As I’m sure you all know, it’s referendum day, and as well as marking the occasion with a relevant review (see below) I hoped to bring you breaking news from the polls, have texted my BBC correspondent pal earlier to ask how it was going. Just got his reply a few minutes ago – ‘Been up Arthur’s Seat. Sweaty’. I don’t think that really counts as a scoop…
Anyway, thanks to a super-quick turnaround from reviewer Fiona Watson and the author, we’ve got a discussion for you of Michael Penman’s new book Robert the Bruce: King of the Scots, an excellent work that shines a light on some extremely murky corners of history (no. 1658, with response here).
To a quintessentially British figure now, with Rory Muir’s Wellington: The Path to Victory, 1769-1814. Kevin Linch and the author discuss an outstanding achievement – the definitive biography of Wellington (no. 1657, with response here).
Then we turn to The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers by Joanna Bourke. Jennifer Crane enjoys a detailed, thought-provoking and fascinating piece of historical scholarship (no. 1656).
Finally we have David Lambert’s Mastering the Niger: James MacQueen’s African Geography & the Struggle over Atlantic Slavery, and James Poskett hails an accomplished and creative account of the troubling connections between Atlantic slavery and geographical knowledge in the 19th century (no. 1655).