History
History at the University of Exeter is backed by leading academics. Here is their body of work over the last five years.
Books by our departmental staff
Book 1 title
Over the centuries, millions of migrant labourers sailed from the Indian subcontinent, across the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean, to shape what is now the world’s largest diaspora. This book recovers the histories and legacies of those ‘coolie’ migrants, and presents a new paradigm for the diplomatic history of independent India, going beyond high politics to explore how indenture, emigration and international relations became entangled.
Before and after independence, Indian notions of the international realm as a sanctified space were shaped by migrant journeys; this was a space of anxiety in which to negotiate the ‘coolie stain’ on the country’s reputation. Discourse was defined by intersections of caste, class, race and gender—and framed the migrant worker as the quintessential ‘other’ of Indian diplomacy.
Drawing on rich, multi-archival analysis spanning the vast geographies of labour migration, Kalathmika Natarajan pieces together the stories of quarantine camps en route to Ceylon; cultural and educational missions in the Caribbean; discretionary passport policies in India; and the mediation of immigrant life in Britain. The result is a nuanced history from the interwar period to the decades after independence, and a critical analysis centring both caste and the negotiation of ‘undesirable’ mobility as foundational to Indian diplomacy.
Book title 2
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Early Modern Bodiesis a wide-ranging and detailed introduction to a variety of different approaches to and perspectives on bodies in the early modern period, circa 1500–1750.
The collection guides readers through an examination of bodies at every stage of life, from birth to death and the afterlife, as they are situated in different social, cultural, and geographical contexts. It considers the bodies of numerous potential identities, such as criminals, prostitutes, witches, soldiers, and non-conforming sexualities. Though its focus is primarily Western Europe, the volume also pays attention to the wider world, especially with respect to developing ideas about race and ‘other’ bodies in what has been dubbed an ‘age of exploration’. Chapters are also dedicated to analysing what it was to be human, how humankind was considered in relation to the natural world, and how those adhering to non-Christian faiths were thought about.
This book is an accessible, essential text for students and established scholars alike who are interested in the history of the body, early modern history, and gender and sexuality.
A Cultural History of Beauty in the Early Modern Age, Vol.3
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A Cultural History of Beauty in the Early Modern Age covers the period from 1400 to 1700. During these years, the Bible and the ancient world continued to inspire ideas about beauty but a combination of urbanization, exploration, the rise of consumerism related to dress, and most especially the expansion of print culture, wrought significant change in the understanding of beauty and its depiction. Developments in artistic techniques and the revival of classical artistic theory prompted more positive representations of the nude body.
Change in this period was also visible in the dressing of the body: fashions altered over time, emphasizing, revealing, or hiding different parts of the male or female anatomy. Between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, the artist’s creation of beauty took on a new importance, as did the discerning eye and the cultivated tastes of patrons, consumers, and collectors. But it was the development of printing that led to the proliferation of treatises on beauty, together with medical works that connected bodily health with appearance and advised on how to improve both.
Drawing upon both visual and textual sources, A Cultural History of Beauty in the Early Modern Age presents an overview of the period and examines key cultural case studies on the themes of ideas of beauty; art and beauty; beauty, ugliness, and ideas of difference; nakedness and beauty; grooming and hygiene; making the body beautiful; material culture, clothing, and consumer practices; and desire, sexuality, and beauty.
Birth, Death, and Domestic Religion in early modern London
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Early modern London has long been recognised as a centre of religious diversity, yet the role of the home as the setting of religious practice for all faiths has been largely overlooked. In contrast, this study offers the first examination of domestic religion in London during a period of intense religious change, between the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and the Gordon Riots of 1780. Emily Vine considers both Christian and Jewish practices, comparing the experiences of Catholics, Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, Huguenots, and conforming and nonconforming Protestants alike. Through its focus on the crowded metropolis as a place where households of different faiths coexisted, this study explores how religious communities operated beyond and in parallel to places of public worship. Vine demonstrates how families of different faiths experienced childbirth and death, arguing that homes became 'permeable' settings of communal religion at critical moments of the life cycle. By focusing on practices beyond the synagogue, meeting house, or church, this book demonstrates the vitality of collective devotion and kinship throughout the long eighteenth century.
The Experience of Work in Early Modern England
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This book applies the innovative work-task approach to the history of work, which captures the contribution of all workers and types of work to the early modern economy. Drawing on tens of thousands of court depositions, the authors analyse the individual tasks that made up everyday work for women and men, shedding new light on the gender division of labour, and the ways in which time, space, age and marital status shaped sixteenth and seventeenth-century working life. Combining qualitative and quantitative analysis, the book deepens our understanding of the preindustrial economy, and calls for us to rethink not only who did what, but also the implications of these findings for major debates about structural change, the nature and extent of paid work, and what has been lost as well as gained over the past three centuries of economic development.
This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.