Heroic endeavour or disaster of hemispheric proportions? What is certain is that Columbus's discovery of the New World resulted in biological and cultural exchanges unprecedented in the history of human populations. This volume brings together eleven scholars--from both sides of the Atantic and from the disciplines of history, archaeology, anthropology, geography, and biology--to discuss the nature of the European conquest and its consequences. A major theme is the complex process by which Europeans and Amerindians adapted to create new criollo cultures which are distinctively American: the...

Ireland is one of the nations of the Western World in which industrialization was longest delayed. In these papers, sociologists, economists, and political scientists analyze various aspects of the industrial society that has developed in Ireland with particular speed since the 1960s. They discuss the typicality or "exceptionalism" of the Irish experience, critically examining its relevance for current theories of "modernization" and industrialism.

In recent years there has been a great deal of discussion about Victorian values. This collection, the outcome of the first joint symposium between the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, attempts to sift through the myths to illustrate how the reality of the Victorian age differs from modern perceptions. Of particular relevance is Raphael Samuel's important examination of Mrs. Thatcher's use of the concept, while the following chapters explore the Victorian world itself. The papers shed light on a wide variety of Victorian issues, from the Scotland of Samuel Smiles to the...

The proceedings of this prestigious meeting highlight the new developments in archaeological science over the last 10 years. There is a strong emphasis on the applications of organic chemistry and biochemistry to archaeological remains, as well as reviews of more traditional subjects, such as the scientific study of ceramics.

The Andes are of unquestioned significance to the human story: a cradle of agriculture and of 'pristine' civilisation with a pedigree of millennia. The Incas were but the culmination of a succession of civilisations that rose and fell to leave one of the richest archaeological records on Earth. By no coincidence, the Andes are home also to our greatest surviving link to the speech of the New World before European conquest: the Quechua language family. For linguists, the native tongues of the Andes make for another rich seam of data on origins, expansions and reversals throughout prehistory....

The Middle Ages continue to provide an important touchstone for the way the modern West presents itself and its relationship with the rest of the globe. This volume brings together leading scholars of literature and history, together with musicians, novelists, librarians, and museum curators in order to present exciting, up-to-date perspectives on how and why the Middle Ages continue to matter in the 20th and 21st centuries. Presented here, their essays represent a unique dialogue between scholars and practitioners of 'medievalism'. Framed by an introductory essay on the broad history of the...

This book explores how societies put the past to use and how, in the process, they represented it: in short, their historical culture. It brings together anthropologists, historians, and literary scholars to address the means by which societies, groups, and individuals have engaged with the past and expressed their understanding of it.

The utility of the past has proven almost as infinitely variable as the modes of its representation. It might be a matter of learning lessons from experience, or about the legitimacy of a cause or regime, or the reputation of an individual. Rival versions...

This interdisciplinary book investigates the use of secular space for music making in Early Modern France and Italy. The fact that many artists of the time also had musical skills underlines the close relationship between music and the visual arts. This era is remarkable for the growing importance of music in domestic life, ranging from elaborate court festivities to family recreation. In parallel with the emergence of the theatre as a separate building type, music-making in elite circles became more specialised through the employment of paid musicians, as opposed to amateur participation by...

How did racism evolve in different parts of the Portuguese-speaking world? How should the impact on ethnic perceptions of colonial societies based on slavery or the slave trade be evaluated? What was the reality of inter-ethnic mixture in different continents? How has the prejudice of white supremacy been confronted in Brazil and Portugal? And how should we assess the impact of recent trends of emigration and immigration? These are some of the major questions that have structured this book. It both contextualises and challenges the visions of Gilberto Freyre and Charles Boxer, which...

This volume collects together lectures by distinguished scholars.
Julia Smith examines medieval religious relics, focusing on what they actually comprised and asking how these paltry items came to be so highly valued.
Gruffydd Aled Williams takes the authentic medieval Welsh literary corpus associated with Owain Glyndwr, consisting in the main of bardic eulogies rather than prophecies, and examines them in their historical context.
Christopher Tilmouth's lecture on Alexander Pope asks what part Shaftesbury's polite wit, Mandeville's cynicism, and Augustan sentimentalism played in the...