British diplomatic wives of the early nineteenth century were under increasing pressure to perform their public duties to higher standards of accountability. This article examines the embassies in Paris led by two women—Elizabeth Stuart and Harriet Granville—to ascertain how they negotiated the expectations of their post with respect to class and gender norms. Their records illustrate how new standards of state service could be set for women and how women’s hospitality work in the service of diplomacy could make it a more consultative political domain.
English popular science was more than a mid-nineteenth century phenomenon, whether defined as practical, utilitarian and comprehensible knowledge, or as a nexus of ¡deas, rhetoric and practice. All these criteria were fulfilled in four Stationers’ Company almanacs for forty years by Henry Andrews, an astronomer, mathematician, astrologer and meteorologist. Andrews employed these as instruments for an extensive campaign in the history of science education devised to acquaint working class readers with the key figures, ideas and methodologies of science.
A survey of recent writings in early-modern, largely European, diplomatic history reveals important shifts in the direction of the cultural and sociological emphasis favored by the proponents of New Diplomatic History. In turn, the shifts have brought mainstream diplomatic historians closer to other subfields – gender and class history, in particular. The trend is likely to continue.
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