Early Modern Exchanges: Dialogues between Nations and Cultures, 1550–1750. Helen Hackett, ed. Transculturalisms, 1400–1700. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015. xiv + 262 pp. $119.95

• Published in: Renaissance Quarterly Vol. 74; no. 1; pp. 280 - 281
• Main Author: Boutcher, Warren
• Format: Journal Article Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Cambridge University Press 01.04.2021
• Subjects: Politics; Renaissance period; Transnationalism; England; Europe
• ISSN: 0034-4338; 1935-0236
• DOI: 10.1017/rqx.2020.354

Caroline Bowden's fascinating chapter shows how the nuns in English convents from the 1590s managed to balance the need to maintain their reputation for following the rule, which meant being seen to be properly enclosed, with the need to be open to exchanges with their neighbors and potential benefactors. The pre–Civil War Stuart regime looks less like a state geared to production of public political propaganda, and more able to control the London-centered press, if we compare it, as Stuart-era analysts themselves did, with the Bourbon regime post-1610 and other European states. Despite the best efforts of the introduction and the epilogue, the volume does not produce a coherent thesis about exchange as a way of reconceptualizing the culture of the period, as only a few of the chapters squarely address the issue.