The changing geographical distribution of wealth in England: 1086–1334–1525

Attempts hitherto made to assess changes in the geographical distribution of wealth in medieval England have inevitably been based upon county totals. A more detailed coverage is now possible with the completion of the mapping of information from the Domesday Inquest of 1086 and the lay subsidies of 1334 and 1524–1525. The outstanding feature that emerges is that there were considerable changes, but that the areas of change in 1086–1334 were very different from those of 1334–1525. Before 1334, the main increases in wealth took place in three areas: (1) in the silt belt of the Fenland; (2) in the north where William the Conqueror had devastated the countryside in 1069–1070; and (3) in scattered areas of marsh, wood and afforested land over the rest of the countryside. After 1334, the main areas of increment were five: (1) the south-west peninsula, extending eastwards to include the cloth-making districts of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire; (2) the cloth-making areas of Essex and Suffolk; (3) part of the West Riding; (4) London and much of the countryside around; and (5) the peat area of the southern Fenland.     

The Berlin West Africa conference of 1884–85 revisited: A report

The Blackwell Dictionary of Historians edited by John Cannon with R.H.C. Davis, William Doyle and Jack P. Greene. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988. Pp.xiv + 480. £50.00.

Atlas of the British Empire, with Foreword by Norman Stone, edited by C.A. Bayly. Hamlyn Publishing Group/Amazon: London, 1989. Pp.256; illus. £25.00.

The First Imperial Age: European Overseas Expansion c. 1400–1715 by G.V. Scammell. London: Unwin Hyman, 1990. Pp.xix + 281; maps. £30.00 (hardback); £10.95 (paperback).

The History of Architecture in India: From the Dawn of Civilisation to the End of Raj by Christopher Tadgell. London: A.D.T Press, 1990. Pp.IX + 336. £65.00.

Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society 1700–1900 by Susan Bayly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp.xv + 504. £40.00.

A Dictionary of Modern Indian History, 1707–1947, by Parshotam Mehra. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985 (reprinted 1987). Pp.xiii + 823; £25.00.

Navies, Deterrence, and American Independence: Britain and Seapower in the 1760s and 1770s by Nicholas Tracy. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1988. Pp.207. £21.80.

The Imperial Challenge: Quebec and Britain in the Age of the American Revolution by Philip Lawson. Montreal and Kingston: McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1989. Pp.x + 192. £29.65.

History's Anthropology. The Death of William Gooch by Greg Dening. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988. Pp.xix + 122; maps and illus.

Thomas Clarkson: A Biography by Ellen Gibson Wilson. London: Macmillan, 1989. Pp.xiv + 269. £35.00.

The Caribbean in Europe; Aspects of the West Indian Experience in Britain, France and the Netherlands. Edited by Colin Brock. London: Frank Cass, 1985. Pp.ix + 243. £20.00 (hardback).

The Transformation of Theology, 1830–1890. Positivism and Protestant Thought in Britain and America by Charles D. Cashdollar. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1989. Pp.xii + 489. $35.00.

Social Welfare, 1850–1950: Australia, Argentina and Canada Compared edited by D.C.M. Platt. London: Macmillan, 1989. Pp.xii + 208. £35.00.

Scientist of Empire: Sir Roderick Murchison, Scientific Exploration and Victorian Imperialism by Robert A. Stafford. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pp.xii + 293. £30.00 (hardback).

Stanley: The Making of an African Explorer by Frank McLynn. London: Constable, 1989. Pp.410; maps and illustrations. £17.95.

Baden‐Powell, by Tim Jeal. London: Hutchinson, 1989. Pp.xxi + 670. £18.95 (hardback).

Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Volume XII: 1891–1900 edited by Francess G. Halpenny and Jean Hamelin. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990. Pp.xxix + 1305. £48.50; $78.00.

The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895–1905 by Aaron L. Friedberg. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1988. Pp.xvii + 321, maps. $14.95 (paperback).

Lost Children of the Empire: The Untold Story of Britain's Child Migrants by Philip Bean and Joy Melville. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989. Pp. ix + 177; illus. £12.95 (hardback).

The History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Volume III: The Hongkong Bank between the Wars and the Bank Interned, 1919–45; Return from Grandeur by Frank H.H. King. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp.xxxviii + 705; maps and illus. £60.00.

Menzies and Churchill at War by David Day. London: Angus &; Robertson, 1987. Pp.xi + 271. £12.50.

Documents on Australian Foreign Policy 1937–49, Vol. VII: 1944, edited by W.J. Hudson. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1988. Pp.lvi + 749; illus. AS39.95.

Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan by David Gilmartin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. Pp.xii + 258. $32.00.

The Expedient Utopian: Bandaranaike and Ceylon by James Manor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pp.xiii + 338. £30.00.

Britain, the United States, and the End of the Palestine Mandate, 1942–1948 by Ritchie Ovendale. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press for the Royal Historical Society, 1989. Pp.332. £37.50 (hardback).

Palestine and the Arab‐Israeli Conflict by Charles D. Smith. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988. Pp.viii+ 308; maps. £10.99 (paperback).

Hearts and Minds in Guerrilla Warfare: The Malayan Emergency 1948–1960 by Richard Stubbs. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989. Pp.xiv + 286. £25.00.

Britain and the Korean War by Callum MacDonald. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Pp.vii + 112; map. £17.50 (hardback); £8.95 (paperback).

The Politics of Africa's Economic Stagnation by Richard Sandbrook with Judith Barker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Pp.xvi + 180; maps. £17.50 (hardback); £7.95 (paperback).     

The crisis before the crisis: the ‘problems of modern society’ and the OECD, 1968–74

‘Economic crisis’ is conventionally understood as the absence of economic growth. However, far from being straightforward and self-explanatory, this understanding is itself an expression of a very particular ensemble of statistical techniques, economic theory, state practices and broader societal beliefs; it is not adequate for the historical analysis of what people have historically perceived as economic crises. This article aims at illustrating this divergence by analysing debates within the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on the so-called ‘problems of modern society’ from 1968 to 1974. These problems, which occurred at a time of comparatively robust economic performance, were perceived by contemporaries as a crisis closely related to the economic system. This debate led to a new impetus to recast the formerly dominant quantitative-growth paradigm in terms of environmental policies and qualitative growth. It was spearheaded by critical intellectuals within the OECD Secretariat and the OECD's Committee on Science and Technology Policy, who were at the same time launching the Club of Rome. In this article I will draw out the main arguments, actors, relevant contexts and effects of this discussion to highlight some of the characteristics of the intellectual uncertainty so distinctive of this period. The author argues that a historical understanding of this ‘crisis before the crisis’ demands a broader conception of economic crisis, one that is able to grapple with the divergence of economic growth, human welfare and environmental sustainability.     

The Scottish Covenanters and the Borough of Sunderland, 1639–1647: A Hidden Axis of the British Civil Wars*

Few sources have survived relating to the borough of Sunderland in the seventeenth century. However, during the Civil Wars Sunderland was noticed for its support of Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters. A Puritan elite, led by George Lilburne, had established Sunderland as a radical borough by the 1630s. Good relations between Sunderland and the Covenanting Scots began in 1639 and continued throughout the Bishops’ Wars (1639–41) and the first British Civil Wars (1642–46). This was unusual in the North East of England as most of County Durham, Northumberland and Newcastle upon Tyne would remain loyal to King Charles I. A trade blockade of Newcastle, Sunderland and Blyth during 1643–44 was quickly lifted at Sunderland after the Scots garrisoned the town in March 1644. This gave Sunderland a temporary, but advantageous, lead over their rivals in Newcastle. Sunderland’s port was crucial for supplying the Scottish Covenanting army and Parliamentarian forces during 1644–46, and the coal mines along the River Wear proved a vital source of revenue for paying the army. The borough’s leaders were well rewarded for their loyalty and, unlike other leading supporters of Parliament in the North, they did not object to paying for the Scottish occupation of the North East.     

The Value of Culture: Congolese Art and the Promotion of Belgian Colonialism (1945–1959)

Based on the scholarship of Frans M. Olbrechts and the changes implemented in the Museum of the Belgian Congo during his directorship (from 1947 until 1958), this article argues that the institutionalization of African artefacts as art served the late Belgian colonial regime in promoting its renewed postwar commitment to the Congolese colony. In their reinvention as art and subsequent re-installation in modernist displays, the objects acquired not only a cultural, but also an economic and political value as resources, which led to their co-option in the mise-en-valeur, or valorization, of the colony and fuelled a colonial rhetoric that replaced an earlier emphasis on the civilizing mission with a construction of cultural guardianship based on the universal value of the objects as art.     

The impact of royal government in the French Ardennes: the evidence of the 1247 enquête

Louis IX's enquête of 1247 was designed to investigate the misdeeds of loyal royal officials, and the reports of the cases investigated by the enquêteurs reveal the impact of royal government at the village level. The complaints heard in the upland Ardennes voice the protests of a remote region as it found itself increasingly subject to royal control. The local agents of the crown, usually outsiders, were characterised by an arbitrariness of procedure and a disregard for local feeling and custom which suggests that, in this area, royal justice was seen as a violent intruder as much as a preserver of order.     

The Scottish national Antarctic expedition (1902–04) and the founding of Base Orcadas

The history of the establishment of the scientific research station on Laurie Island, South Orkney Islands, is recounted. Its founding by the Scottish National Antarctic (Scotia) Expedition (1902–04) and the subsequent operation by Argentina resulted in it becoming the first all‐year‐round permanently‐staffed research facility in Antarctica. The networks of government and non‐government personnel involved in the rivalry between British and Scottish interests and aspirations and the transfer of the Laurie Island facility from the Scottish expedition to Argentine government control are investigated. The narrative is set against the background of the centennial celebrations of that transfer.