Book Reviews

Katharine Cleland's study of clandestine marriage in Irregular Unions: Clandestine Marriage in Early Modern English Literature enhances readers' understanding of such marriage by showing its literary importance. As Cleland argues, the three...

We may not always know why we are drawn to a bygone era or long-dead personality, but once hooked, the well rarely runs dry. Perhaps the reason, for many, is simple escapism. The vanished worlds and characters of the past draw us in precisely...

Nicknamed "The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street," the Bank of England is probably the most historically influential British financial organization. In Virtuous Bankers: A Day in the Life of the Eighteenth-Century Bank of England, Anne L. Murphy...

The book's first three chapters reconstruct the background of the Alexandrian War from the perspectives of Pompey, Cleopatra, and Caesar. Readers unfamiliar with the history of Ptolemaic Egypt will be glad to know that the important beats...

Empire' is a common concept in the field of world history. Historians often specialize in one specific empire, such as the British Empire, the Russian Empire, or the Chinese dynasties. Going beyond this unidirectional approach, Sanjay Subrahmanyam...

Divided into twelve chapters, the book is a journey through Cleopatra Selene II's life and times. While Selene's life and reign have been studied by other authors, Cleopatra's Daughter: From Roman Prisoner to African Queen is the first full...

Launched in 2018, Rowman & Littlefield's book series Significant Figures in World History contains academic encyclopedias of famous people in history, ranging from Catherine the Great to Nelson Mandela. These titles all conclude a chronology...

Christopher Iannini’s Fatal Revolutions: Natural History, West Indian Slavery, and the Routes of American Literature successfully ties seemingly disparate themes of slavery, American literature, and natural history together. By focusing on...

Between the 11th and 16th centuries, the idea of 'crusading' was dominant in Europe. Helen J. Nicholson's new book reminds us that crusading during this time had a much broader implication than trying to capture Jerusalem. Any journeys or...

Since its original publication in 2002, Pox Americana has become a hugely influential scholarly work. In this book, Elizabeth A. Fenn argues that while the American Revolution changed political and military conditions throughout the world...