English Countess, Irish Earl: the social world of Frances, Countess of Clanricard, 1567–1632, by Bernadette Cunningham (Four Courts Press, €39.95 / £35.00). his biographical investigation of one woman’s life reveals a very great deal about the dangers, personal, social, political and religious that affected even the lives of the great in a “glorious” period…
Slavery: America’s long reckoning from the Founding Era to Today, by Scott Spillman (Basic Books / Little Brown, €35.00 /£30.00) This is not a book about slavery. It is, instead, about how Americans have made sense of slavery: how they have researched and written about it; how they have justified and criticised it.” Such is…
Thomas More: A Life and Death in Tudor England, by Joanne Paul (Penguin Books, £12.99 / Michael Joseph €32.00 hb) Thomas More has been a figure of such controversy as to make even the opening sentence of this review seem problematic: should he be entitled as St Thomas or Sir Thomas? In following the author of…