Covering books and digital resources across all fields of history
Like us on FacebookFollow us on Twitter

ISSN 1749-8155

Browse all Reviews

Review Date: 
30 Oct 2020

At a time when the study of 19th-century history in general is becoming an increasingly marginal pursuit, writing a synthetic volume about Spain—which has never enjoyed much scholarly attention—may seem optimistic.

Review Date: 
23 Oct 2020

In January 1988, hundreds of people gathered in Cardiff for a rally organised by ‘Wales Against Clause 28’. Held aloft ‘were signs identifying the places the mainly lesbian and gay marchers had lived and where they were from to disprove the popular notion that “there were no gays in Wales”.’ (p.

Review Date: 
23 Oct 2020

This is an important and valuable book. Many works of economic history include the word ‘Wales’ in a sub title or index but relatively few have engaged with the relatively sparse sources and unfamiliar context (to most English historians) of the royal shires—the north and west—and Marcher lordships—the south and east—that characterise Wales after the conquests of Edward I.

Review Date: 
16 Oct 2020

The Complete Lives of Camp People by Rudolf Mrázek is part of the Theory in Form series by Duke University Press, which ‘seeks new work that addresses the politics of life and death’. (1) Set in the Dutch Boven Digoel isolation camp and the Theresienstadt Nazi ghetto, Mrázek’s work is well suited for the series.

Review Date: 
9 Oct 2020

By all accounts Baldwin of Boulogne, the youngest son of Eustace II of Boulogne and Ida of Bouillon, had a remarkable career: he participated in the First Crusade, founded the first ‘crusader state’ (the county of Edessa), became king of Jerusalem in 1100, and proceeded to defend and expand the infant Latin kingdom of Jerusalem for nearly eighteen years.

Review Date: 
2 Oct 2020

Jessica Hanser, in her book Mr. Smith Goes to China, tells a tale of 18th-century globalisation involving three international actors–Britain, China and India–through the lives of three British (more precisely, Scottish) merchants. All of them bore the name of George Smith, an extremely common name at the time. And all of them were ‘private traders’” (i.e.

Review Date: 
2 Oct 2020

Tom Rice’s book offers an extensive and cogent history of the Colonial Film Unit (CFU) from its early conception in the minds of bureaucrats and educational specialists to its dissolution following the wave of independence movements in the mid-20th century.

Review Date: 
25 Sep 2020

Students of history are not always aware when they live through major historiographic change; shifts are sometimes only recognizable in hindsight, with accumulated divergences sharply evident against the backdrop of the field.

Review Date: 
18 Sep 2020

The field of Human Animal Studies and the historical analysis of human-animal relations are relatively recent—and often interdisciplinary—approaches. Historian Harriet Ritvo has famously called the new interest in the topic an ‘animal turn’.

Pages