Gender, War and Politics: Transatlantic Perspectives, 1775-1830. Edited by Karen Hagemann,Gisela Mettele and Jane Rendall. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2010. xvii + 374 p. £70 (hb).ISBN 978-0-230-21800-0.

This excellent collection of essays offers a transatlantic perspective on the burgeoning field of ‘warand society’ historiography. Extending the scope of more traditional military histories, the individualchapters in this collection add much to our knowledge of how warfare defined identity, powerrelations and gender roles in both older European states and the new states that emerged in the wakeof the American, French, Haitian and Spanish revolutions. In a short review it is impossible to dojustice to the seventeen individual contributions and unfair to single out any particular author froma broad range of extremely enlightening chapters. At the heart of this collection, however, is thetransformative impact of revolution on concepts of citizenship and the key role of masculinity in theconstruction of citizenship. Integrating gender into our understanding of revolutionary nation-building, as several historians will attest, remains problematic. The volume nevertheless succeeds intreading a subtle line between highlighting how the military contributions of male citizen soldierssecured men a place in post-revolutionary states and acknowledging that women were more thanpassive observers in these masculinised body polities. How the role of the respective genders (and, asseveral essays highlight, different races) came to be viewed in the securing of national independencehad consequential implications for who could be incorporated into the nation as full citizens. Thevolume does a magnificent job of demonstrating that war and revolution defined the boundaries ofinclusion and exclusion in the Atlantic region.

The collection comprises part of the developing War, Culture, and Society, 1750-1850 series,whose stated aim is to provide a multifaceted approach to the study of war, bridging the unhelpfulgap between political, cultural, military and gender histories. In this regard the volume mostcertainly succeeds (though traditionalists might complain that there is too little war in ‘war andsociety’ approaches). If a criticism is to be made of the volume, it is that there is some overlapbetween the topics discussed here and the themes of the other monographs and edited volumes inthe series. This is, perhaps, unavoidable given the nature of edited volumes. Conversely, however,there is also insufficient overlap between the essays within the volume. The volume sets out toprovide a transatlantic perspective on war and culture, but a reader might be left wonderingwhether the volume’s greatest lesson is the importance of contingency rather than overlap in therevolutionary Atlantic world. True, gender is revealed to have been of massive importance in theconstruction of identities and power relations in this period. Can it be said, however, that gender isa specific enough category to explain the variegated differences in gender politics across the region?Notions of masculine citizenship aside, the volume’s disparate nature does not do enough to provea quantifiable transatlantic transformation of political and social institutions in the ‘Age ofRevolutions’. This problem is not improved by the fact that none of the essays provides a genuinecomparative approach, leaving the reader to construct potential comparisons where relevant. Thissaid, such methodological issues do not detract from the quality of the individual chapters and theircontribution to our understanding of the revolutionary Atlantic. Taken on a case-by-case basis, thisis a volume of the highest scholarly quality.

Matthew DziennikNew School University, New York

Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America. By Benjamin L.Carp. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. xv + 311 p. £20 (hb). ISBN 978-0-300-11705-9.

Carp’s is the first full-length study of the Boston Tea Party since Benjamin Labaree’s in 1966. In theintervening forty-five years our understanding of the early modern Atlantic world has beentransformed by a wealth of studies of the politics and society of Britain’s North American coloniesand by the perspectives of the ‘British World’ school of history. The author makes full use of these

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to analyse what remains possibly the best-known event of the Revolution and to set it in its propercultural and political context. Yet, far from diminishing its importance, he concludes that the TeaParty deserves to be recognised as decisive.

The late eighteenth-century British colonies were riven by strategic, commercial and financialpressures that were pushing against the ties of Imperial control even before the outcome of theSeven Years War in North America (to say nothing of its cost) set them on a collision course with theBritish government. London’s decision to permit cheaper imports of tea in 1773 as a means ofsolving the East India Company’s financial woes may seem relatively unremarkable, but, as Carpmakes clear, for colonial critics (as well as many metropolitan ones) the Company was both abyword for gross mismanagement and a direct commercial threat to their livelihoods, if not astalking horse for increased Imperial control. And then there was the tea itself. Carp explores thesymbolism of the so-called ‘Boston distemper’, both before the war, in relation to contemporaryideals of sensibility and concerns about luxury, and after, when its rejection by Americanconsumers became emblematic of revolutionary independence (although a lower price seems tohave been the principal reason why the former colonists took to drinking coffee instead).

The core of the author’s analysis, however, is the Tea Party itself. The events of December 1773

were not a spontaneous reaction but rather the conclusion of a complex set of manoeuvringswithin Boston’s political society between, on the one hand, the interests associated with GovernorHutchinson and the tea importers, and, on the other, those aligned with his opponents. Carp alsonotes how inter-colonial politics affected the situation, as Massachusetts’s leading figures, such asJohn Adams, feared they would be seen as backsliders by their rivals in New York and Philadelphiaif they did not stand firm. Resistance, however, might well provoke bloodshed and threaten thesocial order. Although colonial North America was less rigidly hierarchical than other parts of theBritish world, the leading revolutionaries remained distinctly ambivalent about the masses. In acentral chapter Carp discusses why the Tea Party protagonists acted at night and in the guise ofNative Americans. Dressing up as Indians may have evoked the natives’ political independence fromGreat Britain, as well as images of ‘the noble savage’ resisting European corruption. (There arepassing references to E. P. Thompson’s history of the Black Act and to London ‘Mohocks’, butsimilar European practices are largely incidental to Carp’s account.)

What the reader will not find here is a traditional history of the constitutional and legal debatesover the principles of taxation and representation. Carp notes these but does not go into any greatdetail, so it is not fully explained how and why Imperial policy made rebels of loyal (indeed oftenenthusiastic) members of the Empire. Yet on the importance of the Tea Party itself he is very clear:by provoking London’s suspension of the colonial government it was indeed the tipping point of theRevolution. In the context of revolutionary politics it was also one of the few occasions whenordinary Americans could claim some rights of, and from, their participation in the symbolic fightfor freedom, and as such it has continued to be celebrated, and misunderstood, ever since.

David WallerThe University of Northampton

The Mirror of Human Life: Reflections on François Couperin’s ‘Pièces de Clavecin’. ByJane Clark and Derek Connon. London: Keyword Press. 2011. 224 p. £14.50 (pb). ISBN 978-0-9555590-3-7.

Originally published in 2002, this second edition contains additional material and illustrationsin the form of contemporary engravings. Revolving around the titles of François Couperin’sharpsichord pieces, this is far more than just a performer’s handbook, although everyharpsichordist should read it. The shared authorship works particularly well, with Derek Connon(Professor of French at Swansea University) providing a preface and substantial chapter on theliterary scene, while harpsichordist and historian Jane Clark concentrates on the social, culturaland musical aspects of this study. The social, cultural and literary backgrounds are presented to givea context for the music, and to aid the understanding of individual pieces. The detailed discussion

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