This chapter contextualizes the first five Italian High Fashion Shows organized by Giorgini within the cultural and commercial scenarios outlined in the previous chapters. The themes highlighted by the promotional activities that took place before 1951, including the recent Italy at Work, are here examined in the novel context of a systematized, biannual series of collective fashion showings. The Shows reinforced the definition of an ‘Italian Look’ in the early 1950s, legitimizing Italian couture further and focusing on moda boutique. This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the rhetorical strategies utilized by Giorgini to promote the Shows. In particular, it demonstrates that the use of Renaissance was modelled against prior examples of Fascist propaganda and discourses that had recently been circulating in the American press. The chapter eventually discusses Giorgini’s difficulties in overseeing the Shows and the alleged rivalry with the Parisian fashion industry, deconstructing the traditional narrative of pure competitiveness and instead highlighting collaborative relationships with his French contenders. The analysis concludes with the fifth Show, held in January 1953, by which time the Florentine events had become a set appointment in the transatlantic fashion calendar of seasonal presentations, and Italian fashion and couture exports were firmly established on the American market. The acknowledgement of the international market was by then complete and Italian dressmaking was now effectively recognised with the new term ‘Italian couture’.

The development of the community at Saint-Riquier and the building of a great church and monastery under Abbot Angilbert are described in the context of a new dynasty of kings of the Franks, the Carolingians. The emperor Charlemagne is portrayed as the great patron and supporter of the community and there are detailed descriptions of the buildings, furnishings and relics housed within them. Much of this material is asserted to be derived directly from the work of Abbot Angilbert himself. The book closes with the death of Abbot Angilbert.

The introduction explains the starting point of the book, a methodological reflection that assesses how the business vision of commissionaire Giovanni Battista Giorgini and his establishment of the Italian High Fashion Shows in Florence in 1951 have crystallised into a mythologised place in the history of Italian fashion. The text adopts the historical perspective of historian Marc Bloch’s preoccupation with origins to closely read the celebratory narrative that mythicized Giorgini in Italian fashion history until the early 2000s. It contextualises the research presented in the book with previous studies of fashion under Fascism, to highlight the continuity that exists between the regime and democracy in terms of business practices, fashion professionals and manufacturers. The chapter then presents the theoretical framework, grounded in the new business history of fashion studies and particularly on Regina Lee Blaszczyk’s work on fashion intermediaries. It outlines the need to understand the social realities of postwar Italian fashion through a detailed study of the activities situated between production and consumption, well represented by the main actors discussed in the book: the G.B. Giorgini firm, the non-profit agency Handicraft Development, Inc., its Italian branch CADMA, and other Italian fashion councils. Finally, after a critical evaluation of the primary sources discussed, especially those in the Giorgini archive in Florence, the chapter explains the book's contribution to the field of transnational history, as it rewrites a history of the cultural and commercial interactions of postwar Italy with North America within the larger configuration of the international fashion market.

The Debate on the American Revolution set out unashamedly to examine the American side of the story. It was a choice consciously made and reflected the limitations imposed on a book of this size by so large a topic and herein lies the irony, for at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, a 'new' British history has taken shape, one reconceptualised within an Atlantic world, and latterly an imperial one. Yet the history of the American Revolution has taken a curious turn. When John Adams raised the question of who would write the history of the American Revolution, he was concerned about his own reputation and fearful that Franklin and Jefferson would run away with the glory. The problem that confronts the modern historian of the Revolution is how to incorporate the vast array of actors who participated in it into a single narrative.

The final chapter explains the methodological contribution of the book in its critical reassessment of the Giorgini archive. Here, the value of the archive is acknowledged as a complementary piece in the puzzle that is the international business history of fashion in its own right, but also as an example of how a fashion professional built the documentary foundation of his legacy. With this in mind, the conclusion suggests that while recent studies have identified Giorgini’s political intentions in his efforts to promote an idea of Italian fashion abroad as a form of ‘soft power’, these should instead be seen as ‘soft power ambitions’, in line with David W. Ellwood’s conceptualisation of the term coined by Joseph S. Nye. In addition, there had been similar attempts by other organisations before and after Giorgini, who sought the patronage of influential American citizens and members of the diplomatic community to promote their Italian fashion events. The final sections list the specific contributions of each chapter and conclude by contextualising the impact of the Italian High Fashion Shows on the subsequent emergence of the ‘Italian Look’ and the international relevance of the ready-to-wear industry in the late 1970s. The chapter concludes by explaining how the Shows laid the conceptual and discursive groundwork for the industry, which helped it later move away from equating Italian fashion with transatlantic tourism and an almost folkloristic gaze.

The first book of Hariulf’s history describes the life and work of Richer (French: Riquier), patron of the abbey of St Riquier. It is set in the context of Frankish history with considerable detail about the Merovingian kings of the Franks. Hariulf’s main source is Alcuin’s life of Richer, written at the request of Angilbert, but he makes significant changes in tone and emphasis. Richer is presented as the pre-eminent noble of the Ponthieu region, who welcomes and is then converted to Christianity by two Irish missionaries. His miracles are described, together with his missionary activities in Britain and the ransoming of captives. Having selected his successor to lead the community he founded at Saint-Riquier, Richer retired to a poor dwelling in the forest to live the ascetic life, where he died. His body is moved back to the community and four successor abbots are described.

The first experience that Polish society had with the Stalinist system was in 1939–41. Under a secret clause of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of August 1939, the USSR remained neutral when Germany attacked western Poland on 1 September, and actually launched its own invasion of eastern Poland on 17 September. In July 1944 Soviet troops started approaching the territories which were under German rule. This resulted in the intensification of efforts to create Polish authorities controlled by Moscow. Thus, on 20 July a new Committee of National Liberation in Poland (known as the Lublin Committee) was set up at the request of Stalin. The Lublin Committee at first held sway over a small area of Poland occupied by the Red Army in July and August 1944. The period of the most intense development of Stalinism in Poland (1948–56) also meant deep economic transformations.

The scale of Stalinist terror in Soviet Moldavia remains virtually unknown in the west. This chapter seeks to redress the balance by focusing on the aim and timing of three mass deportations: the first organised in mid-June 1941 just ten days before the German invasion, the second in July 1949 and the third in May 1951. It discusses the causes and consequences of the mass famine of 1946–47, as well as other individual or small-scale arrests, deportations and executions. The chapter makes estimates about the overall number of political victims of the Stalinist regime in Soviet Moldavia, including their ethnic and social background. It briefly is other facets, such as anti-Soviet resistance and the rehabilitation of victims. A brief analysis of the social and ethnic composition of the victims suggests that Stalinist terror in Soviet Moldavia should not be categorised as ethnocide, but as genocide or a crime against humanity.

Challenges to the preoccupation of historians with republicanism as the prevailing ideology of the Revolution were relatively slow to appear. The relationship between slavery and representation was far too complex to be 'understood in a simple North–South frame of reference'. While not rejecting it outright, Paul Finkelman believed that it was weakened by the lack of debate in Congress about the prohibition of slavery in the 1787 Northwest Ordinance and the absence of comments in members' correspondence. Original Meanings addressed 'the politics of constitution making and the major problems of constitutional theory and institutional design that Americans had to consider when they replaced the Articles of Confederation with a true national government'; and sought to 'evaluate how much authority original meaning" or "original intention" or "understanding" should enjoy in its ongoing interpretation.'"

This chapter assesses the extent to which the Romanian Communist Party (RCP) used mass repression as a tool to eliminate opponents in the drive to consolidate power, thereby reducing Romania to subservience to the Soviet Union. It describes the coercive measures taken by the RCP to transform Romania, following the Soviet model and employing Stalinist norms and practices. There was a perceptible change in the degree of repression exercised by the communist regime in 1964. Until this penultimate year of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's rule as general secretary of the Romanian Workers' Party (RWP), a sense of terror pervaded most of adult society. For years the conventional wisdom of the political purges in the senior ranks of the RWP was that they were a response to the 'heresy' of Zionism. Recent research has shown this conclusion to be simplistic. The chapter reviews this research and presents its conclusion.

Any attempt to review the historiography of the American Revolution over more than two centuries is by any estimate presumptuous, foolhardy and overly ambitious, especially when undertaken by a Welsh-born, English and American trained historian who has the privilege of teaching early American history in what was once termed 'one of the dark corners of the land'. The author examines the historiography of the Revolution's causes and meaning, dividing them roughly into the period before and after professionalization. He explores the consequences of the Revolution as they related to the creation of the Federal Constitution, dividing these chapters into a consideration of those writing before the end of the Second World War and those writing in the post-war period taking the subject up to and including the debate over 'original intent'.