New Books in British Studies

Home
New Books in British Studies

New Books in British Studies is an author-interview podcast channel that showcases recently-published books about the UK across a range of disciplines.

New Books in British Studies is part of the New Books Network author-interview podcast consortium (http://www.newbooksnetwork.com)

25/05/2022

When Charles II ascended the English throne in 1660 after two decades of civil war, he was confronted with domestic disarray and a sprawling empire in chaos. His government sought to assert control and affirm the King’s sovereignty by touting his stewardship of both England’s land and the improvement of his subjects’ health.

In AN EMPIRE TRANSFORMED: Remolding Bodies and Landscapes in the Restoration Atlantic (NYU Press), Kate Mulry examines ambitious projects of environmental engineering, including fen and marshland drainage, forest rehabilitation, urban reconstruction, and garden transplantation schemes, showing how agents of the English Restoration government aimed to transform both places and people in service of establishing order. Merchants, colonial officials, and members of the Royal Society encouraged royal intervention in places deemed unhealthy, unproductive, or poorly managed. Their multiple schemes reflected an enduring belief in the complex relationships between the health of individual bodies, personal and communal character, and the landscapes they inhabited. Give the author's NBN interview a listen 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/an-empire-transformed

20/04/2022

On the eve of the First World War, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) was the largest and most powerful socialist party in the world. GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY through BRITISH EYES: A Documentary History, 1870–1914 (University of Toronto Press) examines the SPD’s rise using British diplomatic reports from Saxony, the 3rd-largest federal state in Imperial Germany and the cradle of the socialist movement in that country.

Rather than focusing on the Anglo-German antagonism leading to the First World War, the book peers into the everyday struggles of German workers to build a political movement and emancipate themselves from the worst features of a modern capitalist system: exploitation, poverty, and injustice. Delve deeper on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/german-social-democracy-through-british-eyes

08/04/2022

RICHARD CONGREVE, POSITIVIST POLITICS, the VICTORIAN PRESS, and the BRITISH EMPIRE (Palgrave Macmillan) is about the life and times of Richard Congreve. This polemicist was the first thinker to gain instant infamy for publishing cogent critiques of imperialism in Victorian Britain. As the foremost British acolyte of Auguste Comte, Congreve sought to employ the philosopher’s new science of sociology to dismantle the British Empire. With an aim to realize in its place Comte’s global vision of utopian socialist republican city-states, the former Oxford don and ex-Anglican minister launched his Church of Humanity in 1859. Over the next 40 years, Congreve engaged in some of the most pressing foreign and domestic controversies of his day, despite facing fierce personal attacks in the Victorian press. Leanr more about this figure who made overlooked contributions to the history of science, political economy, and secular ethics on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/richard-congreve-positivist-politics-the-victorian-press-and-the-british-empire

18/02/2022

For people in medieval England, the parish church was an integral part of their community. In GOING to CHURCH in MEDIEVAL ENGLAND (Yale University Press), Nicholas Orme describes how parish churches operated and details the roles they played in the lives of their parishioners. While there was a considerable variety of experience over the centuries and between the parishes throughout England, the basic practices in them largely remained the same. And while the English Reformation transformed the relationship between England and the Roman Catholic Church, Orme shows how some of the changes associated with it were already underway before it began, while much of what went on in parish churches remained as before. Listen in as Orme joins Mark Klobas on the podcast ⤵️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/going-to-church-in-medieval-england

30/12/2021

For better or worse, much of Britain today is ultimately the product of the experiences of 1938-1941.

BRITAIN AT BAY: The Epic Story of the Second World War, 1938-1941 (Alfred A. Knopf) draws on a large cast of characters--from the leading statesmen and military commanders who made the decisions, to the ordinary men, women, and children who carried them out and lived through their consequences--in a comprehensible and compelling single history of forty-six million people. Learn more about the many-faceted, world-historically significant story of Britain at war as Alan Allport joins Mark Klobas on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/britain-at-bay

16/12/2021

Lee B. Wilson is the author of BONDS of EMPIRE: The English Origins of Slave Law in South Carolina and British Plantation America, 1660-1783 (Cambridge University Press - History, Classics and Archaeology), a new book that explores how English law gave the institution of slavery its ability to thieve and grow. By looking at how law was practiced, instead of solely focusing on how it was written, Wilson follows the development of the institution of slavery in South Carolina and the English law of slavery in the colony. The day to day legal life of slavery in the colon shows just how much English law was crucial, and not opposed, to the enslavement of people. Check out Wilson's NBN interview ↙

https://newbooksnetwork.com/bonds-of-empire

15/12/2021

In the century following Elizabeth I's rise to the throne, English trade blossomed as thousands of merchants launched ventures across the globe. Through the efforts of these "mere merchants," England developed from a peripheral power on the fringes of Europe to a country at the center of a global commercial web, with interests stretching from Virginia to Ahmadabad and Arkhangelsk to Benin.

In MERCHANTS: The Community That Shaped England's Trade and Empire, 1550-1650 (Yale University Press), Edmond Smith traces the lives of English merchants from their earliest steps into business to the heights of their successes. Smith unpicks their behavior, relationships, and experiences, from exporting wool to Russia, importing exotic luxuries from India, and building plantations in America. Learn more on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/merchants

22/11/2021

In 1850 Charles Dickens wrote that Great Britain had “no political police,” adding that “the most rabid demagogue” could speak out “without the terror of an organised spy system.” In his book, STATE SURVEILLANCE, POLITICAL POLICING, and COUNTER-TERRORISM in BRITAIN: 1880-1914 (Boydell & Brewer), Vlad Solomon describes how Britain gradually developed a system of “high policing” during the late Victorian and Edwardian eras that contradicted Britons’ popular belief in their tolerant society. Give the author's conversation with Mark Klobas a listen 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/state-surveillance-political-policing-and-count-1880-1914

Address

Website

http://newbooksnetwork.com/category/peoples-places/british-studies/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when New Books in British Studies posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to New Books in British Studies:

Shortcuts

Address
Alerts
Contact The Business
Claim ownership or report listing
Want your business to be the top-listed Media Company?

Country:

City: