Angélique Arnauld. By Fabian Gastellier. Paris: Fayard, 1998. Pp. 505. ISBN 2-213-60043-0. FF 170.

The world of André Le Nôtre. By Thierry Mariage, translated by Graham Larkin. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. Pp. xv+144. ISBN 0-8122-3468-5. £26.00.

Charles XI and Swedish absolutism. By Anthony F. Upton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xxiv+281. ISBN 0-521-57390-4. £35.00.

This review reconsiders the place and importance of urban political culture in England between c. 1550 and c. 1750. Relating recent work on urban political culture to trends in political, social, and cultural historiography, it argues that England's towns and boroughs underwent two ‘renaissances’ over the course of the period: a ‘civic renaissance’ and the better-known ‘urban renaissance’. The former was fashioned in the sixteenth century; however, its legacy continued to inform political thought and practice over 150 years later. Similarly, although the latter is generally associated with ‘the long eighteenth century’, its attributes can be traced to at least the Elizabethan era. While central to broader transitions in post-Reformation political culture, these ‘renaissances’ were crucial in restructuring the social relations and social identity of townsmen and women. They also constituted an important but generally neglected dynamic of England's seventeenth-century ‘troubles’.

The object of this review is to examine recent developments in our understanding of Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts, of Eoin O'Duffy's Blueshirts, and of British and Irish participation in the Spanish Civil War. It argues that fascism can be understood as having three possible phases of development and considers British and Irish fascism from that standpoint. Debates about the nature of British fascism are considered, its attitude towards violence, towards anti-Semitism, towards women, and towards the coming of the Second World War. The review considers the reasons for the movement's failure. It goes on to examine the debate as to whether or not there actually was an Irish fascism in the 1930s. Finally, it discusses recent work on British and Irish participation in the International Brigades and on the performance of O'Duffy's volunteers in Spain.

Discourse on history, law, and governance in the public career of John Selden, 1610–1635. By Paul Christianson. London: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Pp. xiii+451. ISBN 0 8020 0838 0. £48.00.

Sovereignty and the sword: Harrington, Hobbes, and mixed government in the English Civil Wars. By Arihiro Fukuda. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Pp. ix+175. ISBN 0 19 8206836. £35.00.

The intellectual origins of the English Revolution revisited. By Christopher Hill. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Pp. xi+422. ISBN 0 19 820668 2. £25.00.

Constant minds: political virtue and the Lipsian paradigm in England, 1584–1650. By Adriana McCrea. London: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Pp. xiii+342. ISBN 0 8020 0666 3. £49.00.

Sir Henry Vane, theologian: a study in seventeenth-century religious and political discourse. By David Parnham. London: Associated University Presses, 1997. Pp. 370. ISBN 0 8386 3681 0. £39.50.

King James VI and I and the reunion of Christendom. By W. B. Patterson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. xv+409. ISBN 0 521 41805 4. £40.00 (pb, £15.95).

Jacobean gentleman: Sir Edwin Sandys, 1561–1629. By Theodore K. Rabb. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Pp. xii+412. ISBN 0 691 02694 7. £37.50.

Francis Bacon. By Perez Zagorin. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Pp. xvi+286. ISBN 0 691 05928 4. £35.00 (pb, £10.50).

Politics, ideology and the law in early modern Europe: essays in honour of J. H. M. Salmon. Edited by Adrianna E. Bakos. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1994. Pp. xii+343. ISBN 1-878822-39-X. £55.00.

Changing identities in early modern France. Edited by Michael Wolfe. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1997. Pp. vii+390. ISBN 0-8223-1908-X. £42.50

Royal and republican sovereignty in early modern Europe: essays in memory of Ragnhild Hatton. Edited by Robert Oresko, G. C. Gibbs, and H. M. Scott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. xxi+671. ISBN 0-521-41910-7. £70.00

Images of kingship in early modern France. By Adrianna Bakos. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. Pp. x+249. ISBN 0-415-15478-2. £52.50.

This review examines recent work on the ideology, culture, and socio-economic composition of early American militaries down to 1815. A fresh place has been given to the role of a Native American culture of war in influencing colonial warfare, although the exact nature of the synthesis of European and Indian traditions remains unclear. Social and economic investigations of the colonial militias and the Continental Army have revealed persistent patterns of expectations of contractual service and subsequent effective resistance when those conditions were not met. Taken together these works have brought us closer to a deeper understanding of the links between culture and military behaviour.

Singlewomen in the European past, 1250–1800. Edited by Judith M. Bennett and Amy M. Froide. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press, 1999. Pp. vi+352. ISBN 0-8122-1668-7.

Renaissance culture and the everyday. Edited by Patricia Fumerton and Simon Hunt. Philadelphia: Penn State Press, 1999. Pp. vi+366. ISBN 0-8122-1663-6.

The crimes of women in early modern Germany. By Ulinka Rublack. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. Pp. ix+292. ISBN 0-19-820637-2.

The construction of memory in interwar France. By Daniel J. Sherman. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Pp. 448. ISBN 0-226-75285-2. £31.50.

Realms of memory: the construction of the French past, vol. II: Traditions. Under the direction of Pierre Nora, English-language edn ed. by Lawrence D. Kritzman, trans. by Arthur Goldhammer. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Pp. xii+591. ISBN 0-231-10634-3. £29.95.

Vectors of memory: legacies of trauma in postwar Europe. By Nancy Wood. Oxford and New York: Berg, 1999. Pp. 204. ISBN 1-85973-294-1. £14.99.

Republik ohne Chance? Akzeptanz und Legitimation der Weimarer Republik in der deutschen Tagespresse zwischen 1918 und 1923. By Burkhard Asmuss. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1994. Pp. 619. ISBN 3-110-14197-3. DM280.00.

Heinrich Brüning and the dissolution of the Weimar Republic. By William L. Patch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. 358. ISBN 0-521-62422-3. £42.50.

National identity and Weimar Germany: Upper Silesia and the eastern border, 1918–1922. By T. Hunt Tooley. Lincoln, Nebraska, and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. Pp. 320. ISBN 0-803-24429-0. £53.00.

Reichswehr und Rote Armee, 1920–1933: Wege und Stationen einer ungewönlichen Zusammenarbeit. By Manfred Zeidler. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1993. Pp. 375. ISBN 3-486-55966-4. DM78.00.

Colonial habits: convents and the spritual economy of Cuzco, Peru. By Kathryn Burns. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999. Pp. xi+307. ISBN 0-8223-2291-9.

Inka bodies and the body of Christ: Corpus Christi in colonial Cuzco, Peru. By Carolyn Dean. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv+264. ISBN 0-8223-2367-2.

The world of Túpac Amaru: conflict, community, and identity in colonial Peru. By Ward Stavig. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. Pp. xxxiv+348. ISBN 0-8032-9255-4.

Smouldering ashes: Cuzco and the creation of Republican Peru, 1780–1840. By Charles F. Walker. Durham and London, Duke University Press, 1999. Pp. xiii+330. ISBN 0-8223-2293-5.

Common destiny: dictatorship, foreign policy, and war in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. By MacGregor Knox. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiv+262. ISBN 0-521-58208-3. £19.95.

Hitler's Italian allies: royal armed forces, fascist regime, and the war of 1940–1943. By MacGregor Knox. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiv+207. ISBN 0-521-79047-6. £16.95.

The world and the West: European challenge and the overseas response in the age of empire. By Philip D. Curtin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiv+294. ISBN 0-521-77135-8. £19.95.

The global world of Indian merchants. 1750–1947: traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama. By Claude Markovits. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xv+327. ISBN 0-521-62285-9. £40.00.

New frontiers: imperialism's new communities in East Asia 1842–1953. Edited by Robert Bickers and Christian Henrito. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Pp. xii+290. ISBN 0-7190-5604-7. £45.00.

Colonial writing and the New World, 1583–1671: allegories of desire. By Thomas Scanlan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. x+242. ISBN 0-521-64305-8. £37.50.