Welsh Journals

At the same time, it provides the valuable service of clarifying the numerous and often baffling changes of title that all too frequently complicate systematic historical enquiry. From the Barry Docks News to the Wrexham Guardian, and from Yr Amserau to Yr Ysbiwr (rare early copies of which dating from 1843 and 1844 are to be obtained by the National Library of Wales from the Newberry Library in Chicago), the survey covers newspapers published in all parts of Wales, and Welsh titles issued elsewhere in England, the Americas and Australia. Separate indexes to the report usefully list titles by place and date of publication. At a glance, the index of the former informs us that a staggering fifty-five newspapers have been launched in Swansea since the Cambrian first appeared there in 1804, thirty-nine in Caernarfon and twenty-two in Aberystwyth. We also learn that of the twenty-nine titles established in Merthyr Tydfil, twenty-two (76 per cent) of them began life in the seventy years between the Reform Crisis and the death of Queen Victoria, and that some 20 per cent of them were published in the Welsh language. Such data make possible a more detailed study of the local press throughout Wales, and also act as a guide to finding new sources for research into historical events, individuals, organizations and trends at local, regional and national levels. Furthermore, the indexing by date gives an immediate impression of the historical rhythm of newspaper production, and the copious generation of new publications after 1918, demonstrated so vividly in this report, has obliged this reviewer to revise some of his earlier assumptions regarding the relative vigour of the inter-war press in Wales. This definitive guide to our newspapers, old and new, is an essential and skilfully turned tool which should be lodged on the reference shelves of all those interested in the history of modern Wales. ALED JONES Aberystwyth HISTORY, RELIGION AND IDENTITY IN MODERN BRITAIN. By Keith Robbins. Hambledon Press, 1993. Pp. xi, 301. £ 36.00. Half the essays in this collection by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales, Lampeter, are about national history and British identity; half are concerned with religion in modern British society. Yet in the religious items there is discussion of the national and international responsibilities of the churches and in the other pieces there is a refreshing awareness of the role of religion in shaping identities over time. Consequently there is a welcome coherence in the volume as a whole that is often missing from such an assemblage of republished articles from diverse places. Two of the twenty essays, on the notion of 'foreignness' in Britain and on the interplay of state and nation in the post-war period, are in fact printed for the first time. Although a few passe allusions (such as the contrast between East and West Germany) necessarily survive, the phraseology has generally been updated to take account of changes since the time of original composition, the earliest having been published in 1970. All concentrate, with occasional backward glances, on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.