Welsh Journals

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Finally, specific mention must be made of the excellent paper by Philip Rawkins (of the Ryerson Polytechnic Institute, Toronto, Canada), in which he shows that during the 1970s public policies for the safe-guarding of Welsh had to be wrung from reluctant local government by demands and constant pressure-especially in the field of education-whilst simultaneously the general attitude of the central government (in the guise of the Welsh Office) was one of 'benign neglect'. To sharpen the focus, Rawkins settles on two case-studies which reveal the differing contexts that led eventually to the setting up of Welsh-medium schools in Mid- and South Glamorgan. Nowhere else can we read a scholarly interpretation of the events that have led to the eventual establishment of the flourishing Welsh-medium schools in these two counties. The Sociology of Welsh provides us with a number of key insights into the contemporary history of the Welsh language and culture. These writings deserve a much wider readership than perhaps they will receive in their present format. Publishers in Wales, are you listening? W. T. R. PRYCE The Open University in Wales, Cardiff TUDOR WALES. Edited by Trevor Herbert and Gareth Elwyn Jones. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1988. Pp. xxvi, 177. 14 illustrations, 13 maps and diagrams. £ 7.95, WALES, 1880-1914. Edited by Trevor Herbert and Gareth Elwyn Jones. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1988. Pp. xxiv 193. 29 illustrations, 5 maps and diagrams. £ 7.95. These volumes are the first to appear in a series which aims at providing specialist introductions on set themes and periods in Welsh history, employing illustrative extracts of historical testimony and out of which questions and points of discussion are raised. In short, they aim to inform and to illuminate the techniques of writing history. The volumes offer some contrasts in approach and content. Tudor Wales deals almost exclusively with primary material and includes a discussion as to what defines such a source. Wales, 1880-1914 makes free with secondary material too, with the interpretations of recent and current historians in its extracts, and thus is relatively and probably beneficially more historiographical. However, Wales, 1880-1914 is rather biased towards the history of south Wales even if, admittedly, the industrial communities there were then at their apogee, whereas Tudor Wales tries to be more broad spread and even-handed. A certain unity of thought and approach reveals itself in the Tudor volume, dictated partly by the use of common sources but also by a generally analytical approach, whereas the other volume betrays more speculative tendencies and also reveals the broader gamut of types of evidence available to the