British Side Research Articles

Lost in translation: Centripetal individualism and the classical concept of descending representation

The article argues that by the 17th century, despite the increased intellectual exchanges of the time, two different kind of individualism were developing across the Channel — one labeled here as ‘centripetal’, the other one as ‘centrifugal’. On the French side, one witnesses a focus on forum internum, as the only site of uniqueness and authenticity. On the British side, the emphasis switched to forum externum and the equality of wills. The article explores the consequences of these different self-apprehensions of the individual in terms of different understandings of political representation. I claim that, despite today’s general consensus, representing ‘the people’ was not naturally assimilated with an ascending theory of representation. ‘The people’, understood as a whole, was apprehended in France as still higher than its representatives — kings, Estates, or Parlements. The idea of individuals willingly delegating their rights and/or authority to a representative remained for more than a century a peculiar British development. The consequences of this ascending understanding of representation are to be seriously reevaluated.

A Cable to Shrink the Earth

This article discusses how the invention of the telegram revolutionized the communication process in the mid-19th century. On August 15, 1858, Queen Victoria sent a telegram to President Buchanan. It was a joint American and British effort, spearheaded from the American side by an indefatigable financier, Cyrus West Field, and on the British side by a telegraph company. The message of 98 words took sixteen and a half hours to transmit. The cable that carried Victoria’s message was laid in two sections beginning from a rendezvous point in mid-Atlantic. Two converted battleships spliced their cargoes and parted laying cable; the Agamemnon provided by the British government steered east to Ireland, and the American Niagara west to Newfoundland. Before this cable was laid, there was no direct communication between continents. No message could travel faster than the fastest steamships, which required at least 10 days to make the sea voyage between America and Europe. The submarine telegraph cable reduced communication time from days to hours.

Negotiating the Archives: The Natalie Kalmus Papers and the “Branding” of Technicolor in Britain and the United States

Negotiating the ArchivesThe Natalie Kalmus Papers and the “Branding” of Technicolor in Britain and the United States Sarah Street (bio) Based on research for a project on color films in Britain, this essay presents a case study of the Natalie Kalmus Papers in the Margaret Herrick Library, Los Angeles, highlighting Kalmus’s role in exploiting Technicolor in the U.K. market and as a color advisor for British production. Credited as “color consultant” on most Technicolor films from 1933 to 1949, Natalie Kalmus was the ex-wife of Technicolor cofounder Herbert Kalmus. Though she often worked with others and delegated responsibilities, recent scholarship demonstrates that, contrary to opinion that downplayed her role in film history, she most certainly influenced how Technicolor was used for many years.1 In her position as head of the Color Advisory Service, she developed guidelines, advocating a theory of color consciousness through the use of charts for each film that operated like a musical score and associated color intensity with dominant moods or emotions.2 Kalmus produced a chart after reading a script, after which consultations would take place with producers and members of a studio’s art and costume departments, and further adjustments would be made on the set and into postproduction. In addition to cinematographers, art directors were key production personnel who negotiated the details of working with color in collaboration with Kalmus and Joan Bridge, who was also credited as “color director” on many British films.3 Kalmus thus oversaw the exportation of Technicolor into Britain in the mid-1930s, working firsthand on several productions. My search for primary documentation involved locating Kalmus’s papers, which I hoped might answer questions about the extent of her influence, particularly on British films, and her dealings with Technicolor Ltd., the British side of the operation, formed in 1935. The extent of Kalmus’s involvement with British films is a key issue in film history, as is the nature of the work she did with the Color Advisory Service, which producers had to use as part of their contract to use Technicolor. Primary archival documentation on this topic did not, in the main, survive, and in the absence of a Technicolor Ltd. archive, the Natalie Kalmus Papers were a route toward understanding a major link in the company’s international activities. The Natalie Kalmus collection spans the years 1930–48 (see the description at the end of this article). It was a gift to the Herrick in 1992 by Ron Haver, who was the head of the film program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and a noted film historian, collector, and preservationist. The collection is lacking in some areas, while being surprisingly rich in others. Though the collection is cataloged according to a particular correspondent, organization, film title, or type of documentation (e.g., fan mail or radio broadcast transcripts), it is necessary to read everything because you can never be sure what a file might actually contain. The fields in which I was interested related to a number of key themes, including Kalmus’s professional work generally, how the [End Page 2] Click for larger view View full resolution Advertisement for Technicolor Ltd. From Kinematograph Weekly, October 29, 1953. [End Page 3] Color Advisory Service operated in relation to British filmmakers, and evidence about the company’s technical innovations in the form of reports circulated by the company and occasional commentary in letters. I also considered it important to gain a sense of Kalmus’s overall place in women’s film history and, finally, to learn more about her personal history. She is an interesting example of a woman in a key position in Technicolor, occupying a fairly unique technical role at a time when Hollywood was concerned about expanding the lucrative English-speaking market in the face of European protectionist policies.4 Click for larger view View full resolution Technicolor Ltd. offices and lab (Bath Road, Harmondsworth, West Drayton, Middlesex, England), circa 1937. It was highly promising to find that primary documentation from the 1930s and early 1940s had survived since previous research on film trade papers indicated that this was a crucial period before Technicolor had established its...

The Curious Incident of the Dog that Didn't Bark in the Night‐Time: Structure and Agency in Britain's War with Iraq

As one of the most contentious and far‐reaching foreign policy decisions in Britain's political history, the Blair government's participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq has attracted a considerable amount of analysis, commentary, and debate. To date, however, the focus of this debate has tended to attribute primary causality for the decision to invade Iraq to individual agency, and to downplay the role that was played by broader structural factors. Although the decision was driven by the attitudes, beliefs, and values of senior government figures, and principally, on the British side, by those of Tony Blair himself, the role of structures in shaping these subjective views, and in providing senior figures with the scope, freedom, and autonomy to pursue this policy goal, has been largely overlooked. This study argues that, in this regard, a key and defining influence was exerted by the contextual environment of the British political system.

PSYCHOLOGY AND REASONING IN THE ANGLO-GERMAN NAVAL AGREEMENT, 1935–1939

ABSTRACTThis article will analyse the psychology and reasoning in the Anglo-German naval agreement and it will hence ask the following questions. First, how did preceding naval agreements influence the conclusion of the Anglo-German naval agreement. Secondly, what were the reasons for Germany to conclude it? Thirdly, what were the reasons for Britain to conclude it? Fourthly, how does it fit into the larger strategy of arms limitations? And, finally, what part did the Anglo-German naval agreement play in the overall strategy of Germany and Britain in the interwar years? In order to come to a conclusion about the reasons behind the agreement it is the thesis of this article that it is essential to include later changes and additions to the agreement. This part has been neglected in previous analyses. Particularly the reasons behind the termination shed light upon the motives for initially concluding the Anglo-German naval agreement. For the British side this article will argue that the Anglo-German naval agreements fit into this general policy line of trying to limit naval armament through international agreements and that they actually fitted into the overall British policy of bringing Germany back into the circle of European powers as an equal partner. For Hitler's Germany, it will be shown that the Anglo-German naval agreement was the abortive step toward an eternal alliance between the two Arian races.

<i>Sentimental Figures of Empire in Eighteenth-Century Britain and France</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Sentimental Figures of Empire in Eighteenth-Century Britain and France Christine Clark-Evans Sentimental Figures of Empire in Eighteenth-Century Britain and France. By Lynn Festa. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. viii + 300 pp. $55.00. Professor Festa’s history of sentimentality follows the confluence of two psychological and cultural phenomena in the eighteenth-century British and French literary imagination: “the sentimental mode,” or depictions of sentiment as a defining human quality and capacity, and the drive toward colonial and imperial rule in matters of nation, gender, family, class, and race. This comparative cultural history, an examination that is equally balanced between Britain and France, makes a very coherent argument for critical research that focuses on the person—the emerging concepts of the self, of who has feelings and the medical and moral capacity and right to feel, and how they relate to “the literary mode of empire.” The focus here is mainly on how sentiments intersect with and contradict the brutal and bloody practices that are a part of colonizing and exploiting peoples in other societies and cultures. It is then argued that the sentimental depictions of colonial enterprises allowed the readers to selectively recognize the humanity and suffering of non-European people and still keep European “distinctive cultural and personal identities.” The result is defined as a refashioning of “conquest into commerce” and “scenes of violence and exploitation into occasions for benevolence and pity” (2). The central conclusion is that “sentimentality” is a necessary result of these psychological and moral contradictions in the eighteenth-century novel with Enlightenment principles and ideals, producing unavoidable consequences. As such “empire begets sentimentality” (7). In five chapters, sentimentality is treated as the result of the encounter between the newly formed concepts of the self and the other in British and French literature. The first chapter separates “sentimental feeling” in the eighteenth century from earlier ideas about human psychology and culture. The next four chapters examine the representation of the internal life of Europeans and the figures and tropes presented in texts, primarily novels, representing in the external world those who are psychologically and culturally distinct and are most often inferior categories of peoples in far away continents. The introduction is short but cogent and defines “The Great World Without” and the spatial topology of the outside versus inside worlds in the sentimental novel. The first chapter shows what is new in the 1760s and 1770s about sentiment and sentimentality by triangulating in Foucauldian genealogy what would become foundational terms at the time––sympathy, sentimental, and sensibility––along the lines of Northrop Frye, Anne Vila, [End Page 412] Ann Jessie Van Sant, and G. S. Rousseau. The meanings of these three terms are described according to Hume and Smith on the British side and Rousseau, Locke, Diderot, and Montesquieu on the French side. The chapter ends with a description of the “sentimental rewriting” of eighteenth-century empire by virtue of the process in which “sentimental feeling consolidates individual and collective identities” (55). The second chapter explains how sentimentality permits the society to succumb to commoditization that inspires feelings, even love, for objects and reveals the social effects of market forces on exchanged goods and people, the colonized and exploited other, to the point that some objects acquire very special “personal and collective identities” (68). Referring to the 1768 book A Sentimental Journey, “Sterne’s Snuffbox” in the next chapter title is the principal case in point of a “sentimental commodity” (69) among figures of speech and tropes of things that inspire the reader’s feeling. These literary objects are said not only to feel themselves but also to speak in “objective narratives,” based here on Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism and social relations in which commodities are selectively attributed feeling and, in certain texts, speech, called the “Commodity’s Soliloquy” (115). Chapter 4, “Making Humans Human,” the longest and most convincing chapter, explains the process of attributing human qualities and value to sentimental figures in commerce, in images, and particularly in printed texts. The analysis of sentimental figures in this chapter places moral emphasis on the relationship between price and person for African slaves. Such sentimental tropes show the...

Die Bahurutshe van die Marico (Ramotshere Moiloadistrik): Stryd teen blanke oorheersing, 1852-1916

The Bahurutshe of the Marico (Ramotshere Moiloa district): struggle against white domination, 1852-1916. The early history of the Bahurutshe cannot be determined without using a combination of oral tradition, archaeological evidence and written documentation. The Sotho-Tswana moved into the Trans-Vaal area in three big migration waves, probably between 1300 and 1500. The Bahurutshe-Bakwena grouping was the last and also most significant migration wave. They initially settled in the present Rustenburg-Brits vicinity. By approximately 1450/80 the Bahurutshe separated from the Bakwena and gradually settled in the central part of the Marico district. Thus, the Bahurutshe has been living in the Marico area for about 500 years. In this article, the tense relationships between the white burghers/government and the Bahurutshe in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (1852-1899) are discussed. This era was marked by the dismantling of the Bahurutshe authority, land issues, native tax, increasing state control and native labour. After a discussion of these issues, the article focuses on the participation of the Bahurutshe in the South African War (1899-1902), both on the Boer and the British side. The period of the Transvaal Crown Colony (1902-1909) was especially marred by labour issues, increased poll taxes and the controversial “dual administration”. Lastly, the focus is on the influence which the Native Land Act of 1913 and the 1916 Beaumont Land Commission had on the Bahurutshe.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: The Pox Party (review)

Reviewed by: The Runaway Dinner, and: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: The Pox Party Deborah Stevenson and Elizabeth Bush Ahlberg, Allan The Runaway Dinner; illus. by Bruce Ingman. Candlewick, 200640p ISBN 0-7636-3142-6$15.99 R 4-7 yrs Anderson, M. T. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: The Pox Party. Candlewick, 2006351p ISBN 0-7636-2402-0$17.99 R* Gr. 8-12 West African princess Cassiopeia, pregnant and enslaved at fourteen, was brought to the American colonies, where she resides with her son, Octavian (our narrator), in the house of Mr. Gitney. Gitney, a member of a consortium of science enthusiasts (the Novanglian College of Lucidity), affords them a life of astonishing privilege and comfort; Cassiopeia is celebrated for her beauty and acts as hostess at his soirees, and Octavian is given a classical education that would be the envy of well-to-do white children. Make no mistake though, they are slaves, and as Gitney's chattel they are the subjects of the College's studies into the mysterious nature of "Homo Afri." Through minute observation of every observable aspect of his subject's lives, Gitney hopes to establish that Africans are as fully human as Caucasians, but the scope of the consortium's research takes a malicious turn when hostilities escalate between the British and Patriots. The ensuing economic crisis forces Gitney to accept a new benefactor, Mr. Sharpe, who is bent on making the consortium's research profitable and on proving that Africans are a debased race. The setting, Boston on the eve of the Revolution, is more than a piquant backdrop. The fortunes [End Page 112] of Boston directly affect Octavian—from the smallpox inoculation "party" (deviously hosted so that slaves of the gentry can be kept under observation when rumors of uprising circulate) that claims his mother's life, to the slaves' faith in the British Army to offer them freedom in exchange for military service. Octavian's narration (supplemented by fictional documentation), at first glance dense and somewhat arcane, nonetheless quickly draws readers into its almost musical flow, and the relentless action and plot turns are powerful motivators. Throughout the tense, heart-wrenching plotting, Anderson continually addresses a host of Big Themes, e.g.: Can there be love where there is no freedom? Do scientists discover only what they expect to find? Will everyone abandon their integrity for the right price? A second volume will pick up Octavian's adventures as he flees to the British side with a renegade member of the College. Copyright © 2006 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Moving Frontier of British Imperialism in the Lake Rudolf Region: 1890-1919

This essay examines the extension of British colonial control across the Lake Rudolf region, investigating the motives for British decisions and the relationships that developed between the colonizers and the local tribes. On both sides there was uncertainty. Among the local peoples—predominantly warrior herdsmen—some saw advantage in cooperation with the British from the beginning; others quickly came to accept the situation when they realized the power of British arms; but some continued to resist and were a persistent problem for the colonial authority. The British side—which eventually involved three separate colonial administrations (Uganda, Sudan, and British East Africa, now Kenya)—became involved in an internal debate. One viewpoint was that, other than denying this harsh and arid region to imperial rivals, it should be left alone. The other side favored “hands on” administration with the aim of “developing” the area. The debate persisted and was unresolved at the end of British rule in the early 1960s.

Rethinking Social Democracy

What could be more appropriate in the age of neo-conservatism and in an era of post-communism than a conference devoted to an examination of the future of social democracy? Such was the motivation of the organisers of 'Rethinking Social Democracy', the first of a series of three conferences on this theme, which took place in April 2004. Held in London, the conference was sponsored by a number of European institutions including the Fondazione Instituto Gramsci in Rome, the Swedish Institute of Contemporary History and the L'Office Universitaire de Recherche Socialiste in France. On the British side, sponsors include the Fabian Society, the Manchester University Centre for Labour Studies, and the Labour Movement section of the UK Political Studies Association. Given this wide sponsorship, in many of the discussions a refreshing 'European' consciousness was present rather a narrow national awareness. It is quite clear that many French, Scandinavian and German intellectuals who support social democracy see the legal and social structure of the European Union (EU) as a vehicle for entrenching and spreading social democratic values to the East and to the South. In the context of Western Europe's stand against the invasion of Iraq, this foreshadows a longer term global re-alignment about which many hopes are held. There were several impressive speeches. One was by Donald Sassoon, author of One Hundred Years of Socialism (Fontana Press, 1997). Sassoon argued that, paradoxically, the socialist movement never looked like achieving socialism and perhaps never could. But its great triumph was that it had achieved many 'non socialist' aims such as the extension of voting rights, the eight hour day, reforms regulating working conditions, especially those for women and children, and other reforms which civilised capitalism. It had forced the capitalists to adapt some of their ideas and it had compelled the Catholic church to initiate its 'social policy'. It had promoted economic modernisation and decolonisation But it completely failed to achieve what appeared to be its central aim. If we judged social democracy by the membership of the Socialist International (SI), said Marcel Van Der Linden, it appears that social democracy is undergoing a revival. From an affiliation of 36 parties in 1977, the SI now has 89 parties affiliated. The collapse of the Cold War is obviously a major factor, but as well, the SI has changed its identity. In the last 30 years, major changes have taken places in the underpinnings of social democracy. The link with trade unions is not strong and the unions themselves are weaker, the ideas of Keynsianism have collapsed, and the membership of parties is now ageing and declining. In fact social democracy is now undergoing a metamorphosis from being parties of reform with trade union backing towards something else which is not yet clear. Tony Wright, one of small number of Labour MPs trying to develop an intellectual alternative to Blairism, spoke about the shock of continuing free-market ideological

Wellington's Doctors: The British Army Medical Services in the Napoleonic Wars

For many years I have been a pacifist and only in extreme circumstances do I see any justification for acts of aggression. Perhaps naively I always hope that political discussion can avert war. Clausewitz's philosophy that war is merely an extension and continuation of politics is chilling. However, few would doubt, at least here in Britain, that Napoleon's advance across Europe had to be stopped. And of course this was achieved by Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. But at what cost in loss of life and suffering on both sides? In his well-written and well-referenced book, Martin Howard details the organization of the British Army medical services during the Napoleonic Wars, concentrating on the role of the physician and more importantly the surgeon in caring for the wounded and sick at the battle front. From 1808 the British Army fought numerous battles against the French culminating in Waterloo. Casualty figures during these wars were around 5500 officers and 84 000 other ranks killed or wounded. The overall fatality rate for those serving was around 1 in 20. Dr Howard describes in much detail the way in which British field hospitals were organized to take care of casualties. Transport of the wounded was very difficult. The French, mainly through their great military surgeon Dominique Jean Larrey, introduced triage and are credited with developing a form of ambulance service. On the British side such transport was often left to local Portuguese or Spanish peasants who could offer wagon carts and the like. The conditions were very uncomfortable and the wounded were often exposed to the elements. Furthermore the hospitals were frequently primitive in the extreme. Drinking water was unavailable and sanitary conditions were appalling. From statistical tables in the book it seems that in nearly three-quarters of those who died in regimental and general hospitals the cause was an infectious disease such as dysentery or typhus. Such conditions had changed very little by the Crimean War, when Florence Nightingale famously visited the military hospital at Scutari in 1854. Tolstoy described similar conditions in the Russian Army in War and Peace. But it is when Dr Howard details the wounds inflicted and their treatment, often quoting from contemporary sources, that one realizes the real horror of the conflict. On occasion civilian doctors helped. One such was Charles Bell, the famed surgeon and anatomist who had no passport but at the port of entry merely showed his surgical instruments to officials. Many of his water-colour paintings of the wounded, some of which are reproduced in the book, are exhibited at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. A quotation from Bell gives the flavour: ‘At six o'clock [in the morning] I took the knife in my hand, and continued incessantly at work till seven in the evening; and so the second and third day. All the decencies of performing surgical operations were soon neglected; while I amputated one man's thigh there lay at one time thirteen, all beseeching to be taken next; one full of entreaty, one calling upon me to remember my promise to take him, another execrating. It was a strange thing to feel my clothes stiff with blood, and my arms powerless with the exertion of using the knife.’ There were of course no anaesthetics. The pain of an amputation must have been excruciating. Speed was therefore of the essence and none at the time matched the speed of James Syme, an Edinburgh surgeon, some years later, who could amputate a leg in little more than a minute. A surgeon during the Napoleonic Wars was more likely to take half an hour. The mortality rate among those undergoing a primary operation at the battle site varied from 5% for a forearm to 35% for a thigh. Most serious head wounds were not considered for treatment at all. An interesting sideline to this commentary on the medical services at the time was that overuse of alcohol was almost the rule among the troops. This was encouraged by the prevailing views that it actually gave protection against disease and was important for maintaining morale. As a reflection on contemporary health and nutritional standards in the communities from which recruits came, around one-third of applicants were considered unfit to serve on medical grounds. This detailed analysis of the British Army medical services in the Napoleonic Wars will provide a rich source of information for medical historians. A suitable epitaph might be taken from Wellington himself, who, after Waterloo commented: ‘Well, Thank God, I don't know what it is to lose a battle; but certainly nothing can be more painful than to gain one with the loss of so many of one's friends.’ Many even today would agree with these sentiments.

The Foreign Office and the 1939 Royal Visit to America: Courting the USA in an Era of Isolationism

The visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to the USA in June 1939, the first by a British monarch, seemed to symbolize, at a time of escalating danger, the solidarity of the English-speaking peoples. The occasion's significance was jocularly captured in a Gaumont newsreel: against images of the royal couple escorted along Pennsylvania Avenue, the narrator declares that the last time the British had gone there it had been 'to burn the White House'.1 Extending a state visit to Canada, the US trip was the result of an invitation from President Roosevelt. Instead of a British minister, the minister-in-attendance was Canadian Prime Minister, Mackenzie King. The sovereigns visited Washington and New York, attending the World Fair, and relaxed at Roosevelt's Hyde Park home before returning to Britain via Canada. The outward harmony of the event, however, assiduously promoted on both sides of the Atlantic by the media, belied the tensions gathering force between the two nations during the 1930s, as each in its own way addressed the escalating threat to world peace from Germany, Italy and Japan. It is an event which has received only passing comment in the many books about the era, including those dealing with propaganda and Anglo-American relations.2 Existing accounts from a royal perspective offer useful but brief, one-sided summaries that do not establish the full context.3 It has been the subject of just two articles. David Reynolds has meticulously examined the event from the American side, focusing upon the visit's place within the context of Roosevelt's foreign policy.4 The British side has been examined by Benjamin D. Rhodes, in which he highlights the 'psychological approach' to

Kevin Barry, the Incident at Monk’s Bakery and the Making of an Irish Republican Legend

Kevin Barry remains a popular figure in Irish republican folklore, as a victim of British injustice and a martyr for Ireland. As a member of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Republican Army, he had taken an active part in a surprise attack on a British army ration party at Patrick Monk’s Bakery on 20 September 1920, which resulted in the deaths of three young British soldiers and Barry’s capture. After being tried by court–martial, convicted and then executed for the murder of one of the three young soldiers, he became the subject of a propaganda campaign directed by Sinn Fein in the world press to characterize the British as brutal, merciless and uncivilized in comparison with IRA fighters like Barry, who were portrayed typically as young, courageous and gallantly devoted to their cause. Yet Barry had been captured in the civilian disguise of a guerrilla fighter rather than as a uniformed soldier, with flat–nosed ammunition in his pistol, and in circumstances where both ballistic evidence and eye–witness testimony proved his culpability beyond any doubt. While these were factors that could and should have been used to challenge Sinn Fein’s propaganda initiatives, the British failed to mount any semblance of a counter–propaganda campaign. The reasons for and the consequences of this mute response on the British side are issues explored in considering how Kevin Barry became and still remains a figure of legend among Irish nationalists.

Creative Accounting: The Place of Loans to Persia in the Commencement of the Negotiation of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907

Rogers Platt Churchill's The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, published by the Torch Press at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1939, is the only monograph ever written on the actual negotiation of the agreements regarding Tibet, Afghanistan, and Persia which together constitute what is certainly one of the most important diplomatic developments of the first decade of the twentieth century. Subsequent writers have considered that the AngloRussian negotiations themselves, even those regarding Persia, which were the most important of the set, had been treated so adequately by Churchill that there was no need to go over the same ground in detail. Their relatively condensed versions follow his closely, adding little, but at the same time risking perpetuating any errors of interpretation or emphasis that he may have made.' For it is worth noting that, so far as the British side of the negotiations over Persia is concerned, R.P. Churchill had at his disposal only the documents published by G.P. Gooch and H.W.V. Temperley in volume IV of the series British Documents on the Origins of the War; 1898-1914. As Gooch and Temperley had been unable to gain access to the records of the India Office or to those of the Government of India,2 both of which played important roles, there was a deficiency in the available material. It is also worth noting that Gooch and Temperley chose not to organize their documents chronologically but, in a way that did less than justice to the unfolding of events, under thematic headings. Thus there is a section on 'Anglo-Russian Negotiations, 1906-7', and a much larger section on 'The Anglo-Russian Rapprochement, 1906-7': 17 documents are separated out into yet another section on 'The Persian Loan Question, 1906'. As a result of the gaps in British Documents, Churchill's primary sources, and the somewhat complacent attitude of later historians, a particular myth has become established. This is, as stated in a recent work,

The Kintampo Archaeological Research Project (KARP): academic collaboration and field research in Ghana

The Kintampo Archaeological Research Project is the first venture conducted under the auspices of the academic collaboration established between the Department of Archaeology, University of Ghana (UG) and the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL). KARP is a field-based project designed around two separate areas of research, encon~passingth e Late Stone Age (LSA) Punpun (hunter–gatherers) and Kintampo Cultures (agropastoralists) and development and change within iron metallurgical technology in the region. These studies aim to elucidate the social, economic and technological dynamics of prehistoric Ghana and to generate material that will be made available to researchers from both Universities. The direct responsibility for supervision of the project on the British side is Dr Kevin MacDonald (UCL), Dr Yaw Bredwa-Mensah (UG) supervises and co-ordinates the research collaboration, and overall responsibility for the project lies with Professor Peter Ucko (UCL). To date the project has undertaken three field seasons: an initial survey of the study area, followed by the excavation of several suitable sites during the second season and this year. An additional season will be conducted during summer 2002, completing the first phase of KARP. However, continuing joint collaborations are envisaged.

Camelot in the Nineteenth Century: Arthurian Characters in the Poems of Tennyson, Arnold, Morris, and Swinburne by Laura Cooner Lambdin and Robert Thomas Lambdin (review)

Reviews laura COONER LAMBDiN and Robert Thomas LAMBDiN, Camelot in the Nineteenth Century: Arthurian Characters in the Poems ofTennyson, Arnold, Morris, andSwinburne. Contributions to the Study of World Literature Number 97. Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 2000. Pp. xiii, 157. isbn: 0-313-31124-2. $49.95. This volume looks at the four most notable Arthurian poets ofthe Victorian era, all of whom, the authors contend, used the Arthurian legend as 'a veneer for social criticism' (p. 143), although their attitudes and objectives differed sharply. Tennyson and Arnold supported a more conservative agenda, whereas Morris and Swinburne rebelled at least to some extent against conventional social mores. This argument will not come as a surprise to anyone with even a passing familiarity with Victorian literature. Indeed, the strength of this book lies not in its originality, but in its solid summary of prior scholarship on individual works. A good example can be found in the Lambdins' description of Tennyson's Idylls ofthe King. 'The Idylls can. ..be seen as an outcry against modern life, ...a work that mirrors contemporary problems caused by the juxtaposition ofVictorian self-confidence with the equally powerful Victorian deep despair__The age was complex and paradoxical, sometimes optimistic and sometimes melancholy, and Tennyson's Idylh reflects this perfectly' This section provides a concise account ofthe critical consensus regarding the broad meaning ofTennyson's work and sums up some relevant aspects ofVictorian culture as well. On more specific points, however, the Lambdins encounter some difficulties. The first chapter, which attempts to survey pre-nineteenth-century Arthurian literature, is marred by serious errors that seem collectively to suggest an ignorance ofbasic British medieval history. The authors claims that the real King Arthur was 'a Welsh guerrilla fighter who defended the English' (p. 1). If by 'English' they mean Anglo-Saxons, an historical Arthur was hardly likely to have been their ally, and in fact the earliest references to him in Welsh tradition depict him as fighting on the British side against the Saxon invaders. The most egregious mistake, however, occurs when the Lambdins state that Geoffrey of Monmouth 'intended Arthur's Roman expedition to reflect Henry Vs conquest of France' (p. 2). If this were the case, Geoffrey must have been remarkably prescient, for his Historia Regttm Britanniae was published in the 1130s, almost three hundred years before Henry V prevailed at Agincourt. Such errors are perhaps forgivable, given that this is a literary study rather than an historical one. More problematic, however, is the schizophrenia the authors display in selecting a theme. The title of the book suggests that its focus will be on a ARTHURIANA 11.2 (2??1) 78 REVIEWS79 comparison ofthe four poets' treatment ofArthurian characters, and the chapters on Tennyson and Arnold are duly divided into sections focusing on individual characters. The chapters on Morris and Swinburne, however, break with this format and are divided instead into sections dealing with individual poems. The Lambdins also state in the introduction that they will focus specifically upon the themes of love and death, but these motifs are not always thoroughly explored, and the authors offer almost no explicit comparison of how Tennyson, Arnold, Morris and Swinburne treat them. Camelot in the Nineteenth Century is best suited to the reader seeking a general introduction to the most prominent wotks of nineteenth-century Arthurian poetry. Its strength lies in its breadth and its combination of previous scholarship into a single volume. Those seeking bold new ideas, however, should look elsewhere. Although the Lambdins allude to more recent scholarship emphasizing the political and national aspects ofArthurian litetature in the Victorian era, they fail to integrate it into their work in any substantive way, and in fact dismiss it outright in their discussion of the IdylL· ofthe King. 'Tennyson's approach was both pluralistic and domestic, centering on individuals and localized narratives more than on issues of national identity and fate' (p. 15). The authors are thus left to argue that Tennyson and Arnold were more socially conservative than Morris and Swinburne, news that will hardly come as a shock to scholars ofVictorian Britain. STEPHANIE BARCZEWSKI Clemson University james LOWDER, ed., The Doom ofCamelot. Oakland, CA: Green Knight Publishing...

Kevin Barry and the Anglo-Irish propaganda war

Most Irish people, when asked what they know of the life and death of Kevin Barry, will pause for a moment while they recall the words of a famously maudlin ballad. A few points will emerge: ‘a lad of eighteen summers’ … ‘British soldiers tortured Barry’ … ‘refused to turn informer’ … ‘hanged him like a dog’ … ‘another martyr for old Ireland, another murder for the crown’. That they know anything at all about Kevin Barry is testimony, among other things, to the power of popular music for the making of political propaganda. Along with Father Murphy, Seán South and Fergal O’Hanlon, Kevin Barry figures in the pantheon of nationalist Ireland’s popular historical heroes, largely because somebody happened to write a good song about him. In many ways this is unfortunate, for Barry and the rest were once living people, and the process of iconographifying them in popular balladry, like all forms of political propaganda, serves not to clarify their roles in the historical events in which they played a part, but rather to obscure and distort them. So it is worth reconsidering the story of Kevin Barry, for a number of reasons. To begin with, his short life reached its climax at a vital moment in the long struggle for Irish self-government, a moment when the violence unleashed in 1916 burst forth again with renewed savagery on both British and Irish sides, involving in the Barry case the deaths of four young men aged between fifteen and twenty.

On the road towards unity: the Trucial states from a British perspective, 1960–66

The United Arab Emirates, a union of Trucial States was formed in 1971, with the subsequent addition of Ras al Khaimah. Although the United Arab Emirates emerged as a stable, thriving nation-state, in 1960, at the beginning of what was to be Britain's last decade in the Arab Gulf, the future of the area was uncertain, the possibility of successful union doubtful. Covering an area of 32,000 square miles, the seven sheikhdoms that united to create the Trucial States, Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al Qaiwain, had long-standing treaties with Great Britain, the earliest made in 1820. Her Majesty's Government was responsible for the external affairs of these sheikhdoms, a responsibility carried out through the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf and Political Agents in the Trucial States. Although London recognized the right of the Rulers to control their own internal affairs there was 'an unconcealed expectation on the British side that the Political Resident's advice would be listened to; and the boundary between offering advice and enforcing it may have been as narrow as a vocal inflection'.' In 1960 the British had three major goals in the Trucial States: the preservation of stability, development of potential oil resources, and elimination of support for Arab Nationalism as promoted by champions of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser. To achieve these ends, the British encouraged Trucial State rulers to improve the quality of life in their territories and to work together to achieve unity. Considerable British attention focused on the rulers of the two most important Trucial States, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Shakhbut al Nahyan, posed a special problem for British officials. Although oil had been found in his sheikhdom and Sheikh Shakhbut was receiving income from Trucial States Petroleum Development, Ltd., and Abu Dhabi Marine Areas Ltd., companies in the process of developing his oil fields, the Ruler refused to spend money on sorely needed public projects. Nor was he willing to spend money on his own family. When

Books: Review/commentary: Temperance and Racism

Temperance and Racism: John Bull, Johnny Reb, and the Good Templars, by David M. Fahey (Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1996), 209 pp., illustrated, $39.95 (cloth only). David M. Fahey's Temperance and Racism describes the efforts of the International Order of the Good Templars (IOGT) to sustain a fraternal organization dedicated to eradicating the scourge of alcohol and, in the author's words, to search for a new, universal, reformed world order based on human equality of race, gender and class (p. 151). While Fahey's universalist claims for the Templars seem somewhat inflated, it is nonetheless the case that the order was shaped by the post-Emancipation Atlantic world and bore the marks of a new, albeit limited, internationalism. Fahey certainly provides new insights into this fraternal order, which has received very little attention from historians. the second half of the l9th century the Good Templars grew rapidly worldwide, beginning in the United States, spreading to the British Isles, and then quickly spanning the vast British Empire. By the end of the century its most ardent adherents were often to be found in Scandinavia. Fahey reaches into archives on both sides of the Atlantic to reveal the order's full diversity and complexity. Although the Templars varied from region to region, country to country, and generation to generation, Fahey asserts that a few characteristics seem clear: In the nineteenth century most Templars were young and remained members of the Order for only a short time. Most were of modest circumstances, although officers tended to be middle class. Perhaps a third of the rank and file were women, and nearly all were devout Protestants (pp. 151-52). Members were often motivated as much by the possibilities for socializing (particularly when they might be living in sparsely populated rural areas) as they were for engagement in political activism on behalf of prohibition, though this too varied according to region and country. many areas membership turnover was considerable, again indicating that sociability rather than political activism was an important motivator for members. Perhaps associated with the middling, status-anxious social position of many of the order's members, concerns over manhood and masculinity were crucial (p. 21). Templar analysis of the drink problem, according to Fahey, taking for granted that men did the drinking, called for manliness. Alcohol `robbed [the drunkard) of his manhood,' and in reclaiming him the IOGT endeavored `to make him a MAN' (p. 11). The author's appreciation of the gender aspects of lodge membership, among both men and women, is one of the strengths of this book, though its significance might have been carried over into the discussion of race and racism with advantage. Fahey also provides considerable insight into the extent of black membership within the organization on both sides of the Atlantic, the significance of black contributions to IOGT, and the importance of race and racism to its history. Like membership among whites, black membership varied also. On the British side of the Atlantic black members were found in seaports, providing further suggestive material for Paul Gilroy's descriptions of the Black Atlantic.' On the American side, black members seem to have been oriented by a number of post-Emancipation influences. Freedmen and -women, Fahey argues, saw connections between slavery and alcohol, freedom and sobriety, and so were often responsive to the missionary work of Templars in the South. northern cities black Templars shared the same combination of concerns for social interaction and political activism to combat alcohol as their white counterparts. the process of describing these contributions, Fahey brings to our awareness some almost forgotten African American leaders, such as James Walker Hood, and reveals little-known aspects of prominent leaders' lives, men such as William Wells Brown and Bishop Benjamin Tanner. …

Britannia's glories: the Walpole ministry and the 1739 war with Spain

This first full-length study of the 1739 war with Spain, the so-called 'War of Jenkins' Ear', looks at both the Spanish and the British side of disputes arising from illicit British trading in the Spanish ports of the Caribbean and the sometimes brutal depredations committed by the Spanish ships licensed to suppress it. It considers the domestic contexts in both countries, including the pressures which bore upon unpopular monarchs and their ministers; in particular, the author demonstrates the vigour with which opposition newspapers vaunted the heritage of British naval power: if ministers only had the political will, it was supposed, Britannia's glories would be revived and she would humble the cowardly popish foreigners of Spain and France. In examining foreign policy in the closing years of the long-lived Walpole ministry, light is also shed on the inner workings of 'high politics', and new evidence offered on the development of the cabinet and the important role played by George II. The author concludes that the breakdown of complex and delicate Anglo-Spanish negotiations over the American trade was due not just to British popular outcry over Jenkins' ear but had a variety of causes, including entrenched national principles, and the interplay of individual personalities. Dr PHILIP WOODFINE teaches in the Department of Humanities at the University of Huddersfield.