Memorializing the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 is a study of a group of memorials to soldiers who fought in a now nearly forgotten war, and deals with the many factors influencing why there was such an unprecedented number of memorials compared to those to previous conflicts like the Crimean War, fifty years earlier. One of the most important issues was the impact of changes in the organization of the British Army in the late 1800s, particularly the creation of locally-based regiments, heavily manned by volunteers drawn from local communities. The book includes a detailed commentary on the social conditions in England that also account for the unprecedented number of commemorations of this conflict. It discusses the variety of forms memorials took: informal – drinking fountains, ‘Spion Kop” stands at football stadiums; formal – stained glass windows, statues, etc., and the numerous and diverse places where they were located: cathedrals, town squares, public schools and universities. The growth of the national press and the rise of literacy is dealt with in detail, as well as the telegraph, whose invention meant that news became available overnight. Space is given to discuss the expression of Victorian prosperity in public works. The part played by the established church is well documented and an insight is given into the contribution of Imperialism, patriotism and jingoism. All these factors explain the motivation for the memorials’ creation. The book is illustrated with photographs and articles from newspapers of the day. Appendices cover those who are not commemorated, lost memorials, those who unveiled the memorials, colonial involvement and more. Memorializing the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 will appeal particularly to social historians and students of military and social history.

One hundred years after the Boer War, the British continue to debate what went wrong, while the war has significant nationalist overtones in today's South Africa. This book examines changes in interpretations of the war and provides a bibliography of major sources on the Boer War, now sometimes called the South African War. The bibliography focuses on the military history, but also includes some historical accounts of the political debate. The first part of the book provides an extended historiographical essay, while part two provides an annotated bibliography of the titles discussed in part one. Historiographical questions concerning the Boer War are numerous. Discussions of military operations focus on the early use of modern weaponry and the effect of guerrilla tactics on a traditional force, while other historians debate the question of British military leadership and organization. Questions also revolve around British imperialism and the scramble for Africa. Frequently called the second war for freedom by South African authors, the war was the reason that South Africa, unlike other British colonies, gained independence without majority rule. This makes the war of continuing relevance to the turmoil in South Africa, the collapse of the minority government, and the continuing problems of the current government. This book will provide a useful tool for those wishing to research the war.

This edited volume draws historians and anthropologists together to explore the contested worlds of epidemic corpses and their disposal. Why are burials so frequently at the center of disagreement, recrimination and protest during epidemics? Why are the human corpses produced in the course of infectious disease outbreaks seen as dangerous, not just to the living, but also to the continued existence of society and civilization? Examining cases from the Black Death to Ebola, contributors challenge the predominant idea that a single, universal framework of contagion can explain the political, social and cultural importance and impact of the epidemic corpse.

The soldier-horse relationship was nurtured by The British Army because it made the soldier and his horse into an effective fighting unit. Soldiers and their Horses explores a complex relationship forged between horses and humans in extreme conditions. As both a social history of Britain in the early twentieth century and a history of the British Army, Soldiers and their Horses reconciles the hard pragmatism of war with the imaginative and emotional. By carefully overlapping the civilian and the military, by juxtaposing "sense" and "sentimentality," and by considering institutional policy alongside individual experience, the soldier and his horse are re-instated as co-participators in The Great War. Soldiers and their Horses provides a valuable contribution to current thinking about the role of horses in history.

Robert Loraine was born in a niche of time when technology exploded into a world whose keyword was Progress. Both he and his life-long friend George Bernard Shaw believed they were in an evolutionary period of humanity. Born into a theatrical family, he understood its clashes of temperament and competition for the attention of the audience. He was fortunate to be playing in London by age twenty-one, and securing lead roles two years later. Thus, it was incomprehensible to his peers when he volunteered to fight in the Boer War. After his year of service, he heeded his father’s advice; first conquer London, and then America He accepted a contract from Daniel Frohman in New York. Four years of dusty old plots led him to yearn for something new, which he found in Shaw’s Man and Superman. A two year tour in the role of John Tanner led him to professional and financial success. This lust for something new led him beyond the perimeters of the stage into pioneer aviation. Visualizing the aeroplane’s unlimited potential, he challenged the theory that flight could only take place in calm weather by flying through a raging thunderstorm. Ever of a military mind, he also demonstrated the machine’s capacity for scouting at military maneuvers. With political storm clouds closing in again in 1914, Robert volunteered six days before his country declared war on Germany. Dispatched to the Royal Flying Corps, he served all four years of the war, rose to the highest rank of any civilian, and was gravely wounded twice. Robert married at age forty-five, but the compromises of domesticity did not come easily to him. His young wife, Winifred, suffered through the downward spiral of an aging actor. The thirties brought the great depression and he returned to the United States, attempting to make money on Broadway or in Hollywood. Finally able to return to England in November, 1935, he died two days before Christmas.

Afternoon Tea: A History explores the development of the afternoon tea meal, diving deeper than the popular tale of the Duchess of Bedford’s afternoon gatherings to find the meals that inspired those early afternoon teas. Julia Skinner carefully separates the fact and lore around the meal and sets the story of afternoon tea within its historic contexts. Recognizing that a meal’s birth and life never happen in a vacuum, the book sets aside the already well-documented conversations surrounding tea etiquette, instead exploring the social contexts that made the meal possible and popular, moving it from one small subset of the population to a widespread and beloved phenomenon, one that nearly died out at the end of the 20th century before experiencing a resurgence in the 21st. Afternoon tea is a meal that came of age during the British Empire’s most aggressive expansion, and as such became a meal that was transported to new continents with colonial forces. The book explores how this movement took place and uncovers the different ways tea and colonialism intersect in both the colonial and postcolonial worlds. It also looks at afternoon tea in America, a country that broke from the Empire before the meal was established as a set ritual, but which still has its own complex relationship with the beverage and a continuing fascination with the meal. The book concludes by looking at afternoon tea today, including a handful of interviews that show the range of perspectives about the meal and its place in society, as well as its resurging popularity in the last decade.