Sean Connery was one of cinema's most iconic stars. Born to a working-class family in Edinburgh, he held jobs as a milkman and an artist's model before making the move into acting. The role of James Bond earned him global fame, but threatened to eclipse his identity as an actor. This book offers a new perspective on Connery's career. It pays special attention to his star status, while arguing that he was a risk-taking actor who fashioned an impressive body of work. Beginning with Connery's early appearances on stage and television, including well-received performances in Shakespeare and Tolstoy, the book goes on to explore the Bond phenomenon and Connery's long struggle to reinvent himself. An Oscar-winning performance in The Untouchables marked the beginning of a second period of stardom, during which Connery successfully developed the character of the father-mentor. Ten years after his retirement from acting, he was still rated as the most popular British star among American audiences. Exploring how Connery's performances combine to form an all-encompassing screen legend, the book also considers how the actor embodied national identity, both on screen and through his public role as an activist campaigning for Scottish independence. -- .

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society is an annual collection of major articles representing some of the best historical research by some of the world's most distinguished historians. Volume 29 of the sixth series includes the following articles: 'Musicalising history', 'The politics of time and state identity in the German Democratic Republic', 'Politicising Chernobyl: Wales and nuclear power during the 1980s', 'Saladin's 'spin doctors'', 'Proportionate maiming: the origins of Thomas Jefferson's provision for facial disfigurement in Bill 64', 'Love, care and the illegitimate child in eighteenth-century Scotland', 'The self and self-help: women pursuing autonomy in post-war Britain', 'Colouring outside the lines: methods for a global history of Eastern Eurasia, 600-1350', 'Time and distance: reflections on local and global history from East Africa', and 'How natural is natural? Historical perspectives on wildlife and the environment in Britain'.

Alastair Duke has long been recognized as one of the leading scholars of the early modern Netherlands, known internationally for his important work on the impact of religious change on political events which was the focus of his Reformation and Revolt in the Low Countries (1990). Bringing together an updated selection of his previously published essays - together with one entirely new chapter and two that appear in English here for the first time - this volume explores the emergence of new political and religious identities in the early modern Netherlands. Firstly it analyses the emergence of a common identity amongst the amorphous collection of states in north-western Europe that were united first under the rule of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy and later the Habsburg princes, and traces the fortunes of this notion during the political and religious conflicts that divided the Low Countries during the second half of the sixteenth century. A second group of essays considers the emergence of dissidence and opposition to the regime, and explores how this was expressed and disseminated through popular culture. Finally, the volume shows how in the age of confessionalisation and civil war, challenging issues of identity presented themselves to both dissenting groups and individuals. Taken together these essays demonstrate how these dissident identities shaped and contributed to the development of the Netherlands during the early modern period.

This interdisciplinary volume illuminates the shadowy history of the disadvantaged, sick and those who did not conform to the accepted norms of society. It explores how marginal identity was formed, perceived and represented in Britain and Europe during the medieval and early modern periods. It illustrates that the identities of marginal groups were shaped by their place within primarily urban communities, both in terms of their socio-economic status and the spaces in which they lived and worked. Some of these groups - such as executioners, prostitutes, pedlars and slaves - performed a significant social and economic function but on the basis of this were stigmatized by other townspeople. Language was used to control and limit the activities of others within society such as single women and foreigners, as well as the victims of sexual crimes. For many, such as lepers and the disabled, marginal status could be ambiguous, cyclical or short-lived and affected by key religious, political and economic events. Traditional histories have often considered these groups in isolation. Based on new research, a series of case studies from Britain and across Europe illustrate and provide important insights into the problems faced by these marginal groups and the ways in which medieval and early modern communities were shaped and developed.

Until recently the impact of the Lutheran Reformation has been largely regarded in political and socio-economic terms, yet for most people it was not the abstract theological debates that had the greatest impact upon their lives, but what they saw in their parish churches every Sunday. This collection of essays provides a coherent and interdisciplinary investigation of the impact that the Lutheran Reformation had on the appearance, architecture and arrangement of early modern churches. Drawing upon recent research being undertaken by leading art historians and historians on Lutheran places of worship, the volume emphasises often surprising levels of continuity, reflecting the survival of Catholic fixtures, fittings and altarpieces, and exploring how these could be remodelled in order to conform with the tenets of Lutheran belief. The volume not only addresses Lutheran art but also the way in which the architecture of their churches reflected the importance of preaching and the administration of the sacraments. Furthermore the collection is committed to extending these discussions beyond a purely German context, and to look at churches not only within the Holy Roman Empire, but also in Scandinavia, the Baltic States as well as towns dominated by Saxon communities in areas such as in Hungary and Transylvania. By focusing on ecclesiastical 'material culture' the collection helps to place the art and architecture of Lutheran places of worship into the historical, political and theological context of early modern Europe.

This interdisciplinary volume illuminates the shadowy history of the disadvantaged, sick and those who did not conform to the accepted norms of society. It explores how marginal identity was formed, perceived and represented in Britain and Europe during the medieval and early modern periods. It illustrates that the identities of marginal groups were shaped by their place within primarily urban communities, both in terms of their socio-economic status and the spaces in which they lived and worked. Some of these groups - such as executioners, prostitutes, pedlars and slaves - performed a significant social and economic function but on the basis of this were stigmatized by other townspeople. Language was used to control and limit the activities of others within society such as single women and foreigners, as well as the victims of sexual crimes. For many, such as lepers and the disabled, marginal status could be ambiguous, cyclical or short-lived and affected by key religious, political and economic events. Traditional histories have often considered these groups in isolation. Based on new research, a series of case studies from Britain and across Europe illustrate and provide important insights into the problems faced by these marginal groups and the ways in which medieval and early modern communities were shaped and developed.

Film Noir is an overview of an often celebrated, but also contested, body of films. It discusses film noir as a cultural phenomenon whose history is more extensive and diverse than American black and white crime thrillers of the forties. An extended Background Chapter situates film noir within its cultural context, describing its origin in German Expressionism, French Poetic Realism and in developments within American genres, the gangster/crime thriller, horror and the Gothic romance and its possible relationship to changes in American society. Five chapters are devoted to 'classic' film noir (1940-59): chapters explore its contexts of production and reception, its visual style, and its narrative patterns and themes chapters on character types and star performances elucidate noir's complex construction of gender with its weak, ambivalent males and predatory femmes fatales and also provide a detailed analysis of three noir auteurs, - Anthony Mann, Robert Siodmak and Fritz Lang Three chapters investigate 'neo-noir' and British film noir: chapters trace the complex evolution of 'neo-noir' in American cinema, from the modernist critiques of Night Moves and Taxi Driver, to the postmodern hybridity of contemporary noir including Seven, Pulp Fiction and Memento the final chapter surveys the development of British film noir, a significant and virtually unknown cinema, stretching from the thirties to Mike Hodges' Croupier Films discussed include both little known examples and seminal works such as Double Indemnity, Scarlet Street, Kiss Me Deadly and Touch of Evil. A final section provides a guide to further reading, an extensive bibliography and a list of over 500 films referred to in the text. Lucidly written, Film Noir is an accessible, informative and stimulating introduction that will have a broad appeal to undergraduates, cineastes, film teachers and researchers.

Until recently the impact of the Lutheran Reformation has been largely regarded in political and socio-economic terms, yet for most people it was not the abstract theological debates that had the greatest impact upon their lives, but what they saw in their parish churches every Sunday. This collection of essays provides a coherent and interdisciplinary investigation of the impact that the Lutheran Reformation had on the appearance, architecture and arrangement of early modern churches. Drawing upon recent research being undertaken by leading art historians and historians on Lutheran places of worship, the volume emphasises often surprising levels of continuity, reflecting the survival of Catholic fixtures, fittings and altarpieces, and exploring how these could be remodelled in order to conform with the tenets of Lutheran belief. The volume not only addresses Lutheran art but also the way in which the architecture of their churches reflected the importance of preaching and the administration of the sacraments. Furthermore the collection is committed to extending these discussions beyond a purely German context, and to look at churches not only within the Holy Roman Empire, but also in Scandinavia, the Baltic States as well as towns dominated by Saxon communities in areas such as in Hungary and Transylvania. By focusing on ecclesiastical 'material culture' the collection helps to place the art and architecture of Lutheran places of worship into the historical, political and theological context of early modern Europe.

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society is an annual collection of articles based on papers given to the Society by distinguished invited speakers and winners of RHS prizes. Volume 31 of the Sixth Series includes the following articles: 'Material Turns in British History: IV. Empire in India, Cancel Cultures and the Country House,' 'Responding to Violence: Liturgy, Authority and Sacred Places, c. 900-c. 1150,' 'Baroque around the Clock: Daniello Bartoli SJ (1608-1685) and the Uses of Global History,' 'What Happens when a Written Constitution is Printed? A History across Boundaries,' 'An Ottoman Arab Man of Letters and the Meanings of Empire, c. 1860,' and 'Revisiting RHS's 'Race, Ethnicity & Equality in UK History: A Report and Resource for Change.''

The Black Death first hit Europe in 1347. This horrific disease ripped through towns, villages and families. Men, women, children, young and old succumbed to a painful, drawn-out death as pustules, abscesses and boils erupted over their bodies. SUbsequent attacks of the disease, coming almost every decade, so limited the population that it was not until the eighteenth century that it managed to surpass the levels of the 1340s. For over three hundred years, Europeans were stalked by death. In the end, this mysterious disease that had terrorized, terrified and killed millions, disappeared at inexplicably as it had appeared. William Naphy is Senior Lecturer and Head of History at the University of Aberdeen. his other books include Born to be gay and Sex Crimes, both by Tempus. Andrew Spicer is Lecturer in Early Modern European History at Oxford Brookes University.

Alastair Duke has long been recognized as one of the leading scholars of the early modern Netherlands, known internationally for his important work on the impact of religious change on political events which was the focus of his Reformation and Revolt in the Low Countries (1990). Bringing together an updated selection of his previously published essays - together with one entirely new chapter and two that appear in English here for the first time - this volume explores the emergence of new political and religious identities in the early modern Netherlands. Firstly it analyses the emergence of a common identity amongst the amorphous collection of states in north-western Europe that were united first under the rule of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy and later the Habsburg princes, and traces the fortunes of this notion during the political and religious conflicts that divided the Low Countries during the second half of the sixteenth century. A second group of essays considers the emergence of dissidence and opposition to the regime, and explores how this was expressed and disseminated through popular culture. Finally, the volume shows how in the age of confessionalisation and civil war, challenging issues of identity presented themselves to both dissenting groups and individuals. Taken together these essays demonstrate how these dissident identities shaped and contributed to the development of the Netherlands during the early modern period.

Holy sites, both public - churches, monasteries, shrines - and more private - domestic chapels, oratories - populated the landscape of medieval and early modern Europe, providing contemporaries with access to the divine. These sacred spaces thus defined religious experience, and were fundamental to both the geography and social history of Europe over the course of 1,000 years. But how were these sacred spaces, both public and private, defined? How were they created, used, recognised and transformed? And to what extent did these definitions change over the course of time, and in particular as a result of the changes wrought in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Taking a strongly interdisciplinary approach, this volume tackles these questions from the point of view of archaeology, architectural and art history, liturgy, and history to consider the fundamental interaction between the sacred and the profane. Exploring the establishment of sacred space within both the public and domestic spheres, as well as the role of the secular within the sacred sphere, each chapter provides fascinating insights into how these concepts helped shape, and were shaped by, wider society. By highlighting these issues on a European basis from the medieval period through the age of the reformations, these essays demonstrate the significance of continuity as much as change in definitions of sacred space, and thus identify long term trends which have hitherto been absent in more limited studies. As such this volume provides essential reading for anyone with an interest in the ecclesiastical development of western Europe from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, this volume reflects on the way that the Church, from the earliest times, has cared for the sick and for the physical and spiritual health of society. Anointing and praying for the sick have always been combined with medical care. Religious foundations such as leper hospitals cared for the diseased but also isolated them to protect the health of society. The institutionalization of the Church's care for the sick led to the foundation of hospitals and medical schools. Many of the articles focus on the Church's response to sickness, especially pandemics. Others explore the connection between the Church and the medical profession, the clerical experience of sickness, and the ways that sickness has served as a metaphor for understanding the Church and its place in the world.

This volume brings together the work of a wide range of scholars to explore the long and complex history of the relationships between churches and education. Christianity has always been involved in education, from the very earliest teaching of those about to be baptised, to present-day churches' involvement in schools and higher education. Christianity has a core theological concern for teaching, discipleship and formation, but the dissemination of Christian ideas and positions has not necessarily been an explicitly didactic process. Educational projects have served not only to support but also to question and even reconfigure particular versions of the Christian message, and the recipients of education have also both received and subverted the teaching offered. Under the editorship of Morwenna Ludlow, this volume explores the ways in which churches have sought to educate, catechise and instruct the clergy and laity, adults and children, men and women, boys and girls.

'The Church and Empire', the theme of Studies in Church History, 54, reflects the reality that from its beginnings, the Christian Church has had close, often symbiotic, relationships with empires and imperial power. Initially the Church engaged with the Roman Empire, subsequently in Europe with the Carolingian, Anglo-Norman, Genoese, Venetian and Holy Roman Empires, and later - through the Church's global expansion with European empires in the Americas, Africa and Asia - the Spanish, Dutch, French and British empires, and the imperial structures it encountered there. Bringing together the work of twenty-four historians, this volume explores the relations of churches and empires, and Christian conceptions of empire, in the ancient, medieval, early modern and modern periods, as well as the role of empire in the global expansion of Christianity.

The medieval landscape was marked by many sacred sites - churches and chapels, pilgrimage sites, holy wells - places where the spiritual and temporal worlds coincided. Although Max Weber argued that the Reformation brought about the 'disenchantment of the world', this 2005 volume explores the many dimensions of sacred space during and after the religious upheavals of the early modern period. The essays examine the subject through a variety of contexts across Europe from Scotland to Moldavia, but also across the religious divisions between the Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Calvinist Churches. Based on research, these essays provide insights into the definition and understanding of sanctity in the post-Reformation era and make an important contribution to the study of sacred space.

This is an examination of a celebrated, but also contested, body of films whose history is more extensive and diverse than American black and white crime thrillers of the forties.

A background chapter situates film noir within its cultural context, describing its origin in German Expressionism, French Poetic Realism and in developments within American genres, the gangster/crime thriller, horror and the Gothic romance and its possible relationship to changes in American society. Andrew Spicer discusses 'classic' film noir (1940-59) and investigates 'neo-noir' and British film noir. Films discussed include both little known examples and seminal works such as Double Indemnity, Scarlet Street, Kiss Me Deadly and Touch of Evil. A final section provides a guide to further reading, an extensive bibliography and a list of over 500 films referred to in the text. Film Noir is an accessible, informative and stimulating introduction that will have a broad appeal to undergraduates, cineastes, film teachers and researchers.

The Huguenots formed a privileged minority within early modern France. During the second half of the sixteenth century, they fought for freedom of worship in the French 'wars of religion' which culminated in the Edict of Nantes in 1598. The community was protected by the terms of the Edict for eighty-seven years until Louis XIV revoked it in 1685. The Huguenots therefore constitute a minority group tolerated by one of the strongest nations in early modern Europe, a country more often associated with the absolute power of the crown - in particular that of Louis XIV. This collection of essays explores the character and identity of the Huguenot movement by examining their culture and institutions, their patterns of belief and worship and their interaction with French state and society. The volume draws upon research by leading historians and specialists from across Europe and North America.

Studies in Church History 59 addresses the historical development of life events to which the churches have responded with specific rites and ceremonies. The volume contributes to current discussion in life cycle history and the ongoing debate about 'rites of passage,' both ecclesiastical and secular. The major life cycle events, such as birth, marriage and death, are considered; so too are the churching or 'purification' of women after childbirth, confirmation and first communion, and ordination, as well as less widespread rites of passage, such as royal anointing and the renunciation of wealth. The twenty-two papers span Christian history and include contributions from Frances Knight, Thomas O'Loughlin, Elisabeth van Houts and Alexandra Walsham. Taken together, the articles offer clear evidence of the continuing potency of ecclesiastical rites of passage, as well as of their ability to be refashioned for the needs of successive generations of believers.

Across Europe, the parish church has stood for centuries at the centre of local communities; it was the focal point of its religious life, the rituals performed there marked the stages of life from the cradle to the grave. Nonetheless the church itself artistically and architecturally stood apart from the parish community. It was often the largest and only stone-built building in a village; it was legally distinct being subject to canon law, as well as consecrated for the celebration of religious rites. The buildings associated with the "cure of souls" were sacred sites or holy places, where humanity interacted with the divine. In spite of the importance of the parish church, these buildings have generally not received the same attention from historians as non-parochial places of worship. This collection of essays redresses this balance and reflects on the parish church across a number of confessions - Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed and Anti-Trinitarian - during the early modern period. Rather than providing a series of case studies of individual buildings, each essay looks at the evolution of parish churches in response to religious reform as well as confessional change and upheaval. They examine aspects of their design and construction; furnishings and material culture; liturgy and the use of the parish church. While these essays range widely across Europe, the volume also considers how religious provision and the parish church were translated into a global context with colonial and commercial expansion in the Americas and Asia. This interdisciplinary volume seeks to identify what was distinctive about the parish church for the congregations that gathered in them for worship and for communities across the early modern world.

Evidence gleaned from archaeology sheds dramatic new light on religious practices and identities between the later sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The post-medieval period was one of profound religious and cultural change, of sometimes violent religious conflict and of a dramatic growth in religious pluralism. The essays collected here, in what is the first book to focus onthe material evidence, demonstrate the significant contribution that archaeology can make to a deeper understanding of religion. They take a broad interdisciplinary approach to the spatial and material context of religious life, using buildings and landscapes, religious objects and excavated cemeteries, alongside cartographic and documentary sources, to reveal the complexity of religious practices and identities in varied regions of post-medieval Britain,Europe and the wider world. Topics covered include the transformation of religious buildings and landscapes in the centuries after the European Reformation, the role of religious minorities and immigrant groups in early modern cities, the architectural and landscape context of eighteenth and nineteenth-century nonconformity, and the development of post-medieval burial practices and funerary customs. Offering a unique perspective on the material remains ofthe post-medieval period, this volume will be of significant value to archaeologists and historians interested in the religious and cultural transformation of the early modern world. Contributors: Chris King, Duncan Sayer, Andrew Spicer, Philippa Woodcock, Matthias Range, Simon Roffey, Greig Parker, Jeremy Lake, Eric Berry, Peter Herring, Claire Strachan, Peter Benes, Diana Mahoney-Swales, Richard O'Neill, Hugh Willmott, Natasha Powers, Adrian Miles, Anwen Cedifor Caffell, Rachel Clarke, Rosie Morris

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society is an annual collection of major articles based on papers given to the society by distinguished invited speakers, and by winners of the Society's prizes. Volume 26 of the sixth series includes the following articles: 'Presidential Address: Educating the Nation III. Social Mobility', 'Better off Dead than Disfigured'? The Challenges of Facial Injury in the Pre-modern Past', 'Who Was Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester?', ''Protestantism' as a Historical Category', 'Tall Histories: Height and Georgian Masculinities', 'Slavery and the Birth of Working-Class Racism in England, 1814-1833', 'Between Poise and Power: Embodied Manliness in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century British Culture', 'Last Resort or Key Resource? Women Workers from the Nazi-Occupied Soviet Territories, the Reich Labour Administration and the German War Effort', and 'The Grail of Original Meaning: Uses of the Past in American Constitutional Theory'.

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society is an annual collection of major articles representing some of the best historical research by some of the world's most distinguished historians. Volume 27 of the sixth series includes the following articles: 'The Cleopatras and the Jews' by Sarah Pearce, 'The Making of Chronicles and the Making of England: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles after Alfred' by Pauline Stafford, 'Old Words and the New World: Liberal Education and the Franciscans in New Spain, 1536-1601' by Aysha Pollnitz, 'Migration from Within and Without: In the Footsteps of Eastern Christians in the Early Modern World' by John-Paul A. Ghobrial, 'Feminist Political Thought and Activism in Revolutionary Ireland, c.1880-1918' by Senia Paseta, 'Democracy, Sovereignty and Unionist Political Thought during the Revolutionary Period in Ireland, c.1912-1922' by Colin W. Reid, and 'Languages of Freedom in Decolonising' Africa by Emma Hunter.

This volume explores the legal issues and legal consequences underlying relations between secular and religious authorities in the context of the Christian Church, from its earliest emergence within Roman Palestine as a persecuted minority sect through the period when it became legally recognized within the Roman empire, its many institutional manifestations in the East and West throughout the Middle Ages, the reconfigurations associated with the Reformation and Catholic/Counter-Reformations, the legal and constitutional complications, and the variable consequences of so-called secularization thereafter. The engagement of secular and religious authorities with the law and the question of what the law actually comprised (Roman law, canon law, national laws, state and royal edicts) are addressed. Bringing together the work of a wide range of scholars, this volume deepens our understanding of interactions between the churches and the legal systems in which they existed in the past and continue to exist now.

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society is an annual collection of major articles representing some of the best historical research by some of the world's most distinguished historians. Volume 30 of the sixth series includes the following articles: 'Material turns in British history: III. Collecting: Colonial Bombay, Basra, Baghdad and the Enlightenment Museum'; 'The Edict of Pitres, Carolingian defence against the Vikings, and the origins of the Medieval castle'; ''Acceptable Truths' during the French Religious Wars'; 'Monarchs, travellers and empire in the Pacific's Age of Revolutions'; 'Children against slavery: Juvenile agency and the sugar boycotts in Britain'; 'Unfinished business: Remembering the Great War between truth and reenactment'; and 'The 'Martyrdom of things': Iconoclasm and its meanings in the Spanish Civil War'.