Democracy in Europe: Taking inspiration from the heated discussions that preceded the birth of federal government in the United States, Larry Siedentop investigates what we can reasonably expect and what we have to fear from a united Europe. Despite the profound hostility between skeptics and proponents of a united Europe, the outlines of serious public debate have barely been sketched. While skeptics talk of national sovereignty and invoke the spirit of wartime resistance, Europhiles embrace the idealism of eurozones and sound economic management. Larry Siedentop examines whether representative government is feasible across the vast physical scale and human diversity of Europe. He explores the threat to local autonomy and individual freedom, and he anatomizes the widely different political cultures of Britain, France, and Germany. He balances throughout an understanding of the great theorists of supranational government, especially Montesquieu and De Tocqueville, with a deep, though critical, appreciation of contemporary Europe. Siedentop argues that it is only on a publicly discussed and commonly agreed upon constitution that one can hope to build a democratic Europe equal to the pressures it will have to withstand. Larry Siedentop
British Radio Security and Intelligence, 1939-43: There is no previous monograph article on the Radio Security Service [RSS], the British organisation established to intercept the wireless messages of enemy spies during World War Two. This gap can be filled by drawing on private papers and documents in the National Archives from MI5, Bletchley Park, the War Office and the Admiralty. The official historians F.H. Hinsley and C.A.G. Simkins praised RSS efficiency, but MI5 records suggest that while RSS voluntary interceptors were competent, the same was not always true of some other operatives. The most intellectually outstanding part of the Radio Security Service was its Analysis Bureau, which became part of Section V of the Secret Intelligence Service [SIS] as Vw when most of RSS was taken over by Section VIII of SIS in 1941. Under Hugh Trevor-Roper's leadership Vw produced analytical reports on Axis Intelligence activities, but Felix Cowgill, the head of Section V, sought to restrict the circulation of these reports and the decrypts of enemy secret service messages which they analysed. The diaries of MI5's Guy Liddell suggest that Cowgill's behaviour was a catalyst for the unsuccessful attempt by MI5 to take over Section V of SIS during 1942. By 1943 Stewart Menzies, the Chief of SIS, was so impressed by Vw that he made it independent of Cowgill as the Radio Intelligence Service. By the end of 1943 MI5 and RSS interception also achieved a better understanding of their mutual roles. But there was a potential threat to the achievements of British radio security and intelligence from the reports of the Cambridge spies to Moscow. 10.1093/ehr/cen361 EDR Harrison
The Old English Bede: English Ideology or Christian Instruction?: The Old English Bede (OEB), a vernacular version of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica (HE), was written sometime before c.900, possibly at King Alfred's behest. It adds little to Bede's text but makes substantial excisions and abbreviations, removing much historical narrative, many quoted documents and most references to theological controversy. It is often argued that Bede provided an ideological blueprint for the creation of a single English kingdom in the tenth century, but the parts of the HE upon which this interpretation depends are among those omitted from the OEB. This is significant, since there are indications that the OEB was more widely known that the HE in the tenth century. It seems that the translator was not concerned with promoting an English ideology. Rather, he appears to have aimed to produce a text focussed on the inculcation of virtue through examples. This interpretation of the OEB has significant implications for our understanding of the significance of Englishness' and of whether it was believed that the English were a chosen people' who enjoyed a special relationship' with God. In turn, this demands reconsideration of the factors underlying the emergence and endurance of the English kingdom. 10.1093/ehr/cep345 George Molyneaux