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Building on his work on the Huntly family in the north-east of Scotland, Barry Robertson’s latest monograph chooses to shift the usual historiographical focus from the Covenanters and the Irish Confederates to an attempt to understand royalism in Scotland and Ireland.(1) Seen in the same light as recent work by Andy Hopper and Matthew Neufeld, Robertson’s book seeks to
The literature surrounding British attitudes toward the American Civil War has a long history extending almost back to the conflict itself, in part because it speaks to a question that has long intrigued academic and popular readers alike; namely, how might the outcome of the conflict been different if the British government had extended diplomatic recognition to the Confederacy or even interve
Stanley G. Payne needs no introduction. He has a well-deserved reputation as an excellent historian who has produced, among other publications, perhaps the best guide to the study of European Fascism (A History of Fascism, 1914–45). He is also the author of numerous books on Spain, some of them real landmarks in our knowledge of that country’s modern history.
Ask Americans when their country became the world’s dominant power and chances are most will point to the hard-fought victory in the Second World War. But as Adam Tooze shows in his latest work, that shift occurred a generation earlier and before American forces had even fired a shot in what was once called the Great War.
Historians have been treated to a wealth of bureaucratic intelligence histories over the past five or so years. Each of Britain’s three intelligence agencies have been the recent subject of a lengthy institutional history, one authorised (on MI5 by Christopher Andrew), one official (MI6 by Keith Jeffery), and one unofficial (GCHQ by Richard Aldrich).
For all historians of this last, most violent, century some concern with matters of war and peace has been unavoidable.
As April turned to May, the world stood on edge. From 1914-18, a worldwide conflagration claimed the lives of 16 million people and produced an additional 20 million wounded. Despite the end of hostilities on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, a final peace remained elusive – and the suffering continued.
If Jeanne d’Arc had stuck to embroidery under her mother’s petticoats, then Charles VII would have been overthrown and the war would have ended. The Plantagenets would have reigned over England and France, which would have formed one territory, as it did in prehistoric times before the Channel existed, populated by one race.(1)
Strategy: A History has to be the magnum opus of the academic life of Sir Lawrence Freedman. Rich in detail and deeply contextualising, this book is not only the longest but also the most diverse work in recent years on the evolution of strategy. The book is based on a life of scholarship as well as the most recent overviews on the topic.