Samuel Clark reviews a ‘thoughtful’ look at the role public humiliation has played in modern society.
Review Archives
Soldiers, Saints, and Shamans
Mark Lawrence reviews this vital text, which brings ‘clarity and interest’ to the experiences and perspectives of indigenous populations during the Mexican Revolution and its aftermath.
Migrant City: A New History of London
Jean P. Smith reviews this exploration of the myriad ways that migrants have contributed to the making of London, finding it a substantial achievement of broad historical relevance.
Blood Matters: Studies in European Literature and Thought, 1400-1700
Tim Reinke-Williams reviews a collection of essays examining definitions of blood in late medieval and early modern Western Europe, and contemporary literary references to blood in descriptions of the human condition.
Provincializing Global History: Money, Ideas, and Things in the Languedoc, 1680-1830
Janine Lanza reviews a look at deep economic change in the long eighteenth century and ‘how modernity came to small, out of the way places’.
Politics and ‘Politiques’ in Sixteenth-Century France
Tom Hamilton reviews two recent, and complementary books on the intellectual history of sixteenth-century France, which break down ‘disciplinary distinctions between the history of literature, philosophy, and politics’.
Public Opinion in Early Modern Scotland, c.1560-1707
Julian Goodare reviews Karin Bowie’s book on the rising prominence and changing dynamics of Scottish opinion politics in the tumultuous period of Protestant reform and regal union.
The Press and the People: Cheap Print and Society in Scotland, 1500-1785
Laura Stewart reviews this first full-length study of cheap print in early modern Scotland, finding that it opens ‘rich new seams of material’, expanding our ‘understanding of Scottish society and culture in the pre-modern age’.
In the shadow of Enoch Powell: Race, locality and resistance
Over half a century ago, Enoch Powell made national headlines with his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, warning of an immigrant invasion in Wolverhampton. Shirin Hirsch’s book bring a rich local history focus to a key moment in British history; Saffron East reviews.
The Crisis of the Meritocracy
Before the Second World War, only about 20% of the population went to secondary school and barely 2% to university; today everyone goes to secondary school and half of all young people go to university. How did we get here from there? David Civil reviews a work that positions ‘education at the interface between the citizen and the post-war state’, exploring and questioning tension between meritocracy and democracy.