The Historian back issues from December 2005:
Allotment of mineral and timber lands on Indian reservations and the public domain.(Indian General Allotment Act of 1887)
Dec 22, 2005; ... WITH THE RAPID advance of the U.S. frontier in the late nineteenth century into areas where Indian reservations had already been established, it was difficult, if not impossible, to find places where the Indians could be protected against white encroachment on tribal lands. Under these ...
From pigeons to crystals: the development of radio communication in U.S. army tanks in World War II.
Dec 22, 2005; ... THE TERM BLITZKRIEG (lightning war) has become encrusted by layers of legend, even myth, which make it seem like some esoteric branch of knowledge. It really should be regarded as little more than a useful nickname for large, fast-moving, deep-penetrating, quasi-independent mechanized ...
Flickering images: live television coverage and viewership of the army--McCarthy hearings.(Joseph R. McCarthy)
Dec 22, 2005; ... IT WAS A DRAMATIC TABLEAU unveiled before a nation: an older man, courtly, folksy, and usually gentle, rebuking a headstrong, bullying U.S. senator. Locked in a dispute with the Army, Wisconsin Republican Joseph R. McCarthy had just attacked a junior member of his adversary's law firm, who ...
The French revolution as local experience: the terror in Dijon.
Dec 22, 2005; ... FREDERIC-HENRI RICHARD DE RUFFEY was one of the leading citizens of old regime Dijon. President at the Parlement and descended from a long line of robe nobles, he was immensely wealthy and related to most of Dijon's robe families. (1) He had played a prominent role in the campaign in Dijon ...
Evangelicalism, masculinity, and the making of imperial missionaries in late Georgian Britain, 1795-1820.
Dec 22, 2005; ... <Pre>And whither can the fainting eye of human misery turn, but to thisgreat Protestant Empire, which God appears to have aggrandized, atthe present momentous period, with the design of employing her asthe herald of mercy to mankind? (1) </Pre> THIS QUOTE FROM Daniel ...
"Crusades Scholarship".(The Experience of Crusading vols. 1-2)(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Experience of Crusading Volume 1, Western Approaches. Edited by Marcus Bull and Norman Housley. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xvi, 307. $60.00.) The Experience of Crusading Volume 2, Defining the Crusader Kingdom. Edited by Peter Edbury and Jonathan ...
Searching for a Different Future: The Rise of a Global Middle Class in Morocco.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Searching for a Different Future: The Rise of a Global Middle Class in Morocco. By Shana Cohen. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004. Pp. xiii, 177. $21.95.) As in many other countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the process of Moroccan integration into the global market ...
God's Rule: Government and Islam, Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thought.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... God's Rule: Government and Islam, Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thought. By Patricia Crone. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Pp. x, 462. $39.50.) In her study of Islamic political systems of thought during the first six centuries of Islam (the seventh to ...
Warlords and Merchants: The Lebanese Business and Political Establishment.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Warlords and Merchants: The Lebanese Business and Political Establishment. By Kamal Dib. (Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 2004. Pp. 333. $49.50.) The author of this study, a Canadian economist of Lebanese origins, has written a somewhat disjointed account of what he terms Lebanon's ...
Dhows and the Colonial Economy of Zanzibar, 1860-1970.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Dhows and the Colonial Economy of Zanzibar, 1860-1970. By Erik Gilbert. (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004. Pp. xiii, 176. $26.95.) Dhows are a name given to a variety of sailing vessels of the western Indian Ocean whose significance is well-known to historians of East Africa ....
The Steamer Parish: The Rise and Fall of Missionary Medicine on an African Frontier.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Steamer Parish: The Rise and Fall of Missionary Medicine on an African Frontier. By Charles M. Good Jr. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Pp. 487. $30.00.) Scholars of central African missionary studies will remember the legendary exploits of the indomitable ...
Rethinking Nasserism: Revolution and Historical Memory in Modern Egypt.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Rethinking Nasserism: Revolution and Historical Memory in Modern Egypt. Edited and with an introduction by Elie Podeh and Onn Winckler. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004. Pp. xii, 365. $59.95.) The fiftieth anniversary of Gamal 'Abd al-Nasser's 1952 ...
Audacity Personified: The Generalship of Robert E. Lee.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Audacity Personified: The Generalship of Robert E. Lee. Edited by Peter S. Carmichael. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004. Pp. xxi, 174. $24.95.) In his foreword, the editor of this collection of articles justifies this volume as an effort to break away from ...
The Regulars: The American Army, 1898-1941.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Regulars: The American Army, 1898-1941. By Edward M. Coffman. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004. Pp. vi, 519. $35.00.) The author of this study is a noted scholar of the U.S. Army. His masterpiece, The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, ...
Brothers One and All: Esprit de Corps in a Civil War Regiment.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Brothers One and All: Esprit de Corps in a Civil War Regiment. By Mark H. Dunkelman. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004. Pp. xii, 344. $39.95.) The author of this book has spent a lifetime studying the 154th New York Infantry Regiment, and for good reasons ....
Why the Electoral College is Bad for America.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America. By George C. Edwards III. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Pp. 198. $26.00.) The last two presidential elections in the United States have caused concern and debates about the way Americans select their presidents to ...
Slavery in the Development of the Americas.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Slavery in the Development of the Americas. Edited by David Eltis, Frank D. Lewis, and Kenneth L. Sokoloff. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. ix, 372. $75.00.) This Festschrift to Stanley L. Engerman is composed of an extensive introduction and eleven articles by ...
Surprise, Security, and the American Experience.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Surprise, Security, and the American Experience. By John Lewis Gaddis. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004. Pp. vi, 150. $18.95.) A political science axiom suggests that when governments do not know what to do, they do what they know. John Gaddis, the distinguished ...
Puritans in the New World: A Critical Anthology.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Puritans in the New World: A Critical Anthology. Edited by David D. Hall. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi, 370. $19.95.) This collection of articles explores the experience of being Puritan in America. It tells the story of the authoritative, yet ...
The Second Great Awakening and the Transcendentalists..(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Second Great Awakening and the Transcendentalists. By Barry Hankins. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004. Pp. xx, 200. $45.00.) In this volume, the author provides a general overview of the "religious fever" that swept through the United States in the years prior to the Civil ...
Armies without Nations: Public Violence and State Formation in Central America, 1821-1960.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Armies without Nations: Public Violence and State Formation in Central America, 1821-1960. By Robert H. Holden. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. x, 336. $55.00.) The overriding theme of this book is the emergence since independence of coercive public authority and ...
An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866. By James G. Hollandsworth Jr. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001. Pp. xviii, 168. $28.95.) This new book is an examination of the bloody events of 30 July 1866, in New Orleans, in which white ...
Downtown America: A History of the Place and the People Who Made It.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Downtown America: A History of the Place and the People Who Made It. By Alison Isenberg. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Pp. xv, 441. $32.50.) This work continues the fine reputation of the series in which it appears, and as such, it is not a simple history of the ...
Singing in My Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Singing in My Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age. By Jerma A. Jackson. (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Pp. xii, 193. $15.95.) The role and influence of Christianity on popular music of the twentieth century is a rich and varied study. Most ...
The Nation's Crucible: The Louisiana Purchase and the Creation of America.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Nation's Crucible: The Louisiana Purchase and the Creation of America. By Peter J. Kastor. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Pp. xiii, 311. $35.00.) This new work does not deliver what its expansive title promises. In The Nation's Crucible, the author provides a fresh ...
The Great Southern Babylon: Sex, Race, and Respectability in New Orleans, 1865-1920.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Great Southern Babylon: Sex, Race and Respectability in New Orleans, 1865-1920. By Alecia P. Long. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004. Pp. xv, 282. $39.95.) This fine book fills a very important gap that overlaps and intertwines with a range of fields, ...
The Seminole Wars: America's Longest Indian Conflict.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Seminole Wars: America's Longest Indian Conflict. By John Missall and Mary Lou Missall. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004. Pp. xxii, 255. $29.95.) In this book, the authors provide an overview and place in broader scope the three Seminole Wars fought between ...
The Meaning of Independence: John Adams, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Meaning of Independence: John Adams, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. By Edmund S. Morgan. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004. Pp. ix, 91. $19.95.) Since its original publication nearly thirty years ago, Edmund S. Morgan's The Meaning of ...
Glory, Darkness, Light: A History of the Union League Club of Chicago.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Glory, Darkness, Light: A History of the Union League Club of Chicago. By James D. Nowlan. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2004. Pp. 290. $29.95.) Civic-minded businessmen founded The Chicago Club of the Union League of America in December of 1879, renaming it the ...
Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874-1947.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874-1947. By Michael J. Pfeifer. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004. Pp. x, 246. $35.00.) This monograph argues that lynching declined mainly because many of the goals of those who engaged in lynching began to be realized by ...
Inside the Pentagon Papers.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Inside the Pentagon Papers. Edited by John Prados and Margarett Pratt Porter. (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2004. Pp. xi, 248. $29.95.) This collection of articles has its origins in a 2001 symposium sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans of America. The symposium was ...
Franklin D. Roosevelt.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Franklin D. Roosevelt. By Patrick Renshaw. (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004. Pp. xxx, 223. $26.99.) The author of this book has provided an authoritative addition to the literature on Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). The series in which it appears emphasizes the arc of power, and ...
Minding the Machine: Languages of Class in Early Industrial America.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Minding the Machine: Languages of Class in Early Industrial America. By Stephen P. Rice. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Pp. xiii, 230. $49.95.) During the four decades following 1820, a group of Americans, which included labor leaders, ministers, college ...
Women at the Front: Hospital Workers in Civil War America.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Women at the Front: Hospital Workers in Civil War America. By Jane E. Schultz. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Pp. xiv, 360. $39.95.) Anyone who has ever lectured on Civil War medicine will find this book to be a godsend. Recent years have brought forth a ...
Bound by a Mighty Vow: Sisterhood and Women's Fraternities, 1870-1920.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Bound by a Mighty Vow: Sisterhood and Women's Fraternities, 1870-1920. By Diana B. Turk. (New York: New York University Press, 2004. Pp. v, 245. $20.00.) The author of this study notes that people are rarely neutral on the subject of women's fraternities (also referred to as ...
Race, Nation and Market: Economic Culture in Porfirian Mexico.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Race, Nation, and Market: Economic Culture in Porfiran Mexico. By Richard Weiner. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004. Pp. xi, 167. $39.95.) Revisionist scholars have begun to rethink Porfirio Diaz and his thirty-five-year dictatorship. Once seen as the lackeys of American ...
The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861. By Jonathan Daniel Wells. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Pp. xv, 321. $22.50.) The portrait of an Old South composed of wealthy planters, yeoman farmers, and slaves retains a tenacious hold on Southern ...
Chains of Love: Slave Couples in Antebellum South Carolina.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Chains of Love: Slave Couples in Antebellum South Carolina. By Emily West. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2004. Pp. 184. $30.00.) The author of this book seeks to fill a gap in historical studies of American slavery on the nature of the relationship between married ...
Doomed to Fail: The Built-in Defects of American Education.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Doomed to Fail: The Built-in Defects of American Education. By Paul A. Zoch. (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004. Pp. ix, 237. $26.95.) Who do we blame for the low expectations required of students in U.S. public schools? Is it the parents? Do we point fingers at the teachers? Should we ...
The History of New Zealand.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The History of New Zealand. By Tom Brooking. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004. Pp. xxxv, 250. $45.00.) In recent years, New Zealand has been a popular destination for increasing numbers of American undergraduate students. New Zealand's "clean, green" reputation, its ...
Stitches on Time: Colonial Textures and Postcolonial Tangles.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Stitches on Time: Colonial Textures and Postcolonial Tangles. By Saurabh Dube. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004. Pp. xv, 259. $84.95.) The author of this study is not shy about claiming dual disciplinary significance for his work. He writes, "I engage and extend the ...
Pacific Places, Pacific Histories: Essays in Honor of Robert C. Kiste.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Pacific Places, Pacific Histories: Essays in Honor of Robert C. Kiste. Edited by Brij V. Lal. (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004. Pp. vii, 345. $57.00.) In this collection of articles, the authors attempt to accomplish two goals. The first objective is to pay tribute ...
The Class of 1761: Examinations, State, and Elites in Eighteenth-Century China.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Class of 1761: Examinations, State, and Elites in Eighteenth-Century China. By Iona D. Man-Cheong. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. Pp. xii, 298. $55.00.) The imperial Chinese civil service examination was, from the perspective of the throne, a wondrously enabling ...
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Rebellion and the Blasphemy of Empire.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Rebellion and the Blasphemy of Empire. By Thomas H. Reilly. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004. Pp. xi, 235. $45.00.) In this insightful and easily accessible monograph, the author examines the ideological basis of the Taiping Uprising ...
Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity. By G. B. Singh. (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2004. Pp. 355. $32.00.) This study contains two central theses. First, the author argues that the bulk of the vast Gandhi literature represents an outgrowth of "the Gandhi propaganda machine," ...
Relics of the Buddha.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Relics of the Buddha. By John S. Strong. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Pp. xxii, 290. $39.50.) Once considered an embarrassing sideshow to the more weighty drama of the life and legacy of the Buddha, relics have increasingly moved closer to center stage in ...
Taiwan's Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683-1895.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Taiwan's Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writings and Pictures, 1683-1895. By Emma J. Teng. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004. Pp. 400. $49.95.) This study is a carefully crafted, beautifully written, and often fascinating book that gives the reader new ways ...
Napoleon in Egypt.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Napoleon in Egypt. Edited by Irene A. Bierman, with an introduction by Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyid Marsot. (Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 2003. Pp. v, 187. $49.50.) The articles that compose this book were given at an international conference held in Los Angeles to discuss the French ...
Parliament and Foreign Policy in the Eighteenth Century.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Parliament and Foreign Policy in the Eighteenth Century. By Jeremy Black. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xiii, 261. $70.00.) This splendid analysis of the sometimes difficult relationship of parliament with the executive in the construction of British foreign ...
The Great Deception: The Secret History of the European Union.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Great Deception: The Secret History of the European Union. By Christopher Booker and Richard North. (New York: Continuum, 2003. Pp. xiii, 474. $39.95.) Every political movement narrates history in its own way. This book is the story of European integration seen from the ...
The Politics of the Poor: The East End of London, 1885-1914.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Politics of the Poor: The East End of London 1885-1914. By Marc Brodie. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. xii, 240. $95.00.) The author of this study has returned to the nettlesome question of why East End Londoners tended to return Conservatives to Parliament. ...
Alexander the Great: A New Life.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Alexander the Great: A New Life. By Paul Cartledge. (New York: Overlook Press, 2004. Pp. 352. $28.95.) Biographies of Alexander the Great appear frequently, in part because the enigma offered by this provocative figure never loses allure and also because all students of ...
The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex, and Contraception, 1800-1975.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex, and Contraception, 1800-1975. By Hera Cook. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. xiv, 412. $55.00.) According to the first, Whiggish generation of writers who chronicled the history of birth control, the popularization of ...
Athenian Democratic Origins and Other Essays.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Athenian Democratic Origins and Other Essays. By G. E. M. de Ste. Croix. Edited by David Harvey and Robert Parker, with the assistance of Peter Thonemann. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. vii, 464. $145.00.) Despite the fact that the author of this collection laid ...
The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France. By Suzanne Desan. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Pp. xiv, 456. $50.00.) The author of this study restores the "revolutionary" aspect to Revolutionary France with her latest, well-documented piece of social and legal ...
To the Scaffold: The Life of Marie Antoinette.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... To the Scaffold: The Life of Marie Antoinette. By Carolly Erickson. (New York: St. Martin's Griffin Press, 2004. Pp. 384. $17.95.) The pathos of Marie Antoinette's vertiginous decline from the court glamor of Versailles to the brutal finality of the guillotine has always ...
George Sand.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... George Sand. By Elizabeth Harlan. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Pp. xx, 359. $35.00.) The author of this engaging new biography of George Sand (born Aurore Dupin), one of nineteenth-century France's most prolific and celebrated writers, brings an original perspective ...
A Social History of Soviet Trade: Trade Policy, Retail Practices, and Consumption, 1917-1953.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... A Social History of Soviet Trade: Trade Policy, Retail Practices, and Consumption, 1917-1953. By Julie Hessler. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi, 366. $39.50.) This richly researched study of Soviet trade in the early years of Communist power draws on a wide ...
The Deeds of Pope Innocent III by an Anonymous Author.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Deeds of Pope Innocent III by an Anonymous Author. Translated with an introduction and notes by James M. Powell. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004. Pp. xlv, 286. $ 59.95.) The Gesta Innocentii, the anonymous account of the deeds of Pope Innocent ...
Procopius of Caesarea: Tyranny, History, and Philosophy at the End of Antiquity.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Procopius of Caesarea: Tyranny, History, and Philosophy at the End of Antiquity. By Anthony Kaldellis. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. Pp. 305. $49.95.) The Roman emperor Justinian I (r. A.D. 527-565) dominated the sixth century, a period of transition ...
French Salons: High Society and Political Sociability from the Old Regime to the Revolution of 1848.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... French Salons: High Society and Political Sociability from the Old Regime to the Revolution of 1848. By Steven Kale. (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Pp. 308. $48.00.) The structure of the salon changed remarkably little between the reign of Louis XIV and ...
The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship, 1445-1503.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503. By J. L. Laynesmith. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. xviii, 294. $52.00.) This study is the first extended examination of the roles and responsibilities of the English queens during the Wars of the Roses. The ...
Ludwig Erhard: A Biography.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... Ludwig Erhard: A Biography. By Alfred Mierzejewski. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Pp. xv, 278. $49.95.) When Chancellor Ludwig Erhard left office in 1966, he quickly faded into the background of the West German political scene. Although Erhard has been ...
People and Politics in France, 1848-1870.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... People and Politics in France, 1848-1870. By Roger Price. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. x, 477. $95.00.) The author of this book comes to the task he has assigned himself here as well prepared as any contemporary historian writing in any language. He is ...
United We Stand: A History of Britain's Trade Unions.(Book review)
Dec 22, 2005; ... United We Stand: A History of Britain's Trade Unions. By Alastair J. Reid. (London: Allen Lane, 2004. Pp. xvii, 471. $45.00.) After a brief review of medieval guilds and early modern labor organizations, the author divides this book on the development of British trade unions ...