United Kingdom Books

First published in 1959 this remains an indispensible text to anyone with an interest in understanding the dynamic of one of the most misunderstood periods in English History. Most people think of prim moralists when they think of "Victorians" but after reading Asa Briggs 500 page sociological, economic, political and cultural survey the reader will be left with a far more complex and far richer impression of the Victorians and the complex issues that obsessed and defined them.

This book is primarily a socio-political history and in England power has traditionally rested in the hands of the landowners. At the time of the French Revolution very few members of Parliament believed in democracy. To both the conservative(Tory) and liberal(Whig) elements in the English Parliament the English Constitution was thought to be the best because it was government run not by the people but government run by those most qualified to run government . As the nineteenth-century progressed, however, it became impossible to deny a growing and increasingly wealthy middle class its say on election day. Change did happen but it happened very differently in England than in continental Europe. In a time when other European nations were experiencing violent revolutions England remained relatively stable and Briggs attributes this relative calm to a consistently strong English economy --for a time the worlds strongest. Many found the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 (which opened the way for free trade) to be the most significant legislature of the century. Reformist leaders and movements became popular during times of recession and the 19th century saw reforms in every area of life but reform in England was always a slow and deliberate process and reformist movements faded from the national consciousness during times of recovery. The 1830's saw the deepest recessions so it is not surprising that it was in that decade that the first major constitutional reform was passed extending the right to vote to the middle class. Many conservatives feared the move toward democracy would mean the end of England but in 1867 a second major consitutional reform extended the right to vote to the working classes. Political leaders were more often than not moderates whose main task was to maintain a balance between the various elements of Parliament which included Tories, Whigs, and Radicals. Throughout the period government like everything else was undergoing vast changes. Democracy presented a challenge to English political tradition and Darwin presented a challenge to English belief systems but the triumph of the age was perhaps its allegiance to balance and moderation in all things which was in part due to the Evangelical spirit of the time and in part due to the Utilitarian spirit popularized by legislative and law reformer Jeremy Bentham.

Briggs paints a portrait of an England that sees itself as the pinnacle of civilization. The age was defined differently by its optimists and its pessimists but Briggs sets down four main features that defined both the champions and the critics of the era: work, seriousness, respectabilty, self-help.

Briggs quotes extensively from the prominent men and women of the day(political and cultural figures) to give us an idea of how the Victorians viewed themselves and their era.

The Age of Improvement

Chapter 1 :Economy and Society in the 1780's
Chapter 2: Politics and Government on the Eve of the French Revolution
Chapter 3: The Impact of War
Chapter 4:The Politics of Transition
Chapter 5: Reform
Chapter 6: Social Cleavage
Chapter 7:Britain and the World Overseas
Chapter 8: The Balance of Interests
Chapter 9: Victorianism
Chapter 10: The Leap in the Dark

This is an inteligent, well written and extremely thought provoking book which takes a critical look at the current state of world free market capitalism. The main thrust of the books argument is that governments of the left have given up the fight in the reform of capitalism and in doing so have focussed their intervention onto the citizen, ie from market control to social control. I think this argument is very true looking at the policies of the British 'New Labour' government over the last 2 years. The book gives a very interesting cultural tour over the last 50 years which compliments the politcal sea changes over this period.

I found this book to be a marvelous presentation of the antecedents of the English Industrial Revolution. It is lucid, apolitical in language, deeply researched, and tightly organized. It draws material from important but uncommon sources, like eighteenth century industrial commentators before Adam Smith. Best of all, the deep texture of its tapestry of ideas was a pleasure to receive into one's own mind.

This was a great book with absolutly gorgeous pictures. I love Victorian paintings and the symbolism that they put in the paintings during that time period.I now collect anything I can find about that painting period. I definatly would reccommend this to anyone who loves this time period in art.

In 1938 an excavation was made at Sutton Hoo by the Ipswich Museum after years of rumors of untold gold having been buried in the area. The site was found to be that of a ship burial, possibly for an East Anglian king known as Redwald. A veritable treasure hoard was found of decayed weaponry, armor, and a variety of everyday use items - as was the norm when burying a person of stature in the early Middle Ages. Most of these items are now in the British Museum, the two most famous being a large, ...more In 1938 an excavation was made at Sutton Hoo by the Ipswich Museum after years of rumors of untold gold having been buried in the area. The site was found to be that of a ship burial, possibly for an East Anglian king known as Redwald. A veritable treasure hoard was found of decayed weaponry, armor, and a variety of everyday use items - as was the norm when burying a person of stature in the early Middle Ages. Most of these items are now in the British Museum, the two most famous being a large, solid gold Celtic knot work belt buckle and a reconstructed warrior's helmet.

In this collection of articles from Boydell & Brewer edited by Martin Carver, new insights are presented about the Sutton Hoo ship burial and the artifacts discovered there. But The Age of Sutton Hoo is much more than a dry and simple book on the burial site. It presents fascinating articles on the specific period in which the burial took place, and explains what England was like at that time, as well as Pictland (then Scotland), and Europe. Articles into the development of Old English, the Anglo-Saxon language, reveal insights into how language varied between England and Europe. Numerous articles document the undeniable similarities between Sutton Hoo and the tale of Beowulf, which, coupled together, help to create a more complete and detailed story of the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries of medieval Europe.

A history degree is not required to understand the articles of The Age of Sutton Hoo, which are presented in a clear and concise manner, keeping the reader interested from page to page. The book is a must for any fan of Sutton Hoo, as well as anyone interested in this crucial period of history, when the continent of Europe was recreating and redefining itself.

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This is the second volume of Cambridge University Press's multi-volume "The Agrarian History of England and Wales" (general editor Joan Thirsk),which traces the history of agrarian/rural economics in England and Wales from prehistory to the present. This particular volume, edited by medieval historian H.E. Hallam, is devoted to the period 1042 (just before the Norman Conquest) through 1348 (the year of the Black Death.

The 1200+ pages of this mammoth study are divided into 10 chapters, although most of these aredivided further into 'sub-chapters' and articles. The ten major chapters are: "England Before the Norman Conquest", "Domeday England", "New Settlements", "Farming Techniques", "Population Movements", "Social Structure", "Prices and Wages", "The Life of the People", "Rural Building in England and Wales", and an overall summary on "Rural England and Wales, 1042-1350". Many of the chapters and articles are written by Hallam himself, but others are written by other noted social and economic historians of medieval England: Sally Harvy, Cristopher Dyer, R. Ian Jack, Edward Miller, J.G. Hurst, David Farmer, L.A.S. Butler, etc. There is a select bibliography at the end, as well as two separate indexes (one for place names, the other for all other items). Dozens-- perhaps even hundreds-- of tables and charts are included, as are several illustrations.

In terms of the substance of the book-- well, it's clear that this is going to be *the* definitive and most comprehensive study of rural economic history in England and Wales in this period for a long, long time to come. However, its' comprehensiveness comes with a certain price (and I'm not just talking about the pricetag). This is an extremely detailed book filled with all sorts of statistics, observations, comparisons, and references to individual villages, practices, etc. At times, the reader can get lost in the specifics-- missing the forest for the trees (or perhaps I should say the wheat stalks for the fields?) That's not to say that general overviews aren't provided, mind you-- it's just that they are followed by so much specific detail that one can sometimes lose track of the big picture. Another trade-off is that, while there is a chapter discussing structures and relations, the work really focuses on economics, without delving deeply into the connections between economics and social life. I don't see either of these as being a *fault* of the book per se, but rather as an inevitable consequence of it treating agrarian economic life so comprehensively.

In truth, this probably isn't a book for the person who is casually interested in medieval history or rural life. The level of detail can be overwhelming at times, and the writing is not exactly what you would call "lively". This is really a work for the scholar-- or for the amateur who's *extremely* interested in the economic life of the the medieval countryside (and who has already read several shorter studies). But for someone who wants a thorough, scholarly, and comprehensive treatment of English/Welsh agrarian life from the Conquest through the Black Death, this book is an unparalleled resource.

Ainsley Harriott is a master of quick cooking and the author of the best-seller MEALS IN MINUTES: here he returns with some eighty new dishes which can be made in under an hour - and which hold international influences. Calypso Pepperpot Chicken with Plantain, Aromatic Pad Thai Chicken, and Mild Mustard Salmon Burgers all sound as if they'd be complicated to fix - but they aren't. Color photos, sidebars of nutritional information, and easy steps make these a snap to produce at home, and with a minimum of exotic ingredients or spices.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Flint's coverage of airbourne armour fills a much needed gap in the wargamers Library.Buy it read it .

During the 1941-45 timeframe the Hawker Hurricane saw action in every theater around the world as day fighters, fighter-bombers, night intruders and nightfighters. These combats added an additional 60+ names to the Hurricane aces list. Andrew Thomas wraps up Osprey's coverage of the Hurri's combat career in this nicely done volume, #57 in the 'Aircraft of the Aces' series.

Thomas summarizes the Hurricane's global combats in chapters devoted to the ETO, Mediterranean, North Africa and Far East, chapters that illustrate how varied the aircraft's later-war career was. In the 'Offence and Defence' chapter for example, Thomas relates Hurricane use in cross-Channel fighter sweeps, nightfighter/intruder ops and service on board CAM ships and Royal Navy carriers in the Atlantic and North Atlantic.

The aces encountered in this book read like a Who's Who of RAF fighter pilots - Pat Pattle, Frank Carey, Bill Vale, 'Boy' Mould, Karel Kuttelwascher, Willie McKnight, Jack Storey and so on. That they accomplished so much, given that by 1941, the Hurricane was getting long in the tooth, speaks volumes for their piloting skills and fighter spirit.

Thomas' book is a well-done, broadbrush chronicle of victories, defeats, rough times and ultimate victory. The comprehensive text is illustrated with over 100 photographs and ten pages of color profiles by John Weal.

Air combat enthusiasts and fans of Hawker's humpbacked warhorse will enjoy this book.

*****
The initial Osprey 'Hurricane Aces' volume, authored by Tony Holmes in 1998, added an extra 32 pages to tell the 1939-40 Hurricane story. I would have liked Osprey to have done the same with Thomas' book. Given the scope of the subject, extra pages would have been great.

It's always embarrassing to be wrong in public, but if one is going to learn, it is better to confront one's mistakes than to ignore them as if they had never happened. When I wrote my short review of Vincent Smith's AKBAR THE GREAT MOGUL, I was overly impressed by its Oxford imprimatur, the author's scholarly credentials, and the book's venerable age (1917). It is not surprising that I gained the impression that Akbar had embraced Parsiism, for after asserting that the Emperor had rejected Islam, Smith provides what seems like unmistakable evidence for this conversion: Akbar worshipped fire and the sun. What seems less easy to understand or explain is how I could have overlooked the passages in Smith's book which imply that Akbar, having rejected Islam, began to persecute Muslims. If this is correct, it would greatly tarnish his well-known reputation for toleration.

Trying to decide if I should buy S.M. Burke's AKBAR, THE GREATEST MOGUL from Amazon, I examined a library copy of the more recently-penned biography alongside of Smith's work. And to my relief (for I have had a special affection for Akbar since I read about him years ago in Bamber Gascoigne's THE GREAT MOGHULS), I found in it an excellent refutation of Smith's charges of religious intolerance. To quote Burke: "To have punished anyone solely on the score of religion was alien to Akbar's entire outlook. The seniormost ladies of his own household-- his mother, his aunt Golbadan and his wife Salima-- were all pious Muslims and he always paid them the greatest respect. He arranged for Golbadan and Salima to gain merit by performing the hajj [pilgimmage to Mecca]. If being a fervent Muslim was a crime in Akbar's eyes, as Badauni would have us believe, how did Badauni, the self-confessed zealot, manage to survive at court, so close to Akbar, till the very end of the Emperor's life?" (p. 128). To which I might add, concerning the charge that he banned Arabic letters, that if he had done so he could not have expected to see his own name anywhere, as it is in fact part of the Muslim takbir, the first sentence pronounced daily in the muezzin's call to prayer, "Allahu akbar" or "God is great", and nothing could have been more Arabic.

This still leaves open the question of what religion Akbar ultimately embraced. His "Din-I-Ilahi" was a customized religion wich undoubtedly contained a large measure of self-glorification, for no one denies that Akbar was vain. But there was good reason for him to consider himself to still be a Muslim even after he established it. It so happens that there was a brand of Islam which was popular in Akbar's time and very different from the bigoted Islam of the ulema whose bickering so irritated Akbar. This was Sufisim, a type of mysticism which sought union with the divine through ecstatic attainment of union with God, usually brought about through contemplation and an austere way of life. Sufis were tolerant, believing that there is a core of truth in every religion: like the Persian poet Rumi and the Christan Gnostics, they would have agreed that God is to be found not in a synagogue, church or mosque but in one's own heart. Burke provides much evidence of Akbar's attraction to Sufism. Indeed, Akbar himself experienced mysterious moments of "seizure", in which he became detached from everything that was going on around him and unable to participate in it, as though he were possessed. In one instance, he was engaged in a form of hunting which he greatly enjoyed, in which beaters drove animals into a confined space where they could be slaughtered-- depictions of this form of hunting, as well as Akbar hunting on horseback with cheetahs, still exist in Moghul miniatures. On this particular occasion, after his "seizure", Akbar seemed to lose all his thirst for blood and ordered that the animals be released unharmed. He seemed elated and himself interpreted such "seizures", which recurred on other occasions, as moments of complete union with God such as the Sufis sought.

Smith attempted to explain these episodes by hypothesizing that Akbar was an epileptic, but why then would he have interpreted the seizures in a positive light? As Burke says, it is more plausible to conclude that they were exactly what Akbar thought they were, and it does not matter whether or not WE believe that he had attained union with God on these occasions, only that Akbar, being of a mystical bent, genuinely believed that he had. Interestingly, Akbar may have been afflicted with another disorder, although the possibility has never been raised by any author to my knowledge, including Burke. This is dyslexia. It is well known that Akbar was illiterate. Smith attributes this to youthful idleness, and Burke to "an unsettled childhood and natural aversion to being taught." (p. 31). But given the undeniable intellectual capacity and love of learning that he displayed as an adult, it seems more likely that he had a reading disorder which could have been easily overcome in today's world but which was not even recognized in his own era or Smith's, for that matter.

Smith's assertion that Akbar was "free from a love of cruelty for its own sake," is supported by the edict, cited by both Smith and Burke, which he promulgated against involuntary suttee. As Burke says, "On one occasion Akbar heard that a Rajput princess did not wish to commit suttee after the death of her husband but her son and other relatives were resolved to force her to burn herself. He immediately mounted his horse, speeded to the spot, and prevented the tragedy." (p. 141) It is also supported by the shock Akbar felt at the hideous torture-death inflicted on a man by his son Salim (the future Jahangir) when he was in his cups (p. 208). But there is one question on which debate still rages as it does about his religion. Smith says that "Akbar's whole policy was directed principally toward the acquisition of power and riches, and that "improvement of the condition of the people was quite a secondary consideration." Burke takes strong exception, using numerous examples to demonstrate the falsity of this assertion. For one thing, if Akbar's system of administration was not beneficial to his subjects, why did the British themselves model theirs upon it? (p. 215) Secondly, Akbar expressed his concern for the poor and downtrodden in innumerable ways. He made himself accessible to everyone, even the lowliest of his subjects. He distributed alms in vast amounts and encouraged his nobles to do the same. He built free hospitals and schools, serais (the equivalent of today's hostel) for poor travelers, and constructed wells and dams to help the peasants (pp. 145-221). When one of his ministers pleaded that, because of old age and failing health, he wished to retire and spend his days in "remembering God", Akbar refused to let him go and said that "No worship of God is equal to the soothing of the oppressed."

It seems that Burke is right when he says of Smith and some of his contemporaries who felt the same about Akbar, "they were reluctant to permit any period of Indian history to outshine the British inerregnum in benevolence and enlightenment." (p. 216) Another Englishman felt differently. In an address to the Pakistani parliament, the last viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, said, "When the East India Company received its charter nearly four centuries ago, your great Emperor Akbar was on the throne, whose reign was marked by perhaps as great a degree of political and religious tolerance, as has been known before or since. It was an example by which, I honestly believe, generations of our public men and administrators have been influenced." (p. 221)