New Books in British Studies

In The Information Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Dr. Paul Dover argues that changes in the generation, preservation and circulation of information, chiefly on newly available and affordable paper, constituted an 'information revolution'. In commerce, finance, statecraft, scholarly life, science, and communication, early modern Europeans were compelled to place a new premium on information management. Dr. Dover argues that “paper, as never before, became the transactional medium; the repository of personal, communal, and institutional memory; the avenue of communication; the lifeblood of bureaucracies; and the foundation and residue of learning. Early modern Europeans, whether or not they sought to, and whether or not they were pleased with or trusted the new reality, put paper inscribed with text at the centre of their lives.” He argues that these developments had a profound and transformative impact on European life.The book focuses on “two related and simultaneous developments in early modern Europe: the great increase in information created and circulating in European society, largely rendered on paper, and the accompanying efforts to manage and make sense of it, also chiefly via paper.” The huge expansion in paper records and the accompanying efforts to store, share, organize and taxonomize them are intertwined with many of the essential developments in the early modern period, including the rise of the state, the Print Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, and the Republic of Letters.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

Analysing three cases of British colonial violence that occurred in the latter half of the 19th century, this book argues that all three share commonalities, including the role of racial prejudices in justifying the perpetration of extreme colonial violence. Exploring the connections and comparisons between the Perak War (1875–76), the 'Hut Tax' Revolt in Sierra Leone (1898–99) and the Anglo-Egyptian War of Reconquest in the Sudan (1896–99), Gordon highlights the significance of decision-making processes, communication between London and the periphery and the influence of individual colonial administrators in outbreaks of violence.Michelle Gordon's book Extreme Violence and the ‘British Way’: Colonial Warfare in Perak, Sierra Leone and Sudan (Bloomsbury, 2020) reveals the ways in which racial prejudices, the advocacy of a British 'civilising mission' and British racial 'superiority' informed colonial administrators' decisions on the ground, as well as the rationalisation of extreme violence. Responding to a neglect of British colonial atrocities within the historiography of colonial violence, this work demonstrates the ways in which Britain was just as willing and able as other European Empires to resort to extreme measures in the face of indigenous resistance or threats to the British imperial project.Siddharth Sridhar is a fourth year PhD Candidate (ABD) in History at the University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Shakespeare’s plays enjoy a great deal of popularity across the world, yet most of us study Shakespeare's local productions and scholarship. Shakespeare & East Asia (Oxford University Press, 2021) addresses this gap through a wide-ranging analysis of stage and film adaptations related to Japan, South Korea, China, Singapore, and Taiwan. The book builds on Alexa Alice Joubin’s already extensive publication record regarding the circulation of Shakespeare’s plays in East Asia. In particular, it expands on her previous book, Chinese Shakespeares: Two Centuries of Cultural Exchange (Columbia University Press, 2009).Shakespeare & East Asia focuses on post-1950 adaptations that were produced in, distributed across, or associated with East Asia. Joubin offers a nuanced view of what it means to think about Shakespeare and East Asia by carefully considering the international circulation of various stagings and films. She identifies a quartet of characteristics that distinguish these adaptations: innovations in form, the use of Shakespeare for social critiques, the questioning of gender roles, and the development of global patterns of circulation. The varied body of Shakespearan adaptations she examines are alternately funny, dramatic, and thought-provoking, but never boring.Several of the works described in both the interview and the book are available online through the Global Shakespeares Video and Performance Archive.Amanda Kennell is an Assistant Teaching Professor of International Studies at North Carolina State University. She writes about Japanese media and is currently completing Alice in Japanese Wonderlands: Translation, Adaptation, Mediation, a book about contemporary media and Japanese adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland novels. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

In Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), Dr. David Alston shows how Scots were involved in every stage of the slave trade: from captaining slaving ships to auctioning captured Africans in the colonies and hunting down those who escaped from bondage. This book focuses on the Scottish Highlanders who engaged in or benefitted from these crimes against humanity in the Caribbean Islands and Guyana, some reluctantly but many with enthusiasm and without remorse. Their voices are clearly heard in the archives, while in the same sources their victims’ stories are silenced – reduced to numbers and listed as property.Dr. Alston gives voice not only to these Scots, but to enslaved Africans and their descendants – to those who reclaimed their freedom, to free women of colour, to the Black Caribs of St Vincent, to house servants, and to children of mixed race who found themselves in the increasingly racist society of Britain in the mid-1800s. The book pays special attention to the new colonies of the southern Caribbean, including Grenada and Guyana, and to Suriname in the years to 1863.As Scots recover and grapple with their past, this vital history lays bare the enormous wealth generated in the Highlands by slavery and emancipation compensation schemes. This legacy, entwined with so many of our contemporary institutions, must be reckoned with. This book therefore contributes to the debate on reparation by reappraising the idea of Scots complicity in the slave trade.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

For people in medieval England, the parish church was an integral part of their community. In Going to Church in Medieval England (Yale University Press, 2021), Nicholas Orme describes how parish churches operated and details the roles they played in the lives of their parishioners. While there was a considerable variety of experience over the centuries and between the parishes throughout England, the basic practices in them largely remained the same. These were supervised by a range of people, both lay and clerical, who staged the Mass and managed the church’s everyday operations. Their activities touched on the lives of the members of the community in a variety of ways, from regular attendance at daily and weekly services to celebrations marking the seasons and the great events of life: birth, coming of age, marriage, and comfort in sickness and death. And while the English Reformation transformed the relationship between England and the Roman Catholic Church, Orme shows how some of the changes associated with it were already underway before it began, while much of what went on in parish churches remained as before. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

From his earliest days Winston Churchill was an extreme risk taker and he carried this into adulthood. Today he is widely hailed as Britain's greatest wartime leader and politician. Deep down though, he was foremost a warlord. Just like his ally Stalin, and his arch enemies Hitler and Mussolini, Churchill could not help himself and insisted on personally directing the strategic conduct of World War II. For better or worse he insisted on being political master and military commander. Again like his wartime contemporaries, he had a habit of not heeding the advice of his generals. The results of this were disasters in Norway, North Africa, Greece, and Crete during 1940-41. His fruitless Dodecanese campaign in 1943 also ended in defeat. Churchill's pig-headedness over supporting the Italian campaign in defiance of the Riviera landings culminated in him threatening to resign and bring down the British Government. Yet on occasions he got it just right, his refusal to surrender in 1940, the British miracle at Dunkirk and victory in the Battle of Britain, showed that he was a much-needed decisive leader. Nor did he shy away from difficult decisions, such as the destruction of the French Fleet to prevent it falling into German hands and his subsequent war against Vichy France.In Churchill, Master and Commander: Winston Churchill at War 1895–1945 (Bloomsbury, 2021), acclaimed historian Anthony Tucker-Jones explores the record of Winston Churchill as a military commander, assessing how the military experiences of his formative years shaped him for the difficult military decisions he took in office. This book assesses his choices in the some of the most controversial and high-profile campaigns of World War II, and how in high office his decision making was both right and wrong.Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House’s International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

South of the Norman city of Caen, the twin features of the Verrières and Bourguebus ridges were key stepping stones for the British Second Army in late July 1944--taking them was crucial if it was to be successful in its attempt to break out of the Normandy bridgehead. To capture this vital ground, Allied forces would have to defeat arguably the strongest German armored formation in Normandy: the I. SS-Panzerkorps "Leibstandarte." The resulting battles of late July and early August 1944 saw powerful German defensive counterattacks south of Caen inflict tremendous casualties, regain lost ground and at times defeat Anglo-Canadian operations in detail.Viewed by the German leadership as militarily critical, the majority of its armored assets were deployed to dominate this excellent tank country east of the Orne river. These defeats and the experience of meeting an enemy with near-equal resources exposed a flawed Anglo-Canadian offensive tactical doctrine that was overly dependent on the supremacy of its artillery forces. Furthermore, weaknesses in Allied tank technology inhibited their armored forces from fighting a decisive armored battle, forcing Anglo-Canadian infantry and artillery forces to further rely on First World War "Bite and Hold" tactics, massively supported by artillery. Confronted with the full force of the Panzerwaffe, Anglo-Canadian doctrine at times floundered. In response, the Royal Artillery and Royal Canadian Artillery units pummeled the German tankers and grenadiers, but despite their best efforts, ground could not be captured by concentrated artillery fire alone.Arthur W. Gullachsen's book Bloody Verrieres: The I. SS-Panzerkorps Defence of the Verrieres-Bourguebus Ridges (Casemate, 2021) a detailed account of the success of I. SS-Panzerkorps' defensive operations, aimed at holding the Vèrrieres-Bourgebus ridges in late July 1944. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

In recent years, the media has depicted Rwanda as a model of unity, development, and recovery. Dr. Cantrell II argues that not all is as it seems in Revival and Reconciliation: The Anglican Church and the Politics of Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, 2022). The book argues that, from the start, the founders of the church accepted erroneous myths about Rwanda and its people and, as a result, were too closely aligned with whomever was in power. As such, the church endorsed the ruling authorities’ misleading account of Rwanda’s history and failed to take account of its own history in exacerbating ethnic tensions prior to genocide.The book takes a critical look at the church's complicity with authoritarian rule—from the Tutsi monarchy to the Rwandan Patriotic Front. Drawing from new archival materials as well as on-the-ground field research, this research is a Rwanda-centered account of the country's ecclesiastical and national historiography. Most ominously, the book argues that the present Anglican authorities are also too closely allied with Paul Kagame and the ruling RPF, with perhaps dire consequences to come.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

When most people think of the Irish Republican Army, they naturally think of terrorism. But what of the political context that led to some 10,000 Irish nationalists to take up arms against a divided Ireland? With One Man's Terrorist: A Political History of the IRA (Verso, 2021), Daniel Finn tries to answer this question. This thoroughly researched study of the IRA explains the ideological and tactical decision making processes that led to The Troubles and the deaths of some 3,500 between 1968 and 1998, as well as the many disputes within the movement itself.Daniel Finn is a journalist. Formerly at the New Left Review, he is currently the features editor at Jacobin. He also hosts the Jacobin podcast Long Reads, one of my favorite podcasts (and not just because he let me do a 2-part episode on Indonesian politics). He’s done great work on Vichy, the Algerian War, Albert Camus, and a range of other historical topics. Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

In Green Unpleasant Land: Creative Responses to Rural England's Colonial Connections (PeePal Tree Press, 2021), Dr. Corinne Fowler explores the repressed history of rural England's links to transatlantic enslavement and the East India Company.“Historical and literary ideas about the countryside have shifted significantly in the last three decades. For a long time now, historians, social geographers and archaeologists have recognised that English rural landscapes are readable, showing up such things as Bronze Age forts and Roman roads. The countryside was not, until recently, considered to reveal much about the British empire. Nor was the empire seen as having much to do with enclosure, rural poverty or rural industry. All that has changed.”Combining essays, poems and stories, the book details the colonial links of country houses, moorlands, woodlands, village pubs and graveyards. Dr. Fowler, who herself comes from a family of slave-owners, argues that Britain's cultural and economic legacy is not simply expressed by chinoiserie, statues, monuments, galleries, warehouses and stately homes. This is a shared history: Britons' ancestors either profited from empire or were impoverished by it. The legacy of empire is expressed by potent language, literary culture and lasting ideas, not least about the countryside. “The book sets out to explore the connections between historical studies and imaginative literary attempts to rethink English rurality. It demonstrates how Black British and British Asian writers (who are inevitably also readers) have addressed and challenged a sense of rural exclusion within the context of shifting sensibilities about the countryside in writing from the sixteenth-century to the present.”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