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The Currency of Empire: Money and Power in Seventeenth-Century English America
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Cameron Ruff

The Currency of Empire: Money and Power in Seventeenth-Century English America

Jonathan Barth argues that England expanded its empire overseas throughout the 1600s in order to collect precious metals and wealth. Barth’s thesis is that colonists tolerated economic subordination to England as long as they had political...
Gentry Rhetoric: Literacies, Letters, and Writing in an Elizabethan Community
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Zhihui Zou

Gentry Rhetoric: Literacies, Letters, and Writing in an Elizabethan Community

European rhetoric and language usage have experienced many changes and modifications ever since ancient Greece and Roman orator Cicero's famous diction. Language, in history, has been used not just for functional communication but also as...
Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ by Nicholas Sprenger

Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire

As the title suggests, Caroline Elkins's book tells the history of what historians call the “second British Empire” - the imperial developments that took shape after the disastrous loss of the rebellious American colonies in 1783 - through...
Information: A Historical Companion
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Zhihui Zou

Information: A Historical Companion

The internet only changes how people process information instead of creating the idea of 'information.' As soon as humans developed writing around 3400 BCE, we found many ways to record information from tax records to poetry and from legal...
The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome: The History of a Dangerous Idea
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Evan Axel Andersson

The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome: The History of a Dangerous Idea

In the book's Introduction, Edward Watts sets out his premise clearly. Roman politicians grew their power by destabilizing the present conditions of their society. As Watts points out, when trying to restore Rome, politicians often violated...
Everyday Cosmopolitanisms: Living the Silk Road in Medieval Armenia
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ by Graham Squires

Everyday Cosmopolitanisms: Living the Silk Road in Medieval Armenia

When I first saw the title of this book, I was excited to read it. Many studies on the Silk Road focus on its eastern end in China or its southern sections in the Middle East, but few scholars have looked at the relationship between Central...
Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Sneha Kushwaha

Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan

The story of the Mughal Empire is a fascinating one. It has most of the historical elements that one might expect out of an empire: powerful male rulers, wars of succession, magnificent buildings, conflicts between religious and non-religious...
Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Zhihui Zou

Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse

Although it was published in 1995, Richard R. John's Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse remains a must-read in the media history academia. This book practically shaped today's academic research in this genre...
Conquered: The Last Children of Anglo-Saxon England
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Bradford Lee Eden

Conquered: The Last Children of Anglo-Saxon England

There are many books, both scholarly and popular, that discuss one of the most seminal events in English history: the Norman Conquest of 1066. Perspectives of the Anglo-Saxons, the French, the Normans, and the various populations living in...
Origin Story: A Big History of Everything
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Zhihui Zou

Origin Story: A Big History of Everything

Every culture, religion, and community has its narrative of how this world originated. This narrative tells the people in that community why our landscapes look the way they are, why we have different seasons, why the sky rains, and, more...
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