Browse all reviews
A Monarchy in Letters: Royal Correspondence and English Diplomacy in the Reign of Elizabeth I / Rayne Allinson
Review Date: 02 May 2013
Rayne Allinson’s new book, A Monarchy in Letters: Royal Correspondence and English Diplomacy in the Reign of Elizabeth I, highlights some of the gaps missing in the historiography of the queen’s own involvement in foreign affairs. The author acknowledges that there is a curious void here; what about the queen’s own words? Obviously, the queen’s preferences were central to certain aspects of foreign policy.
A Man and an Institution: Sir Maurice Hankey, the Cabinet Secretariat and the Custody of Cabinet Secrecy / John F. Naylor
Review Date: 01 October 2009
A Man and an Institution is in reality three books combined into one. It is, first, a contribution to a biography of Sir Maurice Hankey, the first Cabinet Secretary; second, a history of the origins of the Cabinet Office and its development until Hankey’s retirement in 1938; and third, an account of how the Cabinet Office came to be the guardian of official secrecy.
The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government / Thomas M. Bisson
Review Date: 30 April 2009
“Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies?” – Augustine, City of God, IV.4.With this new book Thomas N. Bisson is nothing if not ambitious. By his own account it is in part an answer to a point made over ten years ago by the late Timothy Reuter in a Past and Present debate on the so-called feudal revolution.
War, State and Society in England and the Netherlands, 1477-1559 / David Grummitt, Hans Cools, Steven Gunn
Review Date: 30 June 2008
This book is the result of a bold and innovative research project funded between 1999 and 2002 by the then Arts and Humanities Research Board, with further funds provided subsequently by a number of scholarly institutions. The preface further acknowledges the support of a glittering array of scholars, not least Geoffrey Parker who read through the entire draft.
La Normandie et l’Angleterre au Moyen Âge / Véronique Gazeau, Pierre Bouet
Review Date: 01 April 2004
In 1992 a conference was held at Reading to study the changing relations between England and Normandy that resulted from the conquest of 1066.
Whitehall and the Jews, 1933-1948: British Immigration Policy, Jewish Refugees and the Holocaust
Review Date: 01 November 2001
The flight of Jews out of Nazi Germany has been the subject of much attention. Virtually every country that witnessed the entry of Jews in the 1930s has had its experiences discussed in at least one book.(1) Britain is no exception.
Bismarck’s Favourite Englishman: Lord Odo Russell’s Mission to Berlin / Karina Urbach
Review Date: 01 March 2000
In a recent article on the relationship between Sir Alexander Malet, Britain's minister plenipotentiary to the German Confederation at Frankfurt from 1852 to 1866, and Otto von Bismarck, Prussia's delegate to this assembly for much of that period, W. A. Van't Padje has suggested that 'the exceptionally personal and close friendship which [Sir Alexander] had enjoyed with the Iron Chancellor in the eighteen-fifties remains ...