Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern England. By Michael Alexander. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007. Pp. xxviii + 306; 106 illustrations. $45.

Michael Alexander begins his new study of the impact of medievalism on English culture from the late eighteenth to the twentieth centuries with the claim that he is tracing "the evolution of a neglected movement in English cultural history" (p. xviii). This assertion may be slightly exaggerated, given the number of previously published studies of English medievalism, but there is certainly room for another survey as insightful as Alexander's. Most previous scholarship on the medieval revival has focused on a specific aspect or author; Alexander's work proves the value of breadth. His only real competitor is Mark Girouard's Return to Camelot, now over a quarter-century old.