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A History of the World in Sixteen Shipwrecks, by Stewart Gordon (2015)

The world’s attention was captured in 2012 by the disaster that befell the Costa Concordia, a cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of Italy leading to 32 deaths.

This shipwreck is the most recent one covered in A History of the World in Sixteen Shipwrecks, whose expansive gaze covers much of the world from 6000 BCE to the present. Like several other books containing the words “A History of the World in ..” in their title, Stewart Gordon’s work attempts to encapsulate world history through the close study of a set number of things. Other examples of this approach include A History of the World in 100 Weapons, A History of the World in 12 Maps, A History of the World in 6 Glasses, and the very successful A History of the World in 100 Objects, a collaborative project between BBC Radio and the British Museum. Focusing on a few cases as a way to illustrate global trends is both entertaining and effective – the reader can acquire interesting details about specific things and learn about the broader context at the same time.

800px-a_costa_concordia_kiemelese — Recovery operations on the Costa Concordia (via Wikimedia Commons).

Shipwrecks are dramatic occurrences that are often tragic for those involved, but they can also lead to the preservation of artifacts that can be studied and analyzed, sometimes centuries or millennia after the events themselves. The Bremen cog from German, considered the best surviving specimen of this type of vessel, sank in 1380 but was not discovered until 1962.

Remains of the Bremen Cog (via Wikimedia Commons).

The cog was the dominant ship in northern Europe between about 1200 to 1450 CE. It was a bulk carrier of beer and wool and also served as a warship. Another ancient type of ship is the Khufu barge, featured in the second chapter of A History of the World in Sixteen Shipwrecks. This boat was buried in the Great Pyramid of Giza around 2600 BCE and was not discovered until 1954. The Khufu barge, like several of the ships featured in the book, was not destroyed at sea but Gordon uses a broad definition of shipwreck because his chief goal is to examine the varieties of ships that have existed in human history and the maritime worlds they helped shape.

399px-gizeh_sonnenbarke_bw_2 — Khufu barge after discovery (via Wikimedia Commons).

The shipwreck is therefore just an entry point for Gordon into the far larger topic of maritime history. Each shipwreck allows the author to understand the various ways ships influenced the human societies that utilized them. He explains how each type of vessel was built, the purposes to which it was put, its strengths and weaknesses as a ship, and the maritime network it created. He begins the book with the dugout canoe, a variety of boat found in several parts of the ancient world. The chapters then follow a chronological sequence from the dugout to the modern cruise ship with a variety of stops along the way, including the famous seventh-century Sutton Hoo burial, the Intan shipwreck from Indonesian waters, a Spanish galleon, an American clipper ship, and the Exxon Valdez.

At times, Gordon uses literary evidence to launch his discussion, instead of an actual physical relic. His chapter on the Arab dhow that plied the waters of the western Indian Ocean, for instance, relies on twelfth-century letters preserved at a synagogue in Cairo. We learn about the Barbary war galley from the sixteenth-century memoir of an Englishman who described the ordeals of slavery that he faced after his ship was attacked and boarded in the Mediterranean. Another chapter covers the attempted invasion of Japan by the Mongol leader Khubilai Khan in the thirteenth century, known to us from many sources of information, including Japanese picture scrolls painted soon afterward. Above, we see Mongol warriors shooting arrows from a ship on the left hand side, while Japanese samurai board a Mongol ship on the right.

takezaki_suenaga_ekotoba3 — Japanese samurai boarding Yuan ships in 1281 (via Wikimedia Commons).

Although Gordon makes a concerted effort to examine ships from many areas of the world, the coverage shifts more and more to vessels from Europe and the United States as we get closer to the present. The case of the HMS Victory, sunk in a storm after breaking a blockade in the Mediterranean in 1744, sheds light on the rise of British naval power. The radical reduction of transport time resulting from use of the steam engine is illustrated by means of the Lucy Walker, a sidewheel steamboat that plied the waters of the Mississippi River. Its engines overheated and blew the boat apart one day in 1844, with at least 43 casualties resulting.

lucy_walker_explosion — Lucy Walker explosion, as depicted in an 1856 woodcut (via Wikimedia Commons).

The horrible scene of this explosion, a common problem for steamboats, was depicted by an artist in 1856. The transporting of large numbers of people, rather than cargo, became the rationale for large passenger ships such as the Lusitania. Almost 1200 people died when it was struck by a torpedo from a German submarine in 1915, while en route from New York to Liverpool – a depiction of which adorns the cover of A History of the World in Sixteen Shipwrecks.

Going well beyond the topic of shipwrecks, this enjoyable and educational book exposes the reader to diverse seascapes, social terrains, and political developments, as well as considerable information about trading patterns. In its geographic breadth and temporal length, it provides an admirable example of history writing on a world historical scale. Overall, A History of the World in Sixteen Shipwrecks is an engaging introduction to maritime history that explores the impact of specific types of ships in their regional economies and the gradual emergence of a globally connected maritime world by the twentieth century.

Stewart Gordon, A History of the World in Sixteen Shipwrecks (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2015)

More by Cynthia Talbot on Not Even Past:
A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor (2011)
Great Books on Women’s History: Asia

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Andres Lombana-Bermudez and Blake Scott discuss Colón 2000: Tour Guides, Cruiseships, and Tourists in Panama

US Survey Course: Mexico-US Interactions and Hispanic America

During the summer of 2016, we will be bringing together our previously published articles, book reviews, and podcasts on key themes and periods in the history of the USA. Each grouping is designed to correspond to the core areas of the US History Survey Courses taken by undergraduate students at the University of Texas at Austin.

Based in a border state, the historians at UT Austin are in a good position to offer historical perspectives on the Mexican-US borderlands. Below we have compiled a selection of articles on this topic previously published on NEP. These insights add much needed context to counter studies that separate the history of the US and Mexico in to distinct categories.

To start, Anne Martínez contextualizes the economic ties between the United States and Mexico during the twentieth century and discusses the ways Salman Rushdie and Sebastião Salgado conceptualize the US-Mexico borderlands.

The Mexico-US border is often talked about as a religious frontier dividing the Catholic South from the Protestant North. However, as Anne Martínez shows, Catholics on both sides of the border were very much part of the history of Mexico-US interactions. Read more about the Catholic borderlands between 1905 and 1935 and a list of recommended further reading.

The Mexican Revolution knew no borders. People quite freely moved between Texas and Mexico as Lizeth Elizondo highlights in her review of Raul Ramos’ War Along the Border: The Mexican Revolution and the Tejano Communities.

The “War on Drugs” often dominates discussions about Mexican-American relations. UT graduate student Edward Shore broadens the discussion to a global level arguing that the violence, disorder, and political, social, and economic instability associated with the drug trade has a long history with repercussions across the world.

And Christina Villareal recommends A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico jointly created the Mexican Drug War, by Carmen Boullosa and Mike Wallace (OR Books, 2015)

While relations between Mexico and the United States are commonly discussed in negative terms, this has not always been the case. Emilio Zamora’s book Claiming Rights and Righting Wrong in Texas highlights the most cooperative set of relations in US-Mexican. Could this serve as a model for what is possible?

Over the past few years the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) has increasingly focused on the history of Mexican Americans living in the state. History Professors Emilio Zamora, University of Texas, and Andrés Tijerina, Austin Community College, are co-editing the forthcoming Tejano Handbook of Texas. And Dr Cynthia E. Orozco discusses the increased presence of Latinas and Latinos at the 2015 meeting of the TSHA.

Policing the Mexican-American border is not a new issue. Christina Salinas discusses the Texas Border Patrol and the social relations forged on the ground between agricultural growers, workers, and officials from the U.S. and Mexico during the 1940s.

Texas Border Patrol

From 15 Minute History:

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680

In the late 17th century, Native American groups living under Spanish rule in what is now New Mexico rebelled against colonial authorities and pushed them out of their territory. In many ways, however, the events that led up to the revolt reveal a more complex relationship between Spanish and Native American than traditional histories tell. Stories of cruelty and domination are interspersed with adaptation and mutual respect, until a prolonged famine changed the balance of power.

Guest Michelle Daneri helps us understand contemporary thinking about the ways that Spanish and Native Americans exchanged ideas, knowledge, and adapted to each others’ presence in the Southwest.

Mapping Perspectives of the Mexican-American War

This episode looks at US perceptions of Mexico through map making during the US / Mexico War, in which a private publisher sold maps that were reissued annually to reflect ongoing progress in the campaign. Intended for a general, popular audience, these maps served as propaganda in aid of the conflict, but historians and military analysts alike have ignored them until recently—even though they may well have influenced the positioning of the border at the war’s end.

Guest Chloe Ireton looks at the intriguing history of maps as propaganda and the role of two publishing houses—J. Disturnell and Ensigns & Thayer—not only in rewriting the history of the Mexican-American war, but in influencing the outcome of the war even as it was still ongoing.

Mexican immigration to the US

The words “Mexican immigration” are usually enough to start a vibrant, politically and emotionally charged debate. Yet, the history of Mexican migration to the U.S. involves a series of ups and downs—some Mexicans were granted citizenship by treaty after their lands were annexed to the U.S., and, until the 1970s, they were considered legally white—a privilege granted to no other group. At the same time, Mexicans crossing the border every day were subjected to invasive delousing procedures, and on at least two occasions were subjected to incentivized repatriation.

Guest Miguel A. Levario from Texas Tech University (and a graduate of UT’s Department of History!) walks us through the “schizophrenic” relationship between the US and its southern neighbor and helps us ponder whether there are any new ideas to be had in the century long debate it has inspired—or any easy answers.

The Borderlands War, 1915-20

In the early part of the 20th century, Texas became more integrated into the United States with the arrival of the railroad. With easier connections to the country, its population began to shift away from reflecting its origins as a breakaway part of Mexico toward a more Anglo demographic, one less inclined to adapt to existing Texican culture and more inclined to view it through a lens of white racial superiority. Between 1915 and 1920, an undeclared war broke out that featured some of the worst racial violence in American history; an outbreak that’s become known as the Borderlands War.

Guest John Moran Gonzalez from UT’s Department of English and Center for Mexican American Studies has curated an exhibition on the Borderlands War called “Life and Death on the Border, 1910-1920,” and tells us about this little known episode in Mexican-American history.

Operation Intercept

At 2:30 pm on Saturday September 21 1969, US president Richard Nixon announced ‘the largest peacetime search and seizure operation in history.’ Intended to stem the flow of marijuana into the United States from Mexico, the three-week operation resulted in a near shut down of all traffic across the border and was later referred to by Mexico’s foreign minister as the lowest point in his career.

Guest James Martin from UT’s Department of History describes the motivations for President Nixon’s historic unilateral reaction and how it affected both Americans as well as our ally across the southern border.

Colonial Connections and Entangled Histories:

The history of Mexican-American relations extends back into colonial history as Not Even Past’s series on the Entangled Histories of the Early Modern British and Iberian Empire and their Successor Republics demonstrates. Start with Bradley Dixon’s excellent introduction Facing North From Inca Country: Entanglement, Hybridity, and Rewriting Atlantic History and then explore the following:

Christopher Heaney reviews Poetics of Piracy: Emulating Spain in English Literature (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) by Barbara Fuchs
Jorge Esguerra-Cañizares discusses his book Puritan Conquistadors: Iberianizing the Atlantic, 1550-170 (Stanford University Press, 2006).
Renata Keller discusses Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in the Americas, 1492-1830 (Yale University Press, 2007) by J.H. Elliott
Ernesto Mercado Montero discusses Ordinary Lives in the Early Caribbean: Religion, Colonial Competition, and the Politics of Profit, by Kristen Block (2012)
Mark Sheaves reviews Francisco de Miranda: A Transatlantic Life in the Age of Revolution 1750-1816, by Karen Racine (2002)
Ben Breen recommends Explorations in Connected History: from the Tagus to the Ganges (Oxford University Press, 2004), by Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Maria José Afanador-Llach recommends Colour of Paradise: The Emerald in the Age of Gunpowder Empires, by Kris Lane (2010)
And finally, Jorge Cañizares Esguerra recommends Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States (2014).

The Web of Empire, By Alison Games (2008)

By Mark Sheaves

Between 1560 and 1660, English and Scottish merchants, ministers, travellers, and statesmen traversed the globe in search of adventure and economic opportunities. Frustrated by England’s weak economy, religious and political turmoil, and social conflict, these entrepreneurial individuals settled all over the world. But how did they integrate into those diverse societies?

In The Web of Empire, Alison Games argues that these private adventurers cultivated an ability to “go native” by adapting to local cultures. This cosmopolitan sensibility, Games contends, developed in the early sixteenth century as English merchants navigated the religiously divided and violent world of the Mediterranean. British people of all persuasions shared this ability to both read and mimic the customs they found in Madagascar, Japan, Tangier and elsewhere. Tracing their movements through published travel accounts, diplomatic reports, letters, and business papers, Games illustrates how they wove a web across the globe, facilitating the circulation of ideas, products, and people.

The English cosmopolitans examined by Games show how the mercantile activities of a coterie of adventurous individuals and the knowledge they disseminated formed the foundation for the first global English Empire based on trade. These individuals’ experiences explain how England developed as a major global power by 1660 despite the weakness of the English state throughout the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The English Empire first emerged through a mixture of pragmatic interactions and forms of governance, and without state support.

'A New and Accvrat Map of the World' by John Speed 1626. The map was included in George Humble's the Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World, printed by John Dawson in 1627. Via Wikipedia. — ‘A New and Accvrat Map of the World’ by John Speed, 1626. The map was included in George Humble’s the Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World, printed by John Dawson in 1627. Via Wikipedia.

Games also shows that this network of English people brought global knowledge back to the metropole, opening the horizons of the governing classes to the economic opportunities available in the world and fueling the imperial ambitions of the English monarchy. The rise of state interest in overseas expansion shifted English activity from a focus on private trade to an empire based on settlement from the 1650s onwards. Settlements in Ireland and then Virginia demonstrate that, with the rise of the state interests, an attitude of domination and coercion towards native people supplanted the cosmopolitanism of the earlier autonomous travelers.

Alison Games, The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in an Age of Expansion, 1560-1660, (Oxford: OUP, 2008)

You may also like:

Mark Sheaves recommends Harry Kelsey’s Sir John Hawkins: Queen Elizabeth’s Slave Trader (2003)

Ernesto Mercado Montero discusses Ordinary Lives in the Early Caribbean: Religion, Colonial Competition, and the Politics of Profit, by Kristen Block (2012)

Mark Sheaves reviews Francisco de Miranda: A Transatlantic Life in the Age of Revolution 1750-1816, by Karen Racine (2002)

Bradley Dixon, Facing North From Inca Country: Entanglement, Hybridity, and Rewriting Atlantic History

Ben Breen recommends Explorations in Connected History: from the Tagus to the Ganges (Oxford University Press, 2004), by Sanjay Subrahmanyam

Christopher Heaney reviews Poetics of Piracy: Emulating Spain in English Literature (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) by Barbara Fuchs

Jorge Esguerra-Cañizares discusses his book Puritan Conquistadors: Iberianizing the Atlantic, 1550-170 (Stanford University Press, 2006) on Not Even Past.

Renata Keller discusses Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in the Americas, 1492-1830 (Yale University Press, 2007) by J.H. Elliott

Five Books on the End of Empire, by Wm. Roger Louis

By Wm. Roger Louis

The Men Who Lost America, by Andrew O’Shaughnessy (Yale University Press, 2013)

It is a pleasure to read a full account of the British side of the American Revolution. In Andrew O’Shaughnessy’s “The Men Who Lost America,” we see the beginning of the story through the eyes of George III, who was still physically strong and mentally robust. He proclaimed, in words that Churchill might later have uttered, “We are contending for our whole consequence whether we are to rank among the Great Powers of Europe or be reduced to one of the least considerable.” Two dates were crucial: In October 1777 at Saratoga, N.Y., Gen. Burgoyne surrendered more than 6,500 men; four years later almost to the day, Lord Cornwallis was forced to surrender at Yorktown, Va., effectively ceding victory to the new United States. Britain’s fundamental mistake was the assumption that most American royalists would remain loyal. Many were ambivalent about rebellion but not suicidal. What also swung the balance was that, after Burgoyne’s capitulation, France and Spain began to support the American patriots. In this myth-shattering book, Mr. O’Shaughnessy drives home the point that, despite losing America, the British saved Canada, the West Indies, Gibraltar and India, securing the foundations of a global empire.

The Empire Project, by John Darwin (Cambridge University Press, 2009)

“The Empire Project” relates in engaging style the rise, decline and fall of the British Empire, which at its height extended over a fourth of the earth’s surface. The downfall was not a linear descent. The empire revived in spirit and purpose before finally collapsing in the 1970s. John Darwin’s chronicle is an exhilarating read, above all because of the pen portraits of the proconsuls, including Lord Curzon in India, Lord Cromer in Egypt and Sir Alfred Milner in South Africa, as well as Cecil Rhodes, who “offered a winning combination of imperial patriotism and colonial expansion.” In the empire’s last phase, Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy, presided over the “ruthless” partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. In Mr. Darwin’s judgment, at least one million people died in the “mass madness” of communal violence. But “Mountbatten was lucky”: British forces emerged from the upheaval virtually unscathed.

Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope, by Judith M. Brown (Yale University Press, 1989)

A book written a quarter of a century ago, “Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope” has stood the test of time. Judith Brown is by no means uncritical of Gandhi, pointing out, for example, his egregious mistake in advising the Jews in Nazi Germany to adopt methods of nonviolent protest. He could be quirky, unpredictable and contradictory. At first he believed that India’s independence could be achieved by keeping faith with the British, but he changed tactics in the interwar years to nonviolent resistance. Ms. Brown argues that civil disobedience never made British rule impossible. Its aim, for India’s nationalist movement, was a “quest for legitimacy.” As for Gandhi’s legendary fasts, they provided an opportunity for “theatre and symbolism.” Gandhi envisioned an anarchic utopia that would be self-regulating, with a non-industrialized economy based on agriculture. India today is a far cry from his vision. Yet as a figure of moral principle, Gandhi expressed to many, then as now, “eternal truths in a changing world.”

The Viceroy’s Journal, by Archibald Wavell (Oxford University Press, 1973)

Field Marshal Archibald Wavell’s diary is stunning in its honesty and clarity and in its incisive criticism of British rule in the Subcontinent. In 1941, Churchill sacked Wavell for failing to defeat Rommel in North Africa, then appointed him Viceroy of India in 1943 as a stopgap, hoping that he would hold the line politically. Churchill first realized his mistake when he discovered that Wavell was at heart a poet (and in 1944 published a famous anthology, “Other Men’s Flowers”). In his diary Wavell recorded, shortly after his appointment, that Churchill “has always disliked me and mistrusted me, and probably now regrets having appointed me.” Wavell wrote that Britain’s wartime cabinet, when it came to Indian affairs, was characterized by “spinelessness, lack of interest, opportunism.” He was sympathetic to Indian nationalism and got on well with most of the Indian leaders—except Gandhi, whose “one idea for 40 years has been to overthrow British rule and influence and to establish a Hindu Raj; and he is as unscrupulous as he is persistent.” Wavell proved to be one of the few who could stand up to Churchill, and he did so time and again, though their last meeting ended on a whimsical note. After his defeat in the 1945 election, Churchill asked Wavell to “keep a little bit of India.”

A Prince of Our Disorder, by John Mack (Harvard University Press, 1976)

In this probing and compassionate biography of T.E. Lawrence, John Mack, a psychiatrist, merges history and psychology. The picture here is of Lawrence as one of the leaders of the Arab revolt that took place during World War I—a role in which he operated as a British intelligence officer, advising Feisal (later to become king of Iraq), rather than as the mastermind of the insurrection against the Ottoman Empire. One point that has baffled biographers is the capture and rape of Lawrence by the Turks. Mack believes that Lawrence underwent “psychic trauma” of such “depravity and horror” that it helps explain his later compulsion to be flagellated. Mack offers vivid insights into the reason that Lawrence renounced his own “legend” and enlisted after the war in the ranks of the RAF. Despite all, he concludes, Lawrence remained, in his future roles, a creative force, “an enabler.”

This article was originally published in the Wall Street Journal on June 19 2015.

You may also like:

Dharitri Bhattacharjee’s review of Judith M. Brown’s Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope

Jack Loveridge recommends The Viceroy’s Journal by Archibald Percival Wavell, ed. Penderel Moon

The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester (2005)

By Stefanie Shackleton

The nineteenth century in Britain was a time of grand figures, grand projects, and Imperial expansion. Imperialism was spreading the English language across the globe, yet there was still not a definitive guide to the language. There were small guides and selections of words, but no unified work that encompassed the whole of the English vocabulary. So in 1857, the grand project of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was proposed.

Book Cover Winchester Professor and Madman

Including both serious historical research and journalistic dramatic intrigue, Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman is an intelligent, clear, and captivating read. It is a history of the dictionary, but it is also a glimpse into some of the strangest corners of the social world on both sides of the Atlantic. This glimpse is through the lives of two central figures: a self-educated scholar, and a delusional murderer.

The scholar is Dr. William Chester Minor. Born into a wealthy family of American missionaries, he grew up with access to a fine education and ample opportunities. After obtaining a medical degree, he joined the Union army, becoming an army physician in the Civil War in 1864. This is where, Winchester feels, Minor’s life began to crumble. Haunted not only by his impulses and lusts, but then by his experiences on the gruesome battlefield, his life was filled with terror and shame. Plagued by vivid nightmares and hallucinations, he became convinced that he was being tormented in his sleep and retired from the army as one of the “walking wounded.”

Minor travelled to London where he hoped to begin a relaxing trip around Europe. Unfortunately, this is where he took a turn for the worst. In the early hours before dawn, Minor tragically gunned down an innocent man, mistaking him for one of his imagined assailants. He was committed to Broadmoor, an asylum for the criminally insane, where he was to remain for over thirty years. It is in those cells that he found time to contribute to the dictionary project, lead by a man who became his unlikely friend, James Murray.

Asylum for Criminal Lunatics, Broadmoor, Sandhurst, Berkshire. Printed in Illustrated London News 1867.

Professor James Murray came from rather different circumstances. Born to a tailor and linen draper in Scotland, Murray left school at the age of fourteen. With no money to pay for additional formal schooling, Murray took his education into his own hands. Exceedingly bright and hardworking, he studied and read independently. He learned several languages, read extensively on science and math, did his own experiments, and read profusely in other subjects. Eventually, he worked his way into a job as a teacher and schoolmaster. Through lectures and friends, he later made his way into the more scholarly circles and societies of London. He was then offered the position as lead editor of what was to become the Oxford English Dictionary.

James Murray and the OED editorial staff, 1915 — James Murray and the OED editorial staff.

The religious, family-oriented teetotaler was almost the opposite of the promiscuous, impulsive, and troubled Minor. They had several traits in common, however: a fastidious working method, incurable curiosity, and a nearly obsessive passion for the work on the dictionary. Murray was editor of the OED from 1879 until his death in 1915. Minor submitted tens of thousands of quotes for use in the dictionary over roughly two decades until his mental state took a gruesome and violent turn. Winchester reveals the surprising manner they were able to come together, become friends, and spend days walking the grounds of the asylum discussing politics, language, and literature.

For the most part Winchester confines the account to what he found in the evidence, though he tells his story with colorful description and imagery. He is able to touch upon several aspects of social history as well, including war experience, class relations, treatment of criminals and the mentally ill, and religion. Yet throughout the work, Winchester stays close to the human element of the account.

A diagram of the different kinds of vocabulary of the English language and their frequency, drawn by James Murray, first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary

In 1928, the first edition of what became the Oxford English Dictionary, at that point titled A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, was published in its ten-volume entirety. Neither Murray nor Minor lived to see that day, but their work and the methods they used in its creation were crucial to making it possible. In this best selling book, Winchester offers this all too human part of the story, in all its shocking and poignant glory.

Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (Harper Perennial, 2005)

[This review was edited to correct minor errors on June 16, 2015.]

You may also like:

Sundar Vadlamudi recommends Gauri Viswanathan’s book on literary study and British rule in India

Jack Loveridge discusses John Gallagher’s classic study of the British Empire

All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Among the Powers of the Earth: the American Revolution and the Making of a New World Empire, by Eliga Gould (2012)

By Kristie Flannery

The expectation that the United States of America would become an empire in its own right is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. In his new book, Eliga Gould contends that when the delegates to the Continental Congress of 1776 asserted the United States’ right “to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them,” they were declaring their right to colonise peoples and lands that had not yet been conquered by European powers. Instead of offering an alternative to the European empires, the new United States sought to mimic them. The colonists’ imperial ambitions lay at the heart of the nation-building project.

The significance of “among the powers of the earth” has been marginalized in the endless popular and scholarly discussions of “the most treasured national relic.” Gould is not the first historian to deconstruct the Declaration’s preamble in a way that forces us to rethink the origins of the independent United States of America. In his “Global History” of the Declaration, David Armitage recognised the pertinent phrase “among the powers of the earth” as evidence that European leaders were the Declaration’s primary audience. He emphasised that the proclamation “sought the admission of the United States to a pre-existing international order;” it was an inherently conservative statement that “signalled to the world that their revolution would be decidedly un-revolutionary.” Yet Armitage did not make explicit that the United States defined itself, from the very beginning, as an empire. This uncomfortable underbelly of the Declaration of Independence prompts us to reconsider claims that the American Revolution constituted “the first of the modern era’s great liberationist events.”

The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, by Armand-Dumaresq, (c. 1873). Via Wikimedia Commons

Moving forward from the American War for Independence, Gould explores the emergence of the idea and reality of a United States empire though the analysis of Union diplomacy in the decades leading to the First Seminole War (1816-1819) and the adoption of the Monroe Doctrine (1823). Gould pays close attention to the development of political relationships between the United States federal government and its citizens, and European and Native American leaders and their emissaries. It is less concerned with the dry details of specific international treaties than with the “broader process by which Americans sought to make themselves appear worthy of peaceful relations with other nations.”

United States Declaration of Independence, 1776. Via Wikimedia Commons.

In this account we discover that treaty-making ultimately succeeded in protecting the right of US citizens to own slaves and dispossess Native Americans of their lands. North American slave-owners successfully used British legal precedents to defend the legality of plantation slavery. The outbreak of war in Europe also influenced the survival of slavery and the rapid expansion of the United States into Indian territory. Gould suggests that European powers, particularly Britain and Spain, were less willing and able to fight against slavery and support their indigenous allies against the American behemoth when confronting Napoleon’s army demanded their attention and resources. In this way Among the Powers of the Earth makes a convincing case that the history of the United States cannot be studied in a vacuum. At its core the evolution of the United States was deeply entangled with the European empires whose ranks it wanted to join.

Theodore Roosevelt and his Big Stick in the Caribbean cartoon, 1904. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Gould’s Atlantic focus, however, keeps him from grappling with the fact that European empires were aggressively expanding in the period he considers. For example, as the Union army marched into Creek and Seminole territory, British soldiers and convicts invaded Aboriginal lands in Australia and India, and Spain was working to extend its network of missions, forts, and trading posts into northern Mexico and the Pacific northwest of the American continent. Surely European powers’ ongoing campaigns to expand their empires in the Pacific and Indian Ocean worlds affected their readiness to accept the Union’s violent push into Florida? Gould’s Atlantic focus leads him to give an imbalanced account of how the law of nations vis à vis imperial economic interests shaped Europe’s responses to the American empire.

An oil painting of Aborigines watching Captain Phillip's First Fleet arriving in Sydney Cove. Courtesy of the Mitchell Library.

An oil painting of indigenous Australians watching Captain Phillip’s First Fleet arriving in Sydney Cove, 1788. Courtesy of the Mitchell Library.

Had Gould turned his critical gaze towards the Pacific, he could have more forcefully challenged the dominant narrative about the Age of Revolutions. Gould’s findings have implications far beyond American history. Among the Powers of the Earth disrupts the mantra that the Age of Revolutions ushered in the Age of Nations. It makes an important contribution to the recent wave of historical research that destabilises the notion that the bloody rebellions that erupted in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were fundamentally anti-colonial and democratising in their aspirations and impact. Gould belongs to the school of historians who consider the period from 1760 to 1830 as “the first age of global imperialism,” as C.A. Bayly put it. Other new and noteworthy revisionist monographs include David Lambert’s history of the pro-slavery movement in the Anglo Atlantic World (2013), and Gabrielle Paquette’s study of the nineteenth-century Portuguese monarchy and empire (2013). The Age of Revolutions was more complex than romantic myths of national election seem to suggest.

Eliga Gould, Among the Powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the Making of a New World Empire. (Harvard University Press, 2012).

More in the Entangled Histories series on Not Even Past:

Bradley Dixon, Facing North From Inca Country: Entanglement, Hybridity, and Rewriting Atlantic History

Ben Breen recommends Explorations in Connected History: from the Tagus to the Ganges (Oxford University Press, 2004), by Sanjay Subrahmanyam

Christopher Heaney reviews Poetics of Piracy: Emulating Spain in English Literature (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) by Barbara Fuchs

Jorge Esguerra-Cañizares discusses his book Puritan Conquistadors: Iberianizing the Atlantic, 1550-170 (Stanford University Press, 2006) on Not Even Past.

Renata Keller discusses Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in the Americas, 1492-1830 (Yale University Press, 2007) by J.H. Elliott

You may also enjoy:

David Armitage, The Declaration of Independence: A Global History. Harvard University Press, 2007.

C.A. Bayly, “The First Age of Global Imperialism, C. 1760–1830.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 26, no. 2 (1996): 28-47.

David Lambert, Mastering the Niger: James MacQueen’s African Geography and the Struggle over Atlantic Slavery. (University of Chicago Press, 2013)

Garielle Paquette, Imperial Portugal in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions: The Luso-Brazilian World, c. 1770-1850 (Cambridge University Press, 2013)

Facing North from Inca Country: Entanglement, Hybridity, and Rewriting Atlantic History

This November, UT Austin will host a workshop on the Entangled Histories of the Early Modern British and Iberian Empire and their Successor Republics, bringing together graduate students and faculty from across the United States. The emphasis of this event is to explore the ways in which ideas, commodities, and peoples circulated across the formal boundaries of empires and nations. In the lead up to the workshop Not Even Past will be publishing reviews of key works of scholarship in the area of entangled history during the following month. These reviews are written by UT graduate students, many of whom will be submitting papers to the workshop, and will lay the foundation for the lively conversations this November. To kick-off, UT graduate student Bradley Dixon introduces the key questions that will be addressed at the workshop, and proposes a new model for studying entanglement.

By Bradley Dixon

When William Strachey imagined Virginia’s future, he pictured Peru.

In 1612, the colony’s former secretary compared the Powhatan Indians of Virginia with the “Cassiques or Comaunders of Indian Townes in Peru” whose people mined the silver that was filling Spain’s coffers. The caciques, Strachey wrote, were “rich in their furniture horses and Cattell.” Their wealth, however, was not only in material goods but in political capital—namely, the protection they received as vassals to the king of Spain. In the same way, Strachey pictured Virginia’s Indians becoming vassals to England’s “king James, who will give them Justice and defend them against their enemyes.”

This passage poses a number of interesting questions. How could a Protestant Englishman like Strachey look to Catholic Spain as a model for ruling indigenous peoples? Where did he obtain his information about the nature of the Spanish Empire? And, perhaps most importantly, how does the fact that Strachey imagined Virginia as a Protestant Peru affect our understanding of the colonial venture that started in Jamestown?

Map of Virginia, discovered and as described by Captain John Smith, 1606; engraved by William Hole. — Map of Virginia, discovered and as described by Captain John Smith, 1606; engraved by William Hole (Via Wikimedia commons)

This November, a conference of UT history graduate students and faculty drawn from near and far will consider these and other questions as they ponder the “entanglement” of the Spanish and British empires in the Atlantic world. Three scholars among the presenters—Eliga Gould, Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, and Benjamin Breen—have already published work that complicates, opens, or even erases, the historiographical barrier that often stands between the British and Iberian Atlantics. Instead, they have emphasized the peoples, goods, and influences that crossed imperial boundaries. The Spanish empire, which throughout the colonial era was the older, larger, and richer of the two, exuded a powerful influence and served as a potent example for subsequent colonization enterprises by other European nations, notably Britain.

For Gould, the most important unit of analysis remains “empire.” Gould might explain William Strachey’s vision as a logical in a period in which Spain’s empire was not just preeminent but dominant. When Strachey wrote, Jamestown was a tiny, hardscrabble outpost within what Gould has called “a Spanish periphery that included much of the Western Hemisphere.” Seen from this perspective, one might picture the two empires as partners in a dance, each watching the other, anticipating the other’s moves. Gould argues that the mutual influences of the two empires reached to their very cores. The encounters between the partner-empires happened in locales far and wide, not just on their outer borders.

Map from the Description des Indes Occidentales [Description of the West Indies]. Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas. Amsterdam: M. Colin, 1622. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Cañizares-Esguerra and Breen proposed, as an alternative model, a “hybrid Atlantic” that de-centers both the nation-state and the empire as the major units of analysis. More important to the development of the hybrid Atlantic are the “local contingencies, cultural exchanges, extra-national groups, indigenous perspectives, and the roles of nonhuman actors like objects, environments, and ecologies.” The political map of this hybrid Atlantic would have little in common with traditional maps of European imperial influence. The hybrid Atlantic model recognizes the many places that “were only nominally controlled by any European state in the colonial era.”

If Gould’s model of entanglement is the dance of empires, then Cañizares-Esguerra’s and Breen’s seems more like an elaborate pinball game that Jorge Luis Borges might have imagined. The machine encompasses the entire Atlantic world with, not multiple, but millions of balls in play, careening into each other and transforming the bumpers and flippers themselves as they collide with them.

More than a decade ago, Daniel K. Richter turned the perspective of early North America around in another way, recounting the history of colonization from the American Indian’s point of view. “Facing East from Indian Country,” the title of his now-classic book, has become a shorthand for placing the views of Native Americans at the heart of North American history.

Daniel K. Richter, Facing Eaast from Indian Country (2003) — Daniel K. Richter, *Facing East from Indian Country* (2003)

So, what if, as a thought experiment, we faced northwards from the Andes? Seen from Peru, both Virginia and New England look very different from the image that most people in the United States learned in school, in which these tiny settlements are the original acorns from which mighty oaks would one day grow.

Viewed from the Andes, Virginia was but a small outpost—and a trespass—in La Florida, a region where Spanish missions were already fifty years old and where Native American polities were independent and sovereign. Likewise, when seen in this way, familiar figures appear in a different guise. John Smith becomes a would-be conquistador, striving to subdue the peoples of the Chesapeake. Captain Christopher Newport, like a latter day Cortes or Pizarro, sought to crown—and thus make a vassal of—a Native emperor, Powhatan. The colonial world that emerged in the Chesapeake would be different but its differences must have seemed like matters of scale at the beginning.

Sketch of the Jamestown fort sent to King Philip III of Spain by his ambassador Zuniga. The sketch was found on the back of a map made by John Smith in 1608. The cross is thought to represent the church and the flag like drawing may be a garden. It may also be a representation of the early 17th century English blue ensign. (via Wikimedia Commons)

From the Andes, the settlements of the British Empire probably always seemed smaller. That is, until it wasn’t small anymore and was barking at the gates of the Spanish empire. But even then, both empires watched each other carefully for weaknesses and for ideas.

This southern perspective offers only one way that we might begin to perceive and conceive of the “entanglements” between the British and Spanish Americas. As the conference gathers in November, we look forward to exploring others.

You may also like:

Jorge Esguerra-Cañizares discusses his book Puritan Conquistadors: Iberianizing the Atlantic, 1550-170 (Stanford University Press, 2006) on Not Even Past.

Renata Keller discusses Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in the Americas, 1492-1830 (Yale University Press, 2007) by J.H. Elliott

Christina Marie Villarreal recommends Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment (University of Chicago Press, 2012) by Daniela Bleichmar

Sources:

Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra and Benjamin Breen, “Hybrid Atlantics: Future Directions for the History of the Atlantic World,” History Compass 11/8 (2013)

Eliga H. Gould, “Entangled Histories, Entangled Worlds: The English-Speaking Atlantic as a Spanish Periphery,” American Historical Review 112, no. 3 (Jun., 2007).

Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: a Native History of Early America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003)

William Strachey, “The Historie of Travell into Virginia Britania,” in Captain John Smith: Writings and Other Narratives of Roanoke, Jamestown, and the First English Settlement of America, ed. James Horn (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 2007).

Giving a life, winning a patrimony

By Sumit Guha

It was the Indian month of Shravana, and early summer rains of 1653 would have set in as the delegation of villagers toiled up the steep slopes to the gates of the fort of Rohida, (later named Vicitragadh) and presented themselves to the officials there. They came into the court of Dhond-deu, the Hawaldar – an officer charged with the general fiscal and administrative control of the villages subordinate to the fort. These were turbulent times in western India as the Mughal empire from the north began to slowly conquer the southern kingdoms based in Bijapur and Golkunda. Locally a young lord, Shivaji Bhosle, was gradually adding fort after fort to his domains and planning the creation of an independent kingdom. The officers seated around Dhond-deu must have heard many tales of strife before this time. But this one was stranger than usual.

“The fort gateway was probably elaborately ornamented, a contrast to the simple huts of the villagers who toiled up the hill to it. We may conceive its appearance from the sketch made about 1850 of the gateway to the fort of Panhala – not far from Rohida.”

Some days earlier the two hereditary headmen from the village Karanjiya had come to the fort to pay their taxes. The headmen, Balaji Kudhle and Nayakji Kudhle, were accompanied by a Dalit (lower-caste) servant named Gondnak who was employed by the tax office. Maybe he had been sent to summon them? While in the fort, Gondnak (so the document says) got into a broil and beat up a junior treasury official. The headmen seem to have quickly fled back to their village, but a cavalry unit soon arrived in pursuit and seized their extended families and servants. They then demanded to be fed: the villagers slaughtered a goat and supplied them with rich viands and marijuana candy among other things. After a while, some of the soldiers went to sleep and others sat on guard. But their repast began to tell, and so they summoned the hereditary Dalit (Mahar) servants attached to the village and told them that if even a single detainee was missing in the morning, all of their heads would be cut off.

The villagers held a hasty confabulation: they asked the Dalits who had patrimonial rights in the village if one of them would step forward to confess to the offense: each of these replied – “Confess and have our heads and our sons’ heads cut off? We cannot do this.” The Gondnak who had gone to the fort that day was found and the headmen and their kinsmen beseeched him to surrender and redeem all of them. He had no patrimony and was merely a servant at the fort. He said: “Very well, I will ransom you all with my neck. But swear to me now what share of inheritance you will give my son and swear on your ancestors that you will fulfill that promise.” So they all duly swore to give his son, Arajnak, an eighth share of the rights and fees pertaining to the Dalit Mahar servants of the village as well as an honorific role in village ceremonies and shares in taxable and tax-free lands. They swore this on their ancestors and the name of the fearsome god Mahakala. They bound their descendants to never contest this claim in future. Then Gondnak stepped forward and was taken away and beheaded.

Teen darwaza gate, Panhala, Maharashtra, India, 1894

Thus it was that the village delegation came up to the fort to have the deed attesting the creation of a new share in patrimonial rights and lands of the village attested and recorded in the fort where they paid their revenue. The officials in the fort asked the head of the current holders of village service shares, Dhaknak, son of Jannak if he accepted the arrangement. He said that the promise the headmen made bound him and his clan in perpetuity. A deed recounting the circumstances in which Arajnak gained a share in the patrimony was written out and sealed. Copies were kept in the district office and the original given to Arajnak, son of Gondnak to hold as evidence of his rights.

My narrative so far follows that in the document. But I suspect that the village heads may have been the instigators or indeed participants in the broil where the official was beaten up and that the impoverished Dalit Gondnak was the scapegoat for the whole affair. Else it would be unclear why the headmen and their relatives were arrested at the outset. Surely the horsemen would have sought out Gondnak’s kin or children for reprisals? But the incident is a vivid illustration of how important acceptance into the village community was – even if only as a lowly watchman and servant, in western India a few centuries ago.

Image of doorway to fort of Rohida, later named Vicitragadh

The fort is now in ruins but a gateway – perhaps even the one through which the villagers came – survives largely undamaged.

For more on the social and political system where this incident occurred:

Sumit Guha Beyond Caste: Power and Identity in South Asia, Past and Present (2013)

First image via Graham, D.C. 1854. Statistical Report on the Principality of Kolhapoor Selection from the Records of the government of Bombay No. VIII (new series) Bombay: Education Society Press.

Second Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Third image via Wikimapia.org

The Isles: A History, by Norman Davies (1999)

By Mark Sheaves

On September 18 the Scottish people will vote to decide whether the country should withdraw from the United Kingdom. Over the summer the polls have swung back and forth, and as the referendum draws closer the competing campaigns have intensified. Nationalist rhetoric prevails on both sides, with historical examples deployed to either highlight injustices or moments of peaceful prosperous union. Indeed, the historical animosity felt by many Scots towards the ruling Conservative party seems to be worrying the Prime Minister, David Cameron. Demonstrating his lack of faith in the Scottish people’s decision-making faculties he urged voters last week not to break up the union just to give the “effing Tories a kick”. The history of the relationship between the two kingdoms is vital for both camps, but surely it is more complicated than historical subjection or fraternal cooperation. Exploring the millennium long relationship between England and Scotland – as George Christian also did in his NEP article last Monday – we can begin to comprehend the complicated issues at stake in this referendum and the possible ramifications. Few have tackled such a large topic, but one book that has is Norman Davies’ The Isles: A History.

Published in 1999, The Isles, traces the development of the political entities and cultural identities inhabiting the archipelagos currently divided into the nations of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Drawing on a selection of reference works and the expertise of some specialists the book ranges from the last Ice Age to the present day. It covers the early Celtic, Germanic, Roman and Norse groups, the emergence of separate kingdoms, and the various configurations of unity running alongside the rise and fall of the British Empire. The final chapter, The Post-Imperial Isles, addresses a contemporary debate about a perceived British political and identity crisis, in the context of the devolution of the United Kingdom. Davies concludes by offering his own vision for the future, arguing that the establishment of the United Kingdom served the interests of Empire, and therefore, in a post-imperial world, each nation should exist as a distinct entity in the wider community of Europe. While Davies’ argument supports the dissolution of the United Kingdom, at over one thousand pages long The Isles is unlikely to be near the top of the yes to independence campaign’s reading list.

The complex relationships between the states of the British Isles from 927 to the present (Wikimedia Commons)

The Isles is a book that tries to accomplish a lot of different goals. Davies’ broad scope, incorporating a variety of historical perspectives, tackles Anglo-Centric narratives and myth-making that taints much scholarship on this subject since the “Protestant triumphalism” of the seventeenth century. The long periodization and large number of themes covered seeks to address a perceived overspecialization in the discipline of History and the lack of coherence in History teaching in schools. Quotes from primary sources lace the lively and clear narrative in an attempt to appeal to a wide readership. Engaging and informative, both academics and the public will benefit from reading the Isles, but does Davies try to do too much?

The polarized critical reception of this book in newspapers and book reviews reveals the pitfalls of adopting such an ambitious scope. Some nations receive more attention than others (Wales fares particularly badly), while certain events, such as the Irish potato famine, and themes, such as industrialization and slavery, receive short shrift. The author’s political convictions also color interpretations. Davies presents the Reformation as a moment when England cut cultural and intellectual ties with the continent, ignoring much scholarship that demonstrates the continuance of strong ties not only with Europe, but also the wider Atlantic world. Similarly, Davies ignores important insights about social revolution contained in works by eminent historians such as Eric Hobsbawm and E.P. Thompson. Finally, as result of the broad scope, the final chapters on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries attempt to condense a large number of themes and events and do not do justice to this complicated era. However, these criticisms might be unwarranted as Davies aims for a “very personal view of history.” With these shortcomings in mind, readers will find that his book introduces key themes in the history of the Isles, integrating multiple perspectives on significant historical and current issues related to the different nations and cultures. Are these differences enough to justify the end of the Union? Or are the kingdoms too entangled? The voters will decide shortly…

Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom. In Scotland, the Queen has a separate version of the Royal Arms - read about the differences here. (Wikicommons)

Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom. In Scotland, the Queen has a separate version of the Royal Arms. (Wikicommons)

Norman Davies, The Isles: A History

The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, by Frederick John Dealtry Lugard (1965)

by Ogechukwu Ezekwem

Born to an English family in India in 1858, Frederick Lugard rose to become the colonial Governor of Nigeria, Britain’s most valued African possession. His The Dual Mandate, first published in 1922, became a handbook for all British administrators in tropical Africa, and influenced British colonial policies across the continent. It offered a comprehensive evaluation of the nature and challenges of British rule in Africa.

Lugard asserted that the direct cause of Africa’s partition was France’s search for rehabilitation in north and west Africa, following its defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. This ambition resulted in a scramble between France and Germany for African spheres of influence, to which Britain was “unwillingly” compelled to participate. To shield British spheres of influence from external intrusion, the British Foreign Office declared them as Protectorates. Territories acquired through conquest, cession, settlement, or annexation were designated as Crown Colonies. Apart from east and southern Africa, where the terrain and temperate weather offered convenient habitation to European settlers, the African tropics held few incentives for white settlers. However, the region provided abundant sources of raw materials and markets for manufactured goods.

1897 print depicting a battle between British forces and Mahdist fighters in the Sudan (Library of Congress)

According to Lugard, Britain held a dual responsibility in Africa: administration and economic benefits for the metropole, as well as the “native’s” uplifting. His recommendations for Africa’s governance revolved around three principles – decentralization, continuity, and cooperation. Decentralization at all levels of government, with a strong coordinating authority in the center, allowed for greater efficiency. Continuity was vital because Africans trusted foreigners reluctantly. Therefore, effective British officers should retain their posts without undue interruptions. He also proposed that, during Governors’ annual leaves, they should be represented by a Lieutenant Governor, selected from the Provincial Administrative Staff, rather than the Colonial Secretary. Decentralization and continuity could only be achieved if cooperation existed within the administrative chains, especially between the provincial staff and local rulers. The success of Lugard’s Indirect Rule policy — administration through local chiefs, under the close supervision of British colonial officers — a system that he tested comprehensively in Nigeria, depended on cooperation. He also encouraged local heirs’ education in order to prevent the emergence of a separate educated class that might challenge the authority of accepted rulers. As a way of harnessing the empire’s economic benefits for Britain’s post-World War 1 recovery, Lugard recommended the construction of strategic railways across British Africa. He concluded that British governance offered happiness and welfare to “primitive” peoples. “If unrest and desire for independence exists,” he asserted, “it is because the natives have been taught the value of freedom and independence, which for centuries they had not known.”

Early 20th-century European poses with African Pigmies (Wikimedia)

Lugard writes in a clear style. His book is a masterpiece of literature and policymaking, though contemporary readers will find his defense of British colonialism in Africa racist and paternalistic. Firstly, he reiterated the supposed unwilling nature of Britain’s involvement in Africa. He blamed Africa’s partition on French and German rivalry, while ignoring that Britain’s economic interests and national prestige hung in the balance too. Secondly, he argued that Britain practiced a beneficent regime that taught Africans the value of freedom and liberty, hence their desire for independence. He ignored colonialism’s oppressive nature and the shortcomings of British rule, which caused protests against the government. He overlooked the “freedom and liberty” existing in indigenous structures, hence the sustained resistance by Africans against European domination. Lugard’s administrative template rules out an independent Africa, free from British control, at least for the indefinite future. Nonetheless, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa is illuminating for readers seeking to understand the foundations of British colonial policies in Africa.

You may also like Ogechukwu Ezekwem’s review of The Making of Man-Midwifery: Childbirth in England 1660-1770

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