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Review Date: 26 February 2021

Within the past decade, much debate has ensued surrounding the question of whether or not food studies and culinary history constitute valid academic disciples. Detractors of these fields contend that in an age of food network channels and a proliferation of YouTube videos extoling the virtues of every possible ingredient, recipe, and technique—with or without historical support, food studies lack academic rigor.

Review Date: 31 July 2020

The 18th century is still the least popular among Ottoman historians. Recently, with the influential counter-narrative of Ottoman decline and the coining of a new term—the 'Second Ottoman Empire'—by Baki Tezcan, our understanding of periodization in Ottoman history has changed. It is now recognized that there was no golden age followed by centuries of decline.

Review Date: 17 July 2020

Jonathan Scott, Professor of History at the University of Auckland, in his recent book, How the Old World Ended (2019), has provided an intellectual bridge between the early modern period and the modern world, which was born out of the Industrial Revolution.

Review Date: 03 July 2020

How did the world of nation-states come about? What happened to the world of empires that preceded it? How did the transition take place and how inevitable was it? These may seem (and indeed are) old questions.

Review Date: 23 January 2020

Chinese history for English readers is a quietly contested field: quiet because discussion and developments take place in the margins of the English-speaking world; and contested both because the market for trade books is growing and, more importantly, because new publications are offering ever more diverse and complex ways of seeing China. Two seminal events, the Opium War (1839-42) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), play an outsized role in attempts to introduce China to the world. Books on these events, especially on Mao and the Mao era, are more readily available than books on any others. The issue is not whether these two super events should receive less attention but rather whether new publications are challenging old prejudices in productive ways.

Review Date: 16 May 2019

In Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and San Francisco Bay Area, historian Peter Cole compares the union histories of two port cities, the militant struggles of dockworkers against racial discrimination, their response to technology (in the form of containerisation), and their solidarity actions with freedom struggles around the world.

Review Date: 16 October 2014

Before opening this collection of 11 articles originally published elsewhere, attentive readers may have noticed the absence of a categorisation usually employed in studies on the Eastern Mediterranean between the 11th century and the 14th century.

Review Date: 17 October 2013

Paul A. Gilje, Professor of United States History at the University of Oklahoma and renowned expert on the history of common people on the waterfront in early America (1), argues in his recently published book on the War of 1812 that the U.S. declared war against Great Britain in 1812 in defense of neutral rights and the safety of American sailors.

Review Date: 01 August 2011

The importance and relevance of this book cannot be underestimated. It demands a reassessment of the relationships between the different regions and countries surrounding the Mediterranean. Although this study is concerned with the wider themes suggested by the title, it is essentially about their specific impact on social, political and economic life in Tunisia during the 19th century.

Review Date: 01 October 2000

Peter Russell's Henry 'the Navigator' is one of those rare books which has had classic, or rather legendary, status even before it was published.