Restoration historiography has so far remained silent regarding the alliance between the exiled royalists and the recusant religious houses in the Low Countries. This article examines the assistance provided to the royalist cause by Abbess Mary Knatchbull of the English Benedictine cloister at Ghent. The correspondence of Charles's leading advisers, most notably Sir Edward Hyde, reveals the extent to which the conspirators relied upon the nuns' mail service to communicate with their supporters in England and abroad, and upon the abbess's ability to obtain funds from local financiers. While the nuns were not central players in the conspiracies of the late 1650s, their activities reveal the royalists' dependency upon the networks established by Catholic exiles. The article also explores Mary Knatchbull's motives for devoting so much of her community's temporal and spiritual resources to the royalist cause. The rewards she sought from the king after 1660 suggest that she had a definite religious and political agenda which aimed ultimately at Catholic toleration. Therefore the article raises several important issues about Charles II's and his ministers' links with English Catholics and, in particular, it points to the important role of women in the hitherto masculine territory of royalist conspiracy and politics.

Recent interest in the early-modern British composite state has neglected Hanover, despite evidence of frequent and informal co-operation between the countries in foreign affairs. This article explores one aspect of diplomacy with particular import for the British–Hanoverian union, British policy in North Africa, and finds a greater degree of integration in trade policy than has been hitherto recognized. Britain's government came to recognize and treat Hanoverians in Morocco as British subjects during the eighteenth century, a policy which was expanded to the rest of North Africa and elsewhere after the acquisition of the maritime state of East Friesland at the Congress of Vienna increased the Hanoverian government's commercial responsibilities beyond its ability to cope. British policy did not reflect a consensus, and it was criticized by some who regarded Hanover as an entirely foreign state beyond the purview of the British government. But British sponsorship of Hanoverian trade prevailed over such dissent until the union's end, so that Britain's experience of composite statehood lasted until 1837.

J. W. Croker's papers are a valuable and rare source concerning British government patronage of the first half of the nineteenth century. They show us a system that was burdensome for the participants, made more acceptable since it was an extension of gentlemanly civility. The papers also show that patronage, like government generally, was able somewhat to reform itself. True, in his particular sphere as patron – as first secretary to the Admiralty (1809–30) – Croker favoured his relatives, but appointed only those he thought fit, and supervised and controlled their work in a way not feasible outside a family. Nepotism could mean efficiency. It created a Croker family circle within the Admiralty that lasted until the 1860s. Croker continued to have influence as a patron until he died in 1857. He was aided by his network of friendships, but also there was the obligation felt by those in power – of whatever party – to Croker's long years of Admiralty service. Political links had their importance, but is is argued that the three factors of family, friendship, and service were predominant. His career as patron illustrates a vital stage between ‘old corruption’ and competitive entry to the civil service.

The publication of Ernest Renan's La Vie de Jésus in 1863 is rightly regarded as a key moment in French history. The book served as an important symbol of science and free thought in the battles over the Republic and laïcité, and presented a thesis that characterized French scientific philosophy in the mid-nineteenth century. Jesus, for Renan, transcended his own culture, rejecting all social constraints in the pursuit of a unique ideal of the kingdom of God, becoming in the process the first true individualist in history. Critics ridiculed his arguments, but it was typical of the Romanticism of the French positivists. Renan's philosophy was rooted not in empiricism, but in an essentially pantheistic metaphysics, prizing the realization of God within oneself as the highest ethical achievement. This was an innovation of the highest importance in France, where a traditionalist, but post-Christian theism had marked social thought since the Revolution. Renan and his generation, notably Taine, dispensed with the traditionalist religious dualism that typified the social outlook of Tocqueville, Michelet, and their contemporaries. Far from articulating a materialist dead end in the history of ideas, their Romantic individualism was critical to later developments in European thought, including aestheticism and irrationalism.

During the half century (1854–1904) which followed the opening of Japan's ports, Westerners scrutinized the rediscovered archipelago and attempted to classify its inhabitants within their racial system. Despite the claim for ‘scientific’ objectivism, Western racial views of the Japanese were largely dictated by contemporary political and moral attitudes toward Japan. Hence, writings on the Japanese ‘race’ reflected not only the racial knowledge of the period but also the asymmetry between the West and Japan. These writings embodied a genuine discourse: they were propounded in texts, historically located, and displayed a coherent system of meaning. Critically, the Western discourse regarding the identity of the Japanese people aimed to maintain, and even produce, power relations between the colonial powers and the local population, and as such it exerted ideological influence on both Western readers and the Japanese. The present article traces this racial discourse, and attempts to explain the rapid transformation of the image of the Japanese people from an almost unknown racial entity to a national group Westerners perceived as a major racial threat.

Hamburg's Bismarck memorial, unveiled in 1906, is considered to be one of the greatest expressions of Imperial Germany's Bismarck cult and an important development in the history of German memorial art. This article looks beyond these contextual categories to focus on the political and cultural exigencies specific to Hamburg which gave birth to the memorial. It suggests it was born of the desire of Hamburg's patrician classes to defend their political privileges in the face of dramatic social change and attendant demands for political reform. To those who presided over its construction, it was also a means of asserting Hamburg's cultural aspirations and of shrugging off a reputation as a city hostile to the arts. The article examines some of the memorial designs submitted to a competition as a means of illustrating the functions it was intended to fulfil, but argues that it failed to fulfil both. Meeting widespread disapproval among the working classes, the memorial could not stay their increasing support for the Social Democrats. Although widely admired, the monument did not stimulate further significant patronage of the arts in Hamburg.

This article examines the relationship between Anthony Eden, British minister for League of Nations' affairs (1935) and foreign secretary (1935–8), and Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime within the context of Italian foreign policy in the later 1930s. It outlines the precise aims and objectives of Mussolini's expansionist policies over the period 1935–8, assesses the accuracy of Eden's interpretation of them and, in turn, discusses official Italian diplomatic perceptions of Eden. It specifically challenges Renzo De Felice's view that for Mussolini, the Italian conquest of Ethiopia (1935–6) marked the limit of Fascist expansionism. Furthermore, it contests his theory that the dictator did not pursue an Italo–German alliance that would drive an Italian imperialist war against Britain and France in the Mediterranean and Red Sea. Anthony Eden had been fully aware of such an intention, and had been targeted by the regime as Italy's ‘public enemy number one’, precisely because he fully comprehended what lay at the heart of Mussolini's brand of Fascism.

This article challenges the view that, in accepting the 1945 American loan and its attendant commitments to international economic liberalization, the Labour party easily fell in behind the Atlanticist approach to post-war trade and payments. It is suggested instead that Labour's sometimes seemingly paradoxical behaviour in office was driven, not only by the very tough economic conditions it faced, but also by a fundamental contradiction inherent in its desire to ‘plan’ at both domestic and international levels. This contradiction – the ‘planning paradox’ – is explored with reference to pre-war and war-time developments, including Labour's reactions to the Keynes and White plans of 1943, and to the Bretton Woods conference of 1944. The decision to accept the US loan, and with it the Bretton Woods agreements, is then examined within this context. Finally, an assessment is made of whether, in this key area of policy, Labour's pre-1945 deliberations were effective in preparing the party for the challenges it would face in government.

This communication presents a newly discovered letter to Thomas Hobbes. It offers conclusive evidence that the letter was written by Hobbes's friend, the scientist and Anglican clergyman Robert Payne, and strong evidence that the letter was in fact received by Hobbes in late 1649. The discovered letter was part of a running controversy over questions of church government in which Hobbes and Payne engaged during the composition of Leviathan. In it Payne tries unsuccessfully to soften Hobbes's strident Erastianism, and to defend the beleaguered Church of England from his criticisms. The letter thus sheds light on the political and religious context in which Leviathan was composed. Moreover, the letter offers an indirect but intriguing glimpse at underlying assumptions of Hobbes's religious thought.

Two main alternative paths structured the lives of women in early modern Italy: marriage and the convent. Historians have analysed the disciplinary and economic functions, and the legal, religious and symbolic meaning of these paths, from a variety of perspectives. However, studies of marriage and the convent have mainly developed as two separate fields of historical research. My article reviews these two series of studies in the context of the historiography of early modern Italy, and suggests some of the possible connections between them.

National identity, nationalism, patriotism, state formation, and their present-day policy implications now constitute one of the most vital areas of scholarship on British history. In no other period is the debate currently as focused as it is in the long eighteenth century, that crucially contested territory in which older assumptions about a fundamental transition between pre-modernity and modernity have now been called in doubt. This article offers an overview of recent work. It argues that much writing on these years has framed misleading models both of state formation and of national identity. It adds that this period is nevertheless a key one in revealing that the processes at work in sustaining collective identities in the British Isles did not originate with ‘nationalism’ in its historically correct meaning, and need not follow its trajectory.

The ‘middle sort of people’ is a social group that has been the subject of increased historical research in the last decade. Many studies have been written, and many definitions offered of the group, its identity, and its membership. As a result, these overlapping groups and contrasting methods of definition have caused the nature and identity of the group to remain elusive. This study charts the evolution of the historiography of the ‘middle sort’, and the many attempts to produce positive and accurate definitions of the group. It suggests that the identity of the ‘middle sort’ may, in fact, be more complex than is allowed for by existing studies, with different identities being adopted according to social context. It concludes that while the term ‘middle sort of people’ is an appropriate contemporary collective term for use by historians, it is much more problematic as a description of an active, cohesive social group in the early modern period.

Archives of the scientific revolution: the formation and exchange of ideas in seventeenth-century Europe. Edited by Michael Hunter. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1998. Pp. xii + 216. ISBN 0–8511–553–7. £45.00.

The peasantries of Europe from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Edited by Tom Scott. London: Longman, 1998. Pp. xi + 416. ISBN 0–582–10131-X. £19.99.

Civil society and fanaticism: conjoined histories. By Dominique Colas. Translated by Amy Jacobs. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Pp. xxx + 480. ISBN 0–8047–2736–8. £14.95.

The quest for compromise: peacemakers in Counter-Reformation Vienna. By Howard Louthan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. xvi + 185. ISBN 0–531–58082-X. £35.00.

Each of the four volumes at hand examines a different yet vital aspect of European society between the late middle ages and the beginnings of industrialization. The field is far too diverse and the approaches too complex to expect a commonality among these works, excepting a shared temporal and geographic concentration. Still, the themes and subjects reveal some of the issues that have captured recent attention and show how scholars propose to go about exploring them. They suggest the interests of historians of early modern Europe, their distinctive perspectives, and varying methodologies. The collective reach extends from deciphering the papers and manuscripts left by participants in the scientific revolution to an exploration of the immense yet largely reticent peasant world, an attempt to establish the origins and trace the development of today's ongoing discussion over civil society and fanaticism, and finally a study of four peacemakers who urged religious moderation at the imperial court of Counter-Reformation Vienna. Put slightly differently, these studies raise fundamental questions about the sources upon which scholars depend, the nature and utility of historical models, and the relationship between contemporary concerns and our collective past, whether they be issues of civil society or irenic accommodation.

Winston Churchill: studies in statesmanship. Edited by R. A. C. Parker. London and Washington: Brassey's, 1995. Pp. xxi+259. ISBN 1-857-53151-5. £30.

Winston Churchill's last campaign: Britain and the Cold War, 1951–1985. By John W. Young. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. ISBN 0-198-20367-5. £45.

Churchill peacetime ministry, 1951–1955. By Henry Pelling. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1997. Pp. ix+216. ISBN 0-333-67709-9. £16.

Churchill as peacemaker. Edited by James W. Muller. Cambridge: Woodrow Wilson Center and Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. xii+344. ISBN 0-521-58314-4. £35.

Churchill and secret service. By David Stafford. London: John Murray, 1997. Pp. xiii+386. ISBN 0-719-55407-1. £25.

Churchill and Hitler, in victory and defeat. By John Strawson. London: Constable, 1997. Pp. xxxi+540. ISBN 0-094-75840-9. £20.

Over the course of the last decade, historians have set themselves the task of rescuing Churchill from the restrictive embalmment of hero worship. This has been no easy task. His 1930s campaign for rearmament and opposition to appeasement, his ‘finest hour’ in 1940, and his 1946 ‘Iron Curtain’ speech at Fulton, Missouri, secured for him on both sides of the Atlantic an almost unparalleled relevance in the rhetoric of the following forty years' Cold War. To Western politicians of this period, his career offered pertinent ‘lessons’ – particularly the need to appear resolute in the face or threat of aggression. To this was added the fact that his magnificent command of English made him a rich quarry of quasi-prophetic quotes for an endless succession of political speeches and journalistic articles.