All manner of excitement last week at the IHR, with the prestigious Gerald Aylmer Seminar receiving a number of uninvited guests, as student protestors were diverted from their occupation of the Vice-Chancellor’s offices by the lure of the post-seminar sandwiches. The stern intervention of our events officer saw them off, but I think there’s a lesson here for any university seeking to deal with unwelcome demonstrations – no matter how righteous the cause, students will always prioritise free food…
Back to more serious matters, and this week’s reviews. We begin with Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition by David Nirenberg, which Christopher Smith believes represents a scholarly feat few writers could hope to match, engagingly tracking the history of how influential thinkers negatively interpreted Judaism to better understand their own religions and society (no. 1558).
Then we turn to Annette Aubert’s The German Roots of Nineteenth-Century American Theology. Daniel Ritchie and the author discuss a work which should be eagerly read by all modern religious historians with an interest in the development of Reformed theology in the United States (no. 1557, with response here).
Next up is Sovereignty Transformed: U.S.-Habsburg Relations from 1815 to the Paris Peace Conference by Nicole M. Phelps, found by Stephen Tuffnell to be a highly calibrated examination worthy of a place on the shelves of European and American historians alike (no. 1556).
Finally Peter Gurney reviews Hard Sell: Advertising, Affluence and Transatlantic Relations, c1951-69 by Sean Nixon. His view is that despite its valuable insights in the end this book, like many of the commodities it considers, promises more than it delivers (no. 1555).