The Okinawa Islands dangle off the south coast of Japan, a chain of small islands, culturally related but aGraphic Novel Group book for November 2024.
The Okinawa Islands dangle off the south coast of Japan, a chain of small islands, culturally related but also distinct from Japan. They were the site of some of the worst land fighting in the Pacific arena of WWII and to the day have American military bases covering a large chunk of their land.
Okinawa, the graphic novel, is an English-language translation of two collections from Okinawan native Susumu Higa. Sword Of Sand covers stories from the war and its immediate aftermath, and Mabui is more recent (90s and 00s) stories from the islands.
The first half is a bit stronger, probably by dint of what happened in Okinawa being dramatic, terrifying and brutal. These stories look at local Okinawans trying to negotiate their own survival between US attacks and the Japanese Army refusing to surrender and refusing to let the civilians surrender. Later chapters cover prisoners of war and post-war survival. One chapter each is given over to Higa's parents and their experiences. It's kind of Higa that his artwork doesn't linger on the horrors, as I don't think some chapters would be readable if the art was more realistic, such is the brutality of the circumstances.
The second half is more sedate and a little repetitive, but intentionally so, with the yuta (a priestess (?) in the local religion) Mrs Asato recurring in most chapters, usually solving problems with some prayers and reflection on events. It foregrounds the local culture, and the strongest stories in the second half continue this, from grave robbery to baseball. It doesn't grip quite like the WWII era stuff, but it builds on it in a relevant way.
The art is, as mentioned, cartoony but great. The level of detail Higa can cram into a panel is impressive, and it's evocative and beautiful. I really loved the emphasis on using onomatopoeia in panels, big thanks to the translator Jocelyne Allen for translating those too, every boom, plip and fween. ...more
When done well, the use of the graphic novel as history book can be one of the most engaging forms of historical writing. Writing and drawing. And paiWhen done well, the use of the graphic novel as history book can be one of the most engaging forms of historical writing. Writing and drawing. And painting. And collaging. There's a specific subgenre of graphic novels about history which delve into using the medium as a historical record, illustrating stories but also presenting printed materials as they really are, rather than telling a more straightforward linear narrative like Maus or Onwards Towards Our Noble Deaths.
Sensible Footwear joins the hallowed ranks of the best examples of this collage history book subgenre, alongside the likes of Alice In Sunderland. It has the added element of Kate Charlesworth (b.1950) having lived through a lot of the events depicted, which allows her to weave in her personal story and highlight where it intersects with major events in UK LGBTQ+ History.
Charlesworth's art is very pretty, lots of swirling colours and expressive characters, somewhere between the Clean Line style and something more realistic, but always a joy to look at. She divides the book into sections, punctuated with double page spreads of significant events and people, film posters and flyers, artefacts and objects. Into these sections come the sometimes very sad and painful, often very joyful, stories of the lives of LGBTQ+ people who lived (and sometimes died) in the second half of the twentieth century. Charlesworth comes across as practical (she is from Yorkshire) but also kind about most people, just as open minded about the forces behind twenty first century queers as she is about her ever-unaccepting mother.
Most of the streets I've lived on have been unremarkable in the sense that they were numbered houses on streets with names which haven't been hugely eMost of the streets I've lived on have been unremarkable in the sense that they were numbered houses on streets with names which haven't been hugely exciting. Probably the only street name which held much historical interest came when I lived in an area where the streets were all named after famous British politicians and prime ministers of the past: I was on Wellington Avenue, by far one of the best options in the area as Lord Wellington was one the politicians who pushed through the Catholic emancipation and other 'let's be less shitty to the Irish' stuff. He'd probably be less annoyed at a woman of Irish Catholic descent living on his street than some of the others around there.
Because street names are political. They are sociological. Sometimes they are epidemiological. And this very enjoyable, very informative book by Deirdre Mask looks at a whole bunch of ways in which addresses aren't as simple as they appear. From the contentious street names and statues of the American South (slavers and Confederates, of course, but also the neglect of many Martin Luther King Streets), to the reasons why there are organisations out there in Kolkata trying to find every last tiny abode in the slums to give out house numbers, it's an interesting look at the history and present of telling people where you live.
Mask approaches this journalistically, and covers a lot of topics, jumping around in time and location. I enjoyed the journalistic nature of it; some chapters involve Mask going to the places in question and seeing what is happening first hand, even at a cost of occasionally getting lost and needing re-orientating by the police. It's also pleasingly global. Sure, she covers the US where she's from and the UK where she lives, but from India to Haiti to South Africa to Japan, there are plenty of angles. The chapter on South Africa in particular was fascinating, as was its links back to Ireland. ...more
It's funny that just the same week as I picked up this book to read it, some friends were completely seriously talking about how historians are neutraIt's funny that just the same week as I picked up this book to read it, some friends were completely seriously talking about how historians are neutral about things. Oh no, I had to interject, no they are not at all. Some might pretend they are, but all historians bring biases and agendas. Some conceal and some are up front.
And then there's Sarah Churchwell, who is so incredibly ANGRY about the way America has lied and deluded itself about the reality of the Civil War and the enslaving of millions of people, and how its most successful book/movie, Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell, does the same. I have never read a history book so angry. This is a massive compliment.
Churchwell is not messing around. She is not going to let anyone off the hook. She tells the story of how Gone With The Wind was made, a book and film set in the mid-c19th which is also very much about the time of its own writing and publication (1920s-30s), and about modern America, 6th January 2021 coup attempt and all. Churchwell takes a huge sweep of sources and uses them to expose the lies America tells to distract itself from the way it failed to reckon with the Confederacy. Her level of detail is astonishing, and her determination to not let Americans in 1865, 1939 or 2021 off the hook is laser-focused. She wants to tell stories which people don't want to tell.
The bit which really hit me was a short section which begins with the description of Margaret Mitchell refusing to be part of a class at college because there was a Black woman in there. Churchwell says the story comes from a previous biography, but the biographer made no effort to find out who the Black woman was. Instead it has fallen to Churchwell herself to identify two possible candidates: Catherine Grigsby Mayo or Eunice Hunton Carter. Carter later became the DA who brought down gangster Lucky Luciano after tugging at a lead (suspicious patterns in the non prosecution of prostitution) which other DAs had ignored. That Churchwell goes down these paths and finds these stories is exceptional History....more
Public Health lecturer Dr Jonathan Kennedy uses his first book to present a thesis that the most important driver of history is germs and the ways thePublic Health lecturer Dr Jonathan Kennedy uses his first book to present a thesis that the most important driver of history is germs and the ways they have infected or not infected humans throughout the last 50,000 or so years. Yep, we're starting early with our cousins the Neaderthals and Denisovans dying out.
Pathogenesis is one of those big grand History books which likes to give the reader a thorough explanation of what the most important thing in history is (I am deliberately calling past events 'history' and the study of them 'History' in this review). Kennedy has the public health and sociology backgrounds, and he's going to use them to argue his theory that the plague, cholera, smallpox and co have done everything from make H. Sapiens the only human species to create the slave trade to allow the rise of Christianity. He's going big, not going home (any home should have good sewage or germs will get you, like they got your Industrial Revolution ancestors).
As with any grand theory History book there are convincing bits and stretches. It's not an unusual line of argument that the Black Death ended feudalism, although making this argument in 2023 does mean that he's butting up against historians arguing if feudalism even existed as a coherent unified practice. But the parts on how the immunity differences between Europeans, Native Americans and Africans caused the situation where 90% of the middle group dying after contact with the first group who then imported the last group as chattel are very well written and convincing. He is also not holding back on criticising modern governments who don't do enough, in his eyes and frankly also mine, to help the poor get healthier. He draws a very clear line from colonialism to modern free-market capitalism, and isn't a fan of either, even if occasionally he does measure the impact of poor public health in economic terms. I suppose that's to ensure he has appealed to everyone he can, which is an admirable move in a way.
From a History perspective it's also interesting that Kennedy claims that this is a new form of History, neither Great Man history nor history of the common folk (be that Marxian or social history). I guess his multidisciplinary approach, impressive though it be, missed off some basic historiography as he overlooks that his books is essentially similar to the Annales school (Bloch, Febvre, Braudel, etc) who viewed history as a long-running thing, affected more by nature, geography and long-term economics than great individuals. They probably would have liked this book....more
The rise and fall of the Medici, and the rise and fall of the quality of a book. Imagine a graph with the two lines correlated. That's this readable, The rise and fall of the Medici, and the rise and fall of the quality of a book. Imagine a graph with the two lines correlated. That's this readable, enjoyable but ultimately a bit lightweight romp through the Medici, Florence's power behind-and-then-on the throne in the middle of the last millennium.
This book is from the 70s, and it shows on a couple of levels. The historical writing is very empiricist, shouting 'here are some great men!', the Medici apparently a dynasty untouched by interesting women, or at least that's the case here, I do wonder if perhaps more recent scholarship might reveal much more from the female Medici. It's perhaps one of the book's weaknesses that the historical read feels so weak - why were the Medici successful? How did they manage to be popular with the regular citizens? It's brushed over quite a lot, although a book that covers four centuries in 400-ish pages will always be a bit light on that.
At least the writing for the first two thirds is very engaging. The most famous and successful Medici, like Lorenzo the Magnificent, the founder Cosimo, and Pope Leo X, get some detailed writeups and Hibbert can tell a rip-roaring story very well. Later, as the dynasty becomes less dramatic and enters more of a sad decline, it almost feels like Hibbert lost interest and it becomes a bit wishy washy, with the exception of the chapters about Duke Cosimo III's wife Marguerite Louise d'Orléans, who Hibbert seems to think is a Verruca Salt character but who I thought seemed fascinating in her strong-willed battle to achieve her one goal, to go back to France.
Hibbert also seems to have a weird fixation on telling the reader exactly who was "fat" from those he wrote about. I sometimes felt like I was getting more information on Medici body sizes than on what they were doing politically! Is it wrong to body shame the Medici???
Overall, engaging bit dated and a bit lightweight....more
A fairly short book or a longer than usual polemical (complimentary), Control is split into two parts which look at the history and the present day ofA fairly short book or a longer than usual polemical (complimentary), Control is split into two parts which look at the history and the present day of eugenics.
The first part starts with men in ivory towers doing science that viewed the poor as vermin, and ends with the Holocaust. Along the way we learn that some of the greatest and most important scientific thinkers of the last two centuries were also privilege-raddled arseholes who couldn't conceive of the poor or people of colour having any purpose in the world. So I guess we can say thanks for the inventions and then remove their names from their buildings, scholarships and departments, it's nothing less than what they deserve. Rutherford also takes some time to point out all the people at the time (1860-1945) who said that eugenics was bad, actually, thus undermining any weak-arse arguments like 'They were men of their time'. Yeah, so were the poor and non-white who they wanted to sterilise (at best). Go figure.
In the second half we learn that the genetic science revolution has caused a revival of interest in 'improving' humans, albeit not among actual scientists cos they all know that genes are so much more complex than we thought. One gene per trait? Nah, try hundreds, maybe thousands. Or perhaps the cases where the same illness is caused by multiple different genetic setups.
This book packs in so much information into a relatively short form. I found fact after fact which I had to stop and read out loud to those around me. Great work, and we didn't even need to genetically modify the author to get it....more
Dan Schreiber is a former QI elf, as well as responsible for other radio shows which go for that 'Huh! Surprising!' audience. An audience I definitelyDan Schreiber is a former QI elf, as well as responsible for other radio shows which go for that 'Huh! Surprising!' audience. An audience I definitely consider myself part of. I think that this means that ultimately I got quite a lot out of what is a disjointed and meandering book.
In theory (ha) there is a central theme of strange beliefs that people have had over the years, but it's at times quite tenuous. Are we talking about obviously bonkers beliefs which have no basis in reality, or more plausible stuff which made sense in its day, or even which could potentially be true? It's not a central through-line which stands much scrutiny.
Fortunately, the flimsy excuse to bombard us with stories from the past is saved because Schreiber's choice of stories are top notch. Honestly, big fan of the many things we are told in this book. Sure, some chapters are a bit bland, but they are short and whizz along although occasionally I wanted a lot more on a topic. Did Nostradamus really have a 0% success rate in his predictions?!? Tell me more.
However, some of the stuff in here was really good. From the crazy beliefs about crop circles to the fact that David Attenborough's iconic and vital career is down to the teachings of an Englishman who pretended to be a half-Native American (and half-Scottish, which is a weird little detail), there's much to find interesting....more
I saw a negative review of this book which said that one of the problems was that it tells the life story of every single person of note that Sylvia PI saw a negative review of this book which said that one of the problems was that it tells the life story of every single person of note that Sylvia Pankhurst came into contact with in her long and distinguished life. It does. For me, this is a massive massive positive and indicative of why I loved this 950 page brick.
Rachel Holmes has resolved to tell Sylvia's story, with every high and every low; every triumph and every set back; every time she did something which we should learn from today and every time she did something we would never do in the c21st. To call this book thorough would be an understatement. It is everything you need to learn about the Best Pankhurst.
Why yes, I am biased here, writing in the city where it all began for the Pankhurst clan, Manchester. When I was in Ethiopia I made the effort to go to the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa where she is buried in patriots section. Not just a suffragette, but a champion of the working class and a strong anti-colonialist and anti-racist. Best. Pankhurst. This book was written for me.
It's brilliantly written. Holmes captures everything in engaging text. And I mean engaging, she engages with what Sylvia did and said (and when those two things were in conflict) and offers analysis where relevant. Holmes writes as if she is a deeply informed, critical friend.
If you're going to invest in a gigantic mega-book of many many pages, you want those pages to be filled with fascinating information. This is that book. Brilliant....more
In Dreamers of a New Day, Sheila Rowbotham writes about the women who challenged convention and societal norms in Britain and the US between 1885 and In Dreamers of a New Day, Sheila Rowbotham writes about the women who challenged convention and societal norms in Britain and the US between 1885 and 1920. All of them. She writes about every single one of them.
Ok, I'm being a tiny bit flippant. What I mean is that Rowbotham went DEEP on this topic and that's both the book's strength and its mild detriment. Her level of research, her breadth of inquiry and ability to weave all of these women and their various causes and approaches into one book is incredible. It's also sometimes overwhelming.
At its best, the book is a rushing wild river of information on how women challenged expectations and entrenched realities, winning some fights and losing others. The chapters on how they pushed for support for families, changed expectations around sex and family life, and interacted with the men in the working classes and industry were stuffed full of names, ideas and actions but flowed well and coherently. Some of the other chapters were a bit overwhelming, so much information and so many women covered.
This might be on me for reading it like I read most things, at a decent clip. It might be the sort of book which is better read slowly, taking notes on the interesting people mentioned in it. Perhaps because they got more mentions than other subjects, the names who stood out most to me were Dora Russell and Emma Goldman, and I do want to know more about them. The same is true of many of the women, and I think I will return to this in future to go through more methodically and find women who I can get more detailed sources on. So overall, if it's not the easiest read, it's certainly one of the best resources I've picked up on the topic....more
Are you a pale blonde, with dark eyebrows, a high forehead, a trade, cold and wet humours, and a sex drive which needs the full weight of the Church tAre you a pale blonde, with dark eyebrows, a high forehead, a trade, cold and wet humours, and a sex drive which needs the full weight of the Church to keep under control? Congratulations, you are a medieval woman! Just don't go using makeup, enjoying fashion or banging your husband too enthusiastically, or you might go to hell or cause the Black Death or something.
Eleanor Janega's The Once And Future Sex is an compact 220 pages (plus footnotes) which outlines what society expected of women in medieval times. Janega is clear that this is a millennium-long time period across a continent-wide area, so we are talking about generalities. But it manages to cover a lot of ground, looking at what society (you know, men) thought women should be (obedient, motherly, economic contributors at all social levels) and what they were prone to if not controlled (extreme horniness 24/7). There's also room for the much smaller number of women who were allowed voices in this period, like Christine de Pisan.
This is very much an introduction to the topic of medieval women, established Medievalists will probably not encounter anything new, but considering how many misconceptions there are about medieval times in general, and women in particular, this would probably be a revelatory read for many readers (including some stuff which was totally new to me, an Early Modernist)....more
A hefty tome deserves a hefty tome? The Bible is a big big book, in every definition of the words, and blimey it gets a big ol' book about it with thiA hefty tome deserves a hefty tome? The Bible is a big big book, in every definition of the words, and blimey it gets a big ol' book about it with this one.
Expectation and reality. I was hoping for a book about the history of the Bible, how it was written (we don't really know), the authorship (we don't really know although Paul and Ezra seem pretty solid bets for their bits), how it developed (we do know a lot of this), and how it was changed over the years. And yeah, I got all of that, but I think I was hoping for a 300-400 page book on those aspects. This is a 600+ page book with a lot of literary and textual analysis. A lot.
I'm not opposed to literary and critical analysis. At all. And it would appear that the depth and quality of said analysis in this book is deep, learned, and insightful. But it wasn't quite what I was after. Perhaps my expectations were a bit off as it was on the Wolfson History Prize shortlist in 2020 (with The Five, one of my favourite books of recent years) and I was hoping for a purer history account, but I wasn't as enamoured of the literary analysis bits as the historical analysis bits. I honestly can't be sure if I found it repetitive in parts because it was incredibly repetitive (especially in the middle chapters) or if I just missed the subtleties which meant things weren't being repeated but differently analysed each time. But I think it probably was some excess repitition.
I did find big chunks of it very interesting, and I learned quite a lot from it. And it left me feeling sorry for the poor old Book of Esther which seems to be victim of multiple attempts to chuck it out of the biblical canon....more
My copy of this book is the paperback with the title Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes. I've noticed some editions have the longer title The Hidden Case of EMy copy of this book is the paperback with the title Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes. I've noticed some editions have the longer title The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: And the Unwritten History of the Trans Experience, and I think this is a better title, one which gives a stronger notion of this book.
This is the story of Ewan Forbes, a trans man who was the third child of a baron/baronet and thus found his gender a 'problem' for the powers-that-be when his older brother died without sons, leading to a court case over succession which threatened Ewan's generally private life with publicity, prosecution and despair. To understand it, we also get to learn a whole heap of contextual history about what was happening to and in reaction to trans people in c20th Britain and beyond. It took the book from what appeared to be an interesting and curious story, into a work which was revelatory even for an LGBTQ+ history nerd like me. I learned A LOT.
It's also passionately and powerfully written. Playdon isn't concealing her perspective on the extremely current LGBTQ+ issues, especially those faced by trans people, and that's to be respected: too many historians try to be scrupulously neutral about current events and that sometimes strays into dishonesty.
Instead, in prose which is at times more poetic than I expected from a history book, Playdon makes the case that our modern way of seeing ourselves and others (especially trans and other LGBTQ+ others) isn't a solid state and that the perceptions of the past are not just different but worth considering. Whether it's the early-to-mid c20th view of trans people as a form of intersex, to the way that the modern foregrounding of trans women by hostile media is the reverse of how things were before the 1960s when trans men were more in the public mind, this book shows us that we cannot be certain that we are the most correct (and in any case, there might be a hidden legal decision affecting things which we don't know about). It even left me with many thoughts about my own existence as cis lesbian as it progressed through queer history with deftness and determination. Marvellous....more
I did my BA dissertation on the way Parisians in the decades leading up the Revolution, and how the general feeling about the city went from 'pretty gI did my BA dissertation on the way Parisians in the decades leading up the Revolution, and how the general feeling about the city went from 'pretty good' to 'everything is rubbish and falling apart, the past was better'. So naturally I was very drawn to this book, about the history of nostalgia in Britain, told in reverse chronological order.
I really enjoyed this book. The first chapter, on the last few decades, contextualised the nostalgias I am familiar with really well, including drawing out the nostalgias from both sides of the Brexit referendum. The section on the nostalgia felt by immigrants and their children was surprisingly emotional, especially the description from a second generation Irish woman born in the 1960s, whose nostalgia for the Ireland of her childhood holidays was so very very real to me as a 1980s second generation Irish.
Dr Woods unearths a number of rich seams of information, showing how every generation loves to find a 'good' bit of history to obsess on, and a 'bad' bit to hate, the latter usually resulting in buildings being pulled down or altered. If the cycles of history described continue to move at the same rate, I think I might well live to see the great nostalgia wave for 60s brutalism.
This is the sort of book I want to give to people who don't read much history, because I think there's a lot to learn and relate to for all....more
I came to this book via the footnotes from a more pop history book (Greg Jenner's very fun Ask a Historian), and my enjoyment in reading it varied quiI came to this book via the footnotes from a more pop history book (Greg Jenner's very fun Ask a Historian), and my enjoyment in reading it varied quite immensely between the chapters. Fritze definitely has the academic rigour and diligence of a serious historian, as well as the passion to take on these pseudohistories, but for the reader the output is uneven.
Fritze takes on six topics over six chapters, and leads with what should be the most interesting, Atlantis. Unfortunately, this chapter, like the one on the settlement of ancient America immediately after it, has a tendency to resort to simply listing sources which either agree with or disprove the pseudohistory on display. It gets a bit dull at times.
Then there's chapters 3-5 which are the book's best bits. Two companion chapters on fascist rightwing American Christians and their distortion of history (VERY 2023) and on the Nation of Islam and their own strange take on history. I definitely want to read more on Nation of Islam now, and both chapters were engaging, worrying and better written for the reader. They even show a droll sense of humour at times, one which isn't there in the earlier parts, but which comes out to the fore quite marvellously in the fifth chapter, a survey of late c20th pseudohistorians which includes one laugh out loud comment about peguins.
Sadly, just when it looks like Fritze has hit his stride, we get the last chapter, on the Black Athena hypothesis. The whole chapter comes across less as a debunking of pseudohistory, and more like Fritze is putting across his side in a contemporary (2000s) dispute between historians, where a lot of his points actually seem a bit myopic, even if he is correct about the actual Black Athena hypothesis (it's been 13 years since this book came out and it looks like the BA has been disproven largely).
Honestly, it's worth reading those middle three chapters, and probably the introduction, but a good half of the book is either too dry or too much academic squabbling....more
Fifty questions for our historian to answer from the public. Of course, with my historian hat on, I would start asking what were Jenner's reasons for Fifty questions for our historian to answer from the public. Of course, with my historian hat on, I would start asking what were Jenner's reasons for choosing the questions he did pick and what questions weren't answered... but this is a book on History, not Historiography, so let's enjoy what we have.
Jenner is a self professed "public historian" and the in-house historian for the Horrible Histories TV and films, and it shows. His approach is irreverent where it can be and serious when it needs to be. It's also heavily read and informative, and I did enjoy his answers and choice of questions.
I liked having a book to dip in and out of, with short chapters or questions, many of which come with the true mark of success for these books, a Further Reading list. Do I now have a reading list, yes, yes I do. Are there now some areas that were previously unknown to me which I want to know more about? Yes indeed. Job done. ...more
You know when someone has to say "I've footnoted everything cos my subject loves a lawsuit" (I paraphrase but not by much) that we're going in hard onYou know when someone has to say "I've footnoted everything cos my subject loves a lawsuit" (I paraphrase but not by much) that we're going in hard on the rich of America. And so Patrick Radden Keefe does, digging through what must surely have been a mountain of material to find the manipulations and machinations of the Sackler family as they twisted and turned through the drug industry, medical advertising, and regulation sector to rake in billions via Oxycontin, resulting in the opioid crisis.
Radden Keefe calls this 'narrative non-fiction', and that's accurate. It has the structure of a novel, but the story is true. I have seen a few people complain that the book starts too far back in time and covers people who weren't directly related to the decision to use a cover company to make an easily abused and highly addictive drug, but I disagree. This isn't just about Oxycontin. It's not even just about the family's other chemical success, Valium. It's about how they accrued financial security and societal respect despite the antisemitic excesses of c20th America but at what cost to the health of Americans and the integrity of healthcare provision and regulation?
I think this book actually undersells itself slightly. It's about more than just the addictive painkillers, it's about American capitalism and power through wealth. It's frustrating in parts because the injustices being done are real and infuriating. It has turned Nan Goldin from a photographer I admired into a hero....more
I rarely feel the need to talk half stars, but this really is a 4.5.
It's impossible not to have noticed in recent years how many books there are aboutI rarely feel the need to talk half stars, but this really is a 4.5.
It's impossible not to have noticed in recent years how many books there are about 'Women of history' which pluck the stories of women, sometimes not always well attested to, and present them to the reader. I don't necessarily have a problem with this, but it means I wasn't quite prepared at first for what Dr Janina Ramirez is doing with Femina.
As I started reading Femina, I also read this online commentary about women in Art History by Eliza Goodpasture: https://artreview.com/the-problem-wit... Doing so perfectly set my brain for what Femina is doing. Rather than telling decontextualised stories, Ramirez is placing these medieval women slap bang on the context of their times. Some chapters contain a lot of preamble about the men of the setting because there's no way to fully appreciate the women without knowing the men. It's thoughtful, holistic history.
It's also interdisciplinary, drawing in archaeology, art history, textual analysis, theology. It's the all-around approach, but it never overwhelms with jargon, and always conjures vivid and accessible prose. I feel like I learned a lot, from the women who made the Bayeux Tapestry to Jadwiga, King (yes, King) of Poland. I even had to find the æ key on my laptop so I could consider Æthelflæd, daughter of Alfred the Great and just as interesting....more
I sometimes think I need a new shelf on here called 'books which made me mad'... This one had me fuming. All those talented women out there who had caI sometimes think I need a new shelf on here called 'books which made me mad'... This one had me fuming. All those talented women out there who had careers affected, shortened, ruined or stopped from happening in the first place because of terrible men and horrible patriarchal society they built!
"What specific area of world history is this about, Holly" you ask, unsure due to sheer enormity of the problems terrible men have caused talented women in many many areas.
Cinema. Film-making. Creating moving pictures with or without sound to entertain. And doing so in the desert of California.
This book traces the Hollywood history of women, and considering it is already straining at the edges with examples left on the cutting-room floor, it's a good thing it's just limited to Hollywood. Helen O'Hara has jam-packed this with examples and information. Want some horrifying statistics? Some rage-inducing anecdotes? A consistent effort to include women of colour and LGBTQ+ people, which makes everything even worse cos they get it worse than white straight cis women? Oh yes, the research and receipts are here.
It's well written, although if you're not a fan of that slightly snarky millennial tone then you might find some of the darker jokes a bit distracting (I love them). I think the only thing I wanted that it lacked was a list at the end of all the films mentioned that those women made....more
What if learning about the British Empire made you hungry?
Not one for reading on an empty stomach, but still a very worthwhile read, The Hungry EmpireWhat if learning about the British Empire made you hungry?
Not one for reading on an empty stomach, but still a very worthwhile read, The Hungry Empire traces the food trade, manufacture and consumption which drove much of the expansion of the British Empire over the centuries.
From salt cod in Newfoundland in the c16th, to a fun and cheeky Bridget Jones reference at the end, Lizzie Collingham uses individual meals to tell a cohesive story of how, when and where the various arms of the British Empire (from workers in Britain to enslaved people in the Caribbean to the inhabitants of Africa and India) got the food they got. And it comes with recipes in each chapter if you feel inclined to make these things happen for teatime.
A good book for picking up and reading a chapter or two at a time, and if you do so while you have a cup of tea then you will identify with a LOT of the people discussed within....more
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