs to no nation; it is of no country: it is the science of the rules for the production, the accumula...

Joseph Brady and Paul Ferguson, "Dublin: Mapping the City" (Birlinn, 2023)

31 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Maps are essential tools in finding our way around, but they also tell stories and are great depositories of information. Until the twentieth century ...

Leonie Hannan, "A Culture of Curiosity: Science in the Eighteenth-Century Home" (Manchester UP, 2023)

30 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Leonie Hannan's book Culture of Curiosity: Science in the Eighteenth Century Home (Manchester University Press, 2023) explores the practice of scie...

Simone Varriale, "Coloniality and Meritocracy in Unequal EU Migrations: Intersecting Inequalities in Post-2008 Italian Migration" (Bristol UP, 2023)

29 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How do migrants make sense of migration? In Coloniality and Meritocracy in unequal EU migrations: Intersecting Inequalities in Post-2008 Italian Migr...

Utsa Mukherjee, "Race, Class, Parenting and Children's Leisure: Children's Leisurescapes and Parenting Cultures in Middle-Class British Indian Families" (Bristol UP, 2023)

29 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Children's leisure lives are changing, with increasing dominance of organised activities and screen-based leisure. These shifts have reconfigured pare...

Luke Moffett, "Reparations and War: Finding Balance in Repairing the Past" (Oxford UP, 2023)

27 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For thousands of years, reparations have been used to secure the end of war and to alleviate its deleterious consequences. While human rights law esta...

Mariana-Cecilia Velazquez, "Cultural Representations of Piracy in England, Spain, and the Caribbean" (Routledge, 2023)

23 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Mariana-Cecilia Velazquez's book Cultural Representations of Piracy in England, Spain, and the Caribbean: Travelers, Traders, and Traitors, 1570 to ...

Rosie Harte, "The Royal Wardrobe: Peek into the Wardrobes of History's Most Fashionable Royals" (Headline, 2023)

22 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Fashion for the royal family has long been one of their most powerful weapons. Every item of their clothing is imbued with meaning, history and majest...

Vikram Visana, "Uncivil Liberalism: Labour, Capital and Commercial Society in Dadabhai Naoroji’s Political Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

18 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Uncivil liberalism: Labour, Capital and Commercial Society in Dadabhai Naoroji's Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2023) by Dr. Vikram V...

Jeremy Land, "Colonial Ports, Global Trade, and the Roots of the American Revolution (1700-1776)" (Brill, 2023)

18 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jeremy Land's book Colonial Ports, Global Trade, and the Roots of the American Revolution (1700-1776) (Brill, 2023) takes a long-run view of the glo...

Livia Arndal Woods, "Pregnancy in the Victorian Novel" (Ohio State UP, 2023)

18 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Pregnancy in the Victorian Novel (Ohio State University Press, 2023), Livia Arndal Woods traces the connections between literary treatments of pr...

Javier Garcia Oliva and Helen Hall, "Constitutional Culture, Independence, and Rights: Insights from Quebec, Scotland, and Catalonia" (U Toronto Press, 2023)

17 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Constitutional Culture, Independence, and Rights: Insights from Quebec, Scotland, and Catalonia (University of Toronto Press, 2023), Dr. Javier G...

Ian Jones, "Using the Past: Authenticity, Reliability, and the Role of Archives in Barclays PLC's Use of the Past Strategies" (U Liverpool, 2021)

17 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Recent scholarship in organisation studies has begun to address how organisations perceive and use their history. However, how organisations preserve ...

Onyeka Nubia, "England’s Other Countrymen: Black Tudor Society" (Bloomsbury, 2019)

17 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Tudor period remains a source of timeless fascination, with endless novels, TV programmes and films depicting the period in myriad ways. And yet o...

Christopher Phillips, "Civilian Specialists at War: Britain's Transport Experts and the First World War" (U London Press, 2020)

17 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

World War I was the first great general conflict to be fought between highly industrial societies able to manufacture and transport immense quantities...

Michael Taylor, "The Interest: How the British Establishment Resisted the Abolition of Slavery" (Bodley Head, 2021)

15 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1807, Parliament outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire, but for the next quarter of a century, despite heroic and bloody rebellions, more ...

Lucy Fulford, "The Exiled: Empire, Immigration and the Ugandan Asian Exodus" (Coronet, 2023)

13 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Uganda, August 1972. President Idi Amin makes a shocking pronouncement – the country’s South Asian population is being expelled. They have ninety ...

James J. A. Blair, "Salvaging Empire: Sovereignty, Natural Resources, and Environmental Science in the South Atlantic" (Cornell UP, 2023)

13 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Salvaging Empire: Sovereignty, Natural Resources, and Environmental Science in the South Atlantic (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Dr. James J. A....

Helen Rappaport, "In Search of Mary Seacole: The Making of a Black Cultural Icon" (Pegasus Books, 2022)

13 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Raised in Jamaica, Mary Seacole first came to England in the 1850s after working in Panama. She wanted to volunteer as a nurse and aide during the Cri...

Julian Goodare and Martha McGill, "The Supernatural in Early Modern Scotland" (Manchester UP, 2023)

09 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Julian Goodare and Martha McGill's edited volume The Supernatural in Early Modern Scotland (Manchester UP, 2023) is about other worlds and the super...

Arunima Datta, "Waiting on Empire: A History of Indian Travelling Ayahs in Britain" (Oxford UP, 2023)

07 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The expansion of the British Empire facilitated movement across the globe for both the colonizers and the colonized. Waiting on Empire: A History of ...

Charlotte Gray, "Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons: The Lives of Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt" (Simon & Schuster, 2023)

07 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Born into upper-class America in the same year, 1854, Sara Delano (later to become the mother of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Jennie Jerome (later t...

Benjamin Savill, "England and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages: Papal Privileges in European Perspective, C. 680-1073" (Oxford UP, 2023)

06 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

England and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages: Papal Privileges in European Perspective, c. 680-1073 (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Benjami...

S. D. Chrostowska, "Utopia in the Age of Survival: Between Myth and Politics" (Stanford UP, 2021)

06 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A pathbreaking exploration of the fate of utopia in our troubled times, this book shows how the historically intertwined endeavors of utopia and criti...

Laura Gowing, "Ingenious Trade: Women and Work in Seventeenth-Century London" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

05 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ingenious Trade: Women and Work in Seventeenth-Century London (Cambridge University Press, 2021) by Dr. Laura Gowing recovers the intricate stories o...

Angelina Chin, "Unsettling Exiles: Chinese Migrants in Hong Kong and the Southern Periphery During the Cold War" (Columbia UP, 2023)

05 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The conventional story of Hong Kong celebrates the people who fled the mainland in the wake of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China i...

Robert P. Watson, "When Washington Burned: The British Invasion of the Capital and a Nation's Rise from the Ashes" (Georgetown UP, 2023)

05 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Perhaps no other single day in US history was as threatening to the survival of the nation as August 24, 1814, when British forces captured Washington...

Nan Turner, "Clothing Goes to War: Creativity Inspired by Scarcity in World War II" (Intellect Books, 2022)

05 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Clothing Goes to War: Creativity Inspired by Scarcity in World War II (Intellect, 2022) by Nan Turner is the story of clothing use when manufacturing...

Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson, "Slavery, Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution" (Polity, 2023)

04 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In their remarkable new book Slavery, Capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution (Polity, 2023), Professor Maxine Berg and Professor Pat Hudson “fo...

Adrian Chastain Weimer, "A Constitutional Culture: New England and the Struggle Against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

03 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In A Constitutional Culture: New England and the Struggle Against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023), Adrian Cha...

Boyd Cothran and Adrian Shubert, "The Edwin Fox: How an Ordinary Sailing Ship Connected the World in the Age of Globalization, 1850-1914" (UNC Press, 2024)

02 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It began as a small, slow, and unadorned sailing vessel—in a word, ordinary. Later, it was a weary workhorse in the age of steam. But the story of t...

Thula Simpson, "History of South Africa: From 1902 to the Present" (Oxford UP, 2022)

02 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

South Africa was born in war, has been cursed by crises and ruptures, and today stands on a precipice once again. Thula Simpson's History of South A...

Melanie Williams, "A Taste of Honey" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

01 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What makes a film a classic? In A Taste of Honey (Bloomsbury, 2023), published as part of the BFI Film Classics series, Melanie Williams, a Profes...

Jared Davidson, "Blood and Dirt: Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand" (Bridget Williams Books, 2023)

28 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Picture, for a minute, every artwork of colonial New Zealand you can think of. Now add a chain gang. Hard-labour men guarded by other men with guns. M...

Debapriya Sarkar, "Possible Knowledge: The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

27 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Debapriya Sarkar’s new book, titled Possible Knowledge: The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) is a study of ho...

Michael Wheeler, "The Year that Shaped the Victorian Age: Lives, Loves and Letters of 1845" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

27 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What was special about 1845 and why does it deserve particular scrutiny? In The Year that Shaped the Victorian Age: Lives, Loves and Letters of 1845 ...

Nigel Biggar, "Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning" (William Collins, 2023)

25 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet empire in 1989, many believed that we had arrived at the 'End of History' - that the global dominance of ...

Debra Ramsay, "Archives of War: Technology, Emotion, and History" (Routledge, 2023)

24 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Archives of War: Technology, Emotion and History (Routledge, 2023) offers a comparative analysis of British Army Unit War Diaries in the two World W...

Jamie Bronstein, "The Happiness of the British Working Class" (Stanford UP, 2023)

21 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For working-class life writers in nineteenth century Britain, happiness was a multifaceted emotion: a concept that could describe experiences of hedon...

David Simpson, "Engaging Violence: Civility and the Reach of Literature" (Stanford UP, 2022)

19 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Recent thinking has resuscitated civility as an important paradigm for engaging with a violence that must be deemed endemic to our lives. But, while i...

Erik Linstrum, "Age of Emergency: Living with Violence at the End of the British Empire" (Oxford UP, 2023)

18 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When uprisings against colonial rule broke out across the world after 1945, Britain responded with overwhelming and brutal force. Although this period...

Lenora Hanson, "The Romantic Rhetoric of Accumulation" (Stanford UP, 2022)

18 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lenora Hanson's The Romantic Rhetoric of Accumulation (Stanford UP, 2022) provides an account of the long arc of dispossession from the British Rom...

Ian Patel, "We're Here Because You Were There: Immigration and the End of Empire" (Verso, 2021)

18 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What are the origins of the hostile environment against immigrants in the UK? In We’re Here Because You Were There: Immigration and the End of Empi...

Deanne Williams, "Girl Culture in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: Performance and Pedagogy" (Arden Shakespeare, 2023)

18 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Deanne Williams's newest book, Girl Culture in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: Performance and Pedagogy (Bloombury, 2023), is a groundbreaking stud...

Oscar Webber, "Negotiating Relief and Freedom: Responses to Disaster in the British Caribbean, 1812-1907" (Manchester UP, 2023)

17 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Negotiating Relief and Freedom: Responses to Disaster in the British Caribbean, 1812-1907 (Manchester University Press, 2023) by Dr. Oscar Webber is ...

John O'Donovan, "An Introduction to the Irish Civil War" (Mercier Press, 2022)

16 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

During the Irish Civil War, events of late 1922 and early 1923 together with waves of 'dishonourable' killings created poisoned relations between Repu...

Joshua Ehrlich, "The East India Company and the Politics of Knowledge" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

16 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The East India Company is remembered as the world's most powerful, not to say notorious, corporation. But for many of its advocates from the 1770s to ...