Edward Gibbon and the Roman Empire

MARTIN GILBERT. Second World War. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989. Pp. xix, 846.

BARRIE and FRANCIS PITT. The Chronological Atlas of World War II. London: Macmillan, 1989. Pp. xi, 178.

CORRELLI BARNETT, ed. Hitler's Generals. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989. Pp. xix, 497.

GEOFFREY ROBERTS. The Unholy Alliance: Stalin's Pact with Hitler. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989. Pp. xviii, 296.

VICTOR SUVOROV. Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?, trans. Thomas B. Beattie. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990. Pp. xvii, 364.

ROY DOUGLAS. The World War 1939–1943: The Cartoonists' Vision. London and New York: Routledge, 1990. Pp. xii, 300.

PAUL FUSSELL. Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Pp. x, 330.     

Approaches to the Roman Empire: A Perspective

MIRIAM T. GRIFFIN. Nero: The End of A Dynasty. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984. Pp. 320. $25 (US); RICHARD J.A. TALBERT. The Senate of Imperial Rome. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984. Pp. xviii, 583. $60 (US); J.B. CAMPBELL. The Emperor and the Roman Army 31 BC-AD 235. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. Pp. xx, 468. $54 (US); ROBERT L. WILKEN. The Christians as the Romans Saw Them. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984. Pp. xx, 214. $18.95 (US); HOWARD CLARK KEE. Miracle in the Early Christian World: A Study in Sociohistorical Method. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983. Pp. xii, 320. $25 (US).     

Political Culture in the Holy Roman Empire

This article reviews six essay collections and one monographon late medieval and early modern political culture in the HolyRoman Empire. Following a general survey of historiographicaltrends and a discussion of the specific contributions of theworks under review (covering topics from international relations,state formation and the role of language to representative assembliesand the exercise of power in towns and villages), it attemptsa preliminary sketch of the basic parameters of pre-modern politics.Prominent insights include shifts in the balance between oral,ritual and written communication, the significance of informalbonds and the negotiated quality of developments at all levelsof government. The conclusion assesses the potential of the‘new’ political history and calls for renewed effortsto link discourses, representations and perceptions to the norms,structures and socio-economic conditions with which they interacted.     

《皇帝编年史》中的帝国与教会——对中世纪盛期方言历史书写的考察

《皇帝编年史》作为12世纪中后期巴伐利亚地区以中古德语撰写的首部方言编年史,具有重要的史学史和文学史价值,也是德意志地区12世纪文艺复兴时期的代表作品。12世纪中期兴盛起来的帝国理念贯穿了《皇帝编年史》的始终,形成了特殊的基督教道德与帝国意识形态教化的结合。《皇帝编年史》通过对教宗—皇帝之间合作的理想化描绘和对重大冲突的选择性忽略,以历史书写的方式建构出一种典范和谐的政教关系。这一调和论倾向既反映了该作品的具体历史语境,也体现了异于拉丁文历史作品的书写动机和书写意图。这部12世纪历史书写中的另类作品体现了强烈世俗化倾向,成为考察中世纪史学在12世纪文艺复兴时期演变的重要切入点。     

Camels in the northern provinces of the Roman Empire

This paper describes the camel bones discovered in two Late Roman contexts from Arlon (Belgium). The morphological and metrical analyses identify the animal as a dromedary.     

Areopagitica,freedom of the press,and heterodox religion in the Holy Roman Empire

Milton’s Areopagitica (1644) is widely recognised as a foundational work in the philosophical history of the freedom of the press, although it had little impact upon first publication. However, in 1989 Leo Miller discovered an early German-language critique of Areopagitica from 1647, preserved among the papers of the Anglo-Prussian intelligencer Samuel Hartlib. The present article identifies the critic as the Brandenburg scholar Joachim Hübner, a key member of Hartlib’s networks. Available evidence suggests strongly that Hübner considered translating Milton’s tract in order to promote the printing and distribution of heterodox doctrines of spiritualist Christianity in the Holy Roman Empire. Using the short critique of Areopagitica as a springboard, this article demonstrates through biographical and contextual research the interrelations of political and religious cultures of the period, and that questions of freedom of the press were central to promoters of heterodox religious doctrine not only in England but also on the continent.     

The Alcester Waterworks Company: A Study in the Small-scale Technology of Water Supply

Abstract

The Alcester Waterworks Company supplied a small town in Warwickshire with water from 1879 until 1947. Always a miniscule concern, the company used very simple technology throughout its existence. The introduction of a gas engine as a replacement for a waterwheel as a source of power for pumping produced a reduction in pumping expenses which transformed the company's financial affairs. The surviving remains of the company's installations give a picture of the simple technology used and allow some tentative conclusions to be made about the causes of the difficulties with pumping which the company experienced in its early days.     

Gender and Sanctity in the Middle Ages

This review essay examines recent trends and developments in the study of medieval sanctity and gender, looking at the range of approaches which have been and are being taken by both historians and literary scholars to a wide variety of hagiographic texts. Two recent studies of medieval hagiography are reviewed, John Kitchen, Saints' Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender: Male and Female in Merovingian Hagiography and the collection Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters edited by Catherine Mooney. These works are representative of differing approaches to the issue of male authors' representations of female sanctity and concomitant issues of gender ideology.