Browse all Reviews
![](https://reviews.history.ac.uk/sites/reviews/files/styles/thumbnail/public/images/AA_4_nations.jpg?itok=bJlrhguP)
Four Nations Approaches, as the editors acknowledge from the start, follows in the footsteps of a very solid tradition of edited collections, brought about by the rise of ‘New British History’ in the 1990s and early 2000s.
![](https://reviews.history.ac.uk/sites/reviews/files/styles/thumbnail/public/images/urbanski.jpg?itok=80AJ2vq7)
This is a book about two well-known dynastic verse histories commissioned by Henry II, the Roman de Rou by Wace and the Chronique des ducs de Normandie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure.
![](https://reviews.history.ac.uk/sites/reviews/files/styles/thumbnail/public/images/bradshaw.jpg?itok=cb-y1Tsj)
The commemorations for the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising in the Republic of Ireland have thrown the issue of nationalism and independence into sharp relief once again.
![](https://reviews.history.ac.uk/sites/reviews/files/styles/thumbnail/public/images/co-postcard.jpg?itok=DRBinH99)
For all historians of this last, most violent, century some concern with matters of war and peace has been unavoidable.
![](https://reviews.history.ac.uk/sites/reviews/files/styles/thumbnail/public/images/LLL.png?itok=ty1jm1UT)
The funniest moment in the British Library’s wonderful Magna Carta: Law Liberty, Legacy exhibition comes towards its end, in a recent cartoon by Stephen Collins (sadly not reproduced in the excellent catalogue, but available
![](https://reviews.history.ac.uk/sites/reviews/files/styles/thumbnail/public/images/campbell2.jpg?itok=4m6omN08)
Biography has always been as something of the black sheep of historical writing; we cannot do without it, yet it always looked down upon, particularly by those in the profession that are committed to more high-flown subjects and methods of analysis. Yet there can be no doubt that John Campbell has made a serious contribution to British political history through his biographical studies.
![](https://reviews.history.ac.uk/sites/reviews/files/styles/thumbnail/public/images/doyle.jpg?itok=vMXMtLH8)
Barry Doyle’s new study addresses a subject area that has lately attracted much interest from social, political and medical historians. The reasons why Britain’s inter-war health services have become such a hot topic are not hard to discern.
![](https://reviews.history.ac.uk/sites/reviews/files/styles/thumbnail/public/images/corfieldp.jpg?itok=Gu_znhwT)
The first thing that stands out from this study is how passionate and volcanic was E. P. Thompson’s intellectual life as a historian, Marxist thinker, and informed campaigner. He was devoted to reason. Indeed, one of the left-wing journals with which he was involved was entitled The New Reasoner.
![](https://reviews.history.ac.uk/sites/reviews/files/styles/thumbnail/public/images/beck.jpg?itok=25gole29)
To historians, the intrinsic value of history is self-evident. However, the study of history as an intellectual activity extends beyond the careful reconstruction and critical analysis of the past. For the past seeps into the present: it shapes the identities, perceptions, and attitudes of individuals and institutions.
![](https://reviews.history.ac.uk/sites/reviews/files/styles/thumbnail/public/images/knoppersl.jpg?itok=w1dBeWbN)
‘Do you recollect the date’, said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at me, and taking up his pen to note it down, ‘when King Charles the First had his head cut off’?(1)