New Books in British Studies

Over recent years, the issues of Brexit, COVID and the 'migrant crisis' put Kent in the headlines like never before. Images of asylum seekers on Kent beaches, lorries queued on motorways and the crumbling white cliffs of Dover all spoke to national anxieties, and were used to support ideas that severing ties with the EU was the best - or worst - thing the UK has ever done.In Borderland: Identity and Belonging at the Edge of England (Manchester UP, 2022), Phil Hubbard - an exiled man of Kent - considers the past, present and future of this corner of England, alighting on a number of key sites which symbolise the changing relationship between the UK and its continental neighbours. Moving from the geopolitics of the Channel Tunnel to the cultivation of oysters at Whitstable, from Derek Jarman's feted cottage at Dungeness to the art-fuelled gentrification of Margate, Borderland bridges geography, history, and archaeology, to pose important questions about the way that national identities emerge from contested local landscapes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

When the Germans requested an armistice in October 1918, it was a shock to the Allied political and military leadership. They had been expecting, and planning for, the war to continue into 1919, the year they hoped to achieve a complete military victory over the Central Powers. In Coalition Strategy and the End of the First World War: The Supreme War Council and War Planning, 1917-1918" (Cambridge UP, 2019), Meighen McCrae illuminates how, throughout this planning process, the Supreme War Council evolved to become the predominant mechanism for coalition war-making. She analyses the Council's role in the formulation of an Allied strategy for 1918-1919 across the various theatres of war and compares the perspectives of the British, French, Americans and Italians. In doing so we learn how, in an early example of modern alliance warfare, the Supreme War Council had to coordinate national needs with coalition ones.Alex Beckstrand is a PhD candidate in history at the University of Connecticut, an officer in the Marine Corps Reserves, and works in the aerospace industry. Email: alex.beckstrand@uconn.edu Twitter: @AlexBeckstrand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Bought & Sold: Scotland, Jamaica and Slavery (Luath Press, 2022) by Kate Phillips traces the story of how and why thousands of Scots made money from buying and selling humans... a story we need to own. We need to admit that many Scots were enthusiastic participants in slavery.Union with England gave Scotland access to both trade and settlement in Jamaica, Britain’s richest colony and its major slave trading hub. Tens of thousands from Scotland lived and worked there. The abolition campaign and slave revolts threatened Scottish plantation owners, merchants, traders, bankers and insurance brokers who made their fortunes from slave-farmed sugar in Jamaica and fought hard to preserve the system of slavery. Archives and parliamentary papers in both countries reveal these transatlantic Scots in their own words and allow us to access the lives of their captives.Scotland and Jamaica were closely entwined for over one hundred years. Bought & Sold traces this shared story from its early beginnings in the 1700s to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and reflects on the meaning of those years for both nations today.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

This is the definitive biography of singer-songwriter Nick Lowe, best known for "Cruel To Be Kind,” “I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass,” and "(What's So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding." Biographer Will Birch, who in addition to being a music writer was a drummer and songwriter with The Records, has known Lowe for over forty years and melds Lowe's gift as a witty raconteur with his own authoritative analysis of Lowe's background and the cultural scenes he exemplifies. Lowe's parallel fame as one of the best interviews in the business will contribute to this first look into his life and work--and likely the closest thing fans will get to an autobiography by this notoriously charming cult figure.This is not an authorized biography, but Lowe has given it his spiritual blessing and his management and label are fully on board. Cruel to Be Kind: The Life and Music of Nick Lowe (Da Capo Press, 2019) is the colorful yet serious account of one of the world's most talented and admired musicians. Based on a tremendous amount of legwork, exclusive interviews with Lowe, and contributions from Elvis Costello, Chrissie Hynde, Ry Cooder, Johnny Marr, Curtis Stigers, Huey Lewis, Daryl Hall, and many others, Cruel to Be Kind is a fascinating and fun portrait of one of the coolest figures in popular music.Will Birch is a former drummer, songwriter and record producer for acts such as Dr Feelgood, the Long Ryders, Any Trouble and Billy Bremner of Rockpile. He enjoyed hits with the Kursaal Flyers (“Little Does She Know”) and The Records (“Starry Eyes”). Throughout the 1990s, Will wrote many articles for Mojo and other music magazines and in 2000 published his first book, No Sleep Till Canvey Island: The Great Pub Rock Revolution. In 2010 he published Ian Dury: The Definitive Biography.Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers, he teaches research and writing at Rutgers and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics (Twitter @15MinFilm). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

In this podcast, Amy Edwards, author of Are We Rich Yet?: The Rise of Mass Investment Culture in Contemporary Britain (U California Press, 2022), provides a fascinating journey into her own research and how she built a picture of a key moment of the 20th century. As a result, she brings together different strands of work such as cultural, business, economic and financial history. The book and podcast will be of interest to anyone old enough to remember the 1980s or whose current life has been shaped by that decade.References to other works discussed in the podcast:Allon, Fiona. 2014. "The Feminisation of Finance", Australian Feminist Studies, 29:79, 12-30, DOI: 10.1080/08164649.2014.901279Chatelain, Marcia. 2020. Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America. Liverlight. NBN Interview by Amanda Joyce here.Effosse, Sabine. 2021. “Financial Empowerment for Married Women in France.” Quaderni Storici 166: 117-141. doi: 10.1408/101558Martínez-Rodríguez, Susana (2022). “DIANA (1969-1978): The First Women´s Finance Magazine in Spain” Feminist Media Studies (early view). NBN Interview by Paula de la Cruz here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

In February 1793, in the wake of the War of American Independence and one year after British prime minister William Pitt the Younger had predicted fifteen years of peace, the National Convention of Revolutionary France declared war on Great Britain and the Netherlands. France thus initiated nearly a quarter century of armed conflict with Britain. During this fraught and still-contested period, historian Nathaniel Jarrett suggests, Pitt and his ministers forged a diplomatic policy and military strategy that envisioned an international system anticipating the Vienna settlement of 1815.Examining Pitt’s foreign policy from 1783 to 1797—the years before and during the War of the First Coalition against Revolutionary France—Jarrett considers a question that has long vexed historians: Did Pitt adhere to the “blue water” school, imagining a globe-trotting navy, or did he favor engagement nearer to shore and on the European Continent? And was this approach grounded in precedent, or was it something new? While acknowledging the complexities within this dichotomy, The Lion at Dawn: Forging British Strategy in the Age of the French Revolution, 1783–1797 (U Oklahoma Press, 2022) argues that the prime minister consistently subordinated colonial to continental concerns and pursued a new vision rather than merely honoring past glories. Deliberately, not simply in reaction to the French Revolution, Pitt developed and pursued a grand strategy that sought British security through a novel collective European system—one ultimately realized by his successors in 1815.The Lion at Dawn opens a critical new perspective on the emergence of modern Britain and its empire and on its early effort to create a stable and peaceful international system, an ideal debated to this day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

The Brexit debate has been so all-consuming and filled with so much misinformation that many Brits and others can overlook some the challenges facing the European Union itself. Looked at in broad terms, it has been an astonishingly successful political project, having delivered 70 years of peace and prosperity. But what lies ahead? What issues does it need to tackle to maintain that kind of success? Luuk van Middelaar is a Dutch historian, Professor of EU law at Leiden University. He has worked at the heart of EU institutions and give his observations and analysis of the underlying tensions in the EU and what lies ahead.Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Robert Edmund Cotter's book John Cennick (1718-1755): Methodism, Moravianism and the Rise of Evangelicalism (Routledge, 2022) explores the life and spirituality of John Cennick (1718-1755) and argues for a new appreciation of the contradictions and complexities in early evangelicalism. It explores Cennick's evangelistic work in Ireland, his relationship with Count Zinzendorf and the creative tension between the Moravian and Methodist elements of his participation in the eighteenth-century revivals. The chapters draw on extensive unpublished correspondence between Cennick and Zinzendorf, as well as Cennick's unique diary of his first stay in the continental Moravian centres of Marienborn, Herrnhaag and Lindheim. A maverick personality, John Cennick is seen at the centre of some of the principal controversies of the time. The trajectory of his emergence as a prominent figure in the revivals is remarkable in its intensity and hybridity and brings into focus a number of themes in the landscape of early evangelicalism: the eclectic nature of its inspirations, the religious enthusiasm nurtured in Anglican societies, the expansion of the pool of preaching talent, the social tensions unleashed by religious innovations, and the particular nature of the Moravian contribution during the 1740s and 1750s. Offering a major re-evaluation of Cennick's spirituality, the book will be of interest to scholars of evangelical and church history.Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, works of botany underwent a radical change in the English book trade. A genre that was once produced in smaller cheaper formats became lavishly produced, authoritative editions. But as Early Modern Herbals and the Book Trade (Cambridge UP, 2022) shows, the relationships between making, producing, and consuming of botanical and medical knowledge was much more fluid. Today I am discussing this new book with the author Sarah Neville. Sarah Neville is Associate Professor of English and Creative Director of Lord Denney's Players at Ohio State University. Sarah serves as an assistant editor of the New Oxford Shakespeare and an associate coordinating editor of the Digital Renaissance Editions, as well as the writer/producer/director of the documentary Looking for Hamlet, 1603, available on Youtube.John Yargo is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Boston College. He recently received his PhD in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in the environmental humanities and early modern culture. His articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal for Early Modern Culture Studies, Studies in Philology, Early Theatre, and Shakespeare Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

In Shakespeare on the Shades of Racism (Routledge, 2021), Ruben Espinosa explores the works of the early modern dramatist in the context of Trump-era immigration policies, anti-Black police violence, and the enduring legacy of white supremacy in American life. Espinosa is Professor of English at Arizona State University. He is the author of the previous monograph, Masculinity and Marian Efficacy in Shakespeare’s England, and the co-editor of the collection Shakespeare and Immigration, both available through Routledge. Shakespeare on the Shades of Race, an urgent new book that offers an important critique of racism and white supremacy to bear on As You Like It, The Tempest and Othello, alongside Luis Alberto Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway, Toni Morrison’s Desdemona, and Keith Hamilton Cobb’s American Moor.John Yargo is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Boston College. He recently received his PhD in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in the environmental humanities and early modern culture. His articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal for Early Modern Culture Studies, Early Theatre, Studies in Philology, and Shakespeare Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies