Book Reviews

Philipp Robinson Rössner’s Managing the Wealth of Nations: Political Economies of Change in Preindustrial Europe aims to reshape how scholars frame early modern European economics and particularly a form of economics called cameralism, commonly...

A History of Ottoman Libraries is a timely research that acknowledges the gap in Anglophone scholarship on Ottoman intellectual history. Part of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies series from Academic Studies Press, this book is aimed at scholars...

Timothy Cochrane’s Making the Carry chronicles the lives and labors of John (Métis) and Tchi-Ki-Wis (Anishinaabeg/Lac La Croix First Nation) Linklater as they made a place for themselves and their kin in the borderlands between the United...

In May 1830, the United States government, under Andrew Jackson's presidency, passed an act to systematically expel Native American communities from their homelands. Jackson's political agenda, known as the 'Indian Removal', stretched throughout...

A stereotype in past research toward Native American history is that Native American communities had simple and primitive cultures and were mostly 'reactors' to European colonialism. Robert Michael Morrissey, in People of the Ecotone: Environment...

This is the story of the "informal networks" established and maintained by mobile traders from the modern geographical region of Afghanistan who move goods across Eurasia in the 21st century. Magnus Marsden builds upon the historical and...

The Naked Olympics is a quick and cinematic read that brings an ancient tradition to life with colorful writing. Unlike many other books available on the Greek Olympics that are marketed towards children, Tony Perrottet’s approach does not...

In the Battle of San Juan de Ulúa in September 1568 near present-day Veracruz, Mexico, the privateer John Hawkins' ships were badly damaged by the Spanish navy. Marooned by the enemy, around 100 of Hawkins' seamen believed they could not...

Francine Prose's Cleopatra: Her History, Her Myth is divided into two sections, one focusing on her life and the other on her reception in art. The author draws on all the usual sources to complete the puzzle of Cleopatra's eventful reign...

Since the appearance of "world history" as an academic subgenre in the 1990s, the Silk Road has received considerable attention. The causes behind this focus of scholarly attention are not difficult to understand. For those seeking an alternate...