![[The University of Leicester]](unilogo.gif)
Recent Publications
This list provides information about some of our recent publications. Further details of these and other publications produced by staff in the School of Historical Studies can be found within individual staff pages.
2012
Dartmoor's Alluring Uplands: Transhumance and pastoral management in the Middle Ages
Harold Fox (edited by Chris Dyer and Matthew Tompkins) (University of Exeter Press, 2012) ISBN: 978-0-85989-865-2, 304pp.
This book provides a new perspective on a striking and famous feature of the English landscape, Dartmoor. This book describes, for the first time, the social organisation and farming practices associated with this annual transfer of livestock. It presents evidence for a previously unsuspected Anglo-Saxon pattern of transhumance.
Harold Fox died before completing the final stages of the book. Devonian by origin, he researched many aspects of the county’s history. Written with elegance and authority, the book distills a lifetime’s work in original medieval records and draws together evidence from a remarkable variety of sources. Fox’s colleagues at Leicester’s Centre for English Local History: Matthew Tompkins and Christopher Dyer saw the book through to publication.
A number of paperback copies are available for £25 from the Centre for English Local History. Contact Lucy Byrne for further details.
Italy and the Potato: A History, 1550-2000
David Gentilcore (Continuum, 2012) ISBN: 9781441140388, 272pp.
Italy, like the rest of Europe, owes a lot to the ‘Columbian exchange’. As a result of this process, in addition to potatoes, Europe acquired maize, tomatoes and most types of beans. All are basic elements of European diet and cookery today. The international importance of the potato today as the world’s most cultivated vegetable highlights its place in the Columbian exchange. While the history of the potato in the Ireland, Britain and other parts of northern Europe is quite well known, little is known about the slow rise and eventual fall of the potato in Italy. This book aims to fill that gap, arguing why the potato’s ‘Italian’ history is important. It is both a social and cultural history of the potato in Italy and a history of agriculture in marginal areas. David Gentilcore examines the developing presence of the potato in elite and peasant culture, its place in the difficult mountain environment, in family recipe notebooks and kitchen accounts, in travellers’ descriptions, agronomical treatises, cookery books, and in Italian literature.
Bede and the End of Time
Peter Darby (Ashgate Publishing, 2012) ISBN: 978-1-4094-3048-3, 276pp.
Taking account of Bede's beliefs about the end of time, this book offers sophisticated insights into his life, his works and the role that eschatological thought played in Anglo-Saxon society. Close attention is given to the historical setting of each source text consulted, and original insights are advanced regarding the chronological sequence of Bede's writings. The book reveals that Bede's ideas about time changed over the course of his career, and it shows how Bede established himself as the foremost expert in eschatology of his age.
The Indian Uprising of 1857-8: Prisons, Prisoners and Rebellion
Clare Anderson (Anthem Press India, 2012) ISBN: 9789380601526, 220pp.
This fascinating book, based on extensive archival research in Britain and India, examines why mutineer-rebels chose to attack prisons and release prisoners, discusses the impact of the destruction of the jails on British penal policy in mainland India, considers the relationship between India and its penal settlements in Southeast Asia, re-examines Britain’s decision to settle the Andaman Islands as a penal colony in 1858, and re-evaluates the experiences of mutineer-rebel convicts there.
The Making of the Middle Class: Toward a Transnational History
Contributions by Simon Gunn and Prashant Kidambi (Duke University Press, 2012), 464pp.
In this important and timely collection of essays, historians reflect on the middle class: what it is, why its struggles figure so prominently in discussions of the current economic crisis, and how it has shaped, and been shaped by, modernity. The contributors focus on specific middle-class formations around the world- in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas- since the mid-nineteenth century.
2011
The Papers of the Hothams: Governors of Hull during the Civil War
Edited by Andrew Hopper (Camden Society, 5th series, 39, 2011).
The role of Sir John Hotham in denying Charles I entrance into Hull in April 1642 was a critical moment in the outbreak of the English Civil War. This volume publishes the civil war letters and papers of the Hotham family, along with the accounts of their garrisons at Hull and Beverley. The evidence highlights their kinship networks, military resources and place within the parliamentary coalition, connecting northern affairs to Westminster. The book also reconnects the trial of the Hothams for betraying their trust in December 1644 with the simultaneous Self-Denying Ordinance and the formation of the New Model Army.
The World of John Secker, 1716-1795, Quaker Mariner
Edited by Andrew Hopper (Norfolk Record Society, 75, 2011).
This volume publishes John Secker’s reminiscences of his life at sea in the mid-eighteenth century. The son of a Quaker miller from North Walsham, Secker’s remarkable travels took him in vessels of many nations not only across maritime Europe and North America, but also to Arabia, India, the South Seas and Pacific Ocean. His travels encompass themes as diverse as religion, overseas cultures, migration, slavery, navigation, weather, maritime living conditions, commerce and cargoes, naval engagements, discipline and press-gangs, piracy, insurance fraud, foreign imprisonment and Jacobite exiles. Writing in his retirement from seafaring, Secker addressed issues of cultural and racial difference, providing an individual life history with global ramifications.
Research Methods in History
Edited by Simon Gunn and Lucy Faire (Edinburgh University Press, 2011) ISBN: 978-0-7486-4204-5 paperback, 978-0-7486-4205-2 hardback, 256pp.
A new book has been published that aims to put methods and methodology back onto historians’ agenda. Research Methods for History contains essays by leading historians like R.J. Morris and Ludmilla Jordanova on approaches such as visual methods, GIS and life-stories. Historians from Leicester’s Centre for Urban History, Simon Gunn and Prashant Kidambi, contribute chapters on the concept of performance and time respectively. Ranging across topics from landscape to ethics, the essays encourage historians and postgraduate researchers to think anew about the rich variety of ways now available to investigate the past.
Dole Queues and Demons: British Election Posters from the Conservative Party Archive
Stuart Ball (Bodleian Library Press, 2011) ISBN: 1851243534, 186pp.
Exploiting the Conservative Party Archive held at the Bodleian Library which contains over 700 posters, this book charts the evolution of the Conservatives' election posters. Divided into chapters along political periods, the book highlights the changing fashions in and attitudes to advertising, political ideology, slogans, combativeness and above all, propriety. Each chapter includes a brief introduction discussing the major themes of the period as well as captions explaining specific issues related to the individual posters.
New Directions in Local History since Hoskins
Edited by Andrew Hopper, Christopher Dyer, Evelyn Lord and Nigel Tringham (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2011) ISBN: 978-1-907396-12-0
Local history in Britain can trace its origins back to the sixteenth century and before, but it was given inspiration and a new sense of direction in the 1950s and 60s by the work of W.G. Hoskins. This book marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of his Local history in England which was designed to help people researching the history of their own villages and towns.
The Peculiarities of Liberal Modernity in Imperial Britain
Edited by Simon Gunn and James Vernon (University of California Press, May 2011) ISBN: 978-0-98-459-095-7, 286pp.
In this wide-ranging volume, leading scholars across several disciplines—history, literature, sociology, and cultural studies—investigate the nature of liberalism and modernity in imperial Britain since the eighteenth century. They show how Britain's liberal version of modernity (of capitalism, democracy, and imperialism) was the product of a peculiar set of historical circumstances that continues to haunt our neoliberal present.
Women, Dissent and Anti-Slavery in Britain and America, 1790-1865
Edited by Elizabeth J. Clapp and Julie Roy Jeffrey (Oxford University Press, April 2011) ISBN: 978-0-19-958548-9, 224pp.
As historians have gradually come to recognize, the involvement of women was central to the anti-slavery cause in both Britain and the United States. Like their male counterparts, women abolitionists did not all speak with one voice. Among the major differences between women were their religious affiliations, an aspect of their commitment that has not been studied in detail. This book examines the part that the traditions, practices, and beliefs of English Protestant dissent and the American Puritan and evangelical traditions played in women's anti-slavery activism. Focusing particularly on Baptist, Congregational, Presbyterian and Unitarian women, the essays in this volume move from accounts of individual women's participation in the movement as printers and writers, to assessments of the negotiations and the occasional conflicts between different denominational groups and their anti-slavery impulses.
Top
2010
Sport and the Military: The British Armed Forces 1880-1960
Tony Mason and Eliza Riedi (Cambridge University Press, 2010), ISBN: 978-0-521-70074-0, 298pp.
On battleships, behind the trenches of the Western Front and in the midst of the Desert War, British servicemen and women have played sport in the least promising circumstances. When 400 soldiers were asked in Burma in 1946 what they liked about the Army, 108 put sport in first place - well ahead of comradeship and leave - and this book explores the fascinating history of organised sport in the life of officers and other ranks of all three British services from 1880–1960. Drawing on a wide range of sources, this book examines how organised sport developed in the Victorian army and navy, became the focus of criticism for Edwardian army reformers, and was officially adopted during the Great War to boost morale and esprit de corps. It shows how service sport adapted to the influx of professional sportsmen, especially footballers, during the Second World War and the National Service years.
Pomodoro! A history of the tomato in Italy
David Gentilcore (Columbia University Press, 2010), ISBN: 978-0-231-15206-8, 272pp.
The book looks at the presence of the tomato in elite and peasant culture, in family recipe books and kitchen accounts, in travellers’ reports, in Italian art, literature and film.
Pomodoro! A history of the tomato in Italy at the presence of the tomato in elite and peasant culture, in family recipe books and kitchen accounts, in travellers’ reports, in Italian art, literature and film. It traces the role of the tomato as a botanical curiosity (in the sixteenth century), to changing attitudes towards vegetables (in the seventeenth and eighteenth); from the tomato’s gradual adoption as a condiment (in the eighteenth), to its widespread cultivation for canning and concentrate and its happy marriage with factory-produced pasta (both in the late nineteenth century); and from its adoption as a national symbol, both by Italian emigrants abroad and during the Fascist period, to its spread throughout the peninsula (in the twentieth).
Pomodoro! A history of the tomato in Italy is part of a research project into the reception and assimilation of New World plants in Italy, from 1500 to the present, funded by a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship. Find out more information about the Leverhulme Trust.
The US Public and American Foreign Policy
Edited by Andrew Johnstone and Helen Laville (Routledge, 2010), ISBN 978-0-415-55315-5, 232pp.
Though often overlooked, public opinion has always played a significant role in the development and promotion of US foreign policy and this work seeks to comprehensively assess the impact and nature of that opinion through a collection of historical and contemporary essays.
Women, Welfare and Local Politics, 1880-1920
Steve King (Sussex Academic Press, paperback 2010), ISBN: 978-1-84519-087-3 h/b, 978-1-84519-413-0 p/b, 376pp.
Women, Welfare and Local Politics, 1880-1920 offers a reappraisal of the role of women in the politics and practice of welfare in late Victorian and early Edwardian England. Focusing on the Lancashire mill town of Bolton, it traces the emergence of a core of female social and political activists from the 1860s and analyses their achievements as they rose from the humble origins of a workhouse visiting committee to become pivotal players in the formulation and implementation of local welfare policy after 1894. Using a unique working diary written by the activist and female poor law Guardian Mary Haslam, the book portrays these Bolton women as sophisticated political operators.
Deserted Villages Revisited
Edited by Chris Dyer and Richard Jones (University of Hertfordshire Press, 2010), ISBN 978-1-905313-79-2
Thousands of villages and smaller settlements were deserted in England and Wales during all periods, though many of them were abandoned between 1340 and 1750. Why were they deserted? Why did some villages survive while others were abandoned? Who was responsible for their desertion? What can we learn about life in the countryside from a study of the deserted sites?
Since the 1970s these questions have been set aside while interest has shifted to the origin and planning of villages, and the regional differences which led to a 'village England' developing across the middle of the country, while everywhere else people lived in hamlets and individual farms. Now seems the right moment to return to the subject and with fresh eyes reopen the important questions which were not fully answered in the early days. In this book ten leading archaeologists, geographers and historians have come together to revisit the deserted villages and reveal much new evidence and new thinking about these fascinating sites.
2009
Imprisoned by History. Aspects of Historicized Life
Martin Davies (New York: Routledge, 2009), ISBN: 978-0-415-99520-7, xiii + 259pp.
Imprisoned by History: Aspects of Historicized Life offers a controversial analysis, grounded both in philosophical argument and empirical evidence, of what history does in contemporary culture. It endorses and extends the argument that contemporary society is, in historical terms, already historicized, shaped by history – and thus history loses sight of the world, seeing it only as a reflection of its own self-image. By focusing on history as a way of thinking about the world, as a thought-style, this volume delivers a major, decisive, thought-provoking critique of a crucial aspect contemporary culture and the public sphere.
Art and Religion in Eighteenth-century Europe
Nigel Aston (Reaktion Books, 2009), ISBN: 978-1-86189-377-2, 248pp.
Eighteenth-century Europe witnessed monumental upheavals in both the Catholic and Protestant faiths and the repercussions rippled down to the churches' religious art forms. In this major new study, Nigel Aston chronicles the intertwining of cultural and institutional turmoil during this pivotal century. The sustained production and popularity of religious art in the face of competition from increasingly prevalent secular artworks lies at the heart of this book. Religious art staked out new spaces of display in state institutions, palaces and private collections as well as taking advantage of state patronage from monarchs such as Louis XIV and George III, who funded religious art in an effort to enhance their national projects and monarchial prestige.
Seeing Things Their Way. Intellectual History and the Return of Religion
Edited by Alister Chapman, John Coffey and Brad S. Gregory (Notre Dame Press, 2009), ISBN 978-0-2680-2298-3, 280pp.
'This terrific collection of essays will give intellectual historians a lot to think about. With learning, courtesy and precision, the authors make clear that historians of early modern and modern thought, in Britain, Europe, and America, need to pay far more attention than they have to religious ideas and categories. At the same time, though, they show that historians of ideas can provide historians of theology with important methodological lessons'.
William Dugdale, Historian, 1605- 1686: His Life, His Writings and His County
Edited by Christopher Dyer and Catherine Richardson (Boydell, February 2009), ISBN 978-1-8438-3443-4
This collection of essays entitled William Dugdale, Historian, 1605-1686:His Life, His Writings and His County is edited by the Centre of English Local History's Director, Professor Christopher Dyer and Dr Catherine Richardson of the University of Kent. It emerged from a conference sponsored by the Dugdale Society and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon on 16 September 2006. Anyone interested in the development of local history, early modern social and cultural history or the seventeenth-century Midlands will find it of particular interest.
Dilemmas of Internationalism. The American Association for the United Nations and US Foreign Policy, 1941- 1948
Andrew Johnstone (Ashgate, January 2009), ISBN 978-0-7546-9315-4, 212pp.
Dilemmas of Internationalism is a new political history of the 1940s which charts and analyses the efforts of private internationalists to define US internationalism and promote the establishment of the United Nations. Internationalists hoped that the United States would shake off the fear of entangling alliances that had characterised the nation's history, replacing isolationism and unilateralism with a new, involved and multilateral approach to foreign affairs. During and after World War II, a number of private individuals and organisations were at the forefront of the fight to change the nature of US foreign policy. This book focuses in particular on the most important internationalist organisation: the American Association for the United Nations (AAUN), known as the League of Nations Association through 1944. It situates the AAUN in the vast network of private organisations promoting an internationalist foreign policy during and after World War II, and analyses the connections between the AAUN and the US government and key public figures who proposed a more internationalist foreign policy.
2008
Ordinary People as Mass Murderers- Perpetrators in Comparative Perspectives (The Holocaust and its Contexts Series)
Edited by Olaf Jensen and Claus-Christian W. Szejnmann (Palgrave Macmillan, November 2008), ISBN 978-0-2305-5202-9, 256pp.
Ordinary People as Mass Murderers offers a series of essays that explore one of the most fundamental questions of humanity, and a topic that is currently widely discussed within societies: How do ordinary people become mass murderers? Recent scholarship has presented a complex and heterogeneous picture of ‘ordinary’ perpetrators, and shows that no age group, gender, social, ethnic, religious or educational cohort proved immune to becoming mass murderers. This book brings together a mix of established and younger experts, to provide a unique and up-to-date overview of the current state of research that has either not been published in English, or makes accessible interpretations by well-known Anglo-Saxon scholars. Nine contributions and an introduction present complex findings in an accessible format, approach the topic from a variety of perspectives (history, gender, sociology, psychology, law, comparative genocide), address several unresolved questions, and show that our knowledge has moved on considerable since Christopher Browning’s path breaking Ordinary Men from 1992. This book is of crucial relevance for contemporary society seeking to understand various forms of genocide.
With contributions from Andrej Angrick, Donald Bloxham, Thomas Kuehne, Harald Welzer, James Waller, Christina Herkommer, Irmtraud Heike, Gerd Hankel and Chris Szejnmann.
Fighting for the Cross. Crusading to the Holy Land
Norman Housley (Yale University Press, September 2008), ISBN 978-0-3001-1888-9, 356pp.
In a series of massive military undertakings that stretched from 1095 to 1291, Christendom's armies won, defended, and lost the sacred sites of the Holy Land. This vividly written book draws on extensive research and on a wealth of surviving contemporary accounts to recreate the full experience of crusading, from the elation of taking up the cross to the difficult adjustments at home when the war was over.
Falling from Grace: Reversal of Fortune and the English Nobility 1075- 1455
James Bothwell (Manchester University Press, July 2008), ISBN 978-0-7190-7521-6 h/b, 978-0-7190-7522-3 p/b, 288pp.
This original study examines how members of the English medieval nobility and their families fell, usually dramatically and often violently, from position and power in the period 1075–1455. It also considers what those who survived this fall did while out of favour and what some families did to attempt to revive their fortunes. For those noble dynasties that managed to survive such downturns, there was usually an attempt to return to position, if not power – though the road was never easy and, this book argues, increasingly involved sustained efforts by wives, mothers and daughters.
East Meets West- Banking, Commerce and Investment in the Ottoman Empire
Edited by Philip L. Cottrell (Ashgate, June 2008), ISBN 978-0-7546-6443-7, 214pp.
Bringing together cultural, economic and social historians from across Europe and beyond, this volume offers a consideration from a number of perspectives of the principal forces that further integrated the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe during the first century of industrialisation. The essays not only review and analyse the commercial, financial and monetary factors, negative as well as positive, that bore upon the region's initial stages of modern transformation, but also provide a ready introduction to major aspects of the economy and society of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century.
Top
