Jeremy Black

This collection is the most sophisticated available for the history of Geopolitics. In place of misleading cliches notably that of Geography as Destiny, we offer a conceptually and methodologically acute approach in which contingency rather than determinism is to the fore. This is focused on the military dimensions of Geopolitics and the geopolitic...

This is issue 19 (Modern Military History) of Nuova Antologia Militare (NAM), the international scientific journal of the Italian Society of Military History (SISM). The issue contents 14 peer reviewed articles, 3 insights and 10 book reviews. All pieces are DOI indexed.

The Italian invasion of Ethiopia was prepared contemplating the use of chemical warfare agents as Mussolini personally took this responsibility. The army and the aviation followed his orders and, after manufacturing appropriate bombs and artillery shells, prepared Eritrea and Somalia to stock yperite and other “gases”, ready to be used at the prope...

The supposed Military Revolution of the early modern period is the most important instance of a key concept in military history, that of military revolutions. This collection takes a critical look at the example and thereby asks broader questions about the nature of military revolutions and indeed about the conceptualisation, methodologies and hist...

A special issue of Nuova Antologia Militare (NAM) on Military Cartography edited by Mirela Altic with an Introduction by Jeremy Black.

This is No 11, Year 3, 2022 of Nuova Antologia Militare (NAM), the international journal of the Italian Society of Military History. This is the third NAM issue on Modern Military History

A collective volume on Strategic and Military Geography, Military Maps, Military Cartography and Military Geology

This is the issue No. 4/2020 of Nuova Antologia Militare (NAM), the inderdisciplinary and international journal of the Italian Society of Military History.

This is the issue 3 (Modern Military History) of the SISM Journal Nuova Antologia Militare (NAM).

For most combat, we have no maps. Thereafter mental mapping was the key; fitness is dependent on the need for mapping as well as the opportunities that exist. Not all places were equal in coverage and significance: sites to be fortified attracted mapping attention, and, more particularly, in order to plan how best to defend them. The precise locati...

This is the No. Zero of Nuova Antologia Militare, a new international and interdisciplinary journal of military history, published by the Italian Society of Military History (SISM). This is an open access, double blind peer review journal. Issue 1/2020, published in February 2020, is about Military Cartography. Issues 2 and 3/2020, planned for June...

It is mistaken to see historiography as falling into sealed chronological units in which can be found just one ‘style’, ‘school’ or history. While certain eras were dominated by certain assumptions about the past, other modes of operation still went on in tandem, although perhaps below the surface and away from the public eye. Thus we saw in the pr...

The sense of the past as different is at the root of history, but this difference is far from fixed and the perception of it varies across time, by cultures and by individuals. The study of history is a key part of this perception. This sense of the past as different is in part ironic, as history is also a matter not only of roots but also of the c...

History is a demanding subject. It is also important and valuable and requires a series of specific skills as well as more general ones. Studying the past is an evolving and vibrant area of human knowledge and many examples of this dynamism have been discussed in previous chapters. A knowledge of what history is, how it evolved, and its major curre...

The practice of history has come a long way from Acton’s exhortation for historians not to submit past human life to ‘the crucible of induction’. This does not mean that empiricist sentiments are dead: far from it. The typical historian still searches out facts and records in an effort to paint a likeness of the past. History has not become pure th...

Having spent some time thinking about the techniques you need to employ for the best results in your work (Chapter 6), it seems appropriate at this point to consider the various contexts in which you do your work. Although universities can vary a lot, and are certainly very different from school, there is nevertheless a core of common ground to wha...

The reasons why we study the past are innumerable; the range of sources available to historians is also immense. Today, all aspects of past human society are regarded as legitimate areas for historical inquiry. Despite multifarious changes in attitude and approaches over the past hundred years, however, historians are still source-based creatures;...

Having considered, in the last chapter, how to make the most of the learning environment and to improve your own study skills, we now move on to the next stage: writing history. In general terms, most historians, even the seasoned old pros, find writing a tortuous and draining affair. While research and reading can be relaxing and fulfilling, as we...

Preparation for history exams is much like that for any other subject. You are given a task to complete in an allotted time, and you must write the number of answers required to stand any chance of reaching your potential. Exams are less popular with academics than they once were, but historians still seem to think that they are a good way of testi...

Any summary of the development of history through either its methodology or subject matter invites qualification because of the variations across time and space. There is the danger of focusing on the present as if it is the necessary product of earlier historiographical trends and, even more, the basis by which earlier periods should be judged. Li...

The dissertation is the longest piece of work you have to write for a degree in history. Dissertations vary in length from 8000 to 12,000 words. For the dissertation, unlike other written assignments (such as essays and reviews), you will be asked to choose the topic and define the question(s) answered. The idea is that this piece of work will mark...

RosemarySweet, Cities and the Grand Tour. The British in Italy, c. 1690–1820. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. xii + 329pp. 16 figures. Bibliography. £60.00 hbk; $79.00 ebook. - Volume 40 Issue 2 - Jeremy Black

A translation of a book first published in Italian in 2007, Allies yet Rivals is a work of international relations theory that focuses on the eighteenth century. Cesa, professor of international relations at the Bologna Center, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and at the University of Bologna, argues...

VINCENT GABRIELSEN. Financing the Athenian Fleet: Public Taxation and Social Relations. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Pp. xvi, 306. $45.00 (US), cloth. Reviewed by J. F. Lazenby

WALTER POHL, IAN WOOD, and HELMUT REIMITZ, eds. The Transformation of Frontiers: From Late Antiquity to the Carolingians. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Pp. vi, 299. $98.00 (US). Reviewed by Fergus Millar

PHILIP E. TETLOCK, RICHARD NED LEBOW, and GEOFFREY PARKER, eds. Unmaking the West: ‘What-If?’ Scenarios that Rewrite World History. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006. Pp. x, 415. $33.00 (US). Reviewed by Jeremy Black

Barry Cunliffe. Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and Its Peoples, 8000 BC-AD 1500. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. viii, 600. $56.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Andrew Sherratt

JOHN BOARDMAN et al., eds. The Cambridge Ancient History. Volume III, pt. 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries BC. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xix, 906. $125.00 (us). Reviewed by William M. Calder

JAMES TURNER JOHNSON. The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997. Pp. ix, 185. $16.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Sarah Ansari

FERGUS MILLAR. A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (408–450). Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2006. Pp. xxvi, 279. $49.95 (US). Reviewed by H.A. Drake

JERRY H. BENTLEY. Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. viii, 220. $20.95 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by André Wink

PETER S. WELLS. The Barbarians Speak: How the Conquered. Peoples Shaped Roman Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp. xii, 335. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Arthur M. Eckstein

To the Editor: I would like to commend Klaus Schmider for his excellent review essay on Luftwaffe memoirs. He has not only provided a valuable service for those of us unfamiliar with the German literature but also several interesting and important asides. His balanced, critical, and even handed treatment of the material was very welcome. I expect S...

On October 11, 1727, George II was officially crowned king of Britain. The coronation was accompanied by less splendour and uncertainty than there otherwise might have been, although there were also celebrations across the country such as Liverpool and Lincoln. In the opening stage of George II's reign, Jacobitism posed a far less serious challenge...

This book is a biography of George II. This book sets out to demonstrate the unfairness of charges that George II was a puppet king overshadowed by towering politicians such as Robert Walpole, and later, William Pitt. For a king who ruled for so long (1727–1760), the neglect shown by historians to George II is surprising. He was the last British ki...

Herman Lebovics offers a sophisticated set of six essays that together amount to a critique of the impact of empire on metropolitan countries, specifically France. Originally, the essays started work as invited lectures or conference papers, but Lebovics, professor of history at Stony Brook University, has used the opportunity to rewrite the pieces...

This particularly impressive and clearly written account of the Cold War is especially valuable because of its global perspective, and its focus on the worldwide impact of superpower confrontation. To find, for example, an entire chapter devoted to Ethiopia and Somalia is to be reminded of the complexity and intensity of the Cold War, of the intera...

WANG ZHENPING. Ambassadors from the Islands of Immortals: China-Japan Relations in the Han-Tang Period. Honolulu: Association for Asian Studies and University of Hawaii Press, 2005. Pp. xiii, 387. $53.00 (US). Reviewed by Kent G. DengPETER WHITFIELD. Cities of the World: A History in Maps. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2...

NeilSmith . American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization . Berkeley, CA : University of California Press , 2003 . xxvii+557 pp. $ 39.95 (hardcover), $ 21.95 (paper).

LachaudFrédérique, Lescent-GilesIsabelle, and RuggiuFrançois-Joseph, eds. Histoires d'outre-Manche: Tendances récentes de l'historiographie britannique. Paris: University of Paris-Sorbonne Press. 2001. Pp. 357. n.p. ISBN 2-84050-185-6. - Volume 34 Issue 3 - Jeremy Black

Any summary of the rich variety and complexity of European culture in this period encounters the problem of describing changes in style, particularly since these developments can be perceived fully only through an appreciation of specific texts, objects or performances. The most common approach is to discuss developments in terms of a shift from ba...

International relations absorbed the greatest amount of government attention in the states of the period. This was both traditional and understandable. Dynastic and national prestige, essential both for a sense of purpose and as a lubricant of domestic obedience, were gained principally through international success, and governments could hope to a...

Jeremy Black is Professor of History, University of Durham. His eighteen books include Convergence or Divergence? Britain and the Continent (Macmillan/St. Martins, 1994).

The crippled, limping, gun-laden protagonist, dependent on begging, in Harlequin Returning from the Wars, a mid-century work by the Florentine painter Giovanni Ferretti, was as realistic an image of war as the triumphal celebrations, mingling thanks to God and man, that greeted victory, celebrations in which many losers found it expedient to share....