Essay and Reflection: On the Nature of International History

This essay focuses on a previously under-explored facet of Churchill's life by analysing the autobiographical novel he created while reading literary classics as a young soldier suffering bouts of depression in a remote corner of the British Empire. It employs a combination of research strategies that include Churchill's correspondence, extracts from Savrola and related works, the social-scientific insights of Anthony Storr and Daniel Levinson, and an unpublished document in the Churchill Archives that links Churchill's capacity for heroism to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. The author concludes that Savrola provided a means of self-diagnosis and treatment for Winston Churchill to extract some meaning in life and ultimately achieve political success.     

Churchill's ‘Iron Curtain’ Speech in Context: The Attempt to Achieve a ‘Good Understanding on All Points’ with Stalin's Soviet Union

More than 70 years ago, on 5 March 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered his ‘iron curtain’ speech at Westminster College in Fulton. The speech immediately attracted worldwide attention and proved to be highly controversial. Most contemporaries in East and West and the vast majority of subsequent historians interpreted the speech as Churchill's call for western resistance to Stalin's expansionist policies and the continuation of the wartime ‘special relationship’ between Washington and London. This article argues, however, that Churchill's speech has been misunderstood. When set in the context of Churchill's other pronouncements on world affairs during his time as leader of the opposition between 1945 and 1951 and in view of his vigorously pursued ‘Big Three’ ‘summit diplomacy’ with Moscow and Washington after he returned as Prime Minister in 1951, the ‘iron curtain’ speech must be seen in a different light. It becomes clear that this famous speech was not Churchill's sabre-rattling call for commencing or energizing the East--West conflict with the Soviet Union. Quite to the contrary, his speech was meant to prevent the escalation of this conflict and avoid the dangerous clash between the world's greatest powers that soon became known as the Cold War.     

Sentiment vs Strategy: British Naval Policy,Imperial Defence,and the Development of Dominion Navies, 1911–14

This article examines British naval policy towards imperial defence and the development of autonomous Dominion navies in 1911–14. It shows that the Admiralty's main goal under the leadership of Winston Churchill was to concentrate British and Dominion warships in European waters, and ideally in the North Sea, to meet the German threat. Churchill's approach to naval developments in the Dominions was also shaped by his desire to fulfil the Cabinet's policy of remaining strong in the Mediterranean Sea. He made some concessions to sentiment in the Dominions, but his attempts to create a coherent imperial policy for the naval defence of Britain and its empire were ultimately unsuccessful. By 1914 it was clear that the Dominions would not provide the additional warships Britain required for the Mediterranean, and on the eve of war the Admiralty was beginning to prepare an imperial naval strategy that more accurately reflected the Empire's capabilities.     

Odd bedfellows: Nietzsche and Mill on marriage

This paper examines Nietzsche's views on love and marriage in the works of his middle period. Contrary to the general consensus in the secondary literature regarding Nietzsche's ideas on these matters, it shows that he offers several positive reflections on love and marriage. Indeed, at times he accepts that friendship is possible between the genders and even models marriage on friendship. Modelling marriage on friendship creates an overlap between Nietzsche's thought and that of John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor. However, it is argued here that, albeit for different reasons, none of these visions of marriage as friendship succeeds in fully accommodating sexuality.     

Ta‘isi O.F. Nelson and Sir Maui Pomare Samoans and Māori Reunited

ABSTRACT

This paper unearths the friendship between Samoan nationalist leader Ta‘isi Olaf Frederick Nelson and Māori politician Sir Maui Pomare during the early period of New Zealand's administration of Samoa. It examines the role this friendship played – especially as a line of communication between the Samoan protest movement or Mau, of which Nelson was a leader, and the highest echelons of the New Zealand government – in those years of fraught relations between Samoa and New Zealand. It also explores the significant historical connections that were made, or remade, through this friendship. The relationship between these two men brought Polynesian peoples together in new ways and also directly linked Parihaka, a 19th-century Māori community known for its non-violent resistance against European colonialism, with the later Samoan Mau.     

A godly friendship: Thomas Gataker and William Bradshaw

Adding to the scholarship on early modern friendships, this article examines the friendship between the puritan preacher Thomas Gataker and the nonconformist cleric William Bradshaw. Despite their divergent careers and their distinct roles in puritan historiography, Gataker and Bradshaw shared an enduring affection and common concerns, with both men writing on the nature of magistracy, the international Protestant community, and the promotion of unity within the godly community. Outliving Bradshaw by thirty-six years, Gataker eventually turned to print to memorialize their friendship and to address wrongs inflicted on Bradshaw and his reputation. Gataker’s interventions included polemical pieces in the 1640s and a notable contribution to seventeenth-century biography or life writing. As in other early modern friendships, Gataker acted from a deep affection and a desire to protect his friend’s legacy, yet inseparable from these motives was his intent to edify the godly.     

A revolutionary's biography: the case of V D Savarkar

This article examines the contributions of V.D. Savarkar, an intellectual founder of Hindu nationalism, to the history of an idea: namely, the revolutionary. It examines the impact of Savarkar's interpretation of the revolutionary on modern political thought in India. It explains that Savarkar established criteria for identifying revolutionaries, but he also argued that studying the life-stories of revolutionaries would inspire Indians to create future revolutions. It will further consider that for Savarkar, the reading of history was ontologically transformative and the contributions of past revolutionaries were meant to create an effective response for readers to become transformed into new revolutionaries. Through a study of the first English-language biography of Savarkar, entitled The Life of Barrister Savarkar (1926), and Savarkar's early writings on revolutionary wars, this paper will show the importance of examining Savarkar's ideas and interpretations for considering the making of revolutionary thought in India in the early decades of the twentieth century.     

The Boundaries of Women's Power: Gender and the Discourse of Political Friendship in Twelfth‐Century England

The discourse of friendship was an integral part of political language and interaction in twelfth‐century England. Because the qualities that made a good political friendship – loyalty, wise counsel and generosity, among others – corresponded so closely to the criteria for successful lordship, historians often used the quality of a king's friendship as a signifier for the quality of his rule. Yet their treatment of women's political friendship was markedly different. The discourse of friendship therefore provides a window into the larger struggle over the representation of gender and rulership in twelfth‐century historical writing in England, reflecting chroniclers’ anxiety about female sovereignty. Twelfth‐century historians depicted women's participation in political friendship as acceptable only within certain circumscribed boundaries that corresponded to the sanctioned political roles for women in general. Otherwise, chroniclers attempted to efface the existence of women's political friendship, sometimes describing the same situations in different language depending on whether the main participant was male or female. Chroniclers also represented women as arbiters of friendship, showing men how better to conduct their relationships either through direct instruction or counter‐example. In both cases women reinforced male friendship, either by being excluded from it, or by demonstrating the correct way to carry it out.     

Suger's advice

There exist two biographies of Suger, abbot of Saint-Denis from 1081 to 1151: one by O. Cartellieri (1898) and the other by Marcel Aubert (1950). Since their starting point seems to be outdated, a new biography of Suger is a desideratum. The purpose of this article is to contribute to such a new biography by providing a reinterpretation of Suger's Life of King Louis VI, the Vita Ludovici Grossi.     

TWO BIOGRAPHIES OF NAPOLEON

The central argument of this review essay is that the British and French traditions of biography, and specifically Napoleonic biography, are quite different. The two works under consideration are outstanding examples of the differences. Boswell's Life of Johnson is the cornerstone of modern British biography, and Andrew Roberts follows this example. Although Johnson was not a political or military figure but a man of letters, Roberts's biography of Napoleon adheres to the close focus on a single man, with only limited excursions beyond his hero's life and deeds. In addition, Roberts's work is essentially a military biography, and his considerable strengths lie here. The French, without a Boswell, have relegated biography to a lesser role, until recently. Patrice Gueniffey, in what will be a multi‐volume work—this first volume goes only to 1802—is more interested in Napoleon's place in the history of Europe, and especially Revolutionary France. Napoleon is often confined to the wings while Gueniffey sets the stage. Roberts's judgments and assessments, while shrewd and informed, are often more conventional than those of Gueniffey, who sees the Egyptian campaign as one of the important keys to understanding the young Bonaparte and his subsequent career. He is also deeply interested in fixing Bonaparte's place in the French Revolution. Because Gueniffey ends his first volume with the Consulate, a more detailed comparison of the two works is not possible.     

Letter-writing and literary culture in Merovingian Gaul

This essay discusses Gregory of Tours' claim that literary culture was in decline in light of the considerable quantity of poetry and letters composed by Merovingian authors. Scholars have come to appreciate the importance of letter-writing for historical inquiry, yet the contrast between Gregory's assessment and aristocratic literary activity remains under-explored. This essay discusses fifth-century precedents and examines the continuity and discontinuity that occurred in the literary transition from late Antique to early-medieval Gaul. It examines the place of literary culture within Merovingian elite friendship networks, focusing on the interconnected writings of three Merovingian authors. Venantius Fortunatus was an Italian-born poet who spent most of his career writing for Merovingian elites. The royal officials Dynamius and Gogo composed letters found in a compilation of sixth-century letters called the Epistolae Austrasicae. Using the letters and poetry of these three writers, this essay argues that literary skill facilitated the creation and maintenance of connections across distance and was a necessary part of elite identity. It shows that Gregory of Tours' dramatic rhetorical claim did not reflect the true state of literature in Gaul.     

‘The Most Churlish of Celebrities’: George Eliot,John Cross and the Question of High Status

Published in 1885, John Cross's biography of his late wife, George Eliot's Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals, was written with the intention to ‘make known the woman as well as the author’ (John Cross, ed., George Eliot's Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals, cabinet edn, 3 vols (Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, 1887), I, v). Yet, ironically, the biography is renowned precisely for the lack of insight it affords readers into the private life of George Eliot. Why did Cross make a promise that he could not keep? My essay attempts to answer this question by examining George Eliot's Life in the context of the fame culture of the late nineteenth century. I suggest that it is possible to read Cross's unwillingness in the Life to make Eliot more ‘available’ to her public as a reaction against the sorts of publicity which, throughout the 1870s, had pushed Eliot's persona into a celebrity arena. George Eliot's Life represents Cross's effort to preserve Eliot's high professional reputation by emphasizing her distance from celebrity culture and her status as a female sage. Through close examination of the reviews of the biography, I identify the contemporary attitudes that made stressing Eliot's greatness appear urgent to her biographer and, paradoxically, so unpopular with the general public. I call attention, in particular, to changing expectations about the relationship between public figures and their audiences as well as the purpose and content of famous Lives. ?1.?Leon Edel, ed., The Diary of Alice James (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1982), pp. 40–41.      

Les Révolutions françaises. Les phénomènes révolutionnaires en France du moyenâgeànos jours

In this article, I examine friendship as a subject of political theory rather than as a social practice relevant to political life. As suggested by Francesco d'Altobianco Alberti in the poem recited at the first certame coronario, two ideas of political friendship existed side by side in Medicean Florence. They appeared in full in Palmieri's Vita civile and in Platina's De optimo cive. As I will show, the Ciceronian language of friendship is used in these works to resolve two key problems of Renaissance political thought: the need for political unity and the just way of appointing the governing elite. Palmieri placed friendship in the political sphere of concord: he was a republican imperialist who believed that civic friendship protected the political unity of the city, without which Florence would not have been able to expand. Platina, on the other hand, situated friendship in the political sphere of counsel: his concern was to support the selection of the most virtuous and knowledgeable citizens, worthy of access to public office. While Palmieri looked back to the city's medieval past, Platina cast light on the politics of friendship that allowed the Medici to stay in power.     

Michael Psellos on friendship and love: erotic discourse in eleventh‐century Constantinople

This paper examines representations of friendship and desire in the writings of the Constantinopolitan author Michael Psellos (1018–c.1078). Within the Byzantine context of strict Christian constraints regarding expressions of sexual desire, Psellos reconfigures the dominant late antique image of friendship as unity, inspired by divine authority, with the subversive model of erôs as the pursuit of bodily pleasures. Therewith, Psellian discourse may be regarded as representative of novel trends in eleventh‐century Byzantium that anticipate the re‐appearance of romantic fiction. As is argued here, such novel trends are to be understood within the context of Byzantium's continuous dialogue with its past, rather than as part of linear historiographical narratives.     

Children's nomination of friendly places in an urban neighbourhood in Shiraz,Iran

This study investigates how children conceive of and value the outdoor environment as a child-friendly one with particular reference to an urban neighbourhood in Shiraz, Iran. It utilizes Chatterjee's (2005. “Children's Friendship with Place: A Conceptual Inquiry.” Children, Youth and Environments 15 (1): 1–26) place friendship construct to find out friendly places and their attributes from children's points of view. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 106 middle childhood children. Findings suggest that a child-friendly neighbourhood is made up of diverse places that children use to meet their different needs. However, formal and informal open spaces, private precincts, and streets in the neighbourhood afforded highest contributions to place friendship.     

‘From Nitria to Sitria’: the construction of Peter Damian's Vita Beati Romualdi

This article examines the construction of Peter Damian's (c.1007–72) Vita Beati Romualdi (c.1042) as a piece of eleventh-century hagiography. Peter Damian was an erudite hermit, monk and reformer whose ideas on spiritual perfection helped to shape the ideals of the so-called ‘Gregorian Reform’ movement in the eleventh century. This article aims to contribute to recent historiography on the eleventh century through a re-examination of this important piece of hagiography, which has not been more thoroughly considered by medievalists since 1957 in Tabacco's critical edition. This article suggests that, through the biography of St Romuald, Peter Damian sought to promote the example of the Desert Fathers in formulating a more rigorous monastic rule, not only for his hermits at Fonte Avellana, but also for a wide monastic and lay audience. It also argues that there existed a gradual evolution in monastic ideology from the tenth century onwards, sponsored by ascetics like Damian who strove constantly to lead a more austere existence based on the Desert tradition and more particularly the Life of St Antony. In particular, the article pays attention to how Damian, as a hagiographer, was engaged in the construction of Romuald's sanctity.     

Norman Gash and the Making of Mr Secretary Peel

In May 1961, the firm of Longmans published the first volume of Norman Gash's monumental life of Sir Robert Peel. Mr Secretary Peel: The Life of Sir Robert Peel before 1830 was hailed at the time as a landmark and has proved surprisingly durable as an interpretation of Peel's early life and formation. This essay is concerned with locating Gash's work within its political, biographical, and historiographical context. It begins by considering the reaction of Peel family members to Gash's biography, before tracing the antecedents of his historical preoccupations and intellectual development in the years leading up to the publication of Mr Secretary Peel. It presents a wide range of new evidence relating to Gash's life and emergence as a political and parliamentary historian, drawing upon sources which have come to light in the decade since his death in May 2009.     

An enduring influence on imperial defence and grand strategy: British perceptions of the Italian Navy, 1935–1943

The Mediterranean was a vital artery of the British Empire. It was a strategic corridor, linking Britain to its Middle and Far East possessions and precious resources. Its control was a central tenet of British imperial strategy, yet by the mid-1930s, this faced a new challenge from Fascist Italy. The Italian Navy was central to expansionist aspirations and forced British reappraisals of the allocation of defence resources both in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. It therefore came to exert a generally under-appreciated influence on pre-war British imperial defence policy and war planning. Although consistently viewed as vastly inferior to the Royal Navy, it was still seen as an impediment to Britain's ability to deliver imperial defence across the globe, or conduct a worldwide war against multiple enemies. This view persisted even after important defeats were inflicted on it in 1940–1941, and continued right through to 1943. Awareness of the seriousness with which the British viewed Italian naval strength adds important context to debates about British strategy in the Far East and over Winston Churchill's preference for a ‘Mediterranean first’ strategy. Italian naval power played a greater role in shaping the Allied prosecution of the Second World War than is commonly accepted.     

From Grenfell Tower to the Home Front: Unsettling Property Norms Using a Genealogical Approach

The Grenfell fire was symbolic of an unequal urban landscape closely tied to material and aesthetic norms around property ownership and entitlement. The aim of this paper is to unsettle these norms by advancing a novel genealogical approach. Through systematic review of government archives seldom studied by property researchers, historical comparisons are mobilised to challenge the taken‐for‐granted way in which we approach property and ownership today. It is shown how, in the face of a comparable housing crisis and direct action, both Churchill's and Atlee's post‐war governments temporarily overlooked property norms by extending wartime requisitioning powers. Going further, however, the paper argues that by revisiting history, we can also rediscover a legacy of “forced entry” that might open up political possibilities in the present. By advancing a genealogical approach to ownership, the paper contributes to wider discussions around property norms, concluding that we have before (and can again) enact property differently.