1807 2007

With the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and the Emancipation Act of 1833, Britain seemed to wash its hands of slavery. Not so, according to Marika Sherwood, who sets the record straight in this provocative new book. In fact, Sherwood demonstrates that Britain continued to contribute to the slave trade well after 1807, even into the twentieth century. Drawing on government documents and contemporary reports as well as published sources, she describes how slavery remained very much a part of British investment, commerce and empire, especially in funding and supplying goods for the trade in slaves and in the use of slave-grown produce. The nancial world of the City in London also depended on slavery, which - directly and indirectly - provided employment for millions of people. "After Abolition" also examines some of the causes and repercussions of continued British involvement in slavery and describes many of the apparently respectable villains, as well as the heroes, connected with the trade - at all levels of society. It contains important revelations about a darker side of British history, previously unexplored, which will provoke real questions about Britain's perceptions of its past

A New Rival State? is a unique collection of dispatches written in 1857–1917 by the Russian consuls in Melbourne to the Imperial Russian Embassy in London and the Russian Foreign Ministry in St Petersburg. Written by eight consuls, they offer a Russian view of the development of the settler colonies in the late nineteenth century and the first years of the federated Commonwealth of Australia. They cover the federalist movement, the changing domestic political situation, labour politics, the treatment of the Indigenous population, the ‘White Australia’ policy, Australia’s defensive capacity and foreign policy as part of the British Empire. The bulk of the material is drawn from the Russian-language collection The Russian Consular Service in Australia 1857–1917, edited by Alexander Massov and Marina Pollard (2014), using documents from the archive of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

This innovative study of nineteenth-century cellists and cello playing shows how simple concepts of posture, technique and expression changed over time, while acknowledging that many different practices co-existed. By placing an awareness of this diversity at the centre of an historical narrative, George Kennaway has produced a unique cultural history of performance practices. In addition to drawing upon an unusually wide range of source materials - from instructional methods to poetry, novels and film - Kennaway acknowledges the instability and ambiguity of the data that supports historically informed performance. By examining nineteenth-century assumptions about the very nature of the cello itself, he demonstrates new ways of thinking about historical performance today. Kennaway’s treatment of tone quality and projection, and of posture, bow-strokes and fingering, is informed by his practical insights as a professional cellist and teacher. Vibrato and portamento are examined in the context of an increasing divergence between theory and practice, as seen in printed sources and heard in early cello recordings. Kennaway also explores differing nineteenth-century views of the cello’s gendered identity and the relevance of these cultural tropes to contemporary performance. By accepting the diversity and ambiguity of nineteenth-century sources, and by resisting oversimplified solutions, Kennaway has produced a nuanced performing history that will challenge and engage musicologists and performers alike.

Romanticism is taught at universities across the globe and is considered integral to the study of British and European literature. This book, written by leading academics, presents innovative, practical approaches to teaching traditional and newer aspects of the curriculum and is essential to anyone teaching Romanticism at university level.