ALAN McGUIRE welcomes a biography of the French semiologist and philosopher
The human cost of English, and British, Imperialism
WILL PODMORE applauds a stunning survey of the devastation wrought by the English state over four centuries
RUTHLESS: An eviction on the land of the Marquis of Clanricarde at Woodford, Co Galway. Farmer and boatbuilder, Francis Tully was an activist for the Plan of Campaign in Galway, an attempt to gain lower rents through collective bargaining, because prices for agricultural exports had fallen dramatically in the 1880s
[National Library of Ireland/CC] 
ALEX HALL is frustrated by a book that ducks a clear definition of terrorism and fails to perceive the role of the state in sponsoring it
JOE GILL wholeheartedly recommends an eloquent manifesto: how to change the world one local project at a time
Inspired by a photograph, a unique memorial in Michigan immortalises US true labour heroes. MICHAL BONCZA recalls a great story rarely told
MARIA DUARTE, LEO BOIX and ANGUS REID review Brides, Dead of Winter, A Night Like This, and The Librarians
MARIA DUARTE is entertained by a wry portrait of befuddled resistance to US authoritarianism
Harfleur to Hamburg: five centuries of English and British violence in Europe
edited by DJB Trim and Brendan Simms, Hurst, £38.80
THIS splendid book takes 11 case studies of English and British violence in Europe: Henry V’s wars in France, Henry VIII’s wars, the atrocities in the reign of Elizabeth I, the subjection of early modern Ireland, the violence in Scotland after the 1746 Battle of Culloden, the bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807, the violence against civilians during the Peninsular War of 1807-14, the Baltic campaign of the Crimean War, 1854-56, the blockade in the first world war, the attack on the French fleet at Mers-El-Kebir in 1940, and the 1943 bombing of Hamburg and other German cities.
The editors sum up: “England and then Great Britain inflicted extreme violence on its European neighbours, even when still using the rhetoric of neighbourliness and friendship.”
More from this author
WILL PODMORE welcomes the case put by a feminist, disentangling the abusive rhetoric of the trans rights debate
WILL PODMORE welcomes a timely and clear-eyed account of both Nato and Britain’s fatal role in the process that led to war in Ukraine
WILL PODMORE peruses a new history of the opening weeks of conflict between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia
WILL PODMORE recommends an excellent and useful introduction to a lesser-known giant of the scientific revolution in Britain
