In Print....

A short and occasional reminder that it isn't all available on the Web:

Alastair Bellamy writes on "The Murder of John Lambe: Crowd Violence and Popular Politics in Early 17th Century England" in Past and Present, 200 (August 2008). Also in the same issue

Robert Gerwarth explores "The Central European Counter-Revolution: Paramilitary Violence in Germany, Austria and Hungary after the Great War." In particular he looks at how the ideology of anti-semitism helped to create a "socially homogeneous Central European subculture of paramilitary activists who were linked by a determination to suppress violently those held responsible for defeat, revolution and territorial disintegration".

The November issue of Book and Magazine Collector contains an article by David Blake on "George Bellairs: the Banker of Crime" about writer Harold Blundall, author of some 40 detective novels, while Rare Book Review (Oct/Nov 2008) has an neat article by Charlotte Luxford "A Group of Their Own" on "love and loss in Virginia Woolf's intimate circle" and as a bonus there is also a feature on Terry Pratchett - "Not the End of Discworld".

Meanwhile I was intrigued to see the revival of the argument about the "sexy hand-axe thesis" in the current issue of Antiquity. The theory that the Acheulean handaxe was a surrogate used to flaunt stoneage masculinity, and therefore played a key role in natural selection was first controversially proposed M Kohn & S Mithen, in an article "Handaxes: Products of Sexual selection?" Antiquity 73 (199) 518-526. Now Anna Jane Machin has given the pot a fresh stir with a fresh look at this theory "The Sexy Handaxe Theory" with a rejoinder by Steve Mithen.
Expect sales of Antiquity to rocket, centre-folds of Phil Harding, and the re-opening of the Norfolk flint mines at Grimes Graves as soon as the tabloids catch onto it...