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John Dee is a name that often conjures up images of shady spells muttered in dark rooms with bubbling potions, but the exhibition at the Royal College of Physicians, titled Scholar, Courtier, Magician: the Lost Library of John Dee seeks to offer a view of Dee as an articulate, extremely well-read, educated man.

The current trend in history publishing for a ‘one stop shop edition’ of essays on a particular subject, variously entitled ‘Handbooks’ or ‘Companions’, is a welcome addition for teachers and students of history alike.

Thomas Dixon’s Weeping Britannia is a tour through six centuries of British tears, from ‘extreme weeper’ Margery Kempe to the televised ‘sob-fests’ of Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor, via tear-stained judges, the emotionally extravagant novel of sensibility, supposedly stiff-upper-lipped politicians, and the bemused disdain of dry-eyed journalists observing the

In this engaging book, Amy Prendergast focuses primarily on the period between 1750 and the 1820s and seeks to provide ‘the first detailed examination of the literary salon in Ireland, considered in the wider contexts of contemporary salon culture in Britain and France’ as well as a study of the ‘cultural transfers’ between these salons (p. 1).

It is generally assumed that the digital revolution will spell the end for print journalism. Newspaper sales are in terminal decline as an increasing number of readers turn to websites, smartphones, and social media for their news and entertainment. However, while the internet may eventually kill off modern-day newspapers, it has managed to breathe new life into their ancestors.

Interest in the study of early modern English Catholicism has continued to grow over recent years, stimulated by a rise in publications analysing the impact of political events upon the lives of English Catholics, and by the early modern Catholicism conferences that have been held at Durham since 2013, alongside the re-branding of the former Recusant History journal, now known as the

We are now a generation into an ‘Atlantic turn’ in writing early American history. Jordan Landes and Abram C. Van Engen make welcome, but different, contributions through their arguments about emotions in Puritan New England and networking by London Quakers.

The cotton industry is fundamental to the development of global capitalism and broadly shaped the world we live in today. It is therefore important to realise the extent to which this depended on the militarisation of trade, massive land expropriation, genocide and slavery.