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The central thesis of T. G. Otte's meticulously researched new study of British foreign policy is that the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 produced the 'China Question' and with it, the problem of Great Britain's 'international isolation'.
Although the First World War ended almost ninety years ago, it has become a truism to note that the echoes of that conflict continue to resound in Western culture.
Matthew Seligmann's Spies in Uniform is an attempt to understand more fully the bases of British decision-making and policy from 1900–1914 in the light of a full investigation of the reports and work of the naval and military attachés in Germany.
One of the strengths of the recent historiography of the First World War has been the shift in focus away from the Western Front towards a broader understanding of the conflict as a world war.
If you are shallow enough to buy this book because of its cover you will be heartily disappointed. The image of Arthur Griffith brandishing a Union Jack, with destruction in his wake and the bodies of women and children trampled under his feet, is possibly the most inappropriate that the author or his publisher could have chosen.
Peter Barham's book is an excellent example of 'underdog' history. Barham has trawled the archives in search of the lives and experiences of ordinary soldiers who suffered mental crises during the Great War.
This book can be viewed in several ways. Each of its ten chapters by a different author deals with a discrete topic (women, gender, public opinion, photography and food supply) without any pretence of thematic unity.
With over seven hundred volumes published, the Variorum Collected Studies Series has branched out considerably from its origins in late antique and medieval history. Recent forays into imperial history, for example, have generated collections of articles by some of the biggest names in the field.
Peter Hart’s ten chapters explore the IRA in what is defined by him as the Irish Revolution of 1916–23. All essays save two have been published over the last decade as book chapters or articles in leading academic journals. All deserve to be revisited. Thematically organised, Hart examines the structure of revolutionary violence in Irish and wider British contexts.
The tenacity of the Women’s Voluntary Services (WVS: they were awarded ‘Royal’ status in 1966) in maintaining their unique position in the voluntary sector must, in no small degree, be due to the powerful personality of its founder, the redoubtable Stella Charnaud, Lady Reading.