Browse all reviews
Milk / eds. Honor Beddard, Marianne Templeton
Review Date: 30 September 2023
The very first displays in Milk, a major Wellcome Collection exhibition, convey the strangeness of a food we all know well. Entitled 'the story of milk', the opening room sparks reflection on the oddness of the narratives and images imprinted on a deceptively simple part of our diet.
Empire and epidemic / Amina Marzouk Chouchene
Review Date: 24 July 2020
Covid-19 has fuelled widespread panic across the world. Every day there are new cases of infected people and deaths. We became accustomed to seeing crowds of people emptying stores from all necessary provisions. In most discussions, there are constant references to various forms of panic surrounding Covid-19. Headlines such as “Do not panic,” “Remain calm,” “Be smart but don’t panic” became ubiquitous.
Empires of Knowledge: Scientific Networks in the Early Modern World / ed. Paula Findlen
Review Date: 28 November 2019
Francis Bacon’s unfinished utopian novel The New Atlantis is often invoked in scholarship about early modern scientific projects. With its ‘Merchants of Light’ who gather information and bring it back to the House of Solomon, The New Atlantis seems to capture perfectly the aspirations of a group of European scholars who saw themselves as reassessing the bases of knowledge by revaluing personal experience.
World’s Fairs: A Global History of Exhibitions / ed. Robert Rydell
Review Date: 10 August 2017
Since London’s Great Exhibition of 1851, world’s fairs and international expositions have been an important global cultural phenomenon that has defined progress and modernity for hundreds of millions of visitors. They have displayed the achievements of industrial civilization and the latest technologies, while at the same time reinforcing national and ethno-cultural hierarchies, with exhibits ranging from scientific discoveries to human zoos.
After the Map: Cartography, Navigation, and the Transformation of Territory in the Twentieth Century / William Rankin
Review Date: 06 July 2017
Traversing varied material, institutional, and conceptual terrains, plotting shifts in how space has been represented and enacted throughout the 20th century, and rendering connections between spatial technologies and politics, After The Map ventures far beyond conventional boundaries of the history of cartography. It is a beautiful book, not only in its dazzling array of illustrations (available in high-resolution colour form on the accompanying website, www.afterthemap.
War on Leakers: National Security and American Democracy, from Eugene V. Debs to Edward Snowden / Lloyd C. Gardner
Review Date: 02 March 2017
Despite the back cover declaring Lloyd Gardner’s The War on Leakers ‘the essential backstory to understand the Snowden case, NSA eavesdropping, and the future of privacy’, and its subtitle promising a study ‘from Eugene V. Debs to Edward Snowden,’ it would be inaccurate to describe this book as a historical work.
The Making of a Tropical Disease A Short History of Malaria / Randall Packard
Review Date: 08 December 2016
Randall Packard’s The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria, published in 2007, was a timely overview of the history of one of the most complex and ancient of all diseases. Indeed, Packard’s sub-title: ‘a short history of malaria’ is a modest one considering the depth and breadth of the range of topics relating to the history of malaria that Packard covers.
To Explain the World: the Discovery of Modern Science / Steven Weinberg
Review Date: 03 December 2015
'I am a physicist, not a historian' (p. ix). This is how Steven Weinberg, one of the most eminent scientists of our time, has chosen to begin his effort to encapsulate the historical development of the scientific method.
INTERVIEW: Daniel Snowman talks to Peter Burke / Peter Burke
Review Date: 26 November 2015
In the latest of our occasional Reviews in History podcast series, Daniel Snowman talks to Peter Burke about his background, career, influences and forthcoming book.Peter Burke is Professor Emeritus of Cultural History at the University of Cambridge.Daniel Snowman is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster on social and cultural history.You can listen to the interview here.
INTERVIEW: Professor Jan Plamper talks to Dr Jordan Landes / Jan Plamper
Review Date: 16 April 2015
In the latest of our occasional Reviews in History podcast series, Dr Jordan Landes talks to Professor Jan Plamper about his new work on the history of emotions, a subject which he has memorably described as a 'rocket taking off'.Jan Plamper is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London.Jordan Landes is history subject librarian at Senate House Library, University of London.Listen to the interview here.