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Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle Ages. By Walter Ullmann

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DOI: 10.1080/10848770.2012.686770

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Principles of Government and Politics

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St. Francis Xavier University, Canada

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University Press, 2003). No overview of
romance scholarship is complete without
reference to this groundbreaking book. These
are, however, minor criticisms. This superb
introduction will prove extremely useful to
students and scholars alike.
Lynn Shutters
Colorado State University, USA
lynn.shutters@colostate.edu
ß 2012, Lynn Shutters
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: The Early
Years. By Ilan Stavans (Hampshire, UK:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), xii þ 237 pp.
£15.99 cloth.
Downloaded by [Lavinia Stan] at 04:46 25 June 2012
Ilan Stavans’s award-winning book traces the
modest beginnings of a literary giant whose
capo d’opera, One Hundred Years of Solitude,
revealed the Latin American psyche to the
world and, in the process, became a favourite of
multitudes of readers on other continents.
Given Garcia Marquez’s leftist leanings, it is
not surprising that his book was translated into
a number of Eastern European languages and
published when these countries were part of
the communist bloc. I remember reading the
book in Romanian translation when I was a
student in Bucharest in the 1980s. Many of my
Romanian friends still consider it the best saga
ever published.
As Stavans concedes, it is not easy to write
a biography let alone on a literary giant like
Garcia Marquez. However, with poise, deter-
mination and acumen, Stavans manages to
strike the right balance between detailed
vignettes centered on specific events in the
life of the Colombian author and broader
contextualizations that are necessary for a more
in-depth understanding of the political, social
and cultural developments that shaped Garcia
Marquez’s life, views and literary career. The
volume’s eight chapters take the reader step by
step through the life of the author, like precious
photographs in a family album.
The ‘‘Aracataca’’ chapter describes the
tribulations of Garcia Marquez’s parents and
his birth in the small Colombian town on the
Caribbean coast, which made him see himself
as both a Colombian and a Caribbean author.
His childhood, education, brush with the
Book Reviews 563
university law degree, and early publications
are all narrated in ‘‘Apprenticeship,’’ which
chapter examines the years from 1929 to 1947
period. His years as a journalist at El Heraldo and
his first foray into literature with the publica-
tion of Leaf Storm, and subsequent travails are
the subject of chapter 3, ‘‘Mamador de gallos.’’
In 1955, at the age of twenty-eight, Garcia
Marquez became his newspaper’s correspon-
dent in Europe, living in Paris and London, and
also visiting a number of communist countries,
which did not leave a very positive impression
on him, as we hear in ‘‘New Horizons.’’
Chapter 5, ‘‘Lo real maravilloso,’’ explores El
Boom, the period of rapid economic growth
that significantly impacted the Latin American
literary scene. Garcia Marquez’s arrival in
Mexico City in 1961 and his interest in the
Epoca de oro of the Mexican film industry and
its new aesthetic, are detailed in Chapter 6,
‘‘The Silver Screen.’’ Chapter 7 describes the
personal and political context in which Garcia
Marquez wrote his most important book, One
Hundred Years of Solitude (1967). The conclud-
ing chapter, ‘‘Convergences,’’ sums up the
biographer’s position rather than proposing a
novel interpretation of Garcia Marquez’s per-
sonal journey.
As any biography, this one reflects both its
subject—Garcia Marquez—and its author—
Stavans. Filled with interesting details as well
as insightful comparisons and contrasts with
other authors, this biography fully merits the
awards it received. It will speak to both
audiences familiar with Garcia Marquez and
those who have only recently become
acquainted with his masterpiece, One Hundred
Years of Solitude.
Lavinia Stan
St. Francis Xavier University, Canada
lstan@stfx.ca
ß 2012, Lavinia Stan
Principles of Government and Politics
in the Middle Ages. By Walter Ullmann
(London: Routledge, 2010), 331 pp. $115
cloth.
The aim of the new Routledge Revivals series
is the republication of important works that
have long been unavailable. One such title is
 564 Book Reviews
Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle
Ages, a volume first published in 1961 by
Walter Ullmann, a reputed medievalist
renowned for his deep understanding of the
legal and theoretical foundations of papal
authority and government in the Middle
Ages. While not a constitutional or political
analysis, his study explains the main features of
the three kinds of government of the Middle
Ages—government by the Pope, the King, and
the People. Resting on a wide range of modern
and medieval clerical, liturgical, secular, legal,
constitutional, and literary sources, the volume
explains the principles underlying the three
main forms of medieval government.
The book is divided into three main
sections. In the first section, ‘‘The Pope,’’
Downloaded by [Lavinia Stan] at 04:46 25 June 2012
Ullmann discusses papal primacy, the social
nature of the church, science and power as
prerequisites for government, the principles
of succession, hierarchical ordering, and public
goods, the idea of sovereignty, the pope as
universal monarch, and examples of the
practical exercise of papal functions. The
second section, ‘‘The King,’’ surveys theocratic
kingship and its limitations, as well as feudal
kingship in England and France. The last
section, ‘‘The People,’’ discusses populist
manifestations, the communal sense, the
inputs of various associations, and the education
of the lay people. An entire chapter is dedicated
to tracing populism as a concept throughout
the period in the works of authors like
Aristotle, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas,
Dante, John of Paris, and Marsilio of Padua.
After teasing out the principles on which the
legislative authority of the people is founded,
Ullmann presents the applications and implica-
tions of populism during the Middle Ages.
Ullmann investigates the foundations
and practice of papal and royal government
with the help of a theoretical framework that
emphasizes ‘‘ascending’’ (populist) and ‘‘des-
cending’’ (theocratic) trends in government,
which he calls themes. His chronological design
shows a populist theme in republican Rome, a
theocratic theme in imperial Rome, an ascend-
ing theme under the early Germans,
a descending theme during the Middle Ages
and into the thirteen century, and finally an
ascending theme based on the practices of
feudalism by communes, guilds and other such
associations. He also identifies regional differ-
ences. In Scandinavia ‘‘the populist kingship
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never died out’’ (22), although the populist
theme gave way in the course of time to the
theocratic in other countries. By contrast, in
southern and western Europe, the descending
theme clearly succeeded the ascending theme,
for reasons related to the sacred nature of
Germanic kingship and the Christian theme
itself. At the same time, Ullmann shows how
the traditional theocratic forms of government
were supplanted by forms of government based
on the will of the people.
While some readers might find parts of the
text difficult to follow, discerning students of
modern political institutions will realize that
this study raises questions that were relevant
way beyond the Middle Ages. The volume will
be of interest for both graduate students and
faculty alike.
Lavinia Stan
St. Francis Xavier University, Canada
lstan@stfx.ca
ß 2012, Lavinia Stan
Performing Femininity: Dance and
Literature in German Modernism. By
Alexandra Kolb. Cultural History and Literary
Imagination, vol. 12 (Oxford: Peter Lang,
2009), viii þ 316 pp. SFR62.00 paper.
This book makes an important contribution
to the study of cultural representations of
femininity by offering an original analysis of
the interaction between choreography and
literature in German modernism. Alexandra
Kolb states that her ‘‘primary objective . . . was
to demonstrate the flourishing interconnection
between dance and written texts’’ (9). Dance in
the first thirty years of the twentieth century,
she makes clear, was welcomed with great
interest and received active support from
writers and journalists. The text includes
excerpts of German writings of that period,
followed by their translation into English.
This procedure has the merit of making
the documentation accessible, revealing some
of the primary sources, almost unknown to
English readers.
Curiously, part of Kolb’s title echoes Lesa
Lockford’s Performing Femininity: Rewriting
Gender Identity, published in 2004. But Kolb
follows a different approach from Lockford’s,