Ruth Ahnert and Sebastian E. Ahnert, Tudor Networks of Power. Oxford University Press. 2023. ISBN: 978-0-1988-5897-3. $45.99.

Information about individuals is often interesting and useful, but you gain important insights when you build a network describing the connections between those individuals. When those networks include the truly powerful, such as heads of state, the results can be quite interesting and informative.

In Tudor Networks of Power, published by Oxford University Press, academics Ruth Ahnert and Sebastian E. Ahnert perform advanced network analysis based on letters exchanged among power players from England’s Tudor period. King Henry VIII is probably the most prominent person in the data set, but there are many powerful individuals, influencers, and other players to be accounted for.

The Ahnerts are well-positioned to take on this sort of project in the digital humanities. Ruth Ahnert is a professor of literary history and digital humanities at Queen Mary University, London, while Sebastian E. Ahnert is a university lecturer in chemical engineering at Cambridge. Sebastian has also developed expertise in network analysis, which complements Ruth’s skills well in this project.

I believe Tudor Networks of Power is best thought of as documenting a professional research project in the digital humanities. Working off an analog data source from an era before standardized spelling is a daunting prospect, even before one considers optical character recognition errors. Are Cecyll and Cesill the same person? Which James, Earl of Desmond is mentioned in this letter? There were four, after all. Name disambiguation alone took Ruth Ahnert and her assistants nine months of full-time work and a few more months part-time to complete.

Once the names were rounded into shape the Ahnerts could turn to their network analysis. Individual measures such as degree centrality (the number of incoming and outgoing connections from a network node), betweenness (the number of shortest paths between two network nodes that an individual appears on), and eigenvector centrality (proximity to a powerful node) provide useful data, but these measures provide more insight when combined into a network profile.

A network profile is the set of measures calculated for a specific node on the network. Each node represents a person, so you can identify people who make many connections, those who have a few connections but they are to high-level individuals, and ambassadors or merchants that create bridges between otherwise separated groups. I think of network profiling as a form of cluster analysis, where you identify network nodes that have many traits in common.

I enthusiastically recommend Tudor Networks of Power, especially for grad students and younger researchers in the digital humanities. The authors’ description of this project provides useful information for academics and other analysts who wish to perform network and link analysis, especially on data sets that require significant processing.

Brian Callaci, Chains of Command. University of Chicago Press. 2026. ISBN: 978-0-226-82870-1. $25.00.

Franchise businesses are everywhere in the United States and, especially over the past few decades, in the world. A cab driver in Inverness, Scotland told my wife and I that the nickname for the local McDonald’s is “The American Embassy.” There’s so much to love about Scottish humor: biting satire with a huge portion of truth.

In Chains of Command, author Brian Callaci examines the history of franchising in the United States, focusing on how franchisors sculpted their contracts and the surrounding legal environment powering the business model. The book’s subtitle, The Rise and Cruel Reign of the Franchise Economy, accurately depicts his findings.

Callaci, who earned his PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is chief economist for the Open Markets Institute, unapologetically argues that contracts offered to franchisees greatly restrict the restaurant operators’ freedom and, in the best case for the franchisor, entail a rule-following operator working straight out of the manual and squeezing every possible penny out of their labor budget. This result maximizes revenue for the franchisor, helps generate a reasonable return for the franchisee, and denies workers the leverage required to improve their circumstances.

The first several chapters of Chains of Command review the business and legislative history of franchise operations in the United States, with substantial discussion of how the  International Franchise Association (IFA) fought on behalf of the franchisors it represented. It’s a bit ironic that Chains of Command was published by the University of Chicago Press given that so many of the IFA’s economic arguments for their business model came from the Chicago School, but that’s the joy of academic freedom. Some of those positions regarding independent contractor status, constructive employment, and business practices relate to businesses well beyond business model franchises. The Fight for Fifteen movement, which fought to secure a living wage for fast food workers, and unionization drives are additional elements that factor into Callaci’s analysis.

I recommend Chains of Command on the strength of its analysis. Callaci’s description of the IFA’s work and how they used various legal mechanisms (such as trademark law) to create their desired regulatory environment provides real insight into the evolution and current operation of franchised businesses. Also, as a member of a union household (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 28) who benefits from excellent health insurance earned through collective bargaining, I have great sympathy for the workers and franchisees who participate in the industry.