The English Historical Review articles from February 1997

The English Historical Review archives from February 1997

William Caxton and the rebellion of 1483.
February 1, 1997... It is not generally known that William Caxton sued for pardon following the abortive gentry rebellion against the Crown in October 1483. The pardon, which he obtained in May 1484, shows that Caxton was a merchant of the Staple of Calais, Governor...

The Revolt of Owain Glyn Dwr.
February 1, 1997... According to my diary, 16 September is 'Owain Glyn Dwr Day'. This unofficial commemoration refers to the day in 1400 when the man whom J. E. Lloyd famously described as 'the father of modern Welsh nationalism' was proclaimed prince of Wales, and...

The Political World of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford: 1621-1641.
February 1, 1997... These essays, many of them derived from an international conference held at Sheffield University in July 1994, are of major importance in advancing our understanding not only of Wentworth's career but of early Stuart political history in general....

Popular Contention in Great Britain: 1758-1834.
February 1, 1997... This is an expansive book: long, leisurely in its exploration of central themes, and lingering in its contemplation of the peripheral. The first fifty-five pages sketch Tilly's argument with broad brush strokes, we are still dealing with...

Winston Churchill's Last Campaign: Britain and the Cold War, 1951-5.
February 1, 1997... The last phase of Winston Churchill's career is not well represented in what is otherwise a voluminous literature of Churchilliana. Such recent accounts as Paul Addison's Churchill on the Home Front tend to lose interest after their hero's...

France Since 1945.
February 1, 1997... The period 1945 to 1995 can already be seen to be an epoch in French history; it makes a sufficiently defined topic that calls out for a book to describe and analyse it. Of course, as Maitland said long ago, history is a seamless web, and to...

Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science: The History of Attitudes to Sexuality.
February 1, 1997... As one of a series of works in the 'new' social history, Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich, the editors of Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science. The History of Attitudes to Sexuality (Cambridge: U.P., 1994; pp. xiii + 408. [pounds]45), have turned to the...

A History of Religion in Britain: Practice and Belief from Pre-Roman Times to Present.
February 1, 1997... In this bulky volume, A History of Religion in Britain. Practice and Belief from Pre-Roman Times to the Present, ed. Sheridan Gilley and W. J. Shiels (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994; pp. xiii + 590. [pounds]50; pb. [pounds]15.99) some twenty-four...

Traffic and Politics: The Construction and Management of Rochester Bridge, AD 43-1993.
February 1, 1997... The first volume produced by the Kent History Project is Traffic and Politics. The Construction and Management of Rochester Bridge, AD 43-1993, ed. Nigel Yates and James M. Gibson (Woodbridge: Boydell P., for Rochester Bridge Trust, 1994; pp....

Egypt in Late Antiquity.
February 1, 1997... 'Late Antiquity' - a term coined by Peter Brown - is conventionally taken to begin with the accession of the emperor Diocletian in AD 284. Its end is more debatable; suggestions range from 476, when the western empire fragmented into barbarian...

The English Conquest: Gildas and Britain in the Fifth Century.
February 1, 1997... The first volume of a projected three-part investigation of the origins of England, N. J. Higham's The English Conquest. Gildas and Britain in the Fifth Century (Manchester: U.P., 1994; pp. 220. [pounds]35; pb. [pounds]14.99) provides the author...

Herrschaft, Kirche, Kultur. Beitrage zur Geschichte des Mittelalters. Festschrift fur Friedrich Priz zu seinem 65. Geburtstag.
February 1, 1997... Friedrich Prinz is familiar to early medievalists as the author of monographs on early medieval monasticism and on the relationship between clerics and warfare in the early Middle Ages, but since his appointment to a chair in Munich in the early...

The Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire.
February 1, 1997... Accounts of visions or dreams are well-known features of the Carolingian literary landscape and some visions, such as that of the monk Wetti or of the Poor Woman of Laon or of Charles the Fat, are famous in their own right. But no one has studied...

Consorting with Saints: Praying for the Dead in Early Medieval France.
February 1, 1997... Not the least merit of Megan McLaughlin's Consorting with Saints. Prayer for the Dead in Early Medieval France (Ithaca, NY/London: Cornell U.P., 1995; pp. x + 306. [pounds]26.95) is eager engagement with a large and lively historiography....

The Westminster Corridor: An Exploration of the Anglo-Saxon History of Westminster Abbey and Its Nearby Lands and People.
February 1, 1997... David Sullivan's The Westminster Corridor. An Exploration of the Anglo-Saxon History of Westminster Abbey and its Nearby Lands and People (London: Historical Publications, 1994; pp. 190. [pounds]17) is an enthusiastic reconstruction of an...

Byzanz: Kaiser und Reich.
February 1, 1997... The fluctuating contrasts between imperial ideology and the actual powers of Byzantium's emperor and empire form the subject of Ralph-Johannes Lilie's Byzanz. Kaiser und Reich (Cologne/Weimar: Bohlau, 1994; pp. xxii + 278. Pb. DM39.80). This...

The Letters of St Anselm, 3 vols.
February 1, 1997... In general this periodical does not review translations of texts unless they form part of a new edition in the original language. But there is a good reason for making an exception for The Letters of St Anselm, vols. i-iii, ed. Walter Frohlich...

Charters and Custumals of the Abbey of Holy Trinity, Caen, vol. 2, The French Estates.
February 1, 1997... Charters and Custumals of the Abbey of Holy Trinity, Caen. Part 2: The French Estates, ed. John Walmsley (Oxford: U.P., for the British Academy, 1994; pp. xii + 160. [pounds]25), is a very welcome addition to the printed corpus of monastic...

The Waltham Chronicle: An Account of the Discovery of Our Holy Cross at Montacute and Its Conveyance to Waltham.
February 1, 1997... The Waltham Chronicle. An Account of the Discovery of Our Holy Cross at Montacute and its Conveyance to Waltham, ed. Leslie Watkiss and Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford: Clarendon P., 1994; pp. lv + 99. [pounds]27.50) is a short chronicle of the...

The Anarchy of King Stephen's Reign.
February 1, 1997... It was a happy idea of Edmund King's to convene a conference to celebrate the centenary in 1992 of the publication of J. H. Round's Geoffrey de Mandeville. The conference papers are published in The Anarchy of King Stephen's Reign (Oxford:...

Charters of the Redvers Family and the Earldom of Devon: 1090-1217.
February 1, 1997... Though the Redvers family held wide lands in England from 1100 until the extinction of the line in 1293, it was only in the first two generations, under Richard and Baldwin de Redvers, that they enjoyed any particular prominence. Rising through...

Kings and Kingship in Medieval Europe.
February 1, 1997... Like a box of quality chocolates, Kings and Kingship in Medieval Europe, ed. Anne J. Duggan (London: Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies, King's College London, 1993; pp. xv + 439. [pounds]20), contains choice offerings for every taste,...

The Language of Sex: Five Voices from Northern France Around 1200.
February 1, 1997... So much that is fashionably written about the pre-modern history of sexuality and gender encompasses several centuries of evolution in a single breath, blurs the distinction between ideas and behaviour, and lumps evidence together into a single...

Sealed in Parchment: Rereadings of Knighthood in the Illuminated Manuscripts of Chretien de Troyes.
February 1, 1997... Sandra Hindman's Sealed in Parchment. Rereadings of Knighthood in the Illuminated Manuscripts of Chretien de Troyes (Chicago/London: U. of Chicago P., 1994; pp. xiv + 225. [pounds]35.95; pb. [pounds]13.50) is a fascinating study of the...

Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900-1500.
February 1, 1997... Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain. The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900-1500, by Olivia Remie Constable (Cambridge: U.P., 1994; pp. xxv + 320. [pounds]35), a thorough and much-needed survey, dense with detail, covers the world...

Preaching the Crusades: Mendicant Friars and the Cross in the Thirteenth Century.
February 1, 1997... Partly as a result of growing interest in the impact of the crusades on 'the Home Front', and of notable advances in the study of later medieval preaching in general, the way in which crusade preaching was conducted and organized has recently...

The Records of the Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts, vol. 2, England.
February 1, 1997... The Records of the Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts. Part II: England, ed. Charles Donahue, Jr (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1994; pp. 262. Pb. DM98), is a useful work whose publication in Germany may lead to its being unjustly overlooked by English...

Death and the Prince: Memorial Preaching Before 1350.
February 1, 1997... D. L. D'Avray's work on thirteenth-century Franciscan sermons from Paris has greatly influenced recent studies on medieval sermons. In Death and the Prince. Memorial Preaching before 1350 (Oxford: Clarendon P., 1994; pp. xii + 315. [pounds]40),...

The Medieval Super-Companies: A Study of the Peruzzi Company of Florence.
February 1, 1997... Only three early fourteenth-century Italian businesses, the Bardi, the Peruzzi and the Acciaiuoli, attained the status of super-companies as this expression is defined by Edwin S. Hunt. In The Medieval Super-Companies. A Study of the Peruzzi...

The Hungerford Cartulary: A Calendar of the Earl of Radnor's Cartulary of the Hungerford Family.
February 1, 1997... The Hungerfords provide one of the best, and best known, examples of a late medieval family that rose through service. In the early fourteenth century they were no more than prominent Wiltshire gentry. Then, in the next generation, Thomas...

The 'Other Tuscany': Essays in the History of Lucca, Pisa, and Siena During the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.
February 1, 1997... For some time it has been fashionable in Italian medieval and renaissance studies to direct, or re-direct, attention to what have come to be called 'other Italies' - signifying in general practically everything and everywhere but Florence and,...

The Jews in Umbria, vol. 1, 1245-1435.
February 1, 1997... Some years ago, Shlomo Simonsohn set out to produce editions of sources for the history of Jews in late medieval and early modern Italy, using the rich, if fragmentary general archives, both secular and ecclesiastical. His own editions and...

Framing Medieval Bodies.
February 1, 1997... Some may find the title modish or perplexing, but Framing Medieval Bodies (Manchester: U.P., 1994; pp. 287. [pounds]45), ed. Sarah Kay and Miri Rubin, is a substantial and scholarly set of papers. Subjects treated by its dozen contributors...

Macaronic Sermons: Bilingualism and Preaching in Late-Medieval England.
February 1, 1997... Macaronic Sermons. Bilingualism and Preaching in Late-Medieval England, is a natural successor to Professor Wenzel's earlier work on bilingual preaching material. Earlier he has concentrated on English verses in collections of Latin sermons; now...

James I.
February 1, 1997... Michael Brown's new biography of James I (Edinburgh: Canongate Academic, 1994; pp. xviii + 235. [pounds]25; pb. [pounds]12.99) almost completes this series on the Stewart Dynasty in Scotland for the fifteenth century. When it is finished, there...

Fifteenth Century Attitudes: Perceptions of Society in Late Medieval England.
February 1, 1997... Writing an introductory text is not easy: part of coming to know what it is you once wanted to know is forgetting what not knowing it felt like; what it was you most wanted to be told at the outset, and how you wanted to be told it. Many of us...

Seeable Signs: Iconography of the Seven Sacraments, 1350-1544.
February 1, 1997... Seeable Signs. Iconography of the Seven Sacraments, 1350-1544 (Woodbridge: Boydell P., 1994; pp. xxii + 412. [pounds]49.50), handsomely produced and richly illustrated, is a fitting setting for the care and erudition which Ann Eljenholm Nichols...

Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence.
February 1, 1997... 'No marriage without dowry': Anthony Molho's long years of research on the records of the Florentine Dowry Fund has now resulted in his important and substantial Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence (Cambridge, Mass./London: Harvard U.P.,...

Italia quattrocentesca. Politica e diplomazia nell'eta di Lorenzo il Magnifico.
February 1, 1997... Two books of essays published in 1994, both concerned with Lorenzo de' Medici and both arising out of work on the edition of his letters, present interestingly contrasting approaches to him. Riccardo Fubini's Italia Quattro-centesca. Politica e...

The Expulsion of the Jews: 1492 and After.
February 1, 1997... A conference to mark the five-hundredth anniversary has produced a very varied and ever-fascinating volume on The Expulsion of the Jews. 1492 and After, ed. Raymond B. Waddington and Arthur H. Williamson (New York/London: Garland, 1994; pp. xi +...

El memorial portugues de 1494. Una alternativa al Tratado de Tordesillas.
February 1, 1997... Among publications inspired by the recent quincentenary of the Treaty of Tordesillas, El memorial portugues de 1494. Una alternativa al Tratado de Tordesillas, ed. Istvan Szaszdi Leon-Borja and Katalin Klimes-Szmik (Madrid: Testimonio, 1994; pp....

The Renaissance in Scotland: Studies in Literature, Religion, History and Culture Offered to John Durkan.
February 1, 1997... It is a standard reviewer's complaint that volumes of essays are more difficult to review than monographs, and Festschriften even worse. The Renaissance in Scotland. Studies in Literature, Religion, History and Culture Offered to John Durkan, ed....

Provvisioni concernenti l'ordinamento della republica Fiorentina, 1494-1512, vol. 1, 2 dicembre 1494 - 14 febbraio 1497.
February 1, 1997... Giorgio Cadoni's edition of the laws passed by the republican government of Florence from 1494 to 1512, Provvisioni concernenti l'ordinamento della repubblica Florentina, 1494-1512. Vol. I: 2 dicembre 1494 - 14 febbraio 1497 (Rome: Istituto...

Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther.
February 1, 1997... In recent years propaganda in favour of the German Reformation has been investigated particularly in respect of how oral and pictorial propaganda drove the common people to join the Reformation movement. In looking at printed materials from the...

Furst und Hof in Osterreich von den habsburgischen Teilungsvertragen bis zur Schlacht von Mohacs, 1521/22 bis 1526.
February 1, 1997... The early 1520s form a curious episode in Austrian history: an apparent hiatus between the last efforts, under Maximilian I, to construct some kind of coherent German-based Habsburg empire, and the first moves, under Ferdinand I, towards an...

The Reformation in National Context.
February 1, 1997... Edited by Bob Scribner, Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich, The Reformation in National Context (Cambridge: U.P., 1994; pp. ix + 236. [pounds]30) is a collection of eleven essays and 'A Comparative Overview'. It seeks to interpret religious change in...

The Politics of Marriage: Henry VIII and His Queens.
February 1, 1997... Was Henry VIII a man of rubber or of iron? The defect of David Loades's study of The Politics of Marriage. Henry VIII and His Queens (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1994; pp. xi + 179. [pounds]18.99) is that he has not made up his mind. Explaining the fall...

The Yoke of Christ: Martin Bucer and Christian Discipline.
February 1, 1997... Amy Nelson Burnett's The Yoke of Christ. Martin Bucer and Christian Discipline (Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal, 1994; pp. xii + 244. $35), for which the American Society of Church History awarded its Brewer Prize in 1991, is a major...

Regionalismus und Staatsintegration im Widerstreit. Die Lander der Bohmischen Krone im ersten Jahrhundert der Habsburgerherrschaft, 1526-1619.
February 1, 1997... Within the huge Habsburg composite monarchy in early modern Europe there existed several composite sub-groupings, notably the dominions under the Crown of Aragon, the Netherlands, the Austrian duchies and the dominions of the Crown of Bohemia....

'The Heart and Stomach of a King': Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power.
February 1, 1997... Why did Queen Elizabeth remain a virgin through her long life and forty-five year rule? Did she need to do so, despite her love for Dudley and diplomatic flirtations with princes, in order to hold her people's loyalty? Her major problem was to...

The War of the Fists: Popular Culture and Public Violence in Late Renaissance Venice.
February 1, 1997... 'The city is divided into two factions, which are said to be tolerated for a good reason. There is no doubt that many abuses could be avoided if justice were enforced a shade more rigorously; but the lords of Venice believe that if they allow...

Soldner in Nordwestdeutschland des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts.
February 1, 1997... In his preface Peter Burschel stresses that Soldner in Nordwestdeutschland des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994; pp. 400. DM84) draws directly upon the doctoral thesis that he had completed a year previously....

Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture.
February 1, 1997... A cluster of recent works in the history of early modern science, including books by Steven Shapin and Mario Biagioli, stand out from their predecessors for the imaginative ways in which they explore connections between science and the general...

The Gunpowder Plot: Faith in Rebellion.
February 1, 1997... Alan Haynes provides a readable and generously illustrated narrative of The Gunpowder Plot. Faith in Rebellion (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1994; pp. 160. [pounds]17.99). He describes the Catholic community under Elizabeth, outlines the intrigues of the...

Russians and Dutchmen: Essays.
February 1, 1997... Russians and Dutchmen. Essays, ed. J. Braat et al. (Groningen: Institute for Northern & Eastern European Studies, 1993; pp. 230. N.p.) is a most useful volume of essays (all in English), at any rate for specialists working in the field of...

Cavaliers, Club, and Literary Culture: Sir John Mennes, James Smith, and the Order of the Fancy.
February 1, 1997... Charles II used to carry a copy of Samuel Butler's Hudibras in his pocket, and well he might, for Butler's poem was a scathing mock-heroic attack upon the Puritans who had taken away his father's crown and life. Butler published his poem in the...

Anglia, swiat i gwiazdy. Obraz swiata i Anglii pierwszych Stuartow w kalendarzach, 1603-1640.
February 1, 1997... The Cracovian historian Jakub Basista sets out to penetrate the values, imagination and thought of early seventeenth-century Englishmen in his book Anglia, swiat i gwiazdy. Obraz swiata i Anglii pierwszych Stuartow w kalendarzach, 1603-1640...

William Harvey's Natural Philosophy.
February 1, 1997... In his William Harvey's Natural Philosophy (Cambridge: U.P., 1994; pp. xii + 395. [pounds]40), Roger French has attempted three separate tasks, with varied success. He gives an excellent account of reactions, in Britain and across Europe, to the...

The Manuscript Library of Sir Robert Cotton.
February 1, 1997... Over the last twenty years it has become ever clearer that Sir Robert Cotton and his library were at the centre of the interlocking scholarly and political circles of early Stuart England. Surprisingly Cotton still awaits a full scholarly...

A Vision Betrayed: The Jesuits in Japan and China, 1542-1742.
February 1, 1997... Anyone interested in the history of Christian missions in the Far East will welcome Andrew C. Ross's recent publication of A Vision Betrayed. The Jesuits in Japan and China, 1542-1742 (Edinburgh: U.P., 1994; pp. xvii + 216. [pounds]29.95). The...

Europeans on the Move: Studies on European Migration, 1500-1800.
February 1, 1997... The diversity, complexity and scale of the subject emerges clearly from Europeans on the Move. Studies on European Migration, 1500-1800, ed. Nicholas Canny (Oxford: Clarendon P., 1994; pp. xii + 329. [pounds]35). Different patterns of migration...

The Art of Midwifery: Early Modern Midwives in Europe.
February 1, 1997... The special value of The Art of Midwifery. Early Modern Midwives in Europe, ed. Hilary Marland (London: Routledge, 1993; pp. xvi + 234. Pb. [pounds]13.99), is its European scope, embracing as it does England (favoured with four chapters), France,...

Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of Charles II: 1660-1685.
February 1, 1997... Alan Marshall's Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of Charles II, 1660-1685 (Cambridge: U.P., 1994; pp. xvi + 334. [pounds]40) is the latest in the excellent and prolific series of Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History. It...

The Pyramid and the Urn. The Life in Letters of a Restoration Squire. William Lawrence Shurdington, 1636-1697.
February 1, 1997... William Lawrence is known principally from two long letters of 1675 and 1679 which were edited, and augmented with others, by Gerald Aylmer in 1961 as The Diary of William Lawrence. Historians of gardening know him, too, from Brigid Allen's...

Heaven and Hell in Enlightenment England.
February 1, 1997... Philip C. Almond's Heaven and Hell in Enlightenment England (Cambridge: U.P., 1994; pp. xiv + 218. [pounds]30) is a lively account of some late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century attitudes to life after death, which discusses problems such...

Trials of an Ordinary Doctor: Joannes Groenevelt in Seventeenth-Century London.
February 1, 1997... In 1694 a Dutch physician practising in London was found guilty of malpractice before the College of Physicians. Often misinterpreted in the past, when properly investigated the case turns out to have a good deal to tell us about professional and...

Frankreich, Deutschland und Europa im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Beitrage zum Einfluss fransosischer politischer Theorie, Verfassung und Aussenpolitik in der Fruhen Neuzeit.
February 1, 1997... Considering that Franco-German relations form one of the main axes of European history, there are surprisingly few French and German historians who seriously research the factors governing this relationship. One of the exceptions is Klaus...

Absolutismus und Offentlichkeit. Politische Kommunikation in Deutschland zu Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts.
February 1, 1997... Thirty-five years ago Jurgen Habermas argued in Strukturwandel der Offentlichkeit that the origins of modern political society could be located in the late eighteenth century with the emergence of public opinion both as the voice of the people...

Writing and the Rise of Finance: Capital Satires of the Early Eighteenth Century.
February 1, 1997... It has long been known that such writers as Gay, Pope and Swift were reacting to the alleged corruption of the early Hanoverian regime, and that the system of public credit was one of the aspects of that polity which they accused of being...

The Enlightenment.
February 1, 1997... The Republic of Letters is having a splendid revival: five European publishing houses have launched a multilingual series of history books entitled 'The Making of Europe'. Commissioned from leading scholars, the books are to appear in German,...

Japanese Industrialisation and the Asian Economy.
February 1, 1997... Since two-thirds of Japanese Industrialisation and the Asian Economy, ed. A. J. H. Latham and Heita Kawakatsu (London: Routledge, 1994; PP. xviii + 251. [pounds]40), concerns the central role of China, as a market and as a focus of mercantile...

Virtue, Corruption, and Self-Interest: Political Values in the Eighteenth Century.
February 1, 1997... The culture and practice of politics on both sides of the Atlantic in the eighteenth century are the themes of two collections from America. Twelve authors in Virtue, Corruption, and Self-Interest. Political Values in the Eighteenth Century, ed....

Parson and Parish in Eighteenth-Century Surrey: Replies to Bishops' Visitations..
February 1, 1997... The returns made by the parochial clergy to questions circulated by their bishops during diocesan visitations are among the most valuable of the institutional records generated by the Church of England in the eighteenth and early nineteenth...

The Power of Commerce: Economy and Governance in the First British Empire.
February 1, 1997... That the American Revolution should be seen in the context of an unprecedented surge of British imperial development is, if not a new idea, certainly a concept well worth recalling. In The Power of Commerce. Economy and Governance in the First...

The Autocritique of Enlightenment: Rousseau and the Philosophes.
February 1, 1997... Mark Hulliung's The Autocritique of Enlightenment. Rousseau and the Philosophes (Cambridge, Mass./London: Harvard U.P., 1994; P. xiii + 293. [pounds]35.95) is a fighting book. His first objective is to rescue Rousseau from appropriation as a...

Finance and Government Under Maria Theresa.
February 1, 1997... The Habsburg empire under Maria Theresa and Joseph II has been remarkably lucky in its recent English historians. P. G. M. Dickson in his Finance and Government under Maria Theresa (1987: rev. ante., civ.427), in every way a deeply impressive...

Catholicism in Ulster, 1603-1983: An Interpretive History.
February 1, 1997... There was a time when the writing of a book of this kind would have been frowned upon in certain circles as an implied recognition of the claim that Ulster was different, and so as a weakening of the national resolve against partition. When in...

The Useful Cobbler: Edmund Burke and the Politics of Progress.
February 1, 1997... There is less to trouble the reader in the title of James Conniff's The Useful Cobbler. Edmund Burke and the Politics of Progress (Albany: State University of New York P., 1994; pp. 363. $19.95) than a first glance might suggest. It is neither an...

Thomas Paine: Apostle of Freedom.
February 1, 1997... One is not entirely unprepared to be reminded that the subject of Jack Fruchtman Jr's Thomas Paine. Apostle of Freedom (New York/London: Four Walls, Eight Windows, 1994; pp. xii + 557. $30) originally spelled his surname without an 'e'. Paine's...

Revolutionary Justice in Paris: 1789-1790.
February 1, 1997... Barry M. Shapiro's Revolutionary Justice in Paris, 1789-1790 (Cambridge: U.P., 1993; pp. xvii + 302. [pounds]40) is an important contribution to the current debate about the relationship of the Enlightenment to the French Revolution. The ease...

The Remaking of France: The National Assembly and the Constitution of 1791.
February 1, 1997... Michael P. Fitzsimmons's The Remaking of France. The National Assembly and the Constitution of 1791 (Cambridge: U.P., 1994; pp. xvi + 273. [pounds]35) is further testimony to renewed interest in the political history of the French Revolution. The...

Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment: Useful Knowledge and Polite Culture.
February 1, 1997... Sir Joseph Banks has all too easily been dismissed as the self-important 'autocrat of the sciences', whose privilege it was to serve as President of the Royal Society for longer than anyone else (from 1778 to 1820!), doing British science no...

Religion in Industrial Society: Oldham and Saddleworth, 1740-1865.
February 1, 1997... Religion in Industrial Society. Oldham and Saddleworth, 1740-1865, by Mark Smith (Oxford: Clarendon P., 1994; pp. xi + 310. [pounds]35), sets out to challenge the view, common among sociologists of religion, which has presented British...

The Invention of the Modern Republic.
February 1, 1997... The ending of the Cold War, and the sudden collapse of the Marxist alternative of political organization, appear to have left the liberal democratic state as the only serious contender in the arena of political legitimacy. These developments have...