Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2023 -

This excellent new book by Pittock (Univ. of Glasgow, UK), a veteran Scottish historian and distinguished academic, provides a significant, majestically sweeping history of Scotland from 1603 to the present. This broad, meticulously researched book examines Scotland's evolving place in the world, how it arrived at this place, and possible scenarios for its future, whether within Britain or not. Focusing on what constitutes a unique "Scottishness," the first section examines the impact of the Thirty Years War to the Jacobite uprising to set the stage for a brand of Scotland that is original and distinct from the English or British narrative that most have come to know and associate with Scotland. The second section explores Scotland's role in the British empire with an eye toward Scotland's significant contributions and the great diaspora of the Scots, ending by considering Scotland's role from 1914 to the end of the empire. Pittock concludes by optimistically observing that as Scotland gains self-confidence and increases its position within the world, its future, inside the UK or out, remains bright and, importantly, distinctly global.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, advanced undergraduates through faculty, and professionals.

In the age of total war, the home front is as important, and sometimes indistinguishable from, the war front. The essays in this collection provide fascinating insight into how the British government mobilized everything from finance to natural resources to maintain the war effort between 1914 and 1918. The book is dived into five parts--"Government," "Resources," "People," "Production," and "Social Impacts"--bracketed by two essays and an introduction by Strachan (international relations, Univ. of St Andrews, UK). The first essay, "The United Kingdom in 1914," sets the agenda for many of the topics covered in the subsequent essays. The conclusion, "The United Kingdom in 1919," synthesizes the material and demonstrates the lasting impact of the war on the British Isles. One of the most common themes among the diverse subjects covered is how WW I transformed the relationship between the population and the government. In 1914, outside of the Post Office, the police, and perhaps the military, a large percentage of British people had little daily contact with the central government. The postwar world was much different. A crucial resource for scholars.Summing Up: Essential. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals.

Corfield (Royal Holloway, Univ. of London, UK) has produced a study that lucidly combines brilliant scholarship with formidable analytical prowess. Although written for a popular readership, this book will offer experts in the field much to ponder and appreciate. Corfield adopts a conversational tone that is at once lively, engaging, and extremely approachable. Her examination of Britain and Ireland during the so-called long 18th century--construed here as encompassing roughly 1680 to 1840--begins with an acknowledgement that the Georgians themselves debated where they had been and where they were headed. In providing a 21st-century historian's answer to such questions, Corfield justly emphasizes that the main theme of this era was change rather than continuity. The key challenge, she asserts, is to appreciate and understand the varying paces of--and interrelationships between--the vast number of changes that were taking place during this time. Although eschewing the word revolution as a descriptor of long-term economic, social, or cultural change, she nonetheless concludes that many of the intellectual, technological, social, and economic changes that germinated and developed in Britain and Ireland during this era are developing still, and on a global scale.Summing Up: Essential. General readers through faculty; professionals.

This book by Chettiar (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) explains how Britain developed a new vision of family and intimate personal values in the postwar era that has underwritten the country's welfare state. Through the widespread use of professional psychology in every kind of public forum and in private counseling, Britons' attitudes and outlooks were transformed by realizing the benefits of personal emotional health in strengthening family and interpersonal relations. By emphasizing child development, gender role clarity, and strengthened intimate personal relationships, Britain developed more democratic social values and behaviors that made the acceptance of social change over the 40 years following 1945 possible. This thoroughly researched, clearly written, convincingly argued book is an important contribution to the historical understanding of social reform and mental health in modern Britain and beyond. The field is central to understanding modernity and has been led by scholars such as Joanna Bourke, Nikolas Rose, and Michal Shapira. This is an excellent addition to all university libraries.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.