Enfilade

From Profile Books:

Madeleine Pelling, Writing on the Wall: Graffiti, Rebellion, and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Britain (Profile Books, 2024), 352 pages, ISBN: 978-1800811997, £25.

What if walls could talk? For historian Madeleine Pelling, they can—if you know where to look. Hear the voices of the eighteenth century in this eye-opening new history of Britain’s most tumultuous period, told through its graffiti.

A brilliant new cultural history of the long eighteenth century, Writing on the Wall is told through the marks its citizens left behind, bringing into focus lost voices from the highest to the lowest in society. From the centre of London to the islands of the Caribbean, Pelling goes in search of graffiti, evidence of how ordinary people experienced the world-changing events that defined their lives—from political prisoners to sex workers, homesick sailors, Romantic poets, and the artisans of the industrial revolution. Here are lives, loves, triumphs, and failures, scratched into the walls of prisons and latrines, chalked up on doors, and etched into windows. The names of their creators may be lost to history, but together they tell the real story of Britain’s most rebellious and transformative century.

Madeleine Pelling is a cultural historian, author and broadcaster. She holds a PhD from the University of York and has held research fellowships at the universities of Yale, Edinburgh, and Manchester.  She is co-host of History Hit’s After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal, a podcast that shines a light on the shadier corners of the past and which brings a rigorous historical lens to folklore and true crime. She is also a regular contributor for television, most recently for Titanic in Colour (Channel 4, 2025), Mayhem! Secret Lives of the Georgian Kings (2025), Queens that Changed the World (Channel 4, 2023), and Who Do You Think You Are? Australia (Warner Bros, 2023). Her words appear in The Guardian, The Independent, BBC History Magazine, and History Today.

From W.W. Norton:

Lee McColgan, with a foreword by Roy Underhill, A House Restored: The Tragedies and Triumphs of Saving a New England Colonial (New York: Countryman Press, 2024), 224 pages, ISBN: ‎978-1682688366, $25.

Shop Class as Soulcraft meets A Place of My Own in this lyrical meditation of a woodworker steadfastly repairing a historic home.

Old houses share their secrets only if they survive. Trading the corporate ladder for a stepladder, Lee McColgan commits to preserving the ramshackle Loring House, built in 1702, using period materials and methods and on a holiday deadline. But his enchantment withers as he discovers the massive repairs it needs. A small kitchen fix reveals that the structure’s rotten frame could collapse at any moment. In a bathroom, mold appears and spreads. He fights deteriorating bricks, frozen pipes, shattered windows, a punctured foundation, and even an airborne chimney cap while learning from a diverse cast of preservationists, including a master mason named Irons, a stone whisperer, and the Window Witch. But can he meet his deadline before family and friends arrive, or will it all come crashing down? McColgan’s journey expertly examines our relationship to history through the homes we inhabit, beautifully articulating the philosophy of preserving the past to find purpose for the future.

Lee McColgan has worked on Boston’s Old North Church, Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, and other buildings. His work has appeared in Architectural Digest, The Boston Globe, and The Wall Street Journal. He lives with his wife in the Loring House in Pembroke, Massachusetts.

From Stolpe Publishing:

Clive Aslet and Frank Salmon, eds., Royalty and Architecture: Visions and Ambitions of European Monarchs and Nobility (Stockholm: Bokförlaget Stolpe, 2024), ‎250 pages, ISBN: ‎978-9189425958, £35.

It is well known that, throughout history, royalty have built castles, fortresses, and entire cities. However, less consideration has been given to individual monarchs who pursued an interest in architecture and in some cases acted as architects. Recent research on Gustav III of Sweden (1746–1792) has shown that he was in fact the architect for a number of important building projects. George III of England (1760–1820) also had a great interest in architecture, and his drawings and sketches have been preserved. Louis XIV of France (1638–1715) was greatly involved in shaping the palace and garden at Versailles. And Stanislaw II August’s (1732–1798) interest in architectural work had a major impact on the neoclassical style in Poland. This richly illustrated book provides additional examples and perspectives on the importance of monarchs for architecture and architectural policy. Along with essays by Aslet and Salmon, the volume includes contributions from leading international scholars: Barbara Arciszewska (Warsaw University), Basile Baudez (Princeton University), Julius Bryant (Victoria and Albert Museum), John Goodall (Editor of Country Life), Elisabeth Kieven (Biblioteca Hertziana, Rome), Jarl Kremeier (Berlin), Rebecca Lyons (Royal Academy of Arts), Magnus Olausson (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), Emily Roy (National Trust), Ian Thompson (University of Newcastle), and Simon Thurley (Chair of the National Heritage Lottery Fund). An essay has also been prepared from the late David Watkin’s 2004 book on King George III as architect.

Clive Aslet is an award-winning writer and journalist who has published over twenty books.
Frank Salmon is Associate Professor of the History of Art at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, having served as President of the College from 2015 to 2019.

From PHP and The University of Chicago Press:

Ivan Hall, edited by Kenneth Powell, John Carr of York: Collected Essays (London: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2024), 500 pages, ISBN: 978-1399959155, £50 / $60.

An introduction to the life and mind of one of England’s most significant architects.

John Carr of York (1723–1807) was one of the most prolific and significant architects of the eighteenth century, with an output of more than four hundred designs, which range from simple gateways to the grandest schemes. Highly successful in his day, he had a recognizable style that was sensitive to the latest fashions as they continued to change. His ability to create beautiful buildings and marry this with a practical approach to both the purpose of the building and the budget of his clients won him many commissions.

Carr was born in Yorkshire in the North of England and remained there for the duration of his career. Because of this, he has often been overlooked as an architect, and his extensive output has defeated many attempts to write a complete study of his work. Although not a comprehensive review, John Carr of York seeks to situate Carr as an architect of national significance. It includes photographs and covers overarching themes such as landscape and color and some commissions in more detail.

Ivan Hall, FSA is a British architectural historian specialising in the architecture of John Carr.
Kenneth Powell is an architectural critic, historian, and consultant.

From Yale UP:

Steven Brindle, Architecture in Britain and Ireland, 1530–1830 (London: Paul Mellon Centre, 2024) 592 pages, ISBN: ‎978-1913107406, $75.

A major new history of architecture in Britain and Ireland that looks at buildings and their construction in detail while revealing the cultural, material, political, and economic contexts that made them

Architecture in Britain and Ireland, 1530–1830 presents a comprehensive history of architecture in Britain during this three-hundred-year period. Drawing on the most important advances in architectural history in the last seventy years, ranging across cultural, material, political, and economic contexts, this book also encompasses architecture in Ireland and includes substantial commentary on the buildings of Scotland and Wales. Across three chronological sections—1530 to 1660, 1660 to 1760, and 1760 to 1830—this volume explores how architectural culture evolved from a subject carried solely in the minds and skills of craftsmen to being embodied in books and documents and with new professions—architects, surveyors, and engineers—in charge. With chapters dedicated to towns and cities, landscape, infrastructure, military architecture, and industrial architecture, and beautifully illustrated with new photography, detailed graphics, and a wealth of historic images, Architecture in Britain and Ireland, 1530–1830 is an invaluable resource for students, historians, and anyone with an interest in the architecture of this period.

Steven Brindle is senior properties historian at English Heritage and publishes widely on the history of architecture and engineering, with major works including Brunel: The Man Who Built the World and, as editor, Windsor Castle: A Thousand Years of a Royal Palace.

From Peter Lang:

Margaret Jacob and María Eugenia Vázquez Semadeni, Freemasonry and Civil Society: Europe and the Americas (North and South) (Bern: Peter Lang, 2023), 170 pages, ISBN: ‎978-1433198397, $90.

Version 1.0.0

This is the first comprehensive account of freemasonry in the Western world, written by two of the field’s foremost scholars. It embraces every country in the Americas, with a particular focus on the American experience. The authors devote significant attention to the Scottish origins of the lodges and their growth in the American colonies, against a backdrop of European imperialism and the emergence of democratic movements. Later they examine the story of freemasonry in the twentieth century, from its encounter with Nazism to its decline beginning in the 1960s. Future directions for the movement are also discussed. Along the way major figures in the movement are assessed: Benjamin Franklin, Alessandro Cagliostro, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Harry S. Truman, and many others. Masons and non-masons, college students, and the curious general reader will find Freemasonry and Civil Society a dazzling and accessible account of one of the world’s most enduring fraternal organizations.

Margaret C. Jacob holds the position of Distinguished Chair of Research in History at UCLA. She has a PhD from Cornell University and an honorary doctorate from Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Philosophical Society. She is the author of The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons, and Republicans; Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry in Eighteenth Century Europe; The Newtonians and the English Revolution; and The Secular Enlightenment.

María Eugenia Vázquez Semadeni has a PhD from El Colegio de Michoacán, Mexico. She has held postdoctoral positions at the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, UNAM, México, and at UCLA, as well as Tinker Visiting Professor at Stanford University. She is a member of the Centro de Estudios Históricos de la Masonería Española and a founding member of the Centro de Estudios Históricos de la Masonería Latinoamericana y Caribeña. She is the author of La formación de una cultura política republicana: El debate público sobre la masonería. México 1821–1830.

c o n t e n t s

List of Figures
Acknowledgments

Introduction
1  British Origins
2  European Lodges in the Age of Enlightenment
3  Freemasonry in the New World: North America
4  European Freemasonry in the Age of Nationalism and Imperial Expansion
5  Freemasonry in the New World: Latin America, 1770–c.1830
6  United States Freemasonry: From the Civil War to the End of World War II and Beyond
7  Freemasonry in Latin America and Spain, 1850s–1940s
Conclusion

Bibliography
Index

From Diaphanes:

Felix Vogel, Empfindsamkeitsarchitektur: Der »Hameau de la Reine« in Versailles (Paris: Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte, 2023), 464 pages, ISBN: ‎978-3035806281, €30. Also available as a free open access PDF file.

Der von Marie-Antoinette in Auftrag gegebene und zwischen 1783 und 1789 durch Richard Mique in Versailles erbaute Hameau de la Reine besteht aus einem um einen künstlichen Weiher angelegten Ensemble von zwölf Bauernhäusern. Die vermeintlich vernakuläre Anlage ist jedoch von einem Widerspruch gekennzeichnet: Manche der rustikalen Gebäude waren vom dort arbeitenden Personal bewohnt oder wurden für agrikulturelle Produktion genutzt, andere dienten lediglich dem höfischen Vergnügen. Der äußerliche Schmutz war aufgemalt, innen zeigte sich zum Teil eine opulente Ausstattung.

Das Buch rekonstruiert die Funktions- und Nutzungsgeschichte der Gartenanlage anhand bislang nicht berücksichtigter Archivquellen. Zugleich erschließt es den Hameau de la Reine kulturwissenschaftlich, indem es ihn in den Horizont der sich herausbildenden Epoche der Empfindsamkeit einordnet. Dabei zeigen sich die Objekthaftigkeit von Architektur, der Status von »ausgestellten Körpern«, Nützlichkeit als ästhetische Kategorie oder die Frage nach der künstlichen Herstellung von »Natürlichkeit« als zentrale Themen, die weit über die »Sattelzeit« hinaus Bedeutung beanspruchen: Im Hameau de la Reine wird Authentizität zum ästhetischen Kalkül, dessen Spuren bis in die Gegenwart reichen.

Der Kunsthistoriker Felix Vogel ist seit 2021 Professor für Kunst und Wissen an der Universität Kassel und Mitglied des documenta Instituts. Zuvor unterrichtete er unter anderem in Basel, Hamburg, São Paulo, Toronto und Zürich. Seine Promotion schloss er 2017 an der Université de Fribourg ab. Neben der Kunst des 18. Jahrhunderts beschäftigt sich Felix Vogel insbesondere mit der Conceptual Art sowie der Theorie und Geschichte der Ausstellung.