In the space of barely fifteen years, the history of masculinity has become an important dimension of social and cultural history. John Tosh has been in the forefront of the field since the beginning, having written A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England (1999), and co-edited Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britainsince 1800 (1991). Here he brings together nine key articles which he has written over the past ten years. These pieces document the aspirations of the first contributors to the field, and the development of an agenda of key historical issues which have become central to our conceptualising of gender in history. Later essays take up the issue of periodisation and the relationship of masculinity to other historical identities and structures, particularly in the context of the family. The last two essays, published for the first time, approach British imperial history in a fresh way. They argue that the empire needs to be seen as a specifically male enterprise, answering to masculine aspirations and insecurities. This leads to illuminating insights into the nature of colonial emigration and the popular investment in empire during the era the New Imperialism.  

Product Description: In this introduction to the practical application of History, John Tosh persuasively argues we are in danger of missing history's principal contribution. Using topical examples from the Iraq War to AIDs to globalization, this text shows how history can provide the basis for an informed and critical understanding of our society...read more

Product Description: A follow-up to the bestselling The Pursuit of History, this Reader brings together the reflections of a number of major historians on the nature and purpose of their craft. They illuminate the different governing assumptions - political, social, personal - that have sustained these leading practitioners in their studies, and show how different influences and methodologies have impacted on them...read more

Product Description: Domesticity is generally treated as an aspect of women’s history. In this fascinating study of the nineteenth-century middle class, John Tosh shows how profoundly men’s lives were conditioned by the Victorian ideal and how they negotiated its many contradictions...read more

This famous study examines important questions about historians and their work - Why do we study history? How do we construct our knowledge of the past? What are the limitations of historical evidence? and What different kinds of history are being written today?The subjects covered in the book are difficult and sometimes controversial and John Tosh has proved himself an admirable guide in this justly-celebrated work. His cool eye and lively pen make the issues clear and involving; and he makes the reader vividly aware of just how far our historical knowledge is conditioned by the character of the sources and by the methods of the historians who work on them.

Product Description: Politics and war are crucial to the history of masculinity, yet have been neglected in the emergent historiography of masculinity. This book opens up new avenues in gender history by mapping masculinity's part in making revolution, waging war, building nations, and constructing welfare states...read more

Product Description: This Reader brings together the key writings of the major historians of the last century. They illuminate the political, social and personal assumptions which have governed and sustained historical practice and theory. The book also brings into focus the key historiographic trends since World War Two...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Product Description: This work is not the first to consider the political history of an African stateless society, but it is the first to do so in a span which covers both the pre-colonial and colonial eras. Its subject is the Langi, one of Uganda's major peoples...read more