The English Historical Review - current issue

George Holmes (1927-2009)

Bernard, G. — 2009-05-22

History and Hagiography in the Late Eleventh Century: The Life and Work of Herman the Archdeacon, Monk of Bury St Edmunds

Licence, T. — 2009-05-22

During the 1090s, a monk of Bury St Edmunds, called Herman, wrote an account of St Edmund's miracles by weaving them into a historical framework founded on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. His aim was to portray St Edmund as a national saint whose mercies had helped to shape the fortunes of the English people. Herman's work is an invaluable source for historians working on the eleventh century, but his identity is in doubt with the consequence that even his name is disputed. Antonia Gransden argues that ‘Herman’ in fact was a French hagiographer called Bertran who came to England c. 1090. The present article overturns this theory, painting quite a different picture of the monk whose work sheds new light on historical writing and intellectual culture at his monastery. Formerly a senior cleric in the bishop's household, Herman had spent up to thirty years or more in East Anglia, managing the bishop's correspondence with the king and dealing with major players who feature in his history. As a senior monk at Bury St Edmunds he would preach to the common people and invite them to revere the saint's relics. Moreover, he had an ambitious vision for his written project, which was uniquely innovative for its time as much in its portrayal of history as in its design.

'Requisites of a Considerable Trade': The Letters of Robert Plumsted, Atlantic Merchant, 1752-58

Smith, S.D., Wheeley, T.R. — 2009-05-22

The 1,551 letters written by the Quaker merchant, Robert Plumsted of London, provide a unique insight into transatlantic commerce and credit during the early phase of the Seven Years War. The rare survival of his last two letter books allow for a reconstruction of his firm's accounts and reveal a cyclical trade, with net-flows of capital in and out of his business of up to £10,000. Trade with the West Indies and North America posed difficulties, not least the ongoing management of the cash-gap (referred to by contemporaries as ‘Circulation’), as well as problems caused by the onset of war. In its blend of socio-religious commentary and financial insights, the letter books illustrate how Plumsted used private ordering systems to ease transactions. Moreover, his often frank expositions to Friends on the moral requirements of merchants and customers highlight the importance of social capital within the Quaker community. The letters demonstrate how trust was cemented by the operation of family succession, reputation-promoting behaviour, arbitration mechanisms, Quaker ostracism, and a rhetoric of persuasion. Yet the correspondence also demonstrates how the expansion of colonial market redefined the qualities needed to be a successful merchant, and how Plumstead was forced to react to changes in the transatlantic iron trade. Influenced by the mid-eighteenth century Quaker reform movement, Plumsted criticised declining standards of conduct among traders and condemned over-liberal credit extension.

The German Community in Manchester, Middle-Class Culture and the Development of Mountaineering in Britain, c. 1850-1914

Westaway, J. — 2009-05-22

The German community in Manchester formed the most significant international element in the Manchester bourgeoisie c.1850-1914 and contributed significantly to the city's commercial and cultural life. This study examines German models of voluntary association that linked sport and recreation, education and culture in the context of the Germanophile cultural and intellectual life of the city. Nonconformist élites within Manchester shared liberal and reformist ideals with German émigré groups, not least in the area of education. The German-Unitarian contribution to the kindergarten system, progressive education and the gymnastics movement is examined in some detail. With their emphasis on the whole child, physical education, physical culture and the balance to be achieved between mind and body, these pedagogic innovations were to have a significant influence on the nascent outdoor movement in the region. A number of important implications for the historiography of mountaineering are drawn out. The presence of a gymnastic tradition in the city is relevant to the debates on the emergence of rock climbing as a sport distinct from mountaineering in the 1880s and 1890s. Historians of British mountaineering have tended to characterize the sport as dominated by the world view of the gentlemanly upper-middle class, shot through with the chivalric codes of manliness, athleticism and the exploratory impulse and intent on satisfying nationalistic and imperial preoccupations. This paper argues that, in the context of a regional middle-class sporting and recreational culture, cosmopolitan intellectual and cultural links were just as significant as the dominant national discourse. It opens up the possibility of understanding mountaineering as not just part of an imperial discourse of conquest but also one rooted in the Enlightenment tradition of inner exploration and intellectual bildung.

'The Less Said about Suez the Better': British Governments and the Politics of Suez's History, 1956-67

Beck, P. J. — 2009-05-22

From an early stage of the 1956 Suez Crisis serious questions were raised about British policy, most notably about alleged collusion with the French and Israeli governments. Unconvinced by the Eden government's denials, critics accused ministers of misleading parliament and the country, and particularly of intervening in Egypt on a false pretext. The subsequent military debacle merely compounded the problem. Subsequently, Labour and Liberal MPs and peers conducted a determined parliamentary campaign, boosted by fresh revelations made in successive publications, in support of both a public inquiry and an official history on Suez. Unsurprisingly between 1956 and 1964 successive Conservative Governments rejected such demands, given the involvement of several ministers in the Eden government. Despite fostering expectations of a change of course, the 1964-70 Labour governments merely followed the position taken by their Conservative predecessors, particularly given the continuities in official advice pointing to the adverse domestic and foreign policy consequences of commissioning either a public inquiry or official history about Suez. Highlighting the politics of Suez's history, this episode helps explain why over fifty years on Suez occupies still a prominent place in contemporary political vocabulary in Britain, as demonstrated by the manner in which debates about British intervention in the 2003 Iraq War have been framed in part by echoes of Suez.

Making Sense of the Early Middle Ages

Collins, R. — 2009-05-22

The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales

Breeze, A. — 2009-05-22

Orthodoxy and the Courts in Late Antiquity

Kulikowski, M. — 2009-05-22

Feasting the Dead: Food and Drink in Anglo-Saxon Burial Rituals

Banham, D. — 2009-05-22

Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity

West, C. — 2009-05-22

Edgar, King of the English, 959-975

Williams, A. — 2009-05-22

The Earls of Mercia: Lordship and Power in Late Anglo-Saxon England

Stafford, P. — 2009-05-22

Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus' c. 900-1200

Abrams, L. — 2009-05-22

Women, Crusading and the Holy Land in Historical Narrative

Nicholson, H. J. — 2009-05-22

Reading the Qur'an in Latin Christendom, 1140-1560

Tolan, J. — 2009-05-22

The Seventh Crusade, 1244-1254: Sources and Documents

Tyerman, C.J. — 2009-05-22

Medieval Religion: A Sourcebook

Cushing, K. G. — 2009-05-22

The Interdict in the Thirteenth Century: A Question of Collective Guilt

Haseldine, J.P. — 2009-05-22

Eclipse of Empire? Perceptions of the Western Empire and its Rulers in Late-Medieval France

Jones, M. — 2009-05-22

Passion and Order: Restraint of Grief in the Medieval Italian Communes

Prudlo, D. S. — 2009-05-22

Studies on the Hospitallers after 1306: Rhodes and the West

Riley-Smith, J. — 2009-05-22

The Gough Map: The Earliest Road Map of Great Britain?

Harrison, D. — 2009-05-22

Florence and Beyond: Culture, Society, and Politics in Renaissance Italy: Essays in Honour of John M. Najemy

Jurdjevic, M. — 2009-05-22

The Fifteenth Century. Vol. VII: Conflicts, Consequences and the Crown in the Later Middle Ages

Pollard, A. — 2009-05-22

The Late Medieval Interlude: The Drama of Youth and Aristocratic Masculinity

Fletcher, C. — 2009-05-22

Roman Monarchy and the Renaissance Prince

Rundle, D. — 2009-05-22

The Plain Man's Pathways to Heaven: Kinds of Christianity in Post-Reformation England, 1570-1640 * Altars Restored: The Changing Face of English Religious Worship, 1547-c.1700

Green, I. — 2009-05-22

Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe

Janssen, G. H. — 2009-05-22

Hunting and the Politics of Violence before the English Civil War

Rollison, D. — 2009-05-22

Royalism, Print and Censorship in Revolutionary England

Wilcher, R. — 2009-05-22

Royalists and Royalism during the English Civil Wars

Smith, G. — 2009-05-22

Age of Atrocity: Violence and Political Conflict in Eearly Modern Ireland

Little, P. — 2009-05-22

Politics, Transgression, and Representation at the Court of Charles II

Jenkinson, M. — 2009-05-22

West Country Farms: House-and-Estate Surveys, 1598-1764

Stevenson, J. — 2009-05-22

The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America

Lambert, F. — 2009-05-22

Commemorating the Dead in Revolutionary France: Revolution and Remembrance, 1789-1799

Legacey, E.-M. — 2009-05-22

The British Empire: Themes and Perspectives

Laidlaw, Z. — 2009-05-22

Unrespectable Radicals? Popular Politics in the Age of Reform

Navickas, K. — 2009-05-22

The Catholic Church and the Protestant State: Nineteenth-Century Irish Realities

Smyth, J. — 2009-05-22

Robert Peel: A Biography

Skinner, S.A. — 2009-05-22

Popular Culture and the Public Sphere in the Rhineland, 1800-1850

Rowe, M. — 2009-05-22

China Trade and Empire: Jardine, Matheson & Co. and the Origins of British Rule in Hong Kong, 1827-1843

Wang, H.-C. — 2009-05-22

Equations from God: Pure Mathematics and Victorian Faith

Hannabuss, K.C. — 2009-05-22

A Fair Day's Wage for a Fair Day's Work? Sweated Labour and the Origins of Minimum Wage Legislation in Britain

Todd, S. — 2009-05-22

Certain Other Countries: Homicide, Gender, and National Identity in Late Nineteenth-Century England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales

Fegan, M. — 2009-05-22

Hunger: A Modern History

Rich, R. — 2009-05-22

Caught in the Machinery: Workplace Accidents and Injured Workers in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Johnston, R. — 2009-05-22

The Transformation of Urban Liberalism: Party Politics and Urban Governance in Late Nineteenth-Century England

Roberts, M. — 2009-05-22

Michael Davitt: Freelance Radical and Frondeur

Kelly, M. — 2009-05-22

British Democracy and Irish Nationalism, 1876-1906

Loughlin, J. — 2009-05-22

Contesting the German Empire, 1871-1918

Chickering, R. — 2009-05-22

Our Friend 'The Enemy': Elite Education in Britain and Germany before World War I

Anderson, R.D. — 2009-05-22

The Demands of Liberty: Civil Society since the Revolution

Jones, H.S. — 2009-05-22

Custom and Conflict in the 'Land of the Gael': Ballachulish, 1900-1910

Freeman, M. — 2009-05-22

Railways and the Russo-Japanese War: Transporting War

Howard, M. — 2009-05-22

Der Almanach des 'Blauen Reiters' als Gesamtkunstwerk

Stargardt, N. — 2009-05-22

Conscience and Conflict: Methodism, Peace and War in the Twentieth Century

Bebbington, D.W. — 2009-05-22

A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel

Takriti, A. R. — 2009-05-22

Mothers of Heroes, Mothers of Martyrs: World War I and the Politics of Grief

Horne, J. — 2009-05-22

Twisted Paths: Europe, 1914-1945

Kitchen, M. — 2009-05-22

To The Threshold of Power, 1922/33. Volume I: Origins and Dynamics of the Fascist and National Socialist Dictatorships

Fritzsche, P. — 2009-05-22

Versohnung von Nation und Sozialismus? Lothar Erdmann (1888-1939): Ein 'leidenschaftlicher Individualist' in der Gewerkschaftsspitze. Biographie und Auszuge aus den Tagebuchern

Berger, S. — 2009-05-22

Germany and the Origins of the Second World War

Fischer, C. — 2009-05-22

National Cleansing: Retribution against Nazi Collaborators in Postwar Czechoslovakia

Cornwall, M. — 2009-05-22

Expelling the Germans: British Opinion and Post-1945 Population Transfer in Context

Rothwell, V. — 2009-05-22

L'Italia repubblicana vista da fuori (1945-2000)

Bosworth, R.J.B. — 2009-05-22

The Guardsmen

Bogdanor, V. — 2009-05-22

The Many Lives of Khrushchev's Thaw: Experience and Memory in Moscow's Arbat

Smith, M. B. — 2009-05-22

Katholische Kirche und Sozialwissenschaften, 1945-1975

Menge, A. — 2009-05-22

Attention is also drawn to the following publications:{dagger}

2009-05-22