‘Reassessments of Winston Churchill’: A Reply

LINDA GRANT DE PAUW. Battle Cries and Lullabies: Women in War from Prehistory to the Present. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. Pp. xvii, 395. $24.95 (US). Reviewed by Frances Early

JEFFREY D. LERNER. The Impact of Seleucid Decline on the Eastern Iranian Plateau: The Foundations of Arsacid Parthia and Graeco-Bactria. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1999. Pp. 139. DM 68.00. Reviewed by Richard Fowle

GOCHA R. TSETSKHLADZE, ed. The Greek Colonisation of the Black Sea Area: Historical Interpretation of Archaeology. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998. Pp. 336. DM 148.00. Reviewed by Vanessa B. Gorman

DANIEL POWER and NAOMI STANDEN, eds. Frontiers in Question: Eurasian Borderlands, 700–1700. New York: St Martin's Press, 1999. Pp. xxiv, 293. $59.95 (US). Reviewed by Peter C. Perdue

JAMES MULDOON. Empire and Order: The Concept of Empire, 800–1800. New York: St Martin's Press, 1999. Pp. viii, 209. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by John M. Headley

J. H. ELLIOTT and L. W. B. BROCKLISS, eds. The World of the Favourite. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999. Pp. xv,320. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by John C. Rule

PHILIP BENEDICT, GUIDO MARNEF, HENK VAN NIEROP, and MARC VENARD, eds. Reformation, Revolt, and Civil War in France and the Netherlands, 1555–1585. Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1999. Pp. vii, 298. NLG 95.00, paper. Reviewed by Mark Konnert

MICHAEL LEROY OBERG. Dominion and Civility: English Imperialism and Native America, 1585–1685. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999. Pp. x, 239. $42.50 (US). Reviewed by Ian K. Steele

HERBERT S. KLEIN. The Atlantic Slave Trade. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xxi, 234. $49.95 (US), cloth; $15.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by John Thornton

AGNES LATHAM and JOYCE YOUINGS, eds. The Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1999. Pp. bdii, 403. £45.00. Reviewed by Harry Kelsey

COLIN KIDD. British Identities before Nationalism: Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Atlantic World, 1600–1800. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. viii, 302. $59.95 (US). Reviewed by Arthur Williamson

VICTOR TREADWELL. Buckingham and Ireland, 1616–1628: A Study in Anglo-Irish Politics. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998; dist. Portland: ISBS. Pp. 443. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by Mark A. Kishlansky

DEREK CROXTON. Peacemaking in Early Modern Europe: Cardinal Mazarin and the Congress of Westphalia, 1643–1648. Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 1999. Pp. 397. $52.50 (US). Reviewed by Paul M. Sonnino

STUART BANNER. Anglo-American Securities Regulation: Cultural and Political Roots, 1690–1860. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xviii, 318. $69.95 (US). Reviewed by John A. James

EDMOND DZIEMBOWSKI. Un nouveau patriotisme français, 1750–1770: La France face à la puissance anglaise à l'époque de la guerre de Sept Ans. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1999. Pp. vii, 566. £75.00. Reviewed by Lucien Bély

MAX M. MINTZ. Seeds of Empire: The American Revolutionary Conquest of the Iroquois. New York: New York University Press, 1999. Pp. xi, 232. $28.95 (US). Reviewed by Colin G. Calloway

ALEX CALDER, JONATHAN LAMB, and BRIDGET ORR, eds. Voyages and Beaches: Pacific Encounters, 1769–1840. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999. Pp. viii, 344. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by I. C. Campbell

JERZY LUKOWSKI. The Partitions of Poland, 1772, 1793, 1795. London and New York: Longman, 1999. Pp. xv, 232. £42.00, cloth; £13.99, paper. Reviewed by Robert E.Jones

NORMAN HAMPSON. The Perfidy of Albion: French Perceptions of England during the French Revolution. New York: St Martin's Press, 1998. Pp. xiii, 181. $59.95 (US). Reviewed by Michael Duffy

KEN POST. Revolution and the European Experience, 1789–1914. New York: St Martin's Press, 1999. Pp. xi, 227. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by Peter N. Stearns

FREDERICK W. KAGAN. The Military Reforms of Nicholas I: The Origins of the Modern Russian Army. New York: St Martin's Press, 1999. Pp. xii, 337. $49.95 (US). Reviewed by Marc Raeff

T. R. MOREMAN. The Army in India and the Development of Frontier Warfare, 1849–1947. New York: St Martin's Press, 1998. Pp. xxiii, 258. $72.00 (US) Reviewed by David Omissi

JOSE C. MOYA. Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Pp. xviii, 567. $25.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Monica Quijada

STEFAN LIPPERT. Felix Fiirst m Schwarzenberg: Eine politische Biographic. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998. Pp. 445. DM 168.00. Reviewed by Lawrence Sondhaus

STEPHEN M. HARRIS. British Military Intelligence in the Crimean War, 1854–1856. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 1999. Pp. xxiv, 182. $52.50 (US). Reviewed by Ann Pottinger Saab

KOJI KAWASHIMA. Missionaries and a Hindu State: Travancore, 1858–1936. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp. x, 252. $43.50 (CDN). Reviewed by Penelope Carson

DAVID ALAN RICH. The Tsar's Colonels: Professionalism, Strategy, and Subversion in Late Imperial Russia. Cambridge, Mass, and London: Harvard University Press, 1998. Pp. xiv, 293. $49.95 (US). Reviewed by W. Bruce Lincoln

GREG MARQUIS. In Armageddon's Shadow: The Civil War and Canada's Maritime Provinces. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998. Pp. xx, 389. $34.95 (CDN). Reviewed by Eric W. Sager

IRVING STONE. The Global Export of Capital from Great Britain, 1865–1914: A Statistical Survey. New York: St Martin's Press, 1999. Pp. xi, 430. $75.00 (US). Reviewed by C. H. Feinstein

GEORGE VON RAUCH. Conflict in the Southern Cone: The Argentine Military and the Boundary Dispute with Chile, 1870–1902. Westport: Praeger, 1999. Pp. xii, 229. $69.50 (US). Reviewed by David Rock

CLAUDIA LINDA REESE. Neuseeland und Deutschland: Handelsabkommen, Aufienhandelspolitik und Handel von 1871 bis 1973. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998. Pp. xxv, 378. DM 148.00, paper. Reviewed by John A. Moses

GERALD FRIEDMAN. State-Making and Labor Movements: France and the United States, 1876–1914. Idiaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv, 317. $55.00 (US). Reviewed by Samuel Cohn

ANDREAS ECKERT. Grundhesitz, Landkonflikte und kolonialer Wandeh Douala 1880 bis 1960. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1999. Pp. x, 503. DM 144.00, paper. Reviewed by Dierk Walter

WOLFRAM HARTMANN, JEREMY SILVESTER, and PATRICIA HAYES, eds. The Colonising Camera: Photographs in the Making of Namibian History. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1999. Pp. vii, 220. $29.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Subhash Jaireth

JULIE F. CODELL and DIANNE SACHKO MACLEOD, eds. Orientalism Transposed: The Impact of the Colonies on British Culture. Aldershot and Brookfield: Ashgate, 1998. Pp. xiii, 249. $84.95 (US). Reviewed by John M. MacKenzie

ANGEL SMITH and EMMA DÁVILA-COX, eds. The Crisis of l898: Colonial Redistribution and Nationalist Mobilization. New York: St Martin's Press, 1999. Pp. ix, 221. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by Jules R. Benjamin

STEPHEN M. MILLER. Lord Methuen and the British Army: Failure and Redemption in South Africa. London and Pordand: Frank Cass, 1999. Pp. 279. $57.50 (US), cloth; $26.50 (US), paper. Reviewed by Ian F. W. Beckett

DAVID A. LAKE. Entangling Relations: American Foreign Policy in Its Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp. xii, 332. $60.00 (US). Reviewed by Alfred E. Eckes

JONATHAN SCHNEER. London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999. Pp. ix,336. $29.95(US). Reviewed by Peter Cain

DARSHAN SINGH TATLA. The Sikh Diaspora: The Search for Statehood. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999. Pp. xiv, 327. $22.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Hugh Johnston

CHRISTOPH JAHR. Gewöhnliche Soldaten: Desertion und Deserteure im deutschen und britischen Heer, 1914–1918. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &; Ruprecht, 1998. Pp. 419. DM 78.00. Reviewed by Jay Winter

JAN HEITMANN. Unter Wasser in die Neue Welt: Handelsunterseeboote und kaiserliche Unterseekreuzer im Spannungsfeld von Politik und Kriegführung. Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 1999. Pp. 365. DM 78.00, paper. Reviewed by Holger H. Herwig

ALEXANDRU CRETZIANU. Relapse into Bondage: Political Memoirs of a Romanian Diplomat, 1918–1947, ed. Sherman David Spector. Ia?i: Center for Romanian Studies, 1998; dist. Portland: ISBS. Pp. 351. $50.00 (US). Reviewed by Dov B. Lungu

INBAL ROSE. Conservatism, and Foreign Policy during the Lloyd George Coalition, 1918–1922. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 1999. Pp. xxix, 289. $54.50 (US). Reviewed by Alan Sharp

PATRICK PASTURE and JOHAN VERBERCKMOES, eds. Working-Class Internationalism and the Appeal of National Identity: Historical Debates and Current Perspectives. Oxford and New York: Berg, 1998. Pp. vii, 263. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by Carl Strikwerda

JOHN E. MOSER. Twisting the Lion's Tail: American Anglophobia between the World Wars. New York: New York University Press, 1999. Pp. x, 263. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by John A. Thompson

DAVID F. SCHMITZ. Thank God They're on Our Side: The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1921–1965. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. Pp. xi, 383. $18.95 (US)> paper. Reviewed by Anders Stephanson

MALCOLM ANDERSON and EBERHARD BORT, eds. The Irish Border: History, Politics, Culture. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999; dist. Portland: ISBS. Pp. 286. $21.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by S. J. Connolly

AZAR GAT. Fascist and Liberal Visions of War: Fuller, LiddeU Hart, Douhet, and Other Modernists. New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp. viii, 334. $130.50 (CDN); BRIAN HOLDEN REID. Studies in British Military Thought: Debates with Fuller and LiddeU Hart. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. Pp. xviii, 287. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by Robert H. Larson

ALEX DANCHEV. Alchemist of War: The Life of Basil Liddell Hart. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1998. Pp. xiv, 369. £25.00. Reviewed by John P. Campbell

HORST BOOG, JÜRGEN FÖRSTER, JOACHIM HOFFMANN, ERNST KLINK, ROLF-DlETER MÜLLER, and GERD R. UEBERSCHÄR. Germany and the Second World War: IV: The Attack on the Soviet Union, trans. Dean S. McMurray, Ewald Osers, and Louise Wilmott. New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp. xxxi, 1,364. $362.50 (CDN). Accompanied by a booklet of maps: Der Angriff auf die Sowjetunion. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1983. Reviewed by Lawrence D. Stokes

NATALIIA S. LEBEDEVA and M. M. NARINSKII, eds. Komintern i vtoraia mirovaia voina: I: 1939–1941. Moscow: Pamiatnikii Istoricheskoi Myslii (PIM), 1994. Pp. 554; II: Posh 22 Iuniia 1941. Moscow: PIM, 1998. Pp. 595. No Price Available. Reviewed by Anna M. Cienciala

PENNY SUMMERFIELD. Reconstructing Women's Wartime Lives: Discourse and Subjectivity in Oral Histories of the Second World War. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998; dist. New York: St Martin's Press. Pp. xiii, 338. $29.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Nicoletta F. Gullace

DAVID B. WOOLNER, ed. The Second Quebec Conference Revisited: Waging War, Formulating Peace: Canada, Great Britain, and the United States in 1944–1945. New York: St Martin's Press, 1998. Pp. xiii, 210. $49.95 (US). Reviewed by Geoffrey Hayes

NICHOLAS TARLING. Britain, Southeast Asia, and the Onset of the Cold War, 1945–1950. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. x, 488. $64.95 (US). Reviewed by Matthew Jones

ZACHARY KARABELL. Architects of Intervention: The United States, the Third World, and the Cold War, 1946–1962. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999. Pp. 248. $37.50 (US), cloth; $16.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by David S. Painter

IAN MCGIBBON, ed. Unofficial Channels: Letters between Alister Mclntosh and Foss Shanahan, George Laking, and Frank Corner, 1946–1966. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1999. Pp. 360. $39.95 (NZ), paper. Reviewed by Michael Bassett

SELIG S. HARRISON, PAUL H. KREISBERG, and DENNIS KUX, eds. India and Pakistan: The First Fifty Years. Washington and New York: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xii, 216. $49.95 (US), cloth; $16.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Anita Inder Singh

NOEL E. FIRTH and JAMES H. NOREN. Soviet Defense Spending: A History of CIA Estimates, 1950–1990. College Station: Texas A &; M University Press, 1998. Pp. xix, 291. $49.95 (US). Reviewed by John P. Hardt

BERT EDSTRÖM. Japan's Evolving Foreign Policy Doctrine: From Yoshida to Miyazawa. New York: St Martin's Press, 1999. Pp. x, 216. $72.00 (US). Reviewed by Christopher W. Hughes

NICK CULLATHER. Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952–1954. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Pp. xl, 142. $39.50 (US), cloth; $14.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by STEPHEN G. RABE

MOTTI GOLANI. Israel in Search of a War: The Sinai Campaign, 1955–1956. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 1998. Pp. x, 236. $69.95 (US). Reviewed by Howard J. Dooley

CAMPBELL CRAIG. Destroying the Village: Eisenhower and Thermonuclear War. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. Pp. xiv, 216. $22.50 (US), paper. Reviewed by John Prados

CHRISTIAN BREMEN. Die Eisenhower-Administration und die zweite Berlin-Krise, 1958–1961. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1998. Pp. xi, 625. DM 298.00. Reviewed by Wolfgang Krieger

ELIZABETH COBBS HOFFMAN. All You Need is Love: The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960s. Cambridge, Mass, and London: Harvard University Press, 1998. Pp. viii, 306. $27.95 (US). Reviewed by Jonathan S. Russ

KEN ENDO. The Presidency of the European Commission under Jacques Delors: The Politics of Shared Leadership. New York: St Martin's Press, 1999. Pp. xx, 260. $69.95 (US). Reviewed by G. W. Jones

WILLIAM E. ODOM. The Collapse of the Soviet Military. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998. Pp. xiii, 523. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by Lawrence Freedman

CHRISTOPHER C. JOYNER. Governing the Frozen Commons: The Antarctic Regime and Environmental Protection. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998; dist. Toronto: Scholarly Book Services. Pp. xvii, 363. $41.25 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by Maarten J. de Wit

JOHN BUCKLEY. Air Power in the Age of Total War. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999. Pp. ix, 260. $19.95 (US). Reviewed by Michael Sherry     

‘The Indian Gift’: A critical debate

In 1986 Jonathan Parry’s ‘The Gift, the Indian Gift and the “Indian Gift”’ claimed to overturn conventional understandings of Marcel Mauss, by arguing that market societies most idealize the distinction between gifts and commodities, and gift giving need not entail reciprocity. Based on an analysis of Hindu religious gifts, Parry proposed a broad framework for understanding how ideologies of exchange function in different economic and cosmological contexts. Thirty years later, this symposium considers the intellectual milieu in which The Indian Gift was written, and interrogates whether or not the work remains relevant to contemporary research and analysis. The symposium opens with a short introduction that provides some background to Parry’s essay and incorporates material from a recent interview with him. This is followed by critical comments on it by five influential thinkers on gift exchange: James Carrier, Chris Gregory, James Laidlaw, Marilyn Strathern and Yunxiang Yan. It ends with a short ‘revisionist’ note by Parry in which he tries to identify some of the limits of the Maussian approach for contemporary anthropology.     

DAVID AS A BIBLICAL ‘GOOD-FELLA’ AND ‘THE GODFATHER’

Abstract

Scholars search for analogies with which to better understand biblical texts. David has been compared to the “outlaw”, “refugee”, “vassal”, “renegade”, “guerrilla”, “bandit chief”, “fugitive” and “fugitive hero”. This article suggest that there are better cultural-social analogies, i.e., David as a “goodfellan”while in exile from Saul and in the land of the Philistines, and upon accession to the throne, “The Godfather”.

This article also has, as a part of its purpose, the intent to unmask some of the behavior of David and of monarchy for what they are: essentially organized crime maintained in large part by the use of indiscriminate violence-supported by nonsensical myths and obvious hypocrisy.

Cross-cultural comparisons are made throughout between the David stories, gangster movies and systems of monarchy—especially the ad hoc feudal type. Historical questions aside: The David stories can be “cross-culturally” compared with gangster films as “art”.     

The ‘R-Word’ and ‘E-Word’ Definitional Controversies: A Dialogue with My Five Interlocutors

In this piece, I reply to the principal criticisms made by my five interlocutors regarding my conception of Eurocentrism. This entails two key aspects with the first section discussing the ‘E-Word definitional controversy’, where I argue, in the light of the forum, that there are various competing definitions of Eurocentrism in postcolonialism which yield commensurable competing non-Eurocentric antidotes. While I defend my own position, I am interested in revealing this complex picture because it has not been brought to light before and I urge postcolonialists to debate these different conceptions. The second section considers the ‘R-Word controversy’ wherein my interlocutors want me to row back on my claim that post-1945 social science theory is founded on subliminal Eurocentric institutionalism rather than scientific racism or neo-racism. There I consider some of the issues that are stake while concluding that modern Eurocentrism is indeed embedded in racialised thought.     

From ‘Breathless Catalogue’ to ‘Beyond Text’: A Hundred Years of Children’s Folklore Collecting

This lecture draws attention to research into children’s folklore in Britain from the last century, stressing its potential to inform understandings of contemporary childhoods, particularly children’s play. The emphasis is on archival sources, such as the collections of Norman Douglas, James Ritchie, and Iona and Peter Opie. The changing nature of contemporary evidence, such as children’s self-produced films of their play shared on YouTube, is also illustrated, and the importance of a multimodal approach stressed. The author compares the historical sources with the collectors’ published work, and highlights the need for rigour in appraising these differing forms of evidence.     

The Gesta Roberti Wiscardi: A ‘Byzantine’ history?

In the last 150 years of scholarship, opinions have always differed as to just who William of Apulia was, and for which audience his epic poem the Gesta Roberti Wiscardi (completed c. 1099) was written. Many have felt that the work is not only pro-Norman, but vehemently anti-Byzantine. This article reconsiders the arguments about William’s poem. Firstly, William seems to have particularly identified with those who exhibited a marked respect for, and association with, the eastern empire. Secondly, it will be suggested that not only did William know Greek ― not an uncommon phenomenon in southern Italy ― but that he may well have drawn on sources written in that language, perhaps even the same material used by his near contemporaries Michael Attaleiates and John Skylitzes. Thirdly, despite the fact that observers normally emphasise William’s preference for the image of muliebres Byzantines, it is argued that the Gesta Roberti Wiscardi actually underscores their virtus.     

‘Comfort’ and Conviction: A Response to Bernard Porter

Bernard Porter's efforts to answer the critics of his book The Absent-Minded Imperialists (there were many favourable responses too) contain much that is helpful and conciliatory, but some remain, in my view, largely unconvincing. The debate is immensely complex and I could have operated on a much broader front, but, in the interests of brevity, I concentrate (as well as agreeing with some aspects of Porter's arguments) on schools, the theatre, the church, popular literature, class and ethnicity. Prospects for further research are also mentioned.     

A FAREWELL TO ‘RURAL BLISS’

The article discusses health policies towards school children in Norway from 1900 until the Second World War. It is concerned with dominant definitions of health threats against children and the variables used in defining the groups conceived as most vulnerable to poor health. A distinct change took place in the period. Whereas in the early 1900s poor and working‐class children in urban surroundings were considered to be under severe threats, in the 1920s a less specific category of ‘children’ were conceived as threatened. Eventually rural children were singled out as the important target group for health measures. The shifts had medical as well as political motivations. Another prominent feature in the period was that poverty took on a new meaning in the dominant medical discourse on children: from having been conceived as a material reality impinging upon health, it came to be considered mainly a cultural problem. Especially medical officers within the social democratic camp contested this argument although they did not rule out education and cultural transformation as a means to promote children's health. Despite the conceptual shift, however, social benefits and equal access to health services – measures that lay at the heart of the post‐war welfare state – remained in the 1930s an essential part of promoting children's health.     

‘Where we need to go’: comments on ‘decennial reflections on A Geography of Heritage’

This article is a comment on: Tubridge et al., 2012. Decennial reflections on a ‘geography of heritage’ (2000). International Journal of Heritage Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2012.695038