Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2015 - Social & Behavioral Sciences — History, Geography & Area Studies — African and African American Studies

Fleet (National Library of Scotland) and MacCannell have compiled a visually stunning, viscerally interesting, and downright fun look at the history, people, and idea of Edinburgh as told through 500 years of maps.  The 71 historical maps of Edinburgh, along with various prints, photos, and pamphlets, tell more than a chronological history of the Scottish capital.  They also illustrate fascinating vignettes of the city's people and their lives.  From the earliest known map, c.1530, through maps portraying various new construction, the harbor, sound waves of cannon fire, and pub locations to a Soviet-era military map for a possible tank invasion, the maps provide a wonderful anchor for storytelling about the people and their historical times.  The authors use these classic depictions of space (very broadly defined to include the utility and meaning to maximum advantage) to weave a wonderful, continual thread of stories that encompass the idea of Edinburgh and its peoples daily lives.  As the authors point out, these mapsall mapsvisually demarcate between people on every level imaginable.  That separation is what tells the stories.  The National Library of Scotlands map collection is wonderfully utilized in this stunning project.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Doran (Jesus College, Oxford), a preeminent authority on the life and reign of Elizabeth I, has written an eminently useful and authoritative book on the queen and her circle, which included lovers, friends, and "frenemies."  The author devotes attention to Elizabeths experience of her father, stepmothers, siblings, and Suffolk cousins.  Two chapters chronicle her fraught relations with Mary, Queen of Scots, and with the man who ultimately succeeded her, James VI.  The chapters on her favorites (Leicester, Hatton, and Essex) contain little new information, but no previous historian has probed the queens dealings with her household servants and her ministers of state with such acuteness and sympathy.  Doran remarks upon the clashing temperaments of Elizabeth and her dour secretary of state, Sir Francis Walsingham, whom the queen called the Moor.  The author compares Walsingham to a doctor offering unpalatable medicine for a serious disease without adopting a soothing bedside manner.  Dorans playful engagement with popular images of Elizabeth and her circle lends a certain lightness to the book.  However, this is a work of superb scholarship, and the author adroitly uses primary sources and art to illuminate her subject.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

This intriguing, multidimensional look at the late 16th century brings together different academic disciplines and points of view.  The contributors freshly consider various Irish images of Elizabeth in both the English and Gaelic worlds, the introduction of Reformed religion into Ireland, and the Tudor conquest, resulting in rich, thought-provoking historical viewpoints that seriously challenge long-accepted scholarly ideas on various aspects of the period.  For instance, Richard McCabe presents a compelling and fresh look at how the queen was perceived in Ireland.  Elizabeth never made elaborate visits to Ireland that could have helped shape the publics perception of her.  Therefore, the government needed to rely on portraits and other regalia to shape her image, which was very inadequate.  Marc Caball, who elucidates new views of the Gaelic intellectual world, constructs another captivating chapter of historical analysis.  He challenges a widely believed historical view positing the idea that the Gaelic intellectual tradition was incapable of grasping and absorbing the new ideas of the Protestant Reformation.  All the contributions are thoughtful and necessary reading for both undergraduate and graduate students studying Tudor Ireland.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

People who write down events while they are happening create the most humanly relatable history possiblethe effect is immediate, personal, and, oddly, both micro- and macro-historical.  Webb has created a vivid history of the first two years of WW I (19141916) by presenting the words of the people involved in that history as it occurred.  Accessing Oxfords Bodleian Library collection of letters and diaries of government officials, soldiers, and British citizens at home, Webb brings this pivotal war alive through the reportage of the elite, including the young Harold Macmillan and Clement Attlee, eventual prime ministers.  (Interestingly, Webb also included materials from a German soldier who had attended Oxford.)  Understandably, the letters and diaries selected are engrossing, abetted by Webbs excellent contextualization of the writers in early-20th-century Britain and Europe.  Situating each letter or entry in historical context in chronological progression, Webb provides a comfortable linear structure to the ongoing commentary by so many observers.  Although using only elite writings can skew perspectives, Webb nonetheless provides an excellent study of unvarnished upper-class perceptions of this defining time by a wide array of personalities.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

Twenty-six essays and a conclusion written by leading medieval historians focus on the historical and social contexts of each of Chaucers pilgrims, who are presented in portraiture in the "General Prologue" toThe Canterbury Tales.  Separate chapters are assigned to Chaucer the Poet and the Pilgrim, and the Host (Harry/Herry Bailly).  Editor Rigby opens the collection with a valuable essay that, among other things, investigates the ways in which Chaucer himself can be read as one who interpreted and commented on his own late medieval England.  Each chapter is replete with important information from late medieval historical sources, and the authors should be commended for writing essays that will appeal to both historians and literary scholars.  Perhaps the most insightful essays are those that focus on the pilgrims (and their respective historical contexts) who do not tell tales: the Ploughman, the Yeoman, and the Five Guildsmen.  This book should be required reading for anyone who teaches the "General Prologue" andThe Canterbury Tales.  In short, an invaluable contribution to medieval scholarship that any proper library should own.Summing Up: Essential. All academic levels/libraries.

Education historian Sutherland (Cambridge;Faith, Duty, and the Power of Mind: The Cloughs and Their Circle, 18201960, 2006) begins her examination of emerging female political activity in Britain by assessing the degree to which the newly coined media term "New Woman" reflected a reality of female life.  This constructed image of social-boundary-breaking females had little to do with reality, as very, very few women (mostly Oxbridge graduates with either independent or family wealth) could be cast in the mold.  The image did presage, however, later social and political female emancipation, but the period reviewed by Sutherland was best known for the increasing visibility of women in British society as teachers, clerks, typists, nurses, and social workersthe initial vanguard of emerging middle-class women at work.  The book is well written and cogently argued, employing considerable, even admirable, research.  It fitsindeed,leadsin a field that has grown dramatically in historical study, especially because it repeatedly points clearly to areas of study needed to better understand women and women's work in historical context.  An important contribution that should be in all libraries.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Published to coincide with the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn, this magnificent history is now the definitive history of Robert the Bruce, known in popular histories for his military prowess.  Penman (Univ. of Stirling, UK) demonstrates in fine and documented detail the Bruce family's machinations to maneuver for kingship, Robert's superb martial abilities, and, most important, his extraordinary role as king.  The author focuses on the 15 years of Roberts monarchy and how he legitimized his authority, used moderation and grace toward his enemies, rewarded his supporters, and built up the machinery of government to ensure Scotland's independence.  Much of this was made possible by Robert's astute exploitation of England's King Edward II's incompetence.  Penman also takes what has been a provincial story of a Scottish king and puts it into a broad European context, including Robert's relations with Europe's crowns and the papacy.  There are numerous black-and-white photographs and extensive endnotes.  The only caveat is that this is a scholarly book, densely written and not accessible to all readers.  For those willing to work through it, however, it is an outstanding history.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above.