John E. Curran, Jr. Roman Invasions: the British History, Protestant Anti-Romanism, and the Historical Imagination in England, 1530-1660.

Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press/AUP, 2002. 326 pp. index. bibl. $55. ISBN: 0-87413-778-0.

Roman Invasions is a rich and interesting book about an intellectual dilemma. On the one hand, early modern Englishmen found themselves less and less able to uphold the truth of the "British history" that Geoffrey of Monmouth had concocted in his twelfth century account, Historia regum Britanniae. The Brutus myth had been attacked by Polydore Vergil and others, who pointed out that little in it jibed with more reputable histories by Julius Caesar and Tacitus. By the late sixteenth century, there were few English historians who could espouse it, at least not all of it and not without the knowledge that they faced widespread scepticism. On the other hand, this same Galfridian myth had provided an ideal vehicle for English nationalism. Brutus' origins in Troy gave the English classical antecedents to rival those of Rome; according to Geoffrey, King Arthur had even gone to war against it. In practice, Geoffrey's imaginary history proved very hard to abandon, and this, John Curran argues, is a "quirk in the history of historiography that calls for an explanation" (16). His larger claim is that the Brutus myth persisted because of an enduring English Protestant antipathy to Catholic Rome and, by association, to ancient Roman historians. There was a analogy constantly being made "from the 'us' and 'them' of the ancient British past ... to the 'us' and 'them' of Renaissance England" (19). Though most of Geoffrey's "history" was obviously implausible, "there was a lingering sense" that only he "could truly accommodate the demands of patriotic anti-Romanism" (180). Roman Invasions is thus a study in intellectual ambivalence. Curran shows how powerfully driven the historiography of the period was by the desire for an affirming narrative that traced a continuous past and arrived at "origins" unsullied by Roman impositions. He also shows how that desire interacted with another powerful need: for a history that built "upon a core of truth" (31). In each of seven chapters, he discusses how this tension was worked out, either in some larger discourse, such as church and legal history, or in some debate, such as the controversy over the historicity of Arthur. But Curran is perhaps most worthwhile when he concentrates on the contortions induced in specific authors by the contrary demands of verity and patriotism. He discusses both historians and literary figures: William Camden, John Speed, John Selden, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, and John Milton, as well as many others. Typically, he distributes his treatment of an author across several chapters, each dealing with some aspect of his thought in a certain context. Sometimes, this does not work. Once we have grasped the basic position of, say, John Milton, another closely related explanation can seem redundant. Sometimes it does work, and the author's views take on an increasing depth and subtlety. By the book's end, for instance, Spenser has emerged as the "most deeply ambivalent figure we have seen" (257). Curran's exposition of the "dual historiographical vision" (111) of The Faerie Queene is at once critically informed, historically supported, and textually plausible. Overall, Roman Invasions is a valuable exercise in an unusual kind of historiography. Curran privileges neither historical "truth" nor literary "fiction," nor does he assume any of the authors he treats could have done so. Instead, as he shows, they had to recognize the demands of both and to negotiate between them. Curran displays a shrewd sense of their predicament and an engaging appreciation for the many ways that they found to work within it.

DAVID J. BAKER 

University of Hawai'i