‘The Bombay Debt’: Letter Writing,Domestic Economies and Family Conflict in Colonial India

Between 1856 and 1861 Minnie Blane and her husband, Captain Archibald Wood, wrote dozens of letters from India to the Minnie's mother in England. These letters and those associated with a military investigation into the couple's relationship in the 1860s detail the connections between the breakdown of the East India Company's rule in India and Minnie Blane's marriage. In particular, this correspondence shows some of the ways in which bourgeois identities were constructed in relationship to money and objects, place and race. It also exposes the fissures between family members, allowing us to see the gender, generational and cultural conflicts within such imperial families. The article raises concerns about the ways in which personal letters have been used as documents in the study of European women's imperial history.     

Review of Books

JOHN BOARDMAN et al., eds. The Cambridge Ancient History. Volume III, pt. 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries BC. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xix, 906. $125.00 (us). Reviewed by William M. Calder

H. T. WALLINGA. Ships and Sea-Power before the Great Persian War: The Ancestry of the Ancient Trireme. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993. Pp. xv, 217. $80.00. Reviewed by J. F. Lazenby

JONATHAN J. PRICE. Jerusalem under Siege: The Collapse of the Jewish State, 66–70 CE. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992. Pp. xiv, 361. $91.50 (us). Reviewed by Uriel Rappaport

ROBERT BARTLETT. The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization, and Cultural Change, 950–1350. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Pp. 432. $29.95 (us). Reviewed by H. E. J. Cowdrey

ALAN L. KAHRAS and J. R. MCNEILL, eds. Atlantic American Societies: From Columbus to Abolition, 1492–1888. London and New York: Roudedge, 1992. Pp. xi, 274. $16.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Ian K. Steele

DAVID J. WEBER. The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992. Pp. xx, 579. $35.00 (us). Reviewed by Amy Turner Bushnell

SANJAY SUBRAHMANYAM. The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700: A Political and Economic History. London and New York: Longman, 1993. Pp. xiii, 320. £34.00. Reviewed by André Wink

ROBERT BRENNER. Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550–1653. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Pp. xx, 734. $59.50 (us). Reviewed by Conrad Russell

STEWART P. OAKLEY. War and Peace in the Baltic, 1560–1790. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. Pp. xvii, 222. $59.95 (us). Reviewed by H. M. Scott

ROGER SCHLESINGER, ed. Portraits from the Age of Exploration: Selections from André Thevet's ‘Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres’, trans. Edward Benson. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993. Pp. 159. $24.95 (us). Reviewed by Luca Codignola

JANE H. OHLMEYER. Civil War and Restoration in the Three Stuart Kingdoms: The Career of Randal MacDonnell, Marquis of Antrim, 1609–1683. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xxiii, 357. $69.95 (us). Reviewed by Ian Gentles

MICHAEL DUFFY, ed. Parameters of British Naval Power, 1650–1850. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 1992. Pp. vi, 144. £11.95. Reviewed by Philip Woodfine

ZDENKO ZLATAK. Between the Double Eagle and the Crescent: The Republic of Dubrovnik and the Origins of the Eastern Question. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs; dist. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Pp. xx, 336. $49.00 (us). Reviewed by F. W. Carter

J. R. JONES. Marlborough. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. 245. $49.95 (us).

MARK PHILP, ed. The French Revolution and British Popular Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. 238. $49.95 (us). Reviewed by John Bohstedt

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. Anglo-Ottoman Encounters in the Age of Revolution: Collected Essays: Volume I, ed. Edward Ingram; Eastern Questions in the Nineteenth Century: Collected Essays: Volume II, ed. Edward Ingram. London: Frank Cass; dist. Portland, OR: ISBS Inc., 1993. Pp. xiv, 351, £35.00; xiv, 272. £35.00. Reviewed by M. S. Anderson

JAMES E. MCCLELLAN III. Colonialism and Science: Saint Domingue in the Old Regime. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. Pp. xviii, 393. $52.00 (us). Reviewed by Hannah Gay

MICHAEL FRY. The Dundas Despotism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992. Pp. xii, 425. £45.00. Reviewed by Brendan Carnduff

HSI-HUEY LIANG. The Rise of Modern Police and the European State System from Mettemich to the Second World War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xiii, 345. $49.95 (us). Reviewed by Lucy Riall

GREGOR DALLAS. At the Heart of a Tiger: Clemenceau and His World, 1841–1929. London: Macmillan, 1993. Pp. xiv, 620. £25.00. Reviewed by Marjorie M. Farrar

FRANK J. COPPA. The Origins of the Italian Wars of Independence. London and New York: Longman, 1992. Pp. ix, 188.,£22.00. Reviewed by Richard Bosworth

BRUCE W. MENNING. Bayonets before Bullets: The Imperial Russian Army, 1861–1914. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992. Pp. x, 334. $35.00 (us). Reviewed by John Bushnell

A. HAMISH ION. The Cross and the Rising Sun: Volume II: The British Protestant Missionary Movement in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, 1865–1945. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1993. Pp. xii, 324. $39.95 (CDN). Reviewed by Peter Lowe

DONALD CALMAN. The Nature and Origins of Japanese Imperialism: A Reinterpretation of the Great Crisis of 1873. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. Pp. xxii, 354. $55.00 (us). Reviewed by Hilary Conroy, With Peter Shin

ROSEMARY R. GAGAN. A Sensitive Independence: Canadian Methodist Women Missionaries in Canada and the Orient, 1881-1925. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992. Pp. xii, 281. $39.95 (CDN). Reviewed by A. Hamish Ion

J. N. F. M. À CAMPO. Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij: Stoomvaart en Staatsvorming in de Indonesische Archipel, 1888–1914. Hilversum: Verloren, 1992. Pp. 756. No Price Available. Reviewed by Maahten Kuitenbrouwer

B. J. C. MCKERCHER, ed. Arms Limitation and Disarmament: Restraints on War, 1899–1939. New York. Praeger, 1992. Pp. xvi, 250. $55.00 (us). Reviewed by John W. Coogan

PAUL BAIROCH. Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Pp. xvi, 184. $32.50 (us). Reviewed by Peter J. Cain

CHRISTINE A. WHITE. British and American Commenrcial Relations with Soviet Russia, 1918–1924. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Pp. xii, 345. $39-95 (us). Reviewed by Michael Jabara Carley

ERIK GOLDSTEIN. Winning the Peace: British Diplomatic Strategy, Peace Planning, and the Paris Peace Conference, 1916–1920. New York: The Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. xix, 307. $94.50 (CDN). Reviewed by Trevor Wilson

JÓZSEF GALÁNTAI. Trianon and the Protection of Minorities, trans. Ervin Dunay. Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs; dist. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Pp. x, 185. $36.50 (us). Reviewed by M. B. Biskupski

MARTIN S. ALEXANDER. The Republic in Danger: General Maurice Gamelin and the Politics of French Defence, 1933–1940. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xiv, 573. $94-95 (us). Reviewed by Robert J. Young

JAMES GOODWIN. Eisenstein, Cinema, and History. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993. Pp. x, 262. $39.95 (us), cloth; $15.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Philip M. Taylor

VALDIS O. LUMANS. Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933–1945. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Pp. xiv, 335. $43.95 (us). Reviewed by Carole Fink

GREGOR BENTON. Mountain Fires: The Red Army's Three-Year War in South China, 1934–1938. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Pp. xlv, 639.- $70.00 (us). Reviewed by Qiang Zhai

DAVID MORGAN and MARY EVANS. The Battle for Britain: Citizenship and Ideology in the Second World War. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. Pp. 193. $62.50 (us). Reviewed by Trevor Burridge

REINHOLD BRENDER. Kollaboration in Frankreich im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Marcel Déat und das Rassemblement national populaire. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1992. Pp. 338. No Price Available. Reviewed by William D. Irvine

IGNÁC ROMSICS, ed. Wartime American Plans for a New Hungary: Documents from the US Department of State, 1942–1944. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs; dist. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Pp. xvii, 328. $45.00 (us). Reviewed by Bennett Kovrig

JOHN BAYIS. The Dipbmacy of Pragmatism: Britain and the Formation of NATO, 1942–1949. London: Macmillan, 1993. Pp. xi, 194.,£40.00. Reviewed by T. Michael Ruddy

GÜNTER BISCHOF and STEPHEN E. AMBROSE, eds. Eisenhower and the German POWs: Facts against Falsehood. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992. Pp. xvii, 257. $24.95 (us). Reviewed by S. P. Mackenzie

R. J. B. BOSWORTH. Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima: History Writing and the Second World War, 1945–1990. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. Pp. xv, 262. $59-95 (us). Reviewed by Martin Kitchen

ELIZABETH A. COBBS. The Rich Neighbor Policy: Rockefeller and Kaiser in Brazil. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992. Pp. xiv, 273. $30.00 (us); Reviewed by Thomas Schoonover

MICHAEL L. CONNIFF. Panama and the United States: The Forced Alliance. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992. Pp. xi, 201. $35.00 (us), cloth; $15.00 (us), paper. Reviewed by Thomas Schoonover

GEORGE W. BALL and DOUGLAS B. BALL. The Passionate Relationship: America's Involvement with Israel, 1947 to the Present. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992. Pp. 382. $29.99 (CDN); Reviewed by William R. Polk

DAVID SCHOENBAUM. The United States and the State of Israel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. xiv, 404. $55.95 (CDN). Reviewed by William R. Polk

B. W. MUIRHEAD. The Development of Postwar Canadian Trade Policy: The Failure of the Anglo-European Option. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993. Pp. x, 230. $36.95 (CDN). Reviewed by Robert D. Cuff

LUDWELL LEE MONTAGUE. General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence, October 1950–February 1953. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. Pp. xxviii, 308. $14.95 (us). Reviewed by Melvyn P. Leffler

THOMAS BORSTELMANN. Apartheid's Reluctant Uncle: The United States and Southern Africa in the Early Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. ix, 298. $49.00 (CDN). Reviewed by L. H. Gann

G. R. BERRIDGE. South Africa, the Colonial Powers, and ‘African Defence’: The Rise and Fall of the White Entente, 1948–60. London: Macmillan, 1992. Pp. xiii, 234. £40.00. Reviewed by Ritchie Ovendale

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, ed. Dean Acheson and the Making of US Foreign Policy. London: Macmillan, 1993. Pp. xx, 271. £45.00. Reviewed by Robert H. Ferrell

CHRISTOPH BLUTH. Soviet Strategic Arms Policy before SALT. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xiii, 317. $59.95 (us). Reviewed by John Erickson

KIMBERLY MARTEN ZISK. Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation, 1955–1991. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Pp. x, 286. $39.50 (us). Reviewed by Lawrence Freedman

FREDERICK M. NUNN. The Time of the Generals: Latin American Professional Militarism in World Perspective. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1992. Pp. xv, 349. $50.00 (us). Reviewed by Ronald C. Newton

FARHANG RAJAEE, ed. The Iran-Iraq War: The Politics of Aggression. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1993. Pp. vii, 245. $39.95 (us), cloth; $19.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Fred Halliday

MICHAEL N. BARNETT. Confronting the Costs of War: Military Power, State, and Society in Egypt and Israel. Princeton. Princeton University Press, 1992. Pp. xiii, 378. $39.50 (us). Reviewed by Stuaht A. Cohen

STEPHEN F. SZABO. The Diplomacy of German Unification. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. Pp. xiv, 162. $22.95 (us). Reviewed by Frank Ninkovich

BRIAN HOLDEN REID, ed. The Science of War: Back to First Principles. London and New York: Roudedge, 1993. Pp. vii, 212. $59.95 (us). Reviewed by T. H. E. Travers     

Nationalism as legitimation: the appeal of ethnicity and the plea for popular sovereignty

Walker Connor is seemingly both a primordialist and a modernist: Nations emanate from basic human sentiments but emerged in late modernity. Is this not an aberration, a contradiction both conceptual and causal? Connor, a champion of academic clarity, obviously thought not, and he was right. What accounts for Connor's unique take on nationalism, and why, for many, does it still seem odd? The answer to both quandaries, I argue, lies in Connor's own unique splice: He effectively delved into, and fused, two thorny matters that most scholars shy away from, let alone try to bring together: human nature and legitimation. Both underpin his remarkable scholarship and its solitude standing. I explore both facets: first, Connor's take on human nature; then, more extensively, his analysis of legitimation – via ‘popular sovereignty’ and ‘self‐determination’.