For most of his career, David Cannadine has taught British history in the United States. He has also written about the history of the United States, notably in his biography of Andrew Mellon. His interest in Anglo-American perceptions and perspectives is both long-standing and lived: few scholars can match his transatlantic air miles. This essay takes as its subject someone for whom the United States was also a major part of their life, and an abiding source of fascination – Geoffrey Crowther. Crowther is now best known for his remarkable seventeen and a half years editing The Economist, starting ‘on the night of Munich’ by repeatedly revising the leader ‘as the reports came in’. This role was, however, only one of many he played: ‘economist, journalist, businessman, educationalist and chairman of major Government committees’, he was at one point on the board of more than forty companies. His journalism was not confined to his work at The Economist: he wrote extensively for the News Chronicle. He was active in Chatham House and briefly directed the National Institute for Economic and Social Research. He broadcast and lectured extensively; he worked for various ministries during the Second World War alongside his editorship; he chaired the Central Advisory Council for Education (1956–60), the Committee on Consumer Credit (1968–71), and the Royal Commission on the Constitution (1969–72). Through this hugely energetic life ran his ‘unvarying concern for Anglo-American relations’.

Gentlemen,

I Receiv’d the following Account of the Method and Success of inoculating the Small-Pox in New-England, from a Person there, of great Learning and Probity, who desir’d his Name might be conceal’d; having no other View, than a charitable Inclination of doing Good to the World. It seemed to him (as I must freely own it does to me) a Matter of great Importance to the Welfare of Mankind; and if you, Gentlemen, shall be in the same Sentiment, I have no doubt, but it will find your Favour and Encouragement.

Altho’ this Practice of ingrafting the Small-Pox has been used from Time immemorial among the Circassians, and for many Years past in the Levant, yet it is a new Thing in these Parts of Europe, and still more so in America: And as all new Discoveries, however rational in themselves, and beneficial to Mankind, are receiv’d at first with Opposition, none has met with greater than this in New-England. A vast Number of honest People quarrel’d with it upon religious Scruples; and they were strongly supported by the Physicians of the Place, for Reasons of a very different Kind, which it is not at all necessary to mention. But as Truth is mighty, and will at last prevail, the great and surprising Success of this Practice, has convinc’d every reasonable Adversary, and silenc’d the most obstinate.

The study of romance and the literary-critical analysis of plot have suffered similarly from intellectual snobbery. Romance has sometimes been seen as what happens when plot is privileged over other features of narrative; in such scholarship one gets the impression that more ‘serious’ genres find the balance between action, characterisation, motivation, description, and commentary far more successfully. Elizabeth Dipple argues that ‘plot currently has no strong place in the pantheon of acceptable literary terms’, tracing an unease with the concept back to a Romantic sensibility, one increasingly concerned with celebrating the organic, or unique, in poetry and prose. As Peter Brooks writes in his influential Reading for the Plot,

Inherent to the disdain described by Dipple, Brooks, and others is a strangely divergent assessment of plot. Plot is widely recognised as essentially the intention of narrative: it is the reason events happen, and it is through the temporal experience of plot that meaning is made and generated by and in the reader. One might go further and say that plot is narrative: there is no narrative without events happening in time, even if those events are just thoughts or observations; these events are plot.

Sir Tristrem, a late thirteenth-century English poet's translation of Tomas of Britain's late twelfh-century Tristran, is the only Middle English poem to transmit the story of Tristan and Iseult. It survives uniquely in the Auchinleck manuscript (National Library of Scotland, Advocates’ MS 19.2.1), the great vernacular compilation produced in London in the 1330s. Dating from about 1290, Sir Tristrem is also the earliest stanzaic romance in Middle English, composed in an intricate eleven-line stanza that remains all but unique to the poem. Sir Tristrem also has the honor of being the frst Middle English romance to be printed in its own critical edition, that edited by Sir Walter Scott (1804). Sir Tristrem's unexampled profle, in fact, extends to many aspects of the poem itself, and particularly in the realm of translatio. As an immediate – but very liberated – translation of Tomas of Britain's Tristran, Sir Tristrem takes evident pleasure in radically recalibrating his source, and acquires much of its charm (and notoriety) in challenging, if not dismantling, the very idea of romance fction, a discourse which from its beginnings pitted the ‘external’ demands of historical events (even if invented ones) against the equally compelling demands of a subject's inner life, where we see desire itself exerting its secret force on the narrative, and on the fates of lovers.

South of Bonn at the western edge of the Siebengebirge range, the Drachenfels entices the tourist with a panoramic view of the Lower Middle Rhine Valley. Looking south from the modern viewing platform one can see the Laach Lake volcano, the eruption of which in the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene caused massive ecological disruption throughout the Rhine basin. Above loom the ruins of the twelfth-century Castle Drachenfels, while below barges ply their way up and down the Rhine, Europe's busiest waterway. And to the north, beyond the neogothic Schloss Drachenburg, the Lower Rhine conurbation fans out into the distance.

In addition to the view, an aura of legend draws tourists to the Drachenfels. According to tradition, it was here that Siegfried slew the dragon Fafnir and bathed in his blood, becoming all but invincible save for the spot on his back where an errant linden leaf fatefully landed. As with so many traditions, the association of Siegfried with the Drachenfels is of relatively modern provenance, having been first documented in 1818. Those early decades of the nineteenth century were a time when the site captured the European Romantic imagination.

Like a riddle reluctant to surrender its solution, this book has been long in gestation. Its origins extend back to 2015, when the authors performed at the conference The European Salon: Nineteenth-Century Salonmusik the cipher-laden FAE Sonata for violin and piano (1853), a collaborative effort by Albert Dietrich, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms to honour Joseph Joachim. It is a singular work, with shifting moods shaped by the contributors’ personalities – the brooding introspection of Dietrich, adamantine assertions of the young Brahms, and baffling Eusebius-Florestan pairings of late Schumann. When Joachim first read the sonata with Clara Schumann, he identified the authorships of all four movements and recognized their two quintessential ciphers – FAE, for ‘frei aber einsam’ (‘free but lonely’), his personal motto, and its transposed inversion, G-sharp-E-A, for Gis-e-la von Arnim, daughter of Bettina von Arnim and source of his romantic infatuation.

The Schumann circle was just one group of musicians who manipulated ciphers to practise musical cryptography, the art of concealing messages in compositions through correspondences between pitches and letters of the alphabet. These encrypting enterprises reflected enduring traditions: the experiments of Franco-Flemish composers with solmization syllables during the Renaissance; the adoption by the Bachs and legions of later Bachians of B-flat, A, C and B-natural to ‘sign’ the Thomaskantor's surname; the French practice of honouring Haydn, Fauré and others through specialized keys that transformed their letters into musical motives; and the cryptic art of the Russian polystylist Alfred Schnittke, who elevated cipher composition by overlaying onto his Third Symphony (1981) a veritable catalogue of composers’ names, like pieces of a composite puzzle about the history of Western music.

African history presents significant challenges in determining its narratives, particularly in the postcolonial context where former colonies strive for autonomy. Since the nineteenth century, white writers have predominantly shaped African historiography, often sidelining Black scholars and marginalizing African perspectives. A reconstruction of history grounded in African cosmologies reveals the cultural contradictions between Africa and the West. Through futuristic fiction and fantasy, subaltern voices find platforms to reshape their narratives. This article reinterprets temporality, space, and memory through the lenses of two marginalized mythical female protagonists in Akwaeke Emezi's Freshwater and Nnedi Okorafor's Remote Control. By reconceptualizing these elements, Africanfuturist works challenge colonial paradigms in historiography and facilitate a rewriting of history from an African perspective.

Within the colonizer-colonized dichotomy, African history is written with bias towards the Western narrative. The dichotomous relation between colonizer/colonized suggests a ‘violent hierarchy’ as Jacques Derrida argues, ‘one of the two terms governs the other (axiologically, logically, etc.), or has the upper hand. To deconstruct the opposition, first of all, is to overturn the hierarchy at a given moment’ (1981, 41). Futurist writing envisages possibilities of overturning the hierarchy, proving equal ability of the oppressed. As Derrida proposes, only a new concept which is not included in the previous regime can overturn the binary hierarchy (42), Africanfuturist writings create narratives beyond existing frameworks while deconstructing colonial hegemony. To deconstruct established paradigms, Derrida locates the limitations of existing definitions through the concept of différance. By ‘broaching alienation’ without resorting to further ‘reappropriation,’ he renders what once seemed impossible attainable (Derrida 1976, 143).

After the Foire Saint-Laurent, Francisque made his way to London to join a new troupe led (again) by de Grimberghs. The French were the first actors to appear at John Potter's newly-built theatre, as the Daily Courant announced on 15 December 1720: ‘At the New Theatre in the Haymarket, (between Little Suffolk Street and James Street) which is now completely finished, will be acted French Comedies, as soon as the rest of the actors arrive from Paris.’ What was generally referred to as ‘The new French Theatre’ was built on the site of The King's Head Inn in the Haymarket, almost opposite the King's Theatre (or Opera House); it was the third public theatre in the West End, but never had a full licence (or royal patent). The company again included the Pierrot Roger who both acted and danced with Mlle Deschaliers de Vaurenville. The season opened on 29 December with La Fille à la mode, ou le badaud de Paris. This must have been the original version of the Barbier comedy that had been adapted and performed in Francisque's first London season as Le Parisien Dupé dans Londres.

The company's third performance was Regnard's La Foire de Saint-Germain, the opening play of Francisque's first London season. One of Francisque's comic travesty afterpieces, Arlequin Dame Alison ou Le Carillon, was given on 3 February following Molière's L’Avare. Once again, scarcely any cast lists were published; Francisque was mentioned only twice in the press, and never in the glowing terms of previous visits. After just four weeks, on 21 January, the London Journal reported an ominous rumour: ‘’Tis said the Company of French Comedians, newly arrived from Paris, are preparing to return home for want of Encouragement; neither his Majesty, nor any of the Royal Family, having been, as yet, to countenance their Performances.’

One of the defining elements of fifteenth-century Bohemian culture, including both liturgy and music, was the changes brought about by the Hussite revolution that followed the death and martyrdom of theologian and reformer Jan Hus in July 1415. These changes were culturally important to the Czech national identity in both the medieval period and much later, having far-reaching consequences that crossed geographic, language, and temporal boundaries. Jan Hus was born ca. 1370–72, in Husinec in southern Bohemia and by 1390 was enrolled at the new university in Prague, founded in 1348 by Charles IV, where Hus would later work. He was a prolific preacher and author, writing religious tracts and treatises, sermons, and letters in both Czech and Latin in which he denounced the moral failings he saw in the church clergy. František Šmahel notes that “while Hus deserves credit for the development of Czech preaching and religious-studies terminology, he was not himself among the pioneers of liturgy in the vernacular language.” Hus's writings, along with those of the earlier English reformer John Wycliffe, led to religious dissention, and in November 1414 Hus was invited to a council convened in Constance. At the Council of Constance, Hus refused to recant his writings and teachings and was tried in June 1415. He was finally condemned on the grounds of heresy on July 6, 1415 and burned at the stake the same day. Celebration of Hus's life and death presents a dichotomy: that of the heretic martyr. Candace Lines argues that martyrdom is a subjective concept and that the “idea of martyrdom presumes a situation of profound, literally deadly struggle.

Original Arab art music in Israel is a relatively new phenomenon. Until recently, the practice of Arab music was largely based on very old and rich traditions of folk music and on established repertoires of modern Arab art music that first developed in Egypt in the first half of the twentieth century and later in other Arab metropolises. Over the past three decades, a new scene of Arab art music has been developing in Israel. This development is closely related to the opening of Arab music departments in formally accredited institutions beginning in the 1990s, most especially the Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem. For the Palestinian Arab community in Israel, the formal institutionalization of Arab music education legitimated music as an (hitherto often frowned upon) occupational choice. This institutionalization was accompanied by the development of further infrastructure that legitimated music as a profession, such as high-profile festivals and series of Arab art music concerts at respectable venues. Musical collaborations between Arab and Jewish musicians centered on Arab art music, or on East- West fusions that formed part of the burgeoning market for “world music,” have also enhanced the cultural capital associated with professional music making. As of yet, this scene has not been well researched, a lacuna related to a historical disinterest in urban Arab music created by Israel's Palestinian Arab community.

At a time when in Paris there were just three licensed theatres and the seasonal theatres of the fairgrounds, London theatregoers in 1734–5 had an ‘embarrassment of riches’, with performances from six professional companies. As early as July 1734 The London Evening Post announced the impressive roster:

This chapter situates the career of the pianist Gu Shengying (1937–67) within the shifting political landscape of China in the 1950s and 1960s. It explores how her career trajectory was influenced by the political upheaval at the time, and how her life was shaped by the values of Maoist feminism. The chapter shines a light on the professional development of women pianists in China, especially their performance aesthetics and styles. This approach, set against the dynamic development of feminism in China, provides perspectives for more geographically decentred and historically contingent feminist studies.

As Ming-Yen Lee has observed, ‘in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong's advocacy showed his openness and support for art’. Richard Kraus adds that ‘cultural leaders recognized that prioritizing the piano would lead to quicker success compared to the longer endeavour of developing orchestras and vocalists’. Kraus's exploration of the intersection of music, politics, and society in mid-twentieth-century China provides the historical-political context to the development of music and art. This period, marked by cultural reforms, fluctuating freedoms, and radical political movements, profoundly influenced the role of Western music and pianos in society. These decades saw Western music initially promoted and later scrutinised, until the radicalism of the Cultural Revolution led to a ban on Western music and the persecution of musicians. Against this backdrop, the piano became a symbol of both cultural aspiration and political contention.

After the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the Americas, the spiritual beliefs of pre-Columbian civilizations and European communities blended together in a melting pot of new practices that still form part of Latin American culture today. This process of syncretism or cultural fusion led to the formation of a unique pantheon of supernatural entities from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, which enchanted the imagination of the populations of colonial America. Although “the Spanish policy of conversion to Christianity,” as Pedro Carrasco states, attempted to “extirpate the pre-Hispanic religion” from the minds of the original populations through the systematic destruction of temples and statues, or the persecution of cults and practitioners who continued to venerate and perform ancestral rituals contrary to Catholic precepts, many of these ceremonies and practices survived clandestinely, in the shadow of the Catholic Church and its inquisitorial process (1975: 198). Thus, a complex symbiosis of pre-Columbian and European rituals arose, “a double religious system” where familial and intimate rites of Indigenous communities dialogued with the public ceremonies of Catholicism, where ancient goddesses and gods representing elemental forces of nature had to be disguised under the image of Catholic saints on occasion (199–200).

It was during this process of colonization that Mesoamerican entities, such as nahuals and other tonal animals, were displaced from the cultural imaginary. Nahuals are witches or supernatural beings from Mesoamerican folklore whose main attribute is the ability to transform into an animal or change form at will. The etymology of this Nahuatl word – as scholars of pre-Columbian Mexico, such as Alfredo López Austin or Alfonso Villa Rojas, claim – attests to this unique quality: the one who hides, the one who disguises himself.

INTRODUCTION

The document edited below relates to the trials of twelve accused witches in 1659, part of a wider panic in the Alloa area. It belongs with a much larger group of documents that were published in the companion volume to this one, Scottish Witchcraft Trials. It was omitted from that volume because the National Records of Scotland regarded the manuscript as in a fragile state, ‘unfit for production’, and the editors were unable to consult it. However, the NRS have since conserved it and made it available. The edition below should thus be read alongside the other documents about this case in the companion volume.

The context for these trials was a local panic over witchcraft that arose in Alloa, near Stirling, in May 1658. Numerous witches were accused, and there were four executions in Edinburgh in August 1658. A second phase of the panic began shortly afterwards, and drew in further suspects from the town of Stirling and from the parish of Kippen to the west of the town. This second phase led to twelve trials in a circuit court in Stirling in March 1659. The document edited below was written in connection with these trials.

The document is a long roll of paper, endorsed ‘Sterling Dittayes 1659’. A ‘dittay’, or indictment, listed the accused person's alleged crimes. The roll contains complete or fairly complete dittays (in order of appearance) for Bessie Stevenson, Isobel Bennett, Magdalen Blair and Katherine Black, and summary dittays for Elizabeth (Elspeth) Black, Barbara Erskine, Elizabeth Crockett, James Kirk, Isobel Keir, Margaret Gourlay, Margaret Harvie and Janet Miller.

Nach uns das all––Das innere Team kennt keine Pause (After Us, the Universe––The Inner Team Never Quits, premiere 2017) is the final installment of German Swiss feminist author and playwright Sibylle Berg's wildly energetic and derisive anti-heroine theatrical trilogy, preceded by Es sagt mir nichts, das sogenannte Draußen (The So-Called Outside Means Nothing to Me, premiere 2014) and Und dann kam Mirna (And then came Mirna, premiere 2016). Directed by Sebastian Nubling and choreographed by Tabea Martin, all three plays celebrated their premiere at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin. Broadly, these are plays about three young women––intelligent, independent, and ambitious––who cannot find success in their various endeavors, no matter how much they try. Despite this premise, their failure is for the most part comical rather than tragic (or even melodramatic). In Nach uns das All the protagonists, Lina, Minna, and Gemma, have had enough of this world and its AfD-Trump- Putin-Orban fascist, patriarchal nightmare-turned-reality and decide to join a mission to Mars where they will build a new matriarchal society. In chorus, they scoff: “Auf Wiedersehen Dings, ah, Patriarchat!” (Goodbye to that thing there, um, patriarchy!). But trouble ensues when they must find male partners to join them in order to secure the future of their new civilization on the Red Planet. Was not the very aim of their escape to Mars to live peacefully without men? The play unravels as a drawn-out casting event for new male partners. In the end, these women are once again unsuccessful, and the space shuttle blasts off without them.