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Women Religious Crossing between Cloister and the World: Nunneries in Europe and the Americas, ca. 1200–1700
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ by Kelly Palmer

Women Religious Crossing between Cloister and the World: Nunneries in Europe and the Americas, ca. 1200–1700

Women Religious Crossing Between Cloister and the World: Nunneries in Europe and the Americas, ca. 1200-1700 is the result of a collaborative research project focused on the relationships between women and the “religious.” Edited by art historian...
Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250–1750: From the Priorate of the Guilds to the End of the Medici Grand Duchy
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ by Bradford Lee Eden

Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250–1750: From the Priorate of the Guilds to the End of the Medici Grand Duchy

As the title indicates, this book presents the music composed and performed in Florence during its most prolific and productive time: from the Middle Ages to the end of the Baroque. This 500-year time capsule saw Florence as a politically...
Humsafar: The World of Urdu Poetry
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Ankita G

Humsafar: The World of Urdu Poetry

“Humsafar” is an Urdu word which means "companion." True to its name, this book acts as a friend to guide the audience through the complex world of Urdu poetry. Hitesh Gupta Aadil is an Urdu language and literature enthusiast and translator...
The Lost Queen: The Surprising Life of Catherine of Braganza―the Forgotten Queen Who Bridged Two Worlds
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Reisa Rogovein

The Lost Queen: The Surprising Life of Catherine of Braganza―the Forgotten Queen Who Bridged Two Worlds

British author, Sophie Shorland, a former Research Fellow at the University of Warwick, takes a very friendly approach to describe the difficult life of King Charles II's Queen Consort, the Portuguese Catherine of Braganza. Shorland's audience...
Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Evan Rothera

Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions

From the outbreak of war in the 13 British North American colonies in 1775 to the conflicts that erupted throughout the Spanish New World colonies in the 1810s, revolutions convulsed the Atlantic World for half a century. The power and consequences...
The Chapter: A Segmented History from Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ by Noah Zachary

The Chapter: A Segmented History from Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century

To Nicholas Dames, the "chapter" has become a silent, invisible metronome of our lives. Beginning as an index for Latin encyclopedias and Greek legal codes, this simple tool for dividing text has spread far beyond its basic indexical function...
The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Roberto Carrodeguas

The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World

In The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, Virginia Postrel expertly demonstrates how the history of textiles is the story of human progress. Although textiles have shaped society in many ways, their central role in the development...
Dolia: The Containers That Made Rome an Empire of Wine
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ by Alex Hagler

Dolia: The Containers That Made Rome an Empire of Wine

Caroline Cheung, an assistant professor of Classics at Princeton University, seeks to fill a rather large gap in the scholarship of the ancient Roman wine trade by centering the storage vessels themselves, the dolia (sing. dolium). Historically...
Embodied Histories: New Womanhood in Vienna, 1894–1934
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Kimberly Anne

Embodied Histories: New Womanhood in Vienna, 1894–1934

When first picking up this book, the reader might not expect to stumble upon police reports regarding wrongful arrests of Viennese women at the turn of the century. As a contemporary reader, what is provided on the pages of Katya Motyl’s...
Trafficking with Demons: Magic, Ritual, and Gender from Late Antiquity to 1000
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Alex Hagler

Trafficking with Demons: Magic, Ritual, and Gender from Late Antiquity to 1000

Martha Rampton’s two primary goals with this book were to define in specific terms what “magic” meant and to examine how that meaning changed over time. She divides the book into four parts, with the last three focusing on specific time periods...
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