New Books in British Studies

In the summer of 1960, the Republic of the Congo won its independence from Belgium. Only one week later, however, Belgium had already dispatched paratroopers into the country and the Congolese government was appealing to the United Nations to intervene and protect Congolese sovereignty. The ensuing crisis, as Alanna O’Malley writes in her deeply researched and important book, The Diplomacy of Decolonisation: America, Britain, and the United Nations during the Congo Crisis, 1960-1964 (Manchester University Press, 2020) “catapulted the Congo into the international consciousness.”The Diplomacy of Decolonisation examines the global contours of the Congo crisis, which fragmented the newly independent Republic of the Congo and rocked the international order in the early 1960s. It even led the United Nations, for the first time ever, to dispatch peacekeepers to protect the sovereignty of one of its member states against secessionists. O’Malley guides readers through this complicated story. She charts the sprawling geography of the crisis, pulling readers through foreign capitals, the United Nations, and the Congo itself. And she shows how the crisis transformed the Cold War and the politics of decolonization.Dexter Fergie is a PhD student of US and global history at Northwestern University. He is currently researching the 20th century geopolitical history of information and communications networks. He can be reached by email at dexter.fergie@u.northwestern.edu or on Twitter @DexterFergie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Oded Y. Steinberg (DPhil Oxford) is a fellow at the Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Next year (2020-21), Steinberg will begin his joint tenure-track position at the Department of International Relations and the European Forum at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.Steinberg’s research, as an intellectual historian of international relations, is primarily focused on the exchange of ideas across social and national borders in modern Britain and central Europe.Within this framework, his publications have explored various aspects of British and central European intellectual, cultural and diplomatic history. His book Race, Nation, History: Anglo-German Thought in the Victorian Era (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019) focuses on two intertwined themes.First, he analyses the emergence of a particular notion of a “Teutonic” identity among a group of scholars in England and Germany, and how they utilized this notion in their identification of their own national communities. Second, he shows how the consideration of this “Teutonic” identity corresponded with these scholars’ idiosyncratic perception of historical periodization.In exploring these themes, the book develops a novel argument that highlights the intersections between modern ideas of periodization, on the one hand, and modern perceptions of “race,” on the other. Therefore, it sheds light on a unique yet overlooked aspect of the modern racial and national identity discourse as it was developed by various Anglo-German Victorian scholars.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Philip A. Craig’s new book on John Owen, the premier puritan theologian, demonstrates how carefully his subject tracked the influence of antinomianism in his writing.Craig’s book roots Owen’s ideas of conversion in Augustine and Calvin. The Bond of Grace and Duty in the Soteriology of John Owen (Founders Press, 2020) shows how the seventeenth-century divine argued for “preparation for grace” – the idea that those seeking conversion should “put themselves in the way of grace” by attending sermons and reading Scripture – while also arguing that Christians should make special efforts to “prepare for glory.”Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of f John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016).     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

This book by renowned Professor of History Jeremy Black presents an insightful and hugely entertaining exploration of the political and cultural context of the Bond books and films. In The World of James Bond: The Lives and Times of 007 (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017), Jeremy Black offers a historian’s interpretation from the perspective of the 21st century, assessing James Bond in terms of the greatly changing world order of the Bond years—a lifetime that stretches from 1953, when the first novel appeared, to the present. Black argues that the Bond novels—the Flemng books as well as the often-neglected novels authored by others after Fleming died in 1964—and films drew on popular fears and anxieties in order to reduce the implausibility of the villains and their villainy.The novels and films also presented potent images of national character, explored the rapidly changing relationship between a declining Britain and an ascendant United States, charted the course of the Cold War and the subsequent post-1990 world, and offered an evolving but always potent demonology. Bond was, and still is, an important aspect of post–World War II popular culture throughout the Western world. This was particularly so after Hollywood commenced the Bond film series,thus making him not only a character designed for the American film market but also a world product and a figure of globalization. Professor Black's well-informed and well-argued analysis provides a fascinating history of the enduring and evolving appeal of the character of James Bond.Professor Jeremy Black MBE, Is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Exeter. And a Senior Associate at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. A graduate of Queens College, Cambridge with a First, he is the author of well over one-hundred books. In 2008 he was awarded the “Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Lifetime Achievement.”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, 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

How are black lives lived in the contemporary city?In Terraformed: Young Black Lives in the Inner City, Dr Joy White, a sociologist and ethnographer based in London, explores the case study of Newham in East London to illustrate issues of privatisation, gentrification, policing, and racial discrimination.In doing so, the book highlights how specific cultures and musical scenes have flourished and developed, even as corporate power aims to regenerate away these vital elements of local life. The ethnography and analysis of power offers important lessons for towns and cities in the UK and beyond, connecting global trends and theoretical insights to specific local case studies.In our current context the book is essential reading across the humanities and social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in urban life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Fascination with the Viking Age seems to be at an all-time high, though it has never really gone out of fashion. There is something irresistible about the Vikings, a civilization dedicated to exploring the edges of the known world, forging an empire from north America to Kiev, which dominated the political and economic landscape from the Fall of Rome to the First Crusade. Writers, artists and musicians such as Richard Wagner and J. R. R. Tolkien have found inspiration in the stories, legends, and sagas of the Vikings, and modern culture too has successfully mined the canon for the inspiration behind blockbusters as “Vikings,” “Game of Thrones” and the Marvel films.But few scholars have delved-exclusively into the world of Viking women until now. Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir’s recent book, Valkyrie: The Women of the Viking World (Bloomsbury, 2020) is a deeply satisfying exploration of the lives of Viking women. Valkyrie is skillfully arranged around the skeleton of the life cycle of a woman—from birth through childhood, adolescence, marriage, and old age. But this skeleton is expertly fleshed out with cogent examples drawn from archaeology, contemporary accounts, and the rich literary vein of the Old Norse sagas. The result is a gripping read, which plunges us into the world of the Viking women as they grapple with the emotional rollercoaster that is adolescence, weather transactional marriages, and navigate old age.The Viking Age (793-1100 CE) was a time of exceptional opportunity for social mobility. Viking raiding and trading had the potential to create substantial wealth for those of comparatively humble origins. “Valkyrie” looks at this phenomenon, too: charting the role women played in running successful enterprises, and sometimes even ruling countries. Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttiralso explores the emotional lives of Viking women, and their capacity for protecting their loved ones as fiercely as they exact vengeance for wrongs done to them.“Valkyrie” is that rare academic book that reads like an action-packed thriller and is sure to appeal to serious scholars of early Scandinavian history as much as it will to those who are eager to learn more about the women behind the great men of the Viking age. This is a book that gives the hitherto unseen Vikingwomen a chance to take centre stage and emerge as powerful agents for change in their own right.Friðriksdóttir earned attained her PhD from the University of Oxford and has held teaching and research positions at Yale, The Árni MagnússonInstitute for Icelandic Studies, and Harvard. She is currently based at the National Library of Norway in Oslo. She is the author of Women in Old Norse Literature: Bodies, Words and Power, The New Middle Ages. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). Find out more about Johanna at her website, vikingwomen.org.Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who writes about travel, culture, cuisine and culinary history, Russian history, and Royal History, with bylines in Reuters, Fodor's, USTOA, LitHub, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow and Have Personality Disorder, Will Rule Russia: A Pocket Guide to Russian History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

The Great War was perhaps the greatest single upheaval of the 20th century. While World War II saw more lives lost, in terms of the shock to European/Western civilization, the Great War was a more horrendous event. Perhaps nothing was as unexpected in this conflict as the sudden termination of the same in November 1918. From that time to this, historians have been considering why Germany and its allies decided to terminate the conflict when they did. Here to consider the matter once again, in this newest episode of Arguing History is Professor of History Emeritus Jeremy Black and Dr. Charles Coutinho of the Royal Historical Society.Professor Jeremy Black MBE, Is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Exeter. And a Senior Associate at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. A graduate of Queens College, Cambridge with a First, he is the author of well over one-hundred books. In 2008 he was awarded the “Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Lifetime Achievement.”Dr. 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 recently for Chatham House’s International Affairs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

To what degree did each of The Beatles exhibit emotional intelligence in the band’s final year?You'll find out in the discussion I had with Kenneth Womack about his new book Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and The End of The Beatles (Cornell University Press, 2019).Womack is the author of a two-volume biography of the life and work of Beatles producer George Martin. His forthcoming book, John Lennon, 1980: The Last Days in the Life, will be available in October 2020.Topics covered in this episode include:--Womack explains what Solid State refers to and where Abbey Road might rank in the band’s legacy. (Fortunately, the Magical Mystery Tour album wasn’t a top-three choice of his!)--Using the Big 5 model for personality traits, what might be the dominant traits of The Beatles given the options of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.--Why the band had reached a point where, like a bad marriage, it couldn’t survive any longer.For a transcript of this episode, click here.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of eight books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. To check out his “Faces of the Week” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Brian Greene is a Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he is the Director of the Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics, and co-founder and chair of the World Science Festival. He is well known for his TV mini-series about string theory and the nature of reality, including the Elegant Universe, which tied in with his best-selling 2000 book of the same name. In this episode, we talk about his latest popular book Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe (Random House, 2020)Until the End of Time gives the reader a theory of everything, both in the sense of a “state of the academic union”, covering cosmology and evolution, consciousness and computation, and art and religion, and in the sense of showing us a way to apprehend the often existentially challenging subject matter. Greene uses evocative autobiographical vignettes in the book to personalize his famously lucid and accessible explanations, and we discuss these episodes further in the interview. Greene also reiterates his arguments for embedding a form of spiritual reverie within the multiple naturalistic descriptions of reality that different areas of human knowledge have so far produced.John Weston is a University Teacher of English in the Language Centre at Aalto University, Finland. His research focuses on academic communication. He can be reached at john.weston@aalto.fi and @johnwphd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Siblinghood and Social Relations in Georgian England: Share and Share Alike (Manchester University Press, 2016), by Amy Harris, examines the impact sisters and brothers had on eighteenth-century English families and society. Using evidence from letters, diaries, probate disputes, court transcripts, prescriptive literature and portraiture, Harris argues that although parents’ wills often recommended their children 'share and share alike', siblings had to constantly negotiate between prescribed equality and practiced inequalities. This is the first monograph-length analysis of early modern siblings in England, and is at the forefront of sibling studies. The book is intended for a broad audience of scholars – particularly those interested in families, women, children and eighteenth-century social and cultural history.Dr. Christina Gessler’s background is in anthropology, women’s history, and literature. She works as a historian, poet, and photographer. In seeking the extraordinary in the ordinary, Gessler writes the histories of largely unknown women, poems about small relatable moments, and takes many, many photos in nature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies