The plot of Richard E. Grant's 2005 autobiographical film Wah-Wah was detailed by the writer-director himself in his initial pitch to obtain backing for the project to his potential producer Hilary Heath at a lunch meeting at London's entertainment-industry watering hole, The Ivy, on October 14, 1999.

Matthew Paris was the literary heir of Roger of Wendover, whom he spent around a decade with at St Albans.1 Matthew inherited Roger's view of the vassalage, his use of parallels and contrasts, and his inclination towards exaggeration and the use of hyperbole. However, Matthew was far more than a mere successor and continuator. He extended the condemnation of the papacy and the English clergy well beyond Roger's scope. Matthew's condemnation of the nature of the Anglo-Papal relationship reached unprecedented heights, and his view of King Henry III bordered on the treasonous.

All this came to the forefront as Matthew reported on the reception of Legate Otto de Tonengo, cardinal-deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere. Otto arrived in England in the summer of 1237, and did not depart until January 1241. Matthew viewed the mere anticipation of Otto's arrival as a catalyst for the kingdom becoming ‘divided and dismantled’ (‘divisum et dissipatum’). However, Matthew did not only blame the papacy for this rupture; forces within England shared in the blame.

Matthew viewed the reception of the legate from the point of view of the English dissidents – those who declined to welcome the legate and to acknowledge his authority. This, as will be seen below, was likely an illusion, in the sense that Matthew employed the dissident perspective to engineer a division within the English community that did not exist or only existed on the fringes of the English polity. This dissident perspective facilitated his attack on the king and the English prelates, whose acceptance of the legate he regarded as a voluntary act of unnatural submission.

IT IS OFTEN said that the Ring was written backwards and composed forwards. This is not far from the truth, but the reality is, as always, more complicated than the quip. It is true that Wagner originally wrote the text for a single opera, Siegfrieds Tod, the first version of what would ultimately become Götterdämmerung. He then realized that Siegfrieds Tod could not stand alone, so he wrote a prequel, Der junge Siegfried, which in its final form became Siegfried. That did not solve the problem, either. Audiences would still have needed a good deal of background information to make sense of what was going on, and imparting this verbally was apt to be confusing or tedious and would carry too little emotional weight; as Wagner wrote to Liszt, “a work of art … can only make its rightful impression if the poetic intent is fully presented to the senses in every one of its important moments.”1 Events conveyed through narrative would not work well with Wagner's evolving language of musicaldramatic motifs and their development, either, as Carl Dahlhaus explains:

As a consequence of setting itself up as a bountiful smuggling warehouse, the Isle of Man, by association, was embroiled in another questionable trade, that of slavery. Both these contentious enterprises needed to be fully addressed before the Island could move towards a more befitting future. As a result, by the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth it had been through major reforms and restructuring. It was at a crossroads in its economic history. With changes being needed, there were new and welcome monetary benefits coming from two different but innovative revenue drivers – new residents and summer visitors – which would give a considerable boost to the local commerce and the British government's exchequer.

Throughout this time any attempts for fiscal or political reforms from the Manx citizens’ perspective were firmly rejected. Constitutional issues inevitably went hand in hand with financial ones, and Britain was concerned that any alteration to the establishment of the self-elected House of Keys would lead to requests for local control of public finances as well. Indeed, the Keys themselves were not prepared to alter their ancient self-elected status. And there was always the fear of possible total annexation by Britain which acted as a restraint on any agitation for revolutionary modifications. But there were emerging demands for financial protection and political remodelling. Through the well-co-ordinated work of two very different sets of activists there would be the beginnings of a conservative determination to protect the pockets of consumers of taxed luxury goods taking place alongside a radical determination to bring about the greatly needed reform of the House of Keys.

In colonial Africa, coffee was generally a smallholder crop, grown by peasant households on communally owned or, sometimes, privatized land. Angola was among the few African countries where coffee became a settler crop grown on medium and large estates. The reasons for smallholder dominance were fundamentally economic. Coffee production on estates involved expensive overheads and salary costs but offered few economies of scale. Meanwhile, smallholders required very little capital, as they had access to land at little or no cost, could rely on unpaid family labour, and used cheap hand tools to grow and process coffee (see Chapter 2). In many African regions, settlers played a role in the early development of coffee cultivation, often experimenting with imported arabica cultivars. But for political, environmental, or economic reasons they often withdrew from coffee growing before African production became globally significant. As William Clarence-Smith has explained, settlers were typically ‘opportunistic producers, most likely to turn away from coffee when expenditure was especially high’, as happened when coffee prices fell or when colonial governments banned compulsory labour, forcing planters to pay market-rate wages to plantation workers. However, in settler-elite economies like Angola, the Belgian Congo, and Kenya, colonial governments proved willing to intervene in African land and labour markets to ensure the survival of a foreign planter class.

Tis chapter analyses the twentieth-century transition from smallholding to settler agriculture in northern Angola, where the share of European estates in coffee production jumped from at best one-quarter in 1900 to approximately two-thirds in 1958.

This volume forms the second element of the fourth volume of the new history of the Isle of Man, produced under the auspices of the Centre for Manx Studies at the University of Liverpool. It covers the period from the early fifteenth century to 1830 and is focused on social and economic aspects of the Island's history. Companion volumes covering the evolution of the natural landscape (edited by Richard Chiverrell and Geoffrey Thomas), the medieval period (edited by Seán Duffy and Harold Mytum), and the modern period (edited by John Belchem) have previously been published by Liverpool University Press.

As will immediately be clear, this volume and its companion are a collaborative effort involving a large group of scholars from the Island and beyond. In some cases, their contributions are worthy of particular note as we record with sadness that they did not live to enjoy the publication of their work: William Cain, Ulla Corkill, Nigel Crowe, Jennifer Platten, J.R. Roscow, R.L. Thomson and Nigel Yates. This preface also allows for recognition to be given to those who have helped coordinate the efforts of the contributors, especially amongst the editorial team: Professor Harold Mytum has deftly maintained the momentum of the project overall; Dr Mike Hoy has taken particular trouble to support the development of the Island-based contributions and played a pivotal role in coordinating support for the project there, including working with Charles Guard (formerly Administrator of the Manx Heritage Foundation, now Culture Vannin, whose generosity and commitment to the project is also acknowledged) on the identification of the extensive range of illustrations which support the text and ensuring the necessary permissions were secured;

It has been suggested that the year 1660 marked the beginning of a period during which the Manx people were ‘almost constantly in collision with their Stanley rulers’. According to A.W. Moore, a principal cause of this conflict was the Stanley policy of attempting to convert the customary tenure of the Island into leasehold.1 This is, however, something of an oversimplification of the history of the later years of the Stanley lordship, in which the problem of land tenure in the Island and its eventual resolution at the beginning of the eighteenth century in the Act of Settlement were important elements, though only one part of a more complex picture. The early years of the restored Stanley regime under Charles, eighth earl of Derby, were dominated by the earl's determination to bring to justice the leader of the rebellion against the authority of Earl James and Countess Charlotte in 1651. Like the events of the 1640s, the trial of William Christian had considerable, long-term repercussions for the Island and its lord. Perhaps few were more significant than the apparent growth in the influence of the Keys in the course of the seventeenth century, partly in response to these incidents and no doubt partly encouraged by contemporary events in England and elsewhere. The reaction of the governor and other officers to an evident change in the dynamics of politics within the Island was equally crucial in shaping the future development of the Island's government. In addition, changing trading patterns and restrictive practices outside the Isle of Man had a fundamental impact on the Island's economy after the 1680s.

Henry Sharpe's journal was begun in 1830, the last year of the reign of George IV, when Henry was twenty-seven and living with his sister Catharine in New Ormond Street. In ‘a spirit of youthful enthusiasm and resolution, a young man takes stock of himself and considers his prospects’. He had just started his own business in the City of London, H & D Sharpe, in partnership with his youngest brother Dan, as merchants trading with Portugal from their office at Pinners’ Hall, Broad Street. We are gradually introduced to his family and their circle of friends who reappear in the journal over the years. However, his initial enthusiasm for the journal petered out after a few months and it was not until 1840 that he returned to it, by then married with a growing family, living “over the shop” in a house in Broad Street Buildings. This time he maintained the journal until 1847.

The journal covers a period of only nine years, but the text is rich with observations about national and international events, the great political and social concerns of the time, and commentary on life in London. In the ten years between Henry's first entry in 1830 and his resumption in 1840 there had been momentous developments: parliamentary reform, the abolition of slavery, the destruction by fire of both the Palace of Westminster and the Royal Exchange, and of course Queen Victoria began her reign. The Brunels and the Stephensons were at the height of their powers, providing the machinery that continued to power the Industrial Revolution; the new railways, steamboats, waterworks, gasworks, and the Thames Tunnel, provide the backdrop to Henry's world in the 1840s.

Vol. IV

5 January. Sunday. I have not been able to begin my year till today, but I ought to begin by dating it Hampstead, where we have now been living for three years and a half and every day more pleased with our move here. The four children, Ellen, Harry, Kate and Sutton, are all in excellent health, each a picture in his way; and Eliza too is stronger than she has been for a long time. I am much pleased too, at our having succeeded in getting to some extent out of the narrow Presbyterian set, which we started in life amongst; very worthy people, but very limited and bigoted in their self-lauding liberality. Our great friend of all is King, the Puseyite curate who is in and out of the house at all hours of the day; Cockerell the Royal Academician, most accomplished and amiable gentleman; Evans the surgeon, a high churchman, and well informed man; the Kilburns where the young men are very agreeable; and just now the Wings have called on Eliza, but we hardly know them yet. Altogether a very pleasant change from the former Hampstead tea parties, the very essence of dullness. My own health is most excellent, the riding outside in all weathers agrees capitally with me; and every winter I have less of the rheumatism which troubled me so the last winter in Broad Street.

Our business continues to flourish … not exactly at this moment when it is dull, but comparing one year with another, the increase is very perceptible; and I hope Dan's present visit to Portugal and Spain will do us good. Our office has increased to 6 clerks working hard and costing us four hundred a year.