Summer has arrived with a vengeance at the IHR this week, and as ever in England the rarity of hot weather leads us to be unsure of how to handle it properly. For instance, some considerable time elapsed before we realised that what we thought was an air-conditioner was actually blowing out hot air….
Somehow, despite the conditions, we’ve still managed to produce this week’s helping of reviews, and we begin with a great interview between our own Jordan Landes and Amanda Herbert, author of Female Alliances: Gender, Identity, and Friendship in Early Modern Britain (no. 1630).
Then we have three more First World War reviews, beginning with Ross Davies’ review article on art from the First World War, in which he deals with a plethora of different books on the subject (no. 1629).
Next up is The Long Shadow: The Great War and the Twentieth Century by David Reynolds. Jay Winter praises a masterly history, written by one of our finest historians (no. 1628).
Finally there is Ryan Floyd’s Abandoning American Neutrality: Woodrow Wilson and the Beginning of the Great War, August 1914-December 1915. Moritz Pöllath advises historians and interested readers alike to read this book, an insightful study on America’s entry into the First World War (no. 1627).
2014 History libraries & research open day by Kate Wilcox
Save this date: Tuesday 20 January 2015! For anyone studying and researching history or related disciplines, this will be an important opportunity to locate key libraries, archives and collections. Following up on the successful 2014 History Day, Senate House Library and the Institute of Historical Research Library will be hosting a second History libraries & research open day with the support of the School of Advanced Study. With the open history fair and one-on-one research clinics in Macmillan Hall and training sessions in a nearby seminar room, the event aims to match researchers and historians with the skills and collections they need. Keep an eye on the event website for further details and we hope to see you here in January!
Utilizing archival material and analysing Read’s poetry, prose and polemical writing, this article argues that Read’s perception of the war was deeply ambiguous, and shifted in response to the changing view of the conflict in British cultural history. He saw the war as at once disabling and liberating, and his continual return to the conflict as a subject in his writing was a process of attempting to fix its ultimate meaning to his life.
This article explores how attitudes to black people were translated into practice by examining how the latter fared as victims, witnesses and especially as the accused when they came to the Old Bailey in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Publishers wishing to have their books and journals added to this update, which is also sent out to thousands of subscribers, should contact olwen.myhill@sas.ac.uk.
Apologies for the slightly tardy reviews today – I’ve had a busy week watching my flat fall apart around me, with the gushing out of the roof now being replaced by an ominous hole, and an equally ominous silence from those ostensibly responsible for fixing it. Perfect time for a long weekend visit from your deputy editor’s father – he may find his plumbing skills being tested to their limits….
Anyway, we continue with our WW1 special, and begin with a great introduction from Chris Phillips to the proliferation of digital resources stimulated by this year’s centenary (no. 1626).
Next up is The Children’s War: Britain, 1914-1918 by Rosie Kennedy. Rebecca Gill reviews the first full-length study of ‘the experience of children and the ways in which they responded to their mobilisation for war’ (no. 1625).
Then we turn to Gerhard Schneider’s In eiserner Zeit: Kriegswahrzeichen im Ersten Weltkrieg, which Stefan Goebel finds to be to be a landmark of historical research (no. 1624).
Finally we turn to Organized Patriotism and the Crucible of War: Popular Imperialism in Britain, 1914-1932 by Matthew Hendley, which reviewer David Monger believes to be a valuable book, providing considerable detailed discussion of three ‘patriotic and imperialist’ organizations (no. 1623).
A sad and momentous day at the IHR, as we bid farewell to one of our longest-standing colleagues, James ‘He’ll never leave’ Lees, who , after years of dogged and loyal service, was finally unable to resist the promise of untold riches and the lure of the bright lights, and is moving to Swindon…
Anyway, life must go on – and following the IHR’s successful conference last week, we’re continuing with our special issue of Great War at Home reviews. First up is Disturbing Practices: History, Sexuality and Women’s Experience of Modern War, 1914-18 by Laura Doan. Kevin Guyan and Laura Doan discuss the latter’s book, which offers a clear and confident direction for how histories of sexuality could develop (no. 1622, with response here).
Next we turn to Robert Tombs and Emile Chabal’s Britain and France in Two World Wars: Truth, Myth and Memory, with Vincent Trott reviewing a broad and ambitious collection (no. 1621).
Then we have Civvies: Middle-class men on the English Home Front, 1914–18 by Laura Ugolini. Jessica Meyer believes the author has done a service to historians of gender of this period in providing a thoughtful introduction to a collection of important voices (no. 1620).
Finally, there is Beth Linker’s War’s Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America. Jessica Adler thinks that this deeply researched, beautifully written, and tightly argued book should be required reading (no. 1619).
To facilitate the IHR’s return to the Senate House north block, it has now been confirmed that the library will close from Saturday 16th August to Saturday 30th August inclusive. Room bookings during this time will be unaffected.
We plan to reopen in the north block on Monday 1st September but please check the IHR website and blog for updates nearer the time.
We apologise for any disruption caused during the move, but look forward to welcoming you to the refurbished IHR. If you have any questions or concerns, please talk to staff in the library enquiry office in the first instance, or contact us on ihr.library@sas.ac.uk or 020 7862 8760.
Following on from last week’s launch of the library’s bequests webpage and in keeping with recent blog posts about our Canadian holdings, the IHR would like to take the opportunity to highlight a few examples of historic donations to our North American collections. The Institute’s extensive resources relating to the early history of Canada came into existence as a result of several large bequests and donations from private donors and public bodies during the 1920s and 30s. Of these donors, H.P. Biggar stands out for his efforts to promote Canadian studies at the IHR and in London more generally.
The Biggar Collection
Henry Percival Biggar (1872-1938) served as the European representative of the Public Archives of Canada in Ottawa during the first three decades of the 20th century. While in Europe he received a doctorate in history at Oxford and published several titles on European exploration in North America including The voyages of the Cabots (Paris, 1903), The Voyages of Jacques Cartier(Ottawa, 1924) and The Works of Samuel de Champlain (Toronto, 1922-1936).
Biggar was central to the acquisition campaign for the Public Archives and later participated in the organization of historical manuscripts in the national collection, a project he wrote about at length in the first two volumes of the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research. From 1905 he served as the European representative of the Department of Canadian Archives, a position he occupied until his death in 1938. He was instrumental in the founding of the Canadian Historical Society in 1922 and served as its first secretary. As secretary he oversaw the transcription of important manuscripts relevant to the early history of Canada held in Parisian and London archives for deposition in the Public Archives of Canada. Biggar was also an activist for Canadian and imperial charities in the capital, serving as the National Commissioner of the Canadian Red Cross Society during the early years of the Depression.
From 1921 onwards Biggar donated books from his personal library to the IHR. As a result, a number of the Colonial Collection’s strengths reflect his research interests in the areas of early European exploration of North America and the history of New France before the British conquest of 1759/60. Biggar’s largest donations of books and pamphlets arrived in the IHR over the course of the summer of 1926 and the winter of 1927. In 1938, the IHR library committee valued the Biggar Library, then consisting of 562 volumes and 256 pamphlets, at £950.
The Canadian Lectureship Fund Acquisitions
Throughout his years in London Biggar tirelessly promoted the professionalization and study of Canadian history in the UK. In 1926 he organized a fund to endow a lectureship in Canadian History at the University of London. Sadly, he was unable to collect enough money for a lectureship endowment before his death. The money raised for that purpose, however, did enable the IHR to significantly expand its colonial history holdings. In 1932 Biggar stipulated that the interest from the lectureship fund, then standing at £600, be used by the IHR library committee to ‘buy books to be presented to the Canadian section of the Institute library’. Many of the library’s holdings in the area of European exploration in North America were purchased through the Canadian Lectureship Fund including, for example, Paul Gaffarel’s, Histoire de la découverte de l’Amérique, 2 vols (Paris, 1892)and Henry Murphy’s The Voyage of Verrazzano (New York, 1870). Perhaps the most substantial additions to the library purchased under the aegis of the Lectureship fund were the initial two dozen volumes of the Rapport des Archives du Quebec series.
Provenance in the Biggar Collection
A presentation copy of Joseph-Guillaume Barthe’s (1816-1893) Le Canada Reconquis par la France(Paris, 1855) presented to the French illustrator and student of Delacroix, Maurice Sand (1823-1889) includes a letter from the author bound among the front flyleaves of the book. It is dated Quebec, 15 September 1867 and discusses a meeting between Barthe and Sand in Paris in 1861. La Canada Reconquis par la France argues for renewed French immigration to Quebec in order to rejuvenate French Canadian language and culture. [1]
The first volume of the IHR copy of Etienne Michel Faillon’s Histoire de la Colonie Francaise in Canada contains a long citation from the work in Biggar’s hand. It also contains a letter, bound among the front leaves, with information about the book.
The library holds several books purchased by Biggar during his time as a student in Paris in the 1880s. Biggar recorded the location and year of purchase on the front flyleaves of many of these books including Leon Deschamps’s Un colonisateur du Temps de Richelieu, Isaac de Razilly (Paris, 1887) and Pierre Boucher’s Canada in the Seventeenth Century (Montreal, 1883).
Apologies for the delay in the weekly Reviews in History post – our Anglo-American Conference of Historians on ‘The Great War at Home’ started yesterday (check out the programme at http://anglo-american.history.ac.uk/files/2013/03/Anglo-American-conference-programme.pdf, or follow developments at #aach2014), and I was out all afternoon chairing a packed session on conscientious objectors and war resisters. Or ‘cranks’, if you’re Jeremy Paxman.
Anyway, to coincide with the conference, we’ll be publishing a series of reviews on related books, and our first batch are up today.
We begin with the Cambridge History of the First World War, edited by Jay Winter. Richard Grayson and the editor discuss a comprehensive, insightful and challenging collection, which can be considered an astonishing achievement (no. 1618, with response here)
Next up is Ross Davies’ ‘A Student in Arms’: Donald Hankey and Edwardian Society at War. Stuart Bell and the author discuss a new book on one of the most enigmatic personalities to feature in the narrative of the Great War (no. 1617, with response here).
Then we turn to The Soldiers’ Press: Trench Journals in the First World War by Graham Seal, which Adrian Bingham believes provides the most comprehensive and detailed overview thus far of a fascinating genre (no. 1616).
Finally we have The Aesthetics of Loss: German Women’s Art during the First World War by Claudia Siebrecht. Ann Murray finds this book identifies and underscores the vital importance of women’s art to our greater understanding of the First World War (no. 1615).
To facilitate the IHR’s return to the Senate House north block, it has now been confirmed that the library will close from Saturday 16th August to Saturday 30th August inclusive. Room bookings during this time will be unaffected.
