War-stained: British Combatants and Uniforms, 1914–18

Historians have long recognized the role of military uniforms in marking the transformation of civilians into servicemen. However, this was not a simple transition, completed the moment individuals put on service dress shortly after enlistment. Rather, the process of transformation continued throughout servicemen’s lives in the military, reflecting changed circumstances that might include a move to a different war theatre, promotion, or illness and injury. Focusing on the experiences of British soldiers during the First World War, this article explores the meanings of uniforms as servicemen were transformed from raw recruits into experienced combatants. It questions the extent to which the stained and worn uniforms that seemed the inevitable outcome of front line duty were seen as consistent with the manly heroism expected of soldiers, paying attention not only to the army authorities’ insistence on ‘spit and polish’, but especially to combatants’ perceptions of the effect of dirt on their own identities and sense of self. Thus, this article argues, the transformation into combatants involved potentially dangerous and degrading encounters with dirt and vermin, but also the development of strategies — centred on bodies and on uniforms — that sought to counter the threat of long-term harm and pollution.     

British Imperialism and Cyprus 1878–1914: The Inconsequential Possession

In recent decades historians have devoted considerable attention to the historical treatment of indigenous title in Anglophone settler colonies. These scholarly accounts have tended to emphasise the role metropolitan legal and intellectual discourses played in the dispossession of indigenous peoples. In this article I present a critical analysis of an influential example of such work in respect to the British denial of Aboriginal rights in land in the colony of New South Wales before providing an alternative account of the manner in which Aboriginal title was treated, which focuses on the nature of the relations on the ground between sojourners, settlers and Aboriginal people, the ways in which these encounters were represented by the British and the local practices regarding the transfer of land.     

The Scots in South Africa: Ethnicity,Identity, Gender and Race, 1772–1914

In a Crystal Land: Canadian Explorers in Antarctica by Dean Beeby. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Pp. xii + 262, illus., maps. £19.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–8020–0362–1.

Habitants and Merchants in Seventeenth‐Century Montreal by Louise Dechêne, translated by Liana Vardi. Montreal and Kingston: McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1993. Pp. xxi + 428, map, tables. £52.25 (hardback); £21.00 (paperback). ISBN 0–7735–0658–6; 0–7735–0951–8.

While the Women Only Wept: Loyalist Refugee Women by Janice Potter‐MacKinnon. Montreal and Kingston: McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1993. Pp. xvi + 200. £29.70 (hardback). ISBN 0–7735–0962–3.

The Caribbean in the Wider World, 1492–1992: A Regional Geography by Bonham C. Richardson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. vi + 235, maps, tables. £30.00 (hardback); £11.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–521–35186–3; 0–521–35977–5.

Black Poor and White Philanthropists: London's Blacks and the Foundation of the Sierra Leone Settlement 1786–1791 by Stephen J. Braidwood. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1994. Pp. x + 324, maps. £16.50 (paperback). ISBN 0–85323–377–2.

The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia. Volume I: From Early Times to c.1800 edited by Nicholas Tarling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xv + 655, maps, illus. £55.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–521–35505–2.

India's Colonial Encounter: Essays in Memory of Eric Stokes edited by Mushirul Hasan and Narayani Gupta. New Delhi: Manohar, 1993. Pp. vi + 412. Rs.400. ISBN 81–7304–007–9.

Welteroberung und Christentum: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der Neuzeit by Horst Gründer. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1994. Pp. 751, maps and illustrations. DM 128. ISBN 3–579–00136–1.

Subverting Scotland's Past: Scottish Whig Historians and the Creation of an Anglo‐British Identity, 1689‐c.1830 by Colin Kidd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xiii + 322. £35.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–521–43484‐X.

Academe and Empire: Some Oversees Connections of Aberdeen University 1860–1970 by John D. Hargreaves. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1994. Pp. x + 142. £8.95. ISBN 1–85752–220–6.

Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800–1904) by Julia A. Clancy‐Smith. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1994. Pp. xxiii + 370. $45.00. ISBN 0–520–08242–7.

Servants and Gentlewomen to the Golden Land: The Emigration of Single Women from Britain to Southern Africa, 1820–1939 by Cecillie Swaisland. Oxford: Berg Publishers/University of Natal Press, 1993. Pp. xii + 186, illustrations. £25.00 (hardback); £10.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–85496–745–1; 0–85496–870–9.

God's Peoples: Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster by Donald Harman Akenson. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. Pp. xiv + 404, maps. $32.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–8014–2755‐X.

Regiments: Regiments and Corps of the British Empire and Commonwealth 1758–1993. A Critical Bibliography of their Published Histories. Compiled and published by Roger Perkins, Newton Abbot, 1994. Pp. 806. £92.50 (hardback). ISBN 0–9506429–3–2. Available from Roger Perkins, PO Box 29, Newton Abbot, Devon TQ12 1XU.

The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army, 1860–1940 by David Omissi. London: Macmillan, 1994. Pp. xx + 313. £45.00. ISBN 0–333–55049–8.

Public Health in British India: Anglo‐Indian Preventive Medicine 1859–1914 by Mark Harrison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. xviii + 324. £19.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–521–46688–1.

Hong Kong in Chinese History: Community and Social Unrest in the British Colony, 1842–1913 by Jung‐Fang Tsai. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Pp. xvix + 375, maps. $52.00. ISBN 0–231–07932‐X.

European Imperialism, 1860–1914 by Andrew Porter. Basingstoke, London: Macmillan, 1994. Pp. xiii + 119, maps. £5.99 (paperback). ISBN 0–333–48104–6.

Sons of the Empire: The Frontier and the Boy Scout Movement, 1890–1918 by Robert H. MacDonald. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. Pp. viii + 259. £22.75. ISBN 0–8020–2843–8.

The Dust Rose Like Smoke: The Subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux by James O. Gump. Lincoln, Nebraska and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1994. Pp. xii + 178, maps. £23.95 (hardback). ISBN 0–8032–2152–5.

A History of Ethiopia by Harold G. Marcus. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of Calfornia Press, 1994. Pp. xv + 261, maps. $35.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–520–08121–8.

Slow Death for Slavery: The Course of Abolition in Northern Nigeria, 1897–1936, by Paul E. Lovejoy and Jan S. Hogendorn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xvii + 391. £45.00 (hardback); £16.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–521–37469–3; 0–521–44702‐X.

The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation edited by E. R. Forbes and D. A. Muise. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. Pp. xii + 628. $60.00 (hardback); $29.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–8020–5886–8; 0–8020–6817–0.

Australian History in New South Wales 1888 to 1938 by Brian H. Fletcher. Sydney: New South Wales University Press, 1993. Pp. vii + 228. $24.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–86840–269–9.

Anzac Memories: Living with the Legend by Alistair Thomson. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994. Pp. vi + 282; photographs. £18.95 (hardback). ISBN 0–19553491–3.

Broken Promises: Popular Protest, Indian Nationalism and the Congress Party in Bihar, 1935–1946 by Vinita Damodaran. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. xiv + 398, 5 maps, 3 figures, 18 tables, 3 appendices. £18.95. ISBN 0–19–562979–5.

Rajani Palme Dutt: A Study in British Stalinism by John Callaghan. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1993. Pp. xi + 213. £19.99. ISBN 0–85315–7790.

Immigration, Ethnicity and Racism in Britain, 1815–1945 by Panikos Panayi. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994. Pp. vi + 170. £29.99 (hardback); £7.99 (paperback). ISBN 0–7190–3697–6; 0–7190–3698–4.

Macmillan by John Turner. London: Longman, 1994. Pp. vii + 302. £24.99 (hardback); £10.99 (paperback). ISBN 0–582–21880–2; 0–582–55386–5.

The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan by Robert J. McMahon. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Pp. xii + 431, maps. £25.00. ISBN 0–231–08226–6.

The Twilight of British Ascendancy in the Middle East: A Case Study of Iraq, 1941–1950 by Daniel Silverfarb. London: Macmillan, 1994. Pp. xii + 306, 2 maps. £34.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–333–62525–0.

The Wars of French Decolonization by Anthony Clayton. London: Longman, 1994. Pp. x + 234, maps. £32.00 (hardback); £11.99 (paperback) ISBN 0–582–09802–5; 0–582–09801–7.

Colonialism's Culture: Anthropology, Travel and Government by Nicholas Thomas. Oxford: Polity Press, 1994. Pp. viii + 238. £45.00 (hardback); £12.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–7456–0871‐X; 0–7456–1215–6.     

Ivory towers? The commercial activity of British professors of engineering and physics, 1880–1914

Abstract

The involvement of British academic scientists in commercial work has been often discussed by historians of science and technology. However a systematic study of this activity is still lacking. Focussing on the period 1880 to 1914, I examine the engagement in consulting, patenting and entrepreneurial initiatives of a segment of that community, namely engineering and physics professors. I discuss the institutional context in which it occurred and their motivations. The survey highlights that the majority of the engineering professors examined were involved in consulting and patenting, and a significant number of them pursued also entrepreneurial activities. As for the physics professors, only a few followed the example of their engineering colleagues, but did so vigorously. I argue that far from being reluctantly brought into the market for knowledge, the engineering as well as the physics professors who engaged these extra-academic activities eagerly sought to partake in the commercialization of the products of their scientific work.     

The Genesis of the British Hosiery Industry 1600–1750

Abstract

This article examines the historiography of children's dress, arguing that it has been limited by an unreflexive, uncritical conceptualisation of children and childhood. Drawing on insights afforded by the emergent field of childhood studies, by socially inflected perspectives on fashion and dress and by theories of consumption and consumer culture, the discussion turns toward ways of reconfiguring the historical study of children. It is suggested that future work may do well by embracing the ambiguities of children's identities, rather than trying to attenuate them.     

Character, ‘Ordered Liberty’, and the Mission to Civilise: British Moral Justification of Empire, 1870–1914

In a path-breaking study of the thought of Sir Henry Maine, Karuna Mantena has recently argued that the overthrow, in the second half of the nineteenth century, of the liberal imperialism promoted by Macaulay and James Mill meant that the ‘civilising mission’ became a mere alibi for continued British rule in the empire and that it was drained of all moral content. The article demonstrates, using a wide range of contemporary sources, that, although many British imperialists thought that Asian and African civilisations might never progress to the point of enjoying constitutional government, they did believe that it was the purpose of British rule to bring to their colonial subjects the benefits of what they called ‘ordered liberty’. This they saw as the foundation of Britain's own greatness and as essentially a moral force. Nonetheless, the article goes on to show that one purpose of the civilising mission was to strengthen empire sentiment at home, and thus to underwrite the moral authority of the gentlemanly elites who ran it. The latter feared that the advent of democracy in Britain might otherwise undermine ordered liberty at home and weaken the commitment to the imperial cause.     

Politics without democracy 1815–1914: Perception and preoccupation in British government

Nietzsche's embrace of the idea of eternal recurrence has long puzzled readers, both because the idea is inherently implausible and because it seems inconsistent with other aspects of his philosophy. This paper offers a novel account of Nietzsche's motives for that embrace—namely that Nietzsche found in eternal recurrence the only possible way to reconcile three potent and apparently conflicting convictions: (1) there are no Hinterwelten (“worlds-beyond”), (2) the great love (take joy in) all things just as they are (amor fati), and (3) all joy wills eternity. The case for this account has two parts. I show first that Nietzsche was deeply committed to each of these principles at or before the time the idea of eternal recurrence “came to” him in 1881 and second that these principles, though in apparent conflict, can, as Nietzsche understood them, be reconciled by, and only by, the idea of eternal recurrence. It follows, I argue, that the idea of eternal recurrence was originally independent of Nietzsche's conceptions of the will to power and the Übermensch.