At least since Ellen Rosand’s foundational work on Barbara Strozzi, scholars have recognized both the libertine environment of Strozzi’s upbringing and the sensual, even erotic character of much of her music. While that eroticism is usually portrayed as heterosexual, I draw attention in this article to a handful of pieces whose same-sex orientation has largely been overlooked. In Eraclito amoroso and La fanciuletta semplice (both from opus 2), and, perhaps most strikingly, the Sonetto that launches opus 1, such desire emerges not only from the poetry Strozzi selected, but also from her treatment of that poetry. Of course, non-heteronormative expressions of sexual attraction were not so unusual in contemporary Venice. Same-sex activity was considered a facet of profligate sexual desire generally, and it appeared often on the operatic stage. I highlight these particular works, however, as especially provocative examples of Strozzi cultivating the eroticized image that her father seems to have intended for her.

Distilling an extensive literature on the First and Second Great Reform Acts, Chapter 3 argues how the Whig view of the period – a view that still largely informs political science research today – overstates both the progressive ideology of reformers and the democratizing effects of the two bills. It also includes two periods that are difficult to fit into a reformist narrative and are subsequently downplayed in most accounts of the English democratization. The first is the several decades of political reaction marked by the crushing of the Luddite movement (1811–1813), the massacre at Peterloo (1819), and the passing of the Six Acts (1819). The second is the repression of the Chartist movement between 1834 and 1848. Both episodes reveal how the British state generally responded to mass protests demanding political change. Rather than conceding to the demands of would-be revolutionaries, the state developed its coercive forces – most notably the police and the Home Office – to meet the new challenge. Even after the Second Great Reform Bill of 1867, political elites still felt they had largely dodged democracy.

This chapter will discuss the dramatic developments that enabled the Nicaragua route to become a serious contender to the Panama route in the early 1850s and its equally theatrical decline due to the bombing of its main port Greytown in the context of Anglo-American rivalries. While the bombardment exemplified U.S. gunboat diplomacy, the context of U.S. expansionism added a veneer of legitimacy to the act of destruction. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Nicaragua, which had entered the mid-century with dreams of a canal supported by American enterprise and money, plunged into a period of deep disillusionment and civil war.

The Introduction opens with a (personal) precursor to the writing of the book. It discusses the methodological, normative, and theoretical basis of the book. It offers an overview of the argument and the chapters, and outlines sources employed in the research.

Nicolò Fontei was one of two teachers of Barbara Strozzi. He settled in Venice, a thirty-year-old priest, in 1634 and quickly became associated with Barbara Strozzi and her father Giulio. At Venice he published sacred music and collaborated in staging an opera, Sidonio e Dorisbe (1642). He also issued three books of secular music, Bizzarrie poetiche poste in musica, thefirst (1635) with texts wholly by Giulio Strozzi, the second (1636) with texts partly by him, and both for the use of Barbara Strozzi. The first book can be seen as a progressive series of studies in vocal technique, music theory and composition for the young singer-composer. Music of the second and third books may have been performed at meetings of the Accademia degli Unisoni. One dialogue, “Lilla, se amor non fugga” (1639) reflects the subject of a debate held by the Unisoni on the relative powers of tears and song to produce love.

Chapter 6 moves the discussion on from the overview of local history-writing in Chapter 5 and takes a different perspective by considering whether pre-modern Muslims conceptualised local history-writing as something distinct from other ways of writing history. It deals with the ways history was (relatively rarely) fitted into ideas about the classification of knowledge, with works dedicated to explaining and justifying history’s importance as a discipline, with the evidence for whether local historians saw themselves as working within a larger tradition, and with what evidence there is for readers’ appreciations of local history as a distinct type of history-writing. The chapter ends by identifying some works of local history as having been particularly influential, including al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī’s history of Nishapur and al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī’s history of Baghdad.

Pablo Neruda had complex relations to his multiple precursors. They belonged to various periods, from Dante’s Middle Ages to the present time, with Gabriela Mistral. They also belonged to varied cultural and linguistic spheres: early modern Spanish poets loomed large (Ercilla, Quevedo), but so did a number of French poets, especially Arthur Rimbaud, or the American Walt Whitman. This chapter aims to map out these spheres of influence and understand the various ways in which Neruda engaged with his precursors. He “negotiated his debts” (a phrase he used for Whitman) in commentaries, homages, and quotes, but also in complex intertextual operations. While he easily discussed the poets he admired, he also emulated them so as to find his place in certain traditions (especially in his love poetry) or used them for political purposes.