The Black Prince of Florence by Catherine Fletcher (Bodley Head, £20). In 1519, the death of Lorenzo, last legitimate heir of the Medici Family, seemed likely to disrupt a virtually uninterrupted 303-year rulership of Florence. Alessandro was the illegitimate son of a “half-negro” slave who would become the first Medici Prince of Florence. Fletcher charts Alessandro’s meteoric rise and bloody fall while bringing Renaissance Italy into sharp focus by deftly contrasting its simultaneously sublime and visceral natures, drawing us into an intriguing, believable Florence along the way.
Broken and Betrayed by Jayne Senior (Pan, £7.99). Subtitled “The true story of the Rotherham abuse scandal by the woman who fought to expose it”, this book recounts the 14-year struggle of Jayne Senior to protect vulnerable girls from being groomed, raped and exploited by gangs of abusive and violent men. Although the author gave detailed information about the gangs to council officers and the police, nothing was done. She makes it clear that Muslim communities need to address the problem of abusive Muslim men. Abused women must also speak out.
Purging the Empire by Matthew Fitzpatrick (Oxford University Press, £60). In 1871, as part of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, large numbers of Jesuits were expelled from Germany. Fitzpatrick’s book reveals that such uprootings were far from unusual in the period leading up to World War I. Others sent packing included thousands of Poles, lots of French-speakers following the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, and more than a few foreign-born socialists. This is a “how” and “why” book, and it turns out that not only political leaders were to blame: large sections of civil society chose to behave in decidedly uncivilised ways.
George Errington and Roman Catholic Identity in Nineteenth Century England by Serenhedd James (Oxford University Press, £65). This fascinating portrait of Errington and his times reveals a great deal about divisions and debates within English Catholicism, especially following the restoration of the hierarchy in 1850. James wisely cautions against overly neat categorisation into “old” and “new” Catholics – “unhelpful parameters” as James puts it – and rises above the purely analytical to provide a compelling narrative of the man who was pals with Newman, had his run-ins with Cardinal Wiseman, and has been sadly neglected by historians for far too long.
An Unlikely Union by Paul Moses (New York University Press, £22.99). The influx of Italian and Irish immigrants during the 19th century provided both opportunities and predicaments for New York – not least within the city’s Catholic churches. Moses argues that, eventually, the groups managed to get along tolerably well – a crucial step, as he sees it, in the process of assimilation – but there were bitter tensions along the way. Whether this tale offers lessons for rivals in present-day New York City is unclear, but it is a fascinating slice of history.
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