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This neat little book is a handy primer on women’s role in the Industrial Revolution in England. Perhaps its most useful contribution is the historiographical essay in the opening chapter that introduces the reader to the evolution of scholarship on this topic. It provides an interesting examination of how gender shaped the conception of the workforce, often finding male and female workers as antagonists due to the prevailing gender norms at the time. While it doesn’t exactly offer anything novel, it does offer a good shorthand, and would be a useful text in an undergraduate class.

The essays in Tutino’s collection often stray from the “capitalism” of the title to explore pure political motives behind the revolutionary change that occurred in the Americas from 1750 to 1870, though trade and economics never lag that far behind. Most interesting is how dynamic the authors in this collection portray the revolutions of the Americas to be, with shifting alliances and motivations as different groups of people fought either for hegemony or individual roles in the emerging nations. While the authors of this volume do a good job including peoples of all races and classes in their analyses, they do not pay adequate attention to the definition of the “nations” called out in the title. A more explicit exploration of nationhood and nationalism would round out this otherwise fulfilling collection.

This is a book that wants to be more than just a chronology of the French Revolution, but struggles to paint a picture larger than the political machinations that went into the founding of the Republic and the turmoil that followed. For the most part it is easily readable, though at times it is hard to keep up with all the characters and plotting that want into this complicated event. That said, it is a solid text to be used as an introduction for upper level undergrads or graduate students. Not revolutionary in and of itself, it still does a respectable job of describing and analyzing the French Revolution.

September 6, 2017 – Started ReadingSeptember 6, 2017 – Started ReadingReview For the most part this book reads like a collection of descriptive lists – which flora and fauna went where, who explored or what or established relations where. There’s a lot of surface detail, which is good for an introduction, but chapters trying to move beyond such descriptions were disappointing; the chapter on the spread of ideas and mores had not much to say about its topic. There was no in depth investigations of the ways cultures encountered and interacted with each other beyond cataloging that exchanges happened and what they were. A good primer if you’re interested in the cataloging of Portuguese exchange with the rest of its global network, but if you’re looking for more in depth examinations of these relationships you’ll have to go elsewhere. I never felt the sense of motion the title implies.

Do not let the title of this book fool you, or, perhaps, let the title of this book fool you. It is indeed about the Portuguese conquerors of the 15th-16th century who rounded the Cape of Good Hope and established the first Western European presence in the Indian Ocean. Crowley’s conquerors were not just after the profit of the spice trade, of which there was much to be had, but were also seeking to carry through the holy crusade of winning back Jerusalem from the Muslims, a feat which, inexperienced and too far from home, they were ill-equipped for. Perhaps to Crowley’s eyes as well as to those of the Portuguese, India as an ends to itself was not quite the same as holy war. But, then again, Crowley focuses on only a few of Portugal’s leaders, and quite often notes how many of their men stood in opposition to the goal to eradicate Islam from Christian holy sites and trade networks. It’s not an academic study so much as an exciting historical investigation, a good door into the world of the Portuguese Indian Ocean that can lead to even more nuanced studies of the European invasion of the Indian Ocean.

It’s too bad Zheng He’s voyages didn’t leave behind more complete records, because it most likely would have been enlightening to read Levathes’s full account of them. Behind what deceptively appears to be a narrative of the Treasure Fleet milked for all its worth is a tale of Chinese diplomacy, Sinocentrism, East Asian religion, and court politics that, despite the paucity of the sources concerning the actual fleet, leave us with a neat narrative of the Yongle Emperor’s reign. Levathes does a fine job of extracting what little she can from scant Chinese sources on Zheng He and supplementing them with rich documents on the Ming Empire to create a convincing portrait of an Emperor who wanted to bring the glory of the Chinese Empire to the Indian Ocean while at the same strengthening China’s diplomatic and military power vis a vis his new trading partners. As written, it’s a convincing interpretation as to the purpose of the Treasure Fleet. Unfortunately, Levathes does not use the same subtle skill to explore China’s subsequent abrupt isolationism. A book of deceptive depth that is also easy to read, it’s a nice entry into the myriad of work on the Ming Empire that are contemporary to it.

It may just be impossible to overstate the importance of this book and its detailed but succinct uncovering of the way Indians and Europeans interacted with the land of New England and with each other, critically historizing all three characters. For use in a undergraduate course, even to frame a lecture, this book can be used to challenge students’ preconceived notions of static or ahistorical systems as dynamic, with all human characters endowed with agency. I’ve read this short volume countless times but I always find something new. I can’t wait to share it with my students.