We start this week with Everyday Renaissances: The Quest for Cultural Legitimacy in Venice by Sarah Gywneth Ross. Thomas Goodwin and the author discuss an important, innovative and thought-provoking contribution to the history of Renaissance Italy (no. 2087, with response here).
Next up is Sex, Time and Place: Queer Histories of London c.1850 to the Present, edited by Simon Avery and Katherine Graham. Harry Cocks has reservations about a volume which shows the kaleidoscopic effect of queer as a method (no. 2086).
Then we turn to An Age of Risk: Politics and Economy in Early Modern Britain by Emily C. Nacol. Aidan Beatty thinks this book provides a well-versed and coherent intellectual genealogy of risk and of the social experience of living with risk (no. 2085).
Finally, we have Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford’s Rage for Order: the British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800-1850. Alex Middleton enjoys a book that deserves to have major implications for international legal history (no. 2084).