Popular history book reviews
A blog reading and reviewing popular history books. We review great (hopefully!) new (probably...) history (certainly 🙂) books.
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2024-03-08T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/
Anthony
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Footmarks - review
Anthony Webb
The world’s oldest bum print can be found in Tuc d’Audoubert cave, in Ariège, France.
A team of archaeologists and skilled trackers, interpreting footprints on the cave floor that had been undisturbed...
2024-03-08T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-03-08-review-footmarks/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1837730245.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Footmarks - review" /><p>Our review of Footmarks: A Journey into Our Restless Past, by Jim Leary, first published in July 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Footmarks explores the history and pre-history of people moving around, which has recieved less attention than the history of people staying put: in houses, villages and towns.</p><p>I love the idea, but the book was too meandering for my tastes. On the other hand... the scattergun approach means that <i>something</i> is likely to stick - personally I was delighted to stumble across the most ancient pre-historic bum print.</p></strong></p> <p>★★☆☆☆</p><hr /> <p>The world’s oldest bum print can be found in Tuc d’Audoubert cave, in Ariège, France.</p>
<p>A team of archaeologists and skilled trackers, interpreting footprints on the cave floor that had been undisturbed for millennia, were able to reconstruct the precise moment that the bottom mark was impressed on the muddy surface...</p>
<h3 id="getting-to-the-bottom-of-it" tabindex="-1">Getting to the bottom of it</h3>
<p>Approximately 17,000 years ago, two adults, one male and one female, were walking fast through the cave, heading for the exit. Just at the point of a sharp bend, the man’s left foot slipped. The sudden change in his centre of gravity, combined with the momentum he had accrued, resulted in his torso descending rapidly. The full weight of the man’s upper body drove his buttocks forcefully downwards onto the cave floor, cracking the fragile mud surface layer and leaving (for posterity) the world’s oldest butt cheek impressions.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-03-08-review-footmarks/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
<p>According to the archaeological report the man may or may not have been wearing underpants:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>...no statement could be made about the buttocks regarding clothing</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Episodes of Magdalenian Hunter-Gatherers in the Upper Gallery of Tuc d’Audoubert (Ariège, France).</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>I came across this remarkable piece of archaeological detective work, in <em>Footmarks: A Journey into Our Restless Past</em> by Jim Leary.</p>
<h3 id="on-the-move" tabindex="-1">On the move</h3>
<p>The idea behind Jim Leary’s book is that when we look at the past we tend to see a series of static sites: Stonehenge, Pompei and the like, frozen in time but also frozen in space.</p>
<p>Leary’s big thing is that it is the movements of people that make the past come to life. By examining traces of motion we get a much more immediate sense of how people lived their lives. Not least because we can ourselves recreate their journeys or footsteps across a landscape, by just going for a walk. As Leary puts it:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>By shifting our focus to the way people moved, we infuse the past with the dynamism and vital force it once contained, letting it live in the present.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Footmarks, Jim Leary</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="paths-through-time" tabindex="-1">Paths through time</h3>
<p>The book starts at a small scale, with the oldest human footprints from 3.66 million years ago in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. These show three people, one large, one medium, one small. The smallest person limped alongside the larger one, while the middle person walked behind, carefully stepping in the footsteps of the largest. Their footprints - the earliest direct evidence of humans walking - were impressed upon the recently fallen volcanic ash from a nearby eruption.</p>
<p>It then moves on to more recent footmarks, such as the ones from Tuc d’Audoubert cave above, where the ancient bumprint was recorded, and looks at how the alignment of ancient monuments might indicate how people moved about in prehistoric times (no evidence for using the Ridgeways apparently).</p>
<p>As the book progresses the pathways scale up, to drovers tracks, to roads, until finally we look at voyages across the sea.</p>
<h3 id="a-personal-journey" tabindex="-1">A personal journey</h3>
<p>Footmarks is an intimate book, and Leary shares some of his personal difficulties such as bereavement or just finding it difficult to cope. I really appreciated this openness. As an aside to the “history” in the book, by setting out his own struggles so matter of factly it helps everyone else reading it to feel more normal when they encounter their own issues. Life’s journey is rarely a smooth one even if it may appear so on the outside.</p>
<p>While the idea behind the book and the personality of the author appealed to me, I found reading it to be a bit of a mixed bag.</p>
<h3 id="a-bit-of-everything" tabindex="-1">A bit of everything</h3>
<p>I think the reason for this is that in my mind an archaeologist is someone who peers back at prehistory and the further back the better. Whereas in reality an archaeologist can be interested in <em>anything</em> they can dig up or find out. The practical implication of this is that Leary ranges far and wide as he looks for anecdotes to illustrate a point.</p>
<p>For example in a chapter on restrictions to movement (and resistance to those restrictions) he leaps from Enclosure in 18th Century England, to Offa’s Dyke, to Checkpoint Charlie, to the concept of the <em>flaneur</em> (italics essential), psychogeography, Gandhi and his march against the salt tax, a mass trespass at Kinder Scout in 1930s UK and finally the Occupy movement in 2011. All this in 15 pages.</p>
<p>This passage is perhaps one of the most scattergun but many of the chapters felt like a bit of a hodgepodge of random titbits chosen to garnish a topic.</p>
<h3 id="drawing-in-the-readers" tabindex="-1">Drawing in the readers</h3>
<p>That said the intention of Leary is to draw ordinary people in, not just the archaeology buffs - and he succeeds here with readable prose and by breaking down the book into short chapters. The book as a whole is not intimidatingly long and has some nice woodcut style pictures at the start of each section.</p>
<p>Liminal count 🪨🪨🪨</p>
<p>I’ve deducted a few marks though for the “liminal” count which comes in at 3<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-03-08-review-footmarks/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup>.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>The idea of studying movement in the past strongly appeals to me. But much of the book was too meandering for my tastes.</p>
<p>Alongside the duff notes though there were passages that have left a lasting impression - such as the three ancient travellers crossing a field of volcanic ash at the dawn of mankind, a child skipping across the mudflats of the North Sea a million years ago, and those two groundbreaking ice age butt marks in the mud of the cave floor.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>I was keen to verify this claim - and have a look at the ancient bum print - so I did a bit of googling to track down the sources. Here are the links to the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-60406-6_13/figures/4">photos of the cave floor with bottom impression</a>. If you look carefully and read the accompanying text it all seems very credible. The full <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-60406-6_13">archaeological report that found the buttock prints</a> is published as an open access paper. Amazingly it hasn’t yet gone viral. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-03-08-review-footmarks/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Counting the number of times the word “liminal” is used (or its derivations) is my objective test for the overall jargon level. I believe all non specialist archaeology books should aim for a score of zero because the obscure word “liminal” can in all cases be replaced by the normal word “boundary” 🙂. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-03-08-review-footmarks/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in February 2024
Anthony Webb
14 new history books in the metaphorical bag from Feb 2024. For some reason this month has proven to be quite a global mix, which I like!
Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to...
2024-03-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2024-03-01-posts-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1709397540/posts/Feb2024_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in February 2024" /><p>14 new history books in the metaphorical bag from Feb 2024. For some reason this month has proven to be quite a global mix, which I like!</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you like to buy your books there.</em></p>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1803996323.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Hours of Richard III" title="The Hours of Richard III" />
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<div id="cover1803996323" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏰 🕯️ 🥐 🇬🇧 2024" data-title="The Hours of Richard III" data-author="Anne F Sutton" data-publishdate="2024-02-29" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1803996323.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1803996323" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1803996323" data-review="">
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<div id="cover1398519235" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🚽 🏰 🥐 🇬🇧 2024" data-title="Crypt: Life, Death and Disease in the Middle Ages and Beyond" data-author="Alice Roberts" data-publishdate="2024-02-29" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1398519235.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1398519235" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1398519235" data-review="">
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<div id="cover152660518X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🍭 ⛩️ 👑 2024" data-title="How the World Made the West: A 4,000-Year History" data-author="Josephine Quinn" data-publishdate="2024-02-29" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/152660518X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/152660518X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/152660518X" data-review="">
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<div id="cover0300251270" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛪ 🍜 🚽 🇮🇳 2024" data-title="Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan" data-author="Ruby Lal" data-publishdate="2024-02-27" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300251270.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0300251270" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0300251270" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0674737520.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals After 1492" title="The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals After 1492" />
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<div id="cover0674737520" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🕯️ ⛪ 🥐 2024" data-title="The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals After 1492" data-author="Marcy Norton" data-publishdate="2024-02-23" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0674737520.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0674737520" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0674737520" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1800815301.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Little Englanders: Britain in the Edwardian Era" title="Little Englanders: Britain in the Edwardian Era" />
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008416044.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="To the City: Life and Death Along the Ancient Walls of Istanbul" title="To the City: Life and Death Along the Ancient Walls of Istanbul" />
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<div id="cover0008416044" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛪ 🏗️ 🥐 🕯️ 🇹🇷 2024" data-title="To the City: Life and Death Along the Ancient Walls of Istanbul" data-author="Alexander Christie-Miller" data-publishdate="2024-02-15" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008416044.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0008416044" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0008416044" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1399407279.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Shylock's Venice: The Remarkable History of Venice's Jews and the Ghetto" title="Shylock's Venice: The Remarkable History of Venice's Jews and the Ghetto" />
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<div id="cover1399407279" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🇮🇹 👑 🥐 ⛪ 2024" data-title="Shylock's Venice: The Remarkable History of Venice's Jews and the Ghetto" data-author="Harry Freedman" data-publishdate="2024-02-15" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1399407279.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1399407279" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1399407279" data-review="">
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<div id="cover0197549322" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏰 👑 🥐 🍜 2024" data-title="The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium" data-author="Anthony Kaldellis" data-publishdate="2024-02-01" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0197549322.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0197549322" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0197549322" data-review="">
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<p>A few that I would like to dig into are:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World</strong></em>, <em>by David Van Reybrouck</em>. I had no idea that Indonesia was the first of the colonial countries to establish it's independence after world war 2, and would love to find out more.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>To The City: Life and Death Along the Ancient Walls of Istanbul</strong></em>, <em>by Alexander Christie-Miller</em>. Is this a history book? I don't know but it seems to include a blend of modern and medieval history. And Istanbul is such a fascinating place I think it would be hard to write a bad book about it.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks</strong></em>, <em>by David Gibbins</em>. I'm curious to see if the history of the world looks different from the bottom of the ocean.</p>
</li>
</ul>
One Fine Day - review
Anthony Webb
In the UK when we think of twentieth century history, World War 2 tends to dominate. Great Britain, this plucky sceptred isle, standing alone against the menace of Nazi Germany. An isolated bastion of...
2024-02-27T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-02-27-review-one-fine-day/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1408708582.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="One Fine Day - review" /><p>Our review of One Fine Day: Britain&#39;s Empire on the Brink, by Matthew Parker, first published in September 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>This is a fine book that collects together a huge range of stories from the early twentieth century, linked by the British Empire but refreshingly disparate.</p><p>Despite living in the UK the late British Empire was a mental tabula rasa for me. Matthew Parker has helped to sketch in some of the - sometimes shocking - details and has left me wanting to find out more.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>In the UK when we think of twentieth century history, World War 2 tends to dominate. Great Britain, this plucky sceptred isle, standing alone against the menace of Nazi Germany. An isolated bastion of freedom, relying on a few spitfires and old duffers in the home guard to fend off the fascist hordes that surrounded us.</p>
<p>What we tend to forget is that at that time Britain was at the centre of a world empire that laid claim to about a quarter of the land area of the globe and a fifth of its population.</p>
<h3 id="are-we-the-bad-guys%3F" tabindex="-1">Are we the bad guys?</h3>
<p>No doubt from the Nazi perspective <em>they</em> were the plucky young challengers. And why shouldn’t they aim for world domination when the British empire provided such an immediate and compelling template?<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-02-27-review-one-fine-day/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
<p>Matthew Parker’s new book <em>One Fine Day: 29 September 1923, Britain’s Empire on the Brink</em> reminds us that it was <em>only 100 years ago</em> in 1923 that the British Empire was at its largest ever extent, having just absorbed a bunch of territories under League of Nations mandates following World War 1.</p>
<h3 id="the-british-empire-in-1923" tabindex="-1">The British Empire in 1923</h3>
<p>To get a sense of the extent of the Empire at that time, this map sets out countries today that were ruled, or at least partly ruled, by Britain.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-02-27-review-one-fine-day/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
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width:calc(var(--slider-w) - var(--zmlbl-w) * 2);
cursor:pointer;
accent-color:var(--color-accent);
flex-shrink:0.5;
pointer-events: auto;
}
#zoomdiv:hover {
opacity:0.9;
}
#hoverbox {
visibility: hidden;
pointer-events: none;
position:absolute;
top: 10px;
left: 10px;
width: 100px;
min-width:150px;
padding: 8px;
text-align:center;
border-radius: 6px;
background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.85); /*rgba(255,105,180,0.8);*/
}
#hoverbox:has(+ svg path:hover) {
visibility: visible;
display: block;
z-index:1;
}
</style>
<style>
#mapcontainer{--color-britemp:crimson;--color-britemphover:#ff7a95;
}
.Australia,.Bangladesh,.Bahrain,.Belize,.BruneiDarussalam,.Botswana,.Canada,.Cameroon,.Egypt,.Fiji,.UnitedKingdom,.Ghana,.TheGambia,.Guyana,.Indonesia,.India,.Ireland,.Iraq,.Israel,.Jamaica,.Jordan,.Kenya,.Kuwait,.SriLanka,.Lesotho,.Myanmar,.Malawi,.Malaysia,.Nigeria,.NewZealand,.Oman,.Pakistan,.PapuaNewGuinea,.Palestine,.Qatar,.Sudan,.SouthSudan,.SierraLeone,.Swaziland,.Tanzania,.Uganda,.Vanuatu,.Yemen,.SouthAfrica,.Zambia,.Zimbabwe,.Somalia,.AntiguaandBarbuda,.Bahamas,.Bermuda,.Barbados,.CaymanIslands,.Dominica,.FalklandIslands,.Grenada,.HongKong,.SaintKittsandNevis,.Saint-Lucia,.Maldives,.Malta,.Montserrat,.Mauritius,.Nauru,.PitcairnIslands,.Rwanda,.Singapore,.Solomon Islands,.Seychelles,.TurksandCaicosIslands,.Tonga,.TrinidadandTobago,.SaintVincentandtheGrenadines,.BritishVirginIslands,.Cyprus {
fill:var(--color-britemp);&:hover path {fill:var(--color-britemphover) !important}
}
#AU,#BD,#BH,#BZ,#BN,#BW,#CA,#CM,#EG,#FJ,#GB,#GH,#GM,#GY,#ID,#IN,#IE,#IQ,#IL,#JM,#JO,#KE,#KW,#LK,#MM,#MW,#MY,#NG,#NZ,#OM,#PK,#PG,#PS,#QA,#SD,#SS,#SL,#SZ,#TZ,#UG,#VU,#YE,#ZA,#ZM,#ZW,#SO,#AG,#BS,#BM,#BB,#KY,#DM,#FK,#GD,#HK,#KN,#LC,#MV,#MT,#MS,#MU,#NR,#PN,#SG,#SB,#SC,#TC,#TO,#TT,#VC,#VG,#CY,#LS,#RW,#BI {
fill:var(--color-britemp);&:hover {fill:var(--color-britemphover) !important}
}
</style><div id="mapcontainer">
<input type="checkbox" class="svgmapicon" id="fullscreencheck" name="fullscreen" value="fullscreenon" title="full screen toggle" />
<svg id="fullscreenicon" class="svgmapicon" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" height="24" viewBox="0 -960 960 960" width="24">
<path d="M120-120v-200h80v120h120v80H120Zm520 0v-80h120v-120h80v200H640ZM120-640v-200h200v80H200v120h-80Zm640 0v-120H640v-80h200v200h-80Z"></path></svg>
<input type="checkbox" class="svgmapicon" id="panzoomcheck" name="panzoom" value="panzoomon" title="Pan and zoom toggle" />
<svg id="panzoomicon" class="svgmapicon" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" height="24" viewBox="0 -960 960 960" width="24"><path d="M419-80q-28 0-52.5-12T325-126L107-403l19-20q20-21 48-25t52 11l74 45v-328q0-17 11.5-28.5T340-760q17 0 29 11.5t12 28.5v472l-97-60 104 133q6 7 14 11t17 4h221q33 0 56.5-23.5T720-240v-160q0-17-11.5-28.5T680-440H461v-80h219q50 0 85 35t35 85v160q0 66-47 113T640-80H419ZM167-620q-13-22-20-47.5t-7-52.5q0-83 58.5-141.5T340-920q83 0 141.5 58.5T540-720q0 27-7 52.5T513-620l-69-40q8-14 12-28.5t4-31.5q0-50-35-85t-85-35q-50 0-85 35t-35 85q0 17 4 31.5t12 28.5l-69 40Zm335 280Z"></path></svg>
<div id="zoomdiv">
<button id="btnreset">reset</button>
<svg class="zoomlabel" id="zoomlabelminus" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" height="24" viewBox="0 -960 960 960" width="24"><path d="M200-440v-80h560v80H200Z"></path></svg>
<input type="range" title="zoom in out" id="zoominput" name="zoom" min="1" max="20" value="1" step="0.1" />
<svg class="zoomlabel" id="zoomlabelplus" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" height="24" viewBox="0 -960 960 960" width="24"><path d="M440-440H200v-80h240v-240h80v240h240v80H520v240h-80v-240Z"></path></svg>
<div class="flexs"></div>
</div>
<div id="hoverbox">Hover over a country to see the name 👉</div>
<svg id="svgmap" baseprofile="tiny" fill="#ccccca" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width=".2" version="1.2" width="100%" height="100%" viewbox="0 0 2000 857" transform="scale(1.5,1.5) translate(0,0)" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" onload="makeDraggable(evt)">
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<path d="M1296.2 336.7l1.3 5.1-2.8 0 0 4.2 1.1 0.9-2.4 1.3 0.2 2.6-1.3 2.6 0 2.6-1 1.4-16.9-3.2-2.7-6.6-0.3-1.4 0.9-0.4 0.4 1.8 4.2-1 4.6 0.2 3.4 0.2 3.3-4.4 3.7-4.1 3-4 1.3 2.2z" id="AE" name="United Arab Emirates">
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</path>
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</path>
<path class="Vanuatu" name="Vanuatu" d="M 1929.9 600.5 1929.9 600.7 1929.6 600.7 1929.7 600.4 1929.9 599.1 1929.9 599 1930 597.8 1930.2 597.9 1930.1 599.2 1930.2 599.5 1930.1 600 1929.9 600.5 Z">
</path>
<path class="Vanuatu" name="Vanuatu" d="M 1923.6 601.9 1922.7 601.8 1922.1 602.1 1922 602.3 1921.8 602.3 1921.7 601.7 1921.5 601.6 1921.1 600.6 1921.5 599.8 1921.5 599.4 1921.4 599.2 1921.4 597.8 1921.3 597.5 1921.3 597 1921.5 596.7 1921.5 596.4 1921.7 596.1 1921.7 595.9 1922 595.8 1922.1 596.3 1922.3 596.7 1922.5 597 1922.6 598.3 1922.5 599.1 1922.5 599.2 1923.1 599.1 1923.4 598.8 1923.6 598 1923.6 597.8 1923.9 597.6 1924.2 597.7 1924.1 598.1 1924.1 599 1924.4 599.1 1924.4 599.6 1924.2 599.7 1924.5 600.1 1924.3 600.3 1924.3 600.8 1924.5 601.3 1924.4 601.5 1924.1 601.5 1923.6 601.9 Z">
</path>
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</path>
<path class="Vanuatu" name="Vanuatu" d="M 1928.4 590.7 1928.1 590.9 1927.9 591 1927.9 591.2 1927.7 591.3 1927.7 591 1927.5 590.8 1927.4 590.5 1927.5 590.1 1927.7 590 1928.1 589.8 1928.2 590 1928.3 590.4 1928.3 590.5 1928.4 590.7 Z">
</path>
<path class="Vanuatu" name="Vanuatu" d="M 1923.4 586.5 1923.3 586.4 1923.4 585.9 1923.6 586.1 1923.4 586.5 Z">
</path>
</g>
<g class="Samoa">
<path class="Samoa" name="Samoa" d="M 21.9 591.3 22.2 591.4 22.5 591.5 22.8 591.7 22.7 592 21.7 592 21.4 591.9 21.1 592 20.9 591.9 20.5 591.7 20.2 591.8 19.9 591.6 19.7 591.4 19.1 591.1 19.2 590.7 19.6 590.5 20 590.5 20.5 590.5 21.4 590.9 21.9 591 21.9 591.3 Z">
</path>
<path class="Samoa" name="Samoa" d="M 17.4 588.5 18 589.1 18.2 589.8 18.1 590.1 18.2 590.4 17.9 590.4 17.6 590.2 17.3 590.4 16.4 590.5 16.1 590.2 15.9 589.8 15.7 589.7 15.4 589.4 14.9 589 14.7 588.8 14.7 588.6 15.1 588.7 15.4 588.6 16 588.4 16.4 588.4 16.9 588.3 17.2 588.3 17.4 588.5 Z">
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</g>
<path d="M602 424.6l-0.2 0-0.1-0.5 0.1-0.3-0.1-0.3-0.4-0.1-0.3-0.3 0.1-0.3 1.2 0.6-0.1 0.2 0 0.4-0.2 0.2 0 0.4z" id="BQBO" name="Netherlands">
</path>
<path d="M634.3 389.6l-0.2 0.1 0-0.2 0.1-0.1 0.1 0.2z" id="BQSE" name="St. Eustatius (Netherlands)">
</path>
<path d="M632.8 388.7l-0.1 0 0.1-0.2 0.1 0.1-0.1 0.1z" id="BQSA" name="Saba (Netherlands)">
</path>
<path d="M644 406.9l0 0.2 0.4-0.1-0.2 0.5 0.2 0.2 0 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.9-0.3 0.3-0.1-0.4-0.1 0.1-0.6-0.1-0.4 0-0.2-0.3 0.6-0.5-0.4 0-0.4-0.4-0.1-0.5-0.2-0.5 0.3-0.4 0.4 0.1 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.2z" id="MQ" name="Martinique">
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<g class="CanarayIslands">
<path class="CanaryIslands" name="Canary Islands (Spain)" d="M 888.4 323.4 888.1 323.9 887.7 324.4 887.4 324 887 324 886.8 323.8 887 323.5 887.4 323.6 887.8 323.2 888.1 323 888.3 323.1 888.4 323.4 Z">
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</path>
<path d="M1295 635.8l0.4 0 0.4 0.2 0.3 0.3 0 0.3 0.1 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.2-0.2 0.6-0.1 0.4-0.2 0.2-0.4 0.1-0.9 0-0.2-0.2-0.8-0.4-0.3-0.5 0-0.3-0.3-0.6 0.1-0.4 0.2-0.2 0.2-0.4 0.1 0 0.5-0.2 0.5 0z" id="RE" name="Reunion">
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<g class="Gaudeloupe">
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</path>
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</path>
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</g>
</svg>
</div>
<script>
// get the svg element we are interested in
var svgroot = document.getElementById('svgmap'); // to register mouse and touch events, act as a canvas for grabbing oordinates
// create group item to wrap around svg content. We will need this to apply transformations to as can't apply transformations to svg root on ios :-(
var ns = "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg";
const svggroup = document.createElementNS(ns,"g");
svggroup.setAttribute("id","svggrp");
svggroup.setAttribute("transform","scale(1,1) translate(0,0)");
svggroup.setAttribute("transform-origin","50% 50%");
// wrap the the new group around svgroot content
const range = document.createRange();
range.selectNodeContents(svgroot);
range.surroundContents(svggroup);
var svg = svggroup;
var svgcontainer = document.getElementById('mapcontainer');
// get the input range zoom slider and set it to the scale transform applied to the svg + initialise the zoomvalue variable
const zoominput = document.querySelector("#zoominput");
const initScaleValue = svg.transform.baseVal.getItem(0).matrix.a;
let wheelscale = initScaleValue;
zoominput.value = initScaleValue;
var zoomvalue = initScaleValue;
const zoomvalueMin = zoominput.min;
const zoomvalueMax = zoominput.max;
// get translate and zoom transforms
const transfScale = svg.transform.baseVal[0];
const transfTranslate = svg.transform.baseVal[1];
// Touch Point cache
const tpCache = [];
// variables used later in boundary collision detection
let rectsvg, rectcont;
// get some optional info output element
var txtshow = document.getElementById('showtext');
// add a mouseover event to the svg map, so that if you mouse over a path element in that svg with a name attribute this is shown in the hoverbox
svg.addEventListener("mouseover", updateCountryName);
function updateCountryName(e) {
let countryName = e.target.getAttribute("name");
const elem = document.getElementById("hoverbox");
if (countryName) {
elem.innerText = countryName;
} else {
elem.innerText = "Terra Incognito";
}
}
// if this checkbox is checked allows touch pan and mousewheel zoom
const panzoomcheck = document.getElementById('panzoomcheck');
var panzoomon = false;
panzoomcheck.addEventListener("input", (event) => {
if (panzoomcheck.checked == true){
panzoomon = true;
} else {
panzoomon = false;
}
});
// toggle fullscreen on and off where supported
let fullscreencheck = document.getElementById("fullscreencheck");
fullscreencheck.addEventListener("input", (event) => {
let panzoomstate; // to record state of checkbox
toggleFullscreen();
});
// function targets the map container
function toggleFullscreen() {
let elem = document.getElementById("mapcontainer");
if (!document.fullscreenElement) { elem.requestFullscreen().catch((err) => {
console.log(`Error attempting to enable fullscreen mode: ${err.message} (${err.name})`);
});
// turn on checkboxes to enable panning and represent full screen
panzoomstate = panzoomcheck.checked; // record state
panzoomcheck.checked = true;
panzoomon = true; fullscreencheck.checked = true;
} else {
document.exitFullscreen();
// turn off those checkboxes
fullscreencheck.checked = false;
if (panzoomstate == false) {
panzoomcheck.checked = false; //only turn off if was off before
panzoomon = false;
}
}
}
// add a reset back to initial values option
var mapreset = document.getElementById('btnreset');
mapreset.addEventListener("click", (event) => {
// revert to initial scale
transfScale.setScale(initScaleValue, initScaleValue);
// revert to initial translate of zero
transfTranslate.setTranslate(0,0);
zoominput.value = initScaleValue;
zoomvalue = initScaleValue;
wheelscale = initScaleValue;
});
// add slider zoom functionality
zoominput.addEventListener("input", zoominout);
function zoominout(event) {
// get zoom level from input range
zoomvalue = zoominput.value
transfScale.setScale(zoomvalue,zoomvalue);
wheelscale = parseInt(zoomvalue); //otherwise not in line with step on zoom range input
}
// add mouse wheel zoom functionality
svgroot.addEventListener("wheel", wheelzoom);
function wheelzoom(evt) {
if (panzoomon == true) {
evt.preventDefault();
// change constant for scroll sensitivity
// only zooming out on Chrome not zooming in, fine on Edge... odd!
wheelscale += evt.deltaY * -0.01;
// constrain wheelscale to range input max and min
wheelscale = Math.min(Math.max(zoominput.min, wheelscale), zoominput.max);
zoominput.value = wheelscale;
zoominout();
}
}
// add draggability to svg - mouse and touch
function makeDraggable(evt) {
svgroot.addEventListener('mousedown', startDrag);
svgroot.addEventListener('mousemove', drag);
svgroot.addEventListener('mouseup', endDrag);
svgroot.addEventListener('mouseleave', endDrag);
svgroot.addEventListener('touchstart', startDrag);
svgroot.addEventListener('touchmove', drag);
svgroot.addEventListener('touchend', endDrag);
svgroot.addEventListener('touchcancel', endDrag);
function getMousePosition(evt) {
var CTM = svgroot.getScreenCTM(); // translate on this one
var CTMgrp = svg.getScreenCTM(); // scale on this div
// needed to extract single touch point for panning
if (evt.touches) { evt = evt.touches[0]; }
// turn screen co-ordinates into svg co-ordinates
return {
x: (evt.screenX - CTM.e)/ (CTMgrp.a),
y: (evt.screenY - CTM.f)/ (CTMgrp.d),
xscr: evt.screenX, // for use in collision detection later
yscr: evt.screenY,
};
}
var selectedElement, startposition, moveposition, startScale, maxLeft, maxBottom, maxTop, maxRight;
let dxOld = 0, dyOld = 0;
function startDrag(evt) {
if (panzoomon == true || evt.type==="mousedown") {
if (evt.touches) {
if (evt.touches.length === 2) {
evt.preventDefault(); //only want to prevent when pinch zooming, otherwise we stop mouseover event working!
// stick all the touch points into a cache. Later we will use this to get the start and end point of each touch
for (let i = 0; i < evt.touches.length; i++) {
tpCache.push(evt.touches[i]);
}
}
}
// for later use in pinchzoom function
startScale = zoomvalue;
svgroot.style.cursor = "move";
selectedElement = svg;
// get initial mouse postion
startposition = getMousePosition(evt);
// adjust start position with existing translate values
startposition.x -= transfTranslate.matrix.e;
startposition.y -= transfTranslate.matrix.f;
// set moveposition to null in case a previous moveposition messes things up!
moveposition = null;
// get shapes to find edges for boundary detectoin
rectsvg = svg.getBoundingClientRect();
rectcont = mapcontainer.getBoundingClientRect();
// calc the limits of the pan drag. Easier to do this directly with screen units. Also allow a bit of margin so zooming out at the edge of the map doesn't mess things up too much
const mapMarginX = rectcont.width / 5;
const mapMarginY = rectcont.height / 3;
maxLeft = rectcont.left - rectsvg.left + mapMarginX;
maxBottom = rectcont.bottom - rectsvg.bottom - mapMarginY;
maxRight = rectcont.right - rectsvg.right - mapMarginX;
maxTop = rectcont.top - rectsvg.top + mapMarginY;
}
}
function drag(evt) {
if (selectedElement) {
if (evt.touches && evt.touches.length>=2) {
// Check this event for 2-touch Move/Pinch/Zoom gesture
handle_pinch_zoom(evt);
} else {
// to stop accidentally selecting text, that sort of thing
evt.preventDefault();
// get current mouse position
moveposition = getMousePosition(evt);
let dx = moveposition.x - startposition.x;
let dy = moveposition.y - startposition.y;
// for use in detecting whether border of svg is within border of container - easier to do this using screen units
let dxscr = moveposition.xscr - startposition.xscr;
let dyscr = moveposition.yscr - startposition.yscr;
// limit movement of svg if initial svg shape tries to move beyond the border of the constraining container/ This collision detection is pretty approximate due to zooming. Added margins as a safety measure!
if (dxscr > maxLeft || dxscr < maxRight)
{dx = dxOld;} else {dxOld = dx;}
if (dyscr > maxTop || dyscr < maxBottom)
{dy = dyOld;} else {dyOld = dy;}
transfTranslate.setTranslate(dx, dy);
}
}
}
function handle_pinch_zoom(ev) {
if (ev.touches.length === 2 && ev.touches.length === 2) {
// Check if the two target touches are the same ones that started the 2-touch
const point1 = tpCache.findLastIndex(
(tp) => tp.identifier === ev.touches[0].identifier,
);
const point2 = tpCache.findLastIndex(
(tp) => tp.identifier === ev.touches[1].identifier,
);
if (point1 >= 0 && point2 >= 0) {
const startTouch1 = tpCache[point1];
const endTouch1 = ev.touches[0];
const startTouch2 = tpCache[point2];
const endTouch2 =ev.touches[1];
// Calculate the distance between the two touch point starts
const startDiffX = Math.abs(startTouch1.clientX - startTouch2.clientX);
const startDiffY = Math.abs(startTouch1.clientY - startTouch2.clientY);
const startDiffHyp = Math.sqrt(startDiffX**2 + startDiffY**2);
// Calculate the distance between the two touch point ends
const moveDiffX = Math.abs(endTouch1.clientX - endTouch2.clientX);
const moveDiffY = Math.abs(endTouch1.clientY - endTouch2.clientY);
const moveDiffHyp = Math.sqrt(moveDiffX**2 + moveDiffY**2);
// the ratio between the difference at the start of the pinch and at the end of the pinch
let scaleDiff = moveDiffHyp / startDiffHyp;
let zoomvaluetemp = startScale*scaleDiff; // zoom pre ceiling and floor... then apply max and min
zoomvalue = Math.min(Math.max(zoomvalueMin, zoomvaluetemp), zoomvalueMax);
transfScale.setScale(zoomvalue,zoomvalue);
wheelscale = parseInt(zoomvalue);
zoominput.value = wheelscale;
// ev.target.style.background = "green";
} else {
// empty tpCache
tpCache = [];
}
}
}
function endDrag(evt) {
selectedElement = null;
// reset pointer options
svgroot.style.cursor = "default";
}
}
function updateinfo(elem, value) {
elem.innerText = `value ${value}`
}
</script>
<h6 id="source%3A-me-using-wikipedia-%F0%9F%99%82.-top-right-button-to-enlarge-map-and-press-the-finger-button-to-pan-around-and-zoom-in.-base-map-from-simplemaps.com." tabindex="-1">Source: me using Wikipedia 🙂. Top right button to enlarge map and press the finger button to pan around and zoom in. Base map from <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-02-27-review-one-fine-day/simplemaps.com">simplemaps.com</a>.</h6>
<p>It is a huge expanse.</p>
<p>Parker examines the state of the empire at that time, starting in the Pacific, and journeying West stopping off at various imperial territories.</p>
<ul>
<li>🇰🇮 Ocean Island (now part of Kiribati)</li>
<li>🇦🇺 Australia</li>
<li>🇮🇳 India</li>
<li>🇲🇾 Malaysia</li>
<li>🇲🇲 Burma / Myanmar</li>
<li>🇰🇪 Kenya / East Africa</li>
<li>🇳🇬 Nigeria / West Africa</li>
<li>🇯🇲 Jamaica and the West Indies</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="a-few-decades-in-the-life-of..." tabindex="-1">A few decades in the life of...</h3>
<p>The title of the book suggests that it is a “micro history” based on a single day around the world (23 September 1923) but this isn’t the case. Instead this date is used as a bookend for the histories of the different places we visit, often covering several decades.</p>
<p>But while <em>One Fine Day</em> looks backwards, it tends not to look forwards from September 1923. What we experience then is the perspective of people alive at that time, who don’t know what is coming. This was very effective in getting me into the contemporary mind-set.</p>
<h3 id="ocean-island" tabindex="-1">Ocean island</h3>
<p>For example the book’s first location, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banaba">Ocean Island</a> (now Banaba, part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiribati">Republic of Kiribati</a>) in the Pacific, is described from 1820s when it was first visited by whalers selling tobacco. Then in 1900 it was targeted for phosphate mining - the island’s soil (when chemically processed) making an incredibly rich fertiliser. The story is continued up until 1923 by which point it was officially a British possession and in danger of being totally dug up and shipped off - the islanders desperately struggling against this fate.</p>
<p>The history is told through the voices and experiences of people from the communities ruled by Britain. In the case of Ocean Island we hear this voice indirectly but clearly nonetheless. We also get the British settler and London perspective - which were often at odds.</p>
<p>The Ocean Island tale is rounded off by the story of the British Resident Arthur Grimble, who wrote popular books about the charms of life in the Pacific and how much the islanders loved him. He also left behind a damning letter which came to light decades later, in which he threatened the islanders with death and the destruction of their village if they did not hand over their remaining land to be quarried out and taken away.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-02-27-review-one-fine-day/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup>)</p>
<h3 id="no-one-remember-old-marcus-garvey%3F" tabindex="-1">No one remember old Marcus Garvey?</h3>
<p>In other places we hear directly from the protagonists themselves, and <em>One Fine Day</em> introduces us to some memorable characters. My favourite was Marcus Garvey, born in Jamaica. Although he appears to be reasonably well known I hadn’t come across him before. Starting from nothing he built a huge following across North America, developed a number of businesses focused on benefiting black people, and declared himself President of Africa. Always a controversial figure (for example favoured the segregation of white people and black people), the impact he had was enormous.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-02-27-review-one-fine-day/#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="the-rough-and-the-smooth" tabindex="-1">The rough and the smooth</h3>
<p>One of the things that I appreciated about <em>One Fine Day</em> is that there is no attempt to fit the histories of these different places to a particular argument. Parker is not trying to make the case that the British Empire was a “bad thing”, neither is he trying to do the opposite and say that it was a “good thing”.</p>
<p>However he doesn’t shy away from the negative consequences of the Empire on many of the people ruled by it.</p>
<p>The colonial takeover of Kenya stuck in my mind in particular.</p>
<h3 id="colonial-kenya%3A-a-tabula-sordida" tabindex="-1">Colonial Kenya: a Tabula Sordida</h3>
<p>For a long time Britain had very little to do with East Africa. But at the end of the 19th century the British developed a “rather paranoid concern” (as Parker puts it) that a rival European power could rock up at the source of the Nile in Uganda and somehow bung it up so that Egypt - another British pseudo-colony - would dry up. Thus making the Suez canal - the gateway to the British colony of India - untenable.</p>
<p>The solution? Take over Uganda (then the kingdom of Buganda) at the headwaters of the Nile.</p>
<h3 id="the-lunatic-line" tabindex="-1">The lunatic line</h3>
<p>But Uganda is a landlocked country (see map above) so... what if you need to get there in a hurry? The next solution? Build a railway from Mombasa on the coast to Lake Victoria, across what is now Kenya.</p>
<p>Building the railway was initially a private undertaking but it bankrupted the company building it. The British government inherited the task of finishing it off, and the large debts that it had accumulated.</p>
<p>To pay off these debts a house tax was introduced in 1900. Every dwelling place in Kenya had to pay the tax. If the tax wasn’t paid the house was burned down.</p>
<h3 id="imperial-logic" tabindex="-1">Imperial logic</h3>
<p>Alongside this, huge expanses of land were declared property of the British Crown and sold off to white settlers. As well as raising some money directly the idea was that the land would be used to grow export crops like cotton. The white settlers had no intention of working the land directly, so this meant that Kenyan Africans were forced into labouring on these farms.</p>
<p>Among other coercive factors: where were you going to get the hard currency to pay the house tax to prevent your house being burned down, if not by working on a colonial farm?</p>
<p>So Kenyan Africans were being fleeced for cash and forced into servitude, in order to pay for a mad project to stop the Nile getting bunged up, to protect Egypt, which was protecting the Suez Canal, which was the route to India, the jewel in the Imperial Crown.</p>
<p>The interests of the white settlers were less convoluted - they wanted to get rich at someone else’s expense.</p>
<p>Back in the UK, the Colonial Office was often appalled by the behaviour of the Kenyan colonists. But these good intentions at a distance did nothing to stop the bad behaviour on the ground.</p>
<h3 id="writing-style" tabindex="-1">Writing style</h3>
<p>This book is a big one, there’s no avoiding it. So big that the notes section got relegated to a <a href="https://matthewparker.co.uk/one-fine-day/">separate notes website by the publisher</a> (see the Source Notes link on the left hand side).<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-02-27-review-one-fine-day/#fn5" id="fnref5">5</a></sup></p>
<p>But Parker breaks it down into manageable bite sized chapters, and - mostly - keeps it sailing along nicely. I did find myself a bit becalmed about half-way through but the breeze picked up again after this, blowing strongly until the end.</p>
<p>He also does a good job of making it immediate and personal with anecdotes and snippets from the lives of ordinary people of the time.</p>
<h3 id="negatives%3F" tabindex="-1">Negatives?</h3>
<p>I think the only negative is that there is just so much to say, that <em>One Fine Day</em> can feel a bit overwhelming. That said anything cut from the book would feel like a loss.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>This is a fine book that collects together a huge range of stories from the early twentieth century, linked by the British Empire but refreshingly disparate.</p>
<p>Despite living in the UK the late British Empire was a mental tabula rasa for me. Matthew Parker has helped to sketch in some of the - sometimes shocking - details and has left me wanting to find out more.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>For the avoidance of doubt my view is that the Nazis should <em>not</em> have attempted world domination. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-02-27-review-one-fine-day/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>For example, all of Nigeria was part of the British Empire at that time. The western sliver of Cameroon was also part of the British Empire then. Both of these countries, on their present borders, have been coloured in red. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-02-27-review-one-fine-day/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>I have massively simplified this story - the book is worth reading for this section alone. It is also interesting that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Grimble">Arthur Grimble’s wikipedia page</a> is clearly in need of beefing up! <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-02-27-review-one-fine-day/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>There is a great <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y2d8c">introduction to Marcus Garvey</a> on the BBC Great Lives program. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-02-27-review-one-fine-day/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn5" class="footnote-item"><p>This tripped me up at first as I couldn’t find anything in the book to tell me that the notes were online. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-02-27-review-one-fine-day/#fnref5" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in January 2024
Anthony Webb
12 new history books identified over Jan 2024. A fairly ecclectic mix but with some familar historical themes such as modern Russia and the British Empire. A few top picks highlighted below!
Click the...
2024-02-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2024-02-01-posts-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1706736998/posts/Jan2024_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in January 2024" /><p>12 new history books identified over Jan 2024. A fairly ecclectic mix but with some familar historical themes such as modern Russia and the British Empire. A few top picks highlighted below!</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you like to buy your books there.</em></p>
<div class="grid_book_small">
<div class="fix-children 🇬🇧 🏭 🏗️ 👑 🚽 🍭 2024 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241600413.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped the Globe" title="Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped the Globe" />
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<div id="cover0241600413" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🇬🇧 🏭 🏗️ 👑 🚽 🍭 2024" data-title="Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped the Globe" data-author="Sathnam Sanghera" data-publishdate="2024-01-25" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241600413.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0241600413" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0241600413" data-review="">
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<div class="fix-children 🇯🇵 🍜 🏗️ 👑 2024 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1509812741.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia" title="Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia" />
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<div id="cover1509812741" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🇯🇵 🍜 🏗️ 👑 2024" data-title="Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia" data-author="Gary J Bass" data-publishdate="2024-01-25" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1509812741.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1509812741" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1509812741" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children 🕯️ 🚽 🥐 ⛪ 2024 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0198886330.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations, 1400-1750" title="Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations, 1400-1750" />
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<div id="cover0198886330" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🕯️ 🚽 🥐 ⛪ 2024" data-title="Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations, 1400-1750" data-author="Noel Malcolm" data-publishdate="2024-01-25" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0198886330.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0198886330" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0198886330" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1847927793.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain" title="The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain" />
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<div id="cover1847927793" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🇩🇪 🚽 🥐 🏗️ 2024" data-title="The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain" data-author="Matthew Longo" data-publishdate="2024-01-25" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1847927793.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1847927793" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1847927793" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children 🚽 🍭 ⛩️ 2024 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1399045520.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Strange Ways To Die In History: The Heroic, Tragic and Funny" title="Strange Ways To Die In History: The Heroic, Tragic and Funny" />
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<div id="cover1399045520" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🚽 🍭 ⛩️ 2024" data-title="Strange Ways To Die In History: The Heroic, Tragic and Funny" data-author="Ben Gazur" data-publishdate="2024-01-23" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1399045520.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1399045520" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1399045520" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1474610323.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: " title="The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: " />
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<div id="cover1474610323" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏛️ 🥐 🍜 🍗 🕯️ 2024" data-title="The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: " data-author="Bettany Hughes" data-publishdate="2024-01-18" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1474610323.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1474610323" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1474610323" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children 🇬🇧 👑 🏭 🥐 2024 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1399411438.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Wild Men: The Remarkable Story of Britain's First Labour Government" title="The Wild Men: The Remarkable Story of Britain's First Labour Government" />
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<div id="cover1399411438" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🇬🇧 👑 🏭 🥐 2024" data-title="The Wild Men: The Remarkable Story of Britain's First Labour Government" data-author="David Torrance" data-publishdate="2024-01-18" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1399411438.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1399411438" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1399411438" data-review="">
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<div id="cover0465093930" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🕯️ 🥐 🍔 ⛩️ 2024" data-title="Equality: The History of an Elusive Idea" data-author="Darrin McMahon" data-publishdate="2024-01-18" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0465093930.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0465093930" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0465093930" data-review="">
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<p>A couple that caught my eye were:</p>
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<p><em><strong>Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped the Globe</strong></em>, <em>by Sathnam Sanghera</em> - after having recently read <em>One Fine Day</em> I'm more conscious of how pervasive the British Empire was until very recently, so am keen to check this one out too.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia</strong></em>, <em>by Gary J Bass</em> - focussing on the arguments made at the war trials of the Japanese top brass, I'm interested to find out how the author links this to Asia nowadays.</p>
</li>
</ul>
Sacred Foundations - review
Andy Salisbury
What are the origins of the modern European state?
It’s not a question I have given a great deal of thought to up to now, but the author’s very useful explanation of prevailing theories in this field...
2024-01-29T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-01-29-review-sacred-foundations/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/069124507X.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Sacred Foundations - review" /><p>Our review of Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State, by Anna M Grzymała-Busse, first published in January 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A short, statistics heavy and personality light, summary of how the medieval Catholic Church influenced the formation of the European state. This is a good book for those interested in the institutional and legal history of Europe.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>What are the origins of the modern European state?</p>
<p>It’s not a question I have given a great deal of thought to up to now, but the author’s very useful explanation of prevailing theories in this field makes clear that it is a question that has consumed academic careers.</p>
<p>In this book, Anna Grzymala-Busse has done something that I think is a characteristic of good non-fiction writing: she’s made me think afresh about contemporary concepts and institutions that I had largely taken for granted: ideas such as a ‘fictive’ person, separate legal personality, representation, consent, majority and supermajority decision making, all originated somewhere.</p>
<p>Explaining where those ideas came from and how they spread forms the subject matter of this book.</p>
<h3 id="war-and-negotiation" tabindex="-1">War and negotiation</h3>
<p>According to the author there are, at present, two dominant theories regarding the origins of the modern European state: the so-called ‘bellicist’ theory and the ‘bargaining’ theory.</p>
<p>The ‘bellicist’ tradition is best summed up by its principal proponent, Charles Tilly, who said in 1975 that ‘war made the state and the state made war’<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-01-29-review-sacred-foundations/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>. In the early modern period<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-01-29-review-sacred-foundations/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup>, European political entities consolidated and centralised to make themselves more effective at fighting wars, which gave rise to the state. References to ‘states’ before this period are, in this theory, anachronistic.</p>
<p>The bargaining tradition likewise locates the origins of the European state in the early modern period but argues that state institutions arose from a process of ‘bargaining’ between society and rulers. Society granted rulers steady income streams and, in exchange, rulers granted ‘society’ protection in the form of property rights. The Glorious Revolution (1688) is Exhibit A in this theory.</p>
<h3 id="what-did-the-medieval-church-ever-do-for-us%3F" tabindex="-1">What did the medieval Church ever do for us?</h3>
<p>But Anna Grzymala-Busse raises an interesting flaw in the above periodisation: most of the characteristics of European states, such as taxes, government institutions, and systems of law, pre-date early modern Europe; most arose in medieval Europe.</p>
<p>It appears that she is not the first to look back further to understand the European state, with recent work considering the impact of the Crusades, and the rise of cities and communes, among other factors. But, in most of these accounts, the role of the Church is essentially seen as a blocker – a conservative force seeking to slow down or reverse attempts to ‘modernise’ political organisation. The author turns this theory on its head: instead, she sees the medieval Church as instrumental in the development of the European state, essentially by the dual forces of imitation and competition.</p>
<p>This, she claims, explains why the European state developed in a way so distinct from other regions of the world. One of the defining features of Europe in this period is the existence of an independent trans-national institution which claimed spiritual authority (and often precedence) over secular regimes.</p>
<h3 id="nullify-vs-nuture" tabindex="-1">Nullify vs nuture</h3>
<p>That does not mean that the Church was intending to foster the growth of secular institutions and legal systems – far from it; quite often those were the unintended consequences of intense competition between the Church and medieval secular power (principally, the Holy Roman Empire).</p>
<p>Where the Church felt itself most threatened by a secular power, in what is now modern Germany, it was effective at fragmenting alternative sources of political authority whilst engaging in intense internal reform and innovation to strengthen itself in its power struggles with the emperors.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, elsewhere, where the Church felt less immediately threatened (most notably England) secular powers learnt from and adapted the institutional and legal innovations of the Church to their own purposes.</p>
<h3 id="the-greater-and-better-part" tabindex="-1">The greater and better part</h3>
<p>The book has a wealth of insights and new information I was not previously aware of. As someone who works in the legal profession, I was interested by the way legal concepts from ancient Roman law (often private law) were ‘rediscovered’ by medieval canon lawyers (often studying in the newly formed universities in places such as Bologna) and then repackaged for use in the Roman Catholic Church’s institutions and for methods of decision making.</p>
<p>Something as simple as majority decision making, which seems entirely intuitive to us today, was an institutional innovation by the Church based on the Roman law concept of <em>maior et senior</em> (the greater and better part) which, over time, came to be interpreted as the more numerous part (i.e., the majority). Before that, the assumption had been that decisions should be taken by consensus (usually meaning unanimity).</p>
<p>Ideas such as this were then spread by clergy who had either worked in parts of the Church and/or studied in the new universities, but who also formed a large part of medieval secular bureaucracies and decision-making forums.</p>
<h3 id="how-a-political-scientist-does-history" tabindex="-1">How a political scientist does history</h3>
<p>The book has a very distinctive style, which took me a while to get used to, but which I ultimately found quite refreshing. The reason for this may be (although I’m speculating) that the author is not writing as a historian, but rather as a political scientist. If you look her up, she comes up under the Stanford Department for Political Science and is described as a Professor of International Studies.</p>
<p>I’m used to reading history books by persons who would probably principally identify themselves as historians. How does this impact on the style of the book? The first thing I noticed is the complete absence of what might be described as the ‘anecdotal’ style of history writing.</p>
<p>To give a sense of what an anecdotal style history book is like, see my <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-04-28-review-the-blazing-world/">review of Blazing World by Jonathan Healey</a> who, as I mention in my review of that book, loves anecdotes. I think most historians do. They set a scene, and can give a non-fiction book a more narrative, story-like, feel.</p>
<h3 id="no-tittering-at-the-back" tabindex="-1">No tittering at the back</h3>
<p>Ms Grzymala-Busse very much has her own style, and that style involves no amusing or eye-catching anecdotes. Quite a few Popes and Holy Roman Emperors make appearances, and occasional monarchs elsewhere. But other than that, individuals and their deeds are largely absent from this book. What we are given instead are lots of maps, diagrams and at times quite heavy-going statistical analysis of evidence, which I admit I frequently did not follow fully.</p>
<p>At one point, we are told that ‘figure 4.3 reports the results of mixed-effects random intercept regressions on city-level data with city and year clusters’. There is an appendix on ‘data and robustness tests’ (which I skipped) and the book is littered with references to ‘regression analysis’, ‘dependent variables’ and suchlike things which washed over me. But it all sounded clever and convincing, so I’ll take it on trust that Ms Grzymala-Busse knows what she is talking about.</p>
<p>But if the above gives the impression that the book is, overall, onerous to read, that would be unfair. One of the things I enjoyed was its straightforward and clear writing style.</p>
<p>Whilst I did not always follow the workings of the statistical analysis, in each case, that analysis resulted in a clearly stated conclusion (for example, that increasing warfare in early modern Europe corresponded with the fragmentation of states rather than their formations); those ideas, in turn, feed into an overall thesis which is succinctly set out in the introduction and conclusion of the book.</p>
<h3 id="approaches-to-history" tabindex="-1">Approaches to history</h3>
<p>It reminded me of a module I did in my first year of history at university called ‘approaches to history’ where we read history from a cross-disciplinary perspective (in my case I chose sociology and anthropology). This is history as done by a political scientist and is a useful corrective to the perhaps lazy stylistic habits which historians can fall into. Personally, all the number crunching didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book, but then again it is only 183 pages long, which may have helped.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>This is a book which raises interesting questions about what makes European political institutions and legal systems distinctive and where that distinctiveness came from. It also makes a strong case. It turns out the medieval Catholic Church did rather a lot for us, even if they weren’t always intending to.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Towards the end of the book, the author gives a slightly difficult slant to this theory by arguing that ‘states made war – and war could unmake states’. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-01-29-review-sacred-foundations/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Historians, inevitably, have argued about the periodisation; for Tilly it started after 1500. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2024-01-29-review-sacred-foundations/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
A history of the universe - mapping the past
Anthony Webb
History means looking back at the past. But the past is long and deep. You can easily find yourself adrift as you reach back through the aeons.
This timeline will provide you with a map. Everything...
2024-01-19T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1705679745/posts/1387km_UKmap.jpg" alt="A history of the universe - mapping the past" /><p>History means looking back at the past. But the past is long and deep. You can easily find yourself adrift as you reach back through the aeons.</p>
<p>This timeline will provide you with a map. Everything from history, to prehistory and beyond to the beginning of the universe! It is not intended to tell you <em>exactly when</em> everything happened. It is designed to help you <em>feel how long ago</em> things occurred.</p>
<p>If this doesn't quite make sense right now, don't worry just keep reading!</p>
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<p></p><div class="toc_list"><hr /><h3><strong>Contents</strong></h3><p><i>Links are to the headings in the article below</i></p><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#right-now">Right now</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-year">Travelling back one year</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-ten-years">Travelling back ten years</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-hundred-years">Travelling back one hundred years</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-thousand-years">Travelling back one thousand years</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#back-in-time-ten-thousand-years">Back in time ten thousand years</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-hundred-thousand-years">Travelling back one hundred thousand years</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-million-years">Travelling back one million years</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-ten-million-years">Travelling back ten million years</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#going-back-one-hundred-million-years">Going back one hundred million years</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-billion-years">Travelling back one billion years</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-13.878-billion-years">Travelling back 13.878 billion years</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#back-to-the-present">Back to the present</a></li></ol><hr /></div><p></p>
<h3 id="right-now" tabindex="-1">Right now</h3>
<p>Relax. Lean back. Put your hands behind your head and close one eye. Imagine that you are lying on a little beach right at the far south-westernmost corner of the UK. On one side you have the sea and the waves, gently lapping at your beach towel. On the other the land, sloping up and away from you. A seagull wheels in the clear blue sky overhead, hoping to spot some unguarded sandwiches.</p>
<p>If you were to get up, stretch your legs and walk right the way to the other end of the UK, the northernmost point on the mainland, in Scotland, it would be a journey of 1,387.8 kilometres<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>.</p>
<p>By happy coincidence the age of the universe is calculated as 13.878 billion years. This means we can visualise the that has time elapsed since the big bang as a journey: from the northernmost mainland point of the UK (John O’Groats) - representing the beginning of the universe - to the southwestern most point in the UK (Land’s End) - representing the present day<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup>.</p>
<p>Starting now, let’s go on this journey back in time together.</p>
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61.36, 332.21 67.73, 320.42 66.74 M320.42 66.74 C245.93 67.55, 170.46 66.37, 16.69 66.74 M320.42 66.74 C224.37 68.94, 128.19 68.2, 16.69 66.74 M16.69 66.74 C3.99 65.02, 1.72 61.87, 0 50.06 M16.69 66.74 C3.96 64.9, -1.6 59.35, 0 50.06 M0 50.06 C1.51 40.57, 1.27 31.9, 0 16.69 M0 50.06 C1.14 39.62, 0.84 29.11, 0 16.69 M0 16.69 C1.05 3.96, 6.45 1.27, 16.69 0 M0 16.69 C1.78 3.39, 5.27 -0.91, 16.69 0" stroke="#1e1e1e" stroke-width="2" fill="none"></path></g><g transform="translate(29.293282281804466 31.11665453628683) rotate(0 157.7698974609375 25)"><text x="0" y="0" font-family="Virgil, Segoe UI Emoji" font-size="20px" fill="#1e1e1e" text-anchor="start" style="white-space: pre;" direction="ltr" dominant-baseline="text-before-edge">Length of UK = 1,350 km</text><text x="0" y="25" font-family="Virgil, Segoe UI Emoji" font-size="20px" fill="#1e1e1e" text-anchor="start" style="white-space: pre;" direction="ltr" dominant-baseline="text-before-edge">1,378.7 km = 13.787 billion years</text></g><g 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<p>We are going to break the journey down into stages. Each stage will be ten times longer than the previous one. So the first stage will be going back in time one year, then back ten years, then a hundred and so on.</p>
<h3 id="travelling-back-one-year" tabindex="-1">Travelling back one year</h3>
<h6><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-ten-years">↓ ten years</a></h6>
<p>If we were to travel one year back in time along our path, we would cover the distance equal to the width of a single human hair - 0.1mm.</p>
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<p>Because we have started <em>now</em> with <em>you</em>, think about some of the things that were most memorable for you over the year. For me it was celebrating Christmas, going to work (every day), my children’s birthdays and visiting China. All this was accomplished in the distance of 0.1mm as we traversed a hair’s-width!</p>
<h3 id="travelling-back-ten-years" tabindex="-1">Travelling back ten years</h3>
<h6><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-hundred-years">↓ one hundred years</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-year">↑ one year</a></h6>
<p>Travelling back ten years along our path covers a distance of 1 mm - crossing the width of ten hairs lined-up side by side, equal to the thickness of two or three of your fingernails.</p>
<p>What does the past decade mean to you? What about the country where you live? In the UK we have seen changes that feel significant: Britain has left the EU. COVID-19 caused big changes in how we live our lives. And on a happier personal note, I got married to my beautiful wife, and we had two lovely children!</p>
<h3 id="travelling-back-one-hundred-years" tabindex="-1">Travelling back one hundred years</h3>
<h6><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-thousand-years">↓ one thousand years</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-ten-years">↑ ten years</a></h6>
<p>Travelling back one hundred years will still only cover a paltry 1cm of our journey across the UK. This is equivalent to a journey across the width of your finger, or across from your eyeball from eyelid to eyelid.</p>
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<path d="M6.02 -0.19 C7.39 -0.29, 9.54 0.42, 10.68 1.28 C11.82 2.13, 12.74 3.59, 12.85 4.94 C12.96 6.29, 12.12 8.19, 11.35 9.37 C10.59 10.56, 9.57 11.61, 8.26 12.05 C6.94 12.5, 4.72 12.51, 3.46 12.03 C2.2 11.55, 1.21 10.36, 0.7 9.18 C0.2 7.99, 0.24 6.23, 0.45 4.9 C0.66 3.57, 0.84 2.1, 1.94 1.21 C3.05 0.31, 6.22 -0.29, 7.09 -0.47 C7.95 -0.66, 7.24 0.01, 7.13 0.11 M5.75 0.08 C6.88 -0.26, 8.27 -0.29, 9.47 0.4 C10.68 1.1, 12.61 2.85, 12.98 4.24 C13.35 5.64, 12.35 7.47, 11.69 8.77 C11.03 10.07, 10.07 11.49, 9.02 12.03 C7.96 12.57, 6.61 12.35, 5.37 12.02 C4.13 11.69, 2.38 11.05, 1.58 10.04 C0.77 9.02, 0.55 7.31, 0.54 5.95 C0.54 4.58, 0.71 2.7, 1.53 1.84 C2.36 0.98, 4.94 1.05, 5.51 0.78 C6.08 0.5, 4.89 0.18, 4.95 0.21" stroke="#1e1e1e" stroke-width="2" fill="none"></path>
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<p class="svg-legend-title">Last one hundred years</p>
<div class="svg-legend">
<ol class="svg-legend-list">
<li class="legend-1a">👶 We are all born 19XX...</li>
<li class="legend-1b">💊 Birth control pill available 1961</li>
<li class="legend-1c">🛫 Airplanes and war 1945</li>
<li class="legend-1d">💉 Antibiotics 1920</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<p>Within this 1cm timeframe almost everyone alive today will have been born 👶. For the first time women had the possibility of establishing control over when / if they had children with the development of the Pill in the 1960s 💊. A hugely destructive global war was fought on land, sea and air - the second world war from 1939-1945 🛫. Antibiotics and other life saving medicines were developed in the 1920s 💉.</p>
<h3 id="travelling-back-one-thousand-years" tabindex="-1">Travelling back one thousand years</h3>
<h6><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#back-in-time-ten-thousand-years">↓ ten thousand years</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-hundred-years">↑ one hundred years</a></h6>
<p>A journey of 1,000 years covers a mere 10cm of our trip across the UK. About the distance from your eye to your mouth let’s say - so you don’t have to get up and go anywhere just yet.</p>
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3.36 C1.43 2.18, 2.35 1.04, 3.58 0.42 C4.81 -0.19, 7.65 -0.36, 8.35 -0.33 C9.05 -0.29, 7.8 0.33, 7.77 0.62" stroke="#1e1e1e" stroke-width="2" fill="none"></path></g></svg></div>
<p class="svg-legend-title">Last one thousand years</p>
<div class="svg-legend">
<ol class="svg-legend-list">
<li class="legend-1a">✨ Stars recognised as suns 1840</li>
<li class="legend-1b">🌍 World is (almost) all mapped 1770</li>
<li class="legend-1c">⛵ Europeans invade Americas 1492</li>
<li class="legend-1d">🔫 Guns and cannons 1250</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<p>On the scale of a thousand years humanity has finally become aware of deep space, figuring out in 1840 or so that stars and the sun are the same giant balls of burning gas and the stars are really really really far away ✨. It wasn’t that much earlier in the late 18th century that humans had managed to map the whole world, sailing ships around and charting the coastlines, with Australia being one of the last places to be mapped from 1770 🌍. Humans all over the world were finally reunited with the European invasion of the Americas kicking off in 1492 ⛵. Close to the beginning of our thousand year period guns and cannons were invented 🔫, seeing use from about 1250 or so and going on to become wildly popular with everyone.</p>
<h3 id="back-in-time-ten-thousand-years" tabindex="-1">Back in time ten thousand years</h3>
<h6><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-hundred-thousand-years">↓ one hundred thousand years</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-thousand-years">↑ one thousand years</a></h6>
<p>Going back in time ten thousand years in our journey to the beginning of the universe will take us precisely one metre along our trip across the UK. We still won’t even have left our beach towel - a metre being, say, from your head to your legs.</p>
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C2.64 12.1, 1.23 10.64, 0.64 9.47 C0.05 8.3, 0.13 6.72, 0.45 5.45 C0.76 4.18, 1.59 2.66, 2.52 1.83 C3.46 1, 5.46 0.71, 6.05 0.47 C6.65 0.24, 6.04 0.35, 6.09 0.43 M5.39 -0.56 C6.65 -1.02, 8.38 -0.38, 9.48 0.32 C10.59 1.02, 11.67 2.21, 12.02 3.64 C12.36 5.07, 12.13 7.64, 11.56 8.88 C10.98 10.12, 9.66 10.57, 8.57 11.1 C7.49 11.62, 6.16 12.21, 5.04 12.02 C3.92 11.84, 2.61 11.04, 1.86 9.96 C1.11 8.89, 0.52 6.81, 0.54 5.59 C0.56 4.38, 1.12 3.46, 1.98 2.66 C2.83 1.87, 5.09 1.31, 5.69 0.8 C6.29 0.29, 5.54 -0.38, 5.58 -0.38" stroke="none" stroke-width="0" fill="#1e1e1e"></path><path d="M6.85 -0.05 C8.14 -0.05, 9.86 0.74, 10.81 1.82 C11.76 2.9, 12.55 4.96, 12.55 6.43 C12.55 7.9, 11.7 9.67, 10.8 10.63 C9.9 11.59, 8.35 12.07, 7.16 12.2 C5.97 12.33, 4.73 12.07, 3.64 11.43 C2.55 10.79, 1.11 9.55, 0.61 8.36 C0.11 7.17, 0.29 5.54, 0.63 4.29 C0.98 3.04, 1.56 1.59, 2.68 0.85 C3.81 0.12, 6.48 -0.01, 7.37 -0.12 C8.26 -0.24, 8.01 -0.07, 8.03 0.16 M6.57 -0.52 C7.77 -0.5, 9.22 0.2, 10.21 1.2 C11.2 2.19, 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<p class="svg-legend-title">Last ten thousand years</p>
<div class="svg-legend">
<ol class="svg-legend-list">
<li class="legend-1a">🧙♂️ Stonehenge 2500 BCE</li>
<li class="legend-1b">👑 Cities and kings 4000 BCE</li>
<li class="legend-1c">🌊 Channel forms, Europe cut off 6500 BCE</li>
<li class="legend-1d">🌾 Agriculture takes root 9000 BCE</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<p>Each 10 cm eats up a thousand years: in 20cm we have reached the heyday of the Roman empire. In 30cm the ancient Greeks have come and gone. Within this timeframe we will witness the entirety of written history, with kings, cities, writing and whatnot kicking off in about 4000 BCE 👑 60cm from our starting point.</p>
<p>In the UK we might stop off to watch the construction of stonehenge in 2500 BCE 🧙♂️, and the flooding of the channel in 6500 BCE 🌊 or 80cm away. Before this you could have walked between the UK and France. Right at the earliest part of the ten thousand year span - a metre from our starting point - agriculture takes root from about 9000 BCE 🌾.</p>
<h3 id="travelling-back-one-hundred-thousand-years" tabindex="-1">Travelling back one hundred thousand years</h3>
<h6><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-million-years">↓ one million years</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#back-in-time-ten-thousand-years">↑ ten thousand years</a></h6>
<p>To go back one hundred thousand years you are finally going to have to get to your feet and walk ten metres - perhaps to the edge of the beach if it is a very thin one.</p>
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<p class="svg-legend-title">Last one hundred thousand years</p>
<div class="svg-legend">
<ol class="svg-legend-list">
<li class="legend-1a">😎 Stable warm climate 11,500 years age</li>
<li class="legend-1b">🎨 Cave painting 40,000 years ago</li>
<li class="legend-1c">🏹 Bows and arrows 60,000 years ago</li>
<li class="legend-1d">🩲 Clothes 100,000 years ago</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<p>As you leave your towel you will find the temperature noticeably drops: the 11,500 years of stable warm conditions that we are used to in the holocene 😎 will be replaced by the most recent ice age. About halfway across the little strip of beach - five strides away - you might spot some of the earliest cave paintings from 40,000 years ago 🎨. Soon after we will see humans shooting bows and arrows for the first time 🏹. Right at the edge of the beach - 100,000 years ago, or ten big steps - you will notice that humans have just started wearing clothes 🩲: for the rest of our journey back in time everyone will be naked.</p>
<h3 id="travelling-back-one-million-years" tabindex="-1">Travelling back one million years</h3>
<h6><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-ten-million-years">↓ ten million years</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-hundred-thousand-years">↑ one hundred thousand years</a></h6>
<p>In our time-scale a million years is represented by a hundred metres. In our map of the UK this will get us from the beach to the cafe or car park.</p>
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<p class="svg-legend-title">Last one million years</p>
<div class="svg-legend">
<ol class="svg-legend-list">
<li class="legend-1a">🥶 Ice ages, most of the time</li>
<li class="legend-1b">😀 Modern humans evolve 300,000 years ago</li>
<li class="legend-1c">🔥 Human-made fires 400,000 years ago</li>
<li class="legend-1d">🧔 First Neanderthals 500,000 years ago</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<p>This million years will almost all be cold, with glaciers continually flowing to and fro 🥶. At about 300,000 years ago, or 30 metres, we will meet the first modern human 😀. Hi! Going back another hundred thousand years to 400,000 years ago we will see the first human controlled fires 🔥. From now on it’s going to feel even colder. At about halfway to the car park we will encounter the first Neanderthal too 🧔 who will grunt and throw us a wary glance.</p>
<h3 id="travelling-back-ten-million-years" tabindex="-1">Travelling back ten million years</h3>
<h6><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#going-back-one-hundred-million-years">↓ one hundred million years</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-million-years">↑ one million years</a></h6>
<p>Now we actually have to stretch our legs a bit, taking 15 minutes to walk a kilometre - ten million years. This might take us to the next farmhouse as we trudge down the road.</p>
<div class="svg-container">
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<p class="svg-legend-title">Last ten million years</p>
<div class="svg-legend">
<ol class="svg-legend-list">
<li class="legend-1a">🐒 Ape common ancestors lived 6 mya</li>
<li class="legend-1b">🚶 “Walking around” humans 3 mya</li>
<li class="legend-1c">👄 Language develops, 1.8 mya (disputed!)</li>
<li class="legend-1d">🪓 Nice looking hand axes 1.5 mya</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<p>Quite close to the start of our stroll we will see the first nice looking hand axes, made about 1.5 million years ago (mya) in Africa 🪓. A little further on at 1.8 mya we may be lucky enough to witness the first ever conversation between humans with the evolution of language 👄. (The timing of this is heavily disputed with others dating it to less than 100,000 years ago!) From now on there will be no more chit chat on our journey.</p>
<p>At 3 million years ago - after 300 metres walked - we will see the first (non-tottering) steps as humans get the hang of bipedal locomotion 🚶. At just over half of the distance to the farm we will meet our most recent common ancestors with the great apes who was a sociable chimpanzee like fellow from 6 mya 🐒.</p>
<h3 id="going-back-one-hundred-million-years" tabindex="-1">Going back one hundred million years</h3>
<h6><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-billion-years">↓ one billion years</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-ten-million-years">↑ ten million years</a></h6>
<p>We are now going to walk a bit further - half a day’s walking at 10km. This will take us to the next village and a hundred million years ago.</p>
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dominant-baseline="text-before-edge">St Just</text></g><g transform="translate(344.22026181796826 279.7673743266042) rotate(33.86749849547007 40.00798034667969 10)"><text x="0" y="0" font-family="Virgil, Segoe UI Emoji" font-size="16px" fill="#1e1e1e" text-anchor="start" style="white-space: pre;" direction="ltr" dominant-baseline="text-before-edge">St Buryan</text></g><g transform="translate(212.15703979520453 402.9711486263556) rotate(33.86749849547007 41.79997253417969 10)"><text x="0" y="0" font-family="Virgil, Segoe UI Emoji" font-size="16px" fill="#1e1e1e" text-anchor="start" style="white-space: pre;" direction="ltr" dominant-baseline="text-before-edge">Porthcurno</text></g><g stroke-linecap="round"><g transform="translate(72.63524076558593 341.3714157299874) rotate(0 181.8432850743925 -77.26076174082101)"><path d="M0 0 C10.07 -1.33, 32.93 10.25, 60.43 -7.96 C87.94 -26.18, 128.47 -89.5, 165.02 -109.29 C201.57 -129.07, 246.62 -119.12, 279.73 -126.66 C312.84 -134.2, 349.69 -149.88, 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fill="#1e1e1e" text-anchor="start" style="white-space: pre;" direction="ltr" dominant-baseline="text-before-edge">To next village = 10km</text><text x="0" y="25" font-family="Virgil, Segoe UI Emoji" font-size="20px" fill="#1e1e1e" text-anchor="start" style="white-space: pre;" direction="ltr" dominant-baseline="text-before-edge">10km = 100 million years</text></g><g stroke-linecap="round"><g transform="translate(252.2578457612181 170.66261626974676) rotate(0 3.277663016229667 24.75459087291179)"><path d="M0 0 C-0.17 3.76, -2.26 14.29, -1 22.54 C0.26 30.79, 6.13 45.01, 7.56 49.51 M0 0 C-0.17 3.76, -2.26 14.29, -1 22.54 C0.26 30.79, 6.13 45.01, 7.56 49.51" stroke="#1e1e1e" stroke-width="2" fill="none"></path></g><g transform="translate(252.2578457612181 170.66261626974676) rotate(0 3.277663016229667 24.75459087291179)"><path d="M-1.48 38.63 C0.94 41.55, 3.37 44.47, 7.56 49.51 M-1.48 38.63 C1.87 42.67, 5.23 46.71, 7.56 49.51" stroke="#1e1e1e" stroke-width="2" fill="none"></path></g><g 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<p class="svg-legend-title">Last one hundred million years</p>
<div class="svg-legend">
<ol class="svg-legend-list">
<li class="legend-1a">🌺 First flowers bloom 100 mya</li>
<li class="legend-1b">🦖 Dinosaur extinction 65 mya</li>
<li class="legend-1c">🐎 Tiny horses evolves 50 mya</li>
<li class="legend-1d">🌄 Himalayas start their ascent 40 mya</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<p>After we have been walking for an hour or so, we might remark upon the very beginnings of the Himalayan mountain range from about 40 mya 🌄. At the moment they are the merest undulations in the ground, as the Indian sub-continent has only just crashed headlong into the Asian landmass - careering along at an irresponsible 5cm a year.</p>
<p>At 50 mya we will notice the first horses - cute little animals the size of dogs 🐎. At 65 million years ago and 6.5 km down the road we will witness the sudden and fiery demise of the dinosaurs 🦖 + the marine reptiles + the pterosaurs. Birds will make it through the apocalypse along with the unassuming shrew like mammals who are our ancient ancestors. Just as we reach the village 10km away from where we started we will see the first flowers, evolving at about 100 mya 🌺. It will be a much less colourful journey from here.</p>
<h3 id="travelling-back-one-billion-years" tabindex="-1">Travelling back one billion years</h3>
<h6><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-13.878-billion-years">↓ 13.878 billion years</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#going-back-one-hundred-million-years">↑ one hundred million years</a></h6>
<p>Our journey is now going to cover 100 km as we walk back one billion years. This will be a week of walking, the distance you might expect to cover to reach the nearest sizable town.</p>
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330.47 6.33, 329.23 20.1 M309.14 0 C320.75 0.2, 329.76 5.95, 329.23 20.1 M329.23 20.1 C329.57 36.19, 330.26 49.12, 329.23 60.29 M329.23 20.1 C330.05 34.14, 329.8 48.16, 329.23 60.29 M329.23 60.29 C330.86 72.99, 321.33 82.29, 309.14 80.38 M329.23 60.29 C331.17 72.16, 323.36 81.83, 309.14 80.38 M309.14 80.38 C219.17 79.12, 126.43 78.23, 20.1 80.38 M309.14 80.38 C216.59 81.82, 122.37 81.54, 20.1 80.38 M20.1 80.38 C7.1 79.36, 1.35 72.87, 0 60.29 M20.1 80.38 C4.57 78.61, -1.7 71.84, 0 60.29 M0 60.29 C1.63 46.54, 1.2 28.31, 0 20.1 M0 60.29 C-0.62 45.34, 0.22 31, 0 20.1 M0 20.1 C-0.74 7.09, 6.5 -1.6, 20.1 0 M0 20.1 C-0.67 5.59, 6.3 1.48, 20.1 0" stroke="#1e1e1e" stroke-width="2" fill="none"></path></g><g transform="translate(54.9741376011317 47.7633546402912) rotate(0 149.11990356445315 25)"><text x="0" y="0" font-family="Virgil, Segoe UI Emoji" font-size="20px" fill="#1e1e1e" text-anchor="start" style="white-space: pre;" direction="ltr" dominant-baseline="text-before-edge">To the next big town = 100km</text><text x="0" y="25" font-family="Virgil, Segoe UI Emoji" font-size="20px" fill="#1e1e1e" text-anchor="start" style="white-space: pre;" direction="ltr" dominant-baseline="text-before-edge">100km = 1 billion years</text></g><g stroke-linecap="round"><g transform="translate(187.13871258922296 109.37498883718968) rotate(0 57.927042511051525 109.68633305646051)"><path d="M0.09 -0.01 C-3.51 11, -32.27 38.12, -21.45 65.12 C-10.63 92.12, 38.6 136.15, 65.01 161.97 C91.42 187.79, 124.96 210.61, 137.01 220.04 M-1.32 -1.06 C-4.56 10.21, -30.14 39.64, -19.21 66.5 C-8.28 93.37, 38.13 134.92, 64.26 160.14 C90.39 185.36, 125.56 208.11, 137.57 217.84" stroke="#1e1e1e" stroke-width="2" fill="none"></path></g><g transform="translate(187.13871258922296 109.37498883718968) rotate(0 57.927042511051525 109.68633305646051)"><path d="M113.6 210.73 C120.98 211.44, 127.96 215.19, 137.57 217.84 M113.6 210.73 C123.51 212.63, 131.03 216.06, 137.57 217.84" stroke="#1e1e1e" stroke-width="2" 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<p class="svg-legend-title">Last one billion years</p>
<div class="svg-legend">
<ol class="svg-legend-list">
<li class="legend-1a">🦐 First decent (sea) animals 550 mya</li>
<li class="legend-1b">🐜 Life on land 440 mya</li>
<li class="legend-1c">🌴 Trees 385 mya</li>
<li class="legend-1d">🦕 Dawn of dinosaurs 245 mya</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<p>On our second day of walking, at 245 million years ago, we will witness the dawn of the dinosaurs - leggy little creatures darting about which will eventually become the largest land animals to ever walk the earth 🦕. A day or so further on we will pass the first trees at 385 mya 🌴. Perhaps later on the same day (440 mya) we will witness life’s first tentative forays into dry land 🐜: from this point on all the action will be in the sea and we will be traversing a desert. Just after the midway point of our week’s walking (550 mya) we will see the world’s first decent animals, scurrying back and forth on the ocean floor 🦐. After this, life will mostly be too small for us to see.</p>
<p>If we think back to the start of our journey we can appreciate just how much time has passed. Remember that each metre long stride we take will eat up 10,000 years. A single stride length at the beginning of the journey was enough to see the development of everything we associate with civilization from crops, to swords, to cities and computers. It has taken us 55,000 of these metre long periods to reach the genesis of animals and plants on earth.</p>
<p>If we were to stop and lay a finger down on the road, the width of our finger - about a cm - represents one hundred years. Longer than the vast majority of human lifespans. Behind us: miles and miles of travelled road. Ahead of us: the path winds on yet further.</p>
<h3 id="travelling-back-13.878-billion-years" tabindex="-1">Travelling back 13.878 billion years</h3>
<h6><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#travelling-back-one-billion-years">↑ one billion years</a></h6>
<p>This is our last stage, taking in the remaining 92.5% of the journey! It’s going to be 1,387.8 km, less the 100 km we have already walked. Google tells me that it will take 2 to 3 months to complete on foot. I think it is best not to rush so you can enjoy the scenery on the way!</p>
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9.74, 10.98 11.78, 9.58 12.4 C8.17 13.01, 5.76 12.58, 4.37 12.22 C2.97 11.86, 1.97 11.24, 1.2 10.23 C0.43 9.22, -0.31 7.48, -0.26 6.14 C-0.21 4.81, 0.42 3.16, 1.51 2.22 C2.6 1.28, 5.5 0.79, 6.26 0.52 C7.02 0.25, 5.95 0.66, 6.08 0.62" stroke="#1e1e1e" stroke-width="1" fill="none"></path></g><g class="pin-1e" stroke-linecap="round" transform="translate(245.66792837028123 432.9487094043092) rotate(0 6.747182774096018 6.32550508500907)"><path d="M5.74 0.54 C6.98 0.26, 8.48 0.5, 9.72 1.15 C10.97 1.8, 12.71 3.2, 13.2 4.45 C13.7 5.69, 13.19 7.33, 12.69 8.6 C12.2 9.87, 11.47 11.48, 10.24 12.08 C9.02 12.67, 6.86 12.47, 5.36 12.19 C3.86 11.91, 2.19 11.42, 1.24 10.41 C0.29 9.4, -0.47 7.57, -0.32 6.12 C-0.18 4.67, 1.14 2.69, 2.11 1.71 C3.08 0.73, 4.81 0.43, 5.47 0.25 C6.14 0.07, 6.01 0.58, 6.09 0.62 M6.65 -0.4 C7.92 -0.54, 8.96 0.12, 10.02 0.86 C11.09 1.6, 12.58 2.78, 13.06 4.04 C13.54 5.29, 13.36 6.98, 12.89 8.38 C12.43 9.79, 11.69 11.86, 10.29 12.48 C8.9 13.1, 6.06 12.57, 4.5 12.11 C2.94 11.65, 1.58 10.83, 0.93 9.74 C0.27 8.66, 0.46 6.98, 0.55 5.58 C0.64 4.18, 0.65 2.14, 1.46 1.34 C2.27 0.53, 4.72 0.94, 5.43 0.74 C6.15 0.55, 5.71 0.21, 5.76 0.16" stroke="none" stroke-width="0" fill="#1e1e1e"></path><path d="M6.45 -0.13 C7.71 -0.35, 9.21 -0.01, 10.41 0.86 C11.6 1.73, 13.16 3.68, 13.62 5.09 C14.09 6.5, 13.9 8.15, 13.21 9.33 C12.51 10.5, 10.88 11.62, 9.47 12.13 C8.06 12.64, 6.05 12.64, 4.75 12.37 C3.44 12.09, 2.44 11.51, 1.61 10.48 C0.78 9.45, -0.32 7.67, -0.23 6.17 C-0.15 4.66, 0.98 2.42, 2.11 1.45 C3.24 0.47, 5.84 0.46, 6.55 0.31 C7.27 0.15, 6.4 0.47, 6.39 0.53 M6.07 0.09 C7.31 -0.17, 9.42 0.26, 10.6 1 C11.78 1.73, 12.93 2.99, 13.16 4.49 C13.38 6, 12.57 8.86, 11.94 10.03 C11.31 11.2, 10.46 11.26, 9.36 11.52 C8.25 11.78, 6.81 11.82, 5.29 11.58 C3.77 11.34, 1.18 11.09, 0.24 10.06 C-0.69 9.03, -0.64 6.84, -0.32 5.4 C0 3.96, 1.11 2.29, 2.17 1.42 C3.23 0.56, 5.34 0.46, 6.05 0.22 C6.76 -0.03, 6.42 -0.12, 6.44 -0.03" stroke="#1e1e1e" stroke-width="1" fill="none"></path></g><g stroke-linecap="round" transform="translate(158.05082628032 408.0412356406029) rotate(359.9999657151083 30.847312167541872 31.09384058097686)"><path d="M15.42 0 C27.01 0, 38.6 0, 46.27 0 M15.42 0 C22.04 0, 28.66 0, 46.27 0 M46.27 0 C56.55 0, 61.69 5.14, 61.69 15.42 M46.27 0 C56.55 0, 61.69 5.14, 61.69 15.42 M61.69 15.42 C61.69 24.08, 61.69 32.74, 61.69 46.76 M61.69 15.42 C61.69 26.83, 61.69 38.23, 61.69 46.76 M61.69 46.76 C61.69 57.05, 56.55 62.19, 46.27 62.19 M61.69 46.76 C61.69 57.05, 56.55 62.19, 46.27 62.19 M46.27 62.19 C37.62 62.19, 28.97 62.19, 15.42 62.19 M46.27 62.19 C38.96 62.19, 31.65 62.19, 15.42 62.19 M15.42 62.19 C5.14 62.19, 0 57.05, 0 46.76 M15.42 62.19 C5.14 62.19, 0 57.05, 0 46.76 M0 46.76 C0 35.41, 0 24.05, 0 15.42 M0 46.76 C0 35.26, 0 23.76, 0 15.42 M0 15.42 C0 5.14, 5.14 0, 15.42 0 M0 15.42 C0 5.14, 5.14 0, 15.42 0" stroke="#1e1e1e" stroke-width="2" fill="none"></path></g><mask></mask></svg></div>
<p class="svg-legend-title">Last 13.878 billion years</p>
<div class="svg-legend">
<ol class="svg-legend-list">
<li class="legend-1a">💥 Universe begins 13.8 bya</li>
<li class="legend-1b">🌌 Milky way galaxy forms 13.6 bya</li>
<li class="legend-1c">🪐 Sun and planets form 4.6 bya</li>
<li class="legend-1d">🦠 Life on earth begins 4 bya</li>
<li class="legend-1e">💩 Multicellular life starts 1.5 bya</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<p>The first important milestone will be the start of multicellular life. The dates are disputed but it could be argued to be a strain of red algae at 1.5 billion years ago, or some other blob of amorphous matter 💩. After about a month - a third of the way into this leg and 4 bya - we will pass a truly momentous occasion: first life 🦠. Unfortunately we will probably miss it, taking place at an undersea vent and on a microscopic scale.</p>
<p>Just a few days later at 4.6 bya we will witness the formation of our solar system, both sun and and planets 🪐. We will just have to do our best to keep going despite the lack of solid ground.</p>
<p>We keep going kilometre after kilometre, the weeks pass by. Our view now is always countless stars which seem to be getting <em>closer together</em> as we walk back in time. With just two days left of our epic three month journey we stop and appreciate the formation of the milky way galaxy at 13.6 billion years ago 🌌.</p>
<p>And finally after three months of walking we have made it: the beginning of the universe at 13.878 billion years ago. Things have been getting pretty weird on the last day until, with just 3.7 metres to go, the intense heat and pressure has fractured our atoms into their constituent elements. Luckily our momentum carries us forward and a little pile of quarks plops down at the very edge of the land of northern Scotland. A hideous crunch 💥 and... nothing.</p>
<h3 id="back-to-the-present" tabindex="-1">Back to the present</h3>
<p>It feels wrong to leave us here, squished into an impossibly small point at the wrong end of the universe. So travelling <em>forward</em> in time, again breaking it into stages, each stage ten times smaller than the last...</p>
<ul>
<li>From 13.878 billion years 💥🌌🪐🦠💩</li>
<li>From 1 billion years ago 🦐🐜🌴🦕</li>
<li>From 100 million years ago 🌺🦖🐎🌄</li>
<li>From ten million years ago 🐒🚶♀️👄🪓</li>
<li>From one million years ago 🥶🧔🔥😀</li>
<li>From one hundred thousand years ago 🩲🏹🎨😎</li>
<li>From ten thousand years ago 🌾🌊👑🧙♂️</li>
<li>From one thousand years ago 🔫⛵🌍✨</li>
<li>From one hundred years ago 💉🛫💊</li>
<li>Until finally, miraculously, <strong>you</strong> are born! 👶</li>
</ul>
<p>Or if you would prefer to do the journey in one go:</p>
<p>💥~🌌🪐🦠💩~🦐🐜🌴🦕~🌺🦖🐎🌄~🐒🚶♀️👄🪓~🥶🧔🔥😀~🩲🏹🎨😎~🌾🌊👑🧙♂️~🔫⛵🌍✨~💉🛫💊👶</p>
<p>...leaving you back on the beach, looking ahead over the sparkling blue-green sea.</p>
<p>Anthony Webb, London UK</p>
<hr />
<p>General notes:</p>
<ul>
<li>All the drawings were done using the excellent online <a href="https://excalidraw.com/">https://excalidraw.com/</a> program, which I would urge everyone to give a try, it's great fun!</li>
<li>A lot of the dates are uncertain in this timeline: they are all approximate to some extent of course, but hopefully I have used the right frame of reference. If I have made any howlers though please do let me know: <a href="mailto:popularhistorybooks@gmail.com">popularhistorybooks@gmail.com</a>!</li>
</ul>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Approximately - the actual distance would depend on your exact route. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>This is going to be an unashamedly anthropocentric timeline - if you were a nematode worm for example you would likely have a very different view of the past. But then again, if you were a nematode worm you would be unlikely to be reading this. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2024-01-19-history_of_the_universe/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in December 2023
Anthony Webb
Not so many history books in December, I guess because most of the publishing was done in November or earlier to meet Christmas demand... but quantity is no guide to quality of course, and there is...
2024-01-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2024-01-01-posts-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1704036888/posts/Dec2023_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in December 2023" /><p>Not so many history books in December, I guess because most of the publishing was done in November or earlier to meet Christmas demand... but quantity is no guide to quality of course, and there is still more than most normal people can read in a month!</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you like to buy your books there.</em></p>
<div class="grid_book_small">
<div class="fix-children 🍜 🏰 👑 2024 hbk ">
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300251122.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="From Genghis Khan to Tamerlane: The Reawakening of Mongol Asia" title="From Genghis Khan to Tamerlane: The Reawakening of Mongol Asia" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover0300251122" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🍜 🏰 👑 2024" data-title="From Genghis Khan to Tamerlane: The Reawakening of Mongol Asia" data-author="Peter Jackson" data-publishdate="2024-12-12" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300251122.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0300251122" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0300251122" data-review="">
<div class="center_item">
<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="fix-children 🏰 👑 🚽 🥐 2023 hbk ">
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1445698749.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Women of Power: Formidable Queens of the Medieval World" title="Women of Power: Formidable Queens of the Medieval World" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover1445698749" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏰 👑 🚽 🥐 2023" data-title="Women of Power: Formidable Queens of the Medieval World" data-author="Teresa Cole" data-publishdate="2023-12-15" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1445698749.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1445698749" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1445698749" data-review="">
<div class="center_item">
<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="fix-children 🇲🇽 🌽 🚽 🏛️ 2023 hbk ">
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/067427833X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl: Zelia Nuttall and the Search for Mexicos Ancient Civilizations" title="In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl: Zelia Nuttall and the Search for Mexicos Ancient Civilizations" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover067427833X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🇲🇽 🌽 🚽 🏛️ 2023" data-title="In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl: Zelia Nuttall and the Search for Mexicos Ancient Civilizations" data-author="Merilee Grindle" data-publishdate="2023-12-15" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/067427833X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/067427833X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/067427833X" data-review="">
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<p>A couple that particularly caught my eye were:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em><strong>From Genghis Khan to Tamerlane: The Reawakening of Mongol Asia</strong></em>, <em>by Peter Jackson</em> - having cycled through Uzbekistan I would be keen to learn more about why Tamerlane mattered beyond simply killing lots of people.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>A Republic of Scoundrels: The Schemers, Intriguers, and Adventurers Who Created a New American Nation</strong></em>, <em>by David Head and Timothy Hemmis</em> - I'm sure this book will get up some people's nose but I appreciate any effort to make people of the past more human even if that means a close look at the warts!</p>
</li>
</ul>
Cuba - review
Anthony Webb
Without Cuba, there might not have been a United States.
In 1781, readying themselves for what would turn out to be the climactic battle in the (North) American War of Independence, Ada Ferrer in...
2023-12-22T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-12-22-review-cuba/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1501154559.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Cuba - review" /><p>Our review of Cuba: An American History, by Ada Ferrer, first published in September 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Taking us from the arrival of Columbus at the end of the 15th Century to the departure of Castro at the beginning of the 20th, Ferrer‘s history of Cuba is a perfect mix of big events and the ordinary people that lived and made them.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <p>Without Cuba, there might not have been a United States.</p>
<p>In 1781, readying themselves for what would turn out to be the climactic battle in the (North) American War of Independence, Ada Ferrer in <em>Cuba: an American History</em> informs us that George Washington’s troops were miserable and broke. Short on food, mutinies had already broken out a number of times that year.</p>
<p>A rescue mission was organised to raise the cash that would keep the soldiers fed and in the field - the French naval officer Comte de Grasse was sent to do a whip-round of the Caribbean islands. Spurned in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), de Grasse turned up in Havana, Cuba unfortunately just <em>after</em> a large shipment of the much needed silver had been sent off to Spain.</p>
<h3 id="paying-for-north-american-independence" tabindex="-1">Paying for North American independence</h3>
<p>But in a show of pan-American solidarity the citizens of Havana personally stepped up to plate, showering de Grasse with dosh and even, some say, donating their jewellery to the cause. Loaded up with 500,000 pesos in silver de Grasse returned to Virginia to the delight of Washington who wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>No circumstances cou’d possibly have happened more opportunely in point of time. The Commanding Officers of Corps are to cause abstracts to be immediately made for a month’s pay.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>George Washington, on receiving half a million pesos of silver from the citizens of Havana</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Loaded up with pesos, the buoyant American revolutionaries overran the fortified British positions at Yorktown, and a new nation was born.</p>
<h3 id="the-upper-hand-is-on-the-other-foot" tabindex="-1">The upper hand is on the other foot</h3>
<p>A hundred years later the United States had the opportunity to repay the favour as the Cubans fought off their Spanish colonial masters right at the end of the 19th Century.</p>
<p>A bit like the cavalry arriving right at the end of a film, in 1898 with the war against the Spanish almost won, the US army swept into Cuba, and chased the Spanish army off the island.</p>
<p>The US cavalry then decided that although they turned up to the party uninvited, they were only going to leave if the Cubans promised they could come back again <em>whenever they felt like it</em>, even if the Cuban’s weren’t in the party mood.</p>
<h3 id="party-poopers" tabindex="-1">Party poopers</h3>
<p>This was done through forcing the Cubans to accept an appendix to their new constitution called the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/platt-amendment">Platt amendment</a> which, among other things<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-12-22-review-cuba/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>, gave the US Guantanamo Bay, and specified that the United States could intervene in Cuba for “<em>the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty</em>”. In other words: whenever they wanted to.</p>
<p>If the Cubans wouldn’t sign, the United States army was not going to leave. Reluctantly they signed.</p>
<p>Politically and economically Cubans were second class citizens in their own country.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>By 1907, foreigners [mostly from the US] owned an estimated 60 percent of all rural property in Cuba. Resident Spaniards owned another 15 percent, which left only a quarter of rural property under Cuban ownership. The number is... staggering</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ada Ferrer, Cuba: An American History</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="what-does-the-book-cover%3F" tabindex="-1">What does the book cover?</h3>
<p>In some ways Ferrer’s <em>Cuba</em> is a standard narrative history. It starts when the Spanish arrived on the island with the grasping and callous Christopher Columbus in charge and ends at more or less the present day with the current Cuban government.</p>
<p>It tells the story of the almost complete destruction of the Tainos, the 15th century inhabitants, through Spanish predation, Eurasian diseases, and suicidal despair. Nowadays it is estimated that about a quarter of Cubans carry Taino mitochondrial DNA - but given mitochondrial DNA is passed down on the mother’s side only this may just indicate further violence and domination. Linguistic survivals include hurricane, hammock and tiburón 🦈.</p>
<h3 id="a-state-of-slavery" tabindex="-1">A state of slavery</h3>
<p>Ferrer outlines the growth of slavery on the island. The Haitian Revolution - one of the very few successful slave results in history - was seen as a great opportunity by the Spanish to build up their own competing slave economy in Cuba, a workforce for the labour intensive and highly lucrative sugar industry. In the 19th century the sugar industry came to dominate the Cuban economy and landscape.</p>
<p>We then get the struggle for independence, touched upon above, ending with the USA as de facto overlords, politically and economically.</p>
<h3 id="popular-government" tabindex="-1">Popular government</h3>
<p>Finally we hear about the Cuban state’s struggle to define itself in the early twentieth century, with lofty aspirations in theory often conflicting with shocking corruption and the meddling of the United States in practice. The story is rounded off with the coup of Batista, defeated after 7 years by popular opposition and revolution, and the rise and long rule of Fidel Castro.</p>
<h3 id="more-than-the-memory-of-states" tabindex="-1">More than the memory of states</h3>
<p>But the narrative of nation is softened and rounded by personal stories and alternative perspectives.</p>
<p>For example the story of the Copper Virgin and the community of African Cubans who lived there and their struggles to achieve an unambiguously free legal status from the Spanish crown that lasted more than a hundred years.</p>
<p>Or the charcoal burners who lived in the Bay of Pigs, before it was attacked by US trained Cuban exiles. Or Jose Antonio Aponte, an alleged revolutionary conspirator, who in 1812 created a book in which he pasted pictures of Black armies defeating white armies, images of Black diplomats, generals, priests and kings, to show other African Cubans “<em>that another world was possible</em>”.</p>
<p>The result is not only a more complete picture of what Cuba might mean to different people, but also a more interesting and readable book.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It [history] can never be understood only as the memory of states</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Ada Ferrer, Cuba: An American History</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="cuba-%3D-castro%3F" tabindex="-1">Cuba = Castro?</h3>
<p>One thing I found really interesting - and surprising - in <em>Cuba: An American History</em> was how Fidel Castro was only one among many opponents to Batista’s government, and certainly not the most prominent. His big break came when he was interviewed by a reporter from the USA, who presented him to the world as a heroic revolutionary whose time had come. At the time of the interview Castro’s force was less than 40 men<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-12-22-review-cuba/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> hiding out in the mountains of eastern Cuba - only just big enough for a game of football, never mind a war.</p>
<p>But the myth of the revolutionary hero created the real thing, attracting people and money to his cause. The illusion of power fuelled the reality, as Castro was well aware it would - to the extent that it is now hard to imagine a Cuban revolution without him.</p>
<h3 id="style-marks" tabindex="-1">Style marks</h3>
<p>Although it is a long book it is always engaging: Ferrer’s story is a perfect mix of “big events” and “ordinary people”. At times it is also grippingly exciting, for example when recounting the near global annihilation that was the Cuban missile crisis.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>While any single history book cannot be the complete story of a people, this is one of the best written and well-rounded national narratives that I have read.</p>
<p>It also does a great job of translating between North American and Cuban perspectives - was the United States Cuba’s liberator or occupier for example? In its own way it helps to make the gulf between Havana and Washington that little bit smaller.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>The amendment also prevented the new government of Cuba from establishing treaties with any other nation (other than I presume the United States) “<em>That the government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or other compact with any foreign power or powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba, nor in any manner authorise or permit any foreign power or powers to obtain by colonisation or for military or naval purposes or otherwise, lodgement in or control over any portion of said island.</em>” <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-12-22-review-cuba/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Ferrer notes that he could have had even as few as ten men under his command at this time. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-12-22-review-cuba/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Red Memory - review
Anthony Webb
They f*ck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
~
But they were f*cked up in their turn
By fools in...
2023-12-08T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-12-08-review-red-memory/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1783352647.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Red Memory - review" /><p>Our review of Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China&#39;s Cultural Revolution, by Tania Branigan, first published in February 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Covering the Cultural Revolution in China from 1966 to 1976, Branigan argues that this violent and traumatic period, when Mao Zedong incited students against their teachers and neighbour against nieghbour, was formative for modern China.</p><p>I found this a grimly fascinating, yet empathetic and enlightening book, covering what happened and how it is remembered today.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>They f*ck you up, your mum and dad.<br />
They may not mean to, but they do.<br />
They fill you with the faults they had<br />
And add some extra, just for you.<br />
~<br />
But they were f*cked up in their turn<br />
By fools in navy-blue one-piece suits,<br />
Who half the time were marxist-stern<br />
And half at one another’s throats.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This Be The Verse, by Philip Larkin</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>The Cultural Revolution in China started in 1966 17 years after the actual revolution - the civil war - had been won by the Communists in 1949.</p>
<p>The civil war pitted the Chinese Communist Party against the Chinese Nationalist Party. The side which you happened to be on could be quite arbitrary, not least because most of the civil war was conducted at the same time as a war against invading Japanese forces - who most people agreed were the biggest enemy. Join up and fight the Japanese could later easily morph into a battle against the communists.</p>
<h3 id="struggling-to-discern-friend-from-enemy" tabindex="-1">Struggling to discern friend from enemy</h3>
<p>If the distinction between Chinese friend and foe was a fine one at that time, in the Cultural Revolution the dividing lines were even more tenuous and malleable. On the surface it was a campaign against “capitalists” and “traditionalists” still lurking in Chinese society. But because no-one knew who these elusive targets were, they could be anyone, and everyone was a potential suspect - apart from the chap who kick started the whole campaign: Mao Zedong.</p>
<p>As Branigan describes it:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Ignite the Cultural Revolution!</em> The words appeared on a big-character poster attacking Peking University’s leadership: an arresting handwritten protest<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-12-08-review-red-memory/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>. Within hours, on Mao’s instruction, it was read over the radio. And in the heat of his encouragement it all burst into life, scrawled white sheets blossoming across the walls of schools and colleges. Lecture and lessons were cancelled, the students freed.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tania Branigan, Red Memory</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>The most famous cadres of the Cultural Revolution were the Red Guards, armband toting students who worshipped Chairman Mao and were prepared to go to almost any length to demonstrate their zeal. Teachers were prominent among their targets: sometimes they would beat them to death directly, at other times causing their suicides after months of abuse. This was particularly shocking in China where - in theory - learning in general and teachers in particular were and are held in extremely high regard.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-12-08-review-red-memory/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="a-revolution-is-not-a-school-dinner-party" tabindex="-1">A revolution is not a school dinner party</h3>
<p>But it wasn’t just school kids and teachers that got caught up in the excitement. “<em>It was truly universal.</em>” Branigan tells us. “<em>Its victims included Mao’s two heir apparents and some of the country’s most revered artists and scholars, but also schoolchildren and impoverished farmers in remote provinces. No part of the land remained untouched; no part of the people unscathed.</em>”</p>
<p>Estimates are that 2 million people died during the Cultural Revolution and tens of millions more were persecuted, beaten, hounded.</p>
<p>The story told in <em>Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution</em> is through a first person ‘reportage style’ by interviews with people who lived through this time, including:</p>
<ol>
<li>Yu Xiangzhen - a (then) 13 year old schoolgirl, who first rebelled against her teachers and later took advantage of the free “Red Guard interrail pass” to travel around the country.</li>
<li>Wang Xilin - a composer and committed communist who was too frank in criticising his superiors and had been denounced, persecuted, beaten and imprisoned for years.</li>
<li>Wang Jingyao - the husband of Teacher Bian who had infamously been beaten to death by students at Beijing Normal University.</li>
<li>Zheng Zhisheng and Han Pingzhao who fought against each other (and a confusing patchwork of other groups) both in the name of Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution in deadly factional warfare in the city of Chongqing.</li>
<li>Members of the (current day) Chongqing Educated Youth Friendship Group who like to socialise together, bonded by their shared experience of being sent away to the countryside to work in conditions of often extreme hardship and loneliness.</li>
<li>Fan Jianchuan - millionaire entrepreneur and Cultural Revolution memorabilia collector and museum builder.</li>
<li>Gao Xiguang - a professional impersonator of Lin Biao, once Mao’s right hand man, then his vilified and disgraced victim towards the end of the Cultural Revolution.</li>
<li>Zhang Hongbing - who had denounced his mother for insulting Mao knowing that this would lead to her execution.</li>
</ol>
<p>The idea is that we appreciate what happened then, and how this decade is viewed now - both from an ‘ordinary person’ perspective (who tend not to dwell on it) and from an official communist party perspective (who would rather forget all about it).</p>
<h3 id="they-may-not-mean-to-but-they-do" tabindex="-1">They may not mean to but they do</h3>
<p>But, says Branigan, even though Chinese people don’t acknowledge the Cultural Revolution it is actually a crucial event because it was so traumatic that it not only f*cked up the people who took part, it also f*cked up their children, and their children’s children. This trauma has impacted everything from politics, to family relations, to fashion.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>The scar ran through the heart of Chinese society, and through the souls of its citizens. The Cultural Revolution was a national trauma as well as a mass of personal ones.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tania Branigan, Red Memory</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>This idea is emphasised by the fact that it is contemporary interviews that form the core of the book. Each interview is therefore two simultaneous accounts: what happened then, and how this is told and remembered now.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-12-08-review-red-memory/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup> (The third layer is that it is consciously being told to a journalist who has the potential to project your story around the globe.)</p>
<p>The bias is of course that her sources are by definition those who were most impacted by the Cultural Revolution or those who are keenest to remember. This can be seen as the tip of the iceberg which undoubtedly is bigger, it is just very hard to tell how deep and wide underwater the iceberg goes.</p>
<h3 id="secret-source%3F" tabindex="-1">Secret source?</h3>
<p>I think that Branigan succeeds in her aim of providing a broad overview of what the Cultural Revolution meant for different people, and in conveying the ambivalence with which it is viewed today.</p>
<p>But I am less convinced that the Cultural Revolution is the secret sauce of the Chinese psyche.</p>
<p>In part this is because I worry that when people read Branigan’s (uncontentious) statement <em>“It is impossible to understand China today without understanding the Cultural Revolution”</em> it risks underplaying all sorts of other things that have happened before or since. To reverse the statement: if you <em>only</em> know about the Cultural Revolution you know <em>only know a very little</em> about China today.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>If you are looking for an introduction to the Cultural Revolution in China and how people in China look back on the event I would recommend this book. It gives you the lowdown on what happened through the eyes of people who had very different experiences, and how these experiences have been reinterpreted and remembered (or suppressed) over time.</p>
<p><em>Red Memory</em> is an interesting and enlightening book - that tells of a critical part of the story of China. But it is important not to mistake it for the whole story, and not to assume that the state of the nation is irredeemably f*cked up.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>This big-character poster (大字报) was, I was surprised to learn, penned by a mid forties university and communist party bureaucrat rather than a student. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nie_Yuanzi_poster.jpg">Wikipedia has a photo that is labelled as this original poster</a>. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-12-08-review-red-memory/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>A few years ago my wife and I went to visit her old primary school teacher who had now become the headmaster of the small Chinese town primary school in which she grew up. I was amazed when we were directed to an enormous top floor office that was bigger than many Beijing apartments, with leather sofas against the walls and a 1920 CEO style desk at one end. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-12-08-review-red-memory/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>Almost all the stories told are pretty grim as you might imagine. But there is the odd moment of humour such as this anecdote: “<em>An elderly man tried to blow up a bus with a home-made grenade from the Cultural Revolution in what was described as a revenge attack - on previous journeys the driver had halted five metres short of his stop. The device rolled down the bus but did not detonate. Its effectiveness had long expired; the rage kept burning. ‘I was too rash,’ the man told the court.</em>” <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-12-08-review-red-memory/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in November 2023
Anthony Webb
Fourteen books published in November that meet my exacting criteria (of being history, not too academic, and not too niche or military). It looks like a fairly traditional range of topics: Weimar...
2023-12-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-12-01-posts-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1701381930/posts/Nov2023_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in November 2023" /><p>Fourteen books published in November that meet my exacting criteria (of being history, not too academic, and not too niche or military). It looks like a fairly traditional range of topics: Weimar Germany, Russian revolution, French revolution, a bit of Rome - but a few books with less familiar themes too.</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you like to buy your books there.</em></p>
<div class="grid_book_small">
<div class="fix-children 🚽 🍔 🏭 🇺🇸 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0197633099.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Murder in a Mill Town: Sex, Faith, and the Crime That Captivated a Nation" title="Murder in a Mill Town: Sex, Faith, and the Crime That Captivated a Nation" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover0197633099" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🚽 🍔 🏭 🇺🇸 2023" data-title="Murder in a Mill Town: Sex, Faith, and the Crime That Captivated a Nation" data-author="Bruce Dorsey" data-publishdate="2023-11-29" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0197633099.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0197633099" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0197633099" data-review="">
<div class="center_item">
<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="fix-children 🏰 🥐 👑 🇬🇧 2023 hbk ">
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1803995416.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Princes in the Tower: Solving History's Greatest Cold Case" title="The Princes in the Tower: Solving History's Greatest Cold Case" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover1803995416" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏰 🥐 👑 🇬🇧 2023" data-title="The Princes in the Tower: Solving History's Greatest Cold Case" data-author="Philippa Langley" data-publishdate="2023-11-23" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1803995416.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1803995416" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1803995416" data-review="">
<div class="center_item">
<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="fix-children 🇪🇬 👑 🚽 🍗 🏛️ 2023 hbk ">
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1649031637.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Nubian Pharaohs of Egypt: Their Lives and Afterlives" title="The Nubian Pharaohs of Egypt: Their Lives and Afterlives" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover1649031637" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🇪🇬 👑 🚽 🍗 🏛️ 2023" data-title="The Nubian Pharaohs of Egypt: Their Lives and Afterlives" data-author="Aidan Dodson" data-publishdate="2023-11-21" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1649031637.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1649031637" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1649031637" data-review="">
<div class="center_item">
<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children 🕯️ 🍗 🥐 🏭 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1108839290.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism" title="The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover1108839290" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🕯️ 🍗 🥐 🏭 2023" data-title="The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism" data-author="Ana Lucia Araujo" data-publishdate="2023-11-16" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1108839290.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1108839290" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1108839290" data-review="">
<div class="center_item">
<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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</div>
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<div class="fix-children 🏛️ 🥐 👑 🕯️ 2023 hbk ">
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300256647.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Julian: Rome's Last Pagan Emperor" title="Julian: Rome's Last Pagan Emperor" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover0300256647" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏛️ 🥐 👑 🕯️ 2023" data-title="Julian: Rome's Last Pagan Emperor" data-author="Philip Freeman" data-publishdate="2023-11-14" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300256647.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0300256647" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0300256647" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children 🇩🇿 🍗 🏭 🚽 2023 hbk ">
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0691230153.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Kings of Algiers: How Two Jewish Families Shaped the Mediterranean World During the Napoleonic Wars and Beyond" title="The Kings of Algiers: How Two Jewish Families Shaped the Mediterranean World During the Napoleonic Wars and Beyond" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover0691230153" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🇩🇿 🍗 🏭 🚽 2023" data-title="The Kings of Algiers: How Two Jewish Families Shaped the Mediterranean World During the Napoleonic Wars and Beyond" data-author="Julie Kalman" data-publishdate="2023-11-14" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0691230153.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0691230153" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0691230153" data-review="">
<div class="center_item">
<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="fix-children 🇩🇪 👑 💰 🥐 🏭 2023 hbk ">
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1324093463.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Germany 1923: Hyperinflation, Hitler's Putsch, and Democracy in Crisis" title="Germany 1923: Hyperinflation, Hitler's Putsch, and Democracy in Crisis" />
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<div id="cover1324093463" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🇩🇪 👑 💰 🥐 🏭 2023" data-title="Germany 1923: Hyperinflation, Hitler's Putsch, and Democracy in Crisis" data-author="Volker Ullrich" data-publishdate="2023-11-10" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1324093463.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1324093463" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1324093463" data-review="">
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<div id="cover1803281952" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏛️ 🕯️ 🥐 🇬🇷 2023" data-title="The Children of Athena: Greek Writers and Thinkers in the Age of Rome, 150 BC- AD 400" data-author="Charles Freeman" data-publishdate="2023-11-09" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1803281952.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1803281952" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1803281952" data-review="">
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<div id="cover1529065828" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 👑 🇷🇺 🥐 🏭 2023" data-title="Blood on the Snow: The Russian Revolution 1914-1924" data-author="Robert Service" data-publishdate="2023-11-09" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1529065828.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1529065828" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1529065828" data-review="">
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<div id="cover147285893X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🇬🇧 🏰 🥐 👑 2023" data-title="Battle for the Island Kingdom: The Struggle for England's Destiny 1000-1066" data-author="Don Hollway" data-publishdate="2023-11-07" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/147285893X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/147285893X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/147285893X" data-review="">
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<div id="cover0241530849" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏰 🚽 🥐 🍜 🍗 2023" data-title="A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World Through Medieval Eyes" data-author="Anthony Bale" data-publishdate="2023-11-02" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241530849.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0241530849" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0241530849" data-review="">
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<div id="cover0713996560" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏭 🥐 👑 🚽 🇫🇷 2023" data-title="The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748–1789" data-author="Robert Darnton" data-publishdate="2023-11-02" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0713996560.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0713996560" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0713996560" data-review="">
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<p>One or two I would like to get for Christmas are:</p>
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<li>
<p><em><strong>The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748–1789</strong></em>, <em>by Robert Darnton</em> - looking at how the idea of revolution became thinkable in Paris in the decades leading up to 1789, with novel mass media playing a key role.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism</strong></em>, <em>by Ana Lucia Araujo</em> - telling the story of slavey and subjegation through luxury gifts. This seems like a different and interesting way into the subject.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Battle for the Island Kingdom: The Struggle for England's Destiny 1000-1066</strong></em>, <em>by Don Hollway</em> - I always struggle to remember just how it was that the Norwegians arrived, saw and conquered and then somehow got replaced by some Anglo-Saxons kings. This book looks like an entertaining refresher.</p>
</li>
</ul>
Charged - review
Anthony Webb
The history of an electric car battery begins with one of the biggest mass extinction events in the history of the plant. I’m talking of course about the Permian-Triassic mass extinction 250 million...
2023-11-17T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-17-review-charged/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0295750243.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Charged - review" /><p>Our review of Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future, by James Morton Turner, first published in August 2022.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p><i>Charged</i> provides an in-depth but also accessible overview of the history of batteries. From car lead-acid starter batteries and AAs, to mobile phones and electric cars: how their mining and manufacture have impacted the world.</p><p>It is a calmly argued rather than a high voltage text, but nevertheless contains a powerful message for how we might navigate to a more sustainable world.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>The history of an electric car battery begins with one of the biggest mass extinction events in the history of the plant. I’m talking of course about the Permian-Triassic mass extinction 250 million years ago, in which 95% of all species - and therefore probably 99.9% of all individual lifeforms<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-17-review-charged/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> - died. The cause is thought to be a devastating volcanic eruption in what is now Siberia which lasted for millions of years and spewed out so much sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide that the earth became almost uninhabitable. In many places the largest surviving animal was the mollusc.</p>
<p>But on the positive side the huge magma superplume that was the cause of all this trouble also churned up colossal gobbets of metal rich molten rock. This mineralised magma infused the earth’s crust at the eruption sites to make that part of Russia highly productive mining territory and a key source of nickel.</p>
<p>James Morton Turner in <em>Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future</em> explains that Nickel is not the only ingredient required for your car battery but it is often a much more significant component than the lithium that we normally associate with electric cars, as you can see from the emoji-chart below:</p>
<h4 id="what-goes-into-a-nickel-cobalt-aluminium-car-battery-pack%3F" tabindex="-1">What goes into a Nickel-Cobalt-aluminium car battery pack?</h4>
<div style="white-space: nowrap">
🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋 ← Aluminium (83 kg)<br />
🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋 ← Graphite (71 kg)<br />
<span style="background:pink;border-radius:4px;padding-right:4px">🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋 ← Nickel (44 kg)</span><br />
🔋 ← Cobalt (8 kg)<br />
🔋 ← Lithium (7 kg)<br />
🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋🔋 ← Other (157 kg)
</div>
<p>This long cooled nickel rich super-plume was first mined in Russia in the early 20th century, with a workforce of tens of thousands of prison labourers, exiled there during Stalin’s purges, and based in the <a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/VrCHTUYKTboJud9y7">Siberian town of Norilsk</a>.</p>
<p>In the 1950s the gulags were closed and the workers were paid higher salaries to incentivise them to stay in this remote wintry location. In the 1970s a large smelting plant opened making Norilsk the leading site of nickel production in the world.</p>
<h3 id="impact-assessment" tabindex="-1">Impact assessment</h3>
<p>By the early 2000s the area was in a pretty bad way. In the middle of nowhere, belonging to a government that didn’t typically prioritise the natural environment, and using highly polluting processing methods, it was considered one of the top ten worst-polluted sites in the world.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Acid deposition had scorched two thousand square miles of surrounding forests. Air and water sampling revealed pollution levels exceeding Russian standards by more than an order of magnitude. Life expectancies for Norilsk employees were ten years below the Russian average</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Charged, James Morton Turner</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>After this point there was an intensive effort to clean up production, but problems and bad publicity have remained.</p>
<p>All of which is to say that the materials that go into our batteries often have a chequered past, but if we are to realise a green energy revolution we will need much more of them, and we should be aware of the non-financial cost that we - or more likely someone else living in industrial mining area - may pay.</p>
<h3 id="a-compromised-environmentalist" tabindex="-1">A compromised environmentalist</h3>
<p>This history of nickel was also a bit of a revelation for me in understanding some of the antics of Elon Musk. As the CEO of Tesla, an electric car company reliant on nickel, lithium and other globally sourced materials, he may be more helpfully viewed not as an irresponsible eccentric, but instead as a bellwether for the compromises that all environmentalists face.</p>
<p>So when Musk offers his opinions on Taiwanese politics or the Russian Ukraine war, surely that is only because he wants access to the raw materials that are extracted and processed in Russia and China. Why does he want these materials? To power the green energy revolution that will save the planet (and make him rich).</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book?</h3>
<p><em>Charged</em> takes us through the history of batteries over the last hundred years or so, starting with the lead-acid batteries that are ubiquitous in our petrol powered cars, to the AAs that feed our kids toys, the Lithium-Ion batteries that feed our own toys / mobile phones, before finishing with an in-depth look at car batteries - and the benefits and necessary compromises of a green energy revolution.</p>
<p>He ends with four policy recommendations, which I have copied below in case you are busy politician with no time to real a whole book, but hidden behind a drop down in case you love reading books and hate to have the ending spoiled:</p>
<details style="background:lavenderblush;padding:10px;border-radius:4px"><summary>Four policy recommendations from James Morton Taylor in <i>Charged</i><br />(click for dropdown)</summary>
<p>1. Leverage government leadership to build a clean energy future from the ground up.</p>
<p>2. Promote policies to ensure responsible production and sourcing of minerals for a clean energy future.</p>
<p>3. Support new and expanded mining and refining operations in the United States.</p>
<p>4. Stop trying to recycle our way to a clean energy future.</p>
</details>
<h3 id="getting-the-message-across" tabindex="-1">Getting the message across</h3>
<p>Although the subject of the book is urgent, the style is calm and factual, with Turner explaining the science behind the different battery technologies in clear layman’s terms, setting out the economic history, and the past and current social impact.</p>
<p>For example when talking about Lithium-Ion batteries he develops a nice bookshelf analogy to help us understand how electrons are checked out (when the batteries are being used) and checked back in (when the batteries are being recharged).</p>
<p>He then covers lithium production and its migration to the great “salars”, the high altitude salt plains of South America. These are the salty remnants of ancient seas now thrust upwards to an altitude of more than 3,000 metres. As the seas evaporated they left behind salt but also subsurface water. Because it pretty much never rains up there, this groundwater is a kind of sea-water concentrate and contains 0.2% to 0.4% lithium - enough to make it commercially viable to extract.</p>
<p>This “lithium water” can be pumped up and concentrated further in huge open-air evaporation pools.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-17-review-charged/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="salar-salaries" tabindex="-1">Salar salaries</h3>
<p>Turner then discusses the impact that these colossally sized manufacturing facilities have had on the people that live nearby, changing their communities from those focused on grazing, farming and salt collection, to jobs connected with mineral production, or secondary jobs nearby.</p>
<p>The environmental impact is also considered - what is the effect of pumping out all of this groundwater on the supply of freshwater, or wildlife populations? At the moment this seems an open question.</p>
<h3 id="keep-it-coming" tabindex="-1">Keep it coming</h3>
<p>Perhaps the key message of the book is that we <em>will</em> need minerals like lithium to enable our transition to a green energy world, and this will <em>innevitably</em> require new mining and refining. If the number of batteries in the world is to increase it is clear that recycling just the old batteries will never supply enough materials even if recycling is 100% efficient which it is not.</p>
<p>The next message, close on the heels of the first, is that the history of companies (i.e. humans) in the battery industry shows that they can’t be relied upon to automatically “do the right thing” for the environment and society, in addition to selling batteries, without transparency and appropriate regulations and incentives.</p>
<h3 id="a-balanced-assessment" tabindex="-1">A balanced assessment</h3>
<p>One thing I really appreciated about <em>Charged</em> is the author’s attention to both sides of the green energy debate. He is not out to just name and shame, but instead give us readers enough information to form a judgement ourselves.</p>
<p>For example while Turner wants to make sure we are aware of the potential impact of the battery industry, he also provides the context that this industry is still relatively small on a global scale: the total mass of lithium-ion batteries manufactured in 2010 was about 5 million tonnes; the steel industry manufactured 1.4 billion tonnes of steel in the same year, 280 times this amount.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-17-review-charged/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="a-call-to-action" tabindex="-1">A call to action</h3>
<p>I also found it to be a quietly inspiring book. One small example of this is that after finishing it I have been trying to get my kids more into battery technology and spent last Saturday morning attempting to manufacture a potato battery. Although admittedly we only managed to get a brief flicker of light from our little red LED. I should also acknowledge that my kids gave up on me and wandered off half-way through the experiment while I desperately added ever more potatoes. But you’ve got to start somewhere.</p>
<h3 id="any-downsides%3F" tabindex="-1">Any downsides?</h3>
<p><em>Charged</em> covers broad topics with just sufficient depth to get the point across: weighing in at 185 pages it has an impressively high “thoughts per gallon” ratio. The flip side of this is that passages are descriptive and in the third person, rather than using the more (long winded) journalistic technique of introducing colourful characters and getting them to tell the story for you. I found the “direct info download” approach refreshing, and the prose crisp and precise, but others may find it dry.</p>
<p>The other thing to be aware of is that this is a book written with people living in the United States in mind. So the history here is the US experience, and the focus for the future is what the US government should be doing. The issues are however sufficiently global to make this a fairly minor consideration for non-US residents such as myself from the UK.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Batteries are indispensable to a greener future - and <em>Charged</em> gives us a pretty in-depth but also accessible overview. It is not a high voltage text but it nevertheless contains a powerful message for how we navigate to a more sustainable world.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>I made up the 99.9% but I feel like it must be about right. Although this is probably the wrong way to look at it as the extinctions of species occurred on a timeframe of tens of thousands to millions of years, so it may be as much about having fewer children as popping clogs. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-17-review-charged/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Perhaps like me you have come across these gigantic and often colourful man-made features before when idly browsing google maps satellite view, and not known what they were. I was fascinated to discover that they are basically your iPhone diluted 1.9 million times - or at least the 1g of lithium in your iPhone battery! If you want to take a look yourself here is the <a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/jXtYm7ZYBYd6MpEC6">satellite view of the Chilean lithium production site on google maps</a>, with an <a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZkW61z3hoPVbd2kq6">emerald green final processing site closer to the coast</a>. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-17-review-charged/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>Here is a graphical representation of that ratio of 5 million tonnes of lithium-ion batteries produced to 1.4 billion tonnes steel produced (a ratio of 280:1) 🔋🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧🔧 <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-17-review-charged/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Assyria - review
Anthony Webb
What have the Assyrians ever done for us? In Assyria: the Rise and Fall of the World’s First Empire Eckart Frahm explains that: they established a template for domination that has been used ever...
2023-11-10T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-03-review-assyria/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1526623811.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Assyria - review" /><p>Our review of Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World&#39;s First Empire, by Eckart Frahm, first published in July 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>This is a solid, dependable political history on the rise and fall of the Assyrian empire from 2000 BCE to 610 BCE.</p><p>Follow the Assyrian kings and their armies as they conquered and plundered, then disintigrated - with a few moments of reflection on everyday life and the legacy of their empire.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>What have the Assyrians ever done for us? In <em>Assyria: the Rise and Fall of the World’s First Empire</em> Eckart Frahm explains that: they established a template for domination that has been used ever since. They created <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1851-0902-509">eerily beautiful sculptures</a> that still inspire awe in museum visitors around the world. And the Assyrian kings were the role model for God.</p>
<p>This last claim, you may be thinking, is a bold one - what’s the evidence?</p>
<p>The 8th Century BCE was an important time in the Middle East. Not only was it the period when the Assyrian empire really got started, it was also the time that the initial texts of the Bible were first written down - perhaps <em>the</em> formative time for Jewish religion and identity. The Assyrian expansion is therefore the geopolitical context for the Bible.</p>
<h3 id="king-fearing-isrealites" tabindex="-1">King fearing Isrealites</h3>
<p>The authors of the Bible hated the Assyrians, and with good reason. By 701 BCE the Assyrians had destroyed the small northern kingdom of Israel utterly, and had subjected the equally vulnerable southern kingdom of Judah to a brutal campaign, which the Judaian king Hezekiah only narrowly survived and was then forced to agree a humiliating treaty of submission in which he handed over huge quantities of treasure.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-03-review-assyria/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
<p>Confronted with the reality of an all powerful king with claims of global domination, the early Israelites, Frahm tells us, transferred these properties onto their God. For example, on the one hand the biblical prophet Isiah deplores the Assyrian king’s desire to “<em>gather all the earth as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken</em>” while then going on to say that for God “<em>the whole earth is full of his glory</em>”</p>
<h3 id="copy-paste-curses" tabindex="-1">Copy paste curses</h3>
<p>More tangibly, the curses prescribed for breakers of an Assyrian royal loyalty oath that was widely circulated around the empire (including presumably to Judah) were exactly mirrored by an early version of the Deuteronomic Code in the Bible:</p>
<p>“In exchange for disobedience,” Frahm notes, “the biblical text predicts, a man will first experience ulcers, then blindness, and finally the ruin of his marriage when an enemy takes possession of his wife. Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty [containing the loyalty oath] includes a section with very similar curses, listed in exactly the same sequence and presented as punishments meted out by the gods Sin, Shamash and Ishtar.”</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Resisting this power [of the Assyrian kings] by means of military or political action was futile, and so the Hebrew priests and prophets did something else: they projected it onto their own god... This political-theological ‘transfer’ was a revolutionary move that inaugurated a new type of religion.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Eckart Frahm, Assyria</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>The concept of God is of course more profound than just potency. And Judaism is not just a simple reaction against the Assyrian empire, otherwise we would see lots of Gods popping up wherever the Assyrian army matched through. But the crucial idea of divine omnipotence seems closely bound up with the idea of Assyrian royal power.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-03-review-assyria/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
<p>As a bare minimum we can say that God wears royal Assyrian clothes.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book</h3>
<p>Frahm starts his story at the beginning with a whizz through early Mesopotamia, the first identifiable ‘Assyrian like’ things (temples, gods and language) from 2500 to 2000 BCE, and then goes onto...</p>
<ul>
<li>🤑 early history of Ashur<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-03-review-assyria/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup>, when it was a city state of merchants with a kind of republican government. 2000 to 1700 BCE.</li>
<li>🤴 period of strong royal power, with Assyrian monarchs trying to muscle in on the ‘brotherhood of kings’ in the ancient near East. 1400 to 1050 BCE</li>
<li>😰 experience of the Bronze Age Collapse that wiped out many neighbouring states, and the comparatively rapid Assyrian recovery. 1050 to 750 BCE.</li>
<li>😎 heyday of Assyrian empire where they dominated the Middle East from Egypt to Iran. 750 to 630 BCE.</li>
<li>💀 collapse of empire and total destruction of the Assyrian state in just a few decades. 630 to 610 BCE</li>
</ul>
<p>Frahm then reflects on what it all means with a few chapters on the legacy of their empire and how it finds echoes in the Persian, Greek and Roman empires; the influence of the Assyrian empire on the Bible as noted above; some reflections on why some people still call themselves Assyrians today; and the current state of Assyrian archaeological sites after the deliberate destruction carried about by the short lived Islamic State in 2015.</p>
<p>So all in all he covers a lot of ground. Generally speaking he moves the history along nicely, while also providing a glimpse of more everyday matters such as life for the ordinary punter and what we know about the role of women (royal or not).</p>
<h3 id="what-i-liked" tabindex="-1">What I liked</h3>
<p>One of the things I enjoyed reading about was the Assyrians before they became an empire and were instead a thriving city state of merchants who specialised in shipping (or more accurately donkeying) Mesopotamian textiles and tin up north to what is now Turkey, and Anatolian silver back home.</p>
<p>It wasn’t by any means a pacifist nirvana<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-03-review-assyria/#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup>. But it was very different from its warring monarchical neighbours and very different too from the autocratic empire relishing violence that it would become.</p>
<p>So why did it change from the one to the other?</p>
<p>Here Frahm breaks it to us that we just don’t know - we have very few records over the period when this change occurred. But I suppose another way of looking at this is why wouldn’t this change have occurred? After all, in hundreds of years governmental stasis might be even more surprising.</p>
<h3 id="i-came%2C-i-saw%2C-i-re-conquered" tabindex="-1">I came, I saw, I re-conquered</h3>
<p>This is also indicative of Frahm’s approach: the focus is on what happened and he is careful not to speculate too much on why it happened. So when the Assyrian state experienced a period of crisis in the 8th Century and came close to collapse, he attributes the speedy recovery to the energetic response of a ‘great ruler’ who grabbed the bull by the horns and took the bits between his teeth. The collapse of the empire is also presented as the responsibility of a few successive weakling rulers who preferred staying at home trying out new sexual positions rather than rampaging around Mesopotamia flaying people alive.</p>
<p>My personal bias is that ‘great man’ or indeed ‘feeble man’ causation in history should be more of a last resort, and would have liked Frahm to speculate a bit more on what was driving it all.</p>
<h3 id="style-guide" tabindex="-1">Style guide</h3>
<p>I found <em>Assyria</em> pretty easy to read, the narrative is broken up into manageable chunks, and the writing chugs along in an engaging way although without ever being exciting.</p>
<h3 id="gratuitous-violence" tabindex="-1">Gratuitous violence</h3>
<p>Finally I feel it is remiss to review a book about the Assyrians and not comment on their reputation for shocking cruelty and violence! Frahm doesn’t sensationalise this aspect - in his view the Assyrians are not materially worse than say the Egyptian Pharaohs who apparently like to make little piles of vanquished penises and other body parts. But he does provide a few nice examples of what the Assyrian kings were capable of, my favourite being Sargon II (721 - 705 BCE) who took deadlines very seriously (and literally). In a letter to one of his governors he asks him to deliver some bales of straw and reeds by the first of the month, adding “should even one day pass by, you will die.”</p>
<p>In another letter he puts in an order for some horses, noting that:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Whoever is late will be impaled in his own house, and his sons and his daughters too shall be slaughtered.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sargon II (721 - 705 BCE) 😬</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>At its core this is a solid political history of the rise and fall of the Assyrian empire. If you want to follow the Assyrian kings and their armies as they conquered and plundered - with a few moments of reflection between campaigns - then this is the book for you.</p>
<p>And while you may not find God in these pages, you may find his childhood home.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Which you can still see in stone carved comic strip style at the British museum. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-03-review-assyria/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>I have heard some similar arguments put forward for the Persian kings, who were seen much more positively in the Bible because they freed the Jewish people from their Babylonian captivity. God is sometimes described using royal Persian imagery. But the difference here one could argue is that the Persian angle is coming in a few hundred years <em>after</em> the critical formative “Assyrian years”. Ie in the 8th Century BCE God was an impressionable child but by the time He met the Persians He was already set in His ways. I should probably add a caveat here to say that I am very far from being an expert in any of this stuff! <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-03-review-assyria/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>Assyria is a Greek word, which they derived from the name of the city Ashur. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-03-review-assyria/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>One text from this period - a treaty between Ashur and another unidentified kingdom - states “You shall not allow the Babylonians to come up to you; if they travel overland to your country, you shall hand them over to us and we shall kill them”. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-03-review-assyria/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in October 2023
Anthony Webb
Fewer history books than normal were published in October - maybe it is a bit of a lull before the Christmas releases? But still nine to choose from, and most of them the product of years of hard...
2023-11-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-11-01-posts-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1698830578/posts/Oct2023_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in October 2023" /><p>Fewer history books than normal were published in October - maybe it is a bit of a lull before the Christmas releases? But still nine to choose from, and most of them the product of years of hard work!</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you like to buy your books there.</em></p>
<div class="grid_book_small">
<div class="fix-children 🥐 🚽 👑 🇬🇧 🏰 ⛪ 🏭 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008601704.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" title="Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover0008601704" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🥐 🚽 👑 🇬🇧 🏰 ⛪ 🏭 2023" data-title="Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" data-author="Philippa Gregory" data-publishdate="2023-10-26" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008601704.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0008601704" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0008601704" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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</div>
<div class="fix-children 🥐 🏭 🚽 👑 🇩🇪 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0198881835.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="A Nation Fermented: Beer, Bavaria, and the Making of Modern Germany" title="A Nation Fermented: Beer, Bavaria, and the Making of Modern Germany" />
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<div id="cover0198881835" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🥐 🏭 🚽 👑 🇩🇪 2023" data-title="A Nation Fermented: Beer, Bavaria, and the Making of Modern Germany" data-author="Robert Shea Terrell, Robert Shea (Assistant Professor of History Terrell, Assistant Professor of History Syracuse University)" data-publishdate="2023-10-26" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0198881835.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0198881835" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0198881835" data-review="">
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<div id="cover0241552192" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛪ 🌽 👑 🇲🇽 2023" data-title="The Fall of the Aztecs: Adventures in Time" data-author="Dominic Sandbrook" data-publishdate="2023-10-26" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241552192.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0241552192" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0241552192" data-review="">
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<div id="cover152666769X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛩️ 🍭 👑 🚽 2023" data-title="The Rest Is History: The Official Book from the Makers of the Hit Podcast" data-author="Tom Holland, Dominic Sandbrook" data-publishdate="2023-10-26" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/152666769X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/152666769X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/152666769X" data-review="">
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<div id="cover0300272669" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🕯️ ⛪ 🏭 🥐 🇮🇹 2023" data-title="Volcanic: Vesuvius in the Age of Revolutions" data-author="John Brewer" data-publishdate="2023-10-24" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300272669.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0300272669" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0300272669" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0197546870.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Defectors: How the Illicit Flight of Soviet Citizens Built the Borders of the Cold War World" title="Defectors: How the Illicit Flight of Soviet Citizens Built the Borders of the Cold War World" />
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<div id="cover0197546870" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏗️ 🥐 🍜 👑 🚽 🇷🇺 2023" data-title="Defectors: How the Illicit Flight of Soviet Citizens Built the Borders of the Cold War World" data-author="Erik R. Scott" data-publishdate="2023-10-23" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0197546870.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0197546870" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0197546870" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0750999292.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA" title="The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA" />
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0192888196.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Gambling Century: Commercial Gaming in Britain from Restoration to Regency" title="The Gambling Century: Commercial Gaming in Britain from Restoration to Regency" />
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<div id="cover0192888196" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏭 🇬🇧 🚽 🥐 2023" data-title="The Gambling Century: Commercial Gaming in Britain from Restoration to Regency" data-author="John Eglin, Prof John (Professor of History Eglin, Professor of History University of Montana)" data-publishdate="2023-10-15" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0192888196.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0192888196" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0192888196" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1529365384.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Justinian: Emperor, Soldier, Saint" title="Justinian: Emperor, Soldier, Saint" />
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<p>On my one-day-to-read list are:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em><strong>The Fall of the Aztecs: Adventures in Time</strong></em>, <em>by Dominic Sandbrook</em> - I know this amazing and tragic story pretty well, but I would like my kids to know it too! Plus I have enjoyed a couple of other books in Sandbrook's Adventures in Time series.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History</strong></em>, <em>by Philippa Gregory</em> - A history of England (Britain?) since the Norman conquest shining the spotlight on women who haven't been part of the mainstream narrative. Given the authors creds I would assume that it is also very well written.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Volcanic: Vesuvius in the Age of Revolutions</strong></em>, <em>by John Brewer</em> - my youngest son is very into volcanoes at the moment so this one caught my eye. This book looks at the links between the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum (and subsequent fame of Vesuvius) and the explosive ideas swirling around the world in the 18th and 19th centuries.</p>
</li>
</ul>
The Middle Kingdoms - review
Andy Salisbury
I admit that I bought this book without too much research about what it was about: from the picture on the front cover and title I got the vague idea that I was buying something on German medieval...
2023-10-27T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-10-27-review-the-middle-kingdoms/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0241506158.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Middle Kingdoms - review" /><p>Our review of The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe, by Martyn Rady, first published in May 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>An excellent overview of a sometimes sprawling subject matter. Although he covers a lot of ground in relatively quick order, the author also manages to draw out interesting themes and ideas about what it means to be Central European.</p><p>In particular, if you are interested in the history of state bureaucracy, this is an ideal book for you.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>I admit that I bought this book without too much research about what it was about: from the picture on the front cover and title I got the vague idea that I was buying something on German medieval history, which struck me as potentially quite interesting, and not something I knew a great deal about. I did briefly look into the author - Martyn Rady is a professor of Central European History at University College London and has previously published a well-received book on the Habsburgs (The Habsburgs: The Rise and Fall of a World Power (2020)).</p>
<p>In fact, Professor Rady’s book covers all Central European history from the Roman empire right up to the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia. It wasn’t quite what I expected, but I enjoyed it, nonetheless.</p>
<p>The first point to note about this book is that it has a lot to squeeze into its 515 pages; the author must do justice to a lot of topics which easily justify books in their own right.</p>
<p>To mention just a few: barbarian migrations and the resulting collapse of the Roman Empire; Christianisation and the conversion of pagans; the arrival of Slavs and Hungarians; Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire; Mongol and Tartar invasions; the Reformation; Ottoman Turks; Napoleon; the 1848 Revolutions; unification of Germany in 1871; the First and Second World Wars; post-war communist states; and the fall of the Berlin Wall and integration into the EU.</p>
<p>So how does he do? Quite well, in my opinion. Inevitably, a lot of those areas do not necessarily get the depth of analysis they deserve; even within the limited page count the author was working with, from time to time I felt a particular subject matter could have justified a bit more attention. But a book like this, which covers such a large number of countries over a long time period, should be judged on its ability to draw some meaning from such a volume of subject matter. What makes Central Europe distinctive? What themes recur throughout its history? The author provides some answers to those questions, so in my opinion makes the book worth reading.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-central-europe%3F" tabindex="-1">What is Central Europe?</h3>
<p>The most obvious starting point for any book on Central Europe is to get some idea of what it is. The concept of Mitteleuropa goes back to the Napoleonic Wars to indicate the bits of Europe with German rulers who Napoleon allowed to stay in power: in other words, it wasn’t France, and it wasn’t Russia, it was the bit in-between. Later German writers were keen on the idea as well, usually to indicate the parts of Europe they thought Germans should control.</p>
<p>The author is both more inclusive in his definition, and less precise, which seems to feed into some of his ideas of what makes the region distinctive. As he says in the introduction, the western edge is generally regarded as the river Rhine; but its Eastern boundary has always been a bit more ambiguous, partly because it comes across the Great European Plain, so lacks a clear geographical boundary. Of course, that lack of an Eastern boundary is the source of one of the recurring themes of the region’s history, namely invasion: Goths, Huns, Hungarians, Mongols, Turks and, most recently, Russians, have all seen that big expanse of flat land as an invitation for expansion (although, to be fair, it is worth noting that some invaders, such as Napoleon and Hitler, have gone in the other direction).</p>
<h3 id="relationship-with-western-europe" tabindex="-1">Relationship with Western Europe</h3>
<p>The author makes clear that whilst the history of Central Europe has much in common with Western Europe, it embraced ideas and trends differently, and was often the source, rather than the recipient, of much of what is thought of as European politics, religion, and culture.</p>
<p>The most obvious example of that is the Reformation, which originated in Germany with Martin Luther, and was sustained by the Holy Roman Empire’s unique political set up. The way the region reacted to religious diversity was also different. In Western Europe, we tend to think of religious toleration as a practical solution to the wars of religion which accompanied the Reformation.</p>
<p>In fact, I found it interesting that in Central Europe it was the other way round: some degree of accommodation and tolerance was often the initial reaction in parts of the Holy Roman Empire. In many cases, hardened attitudes and policy came later, principally as a result of the Counter-Reformation, and a series of Habsburg rulers who attempted to re-impose Catholicism by force during the 30 Years’ War (1618-1648).</p>
<h3 id="the-beast-from-the-east" tabindex="-1">The Beast from the East</h3>
<p>The book opens and closes with the idea of the ‘dogmen’, a mythical man/dog hybrid thought to inhabit the edges of civilisation. The idea of the dogman recurs as a motif for fear of the unknown and threatening forces that inhabit the vast plains of Europe’s east. The author states in the final paragraph of the book that ‘For Central Europe, threats have always come from all directions, but historically those coming from the east have been the more terrible.’</p>
<p>The Cold War period was relatively unique in Central European history as marking a period in which most of it was firmly drawn into the cultural and political ambit of its Eastern neighbour, Russia. In that period, the concept of Central Europe fell into abeyance: Europe was split down the middle into two, on one side Western capitalist democracies; on the other, Eastern communist dictatorships.</p>
<p>In the author’s telling, for Central European countries such as Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia (as it then was), communism and their newly close relationship with Russia never sat easily, with each being a source of attempted revolution and/or political dissidence. The author is unsparing in his critique of this period of the region’s history, although he also acknowledges the challenges (and benefits) that many Central European countries have experienced since EU accession.</p>
<h3 id="the-nation-state" tabindex="-1">The nation state</h3>
<p>For the author, Central European historiography has been dominated by the rise of the nation state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; as a result, Central European historians have typically sought to reinterpret the history of the region as providing an origin story for a ‘people’, whether that is German, Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, or otherwise. In fact, attempts to pigeonhole people as belonging to one group or another have never been straightforward. For most of its history, Central Europe was a complex patchwork of different political boundaries, languages, and religions. Many people were multilingual and / or spoke hybrid languages that are now extinct. For the author, “National belonging was not a matter of fact but of decision”. Identity was never straightforward.</p>
<p>An early twentieth century soldier wrote his diary in four different languages – German for regimental matters, Slovene when thinking of his girlfriend, Serbian for songs he recalled, and Hungarian for his sexual fantasies. Tragically, it took two world wars, and the death and forced movement of millions, to create a Europe where the ‘nation’ and the ‘state’ largely cohere, and even now, linguistic minorities are still a feature of many Central European countries.</p>
<h3 id="the-bureaucratic-state" tabindex="-1">The bureaucratic state</h3>
<p>The author has a lot to say about Central European law and the growth of state power, and how these interacted. I found these parts of the book particularly enlightening, as they appear to be the author’s principal academic areas of focus.</p>
<p>One way in which medieval Central Europe was relatively distinctive was the degree of political representation enjoyed locally by noblemen, city folk and villagers. In the Middle Ages, parliaments (or diets as they were commonly called), assemblies and self-governing communities were commonplace and enjoyed surprising degrees of autonomy from central control. The contrast with medieval France and England, where strong central governments predominated, is revealing. What explained this difference? Partly it was a result of a flat feudal hierarchy: Central European noblemen were relatively numerous and empowered, with a direct relationship with their ruler (a relationship for which the diet was the principal stage). It was also due to the high risk of invasion, which forced rulers to work with nobles and, on many occasions, accede to their demands.</p>
<p>But, perhaps ironically, Central Europe then became the birthplace of the modern bureaucratic state from the seventeenth century onwards. This was in part linked to the Counter-Reformation and the attempts of Holy Roman Emperors to reimpose control on recalcitrant local rulers and a vast multi-ethnic empire. The region gave rise to the social science of Cameralism which sought to run the state along scientific principles, with a particular emphasis on state control and regulation of the economy.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>An excellent overview of a sometimes sprawling subject matter; but whilst covering a lot of ground in relatively quick order, the author also manages to draw out interesting themes and ideas from the vast quantity of material he must deal with. In particular, if you are interested in the history of state bureaucracy, this is an ideal book for you. This is a book which is both informative and thought-provoking.</p>
The Age of Atlantic Revolution - review
Anthony Webb
It's history is the creation of a world.
Simone de Beauvoir, America Day by Day.
In Colombia the first song I learnt on my battered travelling guitar was “Soy Colombiano” (“I am Colombian”)...
2023-10-13T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-10-13-review-age-of-atlantic-revolutions/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/030020633X.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Age of Atlantic Revolution - review" /><p>Our review of The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World, by Patrick Griffin, first published in July 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>The Age of Atlantic Revolution provides a birds eye view of the foundation of our modern world of nation states, in the connected revolutions around the Atlantic in the late 18th and early 19th century.</p><p>Griffin provides a welcome challenge to the often blinkered national histories that can dominate our view of the past. But despite all the learning, empathy and insight, this book is just too dry to turn the world upside-down.</p></strong></p> <p>★★☆☆☆</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<p>It's history is the creation of a world.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Simone de Beauvoir, America Day by Day.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>In Colombia the first song I learnt on my battered travelling guitar was “Soy Colombiano” (“I am Colombian”) which goes something like this:</p>
<p><em>🎵 Give me an alcoholic beverage:<br />
An alcoholic beverage made of sugar cane,<br />
With the sugar cane of my valleys and the aniseed of my mountains!<br />
Don’t give me foreign alcoholic beverages, which are expensive and don’t taste so good.<br />
For me the home grown stuff is always the best.
¡Ay! How proud I feel to be born in my country!🎶🎵 [Colombia]</em>.</p>
<p>(Soy Colombiano by Rafael Godoy, translation by me with original language lyrics here<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-10-13-review-age-of-atlantic-revolutions/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>)</p>
<p>This wasn’t atypical for popular South American guitar tunes. In every country there was a suite of well known songs telling the audience how lucky they are to be a citizen of that particular country.</p>
<p>Coming from the UK where even singing the national anthem too loudly can be seen as a bit embarrassing, all these songs appeared to me curiously patriotic.</p>
<p>Patrick Griffin’s new book <em>The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World</em> provides the context that I was missing. Until 1810 Colombia didn’t even exist, it was part of the huge Viceroyalty of New Granada, itself a part of the enormous Spanish empire. The Viceroyalty of New Granada then fractured into Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and (later) a bit of Peru.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-10-13-review-age-of-atlantic-revolutions/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> This was part of the wider fracturing of the Atlantic empires into the nation-states that we know today.</p>
<p>And what was it that made a Venezuelan, different to a Colombian, different to an Ecuadorian, different to a Panamanian? Not very much!</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>What did it mean to be Bolivian? Or Mexican? Most of the markers of national attachment - say, religion, ethnicity, or language - were shared by so many states that had warred with each other. In most cases, states were built because of the practical considerations of the moment, but belonging and attachment required more.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Patrick Griffin, The Age of Atlantic Revolution</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>As a revolutionary nation builder looking to create a sense of national identity you’ve just got to work with what you have to hand. In the case of Colombia this meant (verse 1) tasty, low cost alcoholic drinks, (verse 2) good quality music, and (verse 3) beautiful ladies with clear eyes and soft skin. The music was part of the process of creating a nation.</p>
<h3 id="lighting-the-fire" tabindex="-1">Lighting the fire</h3>
<p>Griffin starts his book in around 1760 and finishes around 1850, covering the revolution in British North America, the revolution in France and, after a few decades of benign neglect, the revolutions that formed the map of South and Central America. He also covers the Caribbean world, in particular Haiti.</p>
<p>One of the key ideas underlying this book is that the Atlantic was a deeply connected world, and developments in one place were closely linked with events elsewhere. For example, the French revolution acted as both an inspirational people power moment, or a warning of the terrible violence that a revolution could unleash. So while the interactions were complex in their effects they were nonetheless fundamental to how people around the Atlantic ocean experienced the age.</p>
<p>If all this sounds a bit high level and theoretical, that’s because it is! Because Griffin is covering so much ground he generally can’t afford to get bogged down into exactly who chopped off whose head.</p>
<h3 id="fire-control" tabindex="-1">Fire control</h3>
<p>After detailing the genesis and progress of the various revolutions (or non-revolutions) Griffin then examines at what point they were considered complete and stopped. This went pretty smoothly in the United States of America where a clear boundary was set out between those who were to receive the fruits of the revolution (white protestant colonists) and those who would not (African Americans) and any excess violent impulses were orientated westward into the interior, against native Americans.</p>
<p>This process was much less smooth for Saint-Domingue, where revolution - and vulnerability to foreign forces - has led to instability arguably up to the present day state of Haiti.</p>
<h3 id="shadows-of-the-flames" tabindex="-1">Shadows of the flames</h3>
<p>The last section of the book is on memorialising those revolutions - the “vanishing points” of each country’s national story. Memorialising here means building physical structures, mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries, to form a focal point of national myths - for example <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_Independence">The Angel of Independence</a> in Mexico City or the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Independence_of_Brazil#/media/File:Monumento_%C3%A0_Independ%C3%AAncia_02.jpg">Monument to the Independence of Brazil</a>. Griffin draws out what these memorials were intended to remember and what they tried to forget or erase from the story.</p>
<p>Invariably at the time these monuments were constructed this meant forgetting the role of African Americans in the story of the nation, and often it meant forgetting or occluding the existence of native American peoples.</p>
<h3 id="sugar-rush" tabindex="-1">Sugar rush</h3>
<p>One part of this Atlantic world that was quite new to me was the French colony of Saint-Domingue, forming the Western part of the island of Hispaniola, the largest island in the Caribbean alongside Cuba. At the time of the French Revolution in 1789 it was unbelievably productive, processing half of the world’s sugar supply despite being more than 20 times smaller than France itself. This wealth was founded on the forced labour of hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans.</p>
<p>With the American and the French Revolution as precursors, Saint-Dominique exploded into a bloody revolution of its own and in 1804 it became the first American nation to be run by ex slaves.</p>
<h3 id="the-price-of-independence" tabindex="-1">The price of independence</h3>
<p>The price it paid was a high one. Firstly in blood and suffering to reach this point. Secondly in direct monetary terms - <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/world/americas/haiti-history-colonized-france.html">the French government demanded a payment which is thought to have deprived Haiti of $21 billion</a> (in today’s terms) in order to recognise the new Republic<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-10-13-review-age-of-atlantic-revolutions/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup>.</p>
<p>The justification for the crippling fine was that it was compensation for the losses suffered by French planters. What had they lost? The land they had stolen and the right to work their slaves to death.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-10-13-review-age-of-atlantic-revolutions/#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="the-writing-style" tabindex="-1">The writing style</h3>
<p><em>The Age of Atlantic Revolution</em> covers some incredible and exciting stories and events. But unfortunately the book itself has none of this sense of excitement.</p>
<p>Despite being keen to find out more there was something about the terse, dry prose style that meant it felt like a battle to read through the pages.</p>
<p>Partly this is because Griffin is exploring his material from such a high level: humans are like tiny dots scurrying around far below, and we don’t look at any of them for long enough to appreciate the drama. Instead we get a kind of academic crossover book describing “entanglements” and “processes”. Here is Griffin talking about the impact of the American Revolution of 1776:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Because of the very nature of that deeply networked system, shock waves could not be contained. The Atlantic world was so imbricated that it was folly to believe that one crisis over sovereignty that had turned into revolution would remain isolated. The logic of the system would not allow it. What followed would with time demonstrate just how knotted the world had become.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Patrick Griffin, The Age of Atlantic Revolution</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>I think I know what he means even though I don’t understand all of the words. But I have to work pretty hard to follow along.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Because this period is so fundamental to Europe, America and Africa we should all know more about it than most of us do.</p>
<p>Not just the national stories of Bunker Hill or the Storming of the Bastille, but instead understanding how these “foundational myths” are often just exercises in self-congratulatory navel-gazing. By lifting our gazes and looking over the horizon we can understand our own modern world so much better.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, The Age of Atlantic Revolution is not the book to do this despite all its learning, empathy and perceptiveness. It is just too boring. But perhaps it can show us the way.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p><em>A mí deme un aguardiente, un aguardiente de caña,<br />
de las cañas de mis valles y el anís de mis montañas.<br />
No me dé trago extranjero que es caro y no sabe a bueno,<br />
porque yo quiero siempre lo de mi tierra primero.<br />
Ay! qué orgulloso me siento de haber nacido en mi pueblo.</em><br />
If you want to know how it sounds you can of course listen to some recordings on YouTube, including this one by the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAxe3Uj_Gk8">celebrated Garzón Y Collazos</a> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-10-13-review-age-of-atlantic-revolutions/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>You can watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UULp33MNNNE">a nice video of the changing political map of South America</a> on YouTube <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-10-13-review-age-of-atlantic-revolutions/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>Recognition in this context means a loose promise not to launch unprovoked attacks. The $21 billion figure comes the Haitian president Jean-Betrand Aristide who made this restitution demand of the French state in 2003. It has recently been the subject of an article in the New York Times from May 2022 called “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/world/americas/haiti-history-colonized-france.html">The Ransom: The Roots of Haiti’s Misery: Reparations to Enslavers</a>”. The article works very well as a brief history of Haiti as well a discussion of the $21 billion amount. The original figure was 150 million francs according to Wikipedia, 10x Haiti’s annual budget. This get’s translated to $560 million in today’s terms and $21 billion including the opportunity cost of not being able to invest this amount in Haiti itself. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-10-13-review-age-of-atlantic-revolutions/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>Described thusly by the New York Times article referenced above: “It [Haiti] became the world’s first and only country where the descendants of enslaved people paid reparations to the descendants of their masters — for generations.<br />
It is often called the 'independence debt.' But that is a misnomer. It was a ransom.” <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-10-13-review-age-of-atlantic-revolutions/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in September 2023
Anthony Webb
I like the look of a lot of these, not that one should judge a book by looks alone, but there certainly are more than usual.
Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you...
2023-10-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-10-01-posts-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1696192273/posts/Sept2023_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in September 2023" /><p>I like the look of a lot of these, not that one should judge a book by looks alone, but there certainly are more than usual.</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you like to buy your books there.</em></p>
<div class="grid_book_small">
<div class="fix-children 🇬🇧 ⛪ 🥐 👑 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1399089226.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Tudor Empire" title="The Tudor Empire" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover1399089226" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🇬🇧 ⛪ 🥐 👑 2023" data-title="The Tudor Empire" data-author="David Wildman" data-publishdate="2023-09-30" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1399089226.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1399089226" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1399089226" data-review="">
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<div class="fix-children 🇬🇧 ⛩️ 🥐 👑 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1405953179.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Unruly: A History of England's Kings and Queens" title="Unruly: A History of England's Kings and Queens" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover1405953179" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🇬🇧 ⛩️ 🥐 👑 2023" data-title="Unruly: A History of England's Kings and Queens" data-author="David Mitchell" data-publishdate="2023-09-28" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1405953179.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1405953179" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1405953179" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children 🏛️ 🥐 👑 🚽 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1846683785.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World" title="Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World" />
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<div id="cover1846683785" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏛️ 🥐 👑 🚽 2023" data-title="Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World" data-author="Mary Beard" data-publishdate="2023-09-28" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1846683785.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1846683785" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1846683785" data-review="">
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<p>I could have highlighted more but here are a few I found interesting:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Sparks: China's Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future</strong></em>, <em>by Ian Johnson</em> - I am always fascinated by the very different ways in which we perceive the study of history in the UK (/the west) and in China, and am hoping this will provide more insight.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>The Bone Chests: Unlocking the Secrets of the Anglo-Saxons</strong></em>, <em>by Cat Jarman</em> - This looks like another great archaeological detective book from the author of River Kings, a book I very much enjoyed reading last year.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>One Fine Day: Britain's Empire on the Brink</strong></em>, <em>by Matthew Parker</em> - this is a global survey of Britain's stuttering empire on a single day exactly one hundred years ago in 1923 - a 'macro from micro' perspective.</p>
</li>
</ul>
Pax - review
Anthony Webb
Do you - can you? - think like a Roman?
Here’s a test. What would you do in this situation?
Imagine you are the pie-loving commander of a powerful army of Roman legions stationed on the Rhine. Your...
2023-09-08T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-09-08-review-pax/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1408706989.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Pax - review" /><p>Our review of Pax: War and Peace in Rome&#39;s Golden Age, by Tom Holland, first published in July 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A grand tour of the Roman world from the death of Nero in 68 CE to the death of Hadrian 70 years later, Holland wants us to appreciate not only what the Romans did but also how they thought.</p><p>With a triumphant procession of defeated enemies, stormed cities, castrated boys and exploded volcanoes, I found it an entertaining, engrossing and thought-provoking read.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <p>Do you - can you? - think like a Roman?</p>
<p>Here’s a test. What would you do in this situation?</p>
<p>Imagine you are the pie-loving commander of a powerful army of Roman legions stationed on the Rhine. Your boss the emperor Nero has been mourning his beloved wife who he accidentally kicked to death. To help him overcome his grief his minions have found an unfortunate young boy who looks surprisingly like the late spouse. He is shipped over to Rome.</p>
<p>The story takes a lurch left-field at this point. Nero is impressed but thinks he can do better. The boy is dressed in his wife’s clothes, make-up applied and the finest tutors are hired to school him in womanly arts. His penis and testicles are surgically removed. A plan to insert a functional womb has to be abandoned because medical science is not yet sufficiently advanced. The boy now girl is given the name Sporus by a doting Nero, which translates into English as spunk.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-09-08-review-pax/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
<p>One year after Sporus and Nero were married, a rebellion is launched against Nero. Giving up all hope Nero flees out of Rome and commits suicide in one of his nearby villas, Sporus at his side.</p>
<p>Sporus is claimed as plunder by the senior military officer in Rome, the captain of the Praetorian Guard. Two more emperors come and go in a matter of months, Galba and Otho. Emperor Otho has taken a shine to Sporus too, and no wonder. In a bizarre twist Otho was the original husband of Nero’s look-a-like wife and had to give her up when Nero decided he wanted her for himself.</p>
<p>Bear with me we are coming to the test!</p>
<p>Having been forced into a mutiny by your rebellious legionaries on the Rhine, you as their commander (who would much rather stay at home eating pies) have marched from the German frontier into Italy, defeated Otho’s troops, and are now emperor. Well done! But here’s the question: what will you do with young Sporus?</p>
<p>Will you:</p>
<p><strong>a)</strong> Set him free and let him go home, he has suffered enough.<br />
<strong>b)</strong> Install him as your own concubine, you are captivated by his good looks and charm.<br />
<strong>c)</strong> Stage a public show, in which Sporus is forced to play the part of a goddess in a Roman myth. You instruct gladiators, dressed up as the god Pluto and following the mythic storyline, to rape and then kill Sporus in the arena.</p>
<p>If you chose <strong>(c)</strong> congratulations! You can indeed think like an (elite) Roman.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-09-08-review-pax/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> If you chose <strong>(a)</strong> or <strong>(b)</strong> you may feel marginally better to know that Sporus took his own life before the spectacle took place.</p>
<h3 id="the-strong-and-the-weak" tabindex="-1">The strong and the weak</h3>
<p>The point of this disturbing tale, told by Tom Holland in his latest book <em>Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age</em> is to help us penetrate into the mindset of the Romans that to us can appear so strange.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-09-08-review-pax/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup></p>
<p>The key to understanding this particular story, Holland tells us, is that for the Romans, the most important identity was not man or woman but one of power. What mattered was the fact - and act - of domination. In the case of Sporus it was considered less important that he was transformed from a boy into a woman, and more important that he was an underling who remained on the receiving end of the Emperor’s affections. Whether those affections were welcome or not was beyond the point: the strong do what they want and the weak (if they were not Roman citizens) just have to take it.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>She [Sporus] was a symbol not just of imperial power, but of the daring required to reach after imperial power. Well might those who had moulded her, fashioning an empress out of a boy, think nothing beyond them.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tom Holland, Pax</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book?</h3>
<p><em>Pax</em> provides us with a grand tour of the Roman empire from the death of Nero in 68 CE to the death of Hadrian 70 years later in 138 AD.</p>
<p>In some ways it is a pretty “straight” history, telling us which emperor did what, when. But Holland also spices things up with plenty of diversions and digressions along the way - such as the story of Sporus - weaving them into the narrative.</p>
<p>This is because Holland wants us to think like a Roman, or at least appreciate the outlines of the Roman mindset. In my case I think he succeeded: although I was shocked by the case of Sporus early in the book, by the end of it when Holland comments:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Trajan, model of discipline and modesty that he was, had no patience with luxury. His only vices were those appropriate to an honest soldier: alcohol and boys.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tom Holland, Pax</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>...I didn’t even raise an eyebrow.</p>
<p>As well as travelling through time:</p>
<ul>
<li>Death of Nero</li>
<li>Year of the four emperors: martinet Galba, playboy Otho, pie-loving Vitellius, and then...</li>
<li>Vespasian and his son Titus</li>
<li>Domitian</li>
<li>Trajan (and Nerva)</li>
<li>Hadrian</li>
</ul>
<p>...we are also taken on an empire tour, with stop-offs at:</p>
<ul>
<li>🏛️ Rome</li>
<li>🐄 the German frontier</li>
<li>🕍 Judaea</li>
<li>🌋 Pompeii (timed for the eruption of Vesuvius)</li>
<li>🧙♂️ Britain</li>
<li>🦃 Bithynia and Pontus (nowadays West Turkey)</li>
<li>🏖️ Mesopotamia</li>
<li>🫒 Greece</li>
</ul>
<p>Each location is vividly described and helps us to appreciate the vast expanse of the Roman world - and just how mobile people were within it.</p>
<h3 id="sub-optimus-princeps" tabindex="-1">Sub-optimus Princeps</h3>
<p>Even if you know the history of the period covered by this book - perhaps like me you enjoyed the excellent <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGF0cm9iZS5lZHUuYXUvbWFya2V0aW5nL2Fzc2V0cy9wb2RjYXN0cy9yc3NmZWVkcy9jYWVzYXIueG1s">Emperors of Rome podcast</a> during lockdown - it is still an interesting and thought provoking read. This is because Holland is happy to veer off the beaten track with an alternative view of what might be a familiar topic.</p>
<p>For example Trajan is traditionally portrayed as Optimus Princeps, the best of emperors. But in Pax, Holland tells us Trajan came within a whisker of breaking the empire with his harebrained schemes to take over the universe - irresponsibly squandering the treasure chest built up by his predecessor and triggering rebellions across the Roman world.</p>
<h3 id="the-pen-is-mightier-than-the-sword" tabindex="-1">The pen is mightier than the sword</h3>
<p>And the typical view of Domitian (the aforementioned predecessor) is of a brutal tyrant who liked to relax by stabbing flies with his pen. But instead, Holland says, we should actually see him as a conscientious god-fearing micro-manager who put the empire back on its feet, and was only undone by an unfortunate tendency to murder first, ask questions afterwards.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-09-08-review-pax/#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup></p>
<p>I suspect these alternative views are not totally new, what is under the sun? But I had not seen them aired before and found them persuasive and thought provoking.</p>
<h3 id="downsides" tabindex="-1">Downsides</h3>
<p>I have a couple of caveats to my paeon of praise for Pax:</p>
<p>I described this book as a grand tour of the Roman empire. This is true but it is a tour for which you have only the barest itinerary in advance. So when Holland launches into one of his asides about Pliny’s encyclopaedia, or price controls on eunuchs you just have to trust him that this is a place worth getting off the bus for. I found this more of a problem at the beginning of the book when I occasionally got impatient with yet another enforced stop to take photos.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-09-08-review-pax/#fn5" id="fnref5">5</a></sup></p>
<p>By about half way through though, I felt tour guide Holland had earned my trust and wasn’t going to lead me into any gift shops masquerading as tourist attractions. So perhaps this caveat is more of an exhortation to the less patient reader to stick with it and keep going.</p>
<p>The second caveat is stylistic. Holland’s writing is fluid and pacy but - paradoxically - it can also be florid and unnecessarily convoluted.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-09-08-review-pax/#fn6" id="fnref6">6</a></sup> Again as per above, the whole journey is rewarding and worthwhile but a few of the by-roads are not as smooth as they might be.</p>
<p>Ultimately though the sheer relish and exuberance with which Holland marches us through the history compensates for these wrinkles and makes Pax a delight to read.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>This is an excellent book, awarded a 5 star triumph: with an impressive procession of defeated enemies, stormed cities, castrated boys and exploded volcanoes.</p>
<p>You may finish it <em>still</em> thinking that transforming a young lad into the image of your dead wife is an unacceptable thing to do. But you will certainly appreciate that standards of good and bad behaviour <em>can</em> alter dramatically over time - that the Romans thought very differently to us.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>The name that he was born with has been forgotten, so we only know him as Sporus. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-09-08-review-pax/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>I would accept (b) as well if challenged. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-09-08-review-pax/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>Whether or not the Sporus tale is wholly accurate is not something that Holland delves into - throughout the book he concentrates on telling the story rather than getting bogged down in an analysis of the sources. If the objective is to illuminate the Roman mindset I guess it matters less how true the story is and matters more that the story was told at all. Which isn’t to say that the stories are necessarily untrue of course... <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-09-08-review-pax/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>I enjoyed this quote attributed to Domitian by Suetonis: “<em>How wretched is the lot of a princeps. For the only time that people believe him when he reports the uncovering of a conspiracy is if he ends up actually murdered.</em>” <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-09-08-review-pax/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn5" class="footnote-item"><p>The chapters headings don’t help with this as of the sort that tend to make sense only after you have finished reading the book, eg ‘The Sad and Infernal Gods’ or ‘Sleeping Giants’. The list of maps is, perhaps appropriately, a much more helpful guide to the route. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-09-08-review-pax/#fnref5" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn6" class="footnote-item"><p>At the risk of sounding like an English teacher marking homework, this is an example of a sentence I had to read a few times: “<em>But these, by the classes who, in provinces across the empire, flourished under Roman rule, and who prosperity was dependent on its continuance, might easily be ignored</em>”. 😥 <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-09-08-review-pax/#fnref6" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in August 2023
Anthony Webb
So here they are, the 14 history books published in August that I could track down and that met my criteria for inclusion! A nice range of different subjects are covered, albeit most of them have a...
2023-09-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-09-01-posts-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1693514909/posts/August2023_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in August 2023" /><p>So here they are, the 14 history books published in August that I could track down and that met my criteria for inclusion! A nice range of different subjects are covered, albeit most of them have a European perspective.</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you like to buy your books there.</em></p>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1803284781.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall 1918-1933" title="The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall 1918-1933" />
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<p>Here are a few that stuck out for me:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Backbone of the Nation: Mining Communities and the Great Strike of 1984-85</strong></em>, <em>by Robert Gildea</em> - last month I came across a book published by the ex-warden of my ex-University college. This month it is an ex-history tutor of the ex-college, with this interesting looking book on the history of the miners strike in the UK.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Empires of the Steppes: The Nomadic Tribes Who Shaped Civilisation</strong></em>, <em>by Kenneth W. Harl</em> - I enjoy the open road myself so this one instinctively appeals to me.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Belisarius & Antonina: Love and War in the Age of Justinian</strong></em>, <em>by David Alan Parnell</em> - because I am a sucker for a gold mosaic, and am always keen to fill in the missing pieces when it comes to Byzantine history.</p>
</li>
</ul>
The Six Wives of Henry VIII - review
Anthony Webb
He began his reign as the dashing image of knightly chivalry. He ended it as a bloated, stinking whale, hated and feared across the land.
Dominic Sandbrook, The Six Wives of Henry VIII
In The...
2023-08-18T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-08-18-review-the-six-wives-of-henry/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0241469732.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Six Wives of Henry VIII - review" /><p>Our review of The Six Wives of Henry VIII: Adventures in Time, by Dominic Sandbrook, first published in July 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A great entry point (or refresher) on Henry VIII told from the point of view of his unfortunate spouses.</p><p>This is a fun and easy to read account of a homicidal romantic at work - at a time of enormous change in English society.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>He began his reign as the dashing image of knightly chivalry. He ended it as a bloated, stinking whale, hated and feared across the land.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dominic Sandbrook, The Six Wives of Henry VIII</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>In <em>The Six Wives of Henry VIII</em> Sandbrook tells us about the life of Henry VIII from dashing youngster to bloated old age, structured around the stories of the women who became his wives. It is also a gentle introduction to some of the other big names of the period such as Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas More and Archbishop Cranmer.</p>
<h3 id="suitable-for-ages-10%2B" tabindex="-1">Suitable for ages 10+</h3>
<p>Like the rest of the books in the Adventures in Time series (such as the <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-29-review-adventures_in_time_vikings/">Fury of the Vikings</a> which I reviewed last year) this book is aimed at 10 year olds who have moved on from the Horrible History books but who are not yet ready for Das Kapital.</p>
<p>With this in mind it is enjoyable to read, easy to remember but still has all the important info. This means it is also suitable for adults - and makes you wonder why all history books are not written on the same set of principles.</p>
<h3 id="a-good-starting-place" tabindex="-1">A good starting place</h3>
<p>If you are a Tudor buff you probably won’t learn anything new<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-08-18-review-the-six-wives-of-henry/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>. I’m a Tudor novice: I have read Wolf Hall but still can’t quite remember which wife was which (no pun intended) and found it an efficient and entertaining way to get up to speed.</p>
<p>As I mentioned in my Fury of the Vikings review, Sandbrook’s Adventure in Time series is not historical fiction but rather tells you what actually happened - albeit with plenty of reimagined scenes. For example we have Catherine of Aragon meeting Henry the cheeky child prince when she is on the way to marry his older brother, or wife number six Catherine Parr begging a much older, fatter and meaner Henry to show mercy on her for answering back and not chop her head off.</p>
<h3 id="a-sacred-monster" tabindex="-1">A sacred monster</h3>
<p>What I found shocking was the ease with which Henry VIII could turn against his closest companions, order their death, and then move on within days to the next one.</p>
<p>The downfall of Anne Boleyn is a good example of this. Here is the timeline which I have reconstructed from the book:</p>
<ul>
<li>Monday 1 May 1536 am - Anne attends the May Day celebrations with her husband who, enjoying the jousting, was “the picture of good-humoured generosity”.</li>
<li>Monday 1 May pm - Henry gets a note telling him (falsely) that his wife is planning to kill him and rule England with another nobleman. He leaves the celebrations abruptly without talking to his wife or saying goodbye.</li>
<li>Tuesday 2 May am - Anne is watching a tennis match. A messenger tells her the King’s councillors would like to see her. To Anne’s utter amazement and disbelief the councillors accuse her of treason.</li>
<li>Tuesday 2 May pm - Anne is taken to the Tower of London and imprisoned.</li>
</ul>
<p>It has taken just twenty four hours for Henry to go from happily (ish) married man to locking up his wife as a dangerous enemy. Things keep moving fast:</p>
<ul>
<li>Monday 15 May - Anne convicted as guilty and sentenced to death in a show trial.</li>
<li>Friday 19 May - She is beheaded by a swordsman on Tower Green.</li>
<li>Tuesday 30 May - Henry marries love of his life number three: Jane Seymour.</li>
</ul>
<p>It seems incredible that Henry is willing to believe such serious charges against his wife and doesn’t even bother to ask her if they are true or not - he never saw his wife again since he left the joust in a huff on 1 May. This is a woman he previously loved so much that he was prepared to risk God’s wrath and war with the most powerful state in Europe to marry her. Or... perhaps it is more credible that Henry is able to convince himself that the most improbable things are true if it will help get what he wants, which in this case was a replacement wife.</p>
<h3 id="i%E2%80%99ll-tell-you-what-i-want%2C-what-i-really%2C-really-want" tabindex="-1">I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want</h3>
<p>This gets to one of the key take-aways of the book - on a personal level Henry VIII behaves like a petulant child who would be ridiculous if he wasn’t also a murderous schizophrenic. But these personal whims: to marry Anne Boleyn, to cock a snook at the Pope, to marry Jane Seymour and more seriously: to have a son, set in train massive changes in English life that we still live with today.</p>
<p>Without Henry’s tantrums we might still be a Catholic country. The Pilgrim Fathers of America might have banned the Bible (in the English translation). Merton Abbey, one of the great monasteries of England which is just down the road from where I live, might not have been converted into a Sainsburys hypermarket.</p>
<h3 id="drawbacks-and-omissions" tabindex="-1">Drawbacks and omissions</h3>
<p>I didn’t dislike anything that was in the book, but it is worth bearing in mind that there is a fair amount that is not in it. The clue is in the title: this is <em>The Six Wives of Henry VIII</em>, rather than Henry himself.</p>
<p>This means that the Henry that emerges here is Henry the romantic homicidal monster - which to his wives he certainly was. But Henry had other faces too - the soldier, the statesman, the charmer - which we don’t really get to see.</p>
<p>It’s also interesting that for the first twenty years of his reign Henry was happily married to Catherine of Aragon. For the twenty years before that he was a cheerful athletic young chap. It was only in the last decade and a bit of his life that he went fat and bonkers.</p>
<p>I will illustrate my point with emojis, each emoji representing a decade of Henry VIII’s life: 😀😀😀😀🤪🤒. (The last one should be half an emoji really because he died aged 55.) The history in this book is mainly the history of the crazy decade: the 1530s 🤪 rather than the full picture.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Overall this is a thoroughly enjoyable and very accessible account of Henry and told through the lens of the women he married.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>But do you know the coronation mottos chosen by each wife? Of course you do! I didn’t though so it was fun to learn: Catherine of Aragon ‘Humble and Loyal’; Anne Boleyn ‘The Most Happy’; Jane Seymour ‘Bound to Obey and Serve’; Anne of Cleves ‘God Send Me Well to Keep’; Catherine Howard ‘No Other Will Than His’; Catherine Parr: ‘To Be Useful in All That I Do’. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-08-18-review-the-six-wives-of-henry/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
White Gold - review
Anthony Webb
Dressed in Moorish djellabas and wielding damascene scimitars, they made a terrifying sight as they burst into the parish church.
The 1625 Moroccan raid on the Cornish village of Mount’s Bay was a...
2023-08-11T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-08-11-review-white-gold/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0340794704.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="White Gold - review" /><p>Our review of White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa&#39;s One Million European Slaves, by Giles Milton, first published in June 2004.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Exploring European slavery in North Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries, Milton tells us the story of one slave in particular: the Cornishman Thomas Pellow who was captured at sea aged 11 and finally escaped back to England 23 years later.</p><p>It is a gripping yarn, from a master story-teller. However the characters - in particular Sultan Moulay Ismail - came across as too monochrome for me to get a full colour picture of the time.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Dressed in Moorish djellabas and wielding damascene scimitars, they made a terrifying sight as they burst into the parish church.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>The 1625 Moroccan raid on the Cornish village of Mount’s Bay was a complete success as “sixty men, women and children were dragged from the church and back to the corsairs’ ships.” The hit and run slave raiding fleet from North Africa had even managed to seize Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel which they were using as a summer base for their raids along the coast.</p>
<p>With the English navy completely ineffectual against the fast moving corsair ships, when the summer was over they sailed back to their base on the Atlantic coast with an estimated 1,000 English villagers to be sold as slaves, most of whom would never see their homes again.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book?</h3>
<p><em>White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa’s One Million European Slaves</em> tells the tale of Europeans enslaved by North African states in the 17th and 18th centuries, focussing on the particular case of Thomas Pellow who was captured at the age of twelve in 1716 and eventually made his escape at the age of 34, after twenty three years.</p>
<p>It is a real page turner - I finished it in a few days while waiting for various aeroplanes on my way back to the UK from holiday when I didn’t want anything too heavy to read, but was still in the mood to learn something new.</p>
<h3 id="perilous-pilchards" tabindex="-1">Perilous pilchards</h3>
<p>Pellow’s story is remarkable: captured while returning to the UK from his own trip on his uncle’s boat (selling Cornish pilchards in Genoa), they were almost back home in Cornwall when they were ambushed by Moroccan pirates. With only eight people on board they didn’t stand a chance and were promptly chained up and whisked away to the port of Salé on the north African coast.</p>
<p>His fellow captives were set to work building Sultan Moulay Ismail of Morocco’s huge palatial complex in Meknes, in appalling conditions. Most would die there including his uncle. Pellow was lucky because he was picked out by the Sultan as suitable palace slave material - possibly because he was seen as young and therefore malleable.</p>
<h3 id="there-no-god-but-god" tabindex="-1">There no god but God</h3>
<p>Sent to serve one of the Sultan’s many sons he was tortured for months to make him convert to Islam. After beatings, starvation, and burnings Pellow could stand it no longer and submitted.</p>
<p>Recognised as a bright and promising young lad he was eventually promoted to be a doorman for the Sultan’s harem, where his job was basically not to let anyone in, ever.</p>
<h3 id="too-close-for-comfort" tabindex="-1">Too close for comfort</h3>
<p>Because he was close to the centre of power he witnessed first hand the brutality and ruthlessness of Sultan Moulay Ismail - who ruled Morocco for an incredible 55 years, from 1672 to 1727. Milton summarises thusly:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>In the course of his reign, he had overseen the deaths of thousands of men and women, a number of whom had been butchered by his own hand. He had ordered countless courtiers to be dragged behind mules until they were dead and had slain dozens of his imperial guard. Several of his sons had been put to death, and he had maimed and mutilated many of his wives. At least two of his subjects had been sawn in two, and numerous kaids and officers had lost eyes and limbs. But Moulay Ismail reserved the greatest contempt for his slaves, who had been butchered and tortured, mutilated and broken.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Giles Milton, White Gold</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Pellow was then married off by the Sultan and turned into a somewhat reluctant soldier. After joining a number of different campaigns, including a massive 30,000 strong expedition across the Sahara to capture black African people as slaves - they were to be turned into the elite core of the Sultan’s army - Pellow made his successful escape.</p>
<p>In the meantime his wife and then ten year old child had sadly died and he had had two failed escape attempts, both of which very nearly ended in his own death.</p>
<h3 id="a-life-of-toil" tabindex="-1">A life of toil</h3>
<p>Pellow was lucky to survive, lucky to get back home, and lucky to avoid the hardships of most of his other fellow European slaves. For those who refused to convert to Islam life was unremitting toil on starvation rations in the full heat of the sun, with constant beatings and frequent illness - which killed many of them after a few years in captivity.</p>
<h3 id="it%E2%80%99s-all-about-england" tabindex="-1">It’s all about England</h3>
<p>This book shines a light on the experiences of some tens of thousands, or possibly hundreds of thousands of European slaves in North Africa over a period of 200 years. But it doesn’t really illuminate North Africa itself very clearly. It is more a book about 17th century English and European attitudes and worldviews than it is about Morocco.</p>
<p>For example, Sultan Moulay Ismail is presented as a cartoon monster, where pretty much every description of him is pejorative. Of his birthplace Milton writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>The natives of this dusty backwater scratched a living as best they could but remained a ‘wild savage and cruel people’</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>I think what he is getting at is that they were poor.</p>
<p>When talking about his principle wife Milton is even more severe:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Lala Zidana... was, by all accounts, a veritable harridan, ‘black, and of a monstrous height and bulk’, wrote Father Busnot in 1714. She had beady eyes and an elephantine belly...</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Whether or not she was a cruel person this description appears to be just parroting a racist 17th century European perspective.</p>
<p>Even the Sultan’s potentially positive traits are tainted: rather than a pious Muslim he is described as a ‘fervent’ believer.</p>
<h3 id="more-than-just-a-monster%3F" tabindex="-1">More than just a monster?</h3>
<p>The upshot is that we don’t get any indication of why he was so successful and ruled for so long, other than that he used his slaves as a force to maintain power - which can’t be the whole story.</p>
<p>The Sultan’s main role in this book is to be the bad guy - this helps the narrative along but at the expense of understanding what was really going on.</p>
<h3 id="normalising-slavery%3F" tabindex="-1">Normalising slavery?</h3>
<p>The other potentially difficult aspect of this book is the juxtaposition of white European slavery and black African slavery. Milton is obviously aware of this potential for contrast (he wouldn’t have called the book <em>White Gold</em> if not) and notes that Black African slavery was a different and worse phenomenon both in terms of quantity and quality.</p>
<p>But the fact that he frequently emphasises the (genuinely terrible) suffering of European slaves <em>and</em> that he emphasises the fact that their overseers were black<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-08-11-review-white-gold/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> invites the false “everyone was doing it” ‘contextualisation’ of the black African slave trade<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-08-11-review-white-gold/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup>, and de-emphasises the fact that these “black slave-drivers” were themselves slaves, taken as children and deliberately brutalised by the Sultan’s regime.[^3]</p>
<p>How much should this matter? Is the fact that it was written 20 years ago in 2004 relevant? I don’t know really - and Milton obviously can’t be held responsible for readers contorting his book to suit themselves. But I do feel that, for the sake of a good story, he has made it a bit too easy to twist important historical discussions out of shape.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Ultimately I found White Gold a fun and exciting tale, but too one sided to be much more than a well researched adventure yarn.</p>
<hr />
<h3 id="addendum" tabindex="-1">Addendum</h3>
<p>For the record, here is a note to contrast the differences between the experiences of black African slaves and white European slaves. Even though it is not relevant for my points above, it is useful for me to order my own thoughts. (Just to be clear: this isn’t about scoring victim points, but a genuine attempt to understand the differences.)</p>
<ol>
<li>There were millions of black African slaves and at most hundreds of thousands of white European slaves.</li>
<li>European states frequently tried and often succeeded in negotiating or paying for the release of their compatriots, albeit that many would be held for years before this occurred and many more would die in captivity. Black African slaves had no-one to intercede for them after they were taken captive.</li>
<li>European slaves could receive occasional charity from fellow European merchants or friars - not the case for black African slaves.</li>
<li>A European slave could convert to Islam and although they wouldn’t then be freed they could be treated reasonably well. Some even took positions of relative responsibility such as Thomas Pellow himself who was entrusted with the command of a few hundred fellow European ‘renegade’ soldiers. No such option for black Africans.</li>
<li>African slavery was significant enough to be an existential threat to African societies and politics, and was closely linked to outside (European) control of large parts of the continent. European slavery was never an existential threat to European states - although it was of course an existential threat to the slaves themselves.</li>
<li>European slavery ended 200 years ago, at the barrel of a gunboat. To take one example: African American inequality, derived from slavery, was perpetuated by law in the USA until the 1960s, and continues to have negative consequences today.</li>
</ol>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>For example: “the black slave drivers were extremely cruel”, “beaten and thrashed by their black slave drivers”, “flogged by black slave-drivers”, “the black guards appointed to oversee them were extremely violent” etc etc. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-08-11-review-white-gold/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>See the reviews of this book on Amazon for examples of how some people have latched onto this idea. Or perhaps it is fairer to say that they have latched this book onto their own ideas? <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-08-11-review-white-gold/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in July 2023
Anthony Webb
A great selection in July 2023 with a surprisingly large number of books on ancient history - 6 out of the 12 published. (A quick google reveals that there is no such thing as Ancient History...
2023-08-03T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-08-01-posts-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1691088227/posts/July2023_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in July 2023" /><p>A great selection in July 2023 with a surprisingly large number of books on ancient history - 6 out of the 12 published. (A quick google reveals that there is no such thing as Ancient History Month!)</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you like to buy your books there.</em></p>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241519020.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Europe and the Roma: A History of Fascination and Fear" title="Europe and the Roma: A History of Fascination and Fear" />
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<div id="cover0241519020" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🥐 🏰 🚽 ⛪ 🏭 🏗️ 2023" data-title="Europe and the Roma: A History of Fascination and Fear" data-author="Klaus-Michael Bogdal" data-publishdate="2023-07-27" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241519020.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0241519020" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0241519020" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300263597.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="American Slavers: Merchants, Mariners, and the Transatlantic Commerce in Captives, 1644-1865" title="American Slavers: Merchants, Mariners, and the Transatlantic Commerce in Captives, 1644-1865" />
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<div id="cover0300263597" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛪ 🏭 🍔 🚽 🇺🇸 2023" data-title="American Slavers: Merchants, Mariners, and the Transatlantic Commerce in Captives, 1644-1865" data-author="Sean M. Kelley" data-publishdate="2023-07-25" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300263597.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0300263597" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0300263597" data-review="">
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<div class="fix-children 🍜 🏛️ 👑 🕯️ 2023 hbk ">
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<div id="cover1526623811" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🍜 🏛️ 👑 🕯️ 2023" data-title="Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire" data-author="Eckart Frahm" data-publishdate="2023-07-20" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1526623811.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1526623811" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1526623811" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241524512.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Homer's Iliad" title="Homer's Iliad" />
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<div id="cover0241524512" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏛️ 🕯️ 🥐 2023" data-title="Homer's Iliad" data-author="Robin Lane Fox" data-publishdate="2023-07-13" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241524512.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0241524512" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0241524512" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0199641579.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Beatrice's Last Smile: A New History of the Middle Ages" title="Beatrice's Last Smile: A New History of the Middle Ages" />
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<div id="cover0199641579" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏰 🥐 🕯️ 2023" data-title="Beatrice's Last Smile: A New History of the Middle Ages" data-author="Mark Gregory Pegg" data-publishdate="2023-07-13" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0199641579.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0199641579" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0199641579" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1800818203.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake" title="All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake" />
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<div id="cover1800818203" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🍔 🏭 🚽 🇺🇸 2023" data-title="All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake" data-author="Tiya Miles" data-publishdate="2023-07-13" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1800818203.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1800818203" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1800818203" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0197552463.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Conquistadors and Aztecs: A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan" title="Conquistadors and Aztecs: A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan" />
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<div id="cover0197552463" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛪ 🌽 👑 ⚔️ 🇲🇽 2023" data-title="Conquistadors and Aztecs: A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan" data-author="Stefan Rinke" data-publishdate="2023-07-13" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0197552463.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0197552463" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0197552463" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/030020633X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World" title="The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World" />
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<div id="cover030020633X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏭 🍔 👑 🥐 🇺🇸 🇫🇷 🌽 🇮🇪 2023" data-title="The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World" data-author="Patrick Griffin" data-publishdate="2023-07-11" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/030020633X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/030020633X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/030020633X" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children 🏛️ 👑 🥐 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1408706989.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age" title="Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age" />
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<div id="cover1408706989" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏛️ 👑 🥐 2023" data-title="Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age" data-author="Tom Holland" data-publishdate="2023-07-06" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1408706989.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1408706989" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1408706989" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<p>A few that I particularly like the look of:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Life and Afterlife in Ancient China</strong></em>, <em>by Jessica Rawson</em> - written by the warden of my old university college so I am curious to have a look... it seems to be something like a cultural history of ancient China in 12 burials.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age</strong></em>, <em>by Tom Holland</em> - I've enjoyed a couple of Tom Holland's other books and I'm sure this one will be a good read too.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World</strong></em>, <em>by Patrick Griffin</em> - I had a quick look at the sample on Amazon: the intro looked fascinating and well written, with the book covering revolutions in late 18th century / early 19th century North America, France, Ireland and South America.</p>
</li>
</ul>
Courting India - review
Anthony Webb
Ah Rahim, now you’re perplexed. Stick to truth and you lose the world, stick to lies and you never get Ram.
Abdur Rahim, statesman to the Mughal court and poet, 1556 to 1627. Quotation from...
2023-07-14T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-07-14-review-courting-india/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1526615649.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Courting India - review" /><p>Our review of Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire, by Nandini Das, first published in March 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>The story of a prickly ambassador from a small island of piratical traders visiting one of the great imperial land powers of the 17th century - the first time the English crown had sent a representative to Mughal India.</p><p>I found it a slow starting but ultimately brilliant book, deftly leading us through both the English and Indian sides of the encounter.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<p>Ah Rahim, now you’re perplexed. Stick to truth and you lose the world, stick to lies and you never get Ram.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahim_Khan-i-Khanan">Abdur Rahim</a>, statesman to the Mughal court and poet, 1556 to 1627. Quotation from Courting India by Nandini Das.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Back in 2011 I attended an ambassador’s reception in Erbil in Northern Iraq<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-07-14-review-courting-india/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> having been invited along by a friend who I was visiting at the time. Listening to the ambassador’s speech<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-07-14-review-courting-india/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> I realised that my glamorous notions of his job were completely incorrect. The ambassador was a mouthpiece for the British state and if he believed anything he was saying that was simply a happy coincidence<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-07-14-review-courting-india/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup>. I resolved then, as I waited in vain for a platter of foil wrapped chocolates, that if ever I was offered a job as ambassador I would refuse. To my good fortune I have never yet been placed in this uncomfortable situation.</p>
<p>Reading about Thomas Roe, the first English ambassador to the Mughal court in 1616, in <em>Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire</em> by Nandini Das has confirmed my prejudices - it is one of the most overrated jobs in the world.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-the-book-about%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s the book about?</h3>
<p><em>Courting India</em> follows ambassador Roe from his English upbringing and prior misadventures - set against the backdrop of James I’s accession to the English throne after Elizabeth I had died - then on to his journey to India and life at the Mughal Imperial court.</p>
<p>Das’ work is a detailed, almost day by day account. The main source is Roe’s journal, which he was obliged to write by the East India Company, his co-employer, along with James I of England. We hear first hand from Roe about the difficulties he faced in establishing himself with the imperial inner circle in India - for most of whom England was an unknown irrelevance - and the troubles caused by his fellow countrymen running amok whenever they were let off a boat.</p>
<p>We also get the other side of the story, as the Mughal Emperor Jahangir also kept a daily diary which has survived. The English ambassador goes almost completely unnoticed in this journal - a curiously dressed impoverished representative of a small far-off land.</p>
<h3 id="the-mind's-eye" tabindex="-1">The mind's eye</h3>
<p>An overriding theme of the book is how do you choose to view and react to other cultures? What is your frame of reference when you see something totally new? Thomas Roe when confronted by the dazzling opulence of the Mughal court chose to see it as something of a sham: by downgrading it to a theatrical performance he could maintain his sense of cultural superiority despite only having one change of underpants.</p>
<p>Roe though was also performing for an audience - he knew that both his employers and future English generations were likely to read his journal. As an English ambassador he must have felt some pressure to present himself in his writings as an upright figure whose head wasn’t turned by foreign ways, no matter how impressive.</p>
<h3 id="where-does-it-all-begin%3F" tabindex="-1">Where does it all begin?</h3>
<p>There is also a theme of beginnings: Roe’s embassy was the first from England to India. But given it achieved effectively nothing, and nothing really changed for the next one hundred years, does being ‘the first’ actually mean anything? Das presents the narrative and lets us judge for ourselves.</p>
<h3 id="ending-well" tabindex="-1">Ending well</h3>
<p>Talking of beginnings, <em>Courting India</em> took a while to get going for me. The first few chapters, presenting the comings and goings of the English royal court, with a bit on Roe’s early life, were interesting without being engrossing.</p>
<p>But when Roe finally arrives in India and gets to the imperial Mughal court in Ajmer I found myself enthralled - perhaps I am more easily captured by the extravagance of the Mughal court than Roe was. Here is a flavour of Roe’s outing to meet the emperor for the first time:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>...the thudding footsteps of the royal elephants outside, the animal scent of hay and leather from the Persian horses snorting their impatience, mingled with the cool water sprayed in the air, perfumed with the attar of rose and jasmine, the music of the naubat floating from the naqqar khana, ‘solemn, grand, and melodious’</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nandini Das, Courting India</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>I was also fascinated by Roe’s reaction to events. Because Roe has clear faults and makes mistakes - while being basically decent - he comes across as quite a likeable character.</p>
<h3 id="travel-guide" tabindex="-1">Travel guide</h3>
<p>Das is an excellent guide for Roe’s travels. She clearly knows both the English and Indian history inside out and expertly draws our attention to aspects of courtly life - such as the lashkar, the mobile city of tents that accompanied the emperor whenever he was on the move, keeping it’s layout rigorously fixed while the landscape flowed past<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-07-14-review-courting-india/#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup>.</p>
<h3 id="conqueror-of-the-world" tabindex="-1">Conqueror of the world</h3>
<p>She is also an excellent interlocutor for the emperor Jahangir, the other star of this book. Curious, open minded, and occasional alcoholic, Jahangir treats the prickly Roe with kindness even though his presents are rubbish. Jahangir accurately records and describes passing comets, examines the gall bladder of a dead wolf (to see if it is similar to a lion), and carefully charts the progress of his beloved newborn saras crane chick. He also orders the blinding of his eldest son when he rebels against him.</p>
<p>Coming to this book I had no real knowledge of the Mughal dynasty and this was a brilliant first introduction.</p>
<h3 id="style-notes" tabindex="-1">Style notes</h3>
<p>Finally Das is a deft writer. Courting India is a pleasure to read, with a clear and engaging writing style. It is structured well too with each chapter advancing the narrative but also exploring a particular aspect of the period, such as the v East India Company Factors, or the Harem. Plus each chapter took me one tube journey to work to read - just the right length!</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Courting India is a brilliant focused narrative history: by sticking to the truth, both the English and Indian versions of it, Das wins us a world.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Actually it was the opening of the British consulate in Erbil but you get the idea. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-07-14-review-courting-india/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Or maybe he was a consul? <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-07-14-review-courting-india/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>I should stress that he wasn’t saying anything controversial, just bigging up John Major, the celebrity guest who appeared to be there to take the credit for the freedom of the Kurdish people in northern Iraq. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-07-14-review-courting-india/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>The lashkar is a fitting metaphor for the book as a whole - as we (and Roe) travel to distant places, we never really leave our upbringing behind. Although we may have to reposition a tent or two to make allowances for the terrain, and gain or lose a companion along the way. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-07-14-review-courting-india/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram - review
Anthony Webb
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and [writing history] a complete impossibility!
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest,...
2023-07-07T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-07-07-review-extraordinary-journey-david-ingram/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0197648002.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram - review" /><p>Our review of The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram: An Elizabethan Sailor in Native North America, by Dean Snow, first published in May 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A rare glimpse of life in North America before Europeans arrived with their germs. The story is intriguing, and also ranges into broader Elizabethan exploration, colonisation and slave trading efforts.</p><p>I found it to be a good read. The narrative path meanders a little - but there are many valuable nuggets of truth to be picked up along the way.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<p>The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and [writing history] a complete impossibility!</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, slightly edited</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Oscar Wilde, who knew a thing or two about truth and deception, would have enjoyed the layers of truth and falsehoods contained in the story of David Ingram an Elizabethan sailor whose account of travels in the interior of North America have long been dismissed as fantasy.</p>
<p>Dean Snow in <em>The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram: an Elizabethan Sailor in Native North America</em> seeks to re-evaluate the fantastical account and turn leaden fibs into golden nuggets of truth.</p>
<h3 id="north-america-before-it-was-north-america" tabindex="-1">North America before it was North America</h3>
<p>This is important because we know much less than we would like to about the world of North America before Europeans (and Eurasian pathogens) arrived en-mass in the mid seventeenth century:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Contact with Europeans introduced diseases so virulent that, once infected, local populations could suffer mortalities of 60 percent or more in a matter of weeks, or months at most. Vast tracts of the continent were abandoned as shattered communities became scattered bands of refugees... Whole cultures dissipated or were reinvented by bands of survivors.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dean Snow, _The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="a-blank-slate" tabindex="-1">A blank slate</h3>
<p>When Europeans did arrive in North America the sparse populations and untended land made it appear “that the unwritten American Indian histories of 10 millennia had never occurred at all.”</p>
<p>But when Ingram was schlepping up the East side of the continent in 1568 and 1569 he was travelling through a world that was still densely populated, with cultural and political traditions intact, so his account can give us a glimpse of a fascinating lost world - if we can trust him.</p>
<p>So who was this guy?</p>
<h3 id="why-was-david-ingram-in-america%3F" tabindex="-1">Why was David Ingram in America?</h3>
<p>Ingram was a sailor from Barking, near London in England. He joined a small flotilla of boats led by John Hawkins (and including a young Francis Drake) who were planning a trip to East Africa, then to the Caribbean before heading back to England. The purpose of their trip was slaving - the huge profits on offer easily outweighed any moral scruples they may have had.</p>
<p>But in the Caribbean they accidentally bumped into the Spanish treasure fleet - outnumbered and outgunned Hawkins’ few boats didn’t stand a chance and only two ships managed to get away: Francis Drake’s ship which promptly scarpered back home, and John Hawkins’ ship which was now overloaded with fugitive English sailors from the battle with the Spanish.</p>
<p>Lacking supplies, Hawkins left a hundred sailors on the coast of Mexico (near the modern town of Tampico) while the other hundred still on board limped back across the Atlantic, some dying of starvation before reaching home.</p>
<p>David Ingram was one of those left behind.</p>
<h3 id="marooned" tabindex="-1">Marooned</h3>
<p>Very soon they came under attack from the local people. Eight sailors were killed and the others decided to take their chances with the Spanish heading south to Mexico City, or by walking north in search of rescue.</p>
<p>David Ingram together with two companions, Richard Browne and Richard Twide chose the walk north for the rescue option. They had hoped that salvation was not far away in Florida but in the end they had to walk <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/5nPTXpg9a9jFtLFH9">more than 5,000 kilometres over the course of a year</a>, reaching Canada before they finally encountered a French ship and passage home. This is an incredible journey to complete on foot in a continent almost completely unknown to them. Of the other 100 sailors dropped off in Mexico most were never seen again.</p>
<h3 id="truth-and-falsehood" tabindex="-1">Truth and falsehood</h3>
<p>The truth - universally accepted - is that Ingram and his two pals were indeed abandoned in the south of North America and were indeed rescued in the north of North America and the whole process took a year.</p>
<p>The disputed bit is the account of what actually happened during that year.</p>
<h3 id="intriguing" tabindex="-1">Intriguing</h3>
<p>Here is where the intrigue starts: the account of his great journey was written down twelve years after it took place. Not by David Ingram who was likely illiterate, but instead by a panel of Elizabethan bigwigs who were interested in having a go at starting a colony in North America, and had asked Ingram in to get some first hand info. The bigwigs wanted to pump him for information but also had an interest in Ingram giving the ‘right’ answers - answers which would attract investors to their scheme, such as how much gold and silver there was to be found (lots please).<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-07-07-review-extraordinary-journey-david-ingram/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> Fishing for answers added one layer of unreliability to the story.</p>
<h3 id="the-right-answers-to-the-wrong-questions" tabindex="-1">The right answers to the wrong questions</h3>
<p>The other problem, according to Snow, is that the questioners and the questionee were often talking at cross purposes. Ingram appears to have been giving answers about the whole journey, East Africa and the Caribbean included, whereas the bigwigs thought he was only talking about North America - and this was the way it was written down. So we have Ingram talking about the use of iron tools, common in Africa at the time but anachronous when applied to America where iron ore was not yet worked.</p>
<p>If we assume David is only talking about America it does appear to be a jumble of rubbish. But if we untangle the answers and allocate them to the correct continent it all looks a lot more credible.</p>
<h3 id="other-sources-of-confusion" tabindex="-1">Other sources of confusion</h3>
<p>There is a minor point that the handwriting of the scribe who was writing it all down was so atrocious it is very difficult to read <em>any</em> of the original transcript.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-07-07-review-extraordinary-journey-david-ingram/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
<p>Finally because Ingram was describing an experience from twelve years ago he could easily have misremembered certain bits - e.g. Walruses with the legs of a horse, hooves and all.</p>
<p>So we have a jumbled up account, which is impossible to read, has been deliberately skewed, and anyway was all based on a decade old memory.</p>
<p>This book therefore is Dean Snow’s version of the story when the script is deciphered, the sequence is unjumbled, the bias is laid bare, and the whole thing is cross referenced against what we do actually know of North America in the late sixteenth century.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book?</h3>
<p>Overall this is a pretty entertaining read, as Snow weaves the source material into a longer and deeper narrative.</p>
<p>Although the book is centred on Ingram and two friends’ journey across North America, it actually covers more than this, with the first third being the journey to Africa and the Caribbean (ie pre maroon) and the last quarter covering the various colonisation and exploitation initiatives launched from London towards North America and the Big Names in overseas travel at the time.</p>
<p>So we hear more about Francis Drake and his voyages, we get quite a lot of detail on Walter Ralegh and his ‘plantations’ in Ireland and America, and we get to know Humphrey Gilbert: Ralegh’s sadistic paedophile half brother who was set adrift in the middle of the Atlantic by his disgusted crew.</p>
<p>So it is only 40% of the book (if I have done my maths right) that describes the great adventure across North America.</p>
<p>The structure of the book felt a bit strange as I read through it, with significant chunks of it given to Elizabethan Age voyaging that is only tangentially connected to Ingram. It is churlish to complain about being given bonus material, but it did disorientate me a little.</p>
<h3 id="an-elizabethan-slaver-in-native-north-america" tabindex="-1">An Elizabethan Slaver in Native North America</h3>
<p>The final chapter of the book reflects upon the significance of Ingram’s feat, setting this against the fact that the reason he had to make the journey in the first place was because he was on a mission to enslave and sell African people.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>It is up to each reader to decide whether Ingram’s legacy as a slaver is adequately balanced by his legacy as a sympathetic observer of the people he encountered in Africa and in the Americas.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dean Snow, The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Personally I do feel that this is a problematic element of the story but haven’t yet properly figured out my own views - I haven’t decided yet how much this colours my own view of David Ingram.</p>
<h3 id="a-convincing-case%3F" tabindex="-1">A convincing case?</h3>
<p>There are still some bits of Ingram’s account that look dubious to me. For example he is reported as saying “<em>There are to be seen many times about the Bay of St. Mary’s fire dragons, which make the air very red as they fly</em>” is explained by Snow as “Ingram appears also to have seen St. Elmo’s Fire [lightning sparking off the mast if a ship] while off St. Mary’s Bay. He referred to the phenomenon as ‘fire dragons’.”</p>
<p>But overall Snow succeeds in his main aim of rehabilitating David Ingram - turning him into Mr Reliability rather than Mr Liability.</p>
<h3 id="duff-notes" tabindex="-1">Duff notes</h3>
<p>The book does strike a few odd notes though:</p>
<p>The whole aim of the story is to repair the reputation of Ingram, long maligned as a liar. But Ingram’s reputation, even if everything he said is absolutely true, would always be tarnished in the modern world. This is due to his active participation in the slave trade, as noted above. Maybe it would have made more sense to emphasise the now lost North American world he described rather than focussing on Ingram’s rehabilitation which - arguably - he is too morally compromised to deserve.</p>
<p>Second thing: Snow clearly has a great knowledge of and affinity for North American peoples. So it is a bit odd to hear him refer to one group (the Atacapas) as “destitute hunter-gatherers... with little to trade”. Maybe my woke-o-meter is too sensitive but this and the reputation point above gave the text a bit of an old-fashioned feel.</p>
<p>That said it is all fun to read - although the prose is workmanlike rather than dazzling it gets you from A to B efficiently and does justice to the more exciting moments.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>In some ways the book is best approached a bit like Ingram’s voyage itself - you may find yourself marooned in some unexpected places, an encounter here and there may puzzle you. But when all is said and done it will take you on an epic journey to a lost world, where the truth is complex and impure.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>One of the questioners was even pushing the idea that the first European to discover America was the Welsh prince Madoc - as a highly creative / ridiculous way to bolster the Tudor claim to the continent, Henry VII having some Welsh ancestry - and managed to elicit some Welsh sounding words which Ingram had apparently heard used by native Americans. I wrote about this entertainingly bonkers ‘Welsh first’ theory in my review of <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/06/03/norse-america/">Norse America</a> so was happy to discover the reason why anyone would take the trouble to promote it... <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-07-07-review-extraordinary-journey-david-ingram/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Snow actually says (in one of his podcast appearances I think) that it was written in a deliberately hard to read script as a way of increasing job security for secretaries at the time. I’m not sure if he is serious or not! <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-07-07-review-extraordinary-journey-david-ingram/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in June 2023
Anthony Webb
It was a bit more of a struggle to find history books this month, partly because less were published in general and also because the Amazon books Advanced Search seems to have partially broken, so I...
2023-07-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-07-01-posts-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1688072589/posts/June2023_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in June 2023" /><p>It was a bit more of a struggle to find history books this month, partly because less were published in general and also because the Amazon books Advanced Search seems to have partially broken, so I couldn't rely on it as much as I normally do. Nevertheless I tracked down nine that looked interesting!</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you like to buy your books there.</em></p>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0197663710.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Ruble: A Political History" title="The Ruble: A Political History" />
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<div id="cover0197663710" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🥐 🍜 👑 💰 🇷🇺 🏗️ 🏭 2023" data-title="The Ruble: A Political History" data-author="Ekaterina Pravilova" data-publishdate="2023-06-27" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0197663710.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0197663710" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0197663710" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children ⛩️ 🍗 🚽 👑 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0192858882.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Facing the Sea of Sand: The Sahara and the Peoples of Northern Africa" title="Facing the Sea of Sand: The Sahara and the Peoples of Northern Africa" />
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<div id="cover0192858882" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛩️ 🍗 🚽 👑 2023" data-title="Facing the Sea of Sand: The Sahara and the Peoples of Northern Africa" data-author="Barry Cunliffe" data-publishdate="2023-06-22" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0192858882.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0192858882" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0192858882" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/069124409X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE" title="Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE" />
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<div id="cover069124409X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏛️ 🍗 🚽 👑 2023" data-title="Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE" data-author="Christopher Ehret" data-publishdate="2023-06-20" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/069124409X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/069124409X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/069124409X" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/024145025X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain" title="France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain" />
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<div id="cover024145025X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🥐 🇫🇷 👑 🏗️ 2023" data-title="France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain" data-author="Julian Jackson" data-publishdate="2023-06-15" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/024145025X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/024145025X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/024145025X" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children 🇰🇵 🇰🇷 🍜 🏗️ 🏭 👑 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300259816.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Korea: A New History of South and North" title="Korea: A New History of South and North" />
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<div id="cover0300259816" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🇰🇵 🇰🇷 🍜 🏗️ 🏭 👑 2023" data-title="Korea: A New History of South and North" data-author="Victor Cha, Ramon Pacheco Pardo" data-publishdate="2023-06-13" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300259816.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0300259816" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0300259816" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children 🏭 🍭 💰 🚽 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300267894.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Coming of the Railway: A New Global History, 1750-1850" title="The Coming of the Railway: A New Global History, 1750-1850" />
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<div id="cover0300267894" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏭 🍭 💰 🚽 2023" data-title="The Coming of the Railway: A New Global History, 1750-1850" data-author="David Gwyn" data-publishdate="2023-06-13" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300267894.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0300267894" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0300267894" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children 🚽 🥐 🍔 🏰 ⛪ 🏭 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1398508500.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials" title="Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials" />
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<div id="cover1398508500" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🚽 🥐 🍔 🏰 ⛪ 🏭 2023" data-title="Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials" data-author="Marion Gibson" data-publishdate="2023-06-08" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1398508500.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1398508500" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1398508500" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1350280763.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin's Russia" title="Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin's Russia" />
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<div id="cover1350280763" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 📚 🇷🇺 🥐 🍜 👑 🏗️ 2023" data-title="Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin's Russia" data-author="Jade McGlynn" data-publishdate="2023-06-01" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1350280763.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1350280763" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1350280763" data-review="">
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<p>A few that stand out to me:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Korea: A New History of South and North</strong></em>, <em>by Victor Cha, Ramon Pacheco Pardo</em> - not sure if anything is wrong with the old history or not but this looks like a great (and eye-catching) book on a fascinating subject.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Ancient Africa: A Global History, to 300 CE</strong></em>, <em>by Christopher Ehret</em> - I'm always trying to bone up on history from the continent of Africa and this one goes back further than most...</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin's Russia</strong></em>, <em>by Jade McGlynn</em> - I'm not totally sure if this is history or not but it is certainly historiography and certainly looks worth reading. I'm always interested in how different countries approach history and this one looks at the contemporary Russian approach, where the past appears to be as rigourously policed as the present.</p>
</li>
</ul>
UPROAR! - review
Anthony Webb
London has been invaded.
Rank upon rank of enemy troops march through the capital. Prominent politicians are being beheaded on a balcony overlooking a busy street, while others hang by the neck from a...
2023-06-20T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-06-20-review-uproar/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1785789546.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="UPROAR! - review" /><p>Our review of UPROAR!: Scandal, Satire and Printmakers in Georgian London, by Alice Loxton, first published in March 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Uproar! tells the tumultuous story of late 18th Century British politics through the lives and prints of the three most famous satirical artists of the time: the Londoners Gillray, Rowlandsand and Cruickshanks.</p><p>I found it delightful and absorbing, positioned as it is at the intersection of some of my favourite things: late 18th century politicians, London life, and funny pictures.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>London has been invaded.</p>
<p>Rank upon rank of enemy troops march through the capital. Prominent politicians are being beheaded on a balcony overlooking a busy street, while others hang by the neck from a lamppost. The Prince of Wales has been thrown headfirst out of a window to his death. The Leader of the Opposition in Parliament has stripped the Prime Minister naked, tied him to a pole in the middle of the street, and is flogging him mercilessly.</p>
<p>Before you start running for the hills: don’t worry - this terrifying scene is an invention of the late 18th century artist and satirist James Gillray. But it would have seemed alarmingly plausible to Britons when it was published in 1796, as the French under Napoleon built up a formidable army on the other side of the channel.</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/v1686170250/posts/Gillray_Revolution.jpg#center" alt="Promis’d Horrors of the French Invasion, or Forcible reasons for negotiating a regicide peace by James Gillray, 1796" /></p>
<h6 id="detail-from-promis%E2%80%99d-horrors-of-the-french-invasion%2C-or-forcible-reasons-for-negotiating-a-regicide-peace-by-james-gilray%2C-1796-%C2%A9-british-museum" tabindex="-1">Detail from Promis’d Horrors of the French Invasion, or Forcible reasons for negotiating a regicide peace by James Gilray, 1796 © British Museum</h6>
<p>The picture I have shown above is the centre of the print. James Fox, longtime leader of the opposition with his characteristic giant eyebrows, is flagellating William Pitt, the Prime Minister and main architect of Britain’s war against revolutionary France.</p>
<p>It is well worth having a look at the original image of <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1868-0808-6554">Promis’d Horrors of the French Invasion by James Gillray</a> on the British Museum website so you can pan around, zoom in and take in all the delightful and gory details.</p>
<h3 id="twenty-year-struggle" tabindex="-1">Twenty year struggle</h3>
<p>When this image was printed in 1796, Britain was four years into the twenty year long Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from 1792 to 1815 - but of course at the time no-one knew how long the war would last, or whether Britain would win or lose.</p>
<p>And whether or not Britain came out on top in the military struggle, it was entirely possible that London would also experience a revolution as had happened in Paris in 1789 when the working classes had finally snapped, stormed the French royal palace, and started lopping off heads left, right and centre (although mainly to the right and the centre).</p>
<h3 id="a-fifth-column%3F" tabindex="-1">A fifth column?</h3>
<p>James Fox, celebrity politician, inveterate gambler, probable alcoholic<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-06-20-review-uproar/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> and leader of the opposition (and flagellator in chief above) seemed to positively welcome the prospect, describing the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 189 as:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>How much the greatest event it is that ever happened in the world! and how much the best!</p>
<blockquote>
<p>James Fox, in Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox, vol. 2, p. 361</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>So why was revolution avoided and the war won?</p>
<h3 id="column-inches%3F" tabindex="-1">Column inches?</h3>
<p>According to Napoleon, Britain's greatest enemy, a key element keeping Britain strong, resolute and anti-French were the satirical prints like the one above, with Loxton reporting that while in exile on Elba Napoleon “<em>is said to have considered that Gillray’s prints did him more damage than a dozen British generals</em>”.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-06-20-review-uproar/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
<p>Of course Napoleon said a lot of things, and is said to have said even more, and just because he said them (or didn’t) doesn’t make them true<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-06-20-review-uproar/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup>. But these images, which were widely perused by all sorts of people, must have had an influence on their audience even if they were playing to their existing prejudices as well as helping to shape opinion. We know they were popular because churning this sort of stuff out became a full time occupation and pretty profitable enterprise.</p>
<h3 id="the-old-enemy" tabindex="-1">The old enemy</h3>
<p>Many of the satires focussed on the contrast between England versus France with as you might expect, England comparing favourably. So here is a half starved and wholly depraved Frenchman enjoying his meagre evening meal:</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/v1686170249/posts/Gillray_FrenchLiberty.jpg#center" alt="French Liberty (British Slavery) by James Gillray, 1792" /></p>
<h6 id="french-liberty-(british-slavery)-by-james-gillray%2C-1792%2C-metropolitan-museum-of-art" tabindex="-1">French Liberty (British Slavery) by James Gillray, 1792, Metropolitan Museum of Art</h6>
<p>While ruddy faced fatty John Bull is eating for England on the other half of the print, despite grumbling about being “starved to death” by high taxes:</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1686170249/posts/Gillray_BritishSlavery.jpg#center" alt="(French Liberty) British Slavery by James Gillray, 1792" /></p>
<h6 id="(french-liberty)-british-slavery-by-james-gillray%2C-1792%2C-metropolitan-museum-of-art" tabindex="-1">(French Liberty) British Slavery by James Gillray, 1792, Metropolitan Museum of Art</h6>
<p>What makes these prints great to study is that they were not only propaganda jobs, they were also very witty - even though the distance of a few hundred years means we inevitably miss more than half of the jokes.</p>
<h3 id="draw-for-victory" tabindex="-1">Draw for victory</h3>
<p>So did they win the war for Britain? It’s hard to imagine that they were the deciding factor but they must have helped a bit!</p>
<p>Perhaps more interestingly though - because they were designed to be ‘popular’ - these prints are a fascinating window into the minds of Londoners 200 years ago as they lived through the earth shaking events of the late 18th Century: the American War of Independence, King George III going periodically insane, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book?</h3>
<p>Alice Loxton, in <em>Uproar: Satire, Scandal and Printmakers in Georgian London</em> takes us through the story behind the story.</p>
<p>The three principal satirical artists of the day were Thomas Rowlandson, Isaac Cruickshanks and James Gillray (who was the creator of the pictures shown above). Loxton tells the story of their careers and their private lives, set against the backdrop of the London streets where they lived and worked.</p>
<p>Because they were commenting “live” on the events of the day with their etchings, we can follow what happened as people saw them at the time: what they felt was important and what they were worried about, without the benefit of hindsight.</p>
<h3 id="london-centric" tabindex="-1">London-centric</h3>
<p>And because they were all three based in London, we get a London perspective throughout. For that reason it is helpful to know a bit about the layout and streets of London to follow along. It doesn’t really matter if you picture a nun picking flowers when you hear of Covent Garden. But as a London denizen myself it was nice to picture the characters staggering around drunk along The Strand, or nipping into a pub just off Fleet Street.</p>
<p>The narrative is mainly political but we get social commentary too as Rowlandson, Cruickshanks and Gillray also loved to depict how ordinary people behaved and dressed.</p>
<p>There are also lots of pictures of the prints scattered throughout the book, and Loxton will tell the story by explaining what the print is all about, filling in the narrative gaps as required.</p>
<h3 id="the-writing-style" tabindex="-1">The writing style</h3>
<p>The writing style is light, breezy and almost whimsical at times, making it easy to read. Having lots of pictures helps too. Loxton clearly doesn’t want us to take it <em>too</em> seriously and she will put in a joke or two of her own to liven things up. For me it was exactly the right tone for the subject matter.</p>
<h3 id="a-couple-of-draw-backs" tabindex="-1">A couple of draw-backs</h3>
<p>The main drawbacks of the books are inherent in the subject matter:</p>
<p>The first is that the prints have to be shrunk down from their original size to fit on the page. Reading the handback version, the landscape prints are shown at about one sixteenth the original size. Ie the long edge of the print is usually about 40 cm or a bit more, but in the book the long edge is about 10 cm. This means that it is very difficult to make out the text or fine details on the prints because it comes out so small. I think that Loxton has deliberately selected the prints with less or no text at all but I still still found this an issue. I don’t think there is any way around this to be honest, but it is worth being aware of. Google is your friend in this case, because all the prints are easily findable online.</p>
<p>The second is that the more Loxton does her job as a historian and explains the prints to us, the less funny they become - like any joke, the more they are dissected the less you will laugh. To be honest this is a very minor issue - but from time to time I found myself wishing I could appreciate the raw wit and humour along with all the other Georgian gutter snipes peering up at the print shop window.</p>
<h3 id="emotional-connection" tabindex="-1">Emotional connection</h3>
<p>Where the book really succeeds though is in getting us to know and befriend the artists. By the last chapter they felt comfortingly familiar to me, the cheeky outgoing Rowlandson, taciturn (but secretly romantic?) Gillray and the family-man and problem boozer Cruickshanks. When it comes to their turn to shuffle off their mortal coils the book is genuinely moving - certainly they bore their fair share of the whips and scorns (and punch bowls) of time.</p>
<p>Loxton also succeeds in perhaps her main purpose of rescuing all three artists - and Gillray in particular - from obscurity for those who have never heard of them, or condescension for those who have. I had seen some of these satires before but never bothered to find out who drew them - I’m pleased that this bit of my university education has finally been rounded off twenty years later!</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>In summary I was delighted by <em>Uproar: Satire, Scandal and Printmakers in Georgian London</em>, positioned at the intersection of some of my favourite things: late 18th century politicians, London life, and funny pictures.</p>
<p>I’m not sure whether it is worth a dozen British generals, but it can certainly command a few hours of your time, marshal a fascinating range of characters, and whack you once or twice on the funny bone.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>I feel that nearly everyone in the Georgian age who could afford it would have been an alcoholic by our standards. I don’t <em>think</em> that Fox was considered exceptional in his drinking habit but when he died (at the age of 57) his post mortem examination revealed “<em>a hardened liver, 35 gallstones, and around seven pints of transparent fluid in his abdomen</em>”. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-06-20-review-uproar/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>This statement by Alice Loxton is suspiciously unfootnoted, so <em>this</em> footnote is a sort of inverse footnote to say that a footnote doesn’t exist. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-06-20-review-uproar/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>Another choice Napoleon quote that I found in this book was “<em>The reading of history very soon made me feel that I was capable of achieving as much as the men who are placed in the highest ranks of our annals</em>”. A feeling every history graduate can no doubt identify with! <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-06-20-review-uproar/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Hawkhurst - review
Anthony Webb
Smuggling is a shadowy business, so it is perhaps appropriate that our imaginations are peopled by fictional characters rather than real life historical smugglers.
So as a child I loved the Captain...
2023-06-09T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-06-09-review-hawkhurst/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/075099889X.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Hawkhurst - review" /><p>Our review of Hawkhurst: Murder, Money and Smuggling in Georgian England, by Joseph Dragovich, first published in May 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Dragovich shines a light on the brutal Hawkhurst gang in the mid-eigtheen century. For seven years they robbed, murdered and sold contraband tea to the good people of the English counties of Sussex and Kent.</p><p>A fun, easy to read and sometimes horrific account - I would recommed this to anyone who likes any two out of the three of: British tea, English history or smuggling.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <p>Smuggling is a shadowy business, so it is perhaps appropriate that our imaginations are peopled by fictional characters rather than real life historical smugglers.</p>
<p>So as a child I loved the Captain Pugwash books by John Ryan which, if you are not familiar with them, feature the incompetent and cowardly (but loveable) Captain Pugwash. In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7iR0bVuqVU"><em>Pugwash the Smuggler</em> (which you can also watch on YouTube)</a> Captain Pugwash agrees to smuggle brandy barrels from France to England for a shady looking innkeeper. Things don’t quite go to plan but luckily Tom the Cabin boy is able to keep them out of trouble.</p>
<p>But then more recently Maddox Von Ranke recommended to me <em>Jamaica Inn</em> by Daphne Du Maurier, in which smugglers are shown as monsters of pure evil, capable of any despicable act.</p>
<p>Reading <em>Hawkhurst: Murder, Corruption, and Britain’s Most Notorious Smuggling Gang</em> by Joseph Dragovich was a great chance to see how real life 18th Century English smugglers stacked up.</p>
<h3 id="tea-rifying" tabindex="-1">Tea-rifying</h3>
<p>It turns out that real smugglers - as exemplified by the Hawkhurst gang - were much more like Du Maurier’s evil monsters than they were Ryan’s cheeky rogues<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-06-09-review-hawkhurst/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>.</p>
<p>The ultimate source of this evil was tea.</p>
<h3 id="ubiqui-tea" tabindex="-1">Ubiqui-tea</h3>
<p>“By the 1730s” Dragovich tells us, “tea was everywhere. There was a tea for every taste and budget.” What had once been a luxury item had become an everyday staple, consumed in coffeehouses and in the home with a slice of toast for breakfast.</p>
<p>But as the supply of tea improved and the price of tea fell, the tax on the tea stayed the same. So whereas the tax might have been just over 5% of the sale price of tea in the early 1700s, by 1720 falling tea prices meant that the same 4 shilling tax now represented up to 50% of the cost of the tea to the consumer.</p>
<h3 id="tea-lightful" tabindex="-1">Tea-lightful</h3>
<p>This was the perfect situation for smugglers who could avoid the tax - tea being lightweight, a small cargo was worth a lot, and because everybody drank it they could offload the stuff anywhere.</p>
<p>Even better: the more tea they could smuggle into England, the lower the price. The lower the price, the higher the percentage of the price made up of tax (that 4 shillings tax per pound of tea didn’t change). And the higher the tax the greater the profit in smuggling.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-06-09-review-hawkhurst/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="a-super-commidi-tea" tabindex="-1">A super commidi-tea</h3>
<p>Smuggling had been part of life on the coast for as long as there were taxes. But with tea as the new super commodity smuggling gangs could really scale up. By the 1740s it was estimated that an incredible 80% of the tea drunk in England was smuggled in.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-06-09-review-hawkhurst/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup></p>
<p>With so much product to transport it became impossible to do it surreptitiously and the larger gangs increasingly used intimidation rather than subterfuge to get their way. Any customs officials that tried to interfere were beaten, kidnapped and sometimes killed.</p>
<p>This is where the Hawkhurst gang comes in.</p>
<h3 id="tea-off" tabindex="-1">Tea-off</h3>
<p>Dragovich introduces us to the gang with a murder on Christmas day 1740. Thomas Carswell, a customs official, had just found their tea stash. Carswell and his men were removing the tea to their customs HQ when the Hawkhurst gang caught up with them. Fortified with brandy and desperate to get their cha, they charged the customs men, firing as they went. A shot caught Carswell in the head and he fell dead from his horse.</p>
<p>This killing marked the start of a seven year rampage across Kent and Sussex in which the gang progressed from smuggling to robbery to jailbraking, to more murders, to torture, to kidnapping and just about anything they could think of to make a dishonest living.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book?</h3>
<p>Dragovich does a good job of setting the scene on which the Hawkhurst drama is played out. We get an intro to that novel and exciting beverage: tea. The political scene is laid out, including the nakedly corrupt electioneering, which helped to fuel some of the smuggling gangs as pardons seemed to have been handed out in exchange for votes. And we can hear in the background the tumult of the ‘45, where Scotland rose in favour of Bonnie Prince Charlie, grandson of the deposed James II, and marched down to the midlands before losing their bottle and heading back north.</p>
<p>The foreground is a narrative account of the doings of the Hawkhurst gang as they expanded their operations and transformed themselves into hardened criminals. This is a story about individual people, as Dragovich traces the various gang members like Jeremiah Curteis and Gabriel Tomkins as they turn up in the records.</p>
<p>The end of the gang was presaged by the gruesome torture and double murder of customs official William Galley and potential witness Daniel Chater, which led to the government making - at last - a determined effort to find, prosecute and hang everybody implicated.</p>
<h3 id="who-made-the-smugglers%3F" tabindex="-1">Who made the smugglers?</h3>
<p>While <em>Hawkhurst</em> is primarily a “true crime” type history there is more to it than that, with plenty of historical context and smatterings of analysis. For example here is Dragovich musing on who is truly to blame for the smuggling epidemic:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a nation to create entrenched, violent organised crime. The people prosecuting these murders had a hand in creating the system that wrought this violence, with electoral gamesmanship and draconian, reactionary laws.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Joseph Dragovich, Hawkhurst</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h3>
<p>Generally speaking this is a pretty easy read. Dragovich does a good job of keeping the chapters short and focussed, and the story moving along at a decent pace.</p>
<p>Overall I would say it is a good solid read rather than a literary masterpiece, with a few jarring sentences spoiling the flow from time to time - the final sentence in the book is a good example which I couldn’t resist including:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The teabags that we nonchalantly put in our mugs every morning are full of deep historical blood.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Joseph Dragovich, Hawkhurst</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>I did struggle a bit with the names of the different gang members and other assorted individuals as they come in and out of the story - the cast is pretty broad - but I could equally blame myself for not concentrating hard enough.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>If you (a) love history and tea, or (b) love reading about historical crime, or (c) love Pugwash but want a more realistic take, I would definitely read this book. If you are merely curious I would also give it a go! Shining a light on a forgotten corner of the story of Britain, reveals that it is full of deep historical tea.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Although they are not quite as bad as the devil worshipping Reverend Francis Davey. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-06-09-review-hawkhurst/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>This economic logic is slightly suspect but I think the point is that there was money to be made! <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-06-09-review-hawkhurst/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>This was the estimate of a parliamentary committee of the time - of the 4 million lbs of tea consumed in the UK 3.2 million lbs was smuggled. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-06-09-review-hawkhurst/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in May 2023
Anthony Webb
So what have we got? It's a pretty good haul this month, centered around Europe mostly but with travel around the world as a bit of a motif...
Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links...
2023-06-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-06-01-posts-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1685567704/posts/May2023_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in May 2023" /><p>So what have we got? It's a pretty good haul this month, centered around Europe mostly but with travel around the world as a bit of a motif...</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you like to buy your books there.</em></p>
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<div class="fix-children 🏛️ 🇪🇬 🍗 👑 🚽 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/152936776X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="X Marks the Spot: The Story of Archaeology in Eight Extraordinary Discoveries" title="X Marks the Spot: The Story of Archaeology in Eight Extraordinary Discoveries" />
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<div id="cover152936776X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏛️ 🇪🇬 🍗 👑 🚽 2023" data-title="X Marks the Spot: The Story of Archaeology in Eight Extraordinary Discoveries" data-author="Michael Scott" data-publishdate="2023-05-25" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/152936776X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/152936776X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/152936776X" data-review="">
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<div class="fix-children ⛪ 🏭 🍭 👑 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1529109957.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Great Defiance: How the Early Modern World Took on the British Empire" title="The Great Defiance: How the Early Modern World Took on the British Empire" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover1529109957" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛪ 🏭 🍭 👑 2023" data-title="The Great Defiance: How the Early Modern World Took on the British Empire" data-author="David Veevers" data-publishdate="2023-05-25" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1529109957.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1529109957" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1529109957" data-review="">
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<div class="fix-children ⛩️ 🥐 👑 🚽 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0861542592.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land" title="Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land" />
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<div id="cover0861542592" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛩️ 🥐 👑 🚽 2023" data-title="Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land" data-author="Jacob Mikanowski" data-publishdate="2023-05-18" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0861542592.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0861542592" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0861542592" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1399705083.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History" title="Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History" />
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<div id="cover1399705083" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛪ 🥐 👑 🚽 🇬🇧 2023" data-title="Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History" data-author="Tracy Borman" data-publishdate="2023-05-18" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1399705083.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1399705083" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1399705083" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children ⛩️ 🍭 🕯️ 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1802792392.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Around the World in 80 Pots: The Story of Humanity Told Through Beautiful Ceramics" title="Around the World in 80 Pots: The Story of Humanity Told Through Beautiful Ceramics" />
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<div id="cover1802792392" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛩️ 🍭 🕯️ 2023" data-title="Around the World in 80 Pots: The Story of Humanity Told Through Beautiful Ceramics" data-author="Ashmolean Museum" data-publishdate="2023-05-11" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1802792392.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1802792392" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1802792392" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/147118367X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Wager" title="The Wager" />
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<div id="cover147118367X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🥐 🚽 ⛪ 🇬🇧 2023" data-title="The Wager" data-author="David Grann" data-publishdate="2023-05-11" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/147118367X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/147118367X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/147118367X" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1526613425.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power" title="Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power" />
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<div id="cover1526613425" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛪ 🥐 👑 🚽 🇬🇧 2023" data-title="Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power" data-author="Leah Redmond Chang" data-publishdate="2023-05-11" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1526613425.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1526613425" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1526613425" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children ⛪ 💰 🥐 🇬🇧 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0691194742.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Virtuous Bankers: A Day in the Life of the Eighteenth-Century Bank of England" title="Virtuous Bankers: A Day in the Life of the Eighteenth-Century Bank of England" />
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<div id="cover0691194742" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛪ 💰 🥐 🇬🇧 2023" data-title="Virtuous Bankers: A Day in the Life of the Eighteenth-Century Bank of England" data-author="Anne Murphy" data-publishdate="2023-05-09" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0691194742.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0691194742" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0691194742" data-review="">
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<div class="fix-children 🍭 ⛩️ 🚽 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0674279395.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The World of Sugar: How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment Over 2,000 Years" title="The World of Sugar: How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment Over 2,000 Years" />
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<div id="cover0674279395" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🍭 ⛩️ 🚽 2023" data-title="The World of Sugar: How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment Over 2,000 Years" data-author="Ulbe Bosma" data-publishdate="2023-05-09" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0674279395.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0674279395" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0674279395" data-review="">
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<div id="cover0300248059" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🥐 👑 🏰 🇬🇧 2023" data-title="Henry III: Reform, Rebellion, Civil War, Settlement, 1259-1272" data-author="David Carpenter" data-publishdate="2023-05-09" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300248059.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0300248059" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0300248059" data-review="">
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<div id="cover0197648002" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🍗 🍔 ⛪ 🕯️ 2023" data-title="The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram: An Elizabethan Sailor in Native North America" data-author="Dean Snow" data-publishdate="2023-05-05" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0197648002.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0197648002" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0197648002" data-review="">
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<div id="cover0241506158" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛩️ 🥐 👑 2023" data-title="The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe" data-author="Martyn Rady" data-publishdate="2023-05-04" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241506158.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0241506158" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0241506158" data-review="">
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<div id="cover1838953418" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🏭 🥐 🇫🇷 🚽 2023" data-title="Once Upon a Time World" data-author="Jonathan Miles" data-publishdate="2023-05-04" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1838953418.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1838953418" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1838953418" data-review="">
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<div id="cover075099889X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🥐 ⛪ 🚽 🇬🇧 📝 2023" data-title="Hawkhurst: Murder, Money and Smuggling in Georgian England" data-author="Joseph Dragovich" data-publishdate="2023-05-04" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/075099889X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/075099889X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/075099889X" data-review="">
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<p>The ones that I particularly like the look of are:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Hawkhurst: Murder, Money and Smuggling in Georgian England</strong></em>, <em>by Joseph Dragovich</em> - I have already read this one (review coming soon) and enjoyed the dramatic (and at times terrible) account of tea 18th Century English tea smugglers.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>The World of Sugar: How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment Over 2,000 Years</strong></em>, <em>Ulbe Bosma</em> - because I would like to put all those fantastically profitable and horrifically inhumane New World sugar plantations into context.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>The Wager</strong></em>, <em>David Grann</em> - this one seems like it has been around for ages already as I have seen positive reviews all over the place. A tale of a shipwreck and mutiny, beautifully recounted, so we are told.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Around the World in 80 Pots: The Story of Humanity Told Through Beautiful Ceramics</strong></em>, <em>Ashmolean Museum</em> - pots in museums used to make me run for the nearest cafe but I have come to appreciate why they are such an amazing record even if they do look a bit dull. This coffee table style book is not a history of pots, but instead the story of a number of the more glamorous ones from the Ashmolean collection, which spans thousands of years and much of the world.</p>
</li>
</ul>
How can we apply history in our daily life?
Anthony Webb
Regular readers of this website will, I imagine, often think to themselves:
I know you guys read a lot of history books but how does this actually help you in your day to day life?
Perhaps the best...
2023-05-26T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2023-05-26-post-apply_history_to_everyday_life/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1684614796/posts/HistoryInDailyLife.png" alt="How can we apply history in our daily life?" /><p>Regular readers of this website will, I imagine, often think to themselves:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I know you guys read <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/allbooks/">a lot of history books</a> but how does this actually help you in your day to day life?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to describe my typical day and how a little historical knowledge can be surprisingly useful in all sorts of ways.</p>
<p>So here is a day in the life of me.</p>
<hr />
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_fill,r_max/v1684614796/posts/HistoryInDailyLife.png#center" alt="Julius Caesar, Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi in a London pub" title="What would these guys do? Applying history to everyday life" /></p>
<p>Like Julius Caesar I get up early - usually just before my alarm at 7am.</p>
<p>I swing my legs out of bed making as little noise as possible so that I don’t disturb my wife, who reclines, Cleopatra-esque, under the duvet.</p>
<p>Unlike Julius Caesar I put on some trousers, and head downstairs for breakfast.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Unlike Juilius Caesar I put on some trousers.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My breakfast of choice is muesli with another cereal layered on top. I’m guided here by the oat munching Scots who we know from history were excellent warriors, repelling the Romans and then invading the rest of the world on behalf of the British Empire. Sufficiently fortified, it’s time to wake up the kids.</p>
<p>A few grumbles later they are also down at the breakfast table. Breakfast done it’s time for the school drop off. I’ll take the 4 year old, my wife will take the 7 year old. We are applying another lesson from the British Empire: divide and rule. Also they start school at different times.</p>
<p>The 4 year old safely ensconced in his classroom, I briefly reflect on his good fortune in not growing up in ancient Sparta, then it’s on to the tube to go to work.</p>
<p>The train ride is spent reading a history book. It could be anything from <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/05/26/a-story-of-us/">the evolution of humankind</a> to <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/07/16/the-last-embassy/">a Dutch diplomatic mission to the Qing Emperor</a>. My mind is a sponge: I will learn from anywhere, from anyone, and from any when.</p>
<p>I get to work at just before the 9.30 dot.</p>
<p>I’m an investment consultant for pension schemes. It’s my job to advise them on how they can earn a return without unnecessary risk. I am constantly (advising on) making decisions and this is where thinking about what great individuals from the past would do can really pay off.</p>
<p>First decision of the day, should we hedge currency exposure or not? What would Lord Nelson do I ask myself? Whatever the decision, it would be sure to be a bold one, taken swiftly and on instinct. So enough messing about - we’re hedging.</p>
<p>There’s time for just one more decision before lunch: frontier markets have taken a beating recently, but are they now good value? Using the example of Alexander the Great, who famously had a crack at both Persia and India, I decide it’s time to go in. Keen to expand his frontiers A the G wouldn’t have thought twice.</p>
<p>Lunchtime: emulating the frugality of Mahatma Gandhi I opt for a Tesco meal deal - sandwich, drink and snack for £4. The peanut satay wrap and pressed coconut water are a no brainer but which snack? Here I channel the spirit of Winston Churchill and select the double boiled egg snack-pack.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Emulating the frugality of Mahatma Gandhi I opt for a Tesco meal deal.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The afternoon is usually spent on internal company matters and this post-prandial-period is no different. There’s an important meeting for middle managers at the firm - we need to grapple with a potential new strategic initiative: opening a Moscow branch this December. It’s an online meeting so I don my headset and microphone and hunch down in front of the laptop camera. Today, as in all ages past, facetime is important.</p>
<p>“Who wants to take notes?” is the question. I immediately raise my virtual hand. Josef Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, owed his iron grip on his party to writing minutes and following up on actions outstanding. The others assent to my note-taking role. I can feel my grip tightening.</p>
<p>The call goes out for comments and initial views. “I oppose the measure.” I say “It’s madness. Have we learnt nothing?” There’s a silence. Everyone is ignoring me. Then Chris pipes up: “Anthony, you’re on mute.”</p>
<p>I turn on my mic. “I oppose the measure. Opening a Russian branch is pure folly. Are your memories so short that you have forgotten Napoleon already? He lost millions of men in his Russian venture. We’ve only got a few hundred in our entire firm - we just can’t sustain those sorts of losses. I tell you if we go into Moscow we will get our fingers burnt.”</p>
<p>Angry shouts, disagreement, loud scoffing. My opinions are dismissed as “irrelevant” and “ridiculous”. The motion is carried, we’re opening a Moscow branch.</p>
<p>But my opponents have forgotten one thing. When writing up the meeting minutes I amend the decision to “rejected”. Nipped in the bud - thank you Stalin. As an afterthought I insert a resolution censuring Chris for “online harassment of a colleague”.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I amend the decision to “rejected” - thank you Stalin.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s 6pm and time to go home. It’s been a good day: decisions made, crises averted, lunch eaten. Chris is suggesting that we should have a quick drink in the local pub and a small crowd is gathering by the lifts.</p>
<p>“Are you coming Anthony?” says Chris.</p>
<p>I think quickly. What would Gandhi do? I’m pretty sure he doesn’t drink. On the other hand it’s hard to imagine Winston Churchill turning down a brandy. And Julius Caesar would be keen for a glass of wine, although would probably insist on buying everyone else a drink too, and then pay for it with his credit card. Introducing Athenian democracy I put it to the vote. Gandhi is in the minority at 2 to 1: I’m coming.</p>
<p>I join the crowd going to the pub and order a London Pride. We talk about what we are hoping to do with our holidays. Someone mentions a trip to Moscow in December and I chuckle quietly into my beer foam moustache. Another drink? I’m asked. I order a brandy, two of them - with Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill outvoting the others. The evening progresses. More brandy: Stalin and Churchill are in the ascendant and have formed a powerful voting block with Alexander the Great and Napoleon.</p>
<p>“Ping pong Anthony?” I hear someone cry. But just as Stalin, Churchill, Alexander the Great and Napoleon raise their hands in support, Julius Caesar, with Gandhi close behind, leaps up and overpowers the quadrumvirate. It’s a coup and in a bloody flash the deed is done. Julius Caesar waves his sword in the air triumphantly, and Gandhi tries on Churchill’s bowler hat for size.</p>
<p>It’s all over - and so home to supper and to bed.</p>
Great Kingdoms of Africa - review
Anthony Webb
Ancient Egyptian kings loved to portray themselves bashing someone else’s head in.
One of the most famous head-basher kings is Narmer, often considered to be the first ruler of a unified Egypt,...
2023-05-18T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-18-review-great-kingdoms-of-africa/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0500252521.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Great Kingdoms of Africa - review" /><p>Our review of Great Kingdoms of Africa, by John Parker, first published in March 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>This collection of essays investigates a range of kingdoms across Africa - focussing on the period before European domination, examining the kings and the different ways in which they sustained their kingliness.</p><p>I found the subject matter fascinating, but the dry and scholarly style made it hard work to absorb.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <p>Ancient Egyptian kings loved to portray themselves bashing someone else’s head in.</p>
<p>One of the most famous head-basher kings is Narmer, often considered to be the first ruler of a unified Egypt, perhaps a bit earlier than 3000 BCE. On the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmer_Palette">Narmer Palette</a> King Narmer is shown holding his victim by the hair. His other arm is held high, ready to bring down his stone mace and batter him to death. His face is serene - it's just another ordinary day.</p>
<p>A willingness to resort to violence to get your own way seems to be an essential element of kingly power. But if this is an essential feature, why did anyone put up with it in the first place? A king getting his way means someone else loses out - and why would anyone want to subject themselves to a bully?</p>
<p><em>Great Kingdoms of Africa</em> edited by John Parker explores this question (among others) in a collection of nine essays, each covering a different kingdom in African history. In the first essay - <em>Ancient Egypt and Nubia: Kings of Flood and Kings of Rain</em> David Wengrow sketches out an answer.</p>
<h3 id="on-the-open-road" tabindex="-1">On the open road</h3>
<p>The people of ancient Egypt and Nubia (i.e. modern Sudan) were originally pretty similar. They moved around a lot, herded cattle, liked to keep their hair neat and make themselves look good, with “<em>a dazzling array of beadwork, combs, bangles and other ornaments made of ivory and bone</em>” found in graves all the way up and down the Nile.</p>
<p>But in the late fourth millennium BCE (i.e. from 4000 to 3000 BCE) the Egyptians and the Nubians started to go their separate ways. This was caused by a big shift in the climate. The summer monsoon rains that had once fallen all over Egypt moved further and further south, turning the country into a year-round desert.</p>
<h3 id="prisoners-of-climatography" tabindex="-1">Prisoners of climatography</h3>
<p>Whereas previously the people of Egypt had been able to follow the grasses and wander around all over the place, with their herds of cows to sustain them, they were now squashed into a thin strip of land a few kilometres either side of the Nile.</p>
<p>This meant that when a violent sociopath with a stone mace slung over his shoulder (and a posse of like-minded desperadoes at his back) turned up at your door demanding that you hand over a significant proportion of your harvest, you had nowhere to run. In choosing between fight, flight or submit, submission was the only viable option - vivat rex Narmer!</p>
<p>As Wengrow puts it:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>The real puzzle of Nubia’s ancient history... is not whether it developed states or empires like those of neighbouring pharaonic Egypt. Rather, it is how its population managed to prevent the emergence of similar forms of domination in their own midst, despite the existence of Egyptian models of governance on their doorstep and the effects of recurring Egyptian predation on their people and resources.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>David Wengrow, Great Kingdoms of Africa</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="live-to-herd-another-day" tabindex="-1">Live to herd another day</h3>
<p>Turning to Nubia, kingship seems to have been later in developing and with nothing like the system of control in Egypt. Why? Because you weren’t stuck fast to the river like the unfortunate Egyptians, and running away was still an option. A king with no subjects is demoted by default.</p>
<h3 id="resistance-is-futile" tabindex="-1">Resistance is futile</h3>
<p>I suspect I am behind the times here, but prior to reading this book I had always considered the puzzle of political complexity - kings, priests and whatnot - to be: how do you design the system? But Wengrow’s point is the opposite. Given the tendency of humans towards domination, the puzzle is: how do you work to <em>prevent</em> the emergence of such a system?</p>
<p>A kingdom therefore represents the failure of a people to escape oppression. The lack of a kingly structures and / or weak kings represents a great - and deliberate - success story for the ordinary folk.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-18-review-great-kingdoms-of-africa/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="surplus-kings" tabindex="-1">Surplus kings</h3>
<p>This gave me a new perspective when thinking about the emergence of the other great primordial - and river based - civilisations: the Mesopotamians, the Indus Valleyans, and the Yangtze River folk.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-18-review-great-kingdoms-of-africa/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> It may not have been the agricultural surplus that allowed more complex societies but instead the fact that “stuck by the river” farming communities were powerless to flee parasitic proto-kings. In other words, the crop surplus only existed because its creation was <em>demanded</em> - at the point of a spear, or the blunt end of a stone mace.</p>
<p>I should stress that these are my musings only and not those of the authors who would likely be horrified at my mono-causal tendencies. But it <em>is</em> their fault for planting the idea in my head 🙂.</p>
<h3 id="coercion-and-consent" tabindex="-1">Coercion and consent</h3>
<p>The idea here is that the king maintains power by coercion - he wants what you have and you are powerless to resist. But <em>Great Kingdoms of Africa</em> also explores the idea of consent - where you are happy to give up the fruits of your labour.</p>
<p>Many if not all of the kingdoms in the book (and everywhere else in the world) endowed their king with some sort of sacred role. So we hear of great Zulu festivals where a great vomiting-on-a-snake-model ritual was designed to boost “<em>mystical powers of rejuvenating and protecting the king and the nation, and of gathering the people together in loyalty to the king.</em>”</p>
<p>I think the idea is that if you are doing what a priest-figure tells you this is consent, if you do what a soldier-type tells you this is coercion.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-18-review-great-kingdoms-of-africa/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup></p>
<p>One of the key themes of the book is that there is a mixture of different strategies of kingship - and strategies of subjectship - across different kingdoms. Despite what you might imply from the title of the book there is no one archetype of an African Kingdom.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book?</h3>
<p>Each essay in the book is about 20 to 30 pages long, on kingdoms across Africa covering the modern countries (and previous kingdoms) of:</p>
<ul>
<li>Egypt and Sudan (Ancient Egypt and Nubia)</li>
<li>Mali and Senegal (Sudanic Empires)</li>
<li>Ethiopia (Solomonic Kingdom)</li>
<li>Nigeria (Yoruba and Benin)</li>
<li>The Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola (Kongo)</li>
<li>Uganda (Buganda)</li>
<li>Nigeria again (Hausa to Sokoto)</li>
<li>Ghana (Asante)</li>
<li>South Africa (Zulu)</li>
</ul>
<p>This is most easily grasped by looking at one the excellent maps from the book, reproduced below:</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/v1684098874/posts/GreatKingdomsOfAfrica_Map#center" alt="Map of Africa showing the the kingdoms in Great Kingdoms of Africa" /></p>
<h6 id="map-of-africa-showing-the-the-kingdoms-featured-in-great-kingdoms-of-africa-by-matthew-young%2C-%C2%A9-thames-%26-hudson" tabindex="-1">Map of Africa showing the the kingdoms featured in <em>Great Kingdoms of Africa</em> by Matthew Young, © Thames & Hudson</h6>
<p>By focusing on iconic rulers and kingdoms, mostly before their contact with European powers, and covering more or less the whole continent <em>Great Kingdoms of Africa</em> becomes an important work in enlightening those of us, like myself, who are mostly ignorant of most of African history.</p>
<p>It is also an excellently presented book, with loads of well chosen colour pictures, some brilliantly designed maps, and the whole thing comprehensively indexed.</p>
<h3 id="caveat-lector" tabindex="-1">Caveat lector</h3>
<p>There is a major caveat though. While the subject matter is fascinating, and the ideas discussed important, the writing itself does not sit lightly on the page - it can be quite hard work to plough through many of the essays, which often come across as dryly academic in tone.</p>
<p>Here is a typical sentence to give you a flavour:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>He [Zara Yaqob, an important Ethiopian king] invented a new model for Church-state relations, in which the secular state was the dominant force, creating an indigenous absolutism based upon the concept of Solomonic legitimacy. He reformed the Church in ways that unified the country, thereby further consolidating royal power.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Great Kingdoms of Africa, Essay on The Solomonic Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Passages like this leave me convinced of the academic respectability of the authors but none-the-wiser myself on what it really all means.</p>
<h3 id="who-is-it-for%3F" tabindex="-1">Who is it for?</h3>
<p>So I am left a bit unsure who <em>Great Kingdoms of Africa</em> is aimed at. An academic specialist will probably already know all this stuff. But a lay person would expect something a bit less dry to properly whet their appetite.</p>
<p>I suspect that part of this reader-writer mismatch that I experienced is due to the fact that the authors are keen to go beyond the typical account of African kingdoms, and also air some of the current scholarly debates. But given that I would put myself at the Usborne lift-the-flap level when it comes to African history, much of the nuance and careful language went over my head.</p>
<p>The upshot is that I wouldn’t read this book on the expectation that you will be entertained.</p>
<p>But I would consider reading it if you want to be educated and you are willing to put in some hard graft getting to the bottom of it all.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Great Kingdoms of Africa will give you a great insight into the breadth and depth of African history - in particular the history before Europeans arrived on the scene. But you may find yourself floundering in the deep end as you try to wade through the scholarly prose.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>This glosses over the role that kings might play in restraining lesser or alternative bullies such as aristocrats and soldiers, but I like it as way of thinking about the early emergence of kingship. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-18-review-great-kingdoms-of-africa/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Maybe also the American civilisations? I’m not sure enough about their origins to include them in my speculation. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-18-review-great-kingdoms-of-africa/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>The idea of obeying by consent is not always clear cut. For example, my kids (age four and seven) might consent to do things I ask / tell them to do. But how much would they do so if I was smaller and weaker than they are? <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-18-review-great-kingdoms-of-africa/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Brotherhood of Kings - review
Anthony Webb
How do you deal with a bully? This is a problem that most of us will have considered at some point in our lives. But what if your bully is the ruler of a superpower, directly controls an enormous...
2023-05-05T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-05-review-brotherhood-of-kings/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0199858683.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Brotherhood of Kings - review" /><p>Our review of Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East, by Amanda H. Podany, first published in January 2012.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Podany describes the remarkable system of international peace and diplomacy in the Ancient Near East, already going strong in 2300 BCE and lasting until the late bronze age collapse in 1150 BCE - with a cast of colourful kings to convey the character of the time.</p><p>Brilliantly entertaining, if you have even a passing interest in ancient history or international diplomacy this book will be a treat.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <p>How do you deal with a bully? This is a problem that most of us will have considered at some point in our lives. But what if your bully is the ruler of a superpower, directly controls an enormous army, employs lethal violence as a matter of course, and revels in his “strongman” image?</p>
<p>I’m talking of course about Amenhotep II, pharaoh of Egypt from 1427 to 1401 BCE.</p>
<h3 id="home-is-where-the-ma'at-is" tabindex="-1">Home is where the Ma'at is</h3>
<p>Amanda Podany tells us what happened in <em>Brotherhood of Kings, How Diplomatic Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East</em>. Initially the Egyptian kingdom seems to have kept itself in a state of splendid isolation - there is almost no record of interaction with the Mesopotamian kingdoms before 1640 BCE. What was the point? With an abundance of food, stone and gold all that was needed was an occasional shopping trip to Byblos for timber and to Cyprus for some extra copper.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-05-review-brotherhood-of-kings/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
<p>So why risk contamination from the elemental forces of chaos and disorder at the edge of the universe? Better stay where you are and let the broad desert and the deep sea keep everyone else out.</p>
<h3 id="the-world-turned-upside-down" tabindex="-1">The world turned upside down</h3>
<p>But this peacefully disdainful attitude was brutally shattered by the Hyksos. Appearing out of nowhere in 1640 BCE these chariot riding, horse loving, master bowmen<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-05-review-brotherhood-of-kings/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> easily conquered the pedestrian Egyptian army, leaving the pharaohs with just half a kingdom and an urgent need to reconsider their pacifist xenophobia.</p>
<p>But after a hundred years of warfare and a successful reinvention as <em>militarist</em> xenophobes, the Egyptians were finally able to turn the tables, destroy the Hyksos capital in the Nile delta and eject the hated invaders from Egypt for good.</p>
<p>But what if the Hyksos were to come back? Or what if some other group was hanging around nearby waiting to attack?</p>
<h3 id="taking-the-war-to-the-enemy" tabindex="-1">Taking the war to the enemy</h3>
<p>On the principle that the best form of defence is attack, the Egyptians regularly started sending armies into the Levant to install client kings and smash the place up a bit.</p>
<p>By the time of Amenhotep II the Egyptians had been fighting their “defensive” campaigns in Syria for about 80 years. And while you could say these expeditions were born of necessity, they seem to have been undertaken with real relish by Amenhotep, who boasted that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He has gathered them [his enemies] all into his fist, his mace has crushed upon their heads.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>With joy of heart to his father, Amen, he slew with his own weapon the seven [rebellious] princes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Finally:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>His heart is satisfied when he sees them after he decapitated the troublemakers.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Amenhotep II launched two massive campaigns against the Mitanni empire, northern Mesopotamia's top dog. After the second campaign he proudly recorded that he had taken (among a long list other things) an incredible 101,128 prisoners.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-05-review-brotherhood-of-kings/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup></p>
<p>So we have an aggressive military leader who revels in personally chopping people up, posturing at the head of a well oiled military machine used to victory. Things were not looking good for the Near East. But there was one thing that Amenhotep hadn’t counted on...</p>
<h3 id="a-notable-event!" tabindex="-1">A notable event!</h3>
<p>The Mitannian secret weapon, according to Podany, was diplomacy. Just after Amenhotep II’s second looting and killing spree in Canaan, with his 101,128 captives still trudging to their new homes in the Egyptian empire, the Mitannian diplomats pounced.</p>
<p>The audaciousness was striking. As Amehotep himself remarked: the Mitannians came...</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>tribute on their backs, to seek the peace of His Majesty, desirous of his sweet breath of life. A notable event! [The like of this occurrence] had not been heard of since the time of the demigods: this land which knew not Egypt was supplicating the Good God!</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Amenhotep II</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>“Seeking peace” Podany tells us “was not a phrase used with respect to vassals, and it is a telling sign of the new way in which these great kings were seeing one another - as partners in peace rather than as enemies in war.”</p>
<h3 id="the-diplomatic-shopping-list" tabindex="-1">The diplomatic shopping list</h3>
<p>The key point is that what was being proposed was an alliance based on equality. This custom of alliance had been operating in Mesopotamia for over 1,000 years by this point, and had a well worked out recipe:</p>
<ol>
<li>Regular exchange of clay tablet messages, sent by trusted and high ranking officials</li>
<li>Which observed the correct salutations - “you are my brother and I am your brother”, hence the title of the book</li>
<li>Accompanied by ostentatious gifts. For example horses, chariots, gold, textiles etc</li>
<li>Including request for lavish gifts in return</li>
<li>Topped of by marriage of your daughter (again involving significant present swapping)</li>
</ol>
<p>Podany speculates that for the pharaoh the royal brides were a particular attraction, but that easy access to luxury goods that were not available in Egypt such as fine horses and beautiful lapis lazuli would also have been tempting.</p>
<p>Whatever the details, Amehotep II clearly now found peace more attractive than war. He never ventured outside Egypt again and spent the rest of his reign building magnificent temples and palaces, or at least getting other people to build them for him.</p>
<h3 id="an-equilibrium-state" tabindex="-1">An equilibrium state</h3>
<p>This system of peace that took root in Mesopotamia didn’t <em>prevent</em> war but it did lead to periods of remarkable interstate stability. In the three hundred or so years from Amenhotep’s conversion to the late bronze age collapse, it took an unusually belligerent leader to undermine the system. Most of the time the various kings were content to call each other brother, marry each others daughters, and try to wheedle just a <em>bit</em> more gold out of the Egyptian pharaoh for the <em>very</em> last time.</p>
<p>It is also notable that it is all based on self interest. There was no particular moral underpinning to the idea of international peace, it just suited the interests of the kings involved who could get what they wanted more easily and with less risk.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-the-book-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is the book like to read?</h3>
<p>I really enjoyed reading Brotherhood of Kings and found its focus on peace rather than war a refreshing new perspective on the Ancient World. And although I have zoomed-in on the story of Amenhotep II above, the book covers a much longer period than this, kicking off in 2300 BCE<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-05-review-brotherhood-of-kings/#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup> or thereabouts and taking us to the end of the bronze age in 1150 BCE.</p>
<p>This means we hear about the now more or less forgotten great kingdoms of the time such as Mitanni, mentioned above, and Ebla and Mari before this - as well as those that are more familiar to us such as the Babylonians and the Hittites.</p>
<h3 id="begging-letters" tabindex="-1">Begging letters</h3>
<p>No pre-knowledge is assumed by the author which was helpful for me as I had very little! (Although I had previously read and reviewed her excellent 2022 book <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-10-review-weavers-scribes-and-kings/">Weavers, Scribes and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East</a>.) Podany introduces us to the Near Eastern world as gently as possible with the help of some memorable and sometimes eccentric characters. For example: Tushratta, King of Mitanni who was pathetically desperate to get his hands on a solid gold statue of himself from his Egyptian “brother” king.</p>
<p>A lot of the fun of the book lies in hearing the words of the Kings themselves in their messages to each other. Here is Tushratta again, who was unusually affectionate in his letters:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Certainly there is this between us: we love (each other) very, very much, and between us let there be friendship</p>
<blockquote>
<p>King Tushratta of Mitanni writing to pharaoh Amenhotep III of Egypt, 14th Century BCE</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="drawbacks%3F" tabindex="-1">Drawbacks?</h3>
<p>The only downside that I would pick out is that because the period is so much less well known than say the time of the ancient Greeks it’s just that bit harder for everything to sink in. That’s not to say that you need to take notes but you do need to keep your concentration as you read through.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>This book is very highly recommended. Although the strategies for dealing with a royal bully in the bronze age may not work quite as well nowadays, there is still plenty of nourishing food for thought.</p>
<p>If you have even a passing interest in the ancient world or diplomacy in general I wouldn’t hesitate to get a copy.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>As an aside I couldn’t figure out where Egypt sourced its tin - an essential ingredient for the bronze age. Most tin in the region seems to have been mined in what is now Afghanistan so perhaps this was also on the shopping list. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-05-review-brotherhood-of-kings/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>All of these characteristics are disputed but I find them hard to shake due to having read <em>River God</em> at an impressionable age: the highly entertaining historical fiction romp by Wilbur Smith <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-05-review-brotherhood-of-kings/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>He is very precise about this but surely it is an exaggeration?? <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-05-review-brotherhood-of-kings/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>This diplomatic system seems to have been in place before the invention of writing in the Near East - with the earliest “diplomatic letter” so far discovered being dated at around 2340 BCE. The reason diplomacy is thought to have been invented before writing is because in this letter the diplomatic conventions are already well formed: referring to fellow kings as “brothers” and requesting luxury bits and bobs they couldn’t get hold of themselves. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-05-05-review-brotherhood-of-kings/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in April 2023
Anthony Webb
It's mostly European history this month, plus a couple of grand narratives with collapse and microbial doom as a theme...
Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you like...
2023-05-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-05-01-posts-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1682369245/posts/Apr2023_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in April 2023" /><p>It's mostly European history this month, plus a couple of grand narratives with collapse and microbial doom as a theme...</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you like to buy your books there.</em></p>
<div class="grid_book_small">
<div class="fix-children 🥐 ⛩️ 🕯️ 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1529339030.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Hands of Time: A Watchmaker's History of Time" title="Hands of Time: A Watchmaker's History of Time" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover1529339030" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🥐 ⛩️ 🕯️ 2023" data-title="Hands of Time: A Watchmaker's History of Time" data-author="Rebecca Struthers" data-publishdate="2023-04-27" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1529339030.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1529339030" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1529339030" data-review="">
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<div id="cover147462099X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 👑 🏛️ 🥐 2023" data-title="Palatine: An Alternative History of the Caesars" data-author="Peter Stothard" data-publishdate="2023-04-06" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/147462099X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/147462099X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/147462099X" data-review="">
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<p>This month I will be mostly reading:<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-05-01-posts-new_history_books/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Amongst the Ruins: Why Civilizations Collapse and Communities Disappear</strong></em>, <em>by John Darlington</em> - I was (am) a big fan of Jared Diamond's efforts on this front so am keen to see how JD#2's work compares.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany 1949-1990</strong></em>, <em>Katja Hoyer</em> - aside from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Bye,_Lenin!">the film Goodbye Lenin</a> I have very little knowledge of East Berlin and this book looks likes a great place to start.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Women of Ancient Rome: To Survive Under the Patriarchy</strong></em>, <em>Lynda Telford</em> - because how <em>do</em> you survive?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World 1848-1849</strong></em>, <em>Christopher Clark</em> - looks like a fascinating blow by blow account of this transitory revolutionary moment, plus I love how the cover makes it feel like it could have happened just yesterday.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>On the assumption of unlimited time. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-05-01-posts-new_history_books/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
The Blazing World - review
Andy Salisbury
This is an enjoyable and easy read, with a breezy tone throughout. The author, an historian at Kellogg College, Oxford, has his own website https://thesocialhistorian.wordpress.com/, described as...
2023-04-28T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-04-28-review-the-blazing-world/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1526621657.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Blazing World - review" /><p>Our review of The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, by Jonathan Healey, first published in February 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>An entertaining and easy to read overview of seventeenth century England, taking in civil war, plague, fire, and revolution.</p><p>This is an account that puts constitutional debates firmly back into the story of the Civil War and provides some fascinating insights into the economic and social factors which drove conflict and change.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>This is an enjoyable and easy read, with a breezy tone throughout. The author, an historian at Kellogg College, Oxford, has his own website <a href="https://thesocialhistorian.wordpress.com/">https://thesocialhistorian.wordpress.com/</a>, described as 'part scholarship, part satire', which is consistent with the style of the book. It is worth a visit. On the evidence of this book, the author has a successful career ahead of him as a populariser of early modern British history.</p>
<h3 id="england%3A-blazing-world-and-devil-land" tabindex="-1">England: Blazing World and Devil Land</h3>
<p>Comparisons will be drawn between this book and Devil Land, a book by Dr Clare Jackson which won the Wolfson History Prize in 2022.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-04-28-review-the-blazing-world/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> Both cover the same period and have titles which imply a similar underlying idea (i.e., that seventeenth century England was a mess). However, they approach the topic from different perspectives: Clare Jackson's book draws on foreign diplomatic correspondence and thereby provides a fascinating insight into how seventeenth century England was viewed by outsiders; as a result, the focus is mainly on politics and foreign affairs. In contrast, Jonathan Healey's specialism is social and economic history, and, in my opinion, his book provides the more rounded assessment of not only happened, but what things were like at the time. They are excellent books, and I would recommend reading both without fear of excessive repetition.</p>
<h3 id="you're-not-the-boss-of-me-(or-perhaps-you-are-%E2%80%A6)" tabindex="-1">You're not the boss of me (or perhaps you are …)</h3>
<p>In the seventeenth century, the English were struggling to work out how they wanted to be governed, experimenting with different forms of government ranging from royal absolutism to republicanism (with differing degrees of popular representation discussed and tried), finally settling on a type of constitutionally constrained monarchy which was the progenitor of our own current system of government. If all this political toing and froing sounds familiar, I suspect that is the point. Both Clare Jackson and Jonathan Healey avoid the temptation to be too heavy handed with drawing modern parallels, but the subtext is clear – Britain may feel like a mess now, but we've been here before (in the case of the seventeenth century, with a relatively happy ending).</p>
<h3 id="she-did-reflect-on-the-bible" tabindex="-1">She did reflect on the Bible</h3>
<p>Of the two, Jonathan Healey is a little less shy about throwing in the occasional modern reference point or buzz phrase, for example in presenting the religious conflicts of this period as a 'culture war' pitting Puritan killjoys against fun loving cavaliers. This type of modern referencing can be irritating (the implication presumably being that history needs to be made relevant to modern readers for them to bother with it) but in this case it struck me as a fairish comparison to make. I did enjoy the fact the Puritans got quite so hot under the collar about the Book of Sports (declarations by James I and Charles I that people were allowed to have fun on Sundays) – it's satisfying when people from the past live up to stereotypes, and I couldn't help feeling that the Puritans didn't do a lot to help their eventual reputations.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-04-28-review-the-blazing-world/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="the-whigs-strike-back" tabindex="-1">The Whigs strike back</h3>
<p>To the extent there is any overarching theme emerging from the book, it is that the Civil War wasn't just about religion – people were also motivated by deeply held beliefs about the constitution and the accountability of those in power to those they ruled. In that sense, the book is a subtle nod towards the original Whig interpretation of events in seventeenth century England (but with due regard given to the importance of religion). One thing I took from this book was how ideas that were quite radical for the time (such as suffrage for all adult males, or something close to it) were discussed and taken seriously (by some within the Parliamentarian side) during the Civil War (for example, at the Putney Debates of 1647).</p>
<h3 id="dross-and-dung" tabindex="-1">Dross and dung</h3>
<p>However, constitutional niceties clearly weren't the primary motivator for all participants in the Civil War: Cromwell, for example, described constitutions as mere 'dross and dung' in comparison with Christ. The author speculates that post-Civil War England might have taken a different direction under the stewardship of a more constitutionally minded leader such as John Lambert, who he describes as a 'constitutional genius' (an interesting judgment on someone who came up with a constitution which failed).</p>
<h3 id="things-can-only-get-better" tabindex="-1">Things can only get better</h3>
<p>Another slightly Whigish characteristic of this book is that, in Jonathan Healey's telling, the story of seventeenth century England is, broadly speaking, a story of progress. We entered the century a land of witchcraft trials, frequent executions, and famine; we ended it with all of these in sharp decline, and a pattern of economic growth and specialisation that foreshadow the later industrial revolution.</p>
<h3 id="bottoms-and-farts" tabindex="-1">Bottoms and farts</h3>
<p>The book is fun and easy to read – it's a page turner. The author clearly enjoys recounting an amusing/shocking anecdote or quote and his tone throughout is irreverent and breezy. The first chapter opens immediately with a mock wedding between two men; elsewhere, we are told of the use of canon law to prosecute a Suffolk man for farting in church; later we are presented with a bishop who 'literally shat himself' whilst fleeing from an irate Puritan. In the acknowledgements, the author thanks his agent for recommending '20% less bottoms and farts', which made me curious what his original draft read like – perhaps a bit like a Carry On version of seventeenth century English history.</p>
<h3 id="pre-destined-to-success" tabindex="-1">Pre-destined to success</h3>
<p>If I had a minor criticism of the book, it is that some of the analysis might have benefited from more fleshing out. In some cases, casual links and conclusions are drawn without a great deal of explanation. We are told that the so-called 'middling sort' (i.e., yeomen and lesser gentry) were drawn to Puritanism because its theology of pre-destination fitted with their own experience of worldly success<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-04-28-review-the-blazing-world/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup>. Elsewhere, the idea of Royal absolutism is described as a 'reaction' to the idea that monarchs were accountable to those they ruled. Over two paragraphs, a series of casual connections are made connecting economic change to a more widespread belief in common law civil liberties: as economic growth outpaced the growth of the money supply, credit became more commonplace; that resulted in greater litigation in relation to unpaid debt, and that 'in a culture so saturated with lawyers and litigants, legal ideas inevitably seeped into politics', including ideas about civil liberties.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-04-28-review-the-blazing-world/#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup> To be fair to the author, they are all interesting ideas worth considering, and there may be a lot of research and thought underlying them. But they are dealt with in a cursory fashion in the book, whilst appearing to justify closer inspection.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Unlike Clare Jackson's book, with its focuses on politics and foreign affairs, the Blazing World is broader in its approach: at its core is still a relatively standard narrative history of the key political and military events; but this is interspersed with analysis of English society and economics which gives a good sense of what England was like at the time and how that impacted on politics. In my opinion, it's this social and economic analysis which are by far the most interesting parts of the book, and I'd happily read more by the same author on those subjects.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>I read Devil Land last year and thought it was excellent (I would have given it four stars out of five, the same as this book review) but didn't review it at the time as I was a bit occupied with other things (moving house). <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-04-28-review-the-blazing-world/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>I have a bit of an axe to grind with the Puritans myself as one of my first tasks as university was to read the diaries of a seventeenth century Puritan lady – she (and her unlucky servants) spent every day in the same way – they prayed a lot; they did reflect on the Bible; and did converse on the Bible. Occasionally, she saw her husband and did the same. I got halfway through before giving up, concluding that I could reasonably guess the remainder (my tutor, Dr Gunn, assured me that I missed out on the exciting bits, although he never told me what they were). <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-04-28-review-the-blazing-world/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>The book states that between the mid-sixteenth century and the second quarter of the seventeenth century, the yeomen saw their wealth rise fourteenfold, which I found remarkable. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-04-28-review-the-blazing-world/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>Donald Trump appears to have had plenty of experience of the American legal system without it improving his regard for the country's constitution. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-04-28-review-the-blazing-world/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Two Houses, Two Kingdoms - review
Anthony Webb
The handsome black pig sniffed the musky Parisian air and grunted quietly with satisfaction. Lowering his snout to the floor, he sniffed again, picking up the unmistakable scent of fresh offal....
2023-04-20T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-04-20-review-two-houses-two-kingdoms/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0300253583.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Two Houses, Two Kingdoms - review" /><p>Our review of Two Houses, Two Kingdoms: A History of France and England, 1100-1300, by Catherine Hanley, first published in July 2022.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>This is a dense narrative account of the very bloody, intertwined family story of the Kings and Queens of England and France, from just after the Norman conquest (1100) to just before the Hundred Years War (1300).</p><p>Probably not the gateway medieval history book. But if you like the sound of a intricate multi-generational medieval soap opera with inappropriate marriages, family feuding and extreme violence <i>Two Houses Two Kingdoms</i> fits the bill nicely.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <p><em>The handsome black pig sniffed the musky Parisian air and grunted quietly with satisfaction. Lowering his snout to the floor, he sniffed again, picking up the unmistakable scent of fresh offal. Careful to keep to the side of the busy street, he trotted quickly towards the steaming dung heap with its recent deposit of fish guts still trickling down one side.</em></p>
<p><em>Ah what bliss it was that morning to be alive. And when he spotted the discarded fish head he was in very heaven! Eyes closed, tough rubbery lips questing into the ordure, molars champing - totally absorbed in the pleasure of the moment.</em></p>
<p><em>Which was why he didn’t spot the horsemen until it was too late.</em></p>
<p><em>Six of them at least bearing down on him, on towering - terrifying - war-horses. Time slowed down. He could almost feel the blast of warm air from the horses’ nostrils. The riders were laughing at something over by the river. They were only metres away. He had to get away before it was too late.</em></p>
<p><em>Darting out from behind the dung-heap with a frightened squeal he dashed away, trotters skidding madly on the cobblestones, he almost fell, righted himself, tried to run again and with a crash leaped straight into the forelegs of the leading horse. Taken completely by surprise the horse tripped forwards, throwing his rider over his head. The small black pig was left trapped, crushed, underneath the bulk of the gigantic horse.</em></p>
<p><em>His last thought as the breath was squeezed from his body was “what a ridiculous way this is for a fine pig like me to die”.</em></p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1680641749/posts/Philip_death_by_pig.jpg#center" alt="A handsome pig and Philip the Unlucky meet their ends on the streets of 12th Century Paris" /></p>
<h6 id="death-by-horse%3A-a-pig-and-young-king-philip-on-the-streets-of-paris%2C-british-library" tabindex="-1">Death by horse: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_of_France_(1116-1131)">a pig and young king Philip</a> on the streets of Paris, British Library</h6>
<h3 id="an-accident-of-history%3F" tabindex="-1">An accident of history?</h3>
<p>As well as being the end of this handsome black pig, the other casualty of this 12th Century Parisian traffic accident was the 15 year old Philip, son of Louis the Fat and co-king of France. Thrown from his horse he landed so badly that he never regained consciousness and died one day later. No-one knows what happened to the horse. No-one knows what happened to the pig either so I have taken the liberty of filling in the blanks.</p>
<p>All of this raises the question: what really matters in history?</p>
<p>Catherine Hanley in <em>Two Houses Two Kingdoms: A History of France and England 1100-1300</em> wants us to appreciate that <em>people</em> matter in history. Individuals in history, and Kings and Queens in particular, consciously shape the events around them.</p>
<h3 id="for-want-of-a-horse" tabindex="-1">For want of a horse</h3>
<p>So if Philip the Unlucky hadn’t died falling off a horse, the course of war and peace for France and England could have taken a very different turn.</p>
<p>This is in contrast to the view that whoever was on the throne of England and France they were bound to fight because they represent two adjacent militarised power blocks and they just couldn’t help themselves. Or to put it another way: the medieval population of Europe is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Turchin">like a swarm of pine beetles</a> - the beetles live, breed, eat, fight and die in a great dynamic mass. Medieval monarchs are no more in control of their own destiny than a pine beetle spearheading an insect infestation.</p>
<p>No-one thinks the pigs matter.</p>
<h3 id="a-family-affair" tabindex="-1">A family affair</h3>
<p>Hanley is particularly interested in the interaction of the ruling dynasties of France and England from the period just after the Norman conquest of England and just before the hundred years war with France. This allows her to provide a different perspective to what we normally get from national histories, which tend to downplay anything not directly part of the “English” or “French” stories respectively because they are not so useful for the nation-building narrative arc. In reality the two royal families were closely intertwined through marriage and almost perpetual warfare (insert your in-laws joke here).<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-04-20-review-two-houses-two-kingdoms/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
<p>With Hanley we get a detailed narrative thicket of kings, queens, princes, princesses, aristocrats and occasional churchmen as they lived, bred, ate, fought and died. But we hear about <em>how</em> this great mass of medieval elites lived their lives. We get to hear their names, understand their characters, and appreciate their individual motivations.</p>
<h3 id="heroes-and-anti-heroes" tabindex="-1">Heroes and anti-heroes</h3>
<p>And there are some great stories in there! For example we have Blanche of Castille who was an incredibly able and successful ruler of France on behalf of her young son Louis IX, fighting off any challenge to his authority. Also Louis VIII (the Lion) who was effectively King of England for a short while until forced out - and was then King of France but for only three years before dying of dysentery on a crusade against his own people. And more familiar names like King John:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Loyalty might be inspired or coerced in a huge variety of ways, including popularity, martial prowess, inspirational leadership, effective governance, trustworthiness or plain fear. John’s problem was that he proved to be spectacularly bad at all of them.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Catherine Hanley, Two Houses Two Kingdoms</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="a-cast-of-thousands" tabindex="-1">A cast of thousands</h3>
<p>All the major noble characters are covered and a good number of the minor ones too. In fact one of the problems with reading this book is that there are so many names flying thick and fast through the plot that it was basically impossible for me to register them all. Here is a paragraph to give you a flavour - and pay attention at the back please:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>[Henry II’s] eldest daughter, Matilda, was married to the elderly Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony; they had a daughter and four sons. The second, Eleanor, was queen of Castile via her marriage to Alfonso VIII; she had so far borne him six children, of whom only two daughters survived. She would go on to have more, her eventual family consisting of six daughters and two sons who would live long enough to reach their teens, although she would sadly outlive a number of these, too. And finally, Henry II’s youngest daughter, Joanna, was the queen of Sicily as the wife of William II. She had at present no children (although it is possible that she had given birth to one stillborn or short-lived son); after William’s childless death she would be married again, to Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, with whom she would have two surviving children, a son and a daughter. We will hear more of all three of these women’s families in due course.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Catherine Hanley, Two Houses Two Kingdoms</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>If you are the sort of person that gets turned off history because it feels like just a whole load of Kings and dates this won’t be the book that changes your mind. After a while I just let the introductions wash over me on the assumption that my brain would sort out which ones it felt worth remembering and which not.</p>
<h3 id="lots-of-good-bits" tabindex="-1">Lots of good bits</h3>
<p>So there are parts of the book that feel like a bit of a slog, but they were outweighed by parts that I found really engaging. I enjoyed in particular the section on King John and Louis VIII, and found a grim fascination in the stories of the different crusades (”<em>I came, I saw, I caught dysentery and died</em>”). Maybe it was because I had a little existing familiarity with these topics that I could see past the whirlwind of characters and enjoy the story I knew being told from a fresh angle.</p>
<p>(As an aside, Catherine Hanley is a consistently excellent and entertaining explainer on the podcasts that she did to promote <em>Two House Two Kingdoms</em> - you can find links to these below the review or <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/podcast/">on our podcast feed</a>.)</p>
<h3 id="footsteps-marching-through-history" tabindex="-1">Footsteps marching through history</h3>
<p>Considering the question “how much do people <em>really</em> matter” also helped me to get a lot out of this book. There is not a simple answer - humans are neither pine beetles nor gods - but I enjoyed tracing the power structures that often guided the actions of the different Kings. For example: Philip II Augustus was best mates with each of the sons of Henry II and heirs to the English throne, until they actually succeeded to the throne. At which point the friendship was cancelled and he invited the next-in-line round his place to be his new best buddy, suggesting that it was a travesty that it wasn’t <em>them</em> on the throne instead.</p>
<p>You could argue as well that it was only <em>after</em> Henry III discovered that he was terrible at battles that he decided that St Louis IX was a lovely chap he would be delighted to visit for Christmas. In other words, conflict seemed to be the default position and it took something unusual to prevent it for any length of time.</p>
<h3 id="concluding-remarks" tabindex="-1">Concluding remarks</h3>
<p>At the beginning of this review I posed the question: what really matters in history? Perhaps what matters is what interests you. If you like big picture history - the bird looking down at the beetles - this may not fit the bill. If it is pigs you are after, I’m afraid they only get a fleeting mention. This book is for you if you like to read about human nature and <em>people</em> - lots of them! - in all their splendid individual variety.</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1681763662/posts/Philip_pig_banner2.jpg#center" alt="For those who are after pigs" /></p>
<h6 id="a-pigs-eye-view%2C-british-library" tabindex="-1">A pigs eye view, British Library</h6>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Henry III of England is an interesting example of this - as Hanley, says he was “the first of what we might call the Anglo-centric kings of England” despite the fact that he was “almost entirely French himself... Only one of Henry III’s eight great-grandparents, Empress Matilda, could in any way claim to be ‘English’” and his mother was Isabella of Angouleme, a great-granddaughter of Louis VI. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-04-20-review-two-houses-two-kingdoms/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in March 2023
Anthony Webb
A nice bunch of books this month. There seems to be a theme of ideas, with titles on Patriarchy, the West, Religion and Science, and a Northern Renaissance. Plus at least one dead-cert best-seller in...
2023-04-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-04-01-posts-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1679778983/posts/Mar2023_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in March 2023" /><p>A nice bunch of books this month. There seems to be a theme of <em>ideas</em>, with titles on Patriarchy, the West, Religion and Science, and a Northern Renaissance. Plus at least one dead-cert best-seller in <em>The Earth Transformed</em> by Peter Frankopan.</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you like to buy your books there.</em></p>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0500252521.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Great Kingdoms of Africa" title="Great Kingdoms of Africa" />
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<div id="cover0500252521" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛩️ 🍗 👑 2023" data-title="Great Kingdoms of Africa" data-author="John Parker" data-publishdate="2023-03-16" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0500252521.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0500252521" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0500252521" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1526615649.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire" title="Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire" />
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<div id="cover1526615649" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🍜 👑 ⛪ 🇮🇳 🇬🇧 2023" data-title="Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire" data-author="Nandini Das" data-publishdate="2023-03-02" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1526615649.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1526615649" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1526615649" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1838955135.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Other Renaissance: From Copernicus to Shakespeare" title="The Other Renaissance: From Copernicus to Shakespeare" />
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<div id="cover1838955135" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛪ 🥐 🕯️ 2023" data-title="The Other Renaissance: From Copernicus to Shakespeare" data-author="Paul Strathern" data-publishdate="2023-03-02" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1838955135.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1838955135" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1838955135" data-review="">
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<div id="cover1785789546" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🥐 🚽 🏭 🇬🇧 2023" data-title="UPROAR!: Scandal, Satire and Printmakers in Georgian London" data-author="Alice Loxton" data-publishdate="2023-03-02" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1785789546.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1785789546" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1785789546" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1526622564.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Earth Transformed: An Untold History" title="The Earth Transformed: An Untold History" />
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<div id="cover1526622564" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛩️ 🍭 🚽 💰 2023" data-title="The Earth Transformed: An Untold History" data-author="Peter Frankopan" data-publishdate="2023-03-02" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1526622564.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1526622564" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1526622564" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0753558920.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The West: A New History in 14 Lives" title="The West: A New History in 14 Lives" />
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<div id="cover0753558920" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛩️ 🥐 🕯️ 2023" data-title="The West: A New History in 14 Lives" data-author="Naoíse Mac Sweeney" data-publishdate="2023-03-02" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0753558920.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0753558920" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0753558920" data-review="">
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<p>The ones on my personal wishlist are:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em><strong>The Earth Transformed: An Untold History</strong></em>, <em>by Peter Frankopan</em> - this book seems to have gone down well so I am keen to read it too! A bit of a brick, but forgiven because it is covering the entirety of human history, Frankopan is tracing the natural environment's impact on human history. I'm interested to see how he steers a middle path between blindingly obvious (blown up by a volcano) and blatantly obscure (for want of a shoe...).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>UPROAR!: Scandal, Satire and Printmakers in Georgian London</strong></em>, <em>by Alice Loxton</em> - quite a lot of my modern history degree focused on the late 18th Century UK, and I was always drawn to the jokes and the satire so I'm very keen to see what Alice Loxton has to offer.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Great Kingdoms of Africa</strong></em>, <em>edited by John Parker</em> - I have mentioned before that history books covering African countries are not published that often in the UK. This one looks like it is a general overview of some iconic kingdoms spread across the African continent. It should be a great place to start!</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em><strong>Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire</strong></em>, <em>by Nandini Das</em> - I got sent a copy of this one by mistake, so this is on the to-read pile as well 🙂. It looks like it is focussing on the moment when the then relatively inconsequential European country of Britain first came into contact with the all powerful Mughal empire.</p>
</li>
</ul>
Can you learn Lessons from History? - School of History Inspection Report
Anthony Webb
While researching local secondary schools for my kids I recently came across this intriguing (and damning) school inspection report, which I am sharing here in full just in case anyone is thinking of...
2023-04-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2023-04-01-lessons-from-history/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1680124632/posts/Inspection_report.jpg" alt="Can you learn Lessons from History? - School of History Inspection Report" /><p>While researching local secondary schools for my kids I recently came across this intriguing (and damning) school inspection report, which I am sharing here in full just in case anyone is thinking of enrolling their own children.</p>
<hr />
<p><strong>Inspection Report - School of History</strong></p>
<p>School name: <strong>School of History</strong><br />
School motto: <strong>Praeterita scio futurum scio</strong><br />
Inspection date: <strong>1 April 2023</strong><br />
Lead inspector: <strong>Lucy Didez</strong></p>
<p>This inspection was carried out under section 3 of the Inaugural History Act 1066, and section 17 of the History Terminus Act 1945.</p>
<p></p><div class="toc_list"><hr /><h3><strong>Contents</strong></h3><p><i>Links are to the headings in the article below</i></p><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2023-04-01-lessons-from-history/#description-of-the-school">Description of the school</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2023-04-01-lessons-from-history/#overall-effectiveness-of-the-school">Overall effectiveness of the school</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2023-04-01-lessons-from-history/#achievement-and-standards">Achievement and standards</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2023-04-01-lessons-from-history/#leadership-and-management">Leadership and management</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2023-04-01-lessons-from-history/#the-quality-of-provision">The quality of provision</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2023-04-01-lessons-from-history/#text-from-letter-to-pupils-explaining-the-findings-of-the-inspection">Text from letter to pupils explaining the findings of the inspection</a></li></ol><hr /></div><p></p>
<h3 id="description-of-the-school" tabindex="-1">Description of the school</h3>
<p>School of History - not to be confused with history schools in general - is a reasonably popular and well known school of average size. It is attended by school children from the age of 12 until the age of 18, by a smaller number of university students from the ages 18 to 22, and at older ages by vocal but fragmented cohorts of “armchair” students. Teaching materials include books, television programs, podcasts, and Wikipedia.</p>
<p>The purpose of School of History is to teach Lessons from History. The pupils are expected to apply these Lessons in their everyday lives. The motto of the school is <em><strong>Praeterita scio futurum scio</strong></em> which, as every user of google translate will know, in English means <em><strong>He who knows the past knows the future</strong></em>.</p>
<h3 id="overall-effectiveness-of-the-school" tabindex="-1">Overall effectiveness of the school</h3>
<p><strong>Grade: 4 INADEQUATE</strong></p>
<p>Many of the lessons from the History School, on close inspection, turned out to be trite expressions devoid of any meaningful content. A sample of the lessons we heard being taught were:</p>
<ul>
<li>History never repeats itself but it rhymes</li>
<li>Success breeds complacency</li>
<li>Never get involved in a land war in Asia</li>
<li>Success breeds success</li>
<li>Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it</li>
<li>All revolutions devour their own children</li>
</ul>
<p>In each case the “lesson of history” was either so vague as to be useless for decision making purposes, or so obvious that it is hardly worth saying.</p>
<h3 id="achievement-and-standards" tabindex="-1">Achievement and standards</h3>
<p><strong>Grade: 4 INADEQUATE</strong></p>
<p>A high proportion of the most vocal Lesson teachers in History School did not meet the minimum qualification standards for opining on the past in public. Invariably these teachers were found to have a second occupation in politics.</p>
<p>Analysis of the Lessons that these “politician history teachers” took from history found that in precisely 100% of cases, the Lesson supported whatever the politician in question already wanted to do.</p>
<p>Debate in the school was regrettably stifled by these Lessons which served a secondary purpose of “shutting down the conversation”, thus denying pupils valuable opportunities for reflection and continuous learning.</p>
<h3 id="leadership-and-management" tabindex="-1">Leadership and management</h3>
<p><strong>Grade: 4 INADEQUATE</strong></p>
<p>A popular class in School of History teaches personal development from the example of Great Men and Women from the past. An typical School of History lesson plan can be found at <a href="https://www.game-learn.com/en/resources/blog/leadership-lessons-julius-caesar/">History Lesson platform Game Learn</a> - a “learning platform for corporate training”. This particular class focuses on “<em>8 leadership lessons you can learn from Julius Caesar</em>”</p>
<ol>
<li>Connection with his soldiers</li>
<li>Communication skills</li>
<li>Share information</li>
<li>Max your potential out</li>
<li>Accept your responsibility</li>
<li>Celebrate achievements</li>
<li>Don’t delegate the most unpleasant tasks</li>
<li>Take a risk</li>
</ol>
<p>While the best schools of history can inspire their students with stories of historic individuals, School of History Lessons Learned from Julius Caesar above is highly non-specific and could be applied to any figure from the past who has achieved a modicum of success, or indeed a figure from the present, or just from “plain old common sense”.</p>
<h3 id="the-quality-of-provision" tabindex="-1">The quality of provision</h3>
<p><strong>Grade: 4 INADEQUATE</strong></p>
<p>We are concerned that where School of History teachers have made predictions based on their Lessons of History, the success rate of these predictions is disappointingly low. For example:</p>
<ol>
<li>Teacher Marx predicted the triumph of the bourgeoisie and then proletariat in the 19th century.</li>
<li>Teacher Ehrlich<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2023-04-01-lessons-from-history/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> predicted a Malthusian trap in 1968 and the imminent global starvation of millions.</li>
<li>Teacher Fukuyama predicted the end of history and the triumph of the liberal order in 1992.</li>
</ol>
<p>Events have subsequently shown that these predictions are at best still awaiting proof, and at worst spectacularly incorrect.</p>
<p>School of History is therefore yet to supply evidence that Lessons of History can be applied to the future with any degree of certainty.</p>
<hr />
<h3 id="text-from-letter-to-pupils-explaining-the-findings-of-the-inspection" tabindex="-1">Text from letter to pupils explaining the findings of the inspection</h3>
<p>Dear pupils</p>
<p>Thank you for making us feel welcome during our recent inspection. We were amazed at the astonishing displays of work that you are so proud of, and enjoyed talking to you about the things you like best in school.</p>
<p>I know the recent award of Grade 4 INADEQUATE will come as a disappointment to some of you. We would encourage you to keep trying, but also to be more realistic about the capabilities of your History Teachers.</p>
<p>The conclusion from our inspection is that we have yet to see a real life “Lesson from History” that is not either just common sense, or mostly useless in decision making.</p>
<p>But it is important for me to tell you that while formulaic <em>lessons</em> from history have not worked at your school, you can still <em>learn</em> from history in many different and valuable ways. While this semantic distinction may seem abstruse, I can assure you - in my capacity as His Majesty’s Inspector of Schools - that it isn’t.</p>
<p>We have suggested something to make your school a bit better:</p>
<p>We strongly believe that the study of history can enrich your understanding and appreciation of the present. But we also believe that it will not provide you with a simple means to predict the future. We suggest amending the motto of your school to the almost equally inspirational <em><strong>quomodo ego dico latine</strong></em> or for English speakers: <em><strong>he who knows the past, knows his limits</strong></em>.</p>
<p>Warmest regards,<br />
Lucy Didez, Lead Inspector</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>The inspectors acknowledge that technically speaking Paul Ehrlich is a biologist. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2023-04-01-lessons-from-history/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
The Prince and the Plunder - review
Anthony Webb
For the first six years of his life, Alamayu lived in Maqdala. As Andrew Heavens tells us in The Prince and the Plunder: How Britain took one small boy and hundreds of treasures from Ethiopia, Maqdala...
2023-03-24T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-24-review-prince-and-plunder/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0750997362.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Prince and the Plunder - review" /><p>Our review of The Prince and the Plunder: How Britain took one small boy and hundreds of treasures from Ethiopia, by Andrew Heavens, first published in February 2023.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>The life story of Prince Alamayu, who was whisked away to Britain at 7 years old after the British invasion of Ethiopia in 1868.</p><p>It is an engrossing, eye opening and traumatic account. As well as the tragic human story, <i>The Prince and the Plunder</i> reveals just how important these events still are to people in Ethiopia today.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>For the first six years of his life, Alamayu lived in Maqdala. As Andrew Heavens tells us in <em>The Prince and the Plunder: How Britain took one small boy and hundreds of treasures from Ethiopia</em>, Maqdala was an Ethiopian mountain-top fortress-prison and stronghold of the King: Tewodros II. His mother, Tirunesh, was the King’s reluctant wife and daughter of his great rival - who lived in Maqdala as well. Alamayu’s grandfather was housed in the prison, along with two of Alamayu’s uncles on his mother’s side. Also held captive were a handful of British citizens whom Tewodros had detained up to 4 years ago. Complicated family politics aside, it must have been a secure, comfortable and sheltered existence.</p>
<p>Then, in 1868, Alamayu’s world imploded.</p>
<h3 id="armageddon" tabindex="-1">Armageddon</h3>
<p>An irresistible British invasion force of 13,000 soldiers had marched 300 km inland from the Red Sea to rescue the incarcerated Brits. Just before their attack an enraged Tewodros had started killing his (non British) captives - the screams lasted for two hours as almost 200 prisoners were slaughtered.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-24-review-prince-and-plunder/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
<p>The British army then easily destroyed the Ethiopian forces, killing at least 700 hundred more in their mad death or glory charge down the mountainside. When the British force attacked Alamayu’s fortress itself, assaulting the gates and lobbing in artillery shells, his father, King Tewodros, shot himself in the head.</p>
<p>Alamayu and his mother witnessed the horde of victory crazed British soldiers charging over their compound, grabbing whatever looked valuable, and (very probably) assaulting the women who lived there. His mother was only saved from molestation by a senior British prisoner and an officer, who arrived just in time to set an armed guard on the room in which they were hiding.</p>
<h3 id="a-great-mourning" tabindex="-1">A great mourning</h3>
<p>In just two days his father’s empire had been emphatically destroyed, and Alamayu was surrounded by enemies - British and other Ethiopians opposed to Tewodros, as his own Grandfather had been.</p>
<p>With no obvious place to go, he and his mother Tirunesh were taken by the British army back with them to the coast. But his mother didn’t make it. She succumbed to an illness and died suddenly less than a month after her husband.</p>
<p>The seven year old Alamayu had lost his father and his mother, and he was about to lose his country too - bundled onto a waiting ship, he would never return to Ethiopia.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book?</h3>
<p>Andrew Heavens takes us through the traumatic events of Alamayu’s early childhood and subsequent life in Britain as a ward of the state, where he was placed into the care of Captain Speedy, a 2 metre tall eccentric ginger Scottish adventurer.</p>
<p>Alamayu never had the chance to write his own memoirs so almost all of the time we see Alamayu through other people’s eyes - whether they are British journalists, members of the public, or his classmates speaking on his behalf. All we have directly from Alamayu are a few scraps of writing and letters written for the moment.</p>
<p>One of those pairs of eyes staring out at Alamayu belonged to Queen Victoria, who he met three days after he arrived in England.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Little Alamayou is a very pretty, slight, graceful boy of 7 with beautiful eyes and a nice nose and mouth, though the lips are slightly thick. His skin is a dark bronze. His hair, which has been shaved, is crisp and curly. There is nothing of the negro about him. I kissed him which he returned. He can say one or two words in English.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Queen Victoria journal entry after meeting Alamayu, 1868</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Victoria took a shine to him and did her best to make sure he was looked after right until the end of his life.</p>
<h3 id="the-first-shall-be-last" tabindex="-1">The first shall be last</h3>
<p>Her reaction was fairly typical - even though she was sympathetic and friendly, she was also intensely interested in his physical differences to other white Europeans. She wanted to slot him into the racial hierarchy that dominated British thinking at that time: how far down the scale should he go?</p>
<p>Remarkably Alamayu seems to have remained even tempered and open hearted throughout his short life.</p>
<h3 id="lootany" tabindex="-1">Lootany</h3>
<p>After reccounting Alamayu’s life, Heavens then dedicates 50 pages to the items taken from Ethiopia at the time of the British expedition - a large collection of religiously and culturally significant objects that are locked away in museums around the UK. (You can see the full list of the things that were taken at Andrew Heaven's companion website to the book: <a href="https://www.theprinceandtheplunder.com/">https://www.theprinceandtheplunder.com/</a>)</p>
<p>This may sound a bit dry but it is actually fascinating because it allows us to see how central this story of Tewodros and Alamayu is to modern Ethiopians and how much these artefacts mean to them - and how incidental they are to most people in Britain.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-24-review-prince-and-plunder/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
<p>There are also some great little sub-stories contained here, such as the immensely holy Tabots, and the discovery and return of one Tabot in particular which was found at the back of an Edinburgh church cupboard in 2002.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h3>
<p>Heavens is a good storyteller and guides us with a sure pen through the events of 1868 and beyond. He sprinkles in first hand sources throughout the book so that people who met or knew Alamayu, like Queen Victoria, can speak to us directly.</p>
<p>It is also pretty short, with 200 pages covering Alamayu’s life (the Prince) and 50 pages covering the stuff taken away (the Plunder).</p>
<h3 id="downsides" tabindex="-1">Downsides</h3>
<p>For me the main weakness of the book is the central tragedy of the story: Alamayu didn’t live that long, dying aged 18. Most of the book therefore is his progress through schools and tuition, together with sporadic battles for custody. Not much happens and Alamayu is mostly a silent figure. Before he could really become an agent in his own life he died.</p>
<p>This also means that there is a lot of conjecture. For example we have a few photos of Alamayu including his class photo from Rugby School in 1876. Alamayu is mostly obscured by another child and we can just see his face peeking out. Heavens observes: “It is dangerous to over-interpret one moment caught in one photograph... But he seems timid, cowed and desperate to melt unnoticed in the background.” Then in next year’s class photo he is smiling broadly, and his tie looks a bit skew-whiff: “Has he resorted to playing the class clown? Has someone just leaned over and yanked his tie before the exposure?”.</p>
<p>The lack of material means that to some extent, there is space to see what you want - I often wasn’t quite as pessimistic as Heavens, but this may just reflect my own relentlessly sunny disposition.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>If like me you didn’t know anything about Alamayu and the Maqdala treasures beyond some vague memories of a Flashman novel, this is a fascinating and eye opening account. It is also hugely relevant for today - particularly in Ethiopia, but also for many other countries that will have had similar dealings with Britain in the 19th Century.</p>
<p>Fundamentally though it is a human story, about a small child cast adrift - about his fall from the mountain-top, to become “one of us”, to know good and evil.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>By good fortune, Alamayu’s uncles were not part of the massacre. His Grandfather is thought to have died in prison the year before in 1867. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-24-review-prince-and-plunder/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>I can recommend comedian James Acaster for a 3 minute run-through of the <a href="https://youtu.be/x73PkUvArJY">arguments for and against repatriation on this youtube video</a>. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-24-review-prince-and-plunder/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
The Ruin of All Witches - review
Anthony Webb
They are quite willing to accept that there’s going to be a hostile environment, and weather, and native Americans, and all the things that threaten them. The one thing that they always forget is...
2023-03-17T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-17-review-ruin-witches/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0241413389.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Ruin of All Witches - review" /><p>Our review of The Ruin of All Witches: Death and Desire in an Age of Enchantment, by Malcolm Gaskill, first published in November 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A delightful book on a disturbing subject: the descent into witchcraft of Mary and Hugh Parsons in an early New England town. This highly personal narrative also gives us a taste of the era - striving, pious, and fearful.</p><p>I found it enthralling and enlightening - and will never look at a split pudding in quite the same way again.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<p>They are quite willing to accept that there’s going to be a hostile environment, and weather, and native Americans, and all the things that threaten them. The one thing that they always forget is that they will hate each other.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Malcolm Gaskill on New England Puritans, <a href="https://lnns.co/jbpmBiw8P-l/2400">RHLSTP Book Club 20 podcast</a></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>In Malcolm Gaskill’s excellent popular history book <em>The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World</em> it is this flourishing hatred that provides the backdrop for the emergence of a witch.</p>
<p>The dislike itself is a product of the harsh, precarious, competitive and hugely stressful life in the early British North American settlements in the puritan colony of Massachusetts. In particular: the settlement of Springfield founded by the Essex gentleman William Pynchon on the Connecticut River, 100 miles due west of Boston.</p>
<h3 id="a-flighty-temptress" tabindex="-1">A flighty temptress</h3>
<p>Like the other towns established by British settlers<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-17-review-ruin-witches/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> the land where William Pynchon founded Springfield<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-17-review-ruin-witches/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> was an uninhabited wilderness that had been populated by native American peoples for thousands of years. As Gaskill puts it “<em>Pynchon... persuaded the Agawam Indians, non-proprietorial hunter-gatherers, that they owned their land - so he could buy it... A deed was signed - the Indians adding shaky monograms of bows and arrows - leasing the English three parcels of lands, five miles long... in return, the chieftains each received a coat, a hatchet, a hoe, a knife and a fathom of wampum - the native currency of polished shells</em>”</p>
<p>The main English settlement in the area, Boston, had only been founded in 1630 (about 5-6 years before Springfield) but was already flourishing - and full up. Starting from scratch in a new town was a way of getting hold of land but it was also a gamble, where the stake was your life.</p>
<h3 id="the-next-great-adventure" tabindex="-1">The next great adventure</h3>
<p>It was a price that was paid regularly. Winter meant blanketing snow for five freezing months with food stocks, fodder and fuel inexorably declining. When spring and the warm weather arrived disease swept through the small settlement - small children and babies were particularly vulnerable. Crops were devastated by plagues of black caterpillars and other insects. Indians were seen as a deadly threat. Even crossing the river to the farmland on the opposite bank could easily end in tragedy: because most of the colonists couldn’t swim, if your canoe tipped that was it. Gaskill reports on a canoeing incident when a man, his daughter and granddaughter all died when their canoe overturned as they were paddling across.</p>
<p>But losing your life wasn’t the only or even the main danger. Your soul was also on the line.</p>
<h3 id="dwelling-in-dreams" tabindex="-1">Dwelling in dreams</h3>
<p>The New England colony was intensely religious and the colonists were highly conscious of their holy task to build a new Jerusalem, a city upon a hill. This spiritual mission was essential for survival, and naturally the devil would be delighted if they failed. As celebrity Puritan Minister John Winthrop put it to his fellow boaters on the first crossing to Boston:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>...if our hearts shall turn away, so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced, and worship other Gods, our pleasure and profits, and serve them... we shall surely perish out of the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possess it.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>John Winthrop, 1630</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Into this combustible mix of fervent religious paranoia and real existential threat come Mary and Hugh Parsons the main protagonists of <em>The Ruin of all Witches</em>.</p>
<h3 id="love-leaves-its-own-mark" tabindex="-1">Love leaves its own mark</h3>
<p>The two meet in Springfield, and fall in love. Or at least fall sufficiently in love to get married. Mary had come to New England to work as a nanny and servant for the kids of William Pynchon, the town bigwig. Hugh had come along a bit later, knowing that his skills as a brickmaker would be in demand. Up until that point everything was built from wood, which was always in danger of burning down. Brick chimneys were a particularly sought after home improvement.</p>
<p>Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to take too long before Mary and Hugh decide they don’t like each other after all - in fact they detest each other. This is compounded by the tragedy of losing a child. Before long they are at each other's throats in public and bad mouthing each other in private.</p>
<h3 id="standing-up-to-his-friends" tabindex="-1">Standing up to his friends</h3>
<p>To make matters worse for them Hugh’s client relationship skills are woeful. Like everyone else in the colony he is keenly acquisitive and when he thinks he is not getting his dues on a brick deal, he furiously threatens his customers that “I will be even with you!”. As you might expect, they don’t like it and no doubt wish themselves rid of this turbulent brickmaker.</p>
<p>When things start to go wrong in ways that people can’t quite explain, suspicions of witchcraft attach themselves to this unhappy pair, suspicions which Mary - who appears increasingly mentally unwell - openly endorses when it comes to her hated and feared husband.</p>
<h3 id="mischief-managed" tabindex="-1">Mischief managed</h3>
<p>The “evidence” of witchcraft in Springfield is a curious mix of the horrific - “he cursed my child to death” - and the banal - “my bewitched pudding split in half”. One episode that stuck in my mind was a neighbour’s complaint that Hugh had made his trowel disappear... only to reappear again a day later just where he had left it.</p>
<p>On the face of it this sounds ridiculous - marshalling all the diabolical powers of darkness to make John Lombard temporarily mislay his trowel? But a good analogy from nowadays might be the suspense created in a horror film. When the hero Will Smith finds zombies are repositioning mannikins to freak him out in the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480249/">hit noughties zombie movie <em>I am Legend</em></a>, it is not that the mannikins themselves are scary (they are made of inanimate plastic) but the fact that the zombies are much smarter than he had thought - and they are deliberately messing with his mind.</p>
<h3 id="the-prisoners-of-agawam" tabindex="-1">The Prisoners of Agawam</h3>
<p>When the weight of suspicion becomes overwhelming Hugh and Mary are formally arrested as witches by Pynchon and sent in chains for trial in Boston which is the backbone and culmination of this book.</p>
<h3 id="not-a-history-of-magic" tabindex="-1">Not a History of Magic</h3>
<p>Although this book is about witches and witchcraft, the topic is used as a sort of crystal ball to peer into the past. It is not the witch that Gaskill is interested in, it is the person.</p>
<p>This means <em>The Ruin of All Witches</em> is much more a study of small town settler life than it is a witchfinder general’s handbook. You do get a few tips: look out for nipple like blemishes on the skin, spectral lights, claps of thunder when the suspect appears, and invisible black dogs. But mainly we are reading about the struggles and hardships of ordinary folk.</p>
<h3 id="gadding-with-ghouls" tabindex="-1">Gadding with ghouls</h3>
<p>While rigorously factual Gaskill's style is almost novelistic - a bit like John Steinbeck but without the optimism. His description of Springfield when the settlers first saw the site is a good example:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>the Connecticut valley was dotted with marshes and woods, marbled with streams and bounded by distant misty mountains. It was wondrous, yet terrifying in solitude.</p>
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<p>Malcolm Gaskill, The Ruin of all Witches</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>He is great on the little details too: I enjoyed his description of the town store as a place where you could buy “<em>dried fruit, sugar, condiments and spices, including cinnamon. The shop also sold purgative pills (‘vomits’) and other medicines, such as wormseed, ratsbane for killing vermin and gunpowder, which colonists mixed with butter for toothpaste</em>”.</p>
<p>It is also a carefully structured work, each chapter carefully paced and ending with a cliffhanger.</p>
<h3 id="detraqteurs%3F" tabindex="-1">Detraqteurs?</h3>
<p>I found <em>The Ruin if all Witches</em> captivating and accessible. But a friend of mine who had read it earlier (sometime contributor to this website, Maddox Von Ranke) struggled with the slow pace, accusing the author of dragging the story out.</p>
<p>In some ways Maddox is right: despite the theme this is no Harry Potter. But the pace does feel in keeping with the slower rhythms of this overwhelmingly agricultural community, and allows us to experience first hand the slow building almost suffocating tensions within the town<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-17-review-ruin-witches/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup>. However if you are not comfortable with descriptive passages or long words this might not be the one for you.</p>
<p>You might also disagree with Gaskill’s rather jaundiced view of life in early New England:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Colonists across New England contemplated their own sins and misdemeanours while censuring others, a desire for unity and uniformity mixing with righteous anger, nervous guilt and rank hypocrisy.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Malcolm Gaskill, Ruin of all Witches</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>I don’t have enough background knowledge to judge how accurate this is (surely they weren’t all coveting their neighbours cows all of the time?) so will have to take his word for it.</p>
<h3 id="a-beautiful-and-terrible-thing" tabindex="-1">A beautiful and terrible thing</h3>
<p>Overall though this is a delightful book on a disturbing subject: the tale is expertly told and the story itself is fascinating. The decline and fall of Mary and Hugh Parsons in an early New England town is a highly personal narrative but also gives us a taste of the era.</p>
<p>And remember - the next time you are by yourself, hungry and exhausted in the frozen wilderness, in the deep dark of night, with peril all around you, and you see out of the corner of your eye a ghostly flickering light out over the marshes - don't worry it's probably a perfectly normal atmospheric phenomenon.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Technically English, Welsh, and Scottish settlers as Britain didn’t exist at this time, but you know what I mean! <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-17-review-ruin-witches/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Not the Springfield that inspired the Simpsons - <em>that</em> Springfield is apparently somewhere in Oregon, right on the other side of the country. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-17-review-ruin-witches/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>As Gaskill puts it “<em>Becoming a witch wasn’t necessarily some hellish summons or a path consciously taken; rather, it was an affliction to which delicate souls gradually succumbed, much as infirm bodies might succumb to an ague.</em>” Patience is required. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-17-review-ruin-witches/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Weavers, Scribes, and Kings - review
Anthony Webb
Names have power. If you know a name you know a person. Conversely those countless individuals throughout history whose names we have forgotten are without form and void. But when we then say let...
2023-03-10T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-10-review-weavers-scribes-and-kings/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0190059044.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Weavers, Scribes, and Kings - review" /><p>Our review of Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East, by Amanda H. Podany, first published in December 2022.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p><i>Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East</i> introduces us to a broad cast of ancient Mesopotamians - from regal families to regular folk. Podany tells their story starting in 3500 BCE and the invention of writing, and going up until 350 BCE and the arrival of Alexander the Great.</p><p>This is a brilliant “micro-macro” history book that almost magically conjures the ancient Near Eastern world back to life. I loved reading it and would make it compulsory reading for everyone else if I could!</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <p>Names have power. If you know a name you know a person. Conversely those countless individuals throughout history whose names we have forgotten are without form and void. But when we then say let there be... Dwight, or Moses, or Sargon - there they are: fully formed and alive.</p>
<p>I have always been fascinated by the question: who is the earliest person whose name we know? Who is that first person to step forward from the shadows of time and say “Hi, it’s me”?</p>
<h3 id="the-first-at-last" tabindex="-1">The first at last</h3>
<p>Amanda Podany introduces us to someone who <em>might just</em> be this person in her new book <em>Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East</em>. His name is Kushim. Hi Kushim, I’m very pleased to finally meet you!</p>
<p>To give you an idea how long ago Kushim lived, imagine you are standing first in a line (looking studious: 👨🎓). Next to you is one of your parents, and next to them is one of their parents... and so on until the dawn of history. This line of ancestors might look a bit like this:<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-10-review-weavers-scribes-and-kings/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
<p>| Now👨🎓🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑| 1000 CE🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑| Year 0🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🤴🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑| 1000 BCE 🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑| 2000 BCE 🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑 | 3000 BCE🧑🧑🙋♂️🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑🧑 .</p>
<p>Do you see the ancestor <sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-10-review-weavers-scribes-and-kings/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> 🙋♂️waving to you near the end of the line? This is Kushim greeting you soon after the invention of writing from what is now Iraq.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-10-review-weavers-scribes-and-kings/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="6-%2F-11ths-of-history" tabindex="-1">6 / 11ths of history</h3>
<p><em>Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East</em> introduces us to a whole cast of ancient Mesopotamians from 3500 BCE the end of the ancestor line above) up until 350 BCE when Alexander the Great was born (who I have marked with 🤴 about halfway through the line-up). As you can see the book stretches over a vast amount of time, covering more than half of your historical ancestors. But it does this in an intimate way, through the stories of Kushim and others.</p>
<h3 id="uruk---the-first-city" tabindex="-1">Uruk - the first city</h3>
<p>So who was this guy? Kushim lived in Uruk in about 3000 BCE. Uruk (<a href="https://goo.gl/maps/U3v14oPJtP3WGdXM9">google maps location of Uruk</a>) is the earliest city anywhere in the world that we know about. It was in this teeming metropolis of 40,000 people that writing was invented. To begin with signs were used to keep track of goods: this many litres of barley, so many sheep. These signs morphed into representations of sounds and - hey presto! - writing.</p>
<h3 id="a-master-brewer" tabindex="-1">A master brewer</h3>
<p>Kushim wasn’t a king or high priest, he was instead a sort of Chief Brewing Officer (CBO) for the large temple complex in which he worked. Like any good executive Kushim is unlikely to have got his hands dirty (or wet) actually making the beer - his job was to keep track of all the ingredients needed for making the stuff, and for handing out the jars of booze when they were ready.</p>
<p>The quantities that Kushim was in charge of are pretty staggering - in one delivery that we can track from the clay tablet receipt, Kushim received an incredible 135,000 litres of barley. To help you visualise this: the biggest room in your house might be 5 metres long by 5 metres wide. The barley that Kushim signed for would fill this room completely from floor to ceiling, and another identical room as well.</p>
<h3 id="a-jar-a-day..." tabindex="-1">A jar a day...</h3>
<p>The reason that beer was so popular was that it made the otherwise germ infested river water safe to drink, and no doubt taste better too. It wasn’t necessarily strongly alcoholic and was thought of as an important part of a meal.</p>
<p>So Kushim was obviously a powerful, well educated man and a handy person to be friends with. If he had one weakness it was that he wasn’t very good at mathematics! When he was adding up all those big numbers to keep track of his ingredients and beer jars he quite often made mistakes in the totals - perhaps drinking on the job played a part?<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-10-review-weavers-scribes-and-kings/#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="bringing-the-past-to-life" tabindex="-1">Bringing the past to life</h3>
<p>By delving into the records that Kushim left behind Podany helps us to reconstruct what it might have been like to live in those times: with the large centralised temple administrations that must have supported many people, as well as the resident god; the agricultural rhythms that underpinned the city; and the copious beer consumption.</p>
<p>Some of my other favourite characters from the books were:</p>
<ul>
<li>Zum, a weaving supervisor in Lagash 2450 BCE</li>
<li>Tabar-damu, a queen of Ebla in 2300 BCE</li>
<li>Rishaya, chief musician at Mari, 1850 BCE</li>
<li>Adad-guppi, the unlikely grandmother to the last (and hopeless) king of Babylon, 600 BCE</li>
</ul>
<p>This book is a kind of a “micro-macro” history - by shining a spotlight on individual lives through time, it helps build a strong understanding of the entire age in a way that just describing which king did what to whom when wouldn’t.</p>
<h3 id="look-on-my-works" tabindex="-1">Look on my works</h3>
<p>It is also brilliant at placing the better known figures into context. For example Sargon may be the person in this book who is closest to being a household name. Perhaps you are like me and are aware that he was some sort of empire builder from a long time ago and one of the earliest historical figures, but beyond that it is all pretty fuzzy.</p>
<p>But after reading <em>Weavers, Scribes and Kings</em> I can place him in the broader historical narrative, understand why he was considered a big deal, and also regale my friends and family with juicy titbits such as the fact that Sargon wasn’t his real name:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>His name [Sargon] was a fiction. It meant “the king is legitimate” - just the kind of name you’d want if you actually were not a legitimate king at all.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Amanda Podany, Weavers Scribes and Kings</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>And: despite being one of the all time greats of ancient history we have only nine short inscriptions from the time of his rule that mention him at all - and all of this nine are pretty tangential to his deeds, and just happen to mention his name in passing.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-10-review-weavers-scribes-and-kings/#fn5" id="fnref5">5</a></sup> We also don’t have any contemporary images of him except from this <a href="https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010123451">eroded picture of Sargon</a> now in the Louvre, and potentially (Podany speculates) this butchered statue of some ancient feet in the British museum.</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1677964619/posts/sargonfeet.jpg#center" alt="Possible feet of Sargon the Great" /></p>
<h6 id="did-these-feet-in-ancient-times-walk-on-the-necks-of-his-defeated-foes%3F-possible-sargon-feet-%C2%A9-the-trustees-of-the-british-museum" tabindex="-1">Did these feet in ancient times walk on the necks of his defeated foes? <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1903-1012-7">Possible Sargon feet © The Trustees of the British Museum</a></h6>
<h3 id="old-news" tabindex="-1">Old news</h3>
<p>After reading this book, I was stuck with the enourmously wide range of human experience. Regimes could be cruel and murderous, or could be pious and compassionate - and did not seem to tend to one or the other over time. Most of all I got an impression of expedience: where behaviours and morals were driven by what worked. This feels relevant today in that we shouldn't take our own system of governance for granted; there is nothing that says it has to endure. If we like what we have we need to work hard to maintain it - and hope we don't get swallowed up by a he-who-is-legitimate power hungry neighbour in the meantime.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h3>
<p>This is a great book to read, the language is simple, clear and informal and really draws you into the story. Archaic jargon is kept to a minimum and every effort is made to make the modern reader feel at home in this ancient world, whether you are a newcomer or have some prior knowledge.</p>
<p>I was also very impressed with how Podany manages to give us an in-depth view of her chosen people, while also keeping in sight the bigger picture covering thousands of years. In short, you get a feel for the wood <em>and</em> the trees.</p>
<p>The fact that this particular wood is rarely visited by popularising historians is all the more reason to get yourself a copy and head in!</p>
<h3 id="any-negatives%3F" tabindex="-1">Any negatives?</h3>
<p>This is one of the best popular history books I have read in a long time, and I genuinely can't identify anything I didn't like about it. It might be worth knowing that this is a very chunky book before you start: 541 pages excluding notes, not the 384 pages referenced on Amazon... but despite this I didn't feel it dragged at any point, and I was hooked until the end.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>This is a brilliant “micro-macro” history book that introduces us to ordinary people from thousands of years ago. By invoking their names and investigating the impressions they have left behind, Podany conjures the ancient Mesopotamian world - the greater part of our history - back to life.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>I have assumed that every child is born when their parents were exactly 25 years old. I would guess that the average age when giving birth over the last 5,000 years is probably a little younger but my line already seemed long enough... <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-10-review-weavers-scribes-and-kings/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Podany makes the point that Kushim wouldn’t have thought of it in this way - in his worldview he was the tech-savvy modern with his clay tablets and new-fangled wheelbarrow. The way they viewed their own past can be seen through their “King Lists” which showed that before 3000 BCE eight kings had reigned for 385,200 years, followed by a flood and then 23 kings had rules for 23,310 years. This was all history before the invention of writing, which may have contributed towards it being so wildly incorrect. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-10-review-weavers-scribes-and-kings/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>You may be surprised to hear that this man is your ancestor, particularly if you are not from this part of the world. But if we go back so far in time this man will either have <em>no</em> surviving descendants or we will <em>all</em> be his descendents - see genetics and statistics for further details! <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-10-review-weavers-scribes-and-kings/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>There is no evidence for Kushim getting drunk at work, this is my own fanciful insertion. But then again there is no evidence for him not getting drunk at work. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-10-review-weavers-scribes-and-kings/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn5" class="footnote-item"><p>The reason we know a fair bit about Sargon despite this paucity of direct evidence is that he <em>did</em> set up many self aggrandizing inscriptions, and while the originals have been destroyed or lost, the scribes of subsequent generations copied and recopied them onto clay tablets, which <em>have</em> been found. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-10-review-weavers-scribes-and-kings/#fnref5" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in February 2023
Anthony Webb
A smaller range of new history books this month, perhaps the fewest since my records began!1 Not that there will be time to read them all anyway of course...
Click the book covers to see a zoomed in...
2023-03-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-03-01-posts-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1677362486/posts/Feb2023_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in February 2023" /><p>A smaller range of new history books this month, perhaps the fewest since my records began!<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-03-01-posts-new_history_books/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> Not that there will be time to read them all anyway of course...</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon for those who like to buy their books there.</em></p>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300267967.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Tudor Children" title="Tudor Children" />
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<div id="cover0300267967" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🥐 ⛪ 🚽 🇬🇧 2023" data-title="Tudor Children" data-author="Nicholas Orme" data-publishdate="2023-02-28" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300267967.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0300267967" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0300267967" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0198806728.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Women and the Crusades" title="Women and the Crusades" />
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<div id="cover0198806728" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🥐 🍜 🏰 👑 🚽 2023" data-title="Women and the Crusades" data-author="Helen J. Nicholson" data-publishdate="2023-02-23" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0198806728.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0198806728" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0198806728" data-review="">
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<div class="fix-children 🚽 🏭 🥐 🇬🇧 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/178474381X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes: Secrets from a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe" title="The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes: Secrets from a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover178474381X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🚽 🏭 🥐 🇬🇧 2023" data-title="The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes: Secrets from a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe" data-author="Kate Strasdin" data-publishdate="2023-02-23" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/178474381X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/178474381X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/178474381X" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1847927440.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter" title="Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter" />
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<div id="cover1847927440" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🥐 🏰 🚽 🕯️ 👑 2023" data-title="Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter" data-author="Ian Mortimer" data-publishdate="2023-02-23" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1847927440.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1847927440" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1847927440" data-review="">
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<div class="fix-children 🇬🇧 🥐 👑 🏗️ 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1107145996.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Untied Kingdom: A Global History of the End of Britain" title="Untied Kingdom: A Global History of the End of Britain" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover1107145996" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🇬🇧 🥐 👑 🏗️ 2023" data-title="Untied Kingdom: A Global History of the End of Britain" data-author="Stuart Ward" data-publishdate="2023-02-16" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1107145996.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1107145996" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1107145996" data-review="">
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<div class="fix-children ⛪ 🥐 🕯️ 👑 🇬🇧 2023 hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1526621657.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England" title="The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover1526621657" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom ⛪ 🥐 🕯️ 👑 🇬🇧 2023" data-title="The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England" data-author="Jonathan Healey" data-publishdate="2023-02-02" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1526621657.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1526621657" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1526621657" data-review="">
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<div class="fix-children 🥐 🍗 🏭 🚽 👑 🇬🇧 🇪🇹 2023 hbk ">
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0750997362.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Prince and the Plunder: How Britain took one small boy and hundreds of treasures from Ethiopia" title="The Prince and the Plunder: How Britain took one small boy and hundreds of treasures from Ethiopia" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover0750997362" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom 🥐 🍗 🏭 🚽 👑 🇬🇧 🇪🇹 2023" data-title="The Prince and the Plunder: How Britain took one small boy and hundreds of treasures from Ethiopia" data-author="Andrew Heavens" data-publishdate="2023-02-02" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0750997362.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0750997362" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0750997362" data-review="">
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<p>Here are a few that caught my attention:</p>
<ul>
<li><em><strong>The Prince and the Plunder: How Britain took one small boy and hundreds of treasures from Ethiopia</strong></em> <em>by Andrew Heavens</em> - This is the first popular history book covering Ethiopia that I have seen since I started keeping track.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-03-01-posts-new_history_books/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> It tells the story of how the six-year-old Prince of Ethiopia Alamayu was taken to England by the British at the end of the 19th Century as a 'guest' (i.e. hostage) following their invasion of the country.</li>
<li><em><strong>Untied Kingdom: A Global History of the End of Britain</strong></em> <em>by Stuart Ward</em> - I'm interested in this one partly because I haven't read much contemporary history recently, and it is a subject that I am pretty ignorant of.</li>
<li><em><strong>Women and the Crusades</strong></em> <em>by Helen J. Nicholson</em> - this looks like an in-depth and expert survey of a perennially popular topic - and should shed light from a slightly different angle.</li>
<li><em><strong>The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes: Secrets from a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe</strong></em> <em>by Kate Strasdin</em> - covering the fascinating 'fabric diary' of a well-travelled 19th Century British lady. It looks like a great way into the wider world at that time but also into the more intimate life of the diarist.</li>
</ul>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>In January 2019 so not <em>that</em> long ago I admit. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-03-01-posts-new_history_books/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>See above... <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-03-01-posts-new_history_books/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
The Gaelic and Indian Origins of the American Revolution - review
Anthony Webb
We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that these are life, liberty and the pursuit of...
2023-02-13T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-02-13-review-the-gaelic-and-indian_origins/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0197555845.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Gaelic and Indian Origins of the American Revolution - review" /><p>Our review of The Gaelic and Indian Origins of the American Revolution: Diversity and Empire in the British Atlantic, 1688-1783, by Samuel K Fisher, first published in September 2022.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p><i>The Gaelic and Indian Origins of the American Revolution</i> provides a broad view of the American Revolution, with a build up of over a hundred years, spanning England, Scotland, Ireland and North America - explaining along the way why liberty never was intended to be for everyone. It is a useful complement to the many other history books on American Independence which quickly zoom into the cannon smoke and musketry.</p><p>However, this knowledge comes at a price: other than the excellent introduction and epilogue it is a hard slow-going slog.</p></strong></p> <p>★★☆☆☆</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>These words - the preamble to the declaration of independence of the American colonies of Britain in 1776 - still stir the soul, touch the heart, and fiddle with the emotions. It is amazing that a political statement drafted over 200 years ago can still speak to us so powerfully and so directly.</p>
<h3 id="tone-deaf" tabindex="-1">Tone deaf</h3>
<p>But are we hearing it right? Samuel K Fisher argues in <em>The Gaelic and Indian Origins of the American Revolution</em> that we fundamentally misunderstand what the founding fathers meant by liberty, by consent, and by the pursuit of happiness.</p>
<p>This is why it seems like such a contradiction to us, but was perfectly acceptable to them, to exclude enslaved Africans and African Americans from their definition of all men. This is why liberty was something to be enjoyed by European settlers but not at all by the American peoples who they were driving off their land. This is why the pursuit of <em>their</em> happiness required the unhappiness of <em>others</em>.</p>
<h3 id="of-our-people%2C-by-our-people%2C-for-our-people" tabindex="-1">Of our people, by our people, for our people</h3>
<p>In the same way that an ancient Athenian democrat would be appalled that poor people and women are now allowed to vote, an early American republican would be aghast to know that the interests of native American peoples or enslaved people would now be considered equal to the interests of previously European settlers. Indeed - according to Fisher - the Revolution was all about preserving the right to boss around these ‘outsider’ groups. A sort of anti-diversity movement of the time.</p>
<p>His central argument is that rather than the American Revolution looking forward to a glorious new future, it was instead conservative and looking backwards to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 which booted out King James II, that other well known tyrant. Just as James II had threatened the rights of freeborn Englishmen with Catholic tyranny, so was George III intent on using hordes of Gaelic Catholics soldiers (and American Indians) to control the American colonies.</p>
<h3 id="the-long-view" tabindex="-1">The long view</h3>
<p>The long view of the American Revolution is one of the ebb and flow of imperial power in North America - in the context of different interest groups across the British empire, who were all grappling with similar issues but in different ways.</p>
<h3 id="diplomacy-or-conspiracy%3F" tabindex="-1">Diplomacy or conspiracy?</h3>
<p>So the context in which it became possible to <em>imagine</em> American independence, was one where the British crown was seeking friendship with native American groups - and native American peoples were actively seeking the protection of the King from the rapacity of his colonists. From the king’s perspective, the cost of diplomacy was much more palatable than the cost of an Indian war. Colonists itching to get their hands on native American land were just selfish troublemakers from this point of view.</p>
<p>But from the colonists’ perspective, the King was siding with their natural enemy - and doing so with the intention not of saving a few pounds, but of using these bloodthirsty savages to menace and control them.</p>
<p>What’s more this was part of a global conspiracy involving Scottish (Catholic) highlanders and a potential army of Irish (Catholic) peasants - fit instruments for George III to enforce his tyrannical designs across the empire.</p>
<p>Being a member of such an empire therefore meant that your liberty was at risk. And the immediate instruments that were being used to threaten your liberty were native Americans. Therefore liberty for the colonists meant - at least for some - being given a free hand to raise the iron fist.</p>
<h3 id="difference-of-opinion" tabindex="-1">Difference of opinion</h3>
<p>Different people in the empire responded to these attempts by the British crown to maintain its control over the empire in different ways. Fisher contrasts the American experience with that of Ireland - which reluctantly remained part of the empire, with the occasional insurrection - and Highland Scotland - which came to enthusiastically embrace the imperial project, with trips down to London and opportunities for overseas travel.</p>
<p>By taking a long view of over a hundred years, and a relatively broad view across Scotland, Ireland and America, Fisher is able to describe American independence as a historical process. This is in contrast to the typical ‘zoomed in’ view that is usually adopted - where larger than life characters play an outsized role.</p>
<h3 id="painting-the-backdrop" tabindex="-1">Painting the backdrop</h3>
<p>This isn’t to say that individuals are not important - people are the stuff of history after all - but Fisher does a great job of describing the waters in which they find themselves swimming. It is the water that allows the Washingtons, the Adamses and the Jeffersons to float to the top, rather than simply living out their pleasant lives on their country estates.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h3>
<p>While the topic of the book is fascinating and the arguments convincingly made, most of the book feels like a heavy going slog. Fisher has split the work into four parts, taking us chronologically from the late 17th Century to the late 18th Century. Each part covers Ireland, Scotland and the Native North American peoples in turn, with a focus on their respective feelings for (or more usually against) the English, and from 1707 British, King.</p>
<p>But although there is a clear framework to the book and a recurring theme of “Exclusionary” vs “Inclusive” empire, there is not really a narrative thread to pull it all together. And although Fisher’s scholarship across different nationalities is very impressive, he doesn’t really “hold your hand” as he takes you through the material. His concern is with getting the evidence on the page, not helping the ordinary punter digest it all.</p>
<p>The tone of the book remains dispassionate throughout - which I guess is deliberate for a scholar taking a potentially provocative stance on a contentious subject.</p>
<h3 id="the-good-bits" tabindex="-1">The good bits</h3>
<p>The exception to this downbeat view is the introduction and epilogue which are both great to read! Maybe the author wrote them after he had finally finished writing the main body of the book and was feeling a bit more upbeat? Whatever the reason, they clearly and concisely set out the situation at the time, his own arguments, and why it all still matters. The epilogue also looks further forward and makes some interesting connections between the American Revolution and the Civil War:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>This one pitted Southerners motivated by the deeply held conviction that their government sought to promote the cause of a marginalised people (enslaved African Americans) against Union loyalists prepared to accept more inclusive visions of the American future and to deny the justice of seceding from a duly constituted sovereign. Those positions would have seemed quite familiar to the revolutionaries and their imperial opponents... <br /><br />
If the Civil War was a re-enactment of the American Revolution, Lincoln was playing George III.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Samual K Fisher, The Gaelic and Indian Origins of the American Revolution</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>If you are interested in the topic but are daunted by the text, I would encourage you to download the Kindle sample, read the intro and see what you think. If you are feeling rich or generous you could even buy the whole thing but read just the intro and epilogue. The main body of the book can be kept in reserve for occasional toe dipping or reference needs.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>This book encourages us to take a wider view of how the North American colonies of Britain became an independent nation in 1776. The author provides an important counterweight to the many other history books which quickly zoom into the cannon smoke and musketry.</p>
<p>However, this knowledge comes at a price. Because the truths contained therein are not self-evident, we have a hard slow-going slog through the supporting case. The exception is the beautifully drafted introductory preamble and closing epilogue.</p>
New history books in January 2023
Anthony Webb
A more contemporary set of books this month, with at least one new history book going right up to the end of the twentieth century. Still good variety though and stretching back a couple of thousand...
2023-02-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-02-01-post-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1675028904/posts/Jan2023_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in January 2023" /><p>A more contemporary set of books this month, with at least one new history book going right up to the end of the twentieth century. Still good variety though and stretching back a couple of thousand years.</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon for those who like to buy their books there.</em></p>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1914414497.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="After the Annex: Anne Frank and Her Companions in the Nazi Death Camps" title="After the Annex: Anne Frank and Her Companions in the Nazi Death Camps" />
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<div id="cover1914414497" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="After the Annex: Anne Frank and Her Companions in the Nazi Death Camps" data-author="Bas Von Benda-Beckmann" data-publishdate="2023-01-27" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1914414497.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1914414497" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1914414497" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0750999616.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Battle Elephants and Flaming Foxes: Animals in the Roman World" title="Battle Elephants and Flaming Foxes: Animals in the Roman World" />
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<div id="cover0750999616" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Battle Elephants and Flaming Foxes: Animals in the Roman World" data-author="Caroline Freeman-Cuerden" data-publishdate="2023-01-26" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0750999616.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0750999616" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0750999616" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241388708.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Holocaust: Ideology, Collaboration, Genocide, Memory" title="The Holocaust: Ideology, Collaboration, Genocide, Memory" />
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<div id="cover0241388708" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Holocaust: Ideology, Collaboration, Genocide, Memory" data-author="Dan Stone" data-publishdate="2023-01-26" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241388708.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0241388708" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0241388708" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/030025072X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Adventurers: The Improbable Rise of the East India Company 1550-1650" title="Adventurers: The Improbable Rise of the East India Company 1550-1650" />
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<div id="cover030025072X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Adventurers: The Improbable Rise of the East India Company 1550-1650" data-author="David Howarth" data-publishdate="2023-01-24" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/030025072X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/030025072X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/030025072X" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241611407.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Pirate Enlightenment: Buccaneers, Women Traders and Mock Kingdoms in Eighteenth Century Madagascar" title="Pirate Enlightenment: Buccaneers, Women Traders and Mock Kingdoms in Eighteenth Century Madagascar" />
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<div id="cover0241611407" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Pirate Enlightenment: Buccaneers, Women Traders and Mock Kingdoms in Eighteenth Century Madagascar" data-author="David Graeber" data-publishdate="2023-01-24" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241611407.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0241611407" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0241611407" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008356696.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Road: A Story of Romans and Ways to the Past" title="The Road: A Story of Romans and Ways to the Past" />
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<div id="cover0008356696" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Road: A Story of Romans and Ways to the Past" data-author="Christopher Hadley" data-publishdate="2023-01-19" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008356696.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0008356696" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0008356696" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1474616909.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe" title="On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe" />
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<div id="cover1474616909" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe" data-author="Caroline Dodds Pennock" data-publishdate="2023-01-19" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1474616909.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1474616909" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1474616909" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0190918950.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Age of Interconnection: A Global History of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century" title="The Age of Interconnection: A Global History of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century" />
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<div id="cover0190918950" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Age of Interconnection: A Global History of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century" data-author="Jonathan Sperber" data-publishdate="2023-01-14" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0190918950.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0190918950" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0190918950" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0198852088.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Invention of Marxism: How an Idea Changed Everything" title="The Invention of Marxism: How an Idea Changed Everything" />
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<div id="cover0198852088" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Invention of Marxism: How an Idea Changed Everything" data-author="Christina Morina" data-publishdate="2023-01-12" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0198852088.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0198852088" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0198852088" data-review="">
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<p>I haven't been reading as much as normal this month, mainly because I have been hard at work improving and spring cleaning this website. As is the way of these things most of the changes I have made are invisible, but you may spot an improved <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/allbooks/">All Books</a> page that now lives on the main site and has some extra filtering options, such as by the winners of the excellent 🏆 Wolfson or 🥇 Cundhill history book prizes.</p>
<p>On to the range of books published in Jan:</p>
<ul>
<li><em><strong>Pirate Enlightenment: Buccaneers, Women Traders and Mock Kingdoms in Eighteenth Century Madagascar</strong></em> <em>by David Graeber</em> - I know that the author sadly died in 2020 so I'm not sure where this book has come from: perhaps it is a manuscript that has only now come to light? But Graeber has always been an excellent and provocative writer so hopefully this will be no different. It is also the first book on Madagascan history that I have come across.</li>
<li><em><strong>Battle Elephants and Flaming Foxes: Animals in the Roman World</strong></em> <em>by Caroline Freeman-Cuerden</em> - who has written what looks like an entertaining book on Romans and their love of (killing?) animals.</li>
<li><em><strong>On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe</strong></em> <em>by Caroline Dodds Pennock</em> - nice juxtaposition! as they might say on Numberblocks. I like the premise of this one and hope to get around to reading it.</li>
<li><em><strong>Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America</strong></em> <em>by Leila Philip</em> - I enjoyed listening to entertaining and informative <em>The Rest is History</em> podcast episode <a href="https://play.acast.com/s/the-rest-is-history-podcast/285-canada-beaver-wars">Canada: Beaver Wars</a> and I'm expecting more of the same in this book. In fact given that Beaverland was published in the US a little while ago, this may well have been one of the sources.</li>
</ul>
<p>I have realised that I seem to have ignored all of the more recent history books that I referenced at the start of this post! I would like to read these too, but I will let you browse them via the covers above at your leisure.</p>
The Perfect Sword - review
Anthony Webb
The sword is the first tool made by humans whose sole function is death; or more specifically: killing other humans, according to Edoardo Albert and Paul Gething, co-authors of The Perfect Sword:...
2023-01-06T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-01-06-review-the_perfect_sword/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1780277849.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Perfect Sword - review" /><p>Our review of The Perfect Sword: Forging the Dark Ages, by Edoardo Albert, Paul Gething, first published in November 2022.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p><i>The Perfect Sword</i> is a finely crafted book that brings the earthy practicalities of Anglo-Saxon sword making to life - in the context of honing swords into ever more effective murder weapons, over the two or three thousand years since their invention.</p><p>If the thought of a finely wrought blade stirs the embers of your soul, then you are sure to love this book. If you are merely sword-curious, you will find a lot to like as well.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>The sword is the first tool made by humans whose sole function is death; or more specifically: killing other humans, according to Edoardo Albert and Paul Gething, co-authors of <em>The Perfect Sword: Forging the Dark Ages</em>.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-01-06-review-the_perfect_sword/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="a-brief-history-of-swords" tabindex="-1">A brief history of swords</h3>
<p>Prior to the sword people had shorter daggers and knives, as well as spears and bows but these were all primarily hunting and eating tools. They would also have been used as weapons of conflict, but their back story was humans vs animals, not humans vs humans.</p>
<p>Then at some point in the centuries before 3000 BCE perhaps at <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/wNKav7HsXEsJPwEt9">Arslantepe in Eastern Turkey</a> the first swords were forged, made from an arsenic-copper alloy (ie not yet bronze). However for the next thousand years swords are rare finds, perhaps because the metal was still too bendy, or perhaps because even those finds classified as swords were not swords at all, given their shape is apparently not quite right.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-01-06-review-the_perfect_sword/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
<p>Things started to take off in the late bronze age with the first definite swords being found in Minoan Crete dated at about 1700 BCE. From here they quickly spread everywhere, took on a variety of interesting pointy shapes, and started their business of killing people in significant numbers.</p>
<p>And when people figured out how to get their hands on iron from about 1300 BCE, and discovered that it was all over the place, pretty much everyone could - and did - get themselves a sword, and started looking for trouble.</p>
<p>Fast forward to the Anglo-Saxons in England from about 450 to 1066 CE, the principle setting of <em>The Perfect Sword</em>, and home to a multitude of feuding warlords, one of whom - or more likely several in succession - were the proud owners of the titular weapon.</p>
<p>The sword itself was dug up from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamburgh_Castle">Bamburgh castle</a>, a key stronghold in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria.</p>
<h3 id="what-makes-it-perfect%3F" tabindex="-1">What makes it perfect?</h3>
<p>So what was so good about it? Its iron core made it bendy enough not to snap in half, while its steel edge was hard enough to grind to razor sharpness. We can also assume that it came nicely blinged out with a fancy jewelled handle and scabbard. Finally the blade itself likely had a beautiful “pattern welded” finish which was the result of folding and hammering many layers of metal.</p>
<p>It is - we are told - more complex and more finely made than any other sword found in the UK. Only a king would be able to command the skilled workers and resources needed to make such a fancy weapon.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book?</h3>
<p>Albert and Gething walk us through what is needed to make the Bamburgh Sword a reality, with sections on:</p>
<ul>
<li>The evolution of swords</li>
<li>How Anglo-Saxons extracted and smelted iron ore</li>
<li>How they then forged the sword blade</li>
<li>How they made the various sword accessories (hilt, scabbard etc)</li>
</ul>
<p>They then delve into how it was used covering:</p>
<ul>
<li>How to fight with a sword</li>
<li>The brutal life of an Anglo-Saxon warrior</li>
<li>Modern day medieval martial arts clubs</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="a-finely-crafted-book" tabindex="-1">A finely crafted book</h3>
<p>The story is told in an engaging fashion. We are introduced to eccentric archaeologists, self taught blacksmiths, amateur spathologists<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-01-06-review-the_perfect_sword/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup> and the like as we find out how the sword was made, and find out how we found out how the sword was made.</p>
<p>It also manages to go into quite a lot of detail without ever being boring. For example I now feel myself fully qualified to extract bog ore from an Anglo-Saxon swamp...</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>...shuffling through a bog and either poking down with a hardwood stick or spear, feeling for the strike on something harder beneath the surface, or digging through the layers of the bog, sifting the peat for the nuggets of bog ore.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Eduardo Albert and Paul Gething, The Perfect Sword</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>...and well versed in the many stages of bashing, hammering, heating and cooling that go into forging the Anglo-Saxon blade itself, finishing off with annealing, quenching and tempering the metal.</p>
<h3 id="simply-messing-about-with-swords" tabindex="-1">Simply messing about with swords</h3>
<p>My main hesitation with this book is that swords are, and always have been, murder weapons. The Perfect Sword is then by definition The Perfect Murder Weapon. The book can be seen as 288 page glorification of a brutal tool whose only purpose is to maim or kill.</p>
<p>It is possible that you are now rolling your eyes and thinking to yourself:</p>
<p><strong>You:</strong> “<em>What a hypocritical killjoy! Isn’t all history basically a record of who killed who and how efficiently?</em>”</p>
<p>To which I would reply:</p>
<p><strong>Me:</strong> “<em>I suppose so, but often the point of the 'who killed who' stuff is to help understand how we got here now. It is not the mechanics of death that makes history interesting but the consequences of all the fighting.</em>”</p>
<p>Then you might say:</p>
<p><strong>You:</strong> “<em>Whatever you say man, personally I <strong>like</strong> the battles.</em>”</p>
<p>And then I would come back with:</p>
<p><strong>Me:</strong> “<em>Yes and often I like them too. But <strong>should</strong> we? Isn’t this just another facet of our naive and juvenile entertainification of war?</em>”</p>
<p>You would probably then lose patience:</p>
<p><strong>You:</strong> “<em>Look enough with the angst, just tell me: did you like the book or not?</em>”</p>
<p>And I would sigh and admit:</p>
<p><strong>Me:</strong> “<em>Yes I did like it...</em>”</p>
<p>You get the idea.</p>
<p>We could also branch off into a debate about whether swords kill people or whether people kill people, or about whether we need to arm the good guys with swords (and sword based history books) to counterbalance the bad guys with swords, about how the Japanese are a peace-loving zero-crime-rate sword-owning nation etc etc but I will let you imaginatively run through these arguments yourself.</p>
<h3 id="eq-kill-ibrium-state" tabindex="-1">Eq-kill-ibrium state</h3>
<p>To be fair to Albert and Gething they do devote a chapter to the unappealing consequences of an Anglo-Saxon king’s requirement to go killing and stealing if he was to keep his followers happy and build up his warband. In their words:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>[Anglo-Saxon society was] a small elite of parasitic overlords psychotically parading through a countryside populated by the farmers...</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>But the romantic outlook is never far away:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>[It was] the Heroic Age, a time when small groups of men might seize a kingdom and hold it against all comers... Their songs were bright and fierce, and soon forgotten: they have left little trace beyond a few score rusty sword blades, the chant poem Beowulf, and the foundations of our world.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="the-spade-is-mightier-than-the-sword%3F" tabindex="-1">The spade is mightier than the sword?</h3>
<p>Again I should be fair to Albert and Getting and acknowledge that my gripe is ultimately with humanity rather than their book - <em>The Perfect Spade</em> would not interest me or very many other people even if archaeologists did happen to unearth a really good one.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p><em>The Perfect Sword</em> is a finely crafted book that brings the earthy practicalities of Anglo-Saxon sword making to life - in the context of honing swords into ever more effective murder weapons, over the two or three thousand years since their invention.</p>
<p>If you are put off by the subject matter then you may be right not to engage with the book. But if on the other hand, the thought of a finely wrought blade stirs the embers of your soul, then it is sure to find a special place in your heart.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>I wonder if the mace also has a claim to fame here, given the early Egyptian and Mesopotamian images we have of mighty kings bashing in the heads of their unfortunate prisoners of war? The mace is of course a pointless instrument in all other circumstances. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-01-06-review-the_perfect_sword/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>The grips of these proto-swords looks very wide, too hard to hold easily and the guard doesn’t look very effective at protecting the knuckles. If you are interested in opining yourself you can have a look at a picture of a few of these swords from the <a href="http://www.malatya.gov.tr/arslantepe-hoyugu">Arslantepe museum website page about halfway down</a>. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-01-06-review-the_perfect_sword/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>Spathology being of course the study of swords. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-01-06-review-the_perfect_sword/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Best history books of 2022
Anthony Webb
What are the best popular history books published in 2022 in the UK?
These are the best popular history books that we have read and reviewed on this site. The links take you to more details on each...
2023-01-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/
<img src="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/" alt="Best history books of 2022" /><p>What are the best popular history books published in 2022 in the UK?</p>
<p>These are the best popular history books that we have read and reviewed on this site. The links take you to more details on each book below.</p>
<p>If you want to see <strong>all</strong> history books published in 2022 you can search our <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/allbooks/">history books mini database</a>. There are many more history books published than we are able to review!</p>
<h4 id="booklist">Our highest rated history books of 2022</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#Weavers,%20Scribes,%20and%20Kings">Weavers, Scribes, and Kings</a>: A New History of the Ancient Near East</li>
</ul>
<h4>Highly recommended 2022 history books</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#Charged">Charged</a>: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#The%20Perfect%20Sword">The Perfect Sword</a>: Forging the Dark Ages</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#Fury%20of%20The%20Vikings">Fury of The Vikings</a>: Adventures in Time</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#Uncommon%20Wrath">Uncommon Wrath</a>: How Caesar and Cato's Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#The%20Lion%20House">The Lion House</a>: The Coming of a King</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#London%20in%20the%20Roman%20World">London in the Roman World</a>: </li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#Phoenicians%20and%20the%20Making%20of%20the%20Mediterranean">Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean</a>: </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="Charged">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0295750243.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for Charged" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p><i>Charged</i> provides an in-depth but also accessible overview of the history of batteries. From car lead-acid starter batteries and AAs, to mobile phones and electric cars: how their mining and manufacture have impacted the world.</p><p>It is a calmly argued rather than a high voltage text, but nevertheless contains a powerful message for how we might navigate to a more sustainable world.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-11-17-review-charged/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="Weavers, Scribes, and Kings">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0190059044.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for Weavers, Scribes, and Kings" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p><i>Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East</i> introduces us to a broad cast of ancient Mesopotamians - from regal families to regular folk. Podany tells their story starting in 3500 BCE and the invention of writing, and going up until 350 BCE and the arrival of Alexander the Great.</p><p>This is a brilliant “micro-macro” history book that almost magically conjures the ancient Near Eastern world back to life. I loved reading it and would make it compulsory reading for everyone else if I could!</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★★</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-10-review-weavers-scribes-and-kings/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="The Perfect Sword">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1780277849.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for The Perfect Sword" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">The Perfect Sword: Forging the Dark Ages</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p><i>The Perfect Sword</i> is a finely crafted book that brings the earthy practicalities of Anglo-Saxon sword making to life - in the context of honing swords into ever more effective murder weapons, over the two or three thousand years since their invention.</p><p>If the thought of a finely wrought blade stirs the embers of your soul, then you are sure to love this book. If you are merely sword-curious, you will find a lot to like as well.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-01-06-review-the_perfect_sword/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="Fury of The Vikings">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241552176.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for Fury of The Vikings" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">Fury of The Vikings: Adventures in Time</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>Fury of the Vikings takes us through the three hundred year rampage of the Vikings, from Vinland in the West to the Land of Rus in the East, with a bit of Alfred the Great in the middle.</p><p>Told as a narrative history with re-imagined scenes from the past, it was written for kids but works just as well for adults!</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-29-review-adventures_in_time_vikings/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="Uncommon Wrath">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0192859560.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for Uncommon Wrath" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato's Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>A highly readable account of late republican Rome, told through the lives of Julius Caesar and Cato the Younger. Osgood makes the case that it is these two together who bear most of the responsibility for the collapse of the Republic. Whether or not you agree with this view there is plenty to enjoy in this book.</p><p>It is also a timely story - a case study of political meltdown that is relevant today given the heat in politics, particularly in the United States.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-02-review-uncommon_wrath/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="The Lion House">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1847922392.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for The Lion House" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">The Lion House: The Coming of a King</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>The coming of age story of Sulieman the Magnificent, told from an eyewitness perspective. And it is a great story, masterfully told - assuming the rather lyrical prose style doesn‘t put you off.</p><p>I would have no hesitation in recommending this to anyone with a passing interest in Ottoman or Renaissance history.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-29-review-the_lion_house/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="London in the Roman World">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0198789009.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for London in the Roman World" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">London in the Roman World: </h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p><i>London in the Roman World</i> takes us on a detailed archaeological tour through 360 years of Roman London.</p><p>I suspect this book will set the standard for overviews of Roman London for many years - <i>the</i> point of reference for budding academics and interested punters. While not an easy read, it will reward your perseverance.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-03-27-review-London_in_the_Roman_World/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0674988183.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean: </h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>Find out what the Phoenicians did for us: from letters, to religion, to apotropaic art, in this survey of the early first millennium BCE Mediterranean.</p><p>While not an easy read it is a rewarding one, methodically unearthing this critical but neglected culture.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2022/02/18/phoenicians-and-the-making-of-the-mediterranean/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-01-01-best_history_books_2022/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
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New history books in December 2022
Anthony Webb
Fewer history books published in December but some fascinating titles amongst them - more thoughts on this below the cover pictures.
Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon...
2023-01-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2023-01-01-post-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1672352828/posts/Dec22_HistoryBooks.png" alt="New history books in December 2022" /><p>Fewer history books published in December but some fascinating titles amongst them - more thoughts on this below the cover pictures.</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon for those who like to buy their books there.</em></p>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1479817317.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Homeward Bound: Return Migration from Ireland and India at the End of the British Empire" title="Homeward Bound: Return Migration from Ireland and India at the End of the British Empire" />
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<div id="cover1479817317" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Homeward Bound: Return Migration from Ireland and India at the End of the British Empire" data-author="Niamh Dillon" data-publishdate="2022-12-27" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1479817317.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1479817317" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1479817317" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1108494676.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Witches of St Osyth: Persecution, Betrayal and Murder in Elizabethan England" title="The Witches of St Osyth: Persecution, Betrayal and Murder in Elizabethan England" />
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<div id="cover1108494676" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Witches of St Osyth: Persecution, Betrayal and Murder in Elizabethan England" data-author="Marion Gibson" data-publishdate="2022-12-22" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1108494676.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1108494676" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1108494676" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0190059044.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East" title="Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East" />
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<div id="cover0190059044" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East" data-author="Amanda H. Podany" data-publishdate="2022-12-14" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0190059044.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0190059044" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0190059044" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300259867.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Armada: The Spanish Enterprise and England's Deliverance In 1588" title="Armada: The Spanish Enterprise and England's Deliverance In 1588" />
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<div id="cover0300259867" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Armada: The Spanish Enterprise and England's Deliverance In 1588" data-author="Geoffrey Parker, Colin Martin" data-publishdate="2022-12-13" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300259867.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0300259867" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0300259867" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0197646700.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Ideological Fixation: From the Stone Age to Today's Culture Wars" title="Ideological Fixation: From the Stone Age to Today's Culture Wars" />
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<div id="cover0197646700" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Ideological Fixation: From the Stone Age to Today's Culture Wars" data-author="Azar Gat" data-publishdate="2022-12-09" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0197646700.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0197646700" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0197646700" data-review="">
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<div id="cover1009226797" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Caesar Rules: The Emperor in the Changing Roman World (c. 50 BC – AD 565)" data-author="Olivier Hekster" data-publishdate="2022-12-08" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1009226797.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1009226797" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1009226797" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/163936238X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Enslaved: The Sunken History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade" title="Enslaved: The Sunken History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade" />
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<div id="cover163936238X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Enslaved: The Sunken History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade" data-author="Sean Kingsley, Simcha Jacobovici" data-publishdate="2022-12-08" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/163936238X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/163936238X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/163936238X" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1009221698.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Mary Magdalene: A Cultural History" title="Mary Magdalene: A Cultural History" />
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<p>I think that there are a higher percentage of “would like to read” books than for any other month I can remember. Hopefully the percentage I actually read of the “would like to read” list will be respectable! Some in particular:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East</strong> by Amanda H. Podany - this looks like a fascinating and ambitious attempt to make the emergence and development of “civilisation” over thousands of years relatable on a human scale.</li>
<li><strong>Enslaved: The Sunken History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade</strong> by Sean Kingsley and Simcha Jacobovici - looking at the tangible evidence of the slave trade through the authors' exploration of underwater sites.</li>
<li><strong>The Vanishing Past: Making the Case for the Future of History</strong> by Trilby Kent - looking at the evidence of ahistorical attitudes in our societies and putting the case for (I think) continuing support for academic history.</li>
<li><strong>Armada: The Spanish Enterprise and Englands Deliverance In 1588</strong> by Colin Martin and Geoffrey Parker - for some light historical escapism 😉</li>
</ul>
1177 B.C. - review
Anthony Webb
Last summer I gazed upon the face of Agamemnon, or at least Agamemnon's alleged gold mask at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Although I gazed only for a brief moment because our then six...
2022-12-21T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-21-review-1177/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0691208018.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="1177 B.C. - review" /><p>Our review of 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, by Eric H Cline, first published in February 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>An excellent introduction to the magnificent world of the rulers of the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean, and then their dramatic and simultaneous fall.</p><p>Cline brings us up to date with the latest academic thinking on what happened... which is that we still don’t really know, but there are plenty of fascinating clues.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>Last summer I gazed upon the face of Agamemnon, or at least <a href="https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=S2gXHsMMGHo">Agamemnon's alleged gold mask at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens</a>. Although I gazed only for a brief moment because our then six year old son ran off into the museum and I had to run after him, that brief instant transported me back 3,200 years ago into the Late Bronze Age - a world of kings, warriors, cities and gold.</p>
<p>A few days later we rented a car and gazed upon the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenae">alleged palace of Agamemnon at Mycenae</a>, a magical place to visit, which even the six year old’s mini tantrum<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-21-review-1177/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> couldn’t distract from. Built on a commanding outcrop and flanked by two steep hills, from the top we could see the undulating farmland and olive groves stretching away for miles, with just a glimpse of the sea on the Eastern horizon. The palace itself was constructed from massive stone blocks and was clearly built to dominate and impress.</p>
<p>Mycenaen Greece, the genesis of the Illiad, Agamemnon, Achilles and the rest of that murderous crew was a flourishing martial empire from about 1750 BCE to 1050 BCE, existing alongside and competing with the other flourishing empires of the Eastern Mediterannean: the Hittites in Turkey and northen Syria; the Egyptians in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and southern Syria; the Assyrians to the East; the Ugarit mini-state on the coast.</p>
<h3 id="the-haves-and-the-have-nots" tabindex="-1">The haves and the have nots</h3>
<p>As far as Europe and the Middle East was concerned these empires were civilisation. This was where there was writing (and reading), significant cities and populations, and where people made Bronze. Everywhere else was full of rural bumkins with scarcely a duck-shaped ivory cosmetic container between them.</p>
<p>And yet in just a few decades around the year 1177 BCE, these “advanced” civilisations simultaneously collapsed: burnt, abandoned, destroyed.</p>
<p>It took up to <em>500 hundred years</em> before comparable political complexity was seen again.</p>
<ul>
<li>Mycenaeans - gone.</li>
<li>Hittites - vanished.</li>
<li>Ugarit - burnt to a crisp.</li>
<li>Egyptians - a shadow of their former greatness.</li>
<li>Assyrians - actually not too bad.</li>
</ul>
<p>Eric H Cline explains what we know of what happened in <em>1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed</em>.</p>
<h3 id="who-done-it%3F" tabindex="-1">Who done it?</h3>
<p>The reason the story is so interesting is that we <em>don’t</em> know exactly what happened, just whatever it was must have been really <em>really</em> bad.</p>
<p>It is still a mystery.</p>
<p>We can see the body in the Conservatory but there is no knife, candlestick or lead piping lying around to help us. Or perhaps a better analogy is that the knife, the candlestick, the lead pipe, spanner and pistol are <em>all</em> lying around but it is currently impossible to say with certainty which were responsible, or in what order they were applied to the victim.</p>
<p>Whatever the instrument(s) it did an extremely thorough job, laying waste to a vast area of land, and stunting civic life for centuries until we see the rise of new states such as in classical Greece (Athenians, Spartans) and their enemies the Persians in the East.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book?</h3>
<p>Cline starts off with a grand tour of the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean, introducing us one by one to the big players - such as the Mycenaeans - and talking through some of the archaeological discoveries that help us understand this world.</p>
<p>For example the Uluburun ship-wreck, one of only three known bronze age shipwrecks. The incredible diversity and richness of the cargo revealed the luxury that could be afforded by those at the top:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>In addition to its primary cargo of ten tons of Cypriot copper, one ton of tin, and a ton of terebinth resin, there were also two dozen ebony logs from Nubia; almost two hundred ingots of raw glass from Mesopotamia, most colored dark blue, but others of light blue, purple, and even a shade of honey/amber; about 140 Canaanite storage jars in two or three basic sizes, which contained the terebinth resin, remains of grapes, pomegranates, and figs, as well as spices like coriander and sumac; brand-new pottery from Cyprus and Canaan, including oil lamps, bowls, jugs, and jars; scarabs from Egypt and cylinder seals from elsewhere in the Near East; swords and daggers from Italy and Greece... and even a stone scepter-mace from the Balkans. There was also gold jewelry, including pendants, and a gold chalice; duck-shaped ivory cosmetic containers; copper, bronze, and tin bowls and other vessels; twenty-four stone anchors; fourteen pieces of hippopotamus ivory and one elephant tusk; and a six-inch-tall statue of a Canaanite deity made of bronze overlaid with gold in places - which, if it was supposed to serve as the protective deity for the ship, didn’t do its job very well.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Eric H Cline, 1177 BC</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Cline also shows us some of the letters sent from one King to another - clearly there was a healthy level of diplomatic interaction, in addition to regular bouts of warfare. I particularly enjoyed reading about the letters sent from various rulers to the Pharaoh of Egypt asking for some gold please because “gold is like dust in your land”.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Moreover, you, my brother... as to the gold I wrote you about, send me whatever is on hand, as much as possible, before your messenger [comes] to me, right now, in all haste... If during this summer, during the months of Tammuz or Ab, you send the gold I wrote you about, I will give you my daughter.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Letter from the Kassite king Kadashman-Enlil of Babylon to Amenhotep III<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-21-review-1177/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Having built up a detailed picture of a flourishing, interconnected world with Kings referring to each other as brothers and asking to borrow a fiver, Cline then comes to the collapse, which is even more startling given the apparent power and riches of the states which are swept away.</p>
<h3 id="a-litany-of-causes" tabindex="-1">A litany of causes</h3>
<p>Cline talks through the various proposed causes:</p>
<ul>
<li>Invading Sea Peoples</li>
<li>Earthquakes</li>
<li>Internal rebellion</li>
<li>Collapse of international trade routes</li>
<li>Disease</li>
<li>Drought and famine</li>
</ul>
<p>Historically scholars have tended to blame the Sea Peoples as the main agents of destruction, a group of people who invaded Egypt and South Canaan and perhaps other areas too.</p>
<p>But, Cline warns us, things are not so simple. After all, even if the Sea Peoples were on the rampage, what set them off in the first place? And after they were done rampaging why didn’t they just set themselves up as the new overlords?</p>
<h3 id="megadrought" tabindex="-1">Megadrought</h3>
<p>Originally published in 2014 Cline argued at that time that the Collapse was caused by a bit of everything in more or less equal quantities. In this new 2021 edition, Cline has updated his view. With new evidence of ancient climate change now available he is now in favour of a primary cause being a great drying that fundamentally changed the ability of the landscape to support crops - and which lasted for hundreds of years.</p>
<h3 id="it%E2%80%99s-complicated" tabindex="-1">It’s complicated</h3>
<p>He also considers the role of Complexity Theory and “Systems Collapse”. Which is a fancy way of saying that if your advanced kingdom depends upon a complex web of support, something seemingly quite small can disrupt that web and bring the whole thing crashing down.</p>
<p>If a bunch of kingdoms form an interconnecting web and sustain each other - and they were passing around copper and tin and sending begging letters for gold as we saw - then the failure of one might lead to the failure of all of them.</p>
<h3 id="systems-schmystems" tabindex="-1">Systems schmystems</h3>
<p>Personally I’m a bit sceptical about applying these pseudo-scientific theories to the past. Clearly human societies are complex. But it is much less clear how brittle or robust they may be. The risk is that we judge by outcomes only - ie if a country collapses it must have been weak. If it doesn’t collapse it must be strong.</p>
<p>This is a bit like going to a doctor with an eye infection and being told you have conjunctivitis. In the historical case calling the bronze age collapse a systems collapse is basically just diagnosing collapsivitus.</p>
<p>Cline points out some of these problems:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>...it sounds nice, but does it advance our understanding? Is it more than just a fancy way to state a fairly obvious fact, namely that complicated things can break down in a variety of ways?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Eric H Cline, 1177 BC</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>The advantage however of thinking in this “systems” way is that it leads you away from a simplistic mono-causal linear approach. In other words: lots of factors were likely in play and many of the symptoms of collapse - such as angry mobs burning down palaces - are also causes of that same process of collapse.</p>
<p>Life is complicated, history is no different.</p>
<h3 id="armchair-archaeologist" tabindex="-1">Armchair archaeologist</h3>
<p>Part of the fun of reading Cline’s book is that it allows you to take on the role of amateur archaeologist, speculating from your armchair about where it all went wrong. The fact that “<em>it is simply not possible to answer that question, at least not at this time on the basis of the available evidence</em>” just adds to the entertainment.</p>
<p>Add to this the pathos of not just one lost civilisations but many and you have the makings of a great popular history book.</p>
<h3 id="a-great-story-competently-told" tabindex="-1">A great story competently told</h3>
<p>The only thing that stops it from being one of the very best popular history books is that the structure can feel a bit formulaic at times - for example when Cline is introducing the Late Bronze Age civilisations one by one, or when he is methodically working his way through the list of possible causes. It is an amazing story but it could have been told a little better.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>An excellent introduction to the magnificent world of the rulers of the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean, and then their dramatic and simultaneous fall.</p>
<p>Cline brings us up to date with the latest academic thinking on what happened... which is that we still don’t really know, but there are plenty of fascinating clues.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>I didn’t let him climb on the walls even though some other kids were doing it. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-21-review-1177/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Amenhotep III was not very impressed with this request, responding in his letter of reply “It is a fine thing that you give your daughters in order to acquire a nugget of gold from your neighbours!” <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-21-review-1177/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
River Kings - review
Anthony Webb
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
While Blake saw a world in a...
2022-12-14T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-14-review-river_kings/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0008353077.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="River Kings - review" /><p>Our review of River Kings: A New History of Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads by Cat Jarman, by Cat Jarman, first published in February 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Cat Jarman shows us the Viking world from England in the West to India in the East, following the trail of a small carnelian bead found in a Viking grave in Repton.</p><p>This is an excellent history book - describing the evidence that we have for what the Vikings were up to as they roamed the river systems of Eastern Europe, and stringing this together in a compelling and very readable story.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>To see a World in a Grain of Sand<br />
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower<br />
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand<br />
And Eternity in an hour.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>William Blake, Auguries of Innocence</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>While Blake saw a world in a grain of sand, Cat Jarman shows us the Viking world in a little carnelian bead in her book <em>River Kings: the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Road</em>. While we don’t get eternity we do get a few hundred years of rampaging Vikings in a perfectly formed 300 page package.</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1670793579/posts/Carnelian_bead.png#center" alt="The carnelian bead found in mass Viking grave in North England" /></p>
<h6 id="carnelian-bead-found-in-a-9th-century-viking-grave-in-repton-(uk)%2C-but-originally-made-in-gujarat-india-%C2%A9-cat-jarman" tabindex="-1">Carnelian bead found in a 9th Century Viking grave in Repton (UK), but originally made in Gujarat India © Cat Jarman</h6>
<p>The bead in question was found in a mass Viking grave in Repton in North England and belonged to a member of the Viking Great Army. The Great Army of the 860s and 870s CE marked the first serious attempt to conquer the English Anglo-Saxon kingdoms rather than just grabbing stuff from monasteries, killing a few monks, and sailing home. Things clearly didn’t go well for the Viking who owned the bead (given that he died) but the Great Army itself was hugely successful - subjecting the Northumbrian kingdom to humiliating defeat and marauding about the place at will.</p>
<p>The reason this tiny bead is significant is because it is made out of a material that can be traced back to its origin thousands of miles away in Gujarat in India. The question posed by and then answered in this book is what was a bead made in India doing in a mass Viking grave in the UK?</p>
<h3 id="river-trip" tabindex="-1">River Trip</h3>
<p>Jarman takes us step by step along this route, starting in England and then to Scandinavia, then the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland, then to the (now) Russian rivers flowing north past (now) St Petersburg, and the portages to the River Dnieper running south across Ukraine into the Black Sea. From here to Constantinople the route Baghdad and ultimately India and Gujarat.</p>
<p>By going on this journey we see the full extent of the Viking world - threaded along rivers like beads on a string. We can appreciate how it emerged, what it was that bound it together, and how it linked with other peoples and empires.</p>
<h3 id="norse-networking" tabindex="-1">Norse networking</h3>
<p>Jarman's case is that this was a connected world: it wasn’t just Vikings exploding outwards in a one-way frenzied attack, there was constant movement in both directions and by non-Vikings as well as Vikings. For example we have grave evidence from an individual whose DNA suggests that they originally came from the Black Sea area but were buried in Norway<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-14-review-river_kings/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>. Or from the Finnish Sami being buried as “typical” Vikings. The Norse of course also traversed back and forth across this world.</p>
<h3 id="looking-east" tabindex="-1">Looking East</h3>
<p>She also shifts our centre of gravity Eastward. In the UK we are used to thinking of our Vikings as fixated on the UK and Ireland. Whereas in reality the Viking trading / pillaging routes radiated out both East and West from Scandinavia. The riches to be had out East from exploiting the lands and peoples on the Eurasian steppe must have been equally if not more tempting than what was on offer from the feeble Anglo Saxon kingdoms in the West.</p>
<p>The East was after all the direction of Miklagard, the Great City - Constantinople (now Istanbul) - that so captured the Viking imagination that it formed their mental image for Asgard, the home of the gods. It was also an area of abundant human wealth that the Vikings had no qualms about capturing and selling in the slave markets of Constantinople. This “resource” was exploited to such an extent that the name of the Slavic people became the origin of our word for slave.</p>
<h3 id="manpower" tabindex="-1">Manpower</h3>
<p>One thing that stood out to me in this book was the centrality of slavery to the Vikings. As well as <em>thralls</em> (i.e. slaves) making up a substantial proportion of the population in Scandinavia itself, selling human beings to others was fundamentally important to Viking overseas enterprise. This was the case both in what is now Ukraine as mentioned above, and also in the West where for example Viking Dublin was founded as a slave market.</p>
<p>In exchange the Vikings wanted luxury goods such as carnelian beads, but above all else: silver. Huge quantities of silver have been found in and around areas of Viking activity. Jarman tells us that on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea seven <em>hundred</em> hoards of silver have been found, which is particularly amazing given that the island is only about 100 km by 50 km in size.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>The total amount of silver dating to the Viking Age found on Gotland now exceeds a thousand kilograms - the weight of a compact car - and includes 168,000 coins.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Cat Jarman, River Kings</p>
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<p>Jarman suggests that the “exceptional wealth of Gotland seems rather suspicious, even for a society of successful farmers, traders and middlemen”. She implies - although the evidence doesn’t allow her to say with certainty - that the Gotlanders got filthy rich through slaving.</p>
<h3 id="the-open-veins-of-viking-europe" tabindex="-1">The open veins of Viking Europe</h3>
<p>If we allow this assumption to be true, it is incredible to think of the number of human lives devastated and destroyed by the activities of the Vikings - just so they could convert people into lumps of silver which they then buried in a hole in the ground. And the Gotland hoards which have been found - 700 so far - will represent only a small fraction of the silver that the Vikings accumulated.</p>
<p>The Viking world was a world of rivers, forking and snaking over the Eastern Europe landscape - rivers veined with silver and awash with human misery.</p>
<h3 id="what-i-liked-about-the-book" tabindex="-1">What I liked about the book</h3>
<p>With that said, one of the things I appreciated about <em>River Kings</em> is that, unlike me, Jarman doesn’t get carried away with flowery prose condemning or cheerleading the Vikings. She describes in precise language the evidence that we have found for what the Vikings were up to and what we might be able to conclude from that evidence.</p>
<h3 id="fishy-evidence" tabindex="-1">Fishy evidence</h3>
<p>The evidence takes the form of Viking bones, Viking stuff (often what they had buried with them) and occasionally what was written down. She is particularly good at bringing to life the science behind the DNA testing, carbon dating and isotope analysis that can be performed on ancient skeletons.</p>
<p>So for example explaining why eating a lot of fish might be good for your health while you are alive but can make you appear older than you really are when dead. This is because it throws off the carbon ratios for the carbon dating tests. The Vikings ate a lot of seafood so this has previously caused archaeologists a lot of confusion.</p>
<h3 id="not-making-it-too-personal" tabindex="-1">Not making it too personal</h3>
<p>Jarman also manages to weave in enough of her own story about finding her carnelian bead, meeting metal detectorists in rural pubs, excavating in Ukraine, and trying her hand at traditional bead making herself in Gujarat... to lighten the scholarship without putting in so much personal stuff that the book loses its focus on the past.</p>
<p>In fact the whole book is written in clear and pleasantly readable prose while not compromising on - as far as I can tell - academic rigour.</p>
<h3 id="any-drawbacks%3F" tabindex="-1">Any drawbacks?</h3>
<p>For negatives - very little to be honest. The only thing to mention is that if you are after a boy’s own story of Viking adventure this isn’t it. There are no descriptions of Vikings charging into monasteries and slaughtering monks, no rousing battle scenes of shield wall versus shield wall.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-14-review-river_kings/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> While there are short reimagined vignettes at the beginning of each section the historic scenes are calm and reflective.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Overall then I thought this was an excellent history book, providing a broad overview of the spread of the Vikings, but also focussing on the telling details such as the carnelian bead that brings that world to life.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>This was from the Oseberg ship burial which contained two women, an older one at seventy to eighty years old whose DNA couldn’t be determined, and a younger one at perhaps fifty years old, whose DNA could be determined and appeared to have this Black Sea ancestry. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-14-review-river_kings/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>If you are after this sort of thing, the recently reviewed <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-29-review-adventures_in_time_vikings/">Fury of the Vikings, by Dominic Sandbrook</a> should fit the bill... <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-14-review-river_kings/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in November 2022
Anthony Webb
A great range of new history books published in November 2022! Book covers below and some notes on the ones that caught my eye below that.
Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to...
2022-12-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-12-01-post-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1669911219/posts/Nov22_HistoryBooks.png" alt="New history books in November 2022" /><p>A great range of new history books published in November 2022! Book covers below and some notes on the ones that caught my eye below that.</p>
<p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon for those who like to buy their books there.</em></p>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0192859560.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Uncommon Wrath: Caesar, Cato, and the Quarrel That Ended the Roman Republic" title="Uncommon Wrath: Caesar, Cato, and the Quarrel That Ended the Roman Republic" />
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<div id="cover0192859560" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Uncommon Wrath: Caesar, Cato, and the Quarrel That Ended the Roman Republic" data-author="Josiah Osgood" data-publishdate="2022-11-29" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0192859560.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0192859560" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0192859560" data-review="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-02-review-uncommon_wrath/">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0674241843.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Never Turn Back: China and the Forbidden History of The 1980s" title="Never Turn Back: China and the Forbidden History of The 1980s" />
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<div id="cover0674241843" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Never Turn Back: China and the Forbidden History of The 1980s" data-author="Julian Gewirtz" data-publishdate="2022-11-25" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0674241843.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0674241843" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0674241843" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0192890735.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler" title="The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler" />
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<div id="cover0192890735" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler" data-author="David I. Kertzer" data-publishdate="2022-11-17" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0192890735.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0192890735" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0192890735" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0806190752.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Lakhota: An Indigenous History" title="Lakhota: An Indigenous History" />
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<div id="cover0806190752" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Lakhota: An Indigenous History" data-author="Rani-Henrik Andersson, David C. Posthumus" data-publishdate="2022-11-17" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0806190752.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0806190752" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0806190752" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0500252637.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Homo Sapiens Rediscovered: The Scientific Revolution Rewriting Our Origins" title="Homo Sapiens Rediscovered: The Scientific Revolution Rewriting Our Origins" />
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<div id="cover0500252637" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Homo Sapiens Rediscovered: The Scientific Revolution Rewriting Our Origins" data-author="Paul Pettit" data-publishdate="2022-11-15" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0500252637.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0500252637" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0500252637" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1803991917.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Egypt's Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth" title="Egypt's Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth" />
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<div id="cover1803991917" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Egypt's Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth" data-author="John Darnell and Colleen Darnell" data-publishdate="2022-11-09" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1803991917.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1803991917" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1803991917" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300260784.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="A Cultural History of the British Empire" title="A Cultural History of the British Empire" />
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<div id="cover0300260784" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="A Cultural History of the British Empire" data-author="John MacKenzie" data-publishdate="2022-11-08" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300260784.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0300260784" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0300260784" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1529343968.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World" title="Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World" />
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<div id="cover1529343968" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World" data-author="Irene Vallejo" data-publishdate="2022-11-03" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1529343968.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1529343968" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1529343968" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0750993693.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Queen and the Mistress: The Women of Edward III" title="The Queen and the Mistress: The Women of Edward III" />
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<div id="cover0750993693" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Queen and the Mistress: The Women of Edward III" data-author="Gemma Hollman" data-publishdate="2022-11-03" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0750993693.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0750993693" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0750993693" data-review="">
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<p>Lots of potentially interesting stuff here, including two that I can vouch for as I have read and reviewed them already! A few that I would like to mention:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Uncommon Wrath: Caesar, Cato, and the Quarrel That Ended the Roman Republic</strong> by Josiah Osgood - <a href="https://pophist-ssg-test.glitch.me/posts/reviews/2022-12-02-review-uncommon_wrath/">a great double bio of Caesar and Cato</a> looking at two late Republican titans and their role in destroying the Roman Republic, and their relevance for present day politicians.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Adventures in Time: Fury of The Vikings</strong> by Dominic Sandbrook - a <a href="https://pophist-ssg-test.glitch.me/posts/reviews/2022-11-29-review-adventures_in_time_vikings/">fun and engaging history of the Viking Age</a>, written as a gateway history book for kids but just as good for adults.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World</strong> by Irene Vallejo - this one looks really interesting both as a history book and as a piece of writing. Translated from the Spanish version which was published in 2019, and one I hope to get round to reading!</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Egypt's Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth</strong> by John Darnell and Colleen Darnell - because who doesn't like a glamorous historical couple? And Egyptian pharaohs are always a favourite too.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>The Perfect Sword: Forging the Dark Ages</strong> by Edoardo Albert and Paul Gething - another one that looks accessible and fun, this time written with adults in mind.</p>
</li>
</ul>
Fury of The Vikings - review
Anthony Webb
The Yggdrasil, as Dominic Sandbrook tells us in Adventures in Time: Fury of the Vikings is the great world tree of Norse mythology. Spanning the universe, its highest branches stretch up into the...
2022-11-29T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-29-review-adventures_in_time_vikings/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0241552176.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Fury of The Vikings - review" /><p>Our review of Fury of The Vikings: Adventures in Time, by Dominic Sandbrook, first published in November 2022.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Fury of the Vikings takes us through the three hundred year rampage of the Vikings, from Vinland in the West to the Land of Rus in the East, with a bit of Alfred the Great in the middle.</p><p>Told as a narrative history with re-imagined scenes from the past, it was written for kids but works just as well for adults!</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>The Yggdrasil, as Dominic Sandbrook tells us in <em>Adventures in Time: Fury of the Vikings</em> is the great world tree of Norse mythology. Spanning the universe, its highest branches stretch up into the three worlds of the gods, such as Asgard home of Odin and Thor, where a celestial rainbow bridge leads down to Misgard - Middle Earth, the fourth realm and the world of humans. Its roots reach deep down into the fabric of reality.</p>
<p>At the foot of the Yggdrasil is the Well of Urd. Here the three Norns live, women who collect the water that keeps the tree alive. The Norns are spinners of thread and they know the past, present and future of all living things. Each thread represents a life and when it is your time to go, the Norns cut the thread.</p>
<p>Whether your thread is a long one or a short one is something that is woven into the fabric of the cosmos - but is known only to the three Norns. When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go.</p>
<h3 id="from-raiders-to-kings" tabindex="-1">From raiders to kings</h3>
<p><em>Fury of the Vikings</em> tells a complete story of the Vikings tracing the thread from their mythical and physical origins, then following their campaigns of terror (and trade) around Europe in general and England in particular from 750 BCE ish. It ends with the life Harald Hardrada the “last Viking” whose failure to conquer England for Norway in 1066, signified the point where the Viking thread was cut.</p>
<h3 id="the-acid-test" tabindex="-1">The acid test</h3>
<p>I originally got this book to see how it would land with my seven year old who loves reading, but is more into science - his current favourite is the Horrible Science book <em>Painful Poison</em> by Nick Arnold. Trying to turn his mind away from his (surely innocent?) childish game where he pretends to feed me various poisoned dishes along with his four year old accomplice, I thought <em>Fury of the Vikings</em> could be just the thing.</p>
<p>Did it work? Kind of... he does like the book and read the first 20 odd pages unprompted. But it is probably a little old for him at the moment - a bit too text heavy without the Horrible Science / History comic strip interludes to draw you in. Unfortunately <em>Painful Poison</em> remains number one for the moment.</p>
<h3 id="the-viking-age" tabindex="-1">The Viking age</h3>
<p>But although my son needs to be a little bit older, I was pleased to discover that a 41 year old can also consider themself in a suitable demographic. For me the level of detail and pace of the book was excellent, enabling me to get a great overview of the Vikings and some brilliant stories, in an easily absorbable package.</p>
<p>If you are looking for a relatively quick and readable introduction to the Vikings - let’s say you have a holiday in Oslo in a week or two<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-29-review-adventures_in_time_vikings/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> - <em>The Fury of the Vikings</em> would sit nicely at the top of the reading list. After finishing this you can then zoom in with “grown-up” history books, but with a better feel for how everything fits together.</p>
<h3 id="telling-it-how-it-really-should-have-happened" tabindex="-1">Telling it how it really should have happened</h3>
<p>Fundamentally it is just a well researched history book. It takes you through what happened politically and militarily - Viking raids and settlement in the West (focussing on England) and the East (the Rus). It tells you about society at the time - for example the fact that there were also Viking women, the rural nature of Scandinavian society and the use of slaves. And it drops in indications every now and again that we shouldn’t treat all the stories we hear as necessarily true.</p>
<p>For example: when recounting the story of how Canute, the Norwegian King of England from 1016 to 1035, demonstrated to his obsequious courtiers that God’s power was infinitely greater than his own, by ineffectually commanding the incoming tide to retreat, and getting his feet wet in the process, Sandbrook writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Canute knew perfectly well that he couldn’t control the waves. But he wanted to remind his advisers that God, not man, was the master of all. Whether it really happened, we will never know. But if it didn’t, perhaps it should have done.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dominic Sandbrook, Fury of the Vikings</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="imagining-the-past" tabindex="-1">Imagining the past</h3>
<p>The tale of what happened is interspersed with re-imagined scenes from the past - Vikings bursting into monasteries blood dripping from their swords, Alfred the Great cresting the brow of the hill to see his army waiting by Egburt’s Stone and so on. But it is not historical fiction - what matters is what happened.</p>
<h3 id="contains-mild-language-and-horror%2C-and-bloodthirsty-vikings" tabindex="-1">Contains mild language and horror, and bloodthirsty Vikings</h3>
<p>The content is very slightly sanitised for younger minds. So we get plenty of blood and gore in the re-imagined scenes. But whenever the Vikings are on a murderous rampage, in Sandbrook’s world they always seem to be “roaring with laughter” which takes the sting out a little.</p>
<p>Historical editing is also at work in another scene describing a Viking burial ceremony in what is now Ukraine (then “the land of the Rus”). A Viking chieftan has died and a slave woman is sacrificed at the culmination of the ceremony which lasts several days. Before she is sacrificed (according to the original account by Ahmad ibn Fadlan) she is raped by the dead chieftan’s men. This disturbing episode is instead described by Sandbrook as “she kissed each of his friends in turn”. It seems to be following the Hollywood Parental Guidance scheme - killing and death are fine, naked flesh is not. Thinking of the young audience in general and my son in particular I think Sandbrook has drawn the line in the right place.</p>
<h3 id="but-why%3F" tabindex="-1">But why?</h3>
<p>Finally I also enjoyed the book’s down to earth approach. A good example of this is when Sandbrook is considering why the Vikings decided to go Medieval on Anglo-Saxon England. Was it the shortage of good farmland in Norway? Perhaps the lack of available lady Vikings? Or perhaps the answer is a bit simpler:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>They had seen the wealth of their towns, the softness of their people and the weakness of their defences. They had seen the treasures of their monasteries, the golden relics and silver crosses, the decorated robes and jewel encrusted books. And they had seen the men they would be fighting: peaceful monks and well-meaning priests, who never even carried weapons.
So why did they do it?
Because they could.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dominic Sandbrook, Fury of the Vikings</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>“Because they could” is an explanation that should get more use by historians!</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>As the thread of this review runs short and the Norns close in with their scissors, I’ll end by saying that more than anything else this book is just fun - with heroes and villains, slaves and kings, and rampaging Viking warriors laughing with a cruel and savage joy as they wade ankle deep in the blood of their victims.</p>
<p>On reflection, perhaps a quiet fascination with poisons isn’t so bad after all...</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Being 10 years old and not on your way to Oslo also works <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-29-review-adventures_in_time_vikings/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Uncommon Wrath - review
Anthony Webb
Julius Caesar, after a decade of largely unprovoked warfare in what is now France, had killed a million Gauls and enslaved a million more.
His contemporary and political rival Cato the Younger (Marcus...
2022-11-25T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-02-review-uncommon_wrath/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0192859560.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Uncommon Wrath - review" /><p>Our review of Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato&#39;s Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic, by Josiah Osgood, first published in November 2022.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A highly readable account of late republican Rome, told through the lives of Julius Caesar and Cato the Younger. Osgood makes the case that it is these two together who bear most of the responsibility for the collapse of the Republic. Whether or not you agree with this view there is plenty to enjoy in this book.</p><p>It is also a timely story - a case study of political meltdown that is relevant today given the heat in politics, particularly in the United States.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>Julius Caesar, after a decade of largely unprovoked warfare in what is now France, had killed a million Gauls and enslaved a million more.</p>
<p>His contemporary and political rival Cato the Younger (Marcus Porcius Cato) was orders of magnitude less bloodthirsty. Despite commanding armies in the civil war he was very reluctant to see them fight and die: Plutarch tells us that Cato wept in grief when brave citizens killed each other. In the end he was most famous for killing himself.</p>
<p>Nowadays using a body count as a success measure is considered abhorrent. But somehow it is still the mass murderers who are among the most popular figures in history: Julius Caesar is far better known and admired than Cato - who lurks on the edge of public consciousness.</p>
<h3 id="a-double-biography" tabindex="-1">A double biography</h3>
<p>Josiah Osgood’s double biography of Cato and Caesar <em>Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato’s deadly rivalry destroyed the Roman Republic</em> offers a fascinating and detailed comparison of the two men - and an implicit comparison of the collapse of the Roman Republic into civil war with the fraught political scene in the United States today.</p>
<h3 id="julius-caesar" tabindex="-1">Julius Caesar</h3>
<p>Julius Caesar was certainly the more familiar figure to me, and I suspect most other readers, if only from Asterix. An ambitious, talented and hard up young Roman aristocrat, Caesar won election to a succession of ever more senior military and political positions with perhaps his most spectacular election success being to the post of Pontifex Maximus age just 37<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-02-review-uncommon_wrath/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>. A modern analogy might be if an up and coming Boris Johnson was elected to be Pope - except with less of an expectation that he would behave himself.</p>
<p>Having exhausted his funds and those of his creditors on extravagent festivals to boost his political career, he then engineered his appointment to the governorship of the provinces Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy), Illyricum (roughly Croatia) and Transalpine Gaul (southern France). With four legions (i.e. a lot of soldiers) under his command he charged around the rest of Gaul killing, plundering and enslaving for ten years until he was covered in glory and filthy rich.</p>
<h3 id="cato-the-younger" tabindex="-1">Cato the Younger</h3>
<p>Cato by contrast (who is not in Asterix) had largely stayed in Rome, trying to stop the Republic collapsing under the weight of the military and economic titans it had created.</p>
<p>Cato’s earliest office was - like Caesar’s later appointment - a religious one. He was elected to the Board of Fifteen for Sacred Actions whose job was to browse the Sibylline Books for clues to the future, whenever there was an emergency. The Sibylline Books were a collection of prophecies bought off an old crone for an enormous price by the last king of Rome hundreds of years before. This was an extremely prestigious position, especially for a young man in his early twenties and provided a great platform for him to launch his own political career, although didn't provide him with the foresight that he might have hoped for.</p>
<h3 id="toeing-the-line" tabindex="-1">Toeing the line</h3>
<p>While Caesar was flamboyant and lavish, Cato consciously set out to be the opposite, embodying the stern values of the Republic: honesty, hard work, emotional restraint, and bare feet.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-02-review-uncommon_wrath/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> This brand of ostentatious moderation in general went down well with his fellow Romans and over time he developed into the Republic’s moral arbiter, with the authority to sway the Senate.</p>
<p>For example when the Senate was reluctantly considering whether or not to execute some Roman aristocrats for conspiracy against the state, on the basis of some shaky evidence and without a trial (the Cataline conspiracy) it was Cato who convinced them to do it, telling them to think of their illustrious ancestors and man up already.</p>
<h3 id="why-did-the-roman-republic-fall%3F" tabindex="-1">Why did the Roman Republic fall?</h3>
<p>Osgood suggests that it was the conflict between these two men that more than anything else led to the collapse of the Roman Republic. After Caesar had completed his Gallic killing spree, he was unwilling to give up his armies without obtaining some sort of protection against his enemies in Rome. Cato meanwhile was unwilling to treat any man as an exception, and certainly not an enemy like Caesar. Both men - leading their respective factions - found themselves locked in conflict. The end result was civil war. It was not something either of them actively wanted.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Caesar eroded the ability of the Senate to adjudicate future disputes. And yet the chain reaction of partisanship was not the creation of one politician alone. Cato's obstruction and boycotts were in their own way revolutionary and damaging, both inciting Caesar's escalation and precluding any alternative solution. In trying to throttle Caesar, Cato had throttled compromise, an essential feature of politics.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Josiah Osgood, Uncommon Wrath</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="what-about-pompey%3F" tabindex="-1">What about Pompey?</h3>
<p>This is counter to the more common view that if any two individuals were to blame it was Caesar and Pompey - Pompey being the other superstar general of the period. Osgood proposes that because so many Romans admired Cato and his high moral standards they were reluctant to see him blamed for the civil war catastrophe, and so wrote up their accounts with this in mind. If you admit that your moral exemplar inadvertently caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of citizens and the collapse of the state you seriously undermine both him and his high principles.</p>
<h3 id="was-failure-innevitable%3F" tabindex="-1">Was failure innevitable?</h3>
<p>The other argument that historians put forward is that the Roman state was on its last legs anyway and was bound to collapse under its own contradictions. While acknowledging that the Roman Republic had many structural weaknesses Osgood notes that “<em>to blame only such seemingly impersonal forces would be to go too far. A republic is, after all, a man-made object.</em>” In other words the edifice might be tottering but it still needs someone to give it a push.</p>
<p>Which brings us back to the present!</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Politicians can and must argue with each other all the time. But regularly staking out extreme positions, while perhaps rewarding for an individual politician’s career, threatens to devastate the political system overall... Leaders recklessly issue ultimatums that limit the options for everyone. They might even resort to physical violence. Polarisation does not have to end in civil war. But a major civil war starts with it.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Josiah Osgood, Uncommon Wrath</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Osgood is keen that we keep in mind the relevance for our own politics: we must speak not as if we are in the idealised American Republic, but instead remember that we live in the cesspool of Washington<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-02-review-uncommon_wrath/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup> (or London or wherever else you happen to live).</p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h3>
<p>Overall though Osgood plays it pretty straight: we get the biographies of Caesar and Cato recounted as a single intertwined story, together with some helpful context on Roman life when needed. And it is easy to get swept up in the story without really thinking about what it all means, because at heart it is just a dramatic, bloody and pretty incredible tale.</p>
<p>I think this makes it a more powerful book. By not explicitly spelling out the modern day parallels (except a bit at the beginning and the end) it allows us to ruminate on the similarities and differences at our own pace - or completely discount them if we want to.</p>
<h3 id="a-fair-assessment" tabindex="-1">A fair assessment</h3>
<p>It helps too that Osgood doesn’t hero worship either Caesar or Cato. As far as the evidence allows, we are presented with well-rounded characters: the good and the bad, the admirable and the infuriating. This helped me understand why Cato in particular is still such a polarising character today: why some people might find him repugnant while others find him inspirational.</p>
<p>The style of the book is very accessible too. Sentences are fairly short, and prior knowledge is not assumed. Care is taken to tell a good story as well as get the facts as straight as possible. Overall I really enjoyed reading it.</p>
<h3 id="downsides%3F" tabindex="-1">Downsides?</h3>
<p>What are the downsides? To be honest I have nothing at all to complain about, unusually for me! The only thing that I think might put some people off is if you have no interest in the period at all - in which case it should be obvious that this is not the book for you. Or if you keep a copy of Plutarch under your bed and already know everything there is to know about Caesar and Cato - in which case you are not likely to find anything new.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-02-review-uncommon_wrath/#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup></p>
<p>But for those of us not at either of these two extremes this is a highly recommended read.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>A highly readable book about ancient republican Rome - a story of political struggles, high principles and brutal reality. It is also a timely story - a kind of case study of political meltdown that is relevant given the heat in politics today, particularly in the US.</p>
<p>For me I enjoyed it most as a chance to get to know Cato the Younger - although not interested in killing millions in battle, he is still well deserving of his celebrity as an archetypal Roman of the Republic.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>If I have my maths right - he was born in 100 BC and was elected Pontifex Maximus in 63 BC. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-02-review-uncommon_wrath/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>He was celebrated for wandering about the Roman forum barefoot. Also for not wearing a tunic. I’m not sure if this means he was down to his just pants? <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-02-review-uncommon_wrath/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>Not to be confused with the Trumpian slogan “drain the swamp”! The point is instead that imperfection and compromise are a fact of life. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-02-review-uncommon_wrath/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>The only reason I didn’t give this book the full five stars was because although the story is excellently told, it doesn’t tell us anything that feels new. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-02-review-uncommon_wrath/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Ancestors - review
Anthony Webb
Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and some other places, was buried on 19 September 2022 in Windsor Chapel. The crown she wore as queen, together with the orb and sceptre (ie the golden ball...
2022-11-04T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-04-review-ancestors/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1471188019.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Ancestors - review" /><p>Our review of Ancestors: A prehistory of Britain in seven burials, by Alice Roberts, first published in May 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Ancestors surveys the grand sweep of human history in Britain before the Romans came along, by forensically examining bones, burial things and DNA.</p><p>But a disjointed and sometimes meandering structure means it is more like a disarticulated skeleton than a coherent body of work. While it has some great content that it is worth digging through, it ends up a decent, rather than great, book.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <p>Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and some other places, was buried on 19 September 2022 in Windsor Chapel. The crown she wore as queen, together with the orb and sceptre (ie the golden ball with a cross on top, and the golden stick respectively) had been resting on her coffin but were not interred with her - they will be used again later. The main ceremonial item that was buried alongside her was a simple wooden wand belonging to the Lord Chancellor<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-04-review-ancestors/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>, broken in two to symbolise the ending of the Queen’s reign<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-04-review-ancestors/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup>.</p>
<p>When future archaeologist manage to relocate the ruins of Windsor chapel, buried underneath a decommissioned 6th millennium spaceport, they will find a very modest burial for a lady who was head of state for about 140 million people around the world: the bones, a few personal jewels, the odd button - and no sign at all of the ceremonial wooden wand which will have rotten away to nothing.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-04-review-ancestors/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup></p>
<p>All of which provides an instructive comparison to the Amesbury Archer, also named the King of Stonehenge by the media<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-04-review-ancestors/#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup>, who was buried over 4,000 years ago in 2,300 BCE in the South of England.</p>
<p>Alice Roberts in <em>Ancestors: A prehistory of Britain in seven burials</em> talks us through the hoard of objects found with the skeleton of the Archer:</p>
<ul>
<li>5 beakers (ie pots)</li>
<li>3 small copper knives</li>
<li>16 flint arrowheads</li>
<li>2 small gold objects, possibly hair wraps</li>
<li>1 flattish stone thought to have been used as a metalworking anvil</li>
<li>2 stone wristguards</li>
<li>4 boars tusks</li>
<li>1 stone belt-ring</li>
<li>lots of flints</li>
</ul>
<p>This may not seem like that much stuff to us, but compared to everyone else buried in the same period it represented huge wealth - ten times as much as is usually found in a burial. And much more than will have been buried with Queen Elizabeth II.</p>
<h3 id="anything-missing%3F" tabindex="-1">Anything missing?</h3>
<p>The Amesbury Archer’s grave will also be missing any significant and beautiful items made of wood, textiles and leather that will have decomposed completely, just like the Queen Elizabeth’s Wand of Office - charged with symbolism - will eventually vanish without trace. At a minimum the Archer is likely to have had a bow with him, perhaps also snapped in half and laid on the body.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-04-review-ancestors/#fn5" id="fnref5">5</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="what-does-it-all-mean%3F" tabindex="-1">What does it all mean?</h3>
<p>So he was a member of the copper age super rich in Britain 4,000 years ago. Alice Roberts then does a great job of explaining what all of these objects mean for this period of prehistory - and what his skeleton reveals about the man.</p>
<p>We can see metal beginning to be used by some people in the gold and copper items - although worked flint still seems to be the more practical cutting tool. We can evidence of sophisticated hunting weaponry with new barbed arrowhead designs. And we can see the evidence of long distance travel and migration in the bones of the man himself, in particular his teeth...</p>
<h3 id="dental-records" tabindex="-1">Dental records</h3>
<p>Our teeth are incredibly durable - we only get one adult set so they need to be. And they are coated with a layer of super hard enamel when the teeth develop. This enamel letter is not replaced during your lifetime, we need to look after it! This also means that the chemical signatures of the food and water you consume when your teeth are forming is detectable in your teeth for as long as your teeth survive.</p>
<p>Because the chemical signatures in food and water are different in different locations, archaeologists can make informed guesses about whether the skeletons that they find grew up locally or not - by analysing their teeth enamel.</p>
<p>Quite astoundingly the Amesbury Archer seems to have grown up in the Swiss Alps before eventually being buried in Southern England in his early forties.</p>
<h3 id="travels-with-my-ancestor" tabindex="-1">Travels with my ancestor</h3>
<p>If he came directly by the shortest route (which he certainly wouldn’t have done) this was a journey of almost 1,000km which <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/raMAqta9aE5Haz7LA">Google Maps tells me will take 171 hours of constant walking</a>. This level of mobility in such a high status individual at this time is amazing.</p>
<p>It also indicates population wide mobility - the genetic evidence from a range of skeletons seems to point to almost complete population replacement by these metal using “Beaker People”, taking over from the stone age Neolithic inhabitants of Britain who came before them. The likely reason for this, Roberts tells us, is that changes in climate disrupted the way of life of the Neolithic farmers, who saw a significant reduction in their population and abandoned the fields to rely on their herds of animals instead.</p>
<p>When the Beaker People made the crossing to Britain over the Channel they came across a landscape largely empty of humans. As Roberts puts it:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>...in the later fourth millennium BCE, it seems that cereal cultivation was abandoned and there was a switch to more nomadic pastoralism... And along with that, there was a population collapse. Long barrows fell out of use. Causewayed enclosures fell into ruin. Fields were abandoned... this is the background to the arrival of the Beaker complex in Britain [i.e. the arrival of the Amesbury Archer and his associates] - it follows that Neolithic population collapse.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Alice Roberts, Ancestors</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="a-forensic-examination" tabindex="-1">A forensic examination</h3>
<p>Other remarkable insights that Roberts gleans from the bones are: a bigger than normal bone nodule on the top of his shoulder implies a well developed bowstring drawing muscle. Subtle clues in the finger bones point to an iron grip. And a missing left kneecap means he probably walked with a limp.</p>
<p>Overall we get an incredibly detailed picture of an individual who lived 4,000 years ago - and can put him firmly in the context of dramatic cultural and population upheaval.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book?</h3>
<p>Of course this chap is just one of the seven burials we are promised by the title! The full list is:</p>
<ul>
<li>Burial 1: The Red Lady (who is actually a man), buried some 34,000 years ago in Wales and the earliest modern human skeleton in Britain</li>
<li>Burial 2: A few pre-neanderthal teeth and bones from 230,000 years ago, also in Wales.</li>
<li>Burial 3: Cheddar man and five others, dating to 9,080 and 14,700 years ago respectively. The bones from the more ancient skeletons show clear evidence of having been butchered and eaten by other humans.</li>
<li>Burial 4: The tomb of the Otters, in Orkney, containing 14 Neolithic people from 5,000 years ago.</li>
<li>Burial 5: The Amesbury Archer from 2400-2300 BCE i.e. 4,400 years ago, buried a few miles from Stonehenge.</li>
<li>Burial 6: The iron age Pocklington chariot burial, 300 BCE in Yorkshire - the burial of a man in his chariot with two upright ponies.</li>
<li>Burial 7: In the modern day - the cremated remains of the pioneer archaeologist Pitt Rivers, from the year 1900.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="what-i-liked-about-it" tabindex="-1">What I liked about it</h3>
<p>This book is best when it gets into the details of the burials themselves. Roberts gives us accessible explanations of the science behind the archaeological theories and talks through why the bones tell us what they do.</p>
<p>This allows us to build up a picture of who the deceased were, but also to understand how much confidence we can have in these interpretations. She is careful to warn us of the dangers of over interpretation: unlike me Roberts never calls the Amesbury Archer the King of Stonehenge and is refreshingly scathing of those who get carried away with that sort of thing!</p>
<h3 id="minimal-jargon" tabindex="-1">Minimal jargon</h3>
<p>She also avoids too much jargon. My “jargon test” for any book on prehistory is how often the author uses the word “liminal”<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-04-review-ancestors/#fn6" id="fnref6">6</a></sup>. I’m happy to report that Roberts restrains herself until chapter 8 and then only uses it once.</p>
<p>Finally the book seems very up to date, reporting on excavations in the last few years and some still underway. For example I really enjoyed reading about two excavations from 2011 and 2017 where Neolithic long barrows, much to everyone’s surprise, were discovered to be the burial places of deliberately burned great halls, which were only later turned into the more familiar stone lined bone chambers hundreds of years later.</p>
<h3 id="the-writing-style" tabindex="-1">The writing style</h3>
<p>Here is where the complaints start I’m afraid!</p>
<p>Alice Roberts is a brilliant and engaging communicator on TV but this doesn’t really translate to the page: while the book has some great content, it isn’t a great book. There is a strange juxtaposition between the scientific and highly logical descriptions of the burials themselves, which are set within an overall narrative that feels meandering and sometimes whimsical.</p>
<h3 id="we-need-to-talk-about-alan" tabindex="-1">We need to talk about Alan</h3>
<p>In fact the book feels a bit like it was written as a script for a TV program with interviews replayed word for word, and lots of cheesy “I’m on my way to Salisbury museum to meet...” moments. When Roberts started talking about her sandals (walking through a bog) as if they had feelings I felt strong echoes of the part memoir part travelogue Nomad written by that other well known TV (and radio) presenter Alan Partridge. The first person narrative style of Alan’s book, in which he recounts a journey taken in the footsteps of his father - and occasional tangential musings - is surprisingly similar. And Alan also anthropomorphised his footwear, naming his walking shoes Fernando and Denise respectively, after his two estranged children.</p>
<h3 id="the-god-distraction" tabindex="-1">The God distraction</h3>
<p>To give a more concrete example of the slightly wayward delivery: the last chapter is a reflection on death and the options for burial today: under a tree, dissolved into fertiliser, donated to medical science... but then starts swinging for religion, Dawkins style, calling it a delusional ponzi scheme that is unfit for the modern rational mind. Even for me as an atheist it all seems a bit... unnecessary.</p>
<p>So while there is a lot of great, and very up to date, stuff in this book, I felt too distracted from it too frequently to consistently enjoy the reading experience.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Ancestors is full of fascinating insights into the prehistory of Britain: what burials can tell us about particular moments in our past, and change over time. Roberts gives us a forensic examination of the skeletons, and the objects found alongside them.</p>
<p>So there are the bones of a good book here - and the bones have been gnawed of every scrap of meat. But for me the stylistic distractions meant it read more like a disarticulated skeleton and never really hung together as a single body of work.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Who is responsible for making hotel bookings and arranging airport pickups for the king or queen when they go on holiday, among other responsibilities. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-04-review-ancestors/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>This “wand of office” looks a bit like a thin snooker or pool table cue, and seems to unscrew in half in the same way too, as shown in this <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/19/what-is-the-wand-of-office-that-will-be-broken-at-the-queens-funeral">video from the Guardian newspaper showing the ceremonial “breaking of the stick” moment</a> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-04-review-ancestors/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>Apart from the metal screw-together-bit in the middle, the obscure purpose of which will cause many fruitless arguments between members of the archaeological community. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-04-review-ancestors/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>By which it is meant that there is no evidence for him being King of Stonehenge but it is a great - and just about plausible - story! The idea is that he was rich, his grave is a few miles away, and his lifetime probably overlapped with the period when the big iconic upright stones were being installed. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-04-review-ancestors/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn5" class="footnote-item"><p>Disclaimer: just in case there was any doubt this “ceremony of the breaking of the bow” detail is my own uninformed speculation! <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-04-review-ancestors/#fnref5" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn6" class="footnote-item"><p>The word liminal has two meanings, the first is “boundary”, the second is “I’ve spent too much time hanging out with archaeologists”. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-11-04-review-ancestors/#fnref6" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in October 2022
Anthony Webb
Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon for those who like to buy their books there.
...
2022-11-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-11-01-post-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1667076802/posts/Oct22_HistoryBooks.png" alt="New history books in October 2022" /><p><em>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon for those who like to buy their books there.</em></p>
<div class="grid_book_small">
<div class="fix-children hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241215919.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion" title="Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover0241215919" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion" data-author="Peter Heather" data-publishdate="2022-10-27" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241215919.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0241215919" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0241215919" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children hbk ">
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1399803557.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East" title="The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover1399803557" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East" data-author="Nicholas Morton" data-publishdate="2022-10-27" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1399803557.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1399803557" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1399803557" data-review="">
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<p>Ten new history books for this month, with the following going on my virtual TBR pile:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Tudor England: A History</strong> by Lucy Wooding - because lots of people seem to be really into the Tudors whereas I'm never quite sure what the fuss is all about. I am thinking this one might let me in on the secret.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East</strong> by Nicholas Morton - the Mongols were obviously massively important in this hugely important area of the world (the centre of Eurasian civilisation one could argue) but they often seem peripheral characters in other national histories. I'm hoping that this book will provide more focus.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire</strong> by Ryan Gingeras - because I have a strong interest in Turkish and Ottoman history but always feel that I never quite know enough!</p>
</li>
</ul>
How to achieve (historical) immortality - on a budget
Anthony Webb
What we do in life echoes in eternity...
So said Maximus in the film Gladiator way back in the year 2000. The trouble is that for most of us these echoes are going to be pretty feeble, lasting (at...
2022-10-14T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1665000115/posts/GladiatorAndTablet.png" alt="How to achieve (historical) immortality - on a budget" /><blockquote>
<p>What we do in life echoes in eternity...</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1665000115/posts/GladiatorAndTablet.png#center," alt="Russell Crowe maximising his chances..." title="Russell Crowe maximising his chances..." /></p>
<p>So said Maximus in the film Gladiator way back in the year 2000. The trouble is that for most of us these echoes are going to be pretty feeble, lasting (at best) a generation or two among our direct descendants.</p>
<p>This article is going to be about how you can amplify those echoes - your messages to the far future; your voice for posterity.</p>
<p>But crucially: on a budget.</p>
<p>As you might imagine for a serious history website such as this one, all my tips will be supported by evidence of what <em>has actually already worked</em> by examining how the messages from the past that we still have now have stood the test of time.</p>
<p></p><div class="toc_list"><hr /><h3><strong>Contents</strong></h3><p><i>Links are to the headings in the article below</i></p><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#an-unlimited-vs-limited-budget">An unlimited vs limited budget</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#preservation-by-copying">Preservation by copying</a><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#how-can-we-read-cicero-today%3F">How can we read Cicero today?</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#writing-great-content---if-we-can...">Writing great content - if we can...</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#direct-preservation">Direct preservation</a><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#stone-tablets">Stone tablets</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#where-to-put-them">Where to put them</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#parthenon-inventories---a-lucky-stone-inscription-survival">Parthenon inventories - a lucky stone inscription survival</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#the-problem-with-stone">The problem with stone</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#clay-tablets-and-sumerian-inscriptions">Clay tablets and Sumerian inscriptions</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#a-worthless-material-is-a-good-material">A worthless material is a good material</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#continuously-readable-or-deliberately-hidden%3F">Continuously readable or deliberately hidden?</a><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#hiding-your-message-in-a-cave">Hiding your message in a cave</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#power-centres-as-ideal-hiding-places">Power centres as ideal hiding places</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#what-about-the-internet%3F">What about the internet?</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#quality-and-quantity">Quality and quantity</a><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#maximising-your-chances-of-success">Maximising your chances of success</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#multiple-languages">Multiple languages</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#multiple-channels">Multiple channels</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#conclusion-and-final-recommendation">Conclusion and final recommendation</a></li></ol><hr /></div><p></p>
<h2 id="an-unlimited-vs-limited-budget" tabindex="-1">An unlimited vs limited budget</h2>
<p>If you command the resources of a large country with interplanetary space-faring capability, preserving your message for an effectively unlimited amount of time would be trivial. All you would need to do is inscribe on some super hard material and drop it off on the moon. Or better, fire it off out of the solar system like the Pioneer space probes with their <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque">pictures of hydrogen atoms, maps of the solar system and nude drawings</a>.</p>
<p>But for you and me the expense required is out of reach. In order to be practical then, all my suggestions will be achievable for an ordinary person.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
<h2 id="preservation-by-copying" tabindex="-1">Preservation by copying</h2>
<h3 id="how-can-we-read-cicero-today%3F" tabindex="-1">How can we read Cicero today?</h3>
<p>Virtually all of the ancient texts that we can still read today have reached us through copies. When we read Cicero - a Roman who lived and died in the first century BCE - for example we are actually reading a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy... you get the idea.</p>
<p>When Cicero (or Tiro his secretary) originally wrote down his works they would have been written on parchment which in most climates doesn’t last very long. But because they were considered to be the pinnacle of learning they were copied across the ancient world. And because in turn Christians admired his style they copied his works extensively through time too.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
<p>Even now when we see placeholder “Lorem ipsum” text, we are reading Cicero pontificating about the mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain, albeit in latin scrambled up by a 15th century typesetter.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup></p>
<p>So by writing something meaningful that other people value we can increase our chances of our work surviving. Other people will copy and disseminate it for us.</p>
<h3 id="writing-great-content---if-we-can..." tabindex="-1">Writing great content - if we can...</h3>
<p>The trouble is of course that most people won’t be able to write something that captures the imagination for generations - but there is no harm (and little direct monetary cost) in giving it a go.</p>
<p>The works that seem to survive best are captivating stories (for example the Iliad or the Epic of Gilgamesh) or collections of wise sayings (Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations or Lao Tzu’s (Lao Zi) Tao Te Ching). But even if you do decide to follow the wise sayings route, bear in mind it is helpful if you are already famous or at the very least have a small coterie of highly devoted followers.</p>
<h2 id="direct-preservation" tabindex="-1">Direct preservation</h2>
<h3 id="stone-tablets" tabindex="-1">Stone tablets</h3>
<p>If you can’t rely on creating a dedicated multi-generational fanbase, you should instead think about the direct preservation of your oeuvre.</p>
<p>The classic method is to inscribe on a stone tablet. Admittedly this isn’t all that cheap given you need a good quality piece of stone with a flat surface - but you could save money with a repurposed kitchen worktop or (at a pinch) a paving slab.</p>
<h3 id="where-to-put-them" tabindex="-1">Where to put them</h3>
<p>In theory this inscription can last for hundreds of years or even thousands of years. But you will need to be careful about where you put it to avoid weathering. Here in the UK most inscribed tombstones become difficult to read after a hundred years and almost impossible after two hundred. Ideally you would want to drop it off in a dryer climate such as Egypt, or more cost effectively pay for the inscription to be done in situ.</p>
<p>But the awkward fact is that over time there have been a lot of stone inscriptions and only a tiny fragment of them have survived today, and often by luck.</p>
<h3 id="parthenon-inventories---a-lucky-stone-inscription-survival" tabindex="-1">Parthenon inventories - a lucky stone inscription survival</h3>
<p>For example: we know quite a lot about the loot the ancient Greeks stored in the Parthenon in Athens 2,500 years ago. This is because we still have the stone inscriptions on which the inventories of the loot (/ donations) were written. (Presumably these lists were written in stone to deter any pilfering by the guards.)</p>
<p>But the reason why we have these stone inscriptions today is because the stone blocks that they were written on were reused as makeshift door jambs (ie the side bits of a door frame) after a devastating fire in the 4th Century AD that caused massive damage to the Parthenon. Preserved by chance in the fabric of the building, they were discovered by archaeologists in modern times.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="the-problem-with-stone" tabindex="-1">The problem with stone</h3>
<p>There are two key problems with using stone.</p>
<p>The first is that it not cheap or easy to write on. This means it is not practical to make many copies. So any chance event could destroy your only message. Even if it doesn't get destroyed will it ever resurface later: where are Moses stone carved commandments now? Who knows. Luckily someone had the presence of mind to write them down in the Bible too.</p>
<p>The second problem with stone is that it is a valuable and desirable material in its own right. This means that those inscriptions you do make could easily get smashed up and reused as attractive edgings for flower beds and whatnot.</p>
<p>What we need therefore is something hard, easy to work and cheap...</p>
<h3 id="clay-tablets-and-sumerian-inscriptions" tabindex="-1">Clay tablets and Sumerian inscriptions</h3>
<p>Clay is pretty cheap and it is soft and so easy to write on. But when you fire it it becomes extremely robust.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#fn5" id="fnref5">5</a></sup></p>
<p>Some of our oldest known inscriptions are written on clay tablets which became popular in the so called Sumerian civilization when they got the hang of writing, in the mid 4th Century BCE (i.e. from 3,500 to 3,000 BCE). We have an incredible number of records from these kingdoms because the use of clay was so widespread and even if you didn’t fire the clay on purpose, every now and then a big accidental conflagration would do the job for you.</p>
<p>From my (admittedly limited) knowledge of archaeology it seems that the one thing that you can be sure will survive from the past is all their broken pottery, which is why it is a brilliant material to figure out what was going on in a particular place and time, even when not much else remains.</p>
<h3 id="a-worthless-material-is-a-good-material" tabindex="-1">A worthless material is a good material</h3>
<p>And because it is so cheap pottery / clay tablets almost never get repurposed for other things which might erase an inscription - except perhaps a handy in-filling material for ditches and the like, which will only enhance the probability of preservation.</p>
<p>So if you want something that is still going to be legible thousands of years into the future, and will get safely left alone in the ground until an archaeologist takes an interest, fired clay is in my view your best bet.</p>
<h2 id="continuously-readable-or-deliberately-hidden%3F" tabindex="-1">Continuously readable or deliberately hidden?</h2>
<p>One thing you will have to decide when planning your echo is whether you want it to be available to read by everyone at all times - in which case your message is probably going to be exposed to the air and weathering. Or whether you want it to be hidden for hundreds or thousands and only read after its chance discovery.</p>
<p>My recommendation is that you concentrate on a good hiding place and give up on the idea that it will be available to read for the passerby.</p>
<p>This is related to budget. It is hard to think of a prominent place where you could stick your clay tablet unless it is on your own property. And even if you were to chisel it into the wall of your house, your house is going to get demolished in less than a century anyway and your building rubble dumped in a hole somewhere - in which case it becomes hidden by default but in a place not of your choosing.</p>
<h3 id="hiding-your-message-in-a-cave" tabindex="-1">Hiding your message in a cave</h3>
<p>A good compromise might be to put your clay tablet deep into an unexplored but not <em>too</em> inaccessible cave system. We know that cave paintings can last for tens of thousands of years - for example <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux">the incredible animal paintings in Lascaux cave</a> which are reckoned to be about 17,000 years old.</p>
<p>But again thinking of what is achievable for the ordinary punter - deep cave exploration is probably not a good idea. And there is probably a spelunker’s code which frowns upon littering a pristine natural environment with our self indulgent scribbles.</p>
<h3 id="power-centres-as-ideal-hiding-places" tabindex="-1">Power centres as ideal hiding places</h3>
<p>So where should you hide them?</p>
<p>When investigating the past today archaeologists will often hone in on the centre of power and population. This isn't exclusively the case, but if an archaeologist is excavating an ordinary dwelling they will have hundreds to choose from. But if they want to excavate the ruler's palace there can only be one.</p>
<p>Assuming future archaeologists are attracted to power and wealth in the same way, I would suggest you hide your tablets in soft ground as close as possible to key administrative or military buildings or notable landmarks. For example: Westminster Abbey in London, UK would make an excellent spot.</p>
<p>I would also choose multiple locations and bury multiple tablets per location: more on this below.</p>
<h3 id="what-about-the-internet%3F" tabindex="-1">What about the internet?</h3>
<p>Maybe you are wondering by now if I am over-complicating the issue and why not just stick the message on the internet? Then everyone in the world can read it whenever they want and there is no theoretical limit to how long it will last.</p>
<p>While this is an excellent low cost strategy I don’t think it will last for more than a few decades.</p>
<p>This is because in order for your magnum scribblus to be sent to a reader there is a cost, which is the cost of sending data to a screen, and the cost of a storage medium from which it can be retrieved. If you outsource this cost to someone like facebook or google or twitter, you are relying on them to be around forever when most big companies last less than a hundred years. And if they are around they could pull the plug on your blogger account whenever they feel like it.</p>
<p>For example my Yahoo Geocities chimpanzee website has I’m fairly sure been deleted by now, despite the content being as fresh today as it was twenty years ago.</p>
<p>The other problem with relying on the internet is that if it turns out that it <em>does</em> effectively store retrievable information for thousands of years, then it won’t just be your message that is ‘saved down’ it will be everyone else’s message too. The volume of the collected outpourings of mankind will be truly immense and the idea that your or my paltry addition will be read, or even findable, by anyone other than a cold-hearted robot for statistical analysis is delusional.</p>
<h2 id="quality-and-quantity" tabindex="-1">Quality <em>and</em> quantity</h2>
<h3 id="maximising-your-chances-of-success" tabindex="-1">Maximising your chances of success</h3>
<p>We have already referred to the fact that the more intrinsically interesting your message is, the more likely it is to be read and shared. On the other hand we don’t know what people will find interesting in a thousand years time. Maybe it is your favourite makeup tips? Or perhaps next week's shopping list?</p>
<p>But while quality may be hard to judge, you can’t go wrong by maximising quantity.</p>
<p>If you are intending to follow my instructions and inscribe on clay tablets which are then hidden in various places, it makes sense to produce a lot of clay tablets. Firstly: because although any one clay tablet has a small chance of being refound, if you have a hundred - or better a thousand - scattered around a number of locations you improve the odds. Secondly if more than one of your clay tablets <em>is</em> discovered the fact that it exists in identical copies will no doubt be intriguing all by itself.</p>
<h3 id="multiple-languages" tabindex="-1">Multiple languages</h3>
<p>I would also recommend that you write down your message in multiple languages preferably using multiple scripts. Perhaps English, Chinese and Arabic would be a good bet. This might take a bit more work but consider whether the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone">Rosetta stone</a> would be as popular if it was only written in hieroglyphs?</p>
<p>This means after the nuclear winter has thawed out there is a <em>possibility</em> that your vanity project could be <em>the</em> key to reading the ancient texts of the First Age of Man.</p>
<h3 id="multiple-channels" tabindex="-1">Multiple channels</h3>
<p>My final point is that while I think clay tablets (lots of them) are the way to go, I think the other less likely methods should also be tried, alongside the tablets. Here I am thinking primarily about sticking it on the internet because the costs are so low.</p>
<p>This is partly an extension of the ‘quantity is key’ argument but also because if there is a chance that your poem (or whatever) finds success as a great work of literature <em>other people might then take it upon themselves to preserve your work for you</em>.</p>
<p>Who knows they might even have a better idea than clay tablets?</p>
<h2 id="conclusion-and-final-recommendation" tabindex="-1">Conclusion and final recommendation</h2>
<p>So if you want your voice to echo for eternity - or at least a ten thousand years or so - here is my advice:</p>
<ul>
<li>Find a message that is meaningful and if possible one that will become wildly popular. <em>Historical example: The Iliad, Tao Te Ching.</em></li>
<li>Inscribe this on clay tablets. <em>Historical example: Cuneiform tablets.</em></li>
<li>...in multiple languages. <em>Historical examples: the Rosetta Stone.</em></li>
<li>Produce or commission as many of these tablets as you can: at least a hundred feels achievable but aim for a thousand. <em>Historical example: Epic of Gilgamesh, found on multiple clay tablets.</em></li>
<li>Conceal them in many different locations close to physical centres of power. If you can manage it: in different countries. Because no-one else will value them today you don’t have to hide them too carefully - if anyone does come across them in the next few decades they will probably just tread them further into the mud. <em>Historical examples: all old pottery.</em></li>
<li>Simultaneously put your message onto as many internet channels as possible just in case someone reads it and makes it popular. <em>Historical examples: all twitter accounts.</em></li>
</ul>
<p>And there you have it!</p>
<p>Of course it is possible that I have missed something imprtant or even crucial in my exploration of the subject. If so please email me and let me know at: <a href="mailto:popularhistorybooks@gmail.com">popularhistorybooks@gmail.com</a>. The future may depend upon it.</p>
<p>Anthony Webb, London 2022</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Also therefore rejected are carving letters hundreds of metres in size directly on the bedrock of the planet, an idea by the science fiction writer Cixin Liu where due to problems with the speed of light the message needs to be readable millions of years later. Or any manipulation of the genome to encode a note, which anyway I am not convinced would work. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>In my internet trawl to find the oldest surviving manuscript of Cicero’s writings I came across the <a href="https://medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/person_78769600">Cicero page from the Bodleian Library</a> in the University of Oxford which suggests that the oldest date from the 12th century with most being from the 15th Century. Even if this webpage is not comprehensive, presumably it is representative. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>Assuming that <a href="https://www.techopedia.com/definition/12898/lorem-ipsum">this website explaining the origins of lorem ipsum</a> is reliable. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p><em>The Parthenon</em> by Mary Beard, chapter 5 <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn5" class="footnote-item"><p>Metal coins could also be a good bet. But although they have lasted for thousands of years as well, the cost and difficulty of making them is greater - and there is at least the possibility that they will get recycled into something else. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-10-14-post-how_to_achieve_immortality/#fnref5" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Cartooning China - review
Anthony Webb
These half civilised governments such as those in China Portugal and Spanish America all require a Dressing every eight or Ten years to keep them in order... They care little for words and they must...
2022-10-07T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-10-07-review-cartooning_china/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0367460998.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Cartooning China - review" /><p>Our review of Cartooning China: Punch, Power, &amp; Politics in the Victorian Era, by Amy Matthewson, first published in March 2022.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>An illuminating work on Victorian British perceptions of China - and Victorian British perceptions of themselves - this is a great little book if you are interested in this area of history.</p><p>By focussing on cartoons Matthewson literally shows you what and how people in Britain thought at that time.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>These half civilised governments such as those in China Portugal and Spanish America all require a Dressing every eight or Ten years to keep them in order... They care little for words and they must not only see the Stick but actually feel it on their Shoulders.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Viscount Palmerston as UK foreign secretary, 1850</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Amy Matthewson recounts this belligerent statement in her new book: <em>Cartooning China: Punch, Power, and Politics in the Victorian Era.</em></p>
<p>Palmerston - one of the most well known British politicians of the 19th Century - had ample opportunity to practice what he preached, invading, attacking or menacing a wide variety of countries all over the world.</p>
<p>One of which was China...</p>
<h3 id="held-to-ransom" tabindex="-1">Held to ransom</h3>
<p>In 1856 a ship called the Arrow was seized by the local Chinese governor in Canton harbour, who suspected its (Chinese) crew of piracy. The (British) captain of the ship - who was lunching with a friend on another boat at the time - complained to the local British official who responded by demanding a release of the (possible) pirates and an apology. They got the first but not the second and responded by bombarding Canton from the sea.</p>
<p>Back in the UK people were divided on what to do. Was it the local British official’s fault for escalating a relatively trivial incident into armed conflict? Or... was it the Chinese governor's fault for his general obstinacy in the face of the militarily - and morally - superior British?</p>
<h3 id="(election)-victory-at-any-cost" tabindex="-1">(Election) victory at any cost</h3>
<p>Pam himself had no doubts, painting the doubters who refused to support the Brits abroad as un-patriotic and un-English. So out came the Stick: 15,000 British and French troops who won a few battles, marched to Peking (Beijing), forced the Chinese government to sign a harsh and punitive treaty, and destroyed the emperor’s summer palace. Meanwhile back in the UK Palmerston won a general election with a landslide victory, which of course was the point all along.</p>
<p>This invasion has become known as the Second Opium War, because a key reason for fighting it - other than to get an apology for the confiscation of a small boat - was to allow British merchants to trade freely in China, including in opium.</p>
<h3 id="egging-them-on" tabindex="-1">Egging them on</h3>
<p>One of the fascinating things about this conflict, and explored by Matthewson in her book, is the role that British public opinion had to play.</p>
<p>Palmerston fought the war in order to showcase his true Brit credentials and win an election. But the righteous British vengeance card only works if your opponent is a cad. To put it another way: if you can convince everyone that the other chaps are the bad guys, well that must make you the good guy<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-10-07-review-cartooning_china/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>.</p>
<p>The Second Opium War led to a noticeable shift in the British view of the Chinese. After the war opinions were, Matthewson suggests, much more hostile. But this hostility was itself partly the product of this carefully manufactured war.</p>
<p>And the press, including the popular magazine Punch with its eye-catching full page political cartoons, variously shaped, responded to and amplified these views.</p>
<h3 id="the-curse-of-print-media" tabindex="-1">The curse of print media</h3>
<p>Which raises the interesting question of cause and effect. Why did Britain go to war? Because the Chinese took a small ship registered as British. War was reasonable response, Palmerston tells us, not only because of the ship but because of the generally cruel and untrustworthy behaviour of the Chinese which must be punished. This is confirmed when Britain and France invade China and in fact the Chinese frequently try to kill British and French soldiers, sometimes succeeding in horrible ways. Therefore the war - and certainly the punishment dished out by the British - was a consequence of Chinese brutality.</p>
<p>In the midst of this vicious circle there are papers like the Times and Punch who are in the business of serving up palatable dishes to the public and will happily jump on a pro British / anti Chinese bandwagon, driven by the government - with <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101076892478&view=2up&seq=494&skin=2021&ui=embed">cartoons such as New Elgin Marbles</a> showing the Chinese emperor as a grotesque semi-human figure in contrast to the upright, stern and noble portrayal of Lord Elgin.</p>
<p>In <em>Cartooning China: Punch, Power, and Politics in the Victorian Era</em> Matthewson - as you might expect from the title - concentrates on the role of the magazine Punch in the portrayals of China and the Chinese.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book?</h3>
<p>The book is fairly concise at 174 pages with chapters covering:</p>
<ul>
<li>The writers and cartoonists who produced Punch.</li>
<li>The general outlook of the paper and how it changed over time.</li>
<li>Portrayals of China from 1850 to 1860 covering the Great Exhibition and the Second Opium War referred to above.</li>
<li>Portrayals of China in the 1890s when under attack from Japan.</li>
</ul>
<p>The great thing about the book is that it reproduces (I believe) every Punch cartoon referring to China over this period rather than cherry picking favourites. This allows you to draw your own conclusions about how China was perceived at that time in the UK, rather than relying on the author to choose those cartoons which they think are representative.</p>
<p>Also by giving us details of who is writing the magazine and their politics - plus a look at the circulation figures over time - we can make a judgement about how representative they were of British opinion over that time.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-10-07-review-cartooning_china/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="respectable-racism" tabindex="-1">Respectable racism</h3>
<p>One of things I was interested to learn for example was that Punch was always intended to be a respectable paper that avoided sensation - ie didn’t print rude cartoons, unlike some of its rivals. The idea was that even the ladys could read it without having to retire blushing to the powder room. This gave it an air of respectability and enabled a wider circulation.</p>
<p>However looking at the cartoons relating to China as a modern reader they are pretty much without exception offensively racist. <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hnv1wk&view=2up&seq=206&skin=2021&ui=embed">These two cartoons from Punch in 1857</a> give you a good idea of what I mean.</p>
<p>When the lady in our household (my wife, who also happens to be Chinese) picks up these Punch illustrations, my feeling is one of slight awkwardness tinged with some shame. Even though - because these cartoons are from an era which has now passed - they don’t really bother her.</p>
<h3 id="any-drawbacks%3F" tabindex="-1">Any drawbacks?</h3>
<p>Not a drawback as such but I think it is important to point out that this book is a study rather than a story. While the non-academic (for example: me) can get a lot out of it, the writing style is more scholarly than stirring.</p>
<p>My other observation is that the cartoons themselves don’t tend to illustrate the changing views of Punch as much as the written articles in Punch that went alongside them.</p>
<p>For example I was trying to trace the increasingly negative portrayal of China as the Second Opium War started. However the cartoons - to my untrained eye - <em>all</em> seemed similarly negative and dismissive, whether before or after the late 1850s. To really understand what’s going on you have to see what Matthewson brings out from the changing tone of the articles that were published.</p>
<p>My conclusion was that although this is a book about cartoons - and Punch is famous for them - you can’t just skim through it (or Punch) looking at the pictures!</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>An illuminating work on Victorian British perceptions of China - and Victorian British perceptions of themselves - this is a great little book if you are interested in this area of history.</p>
<p>By focussing on the cartoons in Punch it is a really accessible way to see first hand how British people were shown the rest of the world - which was all too often as Palmerston had said: half civilised and deserving of the stick.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Palmerston’s exact words in describing the Chinese were “<em>a set of kidnapping, murdering, poisoning barbarians</em>”. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-10-07-review-cartooning_china/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>The wide circulation and multiple readers per copy suggests it was at the very least acceptable to a fairly broad part of society even if it was written by a smaller middle class group of London based men. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-10-07-review-cartooning_china/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in September 2022
Anthony Webb
Thirteen new history books identified this month. No doubt they are all good but to pick out a few:
Olando Figes does his bit to enlighten us all with his The Story of Russia. As I had noted earlier...
2022-10-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-10-01-post-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1664552601/posts/Sept22_HistoryBooks.png" alt="New history books in September 2022" /><p>Thirteen new history books identified this month. No doubt they are all good but to pick out a few:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Olando Figes does his bit to enlighten us all with his <strong>The Story of Russia</strong>. As I had noted earlier this year in my review of <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-08-review-russia_as_empire/">Russia as Empire, by Kees Boterbloem</a>, there are not many recently published books in this area so this is a welcome addition.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>In preparation for <strong>black history month</strong>: there are two books published on black people in British society, in the Georgian era and the Victorian era respectively. Plus another book with a similar theme looking at African and Caribbean people in the UK, as far back as we can trace.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Mortal Monarchs: 1000 Years of Royal Deaths</strong>, which focusses on the endings of the Kings and Queens of England since Edward the Confessor in the 11th Century (but not including the most recent) and has a literally killer opening sentence.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Personality and Power: Builders and Destroyers of Modern Europe</strong>, by Ian Kershaw which will no doubt generate some healthy debate.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Index of Prohibited Books: Four Centuries of Struggle Over Word and Image for the Greater Glory of God</strong> which looks interesting but it was difficult to find out much about it as there is no Amazon 'look inside' option shown, just a hardback version. But given that this list was only officially retired by the Vatican in the 1960s it sounds intriguing.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon for those who like to buy their books there.</p>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/147229422X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Mortal Monarchs: 1000 Years of Royal Deaths" title="Mortal Monarchs: 1000 Years of Royal Deaths" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover147229422X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Mortal Monarchs: 1000 Years of Royal Deaths" data-author="Suzie Edge" data-publishdate="2022-09-29" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/147229422X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/147229422X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/147229422X" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008364990.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962" title="Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962" />
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<div id="cover0008364990" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962" data-author="Max Hastings" data-publishdate="2022-09-29" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008364990.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0008364990" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0008364990" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241532418.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Personality and Power: Builders and Destroyers of Modern Europe" title="Personality and Power: Builders and Destroyers of Modern Europe" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover0241532418" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Personality and Power: Builders and Destroyers of Modern Europe" data-author="Ian Kershaw" data-publishdate="2022-09-29" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241532418.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0241532418" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0241532418" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/139980488X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Black England: A Forgotten Georgian History" title="Black England: A Forgotten Georgian History" />
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<div id="cover139980488X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Black England: A Forgotten Georgian History" data-author="Gretchen Gerzina" data-publishdate="2022-09-29" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/139980488X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/139980488X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/139980488X" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1526634287.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower" title="China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover1526634287" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower" data-author="Frank Dikötter" data-publishdate="2022-09-29" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1526634287.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1526634287" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1526634287" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0500252661.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Ottomans: A Cultural Legacy" title="The Ottomans: A Cultural Legacy" />
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<div id="cover0500252661" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Ottomans: A Cultural Legacy" data-author="Diana Darke" data-publishdate="2022-09-29" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0500252661.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0500252661" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0500252661" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0750996668.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Legacy of Rome: How the Roman Empire Shaped the Modern World" title="The Legacy of Rome: How the Roman Empire Shaped the Modern World" />
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<div id="cover0750996668" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Legacy of Rome: How the Roman Empire Shaped the Modern World" data-author="Simon Elliott" data-publishdate="2022-09-29" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0750996668.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0750996668" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0750996668" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0715654454.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Black Victorians: Hidden in History" title="Black Victorians: Hidden in History" />
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<div id="cover0715654454" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Black Victorians: Hidden in History" data-author="John Woolf" data-publishdate="2022-09-15" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0715654454.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0715654454" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0715654454" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0197555845.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Gaelic and Indian Origins of the American Revolution: Diversity and Empire in the British Atlantic, 1688-1783" title="The Gaelic and Indian Origins of the American Revolution: Diversity and Empire in the British Atlantic, 1688-1783" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover0197555845" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Gaelic and Indian Origins of the American Revolution: Diversity and Empire in the British Atlantic, 1688-1783" data-author="Samuel Fisher" data-publishdate="2022-09-15" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0197555845.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0197555845" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0197555845" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1789146577.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Index of Prohibited Books: Four Centuries of Struggle Over Word and Image for the Greater Glory of God" title="Index of Prohibited Books: Four Centuries of Struggle Over Word and Image for the Greater Glory of God" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
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In the Reign of King John - review
Anthony Webb
Nowadays we suffer from deforestation. In the 13th Century England had an afforestation problem. More and more of the country was being forested and people were - literally - up in arms about it. What...
2022-09-23T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-09-23-review-in_the_reign_of_king/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1838934820.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="In the Reign of King John - review" /><p>Our review of In the Reign of King John: A Year in the Life of Plantagenet England, by Dan Jones, first published in October 2020.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Guiding us through the tumultuous year 1215, when the barons rebelled and Magna Carta was sealed, <i>In the Reign of King John</i> is a light, lively and learned book.</p><p>It blends narrative history (who did what?) with Magna Carta history (what got their goat?) and social history (what did everyone else do?) to give a great sense of what is was in that dawn to be alive.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>Nowadays we suffer from deforestation. In the 13th Century England had an afforestation problem. More and more of the country was being forested and people were - literally - up in arms about it. What was going on?</p>
<p>Dan Jones fills us in, in: <em>In the Reign of King John: A Year in the Life of Plantagenet England</em>.</p>
<p>When we hear about forests we might conjure up mighty oaks or soaring pines. But back in 1215, the year of the Magna Carta, forests were instead associated with the abuse of power. Calling somewhere a forest was equivalent to King John saying “mine!” - a forest meant land exclusively reserved for the King.</p>
<h3 id="arboritrary-justice" tabindex="-1">Arboritrary justice</h3>
<p>The expansion of the Forest under John, and his immediate predecessors also had the effect of putting “<em>men at the mercy of a much more stringent and expensive code of law with no means of protest.</em>” Typical punishments for offences such as killing animals in the forest, or simply gathering firewood were heavy fines or - if you couldn’t pay the fine - mutilation.</p>
<p>Forest land was not necessarily woodland: it could be agricultural land or moorland as well. By the end of the 12th Century forest lands covered from a quarter to a third of the country<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-09-23-review-in_the_reign_of_king/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>. John loved his forests because (a) he liked hunting forest animals but also and more importantly (b) it was a really important source of cash. If you wanted to graze your animals on forest land for example you had to pay for the privilege.</p>
<h3 id="pay-per-chew" tabindex="-1">Pay per chew</h3>
<p>So if the land you relied on to support yourself and your family was suddenly turned into forest land you could be in big trouble - you couldn’t take wood, you couldn’t kill animals and you couldn’t graze your flock - without paying extra.</p>
<h3 id="then-and-now" tabindex="-1">Then and now</h3>
<p>It must have been a bit like the radical re-zoning of the streets near where I live in London, in the year 2016. We had previously been able to freely park our cars on the streets outside our houses, but due to an arbitrary decision of Merton council, we were suddenly required to pay annually for this privilege. Perhaps the main change since Medieval times was that those who complained didn’t get their ears cut off.</p>
<h3 id="what's-the-problem%3F" tabindex="-1">What's the problem?</h3>
<p>Back to the past - this wasn’t the only grievance against King John:</p>
<ul>
<li>he had been demanding eye-wateringly huge sums of money from his barons on the flimsiest of pretexts,</li>
<li>he had lost in war almost all of the land that he had inherited in France including, embarrassingly, Normandy where many of the English barons would have presumably owned estates</li>
<li>he had capriciously hounded to death anyone who got up his nose</li>
<li>he had built fish traps all over the place<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-09-23-review-in_the_reign_of_king/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></li>
</ul>
<p>In the winter of 1215 the situation had become critical with leading barons determined to do something about this turbulent king. After mediation with the king had failed they took the radical step of declaring war on him which quickly turned into a stalemate: the barons held London which contained the Treasury and other important bits of government. The King held a whole load of impregnable castles all over England.</p>
<p>This was the context in which the Magna Carta was signed - as a peace treaty between the two sides - and the story which Dan Jones tells us in his book.</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1663190199/posts/Magna_Carta_2015_British_Library_Cotton_MS_Augustus_II.106.png#center" alt="One of the four surviving copies of the 1215 Magna Carta" /></p>
<h6 id="one-of-the-four-surviving-copies-of-the-1215-magna-carta%2C-this-one-from-the-british-library.-image-credit%3A-magna-carta-article-on-wikipedia" tabindex="-1">One of the four surviving copies of the 1215 Magna Carta, this one from the British Library. Image credit: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta">Magna Carta article on Wikipedia</a></h6>
<h3 id="the-structure-of-the-book" tabindex="-1">The structure of the book</h3>
<p>Jones’ book has two separate strands. The first strand is a narrative history of the year 1215 where Jones briskly and entertainingly whisks us through the events of the year, starting with John celebrating Christmas at the end of 1214 with feasting, singing and no doubt carousing - and ending the year with John embroiled in a civil war as he tried to renege on his Magna Carta agreements, celebrating the yuletide period by planning a campaign of destruction and devastation across his own kingdom.</p>
<h3 id="everyday-life" tabindex="-1">Everyday life</h3>
<p>The second strand is an attempt to paint a picture of what life was like for more ordinary people at that time. So after hearing about John’s 1214 Christmas for example we get a section on what clothes people wore: generally speaking whatever they could afford. As Jones nicely puts it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>for peasants, too, clothing was a marker of status, and in a sense a badge advertising their political capital and potency, which is to say that in general they had none.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Dan Jones, In the Reign of King John</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>We also get sections on eating and drinking, health, the law, language and names, women and children, and animals.</p>
<p>At the end of the book we are provided with the full text (translated) of the 1215 Magna Carta and the 1217 Charter of the Forest.</p>
<h3 id="what-i-liked" tabindex="-1">What I liked</h3>
<p>The great thing about this book is that it is so short and accessible. If you just read the narrative bits covering what happened in 1215 and skip the social history bits - more on this later - you will get through it in no time. But still with the feeling that you are fully immersed in that time and place.</p>
<p>And if you have the vague impression that the Magna Carta is a bit boring this book will go a long way towards changing your mind!</p>
<h3 id="keeping-it-real" tabindex="-1">Keeping it real</h3>
<p>It does this by delving into the context behind the Magna Carta. So a clause on royal forests goes from being incomprehensible and obscure to the urgent question of whether or not your nose gets chopped off. Abuse of the royal prerogative becomes a story of turning against your friend and starving his wife and son to death in a dungeon.</p>
<p>Which then helps us think about that old question of what makes John a “bad king”? Didn’t all English kings behave in a similar way? Was it just that you could get away with it if you won your battles? Or was John a different kind of bad? Jones gives us enough of the detail for us to draw our own conclusions.</p>
<p>Finally the book is filled with some very beautiful illustrations - mostly high quality snippets from illustrated manuscripts showing scenes from everyday life.</p>
<h3 id="what-didn%E2%80%99t-i-like%3F" tabindex="-1">What didn’t I like?</h3>
<p>I feel like I am scraping the barrel a little here - my drawbacks are relatively inconsequential. But for the record they are:</p>
<h3 id="stop-start" tabindex="-1">Stop start</h3>
<p>The two strand approach mentioned above, a narrative strand and a social history strand, never felt properly intertwined for me. When I was getting into the story I didn’t want a 20 minute hiatus on medieval haircuts, I just wanted to find out what happened next. So I ended up skipping the social history interludes and coming back to them at the end of the book, when I was able to take my time and better appreciate thirteenth century fashion tips.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-09-23-review-in_the_reign_of_king/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="why-this-charter%3F" tabindex="-1">Why <em>this</em> charter?</h3>
<p>The other thing to mention is that the book doesn’t try to explain why the Magna Carta has become <em>so</em> celebrated? How big a deal was it really? Is Magna Carta as medieval proto-liberalism myth-making or meaningful? Is a failed peace treaty attempting to make the king behave a bit better to a tiny privileged elite really significant? You can tell by the number of question marks in the paragraph that, after finishing Jones’ work, I don’t really have a clue. Although to be fair this topic would, and I’m certain already does, fill whole books by itself.</p>
<h3 id="deja-vu" tabindex="-1">Deja Vu</h3>
<p>The final discordant note is the fact that this book <em>In the Reign of King John: A Year in the Life of Plantagenet England</em> published in 2020 is a re-release of the same book <em>Realm Divided: A Year in the Life of Plantagenet England</em> published in 2015. I know that there can sometimes be good reasons to re-release a book with a different name, but most of the time I find it misleading and suspicious. Luckily I hadn’t already read <em>Realm Divided</em> when I bought this latest version.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>But even though this book is of its time and place (i.e. the UK in 2015 to cash in on the anniversary of the Magna Carta) it still stands the test of time, being well worth a read seven years on.</p>
<p>It does a great job of convincing us that the Magna Carta, encapsulating that tumultuous year in England eight centuries ago, is a fun, exciting, and important document - still worth reading eight hundred years later.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Source: the internet <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-09-23-review-in_the_reign_of_king/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>A clause mandating the removal of all fish traps (”fish-weirs”) from all rivers in England is always mentioned as one of those “of-their-time” and esoteric clauses in the Magna Carta - I even remember this clause from my superficial review of the text way back in my university days. But I’ve never really understood why the fish traps were such a big deal. Jones has a throw-away line saying it was because they obstructed boats, and other twitterstorians have proposed it was because the traps were so darn good at catching fish that soon there would be no fish left. Neither of these suggestions feels definitive. So if you can put me in the direction of something more comprehensive on the subject drop me a line! <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-09-23-review-in_the_reign_of_king/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>Possibly my favourite bit of ye-olde colour was the belief, of at least one Medieval author, that “<em>beavers would bite off their own testicles when pursued, since they knew that humans valued them for medicinal use.</em>” Followed up by the statement that “<em>Panthers breath was so sweet that it enticed every animal on earth to follow it - except for dragons, who detested the smell and would hide.</em>” <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-09-23-review-in_the_reign_of_king/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Happy Dreams of Liberty - review
Anthony Webb
Their freedom papers will only be a pass to want and misery... they have happy dreams of liberty... but if they could realise, as clearly as I do, how much more happy they would be back on an...
2022-09-11T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-09-11-review-happy_dreams_of_libe/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0197531792.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Happy Dreams of Liberty - review" /><p>Our review of Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom, by R Isabela Morales, first published in August 2022.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>An intriguing, disturbing and revealing story, tracing the family history of the freed Townsend family, the enslaved children of an uber rich 19th century plantation owner in the United States.</p><p>The writing is dense and detailed rather than deft and delightful but it’s a good book - and recommended reading.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Their freedom papers will only be a pass to want and misery... they have happy dreams of liberty... but if they could realise, as clearly as I do, how much more happy they would be back on an Alabama plantation, than in any free condition they can be placed in, they would certainly be sad enough.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>So said David Lakin who had been hired to help the newly freed Townsend family find homes and land in Kansas in 1860. Lakin and 28 previously enslaved people<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-09-11-review-happy_dreams_of_libe/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> were onboard a steamboat chugging their way down the Mississippi River to a new and better life... albeit with many obstacles in their way not least Lakin and others like him who didn’t really think they should have been freed in the first place.</p>
<p>R. Isabela Morales tells us the story in “Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom”.</p>
<h3 id="a-family-man%3F" tabindex="-1">A family man?</h3>
<p>The newly freed people were all the children of Samual Townsend, a multi-millionaire<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-09-11-review-happy_dreams_of_libe/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> cotton plantation owner from Alabama in the United States who never married but had at least seven children by four different women, all of them his slaves. Because legally the children’s status followed the status of the mother, Samual’s children were his slaves too.</p>
<p>While shocking to us now, this situation wasn’t so unusual in many states in early 19th Century America where millions of people lived in slavery. Owning African American people as property, slave owners could, and often did, do with them whatever they liked including coercing them into sexual relationships. As one former slave put it “<em>I didn’t want him but I couldn’t do nothin.</em>”</p>
<h3 id="home-of-the-enslaved" tabindex="-1">Home of the enslaved</h3>
<p>What was much more shocking to people at that time and place was that Samual Townsend wanted to free his slaves, and what’s more he intended to leave them his whole (extremely valuable) estate, divided between them. The idea of formerly enslaved black people being not only free but also significant property owners was deeply disturbing to many white people. And in fact it was illegal under Alabaman law for a freed person to live in the state. Hence the journey to Kansas - if you wanted to be a free black person you had to leave.</p>
<h3 id="why-did-he-do-it%3F" tabindex="-1">Why did he do it?</h3>
<p>Consideration for his fellows had not been a very noticeable quality of his during Townsend’s lifetime. As Morales puts it, here was a man who “bought and sold human beings, broke up enslaved people’s families, and seperated wives from their husbands to satisfy his desires”.</p>
<p>But as Morales goes on, Samual Townsend considered his children to be a class above other people with African American ancestry - because they were his. Townesend stipulated that he wanted them to be treated as though they were “white children” and after he died “should never serve any body else.”</p>
<p>To achieve this he gave instructions that his land and his hundreds of other slaves should be sold and the money given to his children and a smaller amount to the mothers of his children, his children’s half-siblings and cousins. Although in the event, the money was a long time coming and the full fortune was never realised - most of the family appear to have been struggling for money most of the time.</p>
<h3 id="the-content" tabindex="-1">The content</h3>
<p>Morales charts the ups and downs of various members of this family in the period after they were freed.</p>
<p>For example: the conscientious Susanna Townsend who was determined to finish school, but died of tuberculosis at age 16 soon after the death of her infant child. Or Charles Osbourne Townesend who went West to Colorado and set up a successful barber shop in a silver mining town, becoming a respected member of this overwhelmingly white community. Or the wealthy Thomas Townsend who returned to Alabama after the Civil War and was elected to various local political positions until the increasingly racist and violently exclusive environment forced him out of public life.</p>
<p>In following these different stories we can see in microcosm how American lives varied from place to place and how they changed over time - all against the backdrop of a pervasive racism that was more or less overt in different places, and a racism that became increasingly aggressive and violent toward the end of the 19th Century.</p>
<h3 id="the-writing-style" tabindex="-1">The writing style</h3>
<p>While the story is fascinating and full of human drama Morales - perhaps deliberately - doesn’t really dwell on the dramatic. She gives a fairly dense and factual narrative summary: person A went to place B and did thing X. So while it is readable I did not find it to be a book I could lose myself in.</p>
<h3 id="reservations%3F" tabindex="-1">Reservations?</h3>
<p>So Morales is careful to restrict herself to the facts of the story. There’s nothing wrong with this and it’s an important story - but it makes it a less powerful read. I would have appreciated a bit more historical context, grand theories and / or moral outrage. Given today’s fraught social environment Morales is no doubt wise to play it straight. But it means the book comes across more as a scholarly work rather than one aimed at the everyday reader.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>As a non American this book filled an important gap for me - that period of flux and uncertainty before the civil war. It also rounded out my view of what it could mean to be a pre-war Southern gentlemen, or an enslaved person - people whose collective misery was the vital source of their owners’ wealth.</p>
<p>It is also a reminder of the importance of dreams and hopes even in the most difficult circumstances. Even if those dreams are never adequately realised, they still have value: can still make you happy enough.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>In total Samuel Townsend freed 45 enslaved people out of the the hundreds (exact number not given) that he owned. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-09-11-review-happy_dreams_of_libe/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>A multimillionaire in today’s money - a hundreds-of-thousands-aire in those days money <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-09-11-review-happy_dreams_of_libe/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in August 2022
Anthony Webb
I was pleasantly surprised by the selection of history books over August 2022: expecting a summer holiday month lull, there are actually quite a few good 'uns, as you can see from the covers...
2022-09-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-09-01-post-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1661979261/posts/August2022_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in August 2022" /><p>I was pleasantly surprised by the selection of history books over August 2022: expecting a summer holiday month lull, there are actually quite a few good 'uns, as you can see from the covers below.</p>
<p>For instance:</p>
<ul>
<li><em><strong>A History of Water: Being an Account of a Murder, an Epic and Two Visions of Global History</strong></em>, a historical travelogue of two 16th century portugese eccentrics - Europeans making an attempt to understand the rest of the world.</li>
<li><em><strong>Dancing on Bones: History and Power in China, Russia and North Korea</strong></em>, about autocratic government attempts to control their countries history in order to exert power in the present.</li>
<li><em><strong>A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549</strong></em>, I don't know anything about this Cornish rebellion and it would be fascinating to learn more (could it happen again?).</li>
<li><em><strong>Breakspear: The English Pope</strong></em>, because - I was surprised to discover - it is written by the ex-boss of a firm I used to work for and I am curious about how he has spent his retirement!</li>
</ul>
<p>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and (unaffiliated) links to Amazon for those who like to buy their books there.</p>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1250761964.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of the Wrongs of Men—and the Rights of Women" title="The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of the Wrongs of Men—and the Rights of Women" />
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<div id="cover1250761964" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of the Wrongs of Men—and the Rights of Women" data-author="John Wood Sweet" data-publishdate="2022-08-30" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1250761964.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1250761964" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1250761964" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0750999543.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Breakspear: The English Pope" title="Breakspear: The English Pope" />
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<div id="cover0750999543" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Breakspear: The English Pope" data-author="R. A. J. Waddingham" data-publishdate="2022-08-25" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0750999543.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0750999543" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0750999543" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1800811888.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Russia - Myths and Realities: The History of a Country with an Unpredictable Past" title="Russia - Myths and Realities: The History of a Country with an Unpredictable Past" />
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<div id="cover1800811888" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Russia - Myths and Realities: The History of a Country with an Unpredictable Past" data-author="Rodric Braithwaite" data-publishdate="2022-08-25" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1800811888.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1800811888" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1800811888" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008171963.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Lost Realms: Histories of Britain from the Romans to the Vikings" title="Lost Realms: Histories of Britain from the Romans to the Vikings" />
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<div id="cover0008171963" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Lost Realms: Histories of Britain from the Romans to the Vikings" data-author="Thomas Williams" data-publishdate="2022-08-18" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008171963.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0008171963" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0008171963" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008358222.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="A History of Water: Being an Account of a Murder, an Epic and Two Visions of Global History" title="A History of Water: Being an Account of a Murder, an Epic and Two Visions of Global History" />
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<div id="cover0008358222" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="A History of Water: Being an Account of a Murder, an Epic and Two Visions of Global History" data-author="Edward Wilson-Lee" data-publishdate="2022-08-18" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008358222.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0008358222" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0008358222" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1445695057.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Adriatic: A Two Thousand-Year History of the Sea, Lands and Peoples" title="Adriatic: A Two Thousand-Year History of the Sea, Lands and Peoples" />
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<div id="cover1445695057" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Adriatic: A Two Thousand-Year History of the Sea, Lands and Peoples" data-author="Caroline Boggis-Rolfe" data-publishdate="2022-08-15" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1445695057.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1445695057" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1445695057" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1789146720.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year" title="Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year" />
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<div id="cover1789146720" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year" data-author="Eleanor Parker" data-publishdate="2022-08-15" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1789146720.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1789146720" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1789146720" data-review="">
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<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300266324.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549" title="A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549" />
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<div id="cover0300266324" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549" data-author="Mark Stoyle" data-publishdate="2022-08-09" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300266324.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0300266324" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0300266324" data-review="">
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Dominion - review
Anthony Webb
Lady Elizabeth of Hungary was a young lady who had it all. Daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary, she had been successfully married off at 14 to a German Duke - a husband she seems to have been...
2022-08-12T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-08-12-review-dominion/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1408706954.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Dominion - review" /><p>Our review of Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, by Tom Holland, first published in September 2019.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Dominion tells the story of the history of Christianity in the West, and traces this particular history as the source of <b>all</b> of our moral values in Europe and North America.</p><p>Tom Holland does a great job of making religious history fun - and gruesomely fascinating - showing why this Christian story still matters, even if no-one goes to Church.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>Lady Elizabeth of Hungary was a young lady who had it all. Daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary, she had been successfully married off at 14 to a German Duke - a husband she seems to have been devoted to - and lived with all the trappings of luxury in a Thuringian (ie German) castle. The trouble was, as Tom Holland tells us in Dominion: the Making of the Western Mind, that while she had it all, she didn’t want any of it.</p>
<h3 id="a-give-away" tabindex="-1">A give-away</h3>
<p>Inspired by the compassion shown by Jesus Christ she gave away jewellery to the poor, cared for the sick herself, and in her private moments dressed up like a beggar to experience destitution first hand.</p>
<p>After her husband died in 1227 she was able to fully indulge her religious compulsions. Building a hospital she worked there full time herself “mopping up saliva and mucus from the faces of the sick”. But aware that self abasement if self imposed could appear self indulgent, Elizabeth appointed a priest called Conrad to be her “master of spiritual discipline” - a sort of full time religious fitness coach.</p>
<h3 id="spoiling-the-child" tabindex="-1">Spoiling the child</h3>
<p>To her satisfaction Master Conrad was a strict disciplinarian - beating her severely for missing one of his sermons for example, then denying her contact with her servants, forbidding her access to her children, and punishing her for offences which she didn’t commit. “Willingly she sustained repeated lashes and blows from Master Conrad - being mindful of the beatings endured by the Lord.”</p>
<p>After Elizabeth died from her maltreatment at the age 24 everyone agreed that her life was the apogee of holiness - and in a few years she was proclaimed a saint.</p>
<h3 id="the-familar-shall-be-strange..." tabindex="-1">The familar shall be strange...</h3>
<p>This - to our modern sensibilities - rather disturbing story is used by Tom Holland to show the profound strangeness of Christianity. But also that the Christian principles that underlie Lady Elizabeth’s masochistic self abasement are the same Christian principles that underlie much of our modern morality in Europe and North America, whether we are Christians or not.</p>
<p>What are these principles? Holland gives us two:</p>
<ol>
<li>All human beings have an inherent dignity.</li>
<li>The strong have a duty of care to the weak.</li>
</ol>
<p>It is his contention that these ideas are not in any way self-evident but are instead the product of a successful two thousand year Christian mission to reshape morality in the West.</p>
<h3 id="bride-of-christ" tabindex="-1">Bride of Christ</h3>
<p>In the middle ages this finds its expression in Lady Elizabeth and others such as Catherine of Siena, who a hundred years later experienced a holy vision of her own marriage to Jesus, formalised with a wedding ring made of his infant foreskin. Married to Jesus she could refuse her parents demands to pair her up with anybody else - her body was inviolate. Catherine, despite her inconsequential background, then became an influential voice for the reform of the Church, until her regular and extreme fasting led to her paralysis and death age 33.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Live, fast, die young... and leave an emaciated corpse.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Live, fast, die young and leave an emaciated corpse, seems to have been the tragic recipe for medieval religious celebrity.</p>
<h3 id="some-things-stay-the-same" tabindex="-1">Some things stay the same</h3>
<p>So far so odd. But in our times the same ethical principles underpin the Me Too movement and outrage at those like Harvey Weinstein who take advantage of their power over their perceived inferiors. The idea that this is the wrong thing to do, Holland tells us, would have been utterly bizarre to a Roman. But now such behaviour appears unarguably debased.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book?</h3>
<p>While this is the central argument of the book - that two thousand years of Christian teaching have so subsumed our thought process that we can no longer easily detect them - the message is delivered via a narrative “History of Western Christianity”.</p>
<p>Starting with the Romans we are given a glimpse of their own value set, and the idea that “the future belonged to the strong”. Holland then takes us through the radical challenge that the emergence of Christianity posed to the traditional Roman worldview - how weird it would have appeared to someone like Julius Caesar who courted popularity by boasting of the millions of Gauls he had slaughtered.</p>
<p>The middle of the book takes us century by century through the middle ages and the evolution of Christian ideas and institutions.</p>
<p>The last section of the book shows how many of the key cultural developments in the modern West owe their underpinnings to Christian values, even though they may have no obvious religious foundation. For example the successes of the struggle for racial equality in the United States in the 1960s, or the debt owed to Christianity by Communist values (the meek shall inherit the earth, after throwing off their chains and uniting etc).</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s it like to read?</h3>
<p>A great storyteller, Tom Holland works hard to to make The History of Christianity seem fun and exciting with entertaining and well chosen anecdotes. It is a long way from being a litany of popes and saints. He also does a great job of empathising with his chosen historical characters, making their behaviour seem rational and justified - maybe it <em>is</em> a good idea to burn a heretic? - while never quite falling into the abyss of total moral relativism.</p>
<p>Holland is clearly an excellent writer but he does have a few stylistic quirks that can grate. The one that needled me was his love of a good paradox - I counted 27 of them throughout the book, excluding the two in the index - about one per chapter.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Puritans, then, even as they rejected the old and familiar, could not entirely deny a lurking paradox: that their rejection of tradition was itself a Christian tradition.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tom Holland, Dominion</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Fair enough you might say, but Holland has come up with so many paradoxes that they end up being cheesily predictable: a bit like the corny “wise man” sayings of a 1980s Hollywood kung-fu master.</p>
<h3 id="downsides%3F" tabindex="-1">Downsides?</h3>
<p>Aside from my minor grumble above, the main challenge I would make to this book is that, like the Lady Elizabeth, Tom Holland just takes things a bit too far. Is Christianity the foundation stone of <em>all</em> moral and cultural developments in the West? (Or at least: all apart from Darwinism which he says is the one Western development which is <em>not</em> derived from Christianity).</p>
<p>To what extent does human nature or other cultural influences play a role?</p>
<h3 id="cross-eyed" tabindex="-1">Cross-eyed</h3>
<p>At times Holland comes across a bit like Batman doing one of those ink blob Rorschach tests. While Batman just a sees a load of bats, all Holland seems to see is a sequence of crosses.</p>
<p>One simple counterpoint to the view that all our morality is derived from Christian culture is my wife who was born in China and lived there until she was 30<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-08-12-review-dominion/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>. It would be hard to argue that she had any strong Christian influence on her upbringing but I am always struck by how similar our moral values are - what we think is right and wrong.</p>
<h3 id="historian's-prerogative" tabindex="-1">Historian's prerogative</h3>
<p>However perhaps I am missing the point: Holland is not an anthropologist after all, he is a historian and by overstating his case he provokes more debate, and challenges us as readers to think for ourselves. Ultimately I much prefer to read a book with a strong argument that I don't fully agree with, than one with no argument at all.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>A great story well told, Dominion, the Making of the Western Mind is well worth investing the time to read, exploring the strangeness of Christianity but also its centrality to our modern Western mindset.</p>
<p>We may no longer think of ourselves as brides of Christ like Catherine of Sienna did, but the divorce is still a long way from being finalised.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Full disclosure: her Mum did convert to Christianity when my wife was 20 years old, but until this time there was no obvious Christian influence, and even afterwards the rest of the family let her Mum get on with it without paying all that much attention. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-08-12-review-dominion/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in July 2022
Anthony Webb
Not so many new history books this month, but no doubt the quality is still up there!
A few which have piqued my interest are:
Two Houses Two Kingdoms: A History of France and England, 1100–1300...
2022-08-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-08-01-post-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1659385530/posts/July2022_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in July 2022" /><p>Not so many new history books this month, but no doubt the quality is still up there!</p>
<p>A few which have piqued my interest are:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Two Houses Two Kingdoms: A History of France and England, 1100–1300</strong> which follows the royals of that time and the importance of their personal relations on war and peace.</li>
<li><strong>The Samurai and the Cross: The Jesuit Enterprise in Early Modern Japan</strong> looking at an under-reported aspect of Japanese / European relations (athough there seem to be some supply issues with getting hold of a paper copy of this book at the moment).</li>
<li><strong>Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It</strong> investigating the systemmatic 'quill brushing' of women from early European history.</li>
</ul>
<p>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and (unaffiliated) links to Amazon for those who like to buy their books there.</p>
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Book reviews and culture wars - an interview with Suleiman the Magnificent
Anthony Webb
We were recently lucky enough to talk to Suleiman the Magnificent who I was particular keen to quiz on the subject of negative “culture war” book reviews on Amazon. The recording itself got corrupted...
2022-07-08T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-07-08-post-reviews_and_culture_wars/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1656796446/posts/StM.jpg" alt="Book reviews and culture wars - an interview with Suleiman the Magnificent" /><p>We were recently lucky enough to talk to Suleiman the Magnificent who I was particular keen to quiz on the subject of negative “culture war” book reviews on Amazon. The recording itself got corrupted when I spilt coffee on my laptop but fortunately we do still have the transcript.</p>
<p>If you just want to skip to the conclusion you can read Suleiman's three golden rules for writing “culture peace” book reviews at the bottom of this article<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-07-08-post-reviews_and_culture_wars/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>.</p>
<hr />
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1656796446/posts/StM.jpg#center" alt="Suleiman the Magnificent" /></p>
<h6 id="sulieman-the-magnificent-in-a-rare-portrait-showing-his-full-regalia" tabindex="-1"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suleiman_the_Magnificent">Sulieman the Magnificent</a> in a rare portrait showing his full regalia</h6>
<h5 id="suleiman---thanks-for-talking-to-us-today." tabindex="-1">Suleiman - thanks for talking to us today.</h5>
<p>My pleasure, it is a great honour for you.</p>
<h5 id="before-we-get-started-can-you-tell-me-a-little-about-yourself%3F" tabindex="-1">Before we get started can you tell me a little about yourself?</h5>
<p>What is there to say that has not already been said a thousand times? I am the sultan of the celestial throne, possessor of the moral qualities of the prophets, saint above all saints, whose face resembles the shining sun. In my free time I enjoy books, Manchester United Football Club and guns, especially cannons.</p>
<h5 id="now-i'll-cut-to-the-chase---you-have-recently-featured%2C-along-with-your-family%2C-in-a-book-ottomans%3A-khans%2C-caesars-and-caliphs-by-marc-david-baer.-we-reviewed-it-and-liked-it.-so-did-others.-but-in-the-murky-world-of-amazon-reviews-there-were-some-extremely-negative-opinions---despite-the-majority-being-positive-and-an-average-4-star-rating.-but-before-we-get-on-to-that-what-did-you-think-of-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">Now I'll cut to the chase - you have recently featured, along with your family, in a book <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ottomans-Khans-Caesars-Caliphs/dp/1473695708"><em>Ottomans: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs</em></a> by Marc David Baer. We <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-06-17-review-the_ottomans/">reviewed it and liked it</a>. So did others. But in the murky world of amazon reviews there were some extremely negative opinions - despite the majority being positive and an average 4 star rating. But before we get on to that what did you think of the book?</h5>
<p>When my copy arrived the cover was damaged. Given I had bought it in part for its shiny golden aesthetic this was very disappointing. I left a one star review on Amazon myself.</p>
<h5 id="that's-a-shame---but-what-did-you-think-about-the-content-of-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">That's a shame - but what did you think about the content of the book?</h5>
<p>I thought it was a very good, very detailed and extremely impudent book.</p>
<h5 id="what-about-the-other-reviews-on-amazon-for-example-there-was-one-by-c___-which-i-will-read-out-to-you-in-redacted-form%3A" tabindex="-1">What about the other reviews on Amazon for example there was one by C___ which I will read out to you in redacted form:</h5>
<hr />
<p>Currently the “top review” on Amazon for the book Ottomans by Mark David Baer:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<h5 id="%E2%98%85%E2%98%86%E2%98%86%E2%98%86%E2%98%86-deluded-and-woke-wishful-thinking" tabindex="-1">★☆☆☆☆ Deluded and Woke Wishful Thinking</h5>
<p><em>Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 November 2021</em></p>
<p>The Turks were not the heirs of Rome but instead were Asiatic barbarians who destroyed the higher and better civilisation of Byzantium. They are not European because they are longstanding Islamic enemies of Europe and the West... Our world would be a far less enlightened place than it actually is, thanks to the dogged defence of Europe and ultimately the victories over Islam of the more educated and progressive forces of the Christian/secular West.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<h5 id="what-did-you-think-of-that%3F" tabindex="-1">What did you think of that?</h5>
<p>What can I say? This is clearly written by a Frank. That is the only morsel of information in this review.</p>
<h5 id="what-do-you-mean%3F" tabindex="-1">What do you mean?</h5>
<p>What can we tell from this review? Nothing about the book. The reviewer has become the only subject of the review. Who is he? He doesn't like the glorious Ottoman empire and he likes the Byzantine empire. He doesn't like Islam and he likes Christendom. Clearly this is no scholar, rather he is like a supporter of Topkapı PC, all he wants to do is shout for his team.</p>
<h5 id="topkap%C4%B1-pc%3F" tabindex="-1">Topkapı PC?</h5>
<p>Topkapı Polo Club. To use another example that may be more familiar to you: if a fan of Manchester United Football Club (such as myself) were to say that they are the best team in the world and Liverpool Football Club are barbarians who are no good at playing football, there is no value in this statement. Equally there is no value in a Liverpool Football Club supporter declaiming Manchester United Football Club as a barbaric no good football playing team.</p>
<h5 id="but-isn't-it-fair-to-argue-that-one-team-is-better-than-another%3F" tabindex="-1">But isn't it <em>fair</em> to argue that one team is better than another?</h5>
<p>If you are a football fan blinded by loyalty to your team that question will have only one answer. If nothing can change that answer - no new information, no new perspective - that answer has no value, it is just a statement of identity. If a review is simply a statement of identity of the reviewer, this is no longer a review - it is simply a myview.</p>
<h5 id="now-playing-devils-advocate-i-could-say-that-the-main-reason-you-don't-like-the-review-is-that-the-reviewer-doesn't-like-your-ottoman-empire..." tabindex="-1">Now playing devils advocate I could say that the main reason you don't like the review is that the reviewer doesn't like your Ottoman empire...</h5>
<p>In my empire there is room for difference - I allow others who are not like me to live freely, as long as they pay their taxes and are loyal to me. What I dislike in the review is not its central scurillous accusation - which I can tolerate - but the fact that there is no question of examining the arguments in the book, only a dismissal of the (overly simplified) conclusion.</p>
<h5 id="you've-lost-me.-isn't-that-the-same-thing%3F" tabindex="-1">You've lost me. Isn't that the same thing?</h5>
<p>Let me explain it as I would to one who has had no training in the philosophy of logic. If the argument is saying 1 + 2 + 3 = 6, the error here is to say “I hate the number 6! My favourite is the number 4 which is a much better number”. There is no attempt to refute the or engage with the sum itself only the product of that sum.</p>
<h5 id="ok-i-think-i-get-it.-but-surely-it-is-reasonable-to-disagree-with-a-conclusion-in-isolation%3F-aren't-some-conclusions-just-unacceptable." tabindex="-1">Ok I think I get it. But surely it is reasonable to disagree with a conclusion in isolation? Aren't some conclusions just unacceptable.</h5>
<p>The only conclusion which is unacceptable is one which creates harm. Otherwise a philosopher must engage with the arguments.</p>
<h5 id="isn't-that-a-bit-rich-from-someone-who-has-fought-wars-and-killed-thousands-of-people%3F" tabindex="-1">Isn't that a bit rich from someone who has fought wars and killed thousands of people?</h5>
<p>My riches are endless. But my patience is not. Be careful how far you go in <em>your</em> impudence young man.</p>
<h5 id="ok-so-going-back-to-the-amazon-review%2C-we-can-see-that-the-reviewer-has-had-a-very-negative-emotional-reaction-to-this-book.-isn't-that-useful-for-people-to-know-about%3F" tabindex="-1">Ok so going back to the Amazon review, we can see that the reviewer has had a very negative emotional reaction to this book. Isn't that useful for people to know about?</h5>
<p>One must not be a slave to ones emotions, either positive or negative. In the case of a negative emotion you should look in yourself and try to uncover the source of that emotion. Why are you affected so significantly? This way you will better understand yourself and be able to assess the position of others. If you let your emotion rule you, all you can hear is your own indignation.</p>
<h5 id="well-thanks-suleiman-it's-been-an-absolutely-brilliant-chat-but-that's-all-we've-got-time-for-today.-can-you-sum-up-by-telling-me-the-most-important-things-to-keep-in-mind-when-writing-a-culture-war-free-book-review---a-culture-peace-review%2C-if-you-will%3F" tabindex="-1">Well thanks Suleiman it's been an absolutely brilliant chat but that's all we've got time for today. Can you sum up by telling me the most important things to keep in mind when writing a culture war free book review - a culture peace review, if you will?</h5>
<p>These three lessons any book reviewer should engrave on their heart:</p>
<ol>
<li>The review should tell you more about the book than it does about the reviewer.</li>
<li>The reviewer should engage with the arguments not just the conclusion.</li>
<li>If you let your emotions rule you, you will never rule the world (like me).</li>
</ol>
<h5 id="thanks-again-suleiman-and-goodbye." tabindex="-1">Thanks again Suleiman and goodbye.</h5>
<p>Goodbye - I have been a delight.</p>
<p><em>Suleiman the Magnificent was talking to Anthony Webb on Saturday 2 July 1562</em></p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Three golden rules above! <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-07-08-post-reviews_and_culture_wars/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in June 2022
Anthony Webb
What's new this month? We've got 14 history books on our 'just published' list, four of which have picqued my interest...
A History of Delusions: The Glass King,
a Substitute Husband and a Walking...
2022-07-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-07-01-post-new_history_books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1656535272/posts/June2022_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in June 2022" /><p>What's new this month? We've got 14 history books on our 'just published' list, four of which have picqued my interest...</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>A History of Delusions: The Glass King,
a Substitute Husband and a Walking Corpse</strong> which examines the changing nature of delusions to shine a light on wider society.</li>
<li><strong>The Zambezi: A History</strong> - I hope this is a good read, because we have so few history books published on sub-saharan Africa in the UK.</li>
<li><strong>The Making of the Modern Philippines:
Pieces of a Jigsaw State</strong> covering a country which is often in the news these days but of which I know very little.</li>
<li>and finally <strong>Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of
Nineteenth-century London</strong> in which I hope to find out how accurate or inaccurate Dickens was!</li>
</ul>
<p>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and unaffiliated links to Amazon for those who like to buy their books there.</p>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1788168801.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Celts: A Sceptical History" title="The Celts: A Sceptical History" />
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<div id="cover1788168801" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Celts: A Sceptical History" data-author="Simon Jenkins" data-publishdate="2022-06-30" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1788168801.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1788168801" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1788168801" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1529109221.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Blood, Fire and Gold: The Story of Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici" title="Blood, Fire and Gold: The Story of Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici" />
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<div id="cover1529109221" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Blood, Fire and Gold: The Story of Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici" data-author="Estelle Paranque" data-publishdate="2022-06-30" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1529109221.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1529109221" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1529109221" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1787386902.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Death of Consensus: 100 Years of British Political Nightmares" title="The Death of Consensus: 100 Years of British Political Nightmares" />
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<div id="cover1787386902" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Death of Consensus: 100 Years of British Political Nightmares" data-author="Phil Tinline" data-publishdate="2022-06-23" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1787386902.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1787386902" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1787386902" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1529398460.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Empires of the Normans: Makers of Europe, Conquerors of the Near East" title="Empires of the Normans: Makers of Europe, Conquerors of the Near East" />
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<div id="cover1529398460" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Empires of the Normans: Makers of Europe, Conquerors of the Near East" data-author="Levi Roach" data-publishdate="2022-06-23" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1529398460.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1529398460" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1529398460" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0750997540.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Gloriana: Elizabeth I and the Art of Queenship" title="Gloriana: Elizabeth I and the Art of Queenship" />
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<div id="cover0750997540" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Gloriana: Elizabeth I and the Art of Queenship" data-author="Linda Collins, Siobhan Clarke" data-publishdate="2022-06-16" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0750997540.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0750997540" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0750997540" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1789145376.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Incomparable Realms: Spain During the Golden Age, 1500-1700" title="Incomparable Realms: Spain During the Golden Age, 1500-1700" />
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<div id="cover1789145376" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Incomparable Realms: Spain During the Golden Age, 1500-1700" data-author="Jeremy Robbins" data-publishdate="2022-06-13" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1789145376.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1789145376" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1789145376" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1408897946.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism" title="Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism" />
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<div id="cover1408897946" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism" data-author="John Foot" data-publishdate="2022-06-09" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1408897946.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1408897946" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1408897946" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1503627470.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="1368: China and the Making of the Modern World" title="1368: China and the Making of the Modern World" />
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<div id="cover1503627470" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="1368: China and the Making of the Modern World" data-author="Ali Humayun Akhtar" data-publishdate="2022-06-07" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1503627470.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1503627470" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1503627470" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0861540913.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="A History of Delusions: The Glass King, a Substitute Husband and a Walking Corpse" title="A History of Delusions: The Glass King, a Substitute Husband and a Walking Corpse" />
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Making History - review
Anthony Webb
The study of history is a funny beast: on the one hand everything is history, given that by the time we put fingers to keyboard, we are commenting on the past. On the other hand “history” can mean an...
2022-06-24T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-06-24-review-making_history/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1474615775.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Making History - review" /><p>Our review of Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past, by Richard Cohen, first published in March 2022.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A useful book, with lots of interesting biographical information on a whole range of historians from the Western tradition, starting with the Greeks and ending at the present day</p><p>But despite it‘s wide range, it is also quite narrow in scope - with nothing on why it was this particular bunch of historians that came to tell our story. Cohen simply tells us what happened - not why.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <p>The study of history is a funny beast: on the one hand <em>everything</em> is history, given that by the time we put fingers to keyboard, we are commenting on the past. On the other hand “history” can mean an exclusive professional endeavour focussed on narrow areas of enquiry.</p>
<p>So history is everything or - if we are not careful - history is nothing.</p>
<p>Richard Cohen in <em>Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped Our Past</em> steers us through changing views of history and of historians, from the earliest historical records up to the present day.</p>
<h3 id="success-and-failure" tabindex="-1">Success and failure</h3>
<p>On the one hand he succeeds: we have a comprehensive narrative of the development of anglo-american history told through the lives of a host of historians.</p>
<p>On the other hand it fails: the huge mass of information and people covered has no coherent or consistent message to bring it together.</p>
<p>It is a bit like getting carried away at a hotel breakfast buffet: after stacking your plate with one of everything and working your way through the pile, you are left feeling relieved you managed to finish it all up, bloated with too much food, and thinking that there should really be more to breakfast than this, however good value.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book</h3>
<p>In essence <em>Making History</em> is a collection of mini biographies of historians through time, starting at the beginning with Herodotus<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-06-24-review-making_history/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> in ancient Greece and ending with characters such as Niall Fergusson and Henry Louis Gates Jr, still going strong today.</p>
<p>It is fundamentally about history in the West - the people who wrote about history in the British and American worldview, which looks back to the Greeks for their origin myths. It’s a big story and it’s a long book, weighing in at 660 pages excluding notes.</p>
<p>Each chapter covers either a key historian, or a bunch of them that have a common characteristic eg being Roman. I think you can get a pretty strong sense of whether you will enjoy this book from reading the chapter titles so here they are! (I have updated the chapter headings to be a bit more descriptive than they are in the book.)</p>
<ol>
<li>David Knowles - his life and his work on the Catholic Reformation</li>
<li>Ancient Greek historians - Herodotus and Thucydides</li>
<li>Roman historians - Polybius, Sallust, Livy, Josephus, Tacitus, Plutarch, Suetonius</li>
<li>The Bible and history</li>
<li>The approach to history in muslim states - Ibn Kaldun</li>
<li>Medieval chroniclers - a whole bunch of them</li>
<li>Machiavelli</li>
<li>Shakespeare</li>
<li>Volatire and Gibbon</li>
<li>The beginnings of professional historians: Macauley and von Ranke</li>
<li>Novelists as historians</li>
<li>The American Civil War and its histories / historians</li>
<li>Broad history - the Annales school, key figures</li>
<li>Marxist historians - from Karl Marx to Eric Hobsbawm</li>
<li>Protagonists writing history - Julius Caesar and Ulysses S Grant</li>
<li>Churchill as historian</li>
<li>Hugh Trevor-Roper vs AJP Taylor</li>
<li>The military historian John Keegan</li>
<li>Female historians throughout the ages - a round-up</li>
<li>Black historians in the US, up to the 1619 Project</li>
<li>Bad history - deliberately manipulating the past, focussing on Japanese and Russian government approaches</li>
<li>Journalists as historians - Samual Pepes, William Howard Russell, George Orwell, Svetlana Alexievitch</li>
<li>Historians on TV - In the UK: AJP Taylor, David Starkey, Simon Schama, Niall Ferguson. In the US: Ken Burns, Henry Louis Gates Jr</li>
</ol>
<p>If you didn’t have the patience to read the whole list that should be a warning sign!</p>
<p>To get the most out of this book I would recommend that you have a look through the chapters listed above and see if you can find seven or eight that interest you in their own right. At 30-40 pages per chapter you will still have a decent length tome and you won’t be missing anything given each chapter is self-contained and the whole adds up to precisely the sum of its parts.</p>
<h3 id="what-did-i-like%3F" tabindex="-1">What did I like?</h3>
<p>One of the chapters I enjoyed was on the beginnings of professional historians, in particular the mini-biography of Leopold von Ranke (1795 - 1886) who I had come across previously as a caricature rather than a man. His most famous quote was that he wanted to “tell how it really was” (for the German speakers: <em>“wie es eigentlich gewesen”</em>). This phrase has come to represent a way of doing history which is lambasted as arrogant, naive and outdated - if there are an infinite number of perspectives how can you uncover The Truth?</p>
<h3 id="doing-history-properly---von-ranke" tabindex="-1">Doing history properly - von Ranke</h3>
<p>But, as Richard Cohen explains, his comment was actually made in the context of his other historians colleagues getting too big for their boots:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>You have reckoned that history ought to judge the past and to instruct the contemporary world as to the future. The present attempt does not yield to that high office. It will merely tell how it really was.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Leopold von Ranke</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Instead of hubris, von Ranke was advocating humility.</p>
<p>Cohen then goes on to tell us in more detail the outline of von Ranke’s career, and his belief that the hand of God was behind everything. The historian’s role was to try to understand God’s intentions: the “overruling compulsion of the innate life-germ” (<em>Einfühlungsvermögen</em>). There was much more to von Ranke than simply telling it how it was.</p>
<p>Meanwhile holding a chair in history went from being seen as a sinecure (”<em>Unsuccessful in my profession, infirm and lame, I am impelled to solicit for some addition to my present income</em>” went one rather unimpressive application to the post of Chair of History in Cambridge University in 1762) to a serious and increasingly widespread academic position in the later 19th Century. Von Ranke we are told, did as much as anyone else to professionalise the methods and outlook of these new historians.</p>
<h3 id="history-in-the-united-states" tabindex="-1">History in the United States</h3>
<p>I also got a lot out of the chapter on the historians of the American Civil War - as I didn’t know much about the historiography and it has been such a live and contentious topic up to and including nowadays - and the chapter on Black (north American) historians - which gives a convincing overview of a number of important figures, again bringing us right up to the present and the 1619 Project.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-missing%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s missing?</h3>
<p>Cohen has very deliberately avoided the word historiography in this book. And you can see why - it’s a long word and might put people off. By concentrating on telling the stories of the storytellers he avoids getting bogged down in boring passages about what it all means and instead can liven things up with another anecdote of David Starkey removing his trousers on Hampstead Heath.</p>
<p>But lacking any clear attempt from Cohen to figure anything out from the collection of individual stories, the whole thing can feel a bit directionless: a bit like reading the supporting notes<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-06-24-review-making_history/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> for a book rather than the book itself.</p>
<h3 id="not-telling-it-why-it-really-was" tabindex="-1">Not telling it <em>why</em> it really was</h3>
<p>For example he doesn’t try to address why the historians covered came to have such an influence; why it was this particular set that have become the “storytellers who have shaped our past”. Instead we are simply told that historian X was born in the year dot, wrote book Y - and everyone read it.</p>
<p>Perhaps, like von Ranke, Cohen is wary of hubris. But his caution makes this a lesser book, even if Nemesis is safely avoided.</p>
<p>It is also worth mentioning again that the Storytellers of this book are those of the Western English speaking tradition. If you want to find out about how history has told different stories of the past in different traditions - ie Indian, or Chinese - you will have to find a different book.</p>
<p>These are criticisms based on what the book is not which is a little unfair. But given the title may create these (reasonable) expectations I think it is important to point it out.</p>
<h3 id="i%E2%80%99ve-finished!" tabindex="-1">I’ve finished!</h3>
<p>This is a valuable book, with lots of interesting biographical information on a whole range of historians in the Western tradition.</p>
<p>It is also something of a contradiction - it is vast in range, covering a huge cast of famous historians. But it is also quite narrow in scope - with nothing on why it was this particular bunch that came to tell the story of the past, simply the salient biographical facts recounted.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Via a lengthy David Knowles prologue detour. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-06-24-review-making_history/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Admittedly well written and highly polished notes. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-06-24-review-making_history/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
The Ottomans - review
Andy Salisbury
How did an obscure thirteenth century Anatolian beylik emerge as a vast continent-spanning Ottoman empire? How then did it come to wither away in the nineteenth century, with its eventual replacement...
2022-06-17T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-06-17-review-the_ottomans/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1473695708.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Ottomans - review" /><p>Our review of The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs, by Marc David Baer, first published in October 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A thought-provoking and accessible guide to the history of the Ottoman Empire from the 14th to the 20th century , which at its peak spanned three continents, stretching from North Africa to the Caucasus and from Meca to Budapest.</p><p>This is a story of the interplay of religious conflict and tolerance, an elite slave army against whom other European powers struggled to compete, and an ingenious solution to the age old problem of sibling rivalry.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>How did an obscure thirteenth century Anatolian <em>beylik</em> emerge as a vast continent-spanning Ottoman empire? How then did it come to wither away in the nineteenth century, with its eventual replacement by Ataturk's new Turkish Republic<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-06-17-review-the_ottomans/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> in 1922? Marc David Baer, Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science, tells the story in his new history of the Ottoman Empire, also reflecting on how we think about the Ottomans today - and why it matters.</p>
<h2 id="origins" tabindex="-1">Origins</h2>
<p>The Ottoman Empire was founded by, and named after, Osman I, a tribal leader of one of many Anatolian beyliks which emerged in the second half of the thirteenth century. His grandson Murad I, who ruled 1362 to 1389, was the first head of the Ottoman dynasty to style himself as sultan, secular civil and military leader, rather than the title of 'bey' (chief) taken by his predecessors Osman and Orhan. The new title represented the transition to a more settled and organised empire, which was expanded by Murad I's conquests of Adrianople (which he renamed Edirne) and much of the Balkans during his reign.</p>
<p>In the author's view, Murad I's legacy lay not only in the territorial expansion of the empire, but in the pursuit of two policies which would contribute to later Ottoman success and stability, namely the Collection (devşirme) and the codification in law of fratricide on dynastic succession.</p>
<h2 id="the-collection" tabindex="-1">The Collection</h2>
<p>The Collection was a child levy on Christian subjects of the sultan, in which one in forty eight to eighteen year old Christian boys were taken from each judicial district in South-eastern Europe and Anatolia to the seat of the sultan. There they were circumcised and forcibly converted to Islam. They could then be trained as leading officials or palace servants, but many joined the Janissaries, the elite infantry which formed the first modern standing army in Europe. Raised from a young age to be loyal to their patron, the sultan, the Janissaries bypassed the existing elites of the Ottoman Empire, and were feared and respected across Europe.</p>
<h2 id="fratricide" tabindex="-1">Fratricide</h2>
<p>Murad I also came up with a clever idea of how to deal with difficult siblings on assuming power – he killed them all off. Murad I obtained religious sanction, and then codified into law, the policy whereby a new sultan would murder all of his brothers and uncles, and often all male relatives, regardless of age, on assuming power. Male relatives were either killed on the battlefield or, if they survived, they were strangled with a silk cord, befitting their royal status. This aspect of Ottoman rule is also vividly brought to life in an excellent <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-29-review-the_lion_house/">review by Anthony Webb of The Lion House</a>, elsewhere on this website.</p>
<h2 id="a-european-empire" tabindex="-1">A European empire</h2>
<p>This is a book with a clear point to make: namely, that the Ottoman Empire was a European empire, and it is impossible to properly understand the story of Europe without integrating into that story the Ottomans and their empire. The Ottomans saw themselves as the successors to the Roman Empire: much of its territory encompassed lands formerly under Roman (and then Byzantine) control. Its European territories, in particular in what is now Turkish East Thrace and the Balkans, were early conquests in the expansion of the Ottoman Empire and were core to the Ottomans' conception of themselves and their empire. With the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the capital of the empire was the 'Second Rome', with its conqueror, Sultan Mehmed II, styling himself the new Kayser-i Rum.</p>
<p>But the Ottoman sultans were not just Caesars. They also celebrated their pastoral origins as nomadic successors to the Mongolian khans. In addition, with the conquest of Mamluk Egypt in 1517 by Selim I, they were custodians of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina; Suleiman I claimed the title of 'caliph', successor to Muhammad and leader of the Ummah, the global community of Muslims.</p>
<p>The Ottoman Empire had many faces, but has Europe (i.e. the non-Turkish bit of Europe), and perhaps Turkey itself, chosen to forget the European nature of that empire? In the telling of Marc David Baer, it has, and his book is a conscious effort to rebalance the portrayal of the Ottomans.</p>
<h2 id="religious-tolerance" tabindex="-1">Religious tolerance</h2>
<p>The author examines key events and themes in supposedly European history from an Ottoman perspective. Did secularism, tolerance and modernity begin in Europe with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648? Or did the Ottomans get there first under Mehmed 'the Conqueror' in the fifteenth century, who rebuilt Constantinople as a 'multireligious metropolis' and who permitted Greek Orthodox Christians, Armenian Christians and Jews to live according to their own systems of beliefs and practices?</p>
<p>Following their forced departure from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497, as many as one hundred thousand Spanish and Portuguese Jews, as well as a large number of conversos (Iberian Jews compelled to convert to Catholicism) migrated to the Ottoman Empire, where they were relatively free to practise their religion and could rise to important positions at the Ottoman court.</p>
<h2 id="the-renaissance%2C-the-reformation%2C-and-the-age-of-discovery" tabindex="-1">The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Age of Discovery</h2>
<p>Likewise, Marc David Baer presents the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Age of Discovery from an Ottoman perspective. Sultan Mehmed II, who had his portrait painted by the Venetian Renaissance master Gentile Bellini in 1480, is presented as a renaissance prince and patron of Italian and Greek scholars. Suleiman I 'the Magnificent' allied with Protestant rebels against their mutual enemy, the Catholic Habsburgs. As the Portuguese and Spanish were colonising the Americas, the Ottoman's were projecting their power and controlling oceangoing trade from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.</p>
<h2 id="decline-and-genocide" tabindex="-1">Decline and genocide</h2>
<p>If the above all sounds relatively flattering to the Ottomans, the author also does not shy away from comparisons with European history that are less complimentary. As the author himself states in the introduction, his 'seeks to neither glorify the house of Osman nor to condemn it, but to present all that makes it both different and surprisingly familiar for the general reader'.</p>
<p>With much of the book recounting the power and achievements of the Ottoman Empire at its peak, the author also addresses its decline in the nineteenth century (during which it was characterised as the 'sick man of Europe') and its increasing violence towards its own minorities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.</p>
<p>The author characterises the genocide of Armenian Christians during World War I as the first genocide committed by a European empire in Europe. The chapter on this, and related atrocities committed during the First World War, is very powerful, in particular his recounting of the testimony of a rare Armenian female survivor of a death march to the Syrian desert. The author estimates that 'out of a population of one and a half million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1914, 650,000 to 800,000 has been annihilated by 1916'.</p>
<p>Of those that escaped, the author states that a 'couple of hundred thousand fled abroad to Russia and elsewhere. An estimated one hundred thousand Armenians, in situations of duress, converted to Islam to save their lives. Tens of thousands of Armenian girls and women were raped and subjected to sexual violence, taken into Muslim families as daughters or brides, and converted to Islam and taught Kurdish or Turkish, thereby escaping deportation.' In the same period, Assyrian Christians were also targeted, with claims that quarter of a million of them, half their original population, were killed by the Ottomans.</p>
<h2 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h2>
<p>Shortlisted for the 2022 Wolfson History Prize, this is a deserving candidate. It represents an excellent example of history writing for the general reader. The author is an Ottoman history specialist, having written many books in the field. He manages to convey his expertise to a general reader in an accessible fashion; the book is easy to read. It also benefits from a unifying theme, that of presenting the Ottoman Empire in its European context.</p>
<p>There was nothing that I strongly disliked about the book. I thought that the start of the book could have benefited from more contextual information about the thirteenth century Anatolia from which the Ottomans emerged. It was a confusing place, with multiple competing and, at times, overlapping layers of authority, Byzantine, Seljuq and Mongol, with the Anatolian beyliks and various Byzantine princes stuck in between.</p>
<p>When combined with the lack of documented evidence about the early Ottoman rules (and the great amount of myth later invented by the Ottomans) making sense of what was going on and why, what is myth and what isn't, isn't always that easy and I thought the author could have done a slightly better job guiding the reader through that confusion.</p>
<h2 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h2>
<p>The greatest strength of this book is that it does more than just recount the history of the Ottoman Empire. It connects that history to questions of how the Ottomans viewed themselves, how others viewed them, and how those perceptions changed over time. This goes to the core of what the book is about.</p>
<p>After the fall of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, Mustafa Kemal 'Ataturk' ('Father of the Turks') made a conscious effort to rebrand his new republic in contrast to is past; as he said himself 'The new Turkey has absolutely no relation with the old Turkey. The Ottoman state has gone down in history. Now, a new Turkey is born.'</p>
<p>For the author, his book is partly about 'the question is what to do with the memories' of Turkey's Ottoman past. That makes this book thought provoking and important not only for those interested in the history of the Ottomans, but also those interested in modern day Turkey, South-East Europe and the other lands once controlled by the heirs of Osman I.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>The Turkish government is in the process of encouraging the use of 'Türkiye' as the name of the country when referred to in English. From a quick review of the internet, it seems that 'Turkey' continues to be the most common form used in the English language. Furthermore, it is the form used in the book reviewed, so will be used in this review. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-06-17-review-the_ottomans/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Words The Vikings Gave Us - review
Jenny Blakeley
Words the Vikings gave us by Grace Tierney is rather different to the majority of the books reviewed on this blog as it is effectively a glossary of Viking words still in use today, or which have...
2022-06-09T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-06-09-review-words_the_vikings_ga/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1999977645.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Words The Vikings Gave Us - review" /><p>Our review of Words The Vikings Gave Us, by Grace Tierney, first published in August 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Dip (Old Norse <i>deypa</i>) into this interesting book by Grace Tierney (of <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-06-09-review-words_the_vikings_ga/%E2%80%98https://wordfoolery.wordpress.com%E2%80%98">wordfoolery blog fame</a>). It is an enjoyable, light-hearted look at Viking influence on the English language.</p><p>It’s the kind of book that would make an excellent stocking filler and I would recommend it as a good jumping-off point for discovering more about both the Vikings and about English.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <p><em>Words the Vikings gave us</em> by Grace Tierney is rather different to the majority of the books reviewed on this blog as it is effectively a glossary of Viking words still in use today, or which have contributed to words in use today, along with examples of both historical and modern usage. The focus is very much on the words themselves, although the words and their context do give us a certain amount of insight into Viking history and culture.</p>
<h2 id="what's-it-all-about%3F" tabindex="-1">What's it all about?</h2>
<p>The book is divided into sections including more obvious ones like “Myths and Sagas”, “Viking Place Names” and “Raiders from the Sea” and less expected ones such as “Norse Romance” and “Invading the Menu”. Each chapter contains a few pages of words that have come directly from the Vikings or that have come into modern English via other languages but have a Viking root. In some cases both the Anglo-Saxon and Viking words have come from Proto-Germanic roots and were similar, with the Viking overtaking the Anglo-Saxon over time.</p>
<h2 id="fahr-fetched" tabindex="-1">Fahr fetched</h2>
<p>As a speaker of German I find it very interesting to note similarities with German where the root is Germanic: for example the entry for “ferry” notes that it comes from Old English <em>ferian</em> - to carry or transport people or goods, especially over water, which came from Old Norse <em>ferja</em> and Proto-Germanic <em>farjan</em>. Most people who have studied even a little German will remember the verb <em>fahren</em> and the noun <em>Fähre</em>.</p>
<p>Also interesting are the words which sound similar but have different roots, such as “mug” and “muggy” - mug coming from <em>mugg</em> or <em>mugge</em> but “muggy” coming from the Old Norse word <em>muggy</em> meaning drizzling mist via the Middle English verb <em>mugen</em> meaning “to drizzle with fog or mist”, a word which is overdue a comeback in my view. Just as it’s not entirely surprising to find that in the past we in the UK have had a word for drizzle with fog or mist, the words in the book can tell us something about the Vikings and their culture.</p>
<h2 id="rule-making-vikings" tabindex="-1">Rule-making Vikings</h2>
<p>The “Power and Politics” chapter gives us an interesting insight into Viking society. Tierney points out that the Vikings have an image of being lawless heathens in the British Isles because the writers of the Old English accounts were monks whose abbeys the Vikings had raided, but stresses that to be the successful conquerors that they were, their society would have needed law and structure. In fact, some of our very common law and structure words are Viking in origin: byelaw, for example, comes from <em>bi-lagu</em> via <em>bilage</em>; then, as now, it was a town law applying to specific people in a specific place. (Sadly Tierney does not give us the Viking phrases for “no ball games” or “keep off the grass”.)</p>
<blockquote>
<p>...some of our very common law words are Viking in origin: byelaw, for example, comes from <em>bi-lagu</em> via <em>bilage</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>From this we can also see that the word “law” itself comes from the Viking <em>lagu</em>. “Thing” meant meeting, assembly or discussion and came from Viking to Old English as <em>Þing</em>. It changed its meaning as the language changed from Old to Middle English and first became something that was discussed at a meeting, then someone who was to be pitied or a personal possession. By the 1600s its meaning was similar to how we understand it now. However, we have retained it in English as part of “hustings”, a compound of the words for “house” and “assembly”. “Odd” also has links to Viking politics: derived from Old Norse <em>oddi</em>, it could be used to describe the person with the casting vote (<em>oddr-madr</em>).</p>
<h2 id="nordmen" tabindex="-1">Nordmen</h2>
<p>Despite <em>Asterix and the Normans</em> being one of my favourite Asterix books, I hadn’t appreciated that the Normans were Vikings, although the clue is clearly in the name. The Old English word for a Norwegian was <em>Nordman</em>, while in Old French it was <em>Normand</em> which came from a Scandinavian word. Tierney gives us a very brief sketch of Rollo, the leader of the Vikings who founded the duchy of Normandy.</p>
<h2 id="viking-women's-rights" tabindex="-1">Viking women's rights</h2>
<p>Tierney is keen to tell us that Viking women had more rights than their contemporaries in other societies: they could own property, ask for a divorce, and reclaim their dowry. While Viking men were away conquering the women ran farms and businesses and some Viking women fought as shield maidens. However, she does admit that the history around shield maidens is not entirely clear, and comments such as “A <em>thing</em> meeting could be attended by all free Viking men, there were no restrictions on status or property” do give as an insight into how far women’s rights actually went.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>While Viking men were away conquering the women ran farms and businesses</p>
</blockquote>
<p>An interesting entry in terms of attitudes to women is “meek”. It entered English in the late 1100s and came from the Old Norse *mjukr”, meaning soft, pliant and gentle, and gentle-tempered and humble when referring to a woman. After a century or so its meaning changed to be submissive, obedient and docile, which Tierney attributes to the more patriarchal Anglo-Saxon society.</p>
<h2 id="place-names" tabindex="-1">Place names</h2>
<p>Readers won’t be surprised about the Viking influence on place names, with an obvious example being <em>dale</em>, the level or gently sloping ground between hills, as we see in the Yorkshire Dales. Tierney, who lives on the east coast of Ireland, points out the large number of Viking place names in her area: Carlingford, Skerries, Howth, Dalkey, Leixlip, Wicklow, Arklow, Wexford and Waterford. She points out that the extent of Viking place names shows the extent of their explorations, from Shetland to Reykjavik to Copenhagen to Russia.</p>
<h2 id="proto-germanic-tidings" tabindex="-1">Proto-Germanic tidings</h2>
<p>In many cases Old English and Old Norse can be traced back to the same Proto-Germanic root. “Tidings” is an example of this, linked to the Old English verb <em>tidan</em> (to happen) and the Old Norse noun <em>tidendi</em> meaning events or news. Both come from a Proto-Germanic word relating to divisions of time. In fact, “time” also comes from words in Old English, Old Norse and Swedish.</p>
<h2 id="how-to-read-this-book" tabindex="-1">How to read this book</h2>
<p>Those looking for a weighty historical tome won't find it in this book, and, in fact, reading it from cover to cover like I have for this review is probably not what’s intended.</p>
<p>I found that when I left it around the house my eleven-year-old son would tend to pick it up, open it at a random page, say, “Did you know…?” and then give me a definition; this is a better way to read it than straight through.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I found that when I left it around the house my eleven-year-old son would tend to pick it up, open it at a random page, say, “Did you know…?” and then give me a definition</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Its fairly general bibilography makes it difficult to follow up on anything you’ve found interesting and want more information on; I wasted a lot of time trying to find the Welsh word for happiness that derives from wisdom rather than luck, for example. If anyone can enlighten me on that, please do contact me!</p>
<h2 id="caveat-pedantor" tabindex="-1">Caveat pedantor</h2>
<p>There are also a few typos and spelling and grammar issues; the problem with people who are interested in words and language is that a lot of us are also pedants and will notice this kind of thing! However, there weren’t enough to spoil my enjoyment.</p>
<h2 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h2>
<p>“Words the Vikings gave us” is an enjoyable, light-hearted look at the Viking influence on English, interesting from an etymology point of view while also providing a few historical insights. It’s the kind of book that would make an excellent stocking filler (“stocking” from Old English <em>stocu</em> (sleeve) and Old Norse <em>stuka</em>, from the same Proto-Germanic source; “filler” from Old English <em>fyllan</em> and Old Norse <em>fylla</em>, both from Proto-Germanic <em>fulljanan</em>). I’d recommend it as a good jumping-off point for discovering more about both the Vikings and about English as a language.</p>
<p>(Additional definitions in this review taken from <a href="https://etymonline.com/">etymonline.com</a>)</p>
New history books in May 2022
Anthony Webb
What do we have to delve into this month?
A couple on ancient Egypt, including one A Year in the Life of Ancient Egypt (from the same author who wrote 24 Hours in Ancient Egypt) which looks like an...
2022-06-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-06-01-post-may_2022_new_history/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1654027605/posts/May2022_newhistorybooks.jpg" alt="New history books in May 2022" /><p>What do we have to delve into this month?</p>
<ul>
<li>A couple on ancient Egypt, including one <strong>A Year in the Life of Ancient Egypt</strong> (from the same author who wrote <em>24 Hours in Ancient Egypt</em>) which looks like an entertaining read.</li>
<li><strong>African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals</strong> which explores how people from Africa influenced (north) American thought and identity.</li>
<li>I like the look of <strong>Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World</strong> because even if they didn't write so good you should never write them off.</li>
<li>And the hopefully majestic <strong>In the Shadow of the Gods: The Emperor in World History</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<p>So I will stick them on the virtual to be read pile and see how I get on!</p>
<p>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon.</p>
<div class="grid_book_small">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1982145099.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals" title="African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover1982145099" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals" data-author="David Hackett Fischer" data-publishdate="2022-05-31" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1982145099.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1982145099" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1982145099" data-review="">
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</div>
<div class="fix-children hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1473677793.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World" title="Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World" />
<div class="image_cover_container_fit">
<div id="cover1473677793" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World" data-author="Anthony Sattin" data-publishdate="2022-05-26" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1473677793.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1473677793" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1473677793" data-review="">
<div class="center_item">
<svg class="svg-icon-zoom" height="30px" width="30px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 48 48"><path d="M39.8 41.95 26.65 28.8Q25.15 30.1 23.15 30.825Q21.15 31.55 18.9 31.55Q13.5 31.55 9.75 27.8Q6 24.05 6 18.75Q6 13.45 9.75 9.7Q13.5 5.95 18.85 5.95Q24.15 5.95 27.875 9.7Q31.6 13.45 31.6 18.75Q31.6 20.9 30.9 22.9Q30.2 24.9 28.8 26.65L42 39.75ZM18.85 28.55Q22.9 28.55 25.75 25.675Q28.6 22.8 28.6 18.75Q28.6 14.7 25.75 11.825Q22.9 8.95 18.85 8.95Q14.75 8.95 11.875 11.825Q9 14.7 9 18.75Q9 22.8 11.875 25.675Q14.75 28.55 18.85 28.55ZM20.3 24.3H17.3V20.2H13.2V17.2H17.3V13.15H20.3V17.2H24.35V20.2H20.3Z"></path></svg>
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<div class="fix-children hbk ">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0753558734.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Rule, Nostalgia: A Backwards History of Britain" title="Rule, Nostalgia: A Backwards History of Britain" />
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Crusaders - review
Anthony Webb
Lots of gold, a piece of the True Cross, and some great anecdotes - Sigurd Jersulamfarer had done pretty well out of his Viking mini crusade in the early 12th Century. His trip was about a decade...
2022-05-13T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-05-13-review-crusaders/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1781858888.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Crusaders - review" /><p>Our review of Crusaders: An Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands, by Dan Jones, first published in September 2019.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p><i>Crusaders</i> will take you on a journey around Europe to the Holy Land, plundering the historical record for great anecdotes as you go - giving us a glimpse of what it was like to live, fight, kill and die in the medieval world.</p><p>If you want to find out what the Crusades were all about - and are looking for a balanced view - this is a great place to start.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <p>Lots of gold, a piece of the True Cross, and some great anecdotes - Sigurd Jersulamfarer had done pretty well out of his Viking mini crusade in the early 12th Century. His trip was about a decade after the better known First Crusade which had managed, to everyone’s great surprise, to carve out a number of Christian mini-states in Palestine, including in 1099 the capture of Jerusalem.</p>
<p>Dan Jones in <em>Crusaders: An Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands</em> recounts the exploits of a cast of crusaders over a period of about 500 years, including Sigurd the Viking crusader.</p>
<h2 id="sigurd%E2%80%99s-tale" tabindex="-1">Sigurd’s tale</h2>
<p>Sigurd, a 17 year old co-King of Norway, gathered together a few thousand (now Christian) Vikings and 60 longships in 1107. Sailing past England and France, they then rounded Spain and Portugal where they fought a number of battles. Snorri Sturluson (probably one of my favourite 13th century Icelandic poet / chroniclers) notes approvingly: that Sigurd and his men captured the Muslim-held stronghold of Sintra and “killed all the people in it, because they refused to be baptized” and “made much booty there”.</p>
<p>After they “crimsoned”<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-05-13-review-crusaders/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> their spears a few more times in the western Mediterranean, the Viking crusader-marauders stopped off at Sicily to hang out with their Norman kinsmen who had overrun the island a few decades ago. From there it was on to Palestine - the holy land.</p>
<h2 id="thanks-for-coming" tabindex="-1">Thanks for coming</h2>
<p>King Baldwin I of Jerusalem was delighted to have his first fellow monarch visitor and even more delighted when Sigurd joined him in a full scale attack on the important Lebanese port city of Sidon. Sigurd’s 60 ships and hordes of bloodthirsty Vikings gave the inhabitants little chance: the city surrendered after a month and a half of fighting, and it was incorporated into the kingdom of Jerusalem.</p>
<h2 id="best-present-ever" tabindex="-1">Best present ever</h2>
<p>Baldwin presented Sigurd with a sliver of the True Cross as a thank you present - to a devout pilgrim / crusader like Sigurd this was the ultimate in holy land souvenirs, and marked the climax of his three year crusading spree.</p>
<p>From there it was on to visit the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople before journeying back to Norway overland, where he built a church to house the True Cross splinter, ruled for 20 years, went mad and died.</p>
<h2 id="what-is-a-crusader%3F" tabindex="-1">What is a crusader?</h2>
<p>The great thing about this story - and Dan Jones’ book in general - is that it makes you think about the idea of a crusader in a more nuanced way. We normally associate Vikings with violent assaults on churches and monasteries - that was where the gold was after all. But here is one travelling halfway round the world to acquire a splinter of holy wood - although admittedly he was happy to plunder and kill along the way too.</p>
<p>So a crusader from 1099 was different to one 10 years later and different again to those a hundred years later who could just as easily be “crusading” against the wrong type of Christian - or even a Christian who happened to get on the nerves of the pope like the unfortunate Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Hohenstaufen.</p>
<h2 id="they-were-only-in-it-for-the-relics" tabindex="-1">They were only in it for the relics</h2>
<p>Equally a crusader themselves would have many different reasons for going - and not just because he was a violent religious zealot<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-05-13-review-crusaders/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup>. Sigurd for example was clearly motivated by religion, but a penchant for good old fashioned profit-focussed Viking raiding must have played a part, together with the fact that he was sharing the kingship of Norway with his brother and wanted his own space - a sort of gory gap year project.</p>
<h2 id="a-sequence-of-biographies" tabindex="-1">A sequence of biographies</h2>
<p>Jones chooses a varied cast to tell his story, from the warrior aristocrats like Sigurd, to clerics like the mesmerising but malodorous Peter the Hermit, to Anna Komnene the astute Byzantine princess, to common folk like Margaret of Beverley who found herself fighting in the siege of Jerusalem, to those on “the other side” such as the image-conscious Saladin (Al-Nasir Salah al-Din).</p>
<p>Even when he is describing a familiar character, like Saladin above, or Richard the Lionheart, Jones tries hard to show them from a slightly different - and often mildly humorous angle - and make them human.</p>
<p>Each person's story moves along briskly and introduces us to a new facet of what it meant to be a crusader - as well as narrating the 400 odd year history of crusading in Spain, in the Middle East and in the Baltic.</p>
<h2 id="well-balanced" tabindex="-1">Well balanced</h2>
<p>At this point I should admit that I was suspicious of this book before I started reading it - I hadn’t read any of Dan Jones’ work before and somehow I had associated him in my mind with Dan Brown, who wrote the wildly successful and historically farcical The Da Vinci Code.</p>
<p>It didn’t help that the sub-title to Crusaders is “An Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands” - which made me think I was going to get a tub-thumping “West is Best” tale of heroic derring-do.</p>
<p>In fact Jones doesn’t thump his tub at all. He tells the story in a even-handed way, not shying away from the casually murderous nature of the Christian Crusaders, but not over compensating either by painting their Muslim opponents as virtuous alter-egos. He is also alive to the impact the crusading movement had on Jewish people in Europe as pilgrim-crusaders indulged themselves with massacres of entire communities as they made their way to Constantinople.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Whether this orgy of anti-Semitic violence was inspired by the crusaders’ widely shared agenda of revenging Christ’s betrayal... or whether it simply represented the bloodlust of a frenzied mob who could not wait to exercise their religious fury is probably unanswerable.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dan Jones, Crusaders</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>In short Jones is a thorough and thoughtful historian and my prejudice was completely unjustified!</p>
<h2 id="derring-don%E2%80%99t%3F" tabindex="-1">Derring don’t?</h2>
<p>It <em>is</em> a heroic tale of derring do though... in this respect Jones manages to have it both ways, revelling in the thrilling excitement of military campaigning while at the same time bemoaning the appalling suffering and loss of life.</p>
<h2 id="what%E2%80%99s-not-to-like%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s not to like?</h2>
<p>My criticisms are fairly minor but in the interests of also providing a balanced view I will offer them up.</p>
<p>The book is carefully constructed to keep the reader interested and engaged, by charging along from one bloody calamity to the next. I appreciated the fast pace but after a while I found myself feeling a bit exhausted, because it never really slows down. A few meditative or reflective chapters where we readers could lick our wounds and get our breath back would have gone down well.</p>
<p>Linked to this: the events of the various Crusades are extremely violent. I often found myself feeling a bit sick with all the blood and gore spilling off the pages. Clearly I wouldn’t have made a good medieval knight, and clearly I can’t blame Jones for the bloodshed, but it did mean I had to put the book down and look out of the window from time to time.</p>
<h2 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h2>
<p>Overall though this is an excellent history book.</p>
<p>A bit like Sigurd the Viking's crusade, it will take you on a journey around Europe to the Holy Land, plundering the historical record for great anecdotes as you go. You won't get a piece of the True Cross but you will get a little closer to a True Understanding of what it was like to live, fight, kill and die in the medieval world.</p>
<p>If you want to find out what the Crusades were all about - and are looking for a balanced view - this is a great place to start.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>according to “the skald Halldor Skvaldri”. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-05-13-review-crusaders/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>which was a basic requirement for entry into the European aristocracy in the Middle Ages. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-05-13-review-crusaders/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in April 2022
Anthony Webb
The April 2022 new history books round up!
A bit of a range on offer, from ancient to very modern and a decent geographical spread.
I'm going to try to find the time to read:
Mutinous Women: How...
2022-05-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-05-01-post-new_history_books_april2022/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1651346968/posts/april2022newbooks.jpg" alt="New history books in April 2022" /><p>The April 2022 new history books round up!</p>
<p>A bit of a range on offer, from ancient to very modern and a decent geographical spread.</p>
<p>I'm going to try to find the time to read:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast</strong>, whose title says it all really. It sounds like a fascinating and in parts very harrowing story.</li>
<li>Also <strong>Persians: The Age of The Great Kings</strong> written from the Persian's point of view by a history professor who presumably knows his stuff.</li>
<li>And finally <strong>The Empress and the English Doctor: How Catherine the Great defied a deadly virus</strong> which looks like an intriguing tale even it has clearly commandeered the COVID bandwagon.</li>
</ul>
<p>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon.</p>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241427266.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Portable Magic: Our Long Love Affair with Books" title="Portable Magic: Our Long Love Affair with Books" />
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<div id="cover0241427266" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Portable Magic: Our Long Love Affair with Books" data-author="Emma Smith" data-publishdate="2022-04-28" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241427266.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0241427266" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0241427266" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1541600584.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast" title="Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast" />
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<div id="cover1541600584" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast" data-author="Joan DeJean" data-publishdate="2022-04-19" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1541600584.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1541600584" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1541600584" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008471207.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Northerners: a History, from the Ice Age to the Present Day" title="Northerners: a History, from the Ice Age to the Present Day" />
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<div id="cover0008471207" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Northerners: a History, from the Ice Age to the Present Day" data-author="Brian Groom" data-publishdate="2022-04-14" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008471207.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0008471207" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0008471207" data-review="">
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<div id="cover147228383X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The Mercenary River: Private Greed, Public Good, a History of London's Water" data-author="Nick Higham" data-publishdate="2022-04-14" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/147228383X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/147228383X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/147228383X" data-review="">
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<div id="cover1472277287" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Persians: The Age of the Great Kings" data-author="Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones" data-publishdate="2022-04-14" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1472277287.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/1472277287" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/1472277287" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008284393.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Young Alexander: The Making of Alexander the Great" title="The Young Alexander: The Making of Alexander the Great" />
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The Lion House - review
Anthony Webb
When an Ottoman emperor died, his son inherited the empire. But which son? With no clear rule of succession it depended upon who managed to seize power and eliminate their rivals.
There was no second...
2022-04-29T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-29-review-the_lion_house/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1847922392.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Lion House - review" /><p>Our review of The Lion House: The Coming of a King, by Christopher de Bellaigue, first published in March 2022.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>The coming of age story of Sulieman the Magnificent, told from an eyewitness perspective. And it is a great story, masterfully told - assuming the rather lyrical prose style doesn‘t put you off.</p><p>I would have no hesitation in recommending this to anyone with a passing interest in Ottoman or Renaissance history.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>When an Ottoman emperor died, his son inherited the empire. But <em>which</em> son? With no clear rule of succession it depended upon who managed to seize power and eliminate their rivals.</p>
<p>There was no second prize. You won or you died.</p>
<p>As Christopher De Bellaigue puts it in <em>The Lion House: the Coming of a King</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Those princes who do not become Sultan will face one of a range of unpalatable outcomes. One may become another Korkut, Sultan Selim’s brother who was run to ground in a cave and strangled, another a son of Korkut, killed by his uncle [ie Sultan Selim] in a palace bedroom. A third may find himself emulating Sultan Bayezit’s brother Cem, who died in Naples, lonely and dissipated... Primogeniture is Christendom’s oddity.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="a-lucky-guy%3F" tabindex="-1">A lucky guy?</h2>
<p>When Sultan Suleiman, the subject of De Ballaigue’s new book, came to power in 1520 he was lucky because all his brothers had already died due to natural causes. His five male cousins and two uncles had also been systematically wiped out by his father, as alluded to in the quote above.</p>
<p>The author tells us that Suleiman himself was almost killed by one of his dad’s birthday presents - a robe impregnated with poison - and was only saved by his mum's finely honed sense of paranoia who suggested an attendant try it on first.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-29-review-the_lion_house/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
<p>In turn, two of Suleiman’s own sons were murdered on his orders, due to suspected or actual rebelliousness.</p>
<h2 id="stab-and-stability" tabindex="-1">Stab and stability</h2>
<p>These bloody fratricidal family relations went hand-in-hand with a relatively stable system of political power. Sultan Suleiman for example - our hero, and the sole survivor of his father’s intra-familial purge - ruled without any serious opposition for 46 years from 1520 to 1566 and was able to enlarge and presumably enrich a huge empire that by the end of his rule stretched from Algeria to Iran.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-29-review-the_lion_house/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup></p>
<p>De Bellaigue’s book revels in this contrast: the refined, luxurious courtly life and the brutality that lurked just under the surface - and was to some extent the critical underpinning of this regal lifestyle.</p>
<p>He also shows that this was true not just of the Ottomans but also the kingdoms of Christendom: murder and mutilation going hand in hand with kingship and authority across Europe and Asia.</p>
<h2 id="conspicuous-consumption" tabindex="-1">Conspicuous consumption</h2>
<p>What of the luxury then? To mark the circumcision of his sons the Sultan organised 14 days of public celebrations in Istanbul, with free food and entertainment for all. Gifts poured in to commemorate the occasion until they covered the floor of the hippodrome (the horse racing track).</p>
<p>There were more than a thousand presents and we're not talking the usual wedding list cutlery sets and cheese slicers, this was decent stuff: The Grand Vizier alone “<em>gave 160 gifts, including precious books, a golden caftan encrusted with jewels and twelve boys.</em>”</p>
<p>Conspicuous consumption was an important element of courtly life. But while we are encouraged to gawp at the ostentation this book is really about death. Death defines the key moments in the book and ultimately triggers the coming of age of the Sultan himself in the concluding scene - a lion now escaped from the Lion House.</p>
<h2 id="what-is-the-structure-of-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What is the structure of the book?</h2>
<p>The book follows five key protagonists from 1520 to 1536 - the first 16 years of Suleiman's reign.</p>
<p>We have:</p>
<ol>
<li>Sultan Suleiman himself</li>
<li>Ibrahim Pasha, the Sultan's slave, (boy)friend and right-hand man</li>
<li>Alvise Gritti an illegitimate Venetian nobleman and informal foreign minister for the Sultan</li>
<li>Hurrem Sultan, an enslaved eastern European who became the emperor's concubine and later his wife, and</li>
<li>Hayreddin Barbarossa, a Turkish pirate king and later admiral of the Ottoman fleet.</li>
</ol>
<p>The story is set mainly in Istanbul and Venice, but follows the characters when they are travelling in (ie invading) other places too such as Hungary, Iran or around the Mediterranean coast.</p>
<h2 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h2>
<p>The writing is smooth, lucid and often flowery - you can tell that De Bellaigue does words for a living. It is all written in the present tense and we are invited to peer over the shoulders of the fantastic historical characters that surrounded Suleiman the Magnificent in the early part of his reign.</p>
<p>In fact, because the prose treads so delicately around the story I had the strange sensation that I was reading the scene setting bits of a historical fiction novel, one that never quite gets to the action. At times it felt like re-reading a Dorothy Dunnett book from her excellent “The House of Niccolo” series but with all the emotion and most of the action scenes deleted.</p>
<p>But when I adjusted to the rhythm of the book I very much enjoyed being carried along by the verbal flow.</p>
<h2 id="what-are-my-takeaways%3F" tabindex="-1">What are my takeaways?</h2>
<p>Reading Lion House is a great way to get a feel for the high politics and high flying politicians of the early 16th century Mediterranean world. I’ve been to Turkey a few times but never really got a sense of the Ottoman sultans who ruled the world from Istanbul. The Lion House is an excellent way into this world and makes me want to visit again, COVID and family permitting...</p>
<p>It also made me reflect on why Europe and Asia at that time was such a murderous place. My tenuous conclusion is that with life generally precarious and the material difference between success and failure so huge, gambling your own life (or better yet someone else’s) could become an attractive way of getting ahead.</p>
<p>And when you <em>had</em> got ahead it seemed that there was no easy way back down - resignation and early retirement didn’t appear to be viable options. You kept climbing until, inevitably, someone found themselves in a position to give you a shove, and that was that.</p>
<h2 id="a-connected-world" tabindex="-1">A connected world</h2>
<p>You also get a nice sense of the interconnectedness of the Mediterranean states, and Europe and Asia. For example Suleiman’s favourite slave, maybe lover and ultimately grand vizier Ibrahim Pasha started out in life a Christian Albanian peasant boy before being captured by slavers and transported to Anatolia. The Sultan’s unofficial foreign minister Alvise Gritti was the illegitimate son of the Venetian Doge.</p>
<h2 id="downsides" tabindex="-1">Downsides</h2>
<p>To enjoy this book you have to accept that you are being recounted a story, and not necessarily getting the authoritative account. This is linked to my comment on writing style above: while I’m satisfied that it is a reliable narrative based on primary sources I don’t know exactly where those sources stop and De Bellaigue takes over. If the idea of that bothers you<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-29-review-the_lion_house/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup>, you may find the book a little frustrating at times.</p>
<p>I’m also not sure how reliable all those primary sources are - when mixed together in this book it feels like we end up with Suleiman the legend more than as Suleiman the... man<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-29-review-the_lion_house/#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup>.</p>
<p>Mind you, a great story about Sulieman the legend and his murderous chums is infinitely better than no story at all, which is where I suspect most English speakers are in their knowledge of the Sultan and where I was before I started this book.</p>
<h2 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h2>
<p>A great story, masterfully told - assuming you can enjoy or ignore the flowery style - I would have no hesitation in recommending this to anyone with a passing interest in Ottoman or Renaissance history.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>I’m a bit suspicious of this poisoned robe story and didn’t find any supporting footnote in the text, but it is mentioned several times so presumably De Bellaigue thinks it is in some sense true! <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-29-review-the_lion_house/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>The fact that he was fortunate enough to have such a long lifespan was no doubt also critical. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-29-review-the_lion_house/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>I’m not too bothered for the record... <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-29-review-the_lion_house/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>See above poisonous coat story for an example of what I presume is myth-making. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-29-review-the_lion_house/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
The Burgundians - review
Andy Salisbury
What is it about?
Written by a Belgian author in Dutch, and translated into English, this book tells the story of the 'Burgurdians'. But who were the 'Burgurdians'? That is a good question. After...
2022-04-22T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-22-review-the_burgundians/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1789543436.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Burgundians - review" /><p>Our review of The Burgundians: A Vanished Empire, by Bart Van Loo, first published in October 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>At its core, this book contains a fascinating and colourful story about four generations of one powerful French ducal family. But, at times, that story can feel bogged down in a hodgepodge of other narratives and information. </p><p>Overall, it is an entertaining read, but it would have benefited from being a bit more focused. </p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <h2 id="what-is-it-about%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it about?</h2>
<p>Written by a Belgian author in Dutch, and translated into English, this book tells the story of the 'Burgurdians'. But who were the 'Burgurdians'? That is a good question. After reading the 514 pages of this book, I had learned a lot, but remained a little confused about the answer to that central question. Perhaps the best way of getting to grips with the Burgurdians is to recount, very briefly and simplistically, the key events covered in this book.</p>
<h2 id="act-1%3A-the-burgurdians-enter-the-scene" tabindex="-1">Act 1: The Burgurdians enter the scene</h2>
<p>A long time ago, there was a Germanic tribe which originated (possibly) in Bornholm, now a Danish island in the Baltic Sea. Over the centuries they migrated their way across Europe until they reached the River Rhine sometime in the 3rd century AD.</p>
<h2 id="act-2%3A-kingdom-of-the-burgundians" tabindex="-1">Act 2: Kingdom of the Burgundians</h2>
<p>In 406, together with a number of other Germanic tribes, the Burgundians crossed the River Rhine into the then Roman Empire. That was part of a series of destabilising migratory events in 5th century Europe which contributed to the disintegration of the Wester Roman Empire. In its wake, the Germanic Burgundians established their own kingdom as one of the successor states to the Empire. That tribe gave their name to what we now refer to as the French region of Burgundy, although in fact modern Burgundy represents only part of the region of the Roman Empire originally settled by the Germanic Burgundians.</p>
<h2 id="act-3%3A-duchy-of-burgundy" tabindex="-1">Act 3: Duchy of Burgundy</h2>
<p>In 532, the Burgurdians were defeated by the Franks at the Battle of Autun and shortly thereafter their kingdom was incorporated into the Merovingian Frankish kingdom.</p>
<p>The bit which follows is then very confusing, but essentially from the 9th century onwards the name 'Burgundy' got attached to a duchy within the Frankish realms which overlapped, in part, with the historic kingdom established by the Germanic Burgundians. It is that duchy which correlates, more or less, with the region of France known as Burgundy today.</p>
<p>The male line to the original French aristocratic family to hold that dukedom died out in 1361, at which point it reverted to the French crown.</p>
<p>In 1363, the duchy was given by King John 'the Good' of France to his fourth son, Philip 'the Bold' (an appellation he earned at the age of 14 in 1356, fighting next to his dad at the Battle of Poitiers).</p>
<h2 id="act-4%3A-the-heart-of-the-book-%E2%80%93-the-four-megastar-dukes" tabindex="-1">Act 4: The heart of the book – the four megastar dukes</h2>
<p>What follows is then the real meat of the book, and undoubtedly a great story to tell.</p>
<p>Philip 'the Bold', his son John 'the Fearless', his son Philip 'the Good' and his son Charles 'the Bold' (although, we are told, the French word might translate better to the 'reckless') used shrewd marriage alliances and diplomacy to expand their control across a vast swath of land lying between France and the Holy Roman Empire, including most of the Low Countries, then probably the richest region in Europe. Those dukes come across as extravagant, larger than life, personalities, using their wealth and power to emerge as among the most powerful families in Europe. They were patrons of the arts, promoting the careers of Claus Sluter, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden and Hugo van der Goes among others. They built magnificent buildings, such as the Champmol Monastery just outside Dijon, then the capital of the Duchy.</p>
<p>To use modern terminology, the dukes were a bit 'bling', and were adept at milking their rich territories to fund their ostentatious tastes. Clothing covered in jewels and rubies and insanely over the top feasts feature prominently. One such feast included 48 courses, a statue of a naked women with wine pouring from her nipples and one of a naked boy peeing rose water (presumably a prototype for the Manneken Pis), a giant pie with musicians in the middle, diamond-encrusted crystal table fountains and a lion (a real one).</p>
<h2 id="indigestion" tabindex="-1">Indigestion</h2>
<p>In fact, those feasts are a recurring theme of the book, each duke seeming to want out to outdo his predecessors. After a while, one absurdly over the top feast started to merge into another and I began to find it all a little tedious, as I'm sure a few of the guests did as well. The dukes no doubt would be appalled by my standard evening meal of shredded wheat with semi skimmed milk.</p>
<h2 id="killing-and-getting-killed" tabindex="-1">Killing and getting killed</h2>
<p>The dukes also liked to throw around their weight politically. John the Fearless arranged for the King's brother, the Duke of Orléans, to be assassinated. John the Fearless was then assassinated himself, probably on the orders of the French dauphin, the future Charles VII of France, who was present when it happened. In revenge, the next duke, Philip the Good, allied with the English against the French in the Hundred Years' War, leading to a period of English domination of France. When Joan of Arc came into Philip the Good's custody, he handed her over to the English, who then burnt her alive for heresy (at the age of 19 years old).</p>
<p>Charles the Bold harboured ambitions for his lands to become a separate kingdom, and at one point was even mooted as a possible Holy Roman Emperor (but all that ostentation apparently alienated the straight-laced German princes whose job it was to elect him). In fact, the Charles the Bold had a distinctly unsympathetic personality and his brutality and ambition eventually irritated so many people that he got himself killed at the Battle of Nancy in 1477 by Swiss mercenaries.</p>
<p>After Charles the Bold's death, the duchy reverted to the French crown and most of his lands in the Low Countries went to his daughter, Mary 'the Rich'. She married future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and their Habsburg descendants eventually inherited the former Burgundian lands in the Low Countries.</p>
<h2 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h2>
<p>The story of these four dukes and their times is a fascinating and important one. A book on this subject can hardly fail to be entertaining. But, for some reason, I found this book a slightly frustrating one to read. Why was that? Essentially, the problem is that I was never entirely clear what story the author was trying to tell. This is because, whilst plenty of information is given about those four dukes, the author tries to integrate them into a bigger story, starting off with the Germanic Burgundians and ending with the political development of the Low Countries, which eventually resulted in the formation of the Netherlands and Belgium. But, in my opinion, that attempt at a larger coherent story doesn’t really work.</p>
<h2 id="a-duke-by-any-other-name" tabindex="-1">A duke by any other name</h2>
<p>Firstly, the link between Philip the Bold / his descendants and the Germanic Burgundians is a little tenuous, apart from the name attached to the duchy which was given to him by his dad. The author tries to draw a connection, by suggesting that the 14th and 15th century dukes saw themselves as successors to the Germanic Kings of Burgundy. A longer perspective might well make sense if the focus on the book remained on Burgundy itself but, from the 14th century onwards, the author focuses much more on the regions of the Low Countries acquired by the dukes; in fact, Burgundy itself is strangely absent from much of the book from this point onwards.</p>
<h2 id="a-history-of-the-low-countries%3F" tabindex="-1">A history of the Low Countries?</h2>
<p>Which brings me to the second, and perhaps more important, problem with the book. The author gives the impression, particularly in the introduction, that the story (or at least one of the stories) he is trying to tell is about the political emergence of the Low Countries. So, in among the entertaining back and forth of dukes killing and getting killed, we are given descriptions of the economics, geography and language of the Low Countries regions acquired by those dukes (tellingly, little equivalent information given for the Duchy of Burgundy itself). I found these sections very interesting. But, if the author was trying to write a book about the history of the Low Countries, why not just write a book about the history of the Low Countries?</p>
<p>Instead, the book seems to be driven by an underlying and implicit thesis: that it is possible to tell the story of the Low Countries by using the Dukes of Burgundy as the starting point and building from there. But, if that was the idea behind this book, it left me unconvinced.</p>
<h2 id="it's-who-you-know" tabindex="-1">It's who you know</h2>
<p>A reader gets the impression that, for the author, history (particularly, in this case, the history of the Low Countries) is principally driven by the marriages and child bearing abilities of a handful of powerful people. Is that true? The author himself gives plenty of evidence of the Low Countries amounting to a lot more than this. It is clear that they were forged by geographic, linguistic and economic factors quite independent of the dukes which acquired them. Furthermore, the rich cities of the Low Countries, in particular those of Flanders such as Ghent, clearly had strong civic identities, and these manifested themselves repeatedly in conflict between those cities and the dukes.</p>
<p>Telling the story of the Low Countries by focusing on the Burgurdians struck me as lopsided. The analogy is far from exact, but it felt a bit like trying to tell the story of England by starting off in Scandinavia, following a group of Vikings to northern France and then over to England for invasion in 1066, with background information on Anglo-Saxon England thrown in. In the end, you would be left confused whether you had read a book about the Normans or one about England.</p>
<h2 id="get-to-the-point" tabindex="-1">Get to the point</h2>
<p>And this lack of overall coherence in subject matter is compounded by a slightly digressive writing style. To give an example, the author clearly knows a lot about art history, and the descriptions he gives of famous artists and their works are, in isolation, compelling. The problem is that they are not well integrated into the book – they are often thrown in part way through telling a different narrative. Generally, the writing style does not always flow easily, and reading through the book at times felt a bit like a bit of a slog.</p>
<h2 id="what-did-i-like-about-it%3F" tabindex="-1">What did I like about it?</h2>
<p>The above comes across as quite negative. What about the positives? The author has a lively and entertaining writing style and a wry sense of humour, which can make the stories recounted compelling reading. Read in isolation, the various segments and chapters of this book would come across very well. The author is clearly passionate about art history, and anyone interested in this field will be well rewarded by reading this book. Plus, as mentioned above, the subject matters of this book are interesting and important, perhaps not as well known to English language readers as they should be.</p>
<h2 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h2>
<p>A good example of the importance of editing to a history book; sometimes, less is more. But this book will reward any reader with an enjoyable read, and its raw materials are made up of a wealth of fascinating insights and information.</p>
Lessons from history, a historical novelist's perspective - interview with Christopher Kerr
Anthony Webb
Christopher Kerr with his latest book, The Barbarossa Secret.
Tell us a bit about yourself and the books that you have written...
I have always had a love of history and of writing. Before I retired...
2022-04-15T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-04-15-post-lessons_from_history/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1649361577/posts/kerr_brbrssa.jpg" alt="Lessons from history, a historical novelist's perspective - interview with Christopher Kerr" /><p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1649361577/posts/kerr_brbrssa.jpg#center" alt="Christopher Kerr with The Barbarossa Secret" /></p>
<h6 id="christopher-kerr-with-his-latest-book%2C-the-barbarossa-secret." tabindex="-1">Christopher Kerr with his latest book, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Barbarossa-Secret-Christopher-Kerr/dp/1914471652/">The Barbarossa Secret</a>.</h6>
<h4 id="tell-us-a-bit-about-yourself-and-the-books-that-you-have-written..." tabindex="-1">Tell us a bit about yourself and the books that you have written...</h4>
<p>I have always had a love of history and of writing. Before I retired I was an entrepreneur and wrote a lot of marketing materials, brochures that kind of thing. But that was not really the kind of writing or story-telling that I wanted to do.</p>
<p>Then one day I was offered a bet by a friend: could I write the start of a great story before the next morning...</p>
<p>So I put something together and sent it to her. She became very excited and said that it was fantastic and that I <em>had</em> to finish it. And that became the prologue to my first book.</p>
<p>Since then I have finished one more - <em><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Barbarossa-Secret-Christopher-Kerr/dp/1914471652/">The Barbarossa Secret</a></em>, which is being printed as we speak - and nearly finished another which I hope will find itself onto bookshelves towards the end of the year.</p>
<h4 id="what-is-the-role-of-history-in-your-stories%3F" tabindex="-1">What is the role of history in your stories?</h4>
<p>I’m a writer of human drama set against a historical background. But the reality of well researched history provides a depth that otherwise you wouldn’t get. People will say “I wonder is that fiction?” and that fascination holds the reader’s attention.</p>
<h4 id="how-historically-accurate-are-your-novels%3F" tabindex="-1">How historically accurate are your novels?</h4>
<p>I carry out forensic historical research.</p>
<p>For example today I have been carrying out research into a scene with Adolf Hitler in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin in 1945. I have gone to the umpteenth level to establish what pictures were on the walls, which pictures were removed because of the bombing... what furniture was where, which staff were on duty. I get really crazy about this. The idea is that if anyone wants to check it will all stack up.</p>
<p>I think this gives an extraordinary depth to the story. It creates a sense of reality and draws you in.</p>
<h4 id="what%E2%80%99s-your-latest-book%2C-the-barbarossa-secret-all-about%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s your latest book, <em>The Barbarossa Secret</em> all about?</h4>
<p>It follows a period of history that has been at best not explained and at worst covered up. It traces the attempts by Nazi Germany to infiltrate British society before the war and the influence that they managed to establish during the war.</p>
<p>Adolf Hitler never wanted to go war with Britain - he considered Germany and Britain natural allies. His ambition was to destroy the “barbarians” in the Russian regime, which resulted in the biggest land-based operation in history: the invasion of Russia or Operation Barbarossa.</p>
<p>Hitler’s attempts to avoid war with Britain and deal with the situation when they were at war forms the plot to my book. It reveals that there was under consideration a pact with the Germans against the Russians.</p>
<p>Some of the material in my book is quite explosive, at the highest levels of society, including royalty, government, aristocracy...</p>
<h4 id="where-does-the-truth-stop-and-the-story-start%3F-when-we-read-this-book-how-do-we-know-what-is-true-and-what-isn%E2%80%99t%3F" tabindex="-1">Where does the truth stop and the story start? When we read this book how do we know what is true and what isn’t?</h4>
<p>I think you don’t. I’m a fiction novelist not a writer of history. I’m telling a story to entertain and make people think. I leave it up to the reader to decide - I’m not trying to persuade the reader one way or another. People will wonder: is that real? Did the King write those words in that letter?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What I do want to do is make people question history.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For example, looking at World War 2, we have the bodies of most of the leading Nazis or they were in captivity. We know where they are. But where was Hitler? What happened? The Russians said that they had his body but then produced the cranium of what turned out to be a woman. We have to start thinking: what’s going on?</p>
<h4 id="ok-but-taking-the-example-of-hitler%E2%80%99s-death%2C-is-there-a-risk-that-you-create-the-space-for-more-conspiracy-theories-i.e.-allow-people-to-get-even-more-crazy%3F" tabindex="-1">Ok but taking the example of Hitler’s death, is there a risk that you create the space for more conspiracy theories i.e. allow people to get even more crazy?</h4>
<p>Any historical novel will have that. For example when writing about Henry VIII we don’t really know what he said but we have to interpret for him to make a story. I’ve interpreted history to make what I think is a powerful read.</p>
<p>And what about all the books written about the assassination of John F Kennedy? Are people wrong to write these books? I don’t think so. I think it makes it interesting - and perhaps makes people look into it.</p>
<p>And if it does make people question sometimes that’s no bad thing. We need to sometimes question the narrative we are fed.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When I'm writing novels I'm perverting the course of history... but hopefully this will draw more people into looking at the past.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I think fiction can enrich history rather than create worrying conspiracy.</p>
<h4 id="there-is-a-lot-of-dialogue-in-your-book.-do-you-think-putting-words-in-the-mouths-of-your-historical-characters-increases-your-own-understanding%3F" tabindex="-1">There is a lot of dialogue in your book. Do you think putting words in the mouths of your historical characters increases your own understanding?</h4>
<p>I think so. We get a very wooden picture of history because we don’t get people interviewed on the record as we do today. In those days you treated your political masters with deference.</p>
<p>To bring characters to life and make them three dimensional with dialogue can be helpful.</p>
<p>One of the most difficult things I had to do in the book was to write from Adolf Hitler’s perspective. There was no point in painting him as some sort of creature from the deep, because he won an election, and the loyalty of many people. So we have to be careful about writing him off as crazy.</p>
<p>I studied a lot of newsreel footage of Adolf Hitler. I listened to the few recordings we have of him talking normally. I watched his body language intensely. And I’ve replicated that in this book. And I think I’ve brought him to life.</p>
<p>I don’t want to be seen as a supporter of the perverse philosophy of the Nazis but I think it is important to understand people.</p>
<p><strong>I agree. If you write about a cartoon-like historical character it doesn’t increase your understanding. It doesn’t help you to think about what might lead to a similar situation nowadays.</strong></p>
<h4 id="speaking-of-which%2C-how-has-writing-about-the-past-changed-your-view-of-the-world-today%3F" tabindex="-1">Speaking of which, how has writing about the past changed your view of the world today?</h4>
<p>I think it has enriched my view of the present.</p>
<p>You can see the wonderful motives that some people had, the sacrifices that people made for their beliefs. In many ways it reinforces belief in the positive side of human nature - it can be heart-warming to read.</p>
<p>But it also alarms because of the corruption, the lies and the deceit. And the lives lost.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What I have unfortunately taken from my study of history is that truth gets sacrificed everywhere.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the British case my belief is that it is too easy to veil facts under the official secrets act. There were some dreadful decisions that had to be taken during the second world war... and some that didn’t have to be taken - and they both get covered up.</p>
<h4 id="do-you-think-there-are-general-lessons-that-we-should-be-learning-from-the-past." tabindex="-1">Do you think there are general lessons that we should be learning from the past.</h4>
<p>Yes I do. There is so much to be learned from the past, in seeing where the positives and the negatives have happened. For example World War One was meant to be the war to end all wars. The loss of life was staggering. So they set up the League of Nations to prevent another war happening. Did it work? No it didn’t, but we have to learn from that.</p>
<p>Germany was unfairly treated by the Treaty of Versaille which left space for the Nazi party to seize hold.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To punish a nation to that extent - like Germany after the First World War - you will create extremism. This is a risk in Russia at the moment.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We shouldn’t hide from history.</p>
<p>I’m going to be a bit controversial here. When paintings get taken down from National Trust properties showing people in slavery is this right? My view is that we should allow people to see them, so that we can learn from them.</p>
<p>Tipping statues into the harbour in Bristol is not trying to learn from history that’s trying to censor history.</p>
<h4 id="but-thinking-about-how-politicians-refer-to-history---usually-not-with-scrupulous-accuracy-front-of-mind---are-we-doomed-to-failure-in-our-efforts-to-learn-from-history%3F" tabindex="-1">But thinking about how politicians refer to history - usually not with scrupulous accuracy front of mind - are we doomed to failure in our efforts to learn from history?</h4>
<p>Funnily enough I almost became a politician myself in a safe seat, before pulling out because I can’t stand the “ya boo” nature of modern politics. But you are right we <em>should</em> learn from history but don’t always.</p>
<h4 id="so-how-do-you-know-who-to-trust-when-it-comes-to-interpreting-history%3F" tabindex="-1">So how do you know who to trust when it comes to interpreting history?</h4>
<p>I don’t think you do. Anyone who writes a historical piece will come at it from their perspective, from their research. You will need to use judgement.</p>
<p>When I am research history I take a judgement based on the facts that I can gather, and perhaps all historians have to do the same thing. It’s a bit like a police investigation you have to make your mind up on the evidence you have deduced.</p>
<h4 id="as-you-know-on-this-site-we-are-big-fans-of-popular-history-books!-are-there-any-history-books-that-you-have-recently-enjoyed-and-can-recommend%3F" tabindex="-1">As you know on this site we are big fans of popular history books! Are there any history books that you have recently enjoyed and can recommend?</h4>
<p>I haven’t had much time to read since I have started writing but my bookshelves are absolutely stuffed with history books, mainly biography.
One book I found incredibly useful for my book was the biography of Lord Louis Mountbatten.</p>
<h4 id="do-you-have-any-more-historical-novels-in-the-works%3F" tabindex="-1">Do you have any more historical novels in the works?</h4>
<p>I have almost completed my third book which is called <em>Fission</em>. This is a book which explores the history of the greatest and most horrifying deterrent. And the corruption and power struggle that went on behind the scenes in Britain, the United States and Israel. In telling this story I also unlock the secret behind one of the greatest conspiracies in modern history. I don’t want to give too much away but the book cover will perhaps give a hint of it.</p>
<p>Publication will be towards the end of the year - assuming that I haven’t been put in the Tower of London in the meantime!</p>
<p><em>Christopher Kerr was talking to Anthony Webb on Tuesday 5 April 2022</em></p>
Meet the Georgians - review
Jenny Blakeley
It’s probably inevitable that if you are a historian called Robert Peal your interest lies in nineteenth century Britain; Peal’s Meet the Georgians charts the period from the coronation of George I in...
2022-04-10T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-10-review-meet_the_georgians/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0008437025.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Meet the Georgians - review" /><p>Our review of Meet the Georgians: Epic Tales from Britain’s Wildest Century, by Robert Peal, first published in July 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A fun but superficial romp through Georgian Britain, ‘Meet the Georgians‘ tells the stories of some of the celebrity figures of the time.</p><p>While it‘s an entertaining read, it falls short on analysis. It can however serve as a good introduction to the period.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <p>It’s probably inevitable that if you are a historian called Robert Peal your interest lies in nineteenth century Britain; Peal’s Meet the Georgians charts the period from the coronation of George I in 1714 to the death of George IV in 1830.</p>
<h2 id="stop-ignoring-me!" tabindex="-1">Stop ignoring me!</h2>
<p>As a headteacher, he describes the period as one largely ignored at school, with children studying the Stuarts and Victorians but not the Georgians in between. While this may be the case (although personally I did study the politics of the era at school [<em>editor's note: this may have been a while ago...</em>]), I’d argue that the period is pretty well embedded in our national consciousness through countless Jane Austen adaptations, Blackadder, and the architecture of the cities in which we live and the stately homes we visit at the weekends amongst other things.</p>
<p>“Regency romance” is an incredibly popular literary genre both here and in the US, with US writer Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton being made into a lavish Netflix series. However, as “Regency romance” suggests, maybe our awareness skews towards the end of the period, after powdered wigs had gone out and proto-Victorian morals had come in.</p>
<h2 id="celebrity-culture" tabindex="-1">Celebrity culture</h2>
<p>That being said, if you were paying attention while reading the Georgette Heyer novels you “borrowed” from your mum’s bookshelves as a teenager, many of the people in Meet the Georgians will be familiar.</p>
<p>Peal illustrates the period by telling us the stories of 14 influential and memorable Georgians: Anne Bonny and Mary Read, Bonnie Prince Charlie, John Wilkes, Tipu Sultan, Olaudah Equiano, Mary Wollenstonecraft, the “Ladies of Langollen”, Lady Hamilton, Hester Stanhope, Lord Byron, Mary Anning and James Watt. Peal claims they represent Georgian society, morality and culture because they were celebrities of their day; he says that the spirit of the day is revealed in the behaviour that people celebrate, rather than the actions of the majority.</p>
<h2 id="a-motley-crew" tabindex="-1">A motley crew</h2>
<p>I think it’s important that the reader, primed by the introduction to think of Georgians as “<em>courageous, quirky and completely crazy</em>”, bears in mind that the people described in the book were famous precisely because they were unusual.</p>
<p>These are not the people I learned about in my History A-level, which was heavily focused on politicians. Peal does tell us about the four King Georges in the introduction and conclusion, but the people he focuses on come from all walks of life, from various corners of the Empire. There are fighters, lovers, thinkers, adventurers and criminals; people who changed the world and people who didn’t. He claims their stories have been suppressed by the prudish Victorians, only to be rediscovered more recently.</p>
<h2 id="sex-and-sexuality" tabindex="-1">Sex and Sexuality</h2>
<p>Peal describes the Georgians as “fun-loving” and “devil-may-care”, constantly getting boozed up, singing bawdy songs and shagging around. However, it’s not really a surprise to discover that this was only really a possibility for rich, white, heterosexual men.</p>
<p>He assures us that “<em>the Georgians were not afraid of female sexuality. They enjoyed reading 'Fanny Hill'</em>”... but then tells us in the next sentence that it was banned the year after its publication for corrupting the King’s subjects. He also doesn’t mention that Fanny Hill was written by John Cleland, a man, and therefore might not be quite as representative of female sexuality as he likes to think.</p>
<p>Although he has carefully chosen women to be the subjects of half of his chapters, and it’s clear from their stories that they had significantly less licence or control over their lives from men, he still makes statements like “<em>all [the Georgians] ever thought about, from the lowliest docker to the noblest duke, was shagging</em>”. As a reader this does give one the feeling that Peal’s basic image of Georgian society is a sea of men, punctuated with the occasional very famous woman.</p>
<h2 id="slaves-and-slavery" tabindex="-1">Slaves and slavery</h2>
<p>Likewise the story of Olaudah Equiano shows that Georgian life was not so much fun if you were not white. Equiano’s hugely popular memoir forced Georgians to face the horrors of the slave trade and slave labour in the Americas; Peal says that Georgians would not have liked to have seen the evidence of slavery in front of their eyes, but were happy to benefit from it via their imported sugar, coffee, cotton and pineapples. Equiano punctured their state of wilful ignorance.</p>
<p>Similarly to the rest of the book, Equiano’s story is told with the rollicking insouciance that is characteristic of the book, which sometimes makes it hard to see beyond the adventure to the struggle beneath. Peal does remind us that Equiano’s experiences, while terrible, were far better than most slaves; his ability to talk his way out of situations and charm people does seem to make him fit in with Peal’s view of the Georgian way of life.</p>
<h2 id="we-are-not-amused-(anymore)" tabindex="-1">We are not amused (anymore)</h2>
<p>Even if licentiousness with little consequence, like voting, was only available to a few, it is still a fair point to contrast it with the Victorians, given how large the Victorians loom in our collective memory. Peal recalls a guest lecturer at his university who specialised in Georgian culture who commented that the hedonistic culture which began in the 1960s was not a new thing but rather a restoration of Georgian values.</p>
<p>I found this to be an interesting way of thinking about it; maybe the Victorian stiff upper lip is the anomaly while sexual freedom and public emotion is our true national character, if such thing exists. Peal thinks that someone from the 21st century would fit rather well into the eighteenth; the same is probably true in reverse, although it’s probably no bad thing that Lord Byron didn’t have access to TikTok.</p>
<h2 id="style-or-substance" tabindex="-1">Style or substance</h2>
<p>The book is written with a casual exuberance which fits well with Peal’s description of the Georgians but which may not be to everyone’s taste: “<em>His name was Horatio Nelson, and he was the bravest, most ass-kicking admiral in the entire Royal Navy</em>” is a fairly representative example.</p>
<p>The style lends itself to a certain superficiality and a tendency to skim over unpleasant issues; for example, various incidences of Byron’s cruelty to his wife are recounted, with Peal describing it as “sadistic bullying” but continuing to write about Byron with a kind of breathless admiration. Especially in the chapters about Bonnie Prince Charlie and Tipu Sultan, mass loss of life is described very casually.</p>
<p>While I wouldn’t recommend it to people who like weighty tomes about serious matters, its style makes the book easy to read and very vivid - a bit like Horrible Histories but with more sex and less balance. As a reader you’re really drawn into the world, whether of swashbuckling pirates, swooning poets or crazy adventurers.</p>
<h2 id="final-thoughts" tabindex="-1">Final thoughts</h2>
<p>Personally, I got a lot of enjoyment out of this romp through the Georgian era. It was interesting to read in more depth about people whose names I have heard and read in passing, to discover historical figures I hadn't heard of, and to learn more about an era which already felt familiar.</p>
<p>It was entertaining and untaxing - light relief which has whetted my appetite for more in-depth Georgian history. It’s a compliment to the style that it carried me along, and it was only afterwards, while thinking about it properly for this review, that I really began to notice some of the problems with it. It’s excellent storytelling, but perhaps not excellent history.</p>
Russia as Empire - review
Anthony Webb
I got this book because I wanted to better understand how Ukraine finds itself in its current terrible situation.
At the time of writing in early April 2022 Ukraine is partly occupied by Russian...
2022-04-08T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-08-review-russia_as_empire/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1789142911.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Russia as Empire - review" /><p>Our review of Russia as Empire: Past and Present, by Kees Boterbloem, first published in December 2020.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p><i>Russia as Empire</i> is a handy pocket-sized primer on Russian political history over the last thousand years up to 2020 (to just before the invasion of Ukraine).</p><p>While it doesn’t provide any great depth it is fair and balanced. I would strongly recommend it if you want to find out more about Russian political history and are looking for a place to start.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <p>I got this book because I wanted to better understand how Ukraine finds itself in its current terrible situation.</p>
<p>At the time of writing in early April 2022 Ukraine is partly occupied by Russian forces who have caused immense suffering and damage, on the ludicrous pretext of eradicating Nazism. It is clear that their intention was to take over the whole country, but so far they have not been able to do so. The Russian army also appears to have seen significant numbers of soldiers killed and wounded.</p>
<p>When searching through our <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.glitch.me/">database of history books</a> which shows all popular history books published in the UK from 2019 onward, Kees Boterbloem’s <em>Russia as Empire: Past and Present</em> seemed to be the most useful book on the (pretty short) list.</p>
<p>It provides a concise summary of the last 1,000 years of Russian history. In other words <em>all</em> of Russian history, right back to the semi-mythical Viking foundation stories. It goes up to 2020, so the Russian annexation / invasion of Crimea has happened but the invasion of Ukraine has not yet.</p>
<h2 id="change-and-continuity" tabindex="-1">Change and continuity</h2>
<p>Boterbloem wants us to appreciate the huge changes that Russia has gone through over those 1,000 years and the complexity of its history. In other words: seeing the current Russian government as one in a long line of bad eggs who have been bent on domination since they first got rid of the Mongols... is not accurate and doesn’t help us understand and engage with Putin’s government, bad egg or not.</p>
<p>So what have we got? Boterbloem divides Russian history into five parts:</p>
<ol>
<li>Kyivan Rus’<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-08-review-russia_as_empire/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>, 950 to 1242 CE</li>
<li>Mongolian interlude, 1242 to 1480</li>
<li>Early modern Muscovy, 1480 to 1689</li>
<li>Imperial Russia<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-08-review-russia_as_empire/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup>, 1689 to 1917</li>
<li>Soviet Union, 1917 to 1991</li>
<li>Russian Federation, 1991 to now</li>
</ol>
<p>Each period is markedly different to the one that went before, and there is only limited continuity between the respective “Russian” states, except that they were based on similar territories, with Moscow at their political centre.</p>
<h2 id="early-modern-muscovy---from-triumph..." tabindex="-1">Early modern Muscovy - from triumph...</h2>
<p>Early modern Muscovy in particular was quite new for me, and I found the ups and downs of Russia at that time remarkable. Starting with Ivan III (1440-1505) who managed to massively extend Muscovy’s power by annexing the important northern trading city-state of Novgorod and its huge territories. He also saw off the still potent Mongol khans in 1480. Last and not least he secured a huge political coup by marrying the niece of the last Byzantine emperor.</p>
<p>Things were looking up.</p>
<h2 id="...to-disaster" tabindex="-1">...to disaster</h2>
<p>But a mere few decades later, the Muscovy lands were being ravaged in a disastrous war against the then mighty combo of Poland and Lithuania. The disaster was compounded by a Crimean Tartar raid in 1571 that took and burnt Moscow, capturing thousands of Muscovites who were sold on the Black Sea slave markets.</p>
<p>Ivan IV<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-08-review-russia_as_empire/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup>, then in charge, became increasingly psychotic, and in one episode killed his oldest son.</p>
<p>After this things went even further downhill and Russia almost ceased to exist as a state in 1610, at which point the first Romanov Tsar was proclaimed.</p>
<h2 id="what-does-this-tell-us-about-today%3F" tabindex="-1">What does this tell us about today?</h2>
<p>Does this have any bearing on the current Russia-Ukraine conflict?</p>
<p>Not directly. In some ways it is encouraging that a war like this one is so widely condemned given that a few hundred years ago similar conflicts were an acceptable aristocratic pastime. But the see-saw nature of Russia’s history, where calamitous defeats happen with some regularity, does provide insight into the Russian government current paranoia over border security.</p>
<p>Or as Boterbloem puts it, writing in 2020: “<em>the recent behaviour of the Putin government with regards to Crimea and eastern Ukraine does at least become more intelligible</em>” - although, he adds, this does not extend to excusing those actions.</p>
<h2 id="the-dangers-of-over-simplification" tabindex="-1">The dangers of over-simplification</h2>
<p>The problem we are dealing with for understanding any event is that there is rarely a simple cause. In the current context: the decision Putin took to invade Ukraine must have been done with many different motivations (and no doubt a few reservations) and been influenced by many different people. The Russian government's official view of Ukrainian history - ie Ukraine is essentially just a part of Russia - is presented as one of these reasons by the Putin Government but it comes across as a weak after-the-fact excuse.</p>
<p>Does this mean that there is no useful information in Russian history - or history in general?</p>
<p>There are useful things to learn because history <em>frames the actions</em> of people today - it shapes and often limits our imagination. One of the reasons why Putin chose to invade Ukraine rather than say Finland or Sweden is their close history<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-08-review-russia_as_empire/#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup>.</p>
<h2 id="what-it%E2%80%99s-like-to-read" tabindex="-1">What it’s like to read</h2>
<p>The book is short at just over 200 pages and the style is chatty and easy to read. The chapters are brief and there are lots of black and white photos to go with the text.</p>
<p>Despite being short this is not a superficial narrative account. Boterbloem clearly knows his stuff and has known his stuff for some time.</p>
<p>This makes it an excellent book for those wanting an introduction to Russian history: the author picks his details carefully and never lets the flow of events or new people overwhelm the reader.</p>
<h2 id="any-bones-to-pick%3F" tabindex="-1">Any bones to pick?</h2>
<p>The main thing to be aware of before buying this book is that it is very much a political history. It never strays too far from the doings of rulers and foreign policy. If you are looking for something on ordinary life or Russian culture you will have to look elsewhere.</p>
<p>I should also note - more as a criticism this time - that there is no strong argument to the book. We get hints of something when Boterbloem warns us that it is a mistake to consider the Russian state as an intrinsically aggressive, expansionist empire - the historical record doesn’t support this view. But his point doesn’t really get developed further.</p>
<p>For instance, just because a government will not <em>inevitably</em> take a certain action, this doesn’t preclude them from doing it anyway. It was not inevitable that the Russian state would invade Ukraine... but it did.</p>
<h2 id="summary" tabindex="-1">Summary</h2>
<p><em>Russia as Empire</em> is a handy pocket-sized primer on Russian political history. I would strongly recommend it if you want to find out more but don’t know where to start.</p>
<p>While it doesn’t provide any great depth it is fair and balanced. And popular history books - and authors - like this one are key if we want to know what happened and avoid falling prey to the cynical mendacity of those who would treat the past as just one more tool of control.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Boterbloem notes that “To consider Kyivan Rus’ as the ancestor of the tsars’ or Putin’s empire is an ahistorical and nationalist misreading of history... as dubious as seeing late Imperial Rome as the ancestor of the modern British Empire because of its religion, its settlement of colonies abroad and its capital’s location in Europe... Ironically, in Ukraine, too, many see Rus as the first incarnation of their nation-state.” <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-08-review-russia_as_empire/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>From the time of Peter the Great’s rule. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-08-review-russia_as_empire/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>Ivan IV also known as The Terrible, although Boterbloem tells us that this was meant to be Terrible as in Fearsome rather than as in Not Very Good At Ruling. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-08-review-russia_as_empire/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>Percieved weakness and proximity was no doubt another important factor. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-04-08-review-russia_as_empire/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
New history books in March 2022
Anthony Webb
Here are they are - the latest history books available to buy.
A definite European bias this month with medieval and early modern periods featuring strongly...
My personal highlights:
I like the look...
2022-04-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2022-04-01-post-new_history_books_march2022/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1648762256/posts/March2022newbooks.jpg" alt="New history books in March 2022" /><p>Here are they are - the latest history books available to buy.</p>
<p>A definite European bias this month with medieval and early modern periods featuring strongly...</p>
<p>My personal highlights:</p>
<ul>
<li>I like the look of <strong>The Lion House: The Coming of A King</strong>, about Suleyman the Magnificent the Ottoman Sultan, and will be adding that to my list.</li>
<li>Also: <strong>The Restless Republic: Britain without a Crown</strong> covering ordinary and celebrity lives during Britain's 10 years without a king from 1649.</li>
<li>I will also mention <strong>Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire</strong> which I think is an important book to be aware of... and it gets a front cover plug from my old history tutor too.</li>
</ul>
<p>Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon.</p>
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241349826.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The House of Dudley: A New History of Tudor England" title="The House of Dudley: A New History of Tudor England" />
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<div id="cover0241349826" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="The House of Dudley: A New History of Tudor England" data-author="Dr Joanne Paul" data-publishdate="2022-03-31" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241349826.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/0241349826" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/0241349826" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/152663208X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan" title="Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan" />
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<div id="cover152663208X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan" data-author="Felipe Fernandez-Armesto" data-publishdate="2022-03-31" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/152663208X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/152663208X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/152663208X" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/184792106X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire" title="Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire" />
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<div id="cover184792106X" class="image_book_overlay open_modal_bookzoom " data-title="Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire" data-author="Caroline Elkins" data-publishdate="2022-03-24" data-cover_large="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/184792106X.02._SCL_.jpg" data-amazon_uk_link="https://amazon.co.uk/dp/184792106X" data-amazon_us_link="https://amazon.com/dp/184792106X" data-review="">
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<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0300249837.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="In the Shadow of St. Paul's Cathedral: The Churchyard That Shaped London" title="In the Shadow of St. Paul's Cathedral: The Churchyard That Shaped London" />
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Migrating From WordPress to Eleventy - a non-developer's experience
Anthony Webb
This post covers upgrades I have made to this website - no history book chat, although more of that coming soon!
Cutting to the chase, after moving from WordPress to Eleventy the website stats are...
2022-03-29T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1648574520/posts/wordpresstoeleventysquare.jpg" alt="Migrating From WordPress to Eleventy - a non-developer's experience" /><p>This post covers upgrades I have made to this website - no history book chat, although more of that coming soon!</p>
<hr />
<p>Cutting to the chase, after moving from WordPress to Eleventy the website stats are now:</p>
<ul>
<li>🚤 3.6x faster</li>
<li>🐾 16x lighter footprint</li>
<li>🐱🚀 3x increased fun level</li>
</ul>
<p>For the full story read on.</p>
<p></p><div class="toc_list"><hr /><h3><strong>Contents</strong></h3><p><i>Links are to the headings in the article below</i></p><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#wordpress-pros-and-cons-(for-me)">WordPress pros and cons (for me)</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#eleventy-as-an-alternative">Eleventy as an alternative</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#the-results">The results</a><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#3.6x-faster">3.6x faster</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#16x-smaller">16x smaller</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#more-repeatable">More repeatable</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#more-flexible-(and-fun...%3F)">More flexible (and fun...?)</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#what-am-i-giving-up%3F">What am I giving up?</a><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#if-it-breaks-it-is-my-fault">If it breaks it is my fault</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#there's-a-fair-amount-to-learn-if-you-are-starting-from-scratch">There's a fair amount to learn if you are starting from scratch</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#a-fond-farewell-to-the-wordpress-community">A fond farewell to the WordPress community</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#next-steps">Next steps</a></li></ol><hr /></div><p></p>
<h2 id="wordpress-pros-and-cons-(for-me)" tabindex="-1">WordPress pros and cons (for me)</h2>
<p>This website started on WordPress.com last year and there is a lot to like about that platform - super quick to get started, zero technical proficiency required, and a great support team.</p>
<p>However I did encounter some important drawbacks too. The two main ones for me were lack of flexibility and lack of repeatability.</p>
<p><strong>Flexibility</strong> - if I wanted to do anything bespoke or involving javascript I would either have to build it off-site and add links. Or I would have to pay full-whack for a business site with plugin capability: for a zero revenue site like this one it didn't seem proportionate.</p>
<p><strong>Repeatability</strong> - every review had to be posted manually. This was a pain because even though the page layout was the same every time I had to carefully repeat that layout pattern for each review.</p>
<h2 id="eleventy-as-an-alternative" tabindex="-1">Eleventy as an alternative</h2>
<p>While mulling this over I came across Eleventy on <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/glitch.com">Glitch</a>. It seemed great: totally flexible and designed around templates (ie repeatable content). <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/eleventy.dev">Eleventy is a free static site generator</a> (SSG) which means you give it some logical instructions on how to build your website and then it churns out your html pages just the way you like them!</p>
<p>It turns out that it is also an incredibly speedy way of delivering a website to your visitors. This is because the website pages are pre-built in HTML. By contrast WordPress will build your pages each time you visit them using a database type system.</p>
<p>Although this wasn't my motivation for trying Eleventy it is probably the main benefit for users who I suspect are less interested in the formatting and easter eggs than I am 🙂.</p>
<h2 id="the-results" tabindex="-1">The results</h2>
<p>Let's have a look at the results. (The metrics come from a lighthouse test simulating the experience of loading the homepage of the website from an average mobile phone<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>).</p>
<h3 id="3.6x-faster" tabindex="-1">3.6x faster</h3>
<p><strong>WordPress site</strong> time to interactive → <strong>6.1 seconds</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>Eleventy site</strong> time to interactive → <strong>1.7 seconds</strong>.</p>
<p>This is a massive boost and will save you a lot of frustration if you are in an area of poor mobile signal for example. On a desktop the speed improves to 0.7 seconds.</p>
<h3 id="16x-smaller" tabindex="-1">16x smaller</h3>
<p><strong>WordPress site</strong> total download size → <strong>2.2 mb</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>Eleventy site</strong> total download size → <strong>0.1 mb</strong>.</p>
<p>An <em>incredible</em> reduction, saving on your data bills and more environmentally friendly to boot 🌱<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup>. I initially thought that this was driven by the WordPress homepage serving larger book cover images whereas the new site uses smaller pictures - ie it was mainly my fault. But even allowing for this the difference is still huge at 13x.</p>
<p>I should add here that it is not my intention to disparage WordPress - the more I understand what goes into building a website the more impressed I am with how WordPress makes it look good and <em>just work</em> for everyone. I guess the larger file sizes are the price you have to pay. Also I am sure that this will improve over time given the dedicated WordPress community.</p>
<h3 id="more-repeatable" tabindex="-1">More repeatable</h3>
<p><strong>WordPress.com site</strong> → can't do templating (on a Premium plan)</p>
<p><strong>Eleventy site</strong> → built for templating</p>
<p>Applying a new layout to all of my review posts in one go is easy with Eleventy. If I tweak the code in one place every single review will update. By contrast if I wanted to tweak the layout in WordPress I would have to do it for every single post manually 😬. (You can though easily change the website theme in WordPress which will change the font, colours, design flourishes etc.)</p>
<h3 id="more-flexible-(and-fun...%3F)" tabindex="-1">More flexible (and fun...?)</h3>
<p>WordPress is actually pretty flexible. But you access that flexibility through plugins. The plugins are available under a relatively expensive (ie a few hundred dollars or pounds per year) WordPress.com business plan, or through self-hosting. I didn't properly investigate this option but it felt like too much baggage for a small site like this one.</p>
<p>Because you directly edit / write the HTML, CSS or Javascript code for an Eleventy website you have as much flexibility as you want... at the cost of as much complexity as you can take! With this in mind I have redesigned the site to be a bit cleaner, and fiddled with the presentation in various ways to get things how I liked them.</p>
<p>I added a bit of fun to the site too in the form of a pop-up Emperor Justinian easter egg (nerdiness acknowledged 😃). See if you can find him on the homepage...</p>
<p>I also tried to improve the reading experience by giving visitors a choice of colour mode (light, dark or Archaic Greek<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup> - click the 🎨 icon), and a choice of text size (normal, big, very big - click the <strong>TT</strong> icon).</p>
<h2 id="what-am-i-giving-up%3F" tabindex="-1">What am I giving up?</h2>
<p>This site always strives for balance therefore I also have to acknowledge the drawbacks:</p>
<h3 id="if-it-breaks-it-is-my-fault" tabindex="-1">If it breaks it is my fault</h3>
<p>I can't run crying to WordPress.com support team anymore sadly! If it breaks I will have to figure out how to fix it. And I'm sure there will be the odd problem in the months / years ahead. However all is not lost I hope. There is the friendly and open Eleventy community to turn to in extremis.</p>
<h3 id="there's-a-fair-amount-to-learn-if-you-are-starting-from-scratch" tabindex="-1">There's a fair amount to learn if you are starting from scratch</h3>
<p>I'm not a developer.</p>
<p>I hadn't heard of css a year ago. If you had said npm to me I would have looked at you blankly and changed the subject<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#fn4" id="fnref4">4</a></sup>. As far as I knew Nunjucks was a bad guy from Lego Ninjago.</p>
<p>If you are starting from scratch like I was, you have to enjoy the process of learning. There is a lot to learn even though Eleventy is built with beginner coders in mind. It is not really <em>difficult</em> because there is so much info out there, but it does take time and some patience.</p>
<h3 id="a-fond-farewell-to-the-wordpress-community" tabindex="-1">A fond farewell to the WordPress community</h3>
<p>While only operating for a short time on the shadowy fringes of this vibrant group of bloggers I will miss the sense of being part of a community where people write about things just because they enjoy writing about them.</p>
<h2 id="next-steps" tabindex="-1">Next steps</h2>
<p>There are still a few important things to do, such as integrating the history book searcher into the main website, or trying to stop lighthouse complaining about my image pixel ratio.</p>
<p>But after two month or so's hard work I'm very happy with the results - thanks to the amazing Eleventy team 👏!</p>
<p>Anthony Webb, London UK</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>If you want to have a look at the differences or test this independently yourself <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.wordpress.com/">here is the WordPress site</a> and <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/">here is the Eleventy site</a>. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>To be really environmentally friendly you should turn off your computer 😉. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>Based on the colours used in <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1837-0609-42">this ancient Greek pot</a>. (I'll probably change the third colour theme from time to time...) <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn4" class="footnote-item"><p>Okay this would probably still be my reaction. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/https:/popularhistorybooks.com/posts/opinion/2022-03-29-post-migrating_from_wordp/#fnref4" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
London in the Roman World - review
Anthony Webb
The bronze head of the Roman emperor Hadrian has a serene, philosophical expression. But his last moments were brutal.
© The Trustees of the British Museum
recovered from the Thames below London...
2022-03-27T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-03-27-review-London_in_the_Roman_World/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0198789009.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="London in the Roman World - review" /><p>Our review of London in the Roman World, by Dominic Perring, first published in January 2022.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p><i>London in the Roman World</i> takes us on a detailed archaeological tour through 360 years of Roman London.</p><p>I suspect this book will set the standard for overviews of Roman London for many years - <i>the</i> point of reference for budding academics and interested punters. While not an easy read, it will reward your perseverance.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>The bronze head of the Roman emperor Hadrian has a serene, philosophical expression. But his last moments were brutal.</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1648227322/posts/Hadrian_head2.jpg#center" alt="Bronze head of Hadrian" /></p>
<h6 id="%C2%A9-the-trustees-of-the-british-museum" tabindex="-1"><a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1848-1103-1">© The Trustees of the British Museum</a></h6>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>recovered from the Thames below London Bridge... [the head] had been hacked from the body of the imperial statue, and may have been thrown into the river in an act of ritual abuse and expurgation...</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dominic Perring, London in the Roman World</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>An enraged<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-03-27-review-London_in_the_Roman_World/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> Londoner<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-03-27-review-London_in_the_Roman_World/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> had hacked the supreme symbol of Roman authority to bits.</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>London has often been a place that divides opinion, and its Roman incarnation - built to dominate and extract - may have been particularly despised by many of the local Britons.</p>
<p>Dominic Perring in his new book <em>London in the Roman World</em> takes us on an archaeological tour through the 360 years or so of Roman London.</p>
<h2 id="origins" tabindex="-1">Origins</h2>
<p>Before the Romans came to Britain the area of London was a contested borderland between different kingdoms. A few farms dotted the landscape but nothing more. The river Thames marked the border and wasn't so easy to get across: it was about a kilometre wide at high tide, exposing mudflats and a 275m crossing when the tide went out.</p>
<p>When the conquering Roman army arrived, perhaps in 43 CE, the site of what was to become London represented the narrowest crossing point where the river was still tidal. Boats could use the tide to help them waft up and down the Thames to the sea and supply the soldiers with their wine and olive oil.</p>
<p>A great spot to dominate the surrounding country in fact, with roads going in all directions, and easy access to resupply by sea.</p>
<p>Archaeologists can still see traces of the initial Roman fort erected by the invading army. Perring conjectures that the Emperor Claudius probably arrived soon after by boat, landed on the south bank of the Thames - at a car park near Borough Market - and made a triumphant crossing into the military camp that was to become London, with “soldiers of the Praetorian Guard, elephants and siege engines, and an extended court of senators and members of the imperial household”.</p>
<p>In less than ten years the Roman administration turned this temporary fort into the largest settlement in Britain.</p>
<h2 id="echoes-of-rome" tabindex="-1">Echoes of Rome</h2>
<p>It is fascinating to see the parallels between early London - a thoroughly Roman city - and Rome - the quintessential Roman city. When the Colosseum was built in Rome to help legitimize the new Flavian dynasty of Vespasian<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-03-27-review-London_in_the_Roman_World/#fn3" id="fnref3">3</a></sup> the amphitheatre was built in London (CE 70). Links can be seen between Trajan's new forum in Rome and London's massive upgrade to its own forum (CE 102 ish). Rome got its Aurelian walls in 271 CE, and London completed its own circuit in 275 CE.</p>
<p>Although the scale of London was clearly an order of magnitude smaller than Rome, similar political forces were at work. And although “small” the urban works would still have looked impressive: London's great forum for example was about the same size as Trafalgar Square (ie very big), and the main basilica was longer than St Paul's cathedral (ie very long).</p>
<h2 id="not-built-in-a-day" tabindex="-1">Not built in a day</h2>
<p>Roman London existed for at least 365 years. To put this in context Perring reminds us that this is a “<em>a longer span than stretched from the death of England’s first Queen Elizabeth to the twentieth-century accession of her modern namesake</em>”.</p>
<p>During this period the city changed a lot, in terms of number of people, types of buildings, roads, walls etc.</p>
<p>It was also subject to at least two episodes of extreme violence.</p>
<p>The first was during the Boudiccan revolt in AD 60-61 when the city was burnt to the ground - the layer of destruction still clearly visible if you dig down far enough.</p>
<h2 id="happy-and-prosperous%3F" tabindex="-1">Happy and prosperous?</h2>
<p>The second was during the reign of Hadrian in CE 125-6 soon after his visit, when again the city was burnt to the ground. This is the time when Perring suggests Hadrian's statue got its head chopped off, and is the date of the famous Walbrook skulls: hundreds of human heads found chucked in a tributary of the Thames, mostly young males and some with evidence of “violent treatment”. There are probably thousands more of these skulls still underground.</p>
<p>Perring suggests that the skulls - and other body parts scattered over the area - fit the pattern of headhunting which had become “normalised” with the second century Roman army, possibly in a punitive campaign against those who had burnt the city down in the first place.</p>
<h2 id="just-a-bit-of-harmless-ritual-expurgation" tabindex="-1">Just a bit of harmless ritual expurgation</h2>
<p>Perring's suggestion that there was a major Hadrianic revolt in London is not accepted by everyone. In particular the Walbrook skulls are sometimes suggested to be the result of respectful ritual treatment of the dead. But - as Perring reminds us - this doesn't explain why their heads got bashed-in in the first place and why there are so many of them all in one go.</p>
<p>So the Roman empire was not a particularly welcome addition for many Britons and when Rome left Britain to its own devices in the 5th century and the town lost its official support it seems to have been abandoned and then deliberately shunned. There is no evidence for anyone living within the London walled area from about 450 CE despite a few Saxon settlements close by.</p>
<h2 id="a-detailed-narrative" tabindex="-1">A detailed narrative</h2>
<p>Perring guides us through the twists and turns of London's Roman past with as much detail as the archaeological record allows. Himself a London based pro archaeologist he doesn't shy away from providing a layer by layer account of the discovery process.</p>
<p>Archaeology is all about <em>what</em> has been found, and <em>where</em> it was found. Combining with a bit of chemical analysis and mixing with larger and larger data sets, we (ie they) can make some fairly confident judgements about what was going on.</p>
<p>Perring invites us into this process of discovery. For example we are told of the different types of pottery or artefacts found in certain trenches, or whether a trace element of slag is indicative of a particular industry. We even get the occasional reconstruction of past lives from their cremated remains.</p>
<p>The benefit is that you get a closely argued, authoritative and convincing account. The downside is that the writing is deliberately kept pretty dry.</p>
<h2 id="if-you-are-tired-of-london..." tabindex="-1">If you are tired of London...</h2>
<p>The other thing to bear in mind is that this book assumes not only an interest in Roman London but also a familiarity with a present-day street and place names. If you don't know where the Bloomberg Building is, or what is meant by One Poultry you are going to struggle to figure out what is going on.</p>
<p>I found I enjoyed the book much more reading it alongside my Roman London map: <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Londinium-New-Guide-Roman-London/dp/1907586059/">Londinium: A New Map and Guide to Roman London</a> which unfortunately seems to be quite hard to get hold of... (I picked up my copy in the little Guildhall Museum shop if that helps anyone.)</p>
<h2 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h2>
<p>I suspect this book will set the standard for overviews of Roman London for many years - <em>the</em> point of reference for budding academics and interested punters. While not an easy read, it will reward your perseverance.</p>
<p>The statue of Hadrian's coolly composed, dispassionate expression masks the hatred many must have felt towards him, and the statue's brutal end: beheaded and chucked in the river.</p>
<p>Perring's detached and scholarly writing equally allows us to glimpse into this turbulent, dominating and often extremely violent Roman city.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Conjecture, there is no evidence for enragement in the archaeological record. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-03-27-review-London_in_the_Roman_World/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Or more likely not a Londoner... it could have been an enraged Scottish highlander based on some nearby circumstantial evidence. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-03-27-review-London_in_the_Roman_World/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn3" class="footnote-item"><p>A veteran of the campaign to conquer Britain as it happens. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-03-27-review-London_in_the_Roman_World/#fnref3" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean - review
Anthony Webb
Did you know that this review is written in Phoenician? Given that you can read this, that means you can read Phoenician - congratulations.
More accurately: this review is written in the Latin...
2022-02-18T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2022/02/18/phoenicians-and-the-making-of-the-mediterranean/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0674988183.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean - review" /><p>Our review of Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean, by Carolina Lopez-Ruiz, first published in January 2022.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Find out what the Phoenicians did for us: from letters, to religion, to apotropaic art, in this survey of the early first millennium BCE Mediterranean.</p><p>While not an easy read it is a rewarding one, methodically unearthing this critical but neglected culture.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>Did you know that this review is written in Phoenician? Given that you can read this, that means you can read Phoenician - congratulations.</p>
<p>More accurately: this review is written in the Latin alphabet which is derived from the Phoenician alphabet (via Romans, Etruscans and Greeks). If you are using google translate to read this review in Arabic, Russian, or Hebrew you are also using the Phoenician alphabet. But for a people with such a wide-ranging and long lasting influence the Phoenicians are surprisingly poorly known.</p>
<p>Carolina Lopez-Ruiz wants to change this with her important new book <em>Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean</em>. It is her view that even though the importance and influence of the Phoenicians is undeniable, they don’t get the recognition that they deserve - and that we have an impoverished view of the early iron age Mediterranean as a result.</p>
<h3 id="the%E2%80%A6-who-were-they-again%3F" tabindex="-1">The… who were they again?</h3>
<p>Starting with the basics: the Phoenicians were a people whose origins were in the Lebanese coastland on the far East of the Mediterranean, who then came to inhabit the whole length of this sea, even as far as the Atlantic coast of Portugal.</p>
<p>They were the first people to make the Mediterranean an interconnected sea, linking peoples around its shores into a shared elite culture.</p>
<p>They have been variously known as Phoenicians (the Greek word), Punic (the Roman term), Carthaginians (a Phoenician city state in North Africa) - but they are all the same people: a group of sea orientated traders and colonisers who enjoyed a spectacular economic, demographic and cultural flourishing from the start of the first millennium BCE (i.e. from about 1,000 BCE - until the Greeks and Romans dominated the Mediterranean in turn).</p>
<h3 id="the-abc-of-the-phoenicians" tabindex="-1">The ABC of the Phoenicians</h3>
<p>And what about that alphabet? Lopez-Ruiz tells us that this was the first official alphabet where one sign = one sound. Previous scripts which had originated in Mesopotamia or Egypt had equated signs with a mix words, syllables, categories <em>and</em> sounds. Taking this one sign = one sound step dramatically reduced the number of symbols needed from hundreds to the twenty something we are familiar with today.</p>
<p>The direct line of transmission from the Phoenicians is still remarkably clear. For example the first two sounds of the Phoenician alphabet were “aleph” and “bet” - their words for ox and house respectively. Hence our word: alphabet.</p>
<p>Interestingly the <em>shapes</em> of the letters were adapted from Egyptian hieroglyphs. So the ox hieroglyph (remember “aleph” was the Phoenician word for ox) if you lay it on its side and squint a bit becomes the Phoenician letter A (which looks like our capital “A” lying on its side, have a look here to see what I mean <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet#Table_of_letters">the Phoenician alphabet on wikipedia</a>).</p>
<p>The B letter shape comes from the Egyptian hieroglyph for house (“bet” being house in Phoenician) and so on.</p>
<h3 id="the-applebat" tabindex="-1">The applebat</h3>
<p>It’s fun to imagine what would happen if we were figuring out our alphabet symbols from scratch nowadays. Probably we would choose the emoji for Apple to represent the A sound - 🍎. Then we might select the emoji for Bat to represent the B sound - 🦇, and Crab for the C sound - 🦀. I guess we would then simplify the 🍎, 🦇 and 🦀 shapes to “O”, “M” and “G” as they look a little like an apple, bat and crab but are easier to write.</p>
<p>Then instead of learning our ABC we would be learning our OMG, and rather than being called the alphabet it would be known as the applebat. Who knows, maybe it could still catch on?</p>
<h3 id="cool-dudes" tabindex="-1">Cool dudes</h3>
<p>All this applebantery though, while enjoyable, misses the key point. Which is that while the alphabet is a pretty handy system for writing stuff down, people don’t adopt a new script based purely on how easy it is to use. Otherwise it wouldn’t have taken the Chinese 2,000 years to simplify their script and when they did they probably would have made it much simpler.</p>
<p>To put it another way: the various bickering Greek city states didn’t get together in 800 BCE and set up a working group to weigh up the pros and cons of the different symbol systems that they could have used for making notes. Instead they adopted a script that was already all over the place and which they thought looked pretty cool. Why did they think it looked cool? Because they thought the Phoenicians were pretty cool guys. Or as Lopez-Ruiz puts it:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>”Writing systems and conventions are culturally and historically meaningful, and the alphabet’s contribution came precisely at a time when Phoenician culture was highly influential, when the economic power and reach of Tyre [the pre-eminent Phoenician city state] was at its height, and when doing things “in the Phoenician way” (<em>phoinikizein</em>) was not stigmatised but desirable.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Lopez-Ruiz, Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="a-comprehensive-survey" tabindex="-1">A comprehensive survey</h3>
<p>I have focussed on the alphabet so far because it is a nice way to get a handle on the importance of the Phoenicians, but the Making of the Mediterranean is far more wide-ranging, logging the centrality of the Phoenicians in pottery, building techniques, metalwork, burial rituals, and mythology. She is keen that we take them seriously as a people and as a culture rather than simply being seen as middlemen who shipped Egyptian style goods - and keen that we stop downgrading their overseas towns and cities to mere trading posts.</p>
<p>Her survey starts in Spain in the West, before winding its way through the other key Phoenician areas of settlement or influence - North Africa, Sardinia, Italy, Sicily, Greece, Cyprus, Crete - and ending up in the Levantine homeland of what is now the coastal parts of Lebanon, Syria and Israel.</p>
<h3 id="it%E2%80%99s-not-all-about-them" tabindex="-1">It’s not all about them</h3>
<p>One of the things I enjoyed about the book is that it is not just about the Phoenicians, it is also about all the people they interacted with when they settled or traded in a place. Locals weren’t just gawping recipients of Phoenician thingamybobs and gewgaws. They would engage on their own terms - and often had an influence on Phoenician culture in turn.</p>
<h3 id="historiographically-disadvantaged" tabindex="-1">Historiographically disadvantaged</h3>
<p>This all raises the question: if these guys were so important how come we don’t already know about them?</p>
<p>Part of the problem is that none of their literature survives. While we have thousands of inscriptions in Phoenician (“this cup belongs to Hiram” and so on) we don’t have any Epics of Phoenicia-mesh, or Phoenicia-llads. It is one of the great ironies of the iron age that while we write everything in Phoenician letters, we can’t read any of their writings.</p>
<p>However the archaeological evidence is substantial and becoming more detailed. For example it is now no longer possible to argue that “the Greeks got there first” because we can see that Phoenician materials pre-date Greek materials across the Mediterranean.</p>
<p>But Lopez-Ruiz also points to a more sinister historiographical theme which promoted the Greeks as fore-runners of European identity, and rejected the Middle Eastern origin angle provided by the Phoenicians - anti-semitic by definition. She argues that we are still not free of this bias today.</p>
<h3 id="style-vs-substance" tabindex="-1">Style vs substance</h3>
<p>It is not an easy read: because it covers so much in a little over 300 pages, the prose is very dense. Partly this is because Lopez-Ruiz has an academic audience in mind rather than ordinary punters. She is trying to convince a community of experts on the centrality of the Phoenicians and while the general public is not excluded, it is not exactly welcomed either.</p>
<p>So for example, words such as aniconic, autochthonous and apotropaic are sprinkled in the text - meaning (it turns out) “symbolically representative”, “home-grown”, and “evil averting” respectively.</p>
<p>But it rewards the effort, even for the uninitiated.</p>
<h3 id="a-more-colourful-picture" tabindex="-1">A more colourful picture</h3>
<p>For instance: I was very happy to learn more about the “formative period” of classical (ie Greek) culture, and to see this placed into a convincing context rather than spring magically into being, statues and all.</p>
<p>The book also links the classical world to the age before the bronze age collapse (about 1,200 BCE) when the Mycenaean Greeks, the Egyptian and Hittite empires all went simultaneously belly up for reasons still hazy. In fact the Phoenicians self-consciously embodied this link with the past. Their key cities of Arwad, Tyre, Sidon and Byblos were islands of continuity in the chaos that surrounded them: ancient empires going up in smoke on all sides. They were the culture bearers of a previous golden (bronzen?) age and this was a key part of their universal appeal.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>In conclusion: this is an important book, albeit not an “easy-reader”. <em>Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean</em> provides a comprehensive survey of the role of the Phoenicians and enriches our view of the ancient Mediterranean world. And you might find yourself experiencing a few 🍎🦇🦀 moments along the way.</p>
Empire and Righteous Nation - review
Anthony Webb
Big moment, big moment.
Donald Trump
Ex president Trump was talking to Kim Jong-un, leader of North Korea in 2019. It was indeed a big moment - the first time a US president had visited north...
2022-01-21T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2022/01/21/empire-and-righteous-nation/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0674238214.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Empire and Righteous Nation - review" /><p>Our review of Empire and Righteous Nation: 600 Years of China-Korea Relations, by Odd Arne Westad, first published in January 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Empire and Righteous Nation crams a lot of into its 170 pages: it is an insightful and entertaining primer on Korean history over the last 600 years.</p><p>Those already well informed about the Chosun state and King Kojong may find it covers familiar territory. But if you are a relative newcomer you will get a much better appreciation of Korean history and identity.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<p>Big moment, big moment.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Donald Trump</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Ex president Trump was talking to Kim Jong-un, leader of North Korea in 2019. It was indeed a big moment - the first time a US president had visited north Korea, and the first time a US president had arranged to meet a fellow head of state via a post on social media.</p>
<p>Kim and Trump exchanging pleasantries in the Demilitarized Zone reinforced for me the outsiders view of modern Korea: the product of a terrible war, divided into two, with an impoverished totalitarian North and a prosperous open South.</p>
<h3 id="we-are-korea" tabindex="-1">We are Korea</h3>
<p>This view, as Odd Arne Westad shows us in his book <em>Empire & Righteous Nation: 600 Years of China-Korea Relations</em>, overlooks much of what makes Koreans Koreans, and much of how think of themselves. This has been an identity principally delineated by China, their largest and most influential neighbour, ever since they were both baby states 2000 years ago.</p>
<p>A common way of thinking about this relationship was as older and younger brother. Because both states have shared a deep commitment to Confucian values over the last 600 hundred years, the duties and rights of big and little brother shape their interactions.</p>
<h3 id="conflict-resolution" tabindex="-1">Conflict resolution</h3>
<p>Westad gives us a great example of this: after a minor border kerfuffle in 1864 when Koreans chopped down some trees on the wrong side of the border, the Korean king apologised to the Qing Emperor who in turn promised to give them the wood they need anyway.</p>
<p>This is how I try to handle conflict resolution between my kids as well, although the three year old is not quite up to the flowery language of thanks memorialised by the Korean King Kojong:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>'I am frightened and ashamed, and there is no way I can be forgiven... I never imagined I would escape blame and punishment, yet Permission has been granted to supply timber. With the command to dispatch men to receive it, I am emotionally overcome in the extreme and rendered utterly speechless...'</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="why-does-korea-even-exist%3F" tabindex="-1">Why does Korea even exist?</h3>
<p>Westad notes that the commitment to this shared Confucian identity was a key reason why Korea even survived as an independent state, while China's other neighbouring kingdoms were swallowed up by an aggressively expansive Qing empire. Because Korea provided a model example of how 'vassal' or subordinate states should behave, it was more valuable to allow them to exist in this role, than go to the effort of conquering and ruling them (which only happened once during the Mongol Yuan dynasty).</p>
<h3 id="the-old-ways-are-the-best" tabindex="-1">The old ways are the best</h3>
<p>But while Korea continued to exist, this same dedication to an increasingly old fashioned political and social system led to a very brittle state. Whatever you say about the pros and cons of Confucianism, it doesn't encourage social mobility: the duty of the common folk is to obey and to pay. It is a philosophy that can encourage paternalism and responsibility, but also exploitation and ossification.</p>
<p>So when Japan started causing trouble in the late 19th century the Korean state found itself helpless to do anything about it. Although - to be fair to the Chosun (Korean) state - the Russians, Chinese and (eventually) the British Empire didn't fair very well against Japan either.</p>
<h3 id="a-century-of-pain" tabindex="-1">A century of pain</h3>
<p>Which takes us to the 20th Century which has been a century of pain for Korea in many ways. Since the shocking and blatant murder of Korean Queen Min by Japanese 'diplomats and officers' in her palace in 1895 (for not being pro-Japanese enough), Koreans have been displaced, enslaved and killed.</p>
<p>By the time the Korean war ended in 1953 all the cities and towns had been destroyed, much of the countryside was a wasteland and millions of Koreans had died. In the three years of the Korean War alone Westad tells us that 13% of the population, or about 2.5 million Koreans had perished.</p>
<h3 id="an-updated-view-of-korea" tabindex="-1">An updated view of Korea</h3>
<p>This is the context then for the current situation on the Korean peninsular - a centuries long existence as a single united kingdom, closely connected to Chinese culture, and the trauma of a devastating war in living memory.</p>
<h3 id="ok-but-what's-the-book-like%3F" tabindex="-1">Ok but what's the book like?</h3>
<p>Westad's book is a great introduction to this fascinating national history, as revealed by it's foreign and principally Chinese relations.</p>
<p>It does this with three authoritative chapters: the first going from about 1392-1866, the second from 1866-1992, and the third covering 'today' which is up to 2019. It is mainly a succinct narrative summary covering the whole period in about 130 pages, with the author's conclusions taking up another 25 pages.</p>
<p>It is amazing how much Westad gets across in such a short book, and that he manages to make the story come alive as he does so.</p>
<h3 id="anything-not-to-like%3F" tabindex="-1">Anything not to like?</h3>
<p>With such a short book there is not much room for debate - Empire & Righteous Nation tells you 'what really happened' but there is no time for acknowledging alternative accounts. This struck me as I read the 'China and Korea today' chapter when we are told precisely what Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping did and what they thought. Even with Westad's no doubt impressive Chinese connections, it sometimes felt like Westad's opinion as much as fact.</p>
<p>One reason I enjoyed this book so much was that I was utterly unfamiliar with Korean history before reading it.</p>
<p>However if you are already well informed about the Chosun state and King Kojong you may find it covers familiar territory. It is not trying to reveal something new but shine a light on something often neglected.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Empire and Righteous Nation crams a lot of into its 170 pages. Given that I knew nothing when I started, I probably got more bang for buck - or perhaps perspicacity per pound - than any other history book I have recently read.</p>
<p>If you come from a similarly ignorant position, you will find Westad's primer an insightful and entertaining introduction to Korean history: given Korea's centrality to current international relations, a better understanding and a more nuanced view can only be a good thing. And if you also happen to be president of the United States of America, reading this book may make the world a slightly safer place.</p>
Heretics and Believers - review
Andy Salisbury
Heretics and Believers, winner of the Wolfson History Prize in 2018, provides a comprehensive description and analysis of the English Reformation. The author, Peter Marshall, is a professor of history...
2022-01-13T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2022/01/14/heretics-and-believers/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0300234589.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Heretics and Believers - review" /><p>Our review of Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation, by Peter Marshall, first published in March 2018.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Heretics and Believers helps us understand a crucial turning point in English history and how it impacted England‘s (and Britain‘s) subsequent history and culture.</p><p>It is thought-provoking and a compelling, providing a fascinating description of this critical 16th century period.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <p>Heretics and Believers, winner of the Wolfson History Prize in 2018, provides a comprehensive description and analysis of the English Reformation. The author, Peter Marshall, is a professor of history at the University of Warwick.</p>
<h3 id="pre-reformation-england" tabindex="-1">Pre-Reformation England</h3>
<p>Peter Marshall commences his book with a helpful summary of Pre-Reformation English Christianity and thought. This is essential to a proper understanding of the events which follow: it becomes clear that ideas of 'reformation' of Christianity pre-dated Luther and Calvin. Humanists such as Erasmus and Thomas More (who were close friends) argued passionately against the perceived abuses of early sixteenth century Christianity. Whilst Humanism would later form an intellectual component of Protestant thought and critiques of Roman Catholicism, Humanists such as Erasmus and Thomas More were violently opposed to Luther and his teachings (as was Henry VIII himself, until he wanted to get divorced).</p>
<p>Thomas More later died for his loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church which he had spent much of his life criticising (it must be said, having previously killed off a good few Protestants himself as Lord Chancellor).</p>
<p>Other aspects of Pre-Reformation England covered in the book include the state of monasticism, Lollardy and early converts to the ideas of Luther before Henry VIII caught onto the idea himself.</p>
<h3 id="the-reformation" tabindex="-1">The Reformation</h3>
<p>The book moves into full narrative mode with the commencement of efforts by Henry VIII and his ministers to annual his marriage to Catherine of Aragon from 1527 onwards. We are then given a detailed year by year, in many cases month by month, recounting of the progress of the Reformation in the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. The book concludes in the late 1580s towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth I: the defeat of Spanish Armada in 1588 saw the end of a long period of attempts by Roman Catholics abroad (and, in some cases, within England) to re-impose Roman Catholicism in England by force.</p>
<p>The author also presents the late 1580s as the culmination of a prolonged process of estrangement between those (including many within the House of Commons) arguing for a more zealous form of Protestantism and those (principally, Queen Elizabeth I) who wished to retain the predominately Edwardian Book of Common Prayer and an Episcopal - ie pro rather than anti-bishop - church structure.</p>
<p>The latter would eventually dominate the established Church of England through royal patronage. The former (increasing labelled 'Puritans') would break off to form new non-conformist sects outside of the Church of England. For the author, this estrangement was exemplified by a ferocious ant-Puritan sermon given in 1588 at Paul's Cross by Richard Bancroft (later Archbishop of Canterbury but at that time chaplain to Lord Chancellor Christopher Hatton).</p>
<h3 id="postscript" tabindex="-1">Postscript</h3>
<p>The book concludes with a postscript which refers to the post Elizabethan legacy (or, perhaps, continuation) of the Reformation: in particular, the Civil War and the gradual lifting of legal penalties against Roman Catholics, a process that only concluded in 2013 when it became legal for a Roman Catholic to marry the heir to the British throne. The author, in my opinion, wisely keeps this section brief. The subject of the legacy of the Reformation in the United Kingdom is an enormous subject in its own right which deserves its own book.</p>
<h3 id="a-time-of-change" tabindex="-1">A time of change</h3>
<p>The author explains in the book's postscript that his treatment of the period stands in contrast to other Reformation histories which have tended to emphasise continuity. For Peter Marshall, this was a period of dramatic change. But as well as describing what those changes were, the author does an excellent job of showing how those changes or, perhaps more accurately, the process of change itself, had a profound impact on English politics, culture and thought. As the author states in the book's postscript:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>... the Reformation in England, I am convinced, was nothing if not a volcanic eruption of change, whose seismic impact remains fundamental to an informed understanding of almost all the country's subsequent social and political developments.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="the-end-of-the-middle-ages" tabindex="-1">The end of the Middle Ages</h3>
<p>In my previous review of Dan Jones' Thrones and Powers, I posed the question of what the Middle Ages were and in what sense the events which marked its close (including the Reformation) can be said to have brought that period of history to an end. I felt that this book did a lot to provide an answer.</p>
<p>Whilst the author explains in the book's opening chapters that medieval Catholicism was by no means static, uniform or devoid of heresies, the life of a medieval peasant (who formed the bulk of the population) revolved around a world of comparative continuity and uniformity in which religion and day to day life were deeply integrated. Or, to put it another way, the average English peasant probably didn't need to expend too much thought on what he believed or did not believe, nor was he asked to do so.</p>
<p>That is, in part, illustrated in the meaning of the word 'religion' itself. For early sixteenth century people, 'religion' meant specialised ritual practices undertaken in monasteries. The idea of 'religion' as indicating specific beliefs and dogmas, and as a distinct and separable sphere of thought and activity, was, arguably, a creation of the Reformation.</p>
<p>The author identifies 1547-8 as the moment when the Middle Ages came to an end for many English people. In 1547, Edward VI came to the throne in England as a minor. The Duke of Somerset, his Lord Protector, enacted full scale reformation of religion: relics and images were removed from churches, chantries abolished and their funds appropriated by the state to fund war in Scotland. The financial and devotional life of English villages throughout the country were irretrievably altered, notwithstanding Mary I's subsequent attempts at Counter-Reformation.</p>
<h3 id="time-to-make-a-decision" tabindex="-1">Time to make a decision</h3>
<p>The Reformation forced people in all walks of lives to make decisions about what they believed. In a passionate battle of ideas, propagandists appealed to every level of English society, highlighting differences of opinion. The irony is that this served to draw attention to the ideas which were being opposed - a process exacerbated by the tendency at that time to quote in full the text which a writer wished to argue against. The author contends, convincingly, that the English Reformation created English Roman Catholicism just as much as it created Anglicanism and Puritanism.</p>
<h3 id="the-battle-for-uniformity-of-religion" tabindex="-1">The battle for uniformity of religion</h3>
<p>Successive monarchs were obsessed with the need to impose 'uniformity' in religion; to a lesser or greater extent, they and their councillors were willing to kill in order to achieve that. But the violent changes of this period, perhaps inevitably, resulted in a country in which people, either openly or secretly, believed different things and adopted different religious practices. It raised the question of how to coexist in a country containing people of different faiths.</p>
<p>This resulted in two contrasting reactions. In the immediate term, religious hatred and violence was exacerbated, most notoriously under the reign of Mary I. The idea of 'tolerance' was barely countenanced or, on the rare occasions it was mooted, swiftly dismissed (see, for example, Elizabeth I's response to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I's request for separate places of worship for Roman Catholics). Even 'leniency' towards those with differing religious views was condemned as contrary to God's will, a perceived weakness that parliamentarians repeatedly condemned in Elizabeth I.</p>
<p>Perhaps we should not be surprised that the Tudor world inherited the medieval assumption that a single realm should contain people of the same religion. But, in the long term, the idea of the need to tolerate those of other religions took hold, albeit extremely slowly and tentatively. This trend towards toleration is described in Ritchie Robertson's excellent book on the Enlightenment, reviewed elsewhere on this site. It arose from necessity rather than principle, but nonetheless was a stepping stone to one of the core values we take for granted.</p>
<h3 id="new-horizons" tabindex="-1">New horizons</h3>
<p>The author convincingly paints a portrait of an era of intellectual ferment. In 1563, William Cecil (later Baron of Burghley) drafted a bill of succession designed to prevent the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots ascending to the English throne following the death of Elizabeth I. Among other arrangements, it envisaged a monarch elected by parliament, which would make England a de facto republic.</p>
<p>It never came to fruition, but it provides a fascinating example of how religious conviction trumped loyalty to the principle of dynastic succession, and allowed politicians to conceive of new ideas. Religious conviction also provided a pretext for politicians to assert political independence in the face of monarchs who resisted their religious priorities.</p>
<p>Elizabeth I repeatedly ordered parliament to desist from any discussion of religious practice and organisation, which she considered the remit of herself and her bishops; parliament repeatedly ignored her. The House of Commons at this time continually lobbied the monarch for a more austere version of Protestantism stripped of what they considered to be Popish paraphernalia. Elizabeth I would invariably resist.</p>
<p>Religious tensions between the House of Commons and monarchs would be a defining characteristic of British history in the seventeenth century: it eventually led to the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution. It is interesting to reflect that British parliamentary government may owe a lot to religious zealots in the House of Commons.</p>
<h3 id="what-impact-can-an-individual-have%3F" tabindex="-1">What impact can an individual have?</h3>
<p>In War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy vehemently argues against the 'great man' version of history: the idea that important individuals have the power to change history. For Tolstoy, battles are won and lost and countries change because of great forces at work, of which individuals are barely aware. Napoleon may have claimed credit for a victory, but actually he was just the beneficiary of some underlying force of history pushing the peoples of France eastward, until such time as they pushed too far, and then were subject to a countervailing force pushing the peoples of Russia westward. Or something like that (it's been a while since I read it).</p>
<p>Reading Heretics and Believers made me think about the ability of individuals to change history. Henry VIII provides an obvious example of a person who, on the face of it, appears to have changed the history of a country because of the decisions he made. Peter Marshall's book comprehensively dismisses any idea that the English Reformation was the product alone of Henry VIII's wayward love life, although he concedes that it probably would have taken a very different trajectory without sovereign sponsorship.</p>
<p>What struck me in this book, though, was the direct influence that Elizabeth I wielded on religious policy during her reign. What the author refers to as her 'eccentric' and 'peculiar' conservatism in matters of religion had a profound impact on the course of religious change in England.</p>
<p>In the earlier parts of her reign, the impression I got from this book (either correctly or incorrectly), was that she was relatively isolated in efforts to resist the efforts of MPs, bishops, Pricy Councillors and other senior advisers to push the church towards ever stricter forms of Protestantism. She generally got her way (I suppose, because she was the queen), and as time passed managed to promote fellow minded clerics to senior positions - most importantly John Whitgift as Archbishop of Canterbury) Elizabeth I arguably <em>did</em> have a significant impact on the course of both Anglicanism and English nonconformity.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h3>
<p>In the postscript to his book, Peter Marshall states that 'The real significance of the English Reformation, I would suggest, lies not in the achievement, but in the struggle itself'. That is not a bad summary of what appeared to me to be the over-arching theme of the book as a whole: how the process of religious change gave rise to new possibilities and changed the way people, in every walk of life, thought about their relationship to religion, the state, and the people around them.</p>
<p>The author manages to combine a highly readable narrative, depth of analysis and an ability to convey thought-provoking ideas, attributes that are not easy to combine in the same book.</p>
<h3 id="was-there-anything-i-found-challenging-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">Was there anything I found challenging in the book?</h3>
<p>There is a huge volume of individuals referred to. I found myself frequently losing track of who was who and needing to resort to the index and Wikipedia to remind myself. That is in no way a criticism of the book: it is not the author's fault that a lot of different people were involved in the English Reformation. What it demonstrates is that the process of religious change was enormously complex and multifaceted: any simplistic idea that Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife and that was that is swiftly disabused by reading this book.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>This exceptional book should be read by anyone wanting to understand this crucial period of English history and how it impacted England's (and Britain's) subsequent history and culture.</p>
Reflections on WordPress – 8 months in
Anthony Webb
On this post I’m not going to be talking about history books but instead about WordPress.com the web platform behind this website – my thoughts after having used it for 8 months now. Tune in or out...
2022-01-10T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2022/01/10/reflections-on-wordpress-after-8-months/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1646519878/posts/markus-winkler-unsplash.jpg" alt="Reflections on WordPress – 8 months in" /><p>On this post I’m not going to be talking about history books but instead about WordPress.com the web platform behind this website – my thoughts after having used it for 8 months now. Tune in or out according to your preference!</p>
<p></p><div class="toc_list"><hr /><h3><strong>Contents</strong></h3><p><i>Links are to the headings in the article below</i></p><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2022/01/10/reflections-on-wordpress-after-8-months/#starting-from-zero">Starting from zero</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2022/01/10/reflections-on-wordpress-after-8-months/#choosing-wordpress.com">Choosing WordPress.com</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2022/01/10/reflections-on-wordpress-after-8-months/#wordpress.com-%E2%80%93-the-good-stuff">WordPress.com – the good stuff</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2022/01/10/reflections-on-wordpress-after-8-months/#wordpress.com-%E2%80%93-the-frustrating-stuff">WordPress.com – the frustrating stuff</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2022/01/10/reflections-on-wordpress-after-8-months/#concluding-thoughts">Concluding thoughts</a></li></ol><hr /></div><p></p>
<p>When I started this blog with my friend and collaborator Andy Salisbury in May 2021 we had three aims:</p>
<ol>
<li>Read a greater number of more interesting history books.</li>
<li>Make popular history books more discoverable for everyone. Not just the blockbuster books but the many other excellent books released each year.</li>
<li>Find out what this internet thing is all about.</li>
</ol>
<p>This post is going to be about the third aim – which was more mine that Andy’s I suspect – focussing on the website choices I made in setting up <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/">popularhistorybooks.com</a> and what I have learned along the way.</p>
<p>Maybe it will help someone else who is thinking about setting up a similar blog and who operates at similar level of technical capability / ignorance to me!</p>
<h3 id="starting-from-zero" tabindex="-1">Starting from zero</h3>
<p>Before starting up this site I only really knew about three potential places to start up a blog / website: Google’s blogger service, Square Space and WordPress. I only had a vague idea about WordPress at the time: I couldn’t shake the idea that it was some sort of word processing software. So these were the three I looked into most closely.</p>
<h3 id="choosing-wordpress.com" tabindex="-1">Choosing WordPress.com</h3>
<p>I quickly dismissed Blogger as not cool enough, and Square Space as too cool so that left me with WordPress, which had generated vaguely positive vibes in my Google trawlings. Although I didn’t entirely trust what I had read given that most website comparison articles didn’t seem very… disinterested. But on the basis that you learn by doing I plunged in.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I quickly dismissed Blogger as not cool enough, and Square Space as too cool so that left me with WordPress…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Opting for WordPress.com rather than WordPress.org seemed sensible, given that I had no idea what I was doing and the dot com version didn’t require any technical setup knowledge.</p>
<p>I also went for the paid for “Premium” level and registered the popularhistorybooks.com domain name. This set me back about £130 for the year which I considered just about ok for a site which is essentially a hobby site.</p>
<p>A supporting database in Airtable
I then set up an Airtable base to allow different book reviewers to submit books and reviews, and to keep track of all the newly published history books. If you have not come across Airtable before it is like a nice looking online spreadsheet, but it’s actually <a href="http://airtable.com/">a real database that you can do various other fancy things with</a>. It also has a very useable free tier. If you are interested I highly recommend you check it out.</p>
<p>I wanted to have a separate database to the main website content organisation stuff so to make it easier to change website provider in future – should we want to.</p>
<p><strong>And that’s basically it as far as fundamental infrastructure goes!</strong> Here are my impressions after 8 months.</p>
<h3 id="wordpress.com-%E2%80%93-the-good-stuff" tabindex="-1">WordPress.com – the good stuff</h3>
<ol>
<li>
<p>🏃♂️ Getting up and running with WordPress.com was really easy. The only thing you have to do is choose a theme that you like and you are off. This is illustrated by the fact that I accidentally clicked “make my site public” before anything was ready. But in a few hours I had published a blog post on <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/05/21/what-is-popular-history/">What is Popular History?</a> that looked pretty nice, and properly sized for mobile, desktop etc with no extra effort.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>🏗 The page builder tool is very intuitive and easy to use. The main thing to figure out was that the editor doesn’t look the same as the final webpage, in particular with regard to spacing. After this I was able to create a format for a review page that I was happy with quite quickly. You can also fiddle around with the look of a page at a more granular level, by altering the css file (once you have figured out what css means).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>🤼 It is very straight-forward to collaborate with other people. We currently have 5 reviewers and after a review has been published it is very easy for them to log in to WordPress and make changes, without them having the ability to accidentally change other people’s work (which of course I have given myself the power to do 🤨).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>😃 The WordPress help team are excellent. I have had a bunch of queries, some of which were about genuine bugs in the platform, but most were just 101 questions on how to style something in a particular way. All were answered quickly, professionally – and successfully! In fact it has one of the best help services that I have ever dealt with – so well deserved kudos here.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>⛩ The WordPress platform is a handy gateway to other places whether through the WordPress blog search tools (which uncovered such gems as: <a href="https://davedoeshistory.com/">Dave Does History</a>), or through allowing you to easily share posts on social media.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="wordpress.com-%E2%80%93-the-frustrating-stuff" tabindex="-1">WordPress.com – the frustrating stuff</h3>
<ol>
<li>
<p>🍰 Even on the “Premium” tier you can’t do anything interactive in your website. This is because WordPress doesn’t allow any JavaScript until you upgrade to a Business tier and get access to the world of plugins. At double the cost it just isn’t worth it for a zero revenue site. This was a big surprise to me because – not understanding WordPress – I thought JavaScript was a basic service. Even my Yahoo geocities account back in 1999 had it (www.aquillagorilla.geocities.com if I remember correctly). But WordPress “Premium” does not.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>👓 This also means you can’t use iframes: a way to embed one website inside another one. This would have been useful a couple of times to improve the functionally of the site… but no. None of this is clear in the description of what Premium is in the WordPress docs (or the comparison sites), you only find out by trying to do it and then realizing that it is restricted.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>🔌 There is no way to link the WordPress.com blog dashboard to other data sources. So I can’t make the reviews that are submitted to the Airtable database automatically upload to the WordPress account (at least on a premium tier). There is a kind of workaround you could do using automatic emails but this wouldn’t help with layout formatting (see below). So I upload manually each time.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>✂ There is also no blog post template – ie a user defined layout format that I can create and insert variables into. If you are just posting text this doesn’t matter but I want to have pictures and certain info in particular places on the page. My workaround here is to copy and paste the Airtable record into an Excel row. Then use Word mail merge to stick the text and other things into the right place in the html code (previously copied from WordPress). Then copy and paste this html code into a blank WordPress post page ‘code view’. It works but it is not very elegant…</p>
</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="concluding-thoughts" tabindex="-1">Concluding thoughts</h3>
<p>On balance I am very happy with the choice of WordPress.com. It meant we could get started straight away with writing the history book reviews without dealing with any big technical hurdles. We can take advantage of the very nice out of the box layouts and typography.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…if WordPress “Premium” was relabelled WordPress “Basic” I would be entirely satisfied with the package 🙂</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Although I have a number of grumbles they all boil to down to the fact that the WordPress “Premium” tier is actually pretty basic. So the problem is perhaps less with the service and more with my expectations. As noted above if WordPress Premium was relabelled WordPress Basic I would be an entirely satisfied customer – although I may have felt I was being overcharged!</p>
<p>However… I don’t think we will be using WordPress for that long. There are a few too many manual processes for core things that I would like to do: linking Airtable to the site for example or setting up a custom filter…</p>
<p>As I get more familiar with web world I can see that with a little more technical knowledge and a little more time it is possible to do something as good or better for less money.</p>
<p>Plans for the future
In the near future I will be “announcing” a new history book filtering tool that I have developed – but not on the WordPress site. This allows you to filter all history books published in the UK since January 2019 by period, region, country etc. To make this I had to spent lots of my Xmas holiday evenings struggling with vanilla website building on Glitch.com but I think the functionality it provides is worth it!</p>
<p>The history book filter is already live on the site on the “<a href="https://popularhistorybooks.glitch.me/">All Books</a>” link, which takes you off the main WordPress website.</p>
<p>In the medium term I will be looking into Static Site Generators (SSGs) such as Eleventy or Hugo as a WordPress alternative. With not too much learning I think generating a site like this is within the realm of the possible. It won’t be quick though as the whole design will effectively need to be redone from scratch – and job + 2 young kids doesn’t provide that much free-time…</p>
<p>If only there were more time…
…and time is the essence of the problem. How much time do you want to spend messing around with this stuff and to what end? For me it is an enjoyable hobby – I am tech-curious – but ultimately it still presents a risk of being a distraction from the key purpose of setting up this site which is to read more and better history books.</p>
<p>With that now said I will now head back to the bookshelf! 📚</p>
The Fabric of Civilization - review
Jenny Blakeley
Surrounded by textiles, we’re largely oblivious to their existence and the knowledge and efforts embodied in every scrap of fabric.
Virginia Postrel, The Fabric of Civilisation
Any visitor to...
2022-01-03T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2022/01/07/the-fabric-of-civilisation/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1541617622.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Fabric of Civilization - review" /><p>Our review of The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, by Virginia Postrel, first published in November 2020.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A great read for anyone interested in textiles, industry or society, The Fabric of Civilisation brings into focus the technological developments in textiles: fibres, yarns, cloths and dyeing.</p><p>The book spins a thread leading from prehistory to the near future, showing the interwoven technologies and developments from different civilisations across the world.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<p>Surrounded by textiles, we’re largely oblivious to their existence and the knowledge and efforts embodied in every scrap of fabric.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Virginia Postrel, The Fabric of Civilisation</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Any visitor to the West Berkshire Museum can see the Newbury Coat, a coat made in 1811 from sheep to finished garment within a day using the technologies at Greenham Mill as the result of a bet between its owner, John Coxton, and Sir John Throckmorton. Coxton was keen to showcase the improvements in his mill machinery, but readers of <em>The Fabric of Civilisation: How Textiles Changed the World</em> by Virginia Postrel will realise that the feat also demonstrates millennia of technological advances in sheep breeding, spinning techniques, weaving methods and dyeing.</p>
<p>As fabric degrades, it hasn’t left behind the archaeological record that ceramics, metals or bones have, but as a result of new methods more information about historical and pre-historical fabrics is becoming available. Postrel draws on this and other sources to tell us about the long history of silk, wool, cotton and linen and the ways which the development of fabric has resulted in other technological and societal developments across the world. The book is split into chapters on fibre, thread, cloth, dye, traders, consumers and innovation.</p>
<p>The fibre section shows us how some chance and a lot of selective breeding resulted in the forms of cotton, silk, wool and linen that we know today. Sheep have been bred for longer fleeces which can be sheared rather than having to be plucked, cotton has been bred for longer fibres and silkworms have been bred to be resistant to disease, with the mulberry trees used to feed them bred to produce abundant leaves. The production of the fibres also required complicated processes from temperature regulation for silkworms to finicky processes to soften flax fibres. What we think of as “natural” fibres are really no more natural than the UK’s sheep-shorn landscapes.</p>
<h3 id="hanging-by-a-thread" tabindex="-1">Hanging by a thread</h3>
<p>Despite spending a lot of my leisure time knitting and sewing, I’d only rarely stopped to think about the incredible amount of thread needed to produce any kind of fabric - and before the Industrial Revolution it was incredibly time consuming to make. For example, a pair of jeans requires 10km of yarn, which would take two weeks to spin on a spinning wheel or 37 days on a Bronze Age spindle whorl. A sail needs 154km of yarn, which would take 211 days on a spinning wheel or 566 days on a spindle whorl. Viking sails took longer to make than the ships they powered.</p>
<p>Spinning is an example of technology transferring across industries and geographies; it is thought that the spinning wheel, which spun horizontally rather than vertically like the spindles which came before it, is based on technology for extruding silk, and in turn introduced the drive belt.</p>
<h3 id="what-a-tangled-web-we-weave" tabindex="-1">What a tangled web we weave</h3>
<p>Once the yarn is spun, it has to be woven to form cloth. While plain weaving can be done fairly simply, as soon as patterns are involved it becomes very complicated. As a result, brocades and patterns could be used to show the status of the wearer or owner of the cloth; the patterns were woven into the cloth using supplementary weft threads, and a focus of technological development was speeding this up and making it more easily repeatable - which fed into other industries such as ship building, and later, computer programming.</p>
<p>For clothing, knitted fabric is beginning to overtake woven fabrics, as it can stretch with body movements and has the potential to be created as a 3D shape, reducing the waste caused by weaving flat fabric and then cutting out the shapes required to make the clothes.</p>
<h3 id="dyed-in-the-wool" tabindex="-1">Dyed in the wool</h3>
<p>While fabric had been dyed since pre-historical times, Postrel draws a line between dyeing being carried out in a similar way to cooking up until the eighteenth century, and the discoveries in chemistry from then on which drove development and increased understanding. Demand for new dyes sped up developments in chemistry, with dye innovation leading to innovation in many other industries including pharmaceuticals and plastics.</p>
<h3 id="spinoffs" tabindex="-1">Spinoffs</h3>
<p>Meanwhile, the trade in textiles (and presumably other things such as metals, grains and spices) led to developments in banking and accountancy, such as bills of exchange and double-entry bookkeeping. Textiles were even used both officially and unofficially as currency, and according to Postrel - who may be biased - provided a more stable monetary system than coins.</p>
<p>Postrel is excellent at making her readers see commonplace and ubiquitous textiles in a new light.</p>
<p>Sitting in the lounge as I write, I have a much greater appreciation for all the work and innovation that has gone into the curtains, carpet, sofa coverings and cushions as well as the clothes I’m wearing.</p>
<p>She’s also very good at showing that the story of the development of textiles is still continuing, with a focus now on sustainability and the environment, automation and the use of software to increase the range of what we can make, and functional textiles with coatings and new fibres to change the way that our clothes behave.</p>
<h3 id="rags-to-riches%3F" tabindex="-1">Rags to riches?</h3>
<p>With her focus on technological developments, she’s sometimes dismissive of the human cost of those developments. The level of detail, particularly in the processes of weaving and dyeing, is impressive but also rather difficult to take in at times.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p><em>The Fabric of Civilisation: How Textiles Changed the World</em> is a great read for anyone with even the vaguest of interests in textiles, or indeed industry or the development of society in general. It’s a fascinating look at the way that their production and use was already pretty well developed in the distant past, and how that development has continued through the Industrial Revolution and beyond, and is still continuing today.</p>
Best history books of 2021
Anthony Webb
What were the best popular history books published in hardback in 2021 in the UK?
These are the best popular history books that we have read and reviewed on this site. I’m sure that there are other...
2021-12-31T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1651225511/posts/bestbooks_2021.png" alt="Best history books of 2021" /><p>What were the best popular history books published in hardback in 2021 in the UK?</p>
<p>These are the best popular history books that we have read and reviewed on this site. I’m sure that there are other fantastic history books out there which unfortunately we haven’t had the time to read! (To see <strong>all</strong> history books from 2021 you can search our <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/allbooks/">history books mini database</a>.)</p>
<p>So without further ado here are the favourites! The links take you to more details on each book below.</p>
<h4 id="booklist">Our highest rated history books of 2021</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#Cuba">Cuba</a>: An American History</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#River%20Kings">River Kings</a>: A New History of Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads by Cat Jarman</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#The%20Fall%20of%20Robespierre">The Fall of Robespierre</a>: 24 Hours in Revolutionary Paris</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#Checkmate%20in%20Berlin">Checkmate in Berlin</a>: the first battle of the cold war</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#Norse%20America">Norse America</a>: The Story of a Founding Myth</li>
</ul>
<h4>Highly recommended 2021 history books</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#The%20Six%20Wives%20of%20Henry%20VIII">The Six Wives of Henry VIII</a>: Adventures in Time</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#The%20Ruin%20of%20All%20Witches">The Ruin of All Witches</a>: Death and Desire in an Age of Enchantment</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#1177%20B.C.">1177 B.C.</a>: The Year Civilization Collapsed</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#The%20Ottomans">The Ottomans</a>: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#Empire%20and%20Righteous%20Nation">Empire and Righteous Nation</a>: 600 Years of China-Korea Relations</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#Powers%20and%20Thrones">Powers and Thrones</a>: A New History of the Middle Ages</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#Dress%20Codes">Dress Codes</a>: How the Laws of Fashion Made History</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#About%20Time">About Time</a>: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#The%20Last%20Embassy">The Last Embassy</a>: The Dutch Mission of 1795 and the Forgotten History of Western Encounters with China</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#The%20Horde">The Horde</a>: How the Mongols Changed the World</li>
<li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#A%20Story%20of%20Us">A Story of Us</a>: A New Look at Human Evolution</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="Cuba">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1501154559.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for Cuba" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">Cuba: An American History</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>Taking us from the arrival of Columbus at the end of the 15th Century to the departure of Castro at the beginning of the 20th, Ferrer‘s history of Cuba is a perfect mix of big events and the ordinary people that lived and made them.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★★</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-12-22-review-cuba/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
</div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="The Six Wives of Henry VIII">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241469732.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for The Six Wives of Henry VIII" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">The Six Wives of Henry VIII: Adventures in Time</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>A great entry point (or refresher) on Henry VIII told from the point of view of his unfortunate spouses.</p><p>This is a fun and easy to read account of a homicidal romantic at work - at a time of enormous change in English society.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-08-18-review-the-six-wives-of-henry/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
</div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="The Ruin of All Witches">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241413389.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for The Ruin of All Witches" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">The Ruin of All Witches: Death and Desire in an Age of Enchantment</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>A delightful book on a disturbing subject: the descent into witchcraft of Mary and Hugh Parsons in an early New England town. This highly personal narrative also gives us a taste of the era - striving, pious, and fearful.</p><p>I found it enthralling and enlightening - and will never look at a split pudding in quite the same way again.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2023-03-17-review-ruin-witches/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
</div>
<br />
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="1177 B.C.">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0691208018.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for 1177 B.C." />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>An excellent introduction to the magnificent world of the rulers of the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean, and then their dramatic and simultaneous fall.</p><p>Cline brings us up to date with the latest academic thinking on what happened... which is that we still don’t really know, but there are plenty of fascinating clues.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-21-review-1177/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
</div>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="River Kings">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008353077.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for River Kings" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">River Kings: A New History of Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads by Cat Jarman</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>Cat Jarman shows us the Viking world from England in the West to India in the East, following the trail of a small carnelian bead found in a Viking grave in Repton.</p><p>This is an excellent history book - describing the evidence that we have for what the Vikings were up to as they roamed the river systems of Eastern Europe, and stringing this together in a compelling and very readable story.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★★</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-12-14-review-river_kings/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
</div>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="The Ottomans">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1473695708.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for The Ottomans" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>A thought-provoking and accessible guide to the history of the Ottoman Empire from the 14th to the 20th century , which at its peak spanned three continents, stretching from North Africa to the Caucasus and from Meca to Budapest.</p><p>This is a story of the interplay of religious conflict and tolerance, an elite slave army against whom other European powers struggled to compete, and an ingenious solution to the age old problem of sibling rivalry.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2022-06-17-review-the_ottomans/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
</div>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="Empire and Righteous Nation">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0674238214.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for Empire and Righteous Nation" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">Empire and Righteous Nation: 600 Years of China-Korea Relations</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>Empire and Righteous Nation crams a lot of into its 170 pages: it is an insightful and entertaining primer on Korean history over the last 600 years.</p><p>Those already well informed about the Chosun state and King Kojong may find it covers familiar territory. But if you are a relative newcomer you will get a much better appreciation of Korean history and identity.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2022/01/21/empire-and-righteous-nation/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
</div>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="Powers and Thrones">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1789543533.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for Powers and Thrones" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>Dan Jones‘ latest book explores the Middle Ages as a whole, drawing together many of the subject matters he has previously written on. The result is a long but very entertaining read full of full of fascinating story lines and personalities. </p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/12/27/powers-and-thrones/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="The Fall of Robespierre">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0198715951.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for The Fall of Robespierre" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">The Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Revolutionary Paris</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>Colin Jones tells the story of Robespierre’s vertiginous fall over the course of a single day: from the voice of the Revolution to its victim. It is fascinating to trace what happens when those in power give orders, people decide whether or not to go along with them, and then… everything goes crazy.</p><p>If you have any interest in the French Revolution, or politics in general, or the “processes of history” you will find The Fall of Robespierre a riveting, rigorous and thought-provoking read.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★★</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/10/29/the-fall-of-robespierre/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
</div>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="Dress Codes">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1501180061.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for Dress Codes" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>Our clothes project an image of us to the world, and how that image has been controlled and read in the past still has an influence on us today. This book gives a fascinating insight into how.</p><p>A great read for anyone interested in fashion, tailoring – or simply social history.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/10/01/dress-codes/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
</div>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="About Time">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241370493.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for About Time" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>About Time will give you a new perspective on otherwise familiar landmarks – it can help you see the everyday in new and insightful ways.</p><p>A well written and pleasantly proportioned book, it is highly recommended and will appeal to all sorts of people.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/10/about-time/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
</div>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="The Last Embassy">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0691177112.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for The Last Embassy" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">The Last Embassy: The Dutch Mission of 1795 and the Forgotten History of Western Encounters with China</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>The Last Embassy offers an alternative viewpoint to that of China vs the West, an absorbing travelogue, and a sneak peek into the Qianlong Emperor’s court. It is also a very engaging read with a smooth but vivid writing style.</p><p>I would enthusiastically recommend this to anyone with an interest in China’s past – or present.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/07/16/the-last-embassy/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
</div>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="The Horde">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0674244214.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for The Horde" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>Favereau’s ‘The Horde’ gives you a glimpse of the world as it might have seemed to the Mongols – a vast stretch of grassland, mountains, rivers and forests, full of peoples with celebrated histories and complex lifestyles. “City land” was on the outside or the edge of this world and was relevant mainly when it could be exploited.</p><p>While the narrative can feel dense at times, this is an excellent book which will bring this world to life.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/07/05/the-horde/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="Checkmate in Berlin">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1529393159.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for Checkmate in Berlin" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">Checkmate in Berlin: the first battle of the cold war</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>A thrilling read, Giles Milton combines a strong narrative of four tense years in Berlin in the aftermath of the Second World War with personal stories at turns harrowing and uplifting.</p><p>Checkmate in Berlin describes the opening gambit in a conflict which would continue for the next 40 years.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★★</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/06/06/checkmate-in-berlin/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
</div>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="Norse America">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0198861559.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for Norse America" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">Norse America: The Story of a Founding Myth</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>Norse America gives us an authoritative and very readable account of Viking settlement in North America. But it is also the fascinating and sometimes troubling story of the “Vikings first” advocates: a mix of dreamers, pranksters, fraudsters – and those trying to drum up the tourist trade.</p><p>A gripping read, it makes us question the “truth” of history that we sometimes take for granted, and how we choose our stories is as important as their accuracy.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★★</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/06/03/norse-america/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
</div>
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<div class="grid_post_container grid_post_review summary_text fix-children pad-top-10" id="A Story of Us">
<img loading="lazy" class="grid_post_bookimage" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0190883200.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Book cover for A Story of Us" />
<h3 class="grid_post_title">A Story of Us: A New Look at Human Evolution</h3>
<p class="pad-top-20"> </p><p>An excellent book that will enrich your understanding of the past and what has made us who we are.</p><p>It has helped me to build some mental scaffolding across a 6 million year gap in my historical knowledge, the almost magical transformation from ape to human that has given us language, festivals, machines, art – and tiny balls.</p><p></p>
<p> ★★★★☆</p>
<p> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/05/26/a-story-of-us/">Link to full review</a> | <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/announcements/2021-12-31-best_history_books_2021/#booklist">Back to top</a></p>
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Powers and Thrones - review
Andy Salisbury
Introduction
After reading this book, I asked my dad to buy me Dan Jones' Plantagenets for Christmas. So I clearly enjoyed reading it. At 639 pages long (excluding index and bibliography) it makes...
2021-12-23T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/12/27/powers-and-thrones/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1789543533.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Powers and Thrones - review" /><p>Our review of Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages, by Dan Jones, first published in September 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Dan Jones‘ latest book explores the Middle Ages as a whole, drawing together many of the subject matters he has previously written on. The result is a long but very entertaining read full of full of fascinating story lines and personalities. </p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <h3 id="introduction" tabindex="-1">Introduction</h3>
<p>After reading this book, I asked my dad to buy me Dan Jones' Plantagenets for Christmas. So I clearly enjoyed reading it. At 639 pages long (excluding index and bibliography) it makes light work of a 1,000 years of predominantly European history. In the opening few pages we are promised 'it is going to fun' and it delivers. We are given larger than life characters (including a fair few homicidal maniacs and religious nuts) sweeping narratives and pithy summaries. It was a very entertaining read.</p>
<h3 id="what-were-the-middle-ages%3F" tabindex="-1">What were the Middle Ages?</h3>
<p>Right from the start of this book, the author gets to grip with the central question of what the Middle Ages were: it was invented to indicate the bit in between the ancient world and the modern world. For Renaissance thinkers, it was a regrettable (albeit long) interlude of ignorance and squalor. So much so, in fact, that the terms Dark Ages and Middle Ages were originally interchangeable.</p>
<p>Today, the expression Dark Ages is frowned upon by historians: academics speak of economic simplification rather than decline after the fall of the Western Roman Empire (which does make me wonder whether the word simplification is an unexplored avenue for politicians to spin the next recession); and, in any case, thinking of one period of history as being better or worse than another is considered unhistorical.</p>
<p>But it seems that historians have debunked the original rationale for inventing the Middle Ages without coming up a plausible alternative.</p>
<p>So we are stuck with the Middle Ages whether we like it or not; and personally, I'm perfectly happy with it: having read this book, and recently watched the movie The Last Duel, I can't helped feeling that the Renaissance idea of the Middle Ages may have been on to something.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h3>
<p>The structure of the book is a mix of the chronological and the thematic: it starts with the fall of Rome and ends with the Reformation. In between, things run broadly in order of time, but with chapters split into big themes: Arabs, Mongols, Monks, Knights and Crusaders are among those who get their own chapter.</p>
<p>Dan Jones' style is unfussy but authoritative; in that sense, it is an excellent example of popular history writing at its best. If are looking for an entertaining and informative overview of what was going on where and when during 1,000 years of Western history, this book will not disappoint you.</p>
<h3 id="any-negatives%3F" tabindex="-1">Any negatives?</h3>
<p>Is there anything I didn't like about the book? Not to any significant extent. One of its notable characteristic is the author's tendency to draw modern comparisons with the events, people and institutions he refers to. I don't think I have ever read a history book where this is done so often. So, for example, the soft power of Cluny Abbey is compared to the influence wielded by modern tech entrepreneur such as Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg; the writings of Plutarch compared to modern hip hop artists. There is a section regarding medieval 'wokeness' (i.e. the way universities suppressed opinions that were considered unpalatable to medieval sensibilities). A paragraph regarding a dispute between Bernard, King of Lombardy, and King Luis the Pius includes a footnote which simply states 'See also: Brexit'.</p>
<p>I suspect this will irritate some, but not others. Personally, it didn't bother me; I think such modern comparisons can be interesting, if used in the right way. In this book, I felt occasionally like they were being thrown in a bit willy-nilly in an attempt to make the book relatable to modern readers. Perhaps fewer of these types of comparisons, but the ones used more thought out and explored, would have worked better. There is also an interesting question of how such comparisons will work in the future – will a reader in 2221 understand what is being referred to (or empathise with such references even if they do understand them)? How would we feel about reading a history book written in 1821 about the Middle Ages full of references relevant to that time ('See also: struggle for Greek independence')?</p>
<p>Personally, I'd find it quite interesting, so perhaps Dan Jones' book has a future as a text shedding light on both the Middle Ages and the world of 2021.</p>
<h3 id="always-include-a-conclusion%E2%80%A6" tabindex="-1">Always include a conclusion…</h3>
<p>Overall, I thought that the earlier chapters worked a bit better than the later chapters. For example, the chapters on Knights, Monks and Crusaders were very interesting. The final few chapters also contained lots of fascinating information, but perhaps did not work quite so well as a whole: for example, the section on the Renaissance gives pen sketches of a handful of important writers and artists, but appeared to lack an overarching narrative or theme (there is something about rich and powerful patrons but it is not really drawn out).</p>
<p>I got a sense towards the end of the book of a degree of lethargy creeping in; the narrative did not flow quite so easily. Unusually, the book doesn’t have a conclusion; and given the breadth of the subject matter I felt it could have done with one. A conclusion would have been a good opportunity to tie together the various narratives and themes explored in the book and provide some overall coherence to the subject matter.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>This book is very engaging, easy to read and full of fascinating stories and characters. However, I would be interested to read a bit more about what Dan Jones thinks the Middle Ages were; what were its distinguishing characteristics and what continues to make it a relevant way to sub-divide European history?</p>
<p>At the end of the book, Dan Jones describes in detail the changes that brought the Middle Ages to an end: the Renaissance, the Age of Exploration, the Reformation. No doubt these were epoch making changes, but in what way were they un-medieval? I hope this is not the last we have heard from Dan Jones on the Middle Ages – there is definitely room for another book which asks and answers some bigger questions.</p>
Fifth Sun - review
Anthony Webb
If Flamingo Snake was going to get out of the palace alive he would have to drum with all the exuberance, the raw power that he possessed.
It shouldn't even have been him leading the show: the chief...
2021-12-17T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/12/20/fifth-sun/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0190673060.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Fifth Sun - review" /><p>Our review of Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs, by Camilla Townsend, first published in January 2020.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Fifth Sun does a great job of getting us 21st century readers as close as we can currently get to the lost world of the Mexica, and certainly closer than any other account I have read.</p><p>It also brings some daylight to a time that has often been shrouded in darkness: of the Spanish conquest or the brutal sacrificial politics of the Aztecs. It reminds us that life goes on, and you may even find one or two happy endings.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <p>If Flamingo Snake was going to get out of the palace alive he would have to drum with all the exuberance, the raw power that he possessed.</p>
<p>It shouldn't even have been him leading the show: the chief musician had fainted - perhaps from terror - and Flamingo Snake (Quecholcohautl, pronounced Ke-chol-CO-wat) had taken over the starring role at the last minute. For he and his men to survive, he would need to put all this out of his mind and instead focus on all his attention on his drum and his song: a protest song directed at the most powerful leader in the known world.</p>
<p>The ruler's name was Axayacatl (Ah-sha-YAHK-at) and he was the Mexica Emperor, a people known more commonly nowadays as the Aztecs. It was 1479: 13 years before Columbus would discover how to sail from Europe to the Caribbean and exactly 40 years before the ruthlessly destructive Hernan Cortes would arrive on the coast of Mexico, and confront Moctezuma II, Axayacatl's son.</p>
<p>Flamingo Snake's fears were not groundless, being a drummer was a hazardous occupation even then. Performers who had let the side down in other recitals had been known to be punished. And his song contained a highly inflammatory political message which could be roughly translated as: 'ok we rebelled against you and a lot of people died, but this was 15 years ago now, my hometown is being treated very badly and we deserve better: we want a seat at the table and perhaps even a piece of the pie'.</p>
<p>Given this message it was not unreasonable for Flamingo Snake to fear one of the Mexica's more horrific sentences: being burned alive in a wooden cage.</p>
<p>To start with the Emperor appeared to pay little attention: perhaps he was thinking about what might be for lunch, or perhaps it took him a while to grasp the allusion, because the song Flamingo Snake was singing was on the surface a song by a female prisoner of war who was bemoaning her terrible fate. But about halfway through, the Emperor perked up and began to dance to the music:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When he got to the dance floor, Axayacatl lifted up one foot, completely happy in hearing the music, and began to dance and move in circles</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Chimalmpahin, Ocho Relaciones</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>But when the song finished, ending with an offer from the female prisoner of war, now a concubine, to live with the king with no hard feelings, if only she were treated with respect... the Emperor suddenly left the room saying nothing.</p>
<p>When Flamingo Snake received a message that the Emperor wanted a word with him, fear was the natural reaction.</p>
<p>It was also, as it turned out, completely the wrong one. Camilla Townsend tells us what happens next in <em>Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>the Emperor 'liked the song, and he liked the singer. He took Quecholcolhaultl [Flamingo Snake] to bed forthwith and asked him to promise to sing only for him.'</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="bringing-the-mexica-back-to-life" tabindex="-1">Bringing the Mexica back to life</h3>
<p>This historical anecdote encapsulates what Townsend achieves with Fifth Sun: the Mexica come from a different cultural world which we can never completely reconstruct. But at the same time they are human beings with behaviours and reactions we can sympathise with and understand.</p>
<p>It is a tricky undertaking. If Flamingo Snake for example, were to read my brief summary of his story would he recognise the scene, or himself? Was he surprised that Emperor was bisexual - and did that even mean anything to the Mexica?</p>
<p>But Townsends book does a great job of getting us 21st century readers as close as we can currently get to this lost world, and certainly closer than any other account I have read.</p>
<p>For me the two things that mark this book out are:</p>
<h3 id="in-their-own-nahautl-words---using-the-latin-alphabet" tabindex="-1">In their own Nahautl words - using the Latin alphabet</h3>
<p>Townsend has dug into the surviving literary sources in a way which few (none?) other popular history writers have previously done so. Although she is looking at the same sources as other historians she is giving less weight to the Spanish bits and far more to the Nahautl language (Latin alphabet) parts which have tended to be overlooked, under-translated, or dismissed as ''myths and legends''. By immersing herself in the Nahault histories of the Mexica Townsend has untangled and given voice to many fascinating stories from the pre-conquest world.</p>
<h3 id="the-spanish-conquest-as-a-beginning-as-well-as-an-end" tabindex="-1">The Spanish conquest as a beginning as well as an end</h3>
<p>Townsend also covers a much broader spectrum of time than we normally see. While her starting point of the Aztecs migrating down from North America to the central valley of Mexico is fairly typical, her end point is certainly not: she finishes in the 1620s, a hundred years after the Mexica empire was violently overthrown by the Spanish.</p>
<p>We end up with three main sections:</p>
<ul>
<li>What things were like in the 100 years or so before the Spanish</li>
<li>What happened when the Spanish turned up</li>
<li>How things in the 100 years or so with the Spanish in control</li>
</ul>
<p>As with her treatment of sources, this gives a far more nuanced understanding of what life was like for the people of this time, and how it changed.</p>
<h3 id="living-with-the-neighbours" tabindex="-1">Living with the neighbours</h3>
<p>For example I found it fascinating to read about how the Mexican and Spanish people interacted, inter-mingled or remained separate when the Spanish were firmly in charge.</p>
<p>This is partly seen through the life of the eldest son of Hernan Cortes - Cortes had sons by many different women and seems to have called most of them Martin. His first son (Martin) had as his mother the famous Malinche, a Central American women who was a one time slave and now sworn enemy of the Aztecs. Martin - a devout Christian - lived his life moving between Europe and America and was a childhood friend of Philip II of Spain.</p>
<p>Martin was clearly accepted in European society, and he wasn't alone in this. Other children of mixed Spanish and central American (aristocratic) parents were also very much part of the community.</p>
<h3 id="life-goes-on" tabindex="-1">Life goes on</h3>
<p>So while the experience of conquest was often horrific and terrible... for those that weren't destroyed by the Spanish or disease life went on and Central American people found ways adapt to their new reality. However they did not forget their past and sometimes wrote it down: this is what Townsend has worked so hard to interpret and bring to the readers of this book.</p>
<h3 id="the-writing-style" tabindex="-1">The writing style</h3>
<p>The book covers a lot in its 200 hundred pages. However it is not a quick read and not only because the text is very small! Townsend has a clear and approachable writing style but the story can get pretty dense - particularly in the earlier part of the book where we are given a whistle-stop tour of Central American power politics. Because every ruler would have tens of children all from different wives from different towns, who would then tussle for power at succession time, it is hard to keep a handle on what is going on, even with an accomplished narrator to guide us.</p>
<p>Partly this is a problem of familiarity - if you threw a dozen UK place-names at me I could take it in my stride but a dozen pre-conquest Mexica towns are a different matter. They just take longer to get your head around. Which isn't of course, to say that you shouldn't...</p>
<p>The narrative becomes clearer from the point at which the Spanish arrive, perhaps again because this is well-trodden ground.</p>
<h3 id="a-family-copse" tabindex="-1">A family copse</h3>
<p>The 'who's that again?' problem is then the biggest difficulty with this book, but at the same time this is the whole point of the book! If it was just about people, places and politics that we already knew about, why would we read it? While Townsend does her best to limit the pain - for example by literally translating names such as Flamingo Snake - it cannot be totally avoided if we are going to gain our glimpse into a very different time and place.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Fifth Sun brings some daylight to a time that has often been shrouded in darkness: the darkness of the Spanish conquest or the brutal sacrificial politics of the Aztecs. It reminds us that there are also happy endings: like Flamingo Snake's for example or those Mexican people who soon lived after the conquest and found fulfilment in their lives.</p>
Ravenna - review
Anthony Webb
This is the celebrated Byzantine Emperor Justinian who is credited with reconquering the Western Roman Empire through his general Belisarius. The image itself is not from the capital Constantinople...
2021-12-10T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/12/10/ravenna/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1846144663.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Ravenna - review" /><p>Our review of Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe, by Judith Herrin, first published in August 2020.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Ravenna is an absorbing and compelling read. Celebrating the achievements of a town that was building a new Christian world, it is also about the entire Mediterranean area and beyond.</p><p>It deftly slots together the political, religious, social, and artistic spheres: constructing a beautiful mosaic of post Roman, pre European life.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/w_350/v1644497804/pophist_static/justinian.jpg#center" alt="image" /></p>
<p>This is the celebrated Byzantine Emperor Justinian who is credited with reconquering the Western Roman Empire through his general Belisarius. The image itself is not from the capital Constantinople (now Istanbul) as you might expect, but instead from the small Italian city of Ravenna, on the north east coast of Italy. It is a photo of a wall mosaic from a 6th century church called St Vitale. It is also the motif of this website.</p>
<p>So how did this image of a Byzantine emperor end up in a small out of the way town in Italy, and next to the altar of a church of all places – and then as a logo on popularhistorybooks.com?</p>
<p>It was to answer this question (the first one) that Judith Herrin wrote Ravenna: Capital of Empire Crucible of Europe. Up until now we are told, although lots of people were happy to admire the shiny gold portrait, they hadn’t given much thought about why it was there in the first place.</p>
<h3 id="theodoric-%E2%80%93-war-leader-and-politician" tabindex="-1">Theodoric – war leader and politician</h3>
<p>The story starts with the fall of the Western Roman empire, but the hero of this book is (unusually) the man held responsible for pushing it over the edge. This is the Gothic leader Theodoric. Born in 453 CE, he spent his formative teenage years as a hostage in Constantinople, before being released as a young man back to his home region of Hungary. Rather than put his feet up, he immediately began to launch attacks in the local neighbourhood. But as well as being a war leader Theodoric was a master politician, insisting on his everlasting loyalty to the Roman empire (i.e. what we would think of as Byzantium or the Eastern Roman empire) while at the same time plundering and capturing key imperial strong points and territories.</p>
<p>It is a strategy my youngest son also seems to have got the hang of: when told to stop throwing lego / bashing his older brother / generally causing trouble by his parents, he will cheerfully agree – and then go back to whatever he feels like doing anyway. While as parents we are not fully satisfied with this outcome, we at least appreciate his token gesture of compliance.</p>
<h3 id="the-road-to-ravenna" tabindex="-1">The road to Ravenna</h3>
<p>In 487 CE (ie when Theodoric was 35 ish) he marched his now huge force of Goths to the monumental walls of Constantinople. He couldn’t take the city but neither could the Byzantine emperor defeat such a large group. So they cut a deal. In exchange for going away and never coming back, Theodoric and his force were permitted to conquer the Western Roman empire, under the usurper Odoacer who was at that time in charge of Italy with his capital in the small but defensible city of Ravenna.</p>
<p>After a long march, a few touch and go battles and a lengthy siege, Theodoric took Ravenna and personally executed Odoacer, allegedly claiming “there wasn’t a bone in this wretched fellow”. Odoacer may have been a usurper but he was still a member of the Roman military elite. Theodoric’s successful campaign brought an end to all that and was the start of “barbarian” rule of Italy.</p>
<h3 id="the-enlightened-barbarian" tabindex="-1">The enlightened barbarian</h3>
<p>Except that… after reading Judith Herrin’s book it is hard to think of him as at all barbarous. He built new religious buildings for his own Arian flavour of Christianity, while protecting Catholic institutions, and also respecting the Jewish faith, marking him out from other leaders of his time. He also rationalised the rule of law, patronised philosophers, and deftly balanced gothic and Roman traditions. One of the many amazing colour illustrations in this book is a gold coin showing Theodoric – the only image of him that remains – sporting a natty Gothic moustache and a Germanic perm bowl-cut hair-do, but dressed up in Roman imperial clothing and holding a Roman eagle to celebrate victory.</p>
<p>Under Gothic rule Ravenna thrived, and this continued under direct Byzantine rule, after the city was captured by the famous general Belisarius when he conquered the heirs of Theodoric on behalf of the emperor Justinian in 540 CE. It was Ravenna that was the capital of the Byzantine “Exarchate” of Italy and surrounding area: while Rome continued to contract and crumble, Ravenna grew in splendour. And it was the artistic precedents and achievements of Theodoric that then inspired the famous golden wall mosaic of Justinian shown above – although Theodoric himself was “mosaic brushed” from history. As Herrin puts it:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“The unique representation of Justinian and Theodora right in the sanctuary of a very unusual octagonal church was their response to Theodoric’s blazing presence in his golden palace church… But… the images of the heretic Arian king and his courtiers were cut away. The central space that had been Theodoric’s was filled with gold tesserae… Of Theodoric’s portrait not even a fingernail survives.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Judith Herrin, Ravenna</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="the-golden-thread" tabindex="-1">The golden thread</h3>
<p>The story is then traced all the way through to the “father of Europe” Charlemagne at the end of the 8th Century, who quite literally appropriated the Ravennan heritage by carting away a number of fancy marble columns for use in his own octagonal vanity chapel in Aachen. Herrin sees the history of Ravenna as the golden thread that connects the ordered, rational government of Roman imperial rule with the emerging Western European states: “the foundations of western Christendom were laid in Ravenna, whose rulers, exarchs and bishops, scholars, doctors, lawyers, mosaicists and traders, Roman and Goth, later Greek and Lombard, forged the first European city.”</p>
<h3 id="writing-style" tabindex="-1">Writing style</h3>
<p>Herrin is a master communicator. The breadth of subject matter covered is huge: not only does it span a wide geographical area but it seamlessly weaves together political, religious, social, and artistic spheres. But the density of information is lightened by her deft prose, and a disciplined structure. I really enjoyed the reading experience, even obscure debates on religious doctrine became interesting and relevant.</p>
<p>A special mention also needs to be made of the images in the book. Even in the paperback edition, we are given 62 colour photographs of the key buildings, interiors and artefacts, that showcase the visually stunning world of early Christendom.</p>
<h3 id="a-wider-perspective" tabindex="-1">A wider perspective</h3>
<p>Importantly this book is not just about Ravenna – it is about the whole Mediterranean world and beyond that is linked to the town, and the influence of events thousands of miles away. The Byzantine empire is obviously a critical part of this.</p>
<p>For example there is a great description of how the Byzantine emperor Herakleios finally destroyed Persia, the old enemy of Rome, triumphantly restoring the True Cross to Jerusalem in 630, crying out (via the dispatches) “Let all the earth raise a cry to God; and serve the Lord in gladness”. Centuries of warfare had at last resulted in total victory for the Byzantines. Then out of nowhere and in the blink of eye virtually all of the Eastern Byzantine empire was lost forever to the Arab people, followers of the brand new faith of Islam.</p>
<p>Herrin uses the history of Ravenna to bring the whole Mediterranean world from 400 CE to 800 CE vividly to life.</p>
<h3 id="downsides-and-drawbacks%3F" tabindex="-1">Downsides and drawbacks?</h3>
<p>The drawbacks are relatively minor. You will need to set aside a decent amount of time to read it. If you are planning a trip to Ravenna I wouldn’t try to read it on the plane on the way over. There is a lot of material to get through and to do the book justice you shouldn’t try to just skim through the bits on San Vitale.</p>
<p>I would also argue that Herrin’s contention that Ravenna is the “Crucible of Europe” (the subtitle of the book) is a little forced. In a way she undermines her own argument by presenting such a wonderful tapestry of the “post Roman” Mediterranean world. Everything is so beautifully interwoven it seems contradictory to pick out a single place as a European foundation point – even if Theodoric was a model EU citizen and all-round great guy.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Overall then this book represents an absorbing and compelling reorientation of the typical narrative of the post Roman world. It celebrates the achievement of a town that was self-consciously building a new Christian world, as part of a glorious pan-Mediterranean mission.</p>
<p>Personally I am also happy that I now have a much better understanding of how our Justinian logo made its path through history to bring a touch of imperial splendour to this website.</p>
A Curious History of Sex - review
Anthony Webb
Explicit prose warning! (although only when necessary.)
Sex, as we all know, has been around for about two billion years or so. But we humans continue to struggle with what sex is supposed to be all...
2021-12-03T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/12/03/a-curious-history-of-sex/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1783528052.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="A Curious History of Sex - review" /><p>Our review of A Curious History of Sex, by Kate Lister, first published in February 2020.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A Curious History of Sex is a great success in bringing ideas of sex from different times and places into the light – helping us to better understand our own attitudes and behaviour.</p><p>There’s fun to be had along the way too as we are encouraged to chuckle and wince at all the crazy sexual habits of our great grandparents – I’ll never look at cornflake in quite the same way again.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p><em>Explicit prose warning! (although only when necessary.)</em></p>
<p>Sex, as we all know, has been around for about two billion years or so. But we humans continue to struggle with what sex is supposed to be all about. As Kate Lister notes in the introduction to “A Curious History of Sex”: “Humans are the only creatures that stigmatise, punish and create shame around their sexual desires. While all animals have courtship rituals, no wildebeest has ever gone into therapy because it’s struggling to express a latex fetish.”</p>
<p>Interestingly while the idea of what is right and wrong sexual behaviour has changed a lot over time, individuals are often adamant that that they are upholding an absolute moral standard. We are introduced to one such individual in the book: John Harvey Kellogg, of breakfast cereal fame. A doctor in the late 19th century United States he was convinced that people were thinking about sex in the wrong way, too much, and often on their own – it wasn’t doing them any good at all. To help people control their urges he invented a brand new food. He wanted something so bland and boring it would cure you of any excitable thoughts. The exact opposite of a really good meal (“A man that lives on pork, fine-flour bread, rich pies and cakes, and condiments, drinks tea and coffee and uses tobacco, might as well try to fly as to be chaste in thought”). The food he came up with: Kellogg’s cornflakes.</p>
<p>Kellogg’s commitment to the betterment of humankind didn’t stop there: he published a weighty sex advice tome called “Plain Facts for Old and Young” which you can still read today <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19924/pg19924-images.html">here</a>. It is mainly concerned with the dangers of “the solitary vice” and sets out 34 helpful warning signs of a potential onanist <sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/12/03/a-curious-history-of-sex/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>.</p>
<p>He also gave yogurt enemas to patients in his sanitarium to help them concentrate, promoted male circumcision without anaesthetic to help reduce the sensitivity of the vital organs (allegedly circumcising himself at the age of 37), and recommended female circumcision to cure nymphomania.</p>
<p>In short when it came to sex he was a bit of a nutcase.</p>
<h3 id="how-far-have-we-come%3F" tabindex="-1">How far have we come?</h3>
<p>Lister encourages us to chuckle and wince at all the crazy things our great grandparents believed in, but her serious point is to make us look a bit harder at our own beliefs and behaviours. While we may not stick yoghurt up our bottoms much these days, we have our own habits and hang-ups and that our own great grandchildren might find equally silly / horrifying.</p>
<h3 id="the-structure-of-the-book" tabindex="-1">The structure of the book</h3>
<p>Rather than telling the “story” of sex, Lister focusses each of her 24 chapters on some sexual “thing”. For example it could sex and food (as per above), or pubic hair, or sex and bicycles. Each chapter then reads like a well researched blog post – deftly covering the subject matter by digging up and stitching together a wide variety of historical references, accompanied by lots of arresting images.</p>
<p>The effect is a bit like a literary curiosity cabinet. When writing about periods for example (as in menstruation, not historical periods) Lister starts with the Romans, then zooms forward to modern Nepal, Ethiopia and India, then back to medieval Europe, then over to Ming China, a brief reflection on the Bible and the Quran, then the ancient Greeks with Galen before describing the modern encouragement of period shame by companies keen to flog more sanitary products.</p>
<h3 id="pic%E2%80%99n%E2%80%99mix-history" tabindex="-1">Pic’n’mix history</h3>
<p>I was expecting a bit more of a narrative history about how our views on sex have changed over time but it is not really that kind of book – instead it is one you can pick up and read chapters at random. They are not too long either – I could get through each per train journey into work. Although some of the images shown in the book might surprise your fellow travellers – even though the full page explicit Victorian pornography was incidental to my purpose in reading the book, I felt that as a middle aged male commuter I didn’t really want to get into that conversation with the stranger next to me…</p>
<h3 id="the-writing-style" tabindex="-1">The writing style</h3>
<p>Lister is an entertaining writer who has a breezy conversational style, with an infectious enthusiasm for her subject matter. To give you a flavour here is her description of severe period pain from the aforementioned chapter:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“You feel like you have a cold – shivering, aching, nauseous – and have the hair-trigger emotions of someone who has not slept for days… The intense cramping across your lower abdomen feels like the worst diarrhoea you’ve ever had – in fact, you’ll also get diarrhoea, to help with the crying fits. As your internal organs contract and tear themselves to blooded bits so you can lay an egg, blasts of searing pain rip through you. Sometimes they’re so bad, you double over and can’t breathe until it’s passed, and the dull, constant ache returns… You bleed so much that all ‘intimate feminine hygiene products’ fail you – it’s like trying to control a lava flow with an oven mitt. You worry people can smell your period. You are terrified to sit on anything or stand up for a week in case you’ve bled through. And as you’re sitting, a crying, sweaty, wobbly, spotty, smelly mess, some bastard asks ‘Time of the month, love?’ And then you have to eat his head.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kate Lister, A Curious History of Sex</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="any-complaints%3F" tabindex="-1">Any complaints?</h3>
<p>Are there any downsides to be aware of? Lister’s scattergun approach to history may not appeal to everyone – while her scholarship is impressive it can feel at times that we get every single keyword reference from an extensive trawl of the archives plus the top 30 results from google. I found I enjoyed the book more if I didn’t try to read too much in one go otherwise it could feel a bit relentless.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-normal%3F" tabindex="-1">What is normal?</h3>
<p>It is also often difficult to judge if the anecdotes she has selected represented “normal views” in the past or not. Was J H Kellogg considered a crackpot when he advised on using carbolic acid on the clitoris as a cure for a high sex drive? Hopefully (surely?) he was but we don’t really get into this, instead it is presented as just another bonkers sound-bite from history with little comment on how it was received. Maybe this is an inherent difficulty of writing sex history – finding out what most people thought is often tricky – but I would have liked a bit more context every now and then.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>However the book is a clear success in its primary aim which is to bring into the light sex from different times and places, so we can understand our own attitudes and behaviour. As Lister concludes:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“We must keep talking about sex. We must keep educating children about sex, and not just about what happens when a sperm gets its hands on an egg. We must talk about consent, pleasure, masturbation, pornography, love, relationships and our own bodies. Because the only way we will dispel shame is to drag sex out in the open and have a good long look at it. History has shown us how damaging shaming sexual practices, in all their myriad forms, can be.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kate Lister, A Curious History of Sex</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>A statement to reflect on while munching through my breakfast cereal<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/12/03/a-curious-history-of-sex/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup>.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>(1) General debility (2) Early symptoms of consumption (3) Premature and defective development (4) Sudden change in disposition (5) Lassitude (6) Sleeplessness (7) Failure of mental capacity (8) Fickleness (9) Untrustworthiness (10) Love of solitude (11) Bashfulness (12) Unnatural boldness (13) Mock piety (14) Confusion of ideas (15) Round shoulders (16) Weak backs (17) Pains in the limbs (18) Stiffness of the joints (19) Paralysis (20) Gait (21) Bad positions (22) Lack of development of the breasts (23) Capricious appetite (24) Eating clay (25) The use of tobacco (26) Unnatural paleness (27) Acne (28) Biting the finger nails (29) Palpitation of the heart (30) Hysteria (31) Chlorosis (32) Epileptic fits (33) Wetting the bed (34) Unchastity of speech <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/12/03/a-curious-history-of-sex/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>A racy mix of Jordan’s muesli and Kellogg’s bran flakes <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/12/03/a-curious-history-of-sex/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
What is the benefit of reading history books?
Anthony Webb
...he’s a functioning microcosm of us all. I mean, we’re all trying to find out who the hell we are, aren’t we?
Jason Bourne, in Robert Ludlum’s “Bourne Identity”
Grievously wounded: close to...
2021-11-19T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1646083617/posts/JasonQuoteThin.png" alt="What is the benefit of reading history books?" /><blockquote>
<p>...he’s a functioning microcosm of us all. I mean, we’re all trying to find out who the hell we are, aren’t we?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Jason Bourne, in Robert Ludlum’s “Bourne Identity”</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_fill,ar_1:1,g_auto,r_max,w_300/v1646518382/posts/jasonbook-edited.png#center," alt="Unofficial Jason Bourne publicity shot" title="Unofficial Jason Bourne publicity shot" /></p>
<p>Grievously wounded: close to death and clinging to wreckage in the Mediterranean sea. Rescued by French fishermen and deposited in the bedroom of the local alcoholic to recuperate. When he wakes he can remember nothing. The only clue he has is a bank account with $4m dollars in it and a name: Jason Bourne.</p>
<p>As members of the human race, we all start out like Jason Bourne in the Robert Ludlum series of thrillers – although my starter fund was £10 in premium bonds rather than $4m in a Swiss bank account. But really all we have is a name. The past before we were born is blank and unknown. Gradually we piece together what the dickens happened and how on earth we got to this point.</p>
<p>Jason Bourne did it by running around Europe with a gun and a ridiculous array of special abilities.</p>
<p>We do it by <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/allbooks/">reading history books</a>.</p>
<p></p><div class="toc_list"><hr /><h3><strong>Contents</strong></h3><p><i>Links are to the headings in the article below</i></p><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#immediate-benefits-%E2%80%93-as-soon-as-you-start-reading">Immediate benefits – as soon as you start reading</a><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#find-out-what-happened-%E2%80%93-satisfy-your-curiosity">Find out what happened – satisfy your curiosity</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#entertain-yourself-with-a-history-book">Entertain yourself with a history book</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#benefits-of-knowing-a-bit-more-%E2%80%93-after-reading-a-history-book-or-two">Benefits of knowing a bit more – after reading a history book or two</a><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#reading-history-can-help-us-figure-out-what-people-are-saying">Reading history can help us figure out what people are saying</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#history-books-can-help-us-understand-the-present-better%E2%80%A6">History books can help us understand the present better…</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#...even-history-from-a-very-long-time-ago">...even history from a very long time ago</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#understand-where-we-come-from%2C-and-reinforce-our-identity">Understand where we come from, and reinforce our identity</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#benefits-to-how-we-think-%E2%80%93-after-reading-a-number-of-history-books">Benefits to how we think – after reading a number of history books</a><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#understand-the-range-of-human-experience">Understand the range of human experience</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#appreciate-how-things-change">Appreciate how things change</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#develop-your-reliabili-meter-or-truth-sense">Develop your reliabili-meter or truth-sense</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#you-can-learn-lessons-from-history-books">You can learn lessons from history books</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#problems-with-reading-history-books">Problems with reading history books</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/19/whats-the-benefit-of-reading-history-books/#conclusion">Conclusion</a></li></ol><hr /></div><p></p>
<p>This post is my personal reflection on the benefits I get from reading history books. One of my aims in writing it is to clarify my thinking, but also I want to do my bit to encourage others to do more of this enjoyable, rewarding activity!</p>
<p>It also serves as a thank you to those who write history books! Scroll down to the post script if this is you.</p>
<h2 id="immediate-benefits-%E2%80%93-as-soon-as-you-start-reading" tabindex="-1">Immediate benefits – as soon as you start reading</h2>
<h3 id="find-out-what-happened-%E2%80%93-satisfy-your-curiosity" tabindex="-1">Find out what happened – satisfy your curiosity</h3>
<p>Exploration is a primeval human urge. Given time travel is not an option if we want to explore the past one of the best ways of doing so is to read a history book. Finding out more about a time or place that you feel a connection to but have very little knowledge of, can be an exciting, even thrilling experience.</p>
<h3 id="entertain-yourself-with-a-history-book" tabindex="-1">Entertain yourself with a history book</h3>
<p>One way of looking at history is as the collection of the highest rated / most shared stories over the last few hundreds or thousands of years. Admittedly I am overlooking severe problems of bias, attrition and suffering but there is a kernel of truth here: do you want to read a story about the time when nothing really happened and nobody said or did anything very interesting? Well you are unlikely to find it in a history book – popular history books are often also written explicitly to entertain us as well as inform us.</p>
<h2 id="benefits-of-knowing-a-bit-more-%E2%80%93-after-reading-a-history-book-or-two" tabindex="-1">Benefits of knowing a bit more – after reading a history book or two</h2>
<h3 id="reading-history-can-help-us-figure-out-what-people-are-saying" tabindex="-1">Reading history can help us figure out what people are saying</h3>
<p>We scatter historical references through-out our everyday speech whether we are aware of it or not. When we talk about left or right-wing politics we are harking back to the French Revolution. When we bemoan a Spartan meal we have the ancient Greeks to blame. When we meet our Waterloo we are self-identifying with a bloody warmonger of average height. To be honest most of the time we can get on perfectly well without knowing exactly what someone means by their classical allusions – it did me no harm to spend many years with the vague impression that Hannibal was an elephant – but it is nice to know what is making everyone else nod sagely in agreement.</p>
<h3 id="history-books-can-help-us-understand-the-present-better%E2%80%A6" tabindex="-1">History books can help us understand the present better…</h3>
<p>It is only by having an idea of the past that we can appreciate why people hold the values they do today and why they behave as they do. For example the Arab-Israeli conflicts are rooted in historical experience and only make sense from that perspective. We can also understand the buildings and landscapes around us better if we know what shaped them. Does it matter? If you want to create connections with different people and places then it matters a lot.</p>
<h3 id="...even-history-from-a-very-long-time-ago" tabindex="-1">...even history from a very long time ago</h3>
<p>The stories people choose to remember and repeat from their past can be very revealing of their preoccupations in the present. For example every Chinese schoolchild has a good understand of the Opium wars in the 19th Century, when the Chinese people were “humiliated” by their inability to resist aggressive drug-pushing Western powers. This event is long gone from living memory but reflects the current generation’s desire for China to be seen as a strong independent country.</p>
<h3 id="understand-where-we-come-from%2C-and-reinforce-our-identity" tabindex="-1">Understand where we come from, and reinforce our identity</h3>
<p>Reading history books can give help people develop a sense of their place in the world. Often this is national history, bringing people together through shared experience, even if we are only reading about that experience. This can also be a very conscious project particularly for “younger” countries – and must countries in the world are less than 100 years old. But identity is much more complex than simply which country you live in, and reading about history which is relevant to your life can reinforce and help you feel confident in who you are.</p>
<h2 id="benefits-to-how-we-think-%E2%80%93-after-reading-a-number-of-history-books" tabindex="-1">Benefits to how we think – after reading a number of history books</h2>
<h3 id="understand-the-range-of-human-experience" tabindex="-1">Understand the range of human experience</h3>
<p>If we can appreciate ourselves better through history books we can also appreciate how other people have lived their lives. I think this is crucial because our achievements are limited by our imagination – we can only create what we can envisage. Reading about the Harrapan or Indus Valley Civilization gives us an example of a sophisticated urbanised bronze age culture that was seemingly very egalitarian and peaceful. This can inspire us to think about better ways of organising our own society – or at least who to vote for to do it for us! On the other hand reading about some of the terrible things that have happened in the past can help us to know when to stand up for what we believe in.</p>
<h3 id="appreciate-how-things-change" tabindex="-1">Appreciate how things change</h3>
<p>History is sometimes defined as the study of the processes of change. I think that reading history – changes in the past – can help you better understand changes that are happening now or what might contribute to change in the future. Stretching the argument a little: you might use this historical sense to try to improve your own life… Turning to a famous example from history: when Julius Caesar was in his early 30s he is burst into tears on realising that while Alexander the Great had conquered the known world by 32, he himself had achieved nothing. So he dried his eyes, picked himself up by his sandal straps, and went on to slaughter millions of Gauls and destroy the Roman Republic – and no doubt felt much better about himself.</p>
<h3 id="develop-your-reliabili-meter-or-truth-sense" tabindex="-1">Develop your reliabili-meter or truth-sense</h3>
<p>History can be fiercely contested. Even in the best cases it will be influenced by the circumstances of the author, sometimes it can be deliberately highly biased. By reading a range of history books we can become more critical readers, not just accepting what we are told. This is most obvious when we read two different versions of the same thing. History books naturally encourage us to ask questions like: what evidence is there to support the argument? Or: how might the perspective of the author influence his story?</p>
<p>With our reliabili-meter honed from reading history books we are then better prepared to face the even more hotly contested battleground of the present… where bias and attempts at manipulation are even more ubiquitous! And when a politician promises to bring back the good old days, we will have a feel for just how good the old days really were… and the success rate for previous politicians promising to turn back the clock.</p>
<h3 id="you-can-learn-lessons-from-history-books" tabindex="-1">You can learn lessons from history books</h3>
<p>The idea of learning lessons from history books is actually quite controversial in the British historical tradition. I have heard a number of historians scoff at the idea that you should read history to learn lessons. However I think what they really mean is: don’t oversimplify history to a set of straight-forward “lessons learned”. But clearly you would expect to learn something from reading history books even if not quite as directly as many would have us believe – most of us will not be in a position to decide whether or not to march on Moscow in winter for example. So while I think there are lessons to be learned, exactly what this means is quite complex and deserves it’s own blog post (watch this space).</p>
<h2 id="problems-with-reading-history-books" tabindex="-1">Problems with reading history books</h2>
<p>In this blog we aim for fairness and balance so I will now turn to the drawbacks of reading history books. The clearest disadvantage for me is the risk of focussing exclusively on the past and thereby glossing over the present. To illustrate this: I can remember visiting Morocco a while back and being struck by the fact that my guidebook was full of information about historic buildings and old empires but had very little to say about Morocco today. How did people make a living? What did they do in their free time? What did they learn at school? Nothing. The effect was, along with most other tourists, that we mostly ignored the thriving nowadays Morocco and instead inspected the fallen-down ruins of the past.</p>
<p>There are a few other potential problems I can think of, for example historical myopia and “bubble history” but I will leave it there for now…</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_fill,ar_1:1,g_auto,r_max,w_300/v1646518941/posts/jasonbook2-edited.png#center," alt="Jason Bourne looking puzzled" title="Jason Bourne looking puzzled" /></p>
<h2 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h2>
<p>Having no history, as Jason Bourne found out, is a very uncomfortable place to be – and discovering who we are, what’s going on, and when to trust other people (or not) are fundamental benefits of investigating and pondering our past.</p>
<p>To find out his history, where he came from and how he fit in, Jason B used his finely honed martial arts skills, his mastery of disguise and his formula 1 level driving abilities.</p>
<p>All we need is the ability to read and the curiosity to get started.</p>
<hr />
<p>Postscript</p>
<p>It is a truth universally acknowledged that it wouldn’t be possible to read history books if no one was writing history books. I would like to acknowledge the incredibly hard and valuable work of historians, sometimes spending 5 to 10 years of their lives to produce a single book (that we then devour in a matter of weeks). History is one of the relatively few academic disciplines where the professionals haven’t disappeared over the horizon into inaccessible journals and continue to write serious books for ordinary people, providing a wide range of high quality and well researched new history books to choose from every year (see 2021 history books as an example). I’m sure also that the financial rewards for writing a history book are typically not very big even when it sells reasonably well. So if you are reading this as a historian and author: thank you.</p>
Scenes from Prehistoric Life - review
Anthony Webb
4070 years ago on the east coast of Britain a small community of about 200 people built a circular wooden palisade about 7 metres across. Right in the centre of this circle of upright timbers was an...
2021-11-12T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/12/scenes-from-prehistoric-life/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1789544157.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Scenes from Prehistoric Life - review" /><p>Our review of Scenes from Prehistoric Life: From the Ice Age to the Coming of the Romans, by Francis Pryor, first published in August 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>An excellent book but it comes with some health warnings: you will need to dig it out from the layers of memoir that have accumulated above it, the judgements can be rather wayward, and the author recycles some his previous material.</p><p>If you can accept this you will be presented with a series of fascinating and remarkable snapshots from the lives of the peoples of pre-historic Britain, making a great introduction to the subject.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <p>4070 years ago on the east coast of Britain a small community of about 200 people built a circular wooden palisade about 7 metres across. Right in the centre of this circle of upright timbers was an oak tree. The oak tree was placed there by the same group of people. How can we be so sure? Well it clearly hadn’t grown there because it was upside down with the roots in the air and the top of the tree was buried in the soil.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What would make 200 of your relatives dig up an oak tree, plant it again but the wrong way up, and surround the whole thing with a solid timber wall?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is the site now known as Seahenge, described by the author Francis Pryor, who acts as our tour guide in <em>Scenes from Prehistoric Life: From the Ice Age to the Coming of the Romans</em>. He expertly selects archaeological sites and finds to help us build up a picture of what our ancestors might have been up to for the last 10,000 years or so.</p>
<p>The level of detail can be remarkable.</p>
<h3 id="uncanny-precision" tabindex="-1">Uncanny precision</h3>
<p>Going back to Seahenge: when I said 4070 years ago I wasn’t rounding. Writing now in 2021 Pryor tells us that it is <em>exactly</em> 4070 years ago in 2049 BCE when the trees were cut down, which we can tell from a variety of dating techniques. To be more precise: the spring or early summer of this year, judging by the condition of the wood (“springy” I suppose).</p>
<p>If your ancestors had children on average at age 20 this is 203.5 generations ago, so when your great x201 grandfather was a 10 year old boy.</p>
<p>After examining every piece of timber and the oak tree extremely carefully, archaeologists determined that at least 50 axes had been used in its construction. They were able to do this because every axe leaves a slightly different cut mark “signature”. Because bronze axes were not so common at this time – Pryor suggests that in modern terms a bronze axe at this time would have cost as much as a car – we can assume that most people would have only owned one (except for a few wealthy show-offs who might have had a large family axe and then a smaller faster one for the weekends).</p>
<p>Assuming 50 axes = 50 people Pryor then suggests that this would mean a group of about 200 people – allowing for non-tree felling compatriots (children, old people, and those doing the domestic chores).</p>
<h3 id="what-were-they-up-to%3F" tabindex="-1">What were they up to?</h3>
<p>So why did they do it? What would make 200 of your relatives dig up an oak tree, plant it again but the wrong way up, and surround the whole thing with a solid timber wall?</p>
<p>Pryor tells us a key clue may be a bit of coffin found in a nearby burial mound. Perhaps then, placed in the upturned roots of the oak tree and exposed to the air would have been an open wooden casket. Seahenge becomes the site of a sky burial in which the body of the person who has died is exposed to the elements and the birds – and bigger wild animals kept out – until only the skeleton is left.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Once the circle of timbers and the inverted central oak tree had been set in place, the funeral rites could begin. The body would have been carried into the shrine through the single narrow entranceway. It was probably then ceremoniously place on top of the inverted tree roots, which formed an outstretched, hand-like surface… I have often written about the extraordinary smell of tannin on the air when I first entered the completed reconstruction of the Seahenge timber enclosure… One must imagine such a strong smell during the ceremonies, compounded no doubt by darkness, fire and the sound of rhythmical drumming.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Francis Pryor, Scenes from Prehistoric Life</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>This was not an evening your 10 year old great x201 grandfather would forget in a hurry – it might even, extrapolating from Pryor – have been the first time he got plastered.</p>
<h3 id="what-does-the-book-cover%3F" tabindex="-1">What does the book cover?</h3>
<p>Francis Pryor has written 15 digestible chapters of about 20 pages each, describing 2 or 3 of these archaeological sites from pre-history (until the Romans arrive). This is a huge span of time with the first site being over 500,000 years ago (some footprints), but apart from this one, the focus is on post ice-age Britain over the last 10,000 years, giving us a flavour of the hunter gatherer types (Mesolithic), then the farmers (Neolithic), then farmers with bronze (bronze age), then farmers with iron and hill top fortifications (iron age).</p>
<p>Pryor has laid out a nice selection of these sites for us, allowing us a nibble at different times, places and areas of life. For example we looked at the sky-burial of Seahenge above, but we are also shown pre-historic boats, salt-works, trackways, houses and more.</p>
<p>One of Pryor’s key aims is to give us a feel for what people might have been doing and thinking in these olden times: to make the past human and alive.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h3>
<p>While the content selection is excellent I found the style of the book a bit too… personal. This book is about evenly split between actual prehistory and a Francis Pryor memoir. For me the memoirs distracted more than illuminated. Want to know Pryor’s favourite UK holiday destinations, his thoughts on being a teenage tractor driver, or which “A roads” he likes to take to get to Yorkshire? If you do you are in luck. If not you will have to be prepared to zone out periodically.</p>
<h4 id="heroic-archaeology" tabindex="-1">Heroic archaeology</h4>
<p>More problematic is the way in which he seems to arrive at fairly heroic archaeological conclusions based on these personal experiences. For example in one scene he describes the excavation of a prehistoric salt works: there are some open air sea-water evaporation ditches, fire-pits to boil off the remaining water etc. So far so good.</p>
<p>He then goes on to say that it “seems likely” that the work would have been done by “selected members of several related families” and that “many… would have been young adults…”. He describes his own experience as a 16 year old tractor driver: he worked hard but had a great time. With this insight – and no other evidence – he suspects that “the people working the salterns would probably have seen the time in the marshes as something of a holiday: a refreshing break from the routines of the farming year.”</p>
<p>Maybe… or maybe they were malnourished slave labourers who were beaten terribly and cried every night. This conclusion is based on my experience of being forced to do the hoovering by my parents aged 12 even when I really wanted to go outside to play football. Of course I can’t say “trust me: I’m an archaeologist” whereas Pryor can…</p>
<h3 id="standing-up-for-the-old-guys" tabindex="-1">Standing up for the old guys</h3>
<p>I suspect that part of the reason for Pryor’s approach (which is repeated throughout the book) is that too often he has seen prehistoric people being portrayed either as uncultured cavemen or as constantly warring tribes whereas instead they were just humans like us. But he ends up over-compensating and by displaying them as unchanging paragons of community virtue (over thousands and thousand of years), he risks ending up with another unhelpful stereotype. The “noble ancestor” is an upgrade from the “noble savage” but it is still a caricature.</p>
<h4 id="have-i-read-this-somewhere-before%3F" tabindex="-1">Have I read this somewhere before?</h4>
<p>One other thing to be aware of before buying this book is that I suspect it overlaps quite heavily with prior Pryor works. I was skim reading his book on Stonehenge from 2016 (<em>Stonehenge: The Story of a Sacred Landscape</em>) to see if he had updated his conclusions in this book and found that far from it: the section he includes in Scenes from Prehistoric Life on Stonehenge is more or less identical to what had written before.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>There is an excellent book in here but it comes with some health warnings: you will need to dig it out from the layers of memoir that have accumulated above it, you may find some of the judgements rather wayward, and you will need to check that you haven’t already read the same stuff in the author’s other books.</p>
<p>If you can accept this you will be presented with a series of fascinating and remarkable snapshots from the lives of the peoples of pre-historic Britain that are a great introduction to the subject. While it won’t bring your drunk great x203 grandad back to life it does a sterling effort to present his good side to the rest of the family.</p>
The Enlightenment - review
Andy Salisbury
Citizens of the world
The author, Ritchie Robertson, is a professor of German language and literature at the University of Oxford. His treatment of the Enlightenment is broad, both in terms of subject...
2021-11-05T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/11/05/the-enlightenment/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0062410652.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Enlightenment - review" /><p>Our review of The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790, by Ritchie Robertson, first published in November 2020.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>One of the most absorbing history books I have read for some time. At 780 pages long, excluding notes and bibliography, it is long and packed full of information. I’m not sure how much of that information I retained, but I enjoyed reading it.</p><p>The range of topics covered is enormous, and you’re bound to find something in it that will interest you and make you think about seemingly familiar ideas in a new way.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <h3 id="citizens-of-the-world" tabindex="-1">Citizens of the world</h3>
<p>The author, Ritchie Robertson, is a professor of German language and literature at the University of Oxford. His treatment of the Enlightenment is broad, both in terms of subject matter and geographic scope. The Enlightenment has historically been associated principally with France, but Ritchie Robertson gives due weight to ideas coming from throughout Europe and North America, with German ideas, in particular, being covered comprehensively.</p>
<h3 id="the-pursuit-of-happiness" tabindex="-1">The pursuit of happiness</h3>
<p>Unintentionally, Ritchie Robertson’s The Enlightenment was an interesting complement to the previous book I reviewed, Robin Lane Fox’s Augustine. Like Augustine, this is a book about ideas. But in this case, the ideas explored are quite different from those put forward by Augustine. Augustine, and his Confessions, are referred to in various places in The Enlightenment, invariably by way of contrast. It could be argued that a defining theme of the Enlightenment was a reaction against the medieval Christian way of thinking that Augustine was so instrumental in formulating. Whereas Augustine advocated a rejection of worldly materialism in favour of other-worldly spirituality, the ‘Enlighteners’ (a catch all phrase used by Ritchie Robertson to describe Enlightenment thinkers) sought practical ways of increasing people’s enjoyment of the here and now; how to pursue happiness in this life, rather than the life to come.</p>
<p>In my previous review, I noted that part of the interest, and challenge, of Robin Lane Fox’s book on Augustine was exploring a mindset alien to my own: mystical, other-worldly, spiritual. In contrast, there are strong parallels between the ideas put forward by the Enlighteners, and the predominate way of thinking in the modern developed world: Enlighteners advocated religious tolerance, freedom of thought and speech, cosmopolitanism, constitutional government, scientific progress and various other nice things that we would struggle to disagree with today. In summarising ‘What is Enlightenment’ Immanuel Kant challenged us to use our own reasoned and independent judgment, free from religious authority or superstition; in his phrase, sapere aude (dare to know).</p>
<h3 id="good-sense" tabindex="-1">Good sense</h3>
<p>What this book made me realise is that this familiarity presents its own challenges: in particular, it can be a burden in understanding the ideas of the Enlighteners on their own terms. Political thinkers and commentators in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and through to this day, have used the Enlightenment as a convenient scapegoat for whatever subsequent ideology or aspect of modernity they did not like. It’s been blamed for the communism, fascism, capitalism, western imperialism, global warming, and various other perceived bad things. Trying to see the Enlightenment in its historical context through the noise of contemporary preoccupations can be a struggle.</p>
<p>So part of the value of this book is that it challenges stereotypical ideas about what the Enlighteners thought and advocated. For example, the emphasis the Enlighteners placed on ‘reason’ can be misleading. Reason, as advocated in this period, often meant something closer to ‘good sense’ or ‘common sense’, rather than merely pure rationality. And ‘sense’ was important, because the Enlightenment was also a movement away from the Cartesian rationalism and deductive reasoning of the early seventeenth century. Much greater emphasis was put on empiricism and the concept of testing ideas against the realities of the perceived world. The model for the thinking of this time was science, and in particular Newtonian physics. The Enlightenment has been accused of promoting a cold dehumanising rationality (with the ideas of Jeremy Bentham taking centre stage in this interpretation). But many Enlighteners, such as David Hume, also stressed the importance of the ‘passions’ (i.e. emotions) and sympathy and sociability between people.</p>
<h3 id="the-enlightenment-versus-god" tabindex="-1">The Enlightenment versus God</h3>
<p>Another stereotype is that the Enlightenment was anti-religious. But, whilst some atheistic ideas did emerge in this period, atheism was still relatively rare. Many Enlighteners tended towards Deism, advocating a less interventionist God stripped of superstition. Enlightenment ideas came from priests and monks within the Catholic and Protestant Churches. Enlightenment and reform also occurred within Christianity, with the Catholic Church having its own ‘Enlightenment’ Pope, Benedict XIV, between 1740 and 1758. Antagonism between religion on one hand, and philosophy and science on the other, became much more pronounced in the nineteenth century, when each side of the debate increasingly saw the views of the other as inimical to their own, and our tendency to see the two as incompatible is, to an extent, a product of developments which occurred after the Enlightenment.</p>
<h3 id="an-encyclopaedia-for-the-enlightenment" tabindex="-1">An encyclopaedia for the Enlightenment</h3>
<p>One of the most notable characteristics of the book is the enormous range of topics discussed. In 780 pages of principal text, it can feel at times like the book is recounting everything anyone of note wrote about in this period. To name just a few of the issues covered, the book includes discussions of ideas in philosophy, religion, science, medicine, politics, economics, literature and aesthetics. Diverse topics ranging from road building through to animal rights are ticked off. I can imagine one criticism of this book might be that it lacks coherence. Although I would not agree with that, it is true that the style of the book can feel at times encyclopaedic, and certainly, in my case, the names of many of the thinkers referred to entered my brain, and then left, pretty quickly. But overall this range was, for me, a strength of the book. It is the type of book that you will want to keep on your shelf and dip back into in from time to time in the future. And the author ensures the book is not merely a series of quotations. His commentary and analysis are insightful, and he provides coherence to the topics covered, in particular in his excellent opening and closing chapters.</p>
<h3 id="was-there-an-enlightenment%3F" tabindex="-1">Was there an Enlightenment?</h3>
<p>The issue of coherence is linked to one of the questions that might be asked about the Enlightenment: was there any such thing? It has inevitably become fashionable to refer to ‘Enlightenments’ rather than ‘The Enlightenment’ (historians love pluralising things). Personally, I’m not sure how important these types of debates are. But the author is of the opinion that there was such a thing as ‘The Enlightenment’ and does a good job of justifying that by demonstrating cohesion around some key themes and ideas, together with a high degree of interaction among the thinkers, politicians and administrators of that time.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>This book is a highly readable overview of ideas emerging at a turning point in European intellectual history, with many of those ideas having continued relevance to this day.</p>
The Fall of Robespierre - review
Anthony Webb
GREAT CONSPIRACY. Today would have been one of the greatest events that France has ever known if conspiracy had had its way.
Celestin Guittard de Floriban
What had so shocked Parisian diarist...
2021-10-29T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/10/29/the-fall-of-robespierre/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0198715951.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Fall of Robespierre - review" /><p>Our review of The Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Revolutionary Paris, by Colin Jones, first published in August 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Colin Jones tells the story of Robespierre’s vertiginous fall over the course of a single day: from the voice of the Revolution to its victim. It is fascinating to trace what happens when those in power give orders, people decide whether or not to go along with them, and then… everything goes crazy.</p><p>If you have any interest in the French Revolution, or politics in general, or the “processes of history” you will find The Fall of Robespierre a riveting, rigorous and thought-provoking read.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<p>GREAT CONSPIRACY. Today would have been one of the greatest events that France has ever known if conspiracy had had its way.</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Celestin Guittard de Floriban</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>What had so shocked Parisian diarist Celestin Guittard de Floriban were the earth-shaking events of 27 July 1794 that culminated in the execution by guillotine of Maximillian Robespierre, who only 24 hours before had been at the height of power in Revolutionary France.</p>
<p>Diarist Floriban himself is a very ordinary sort of chap and far from the height of power, even if he happens to live relatively close to it in the South of the city of Paris. 69 years old, a widower and small time landlord, he keeps a diary of the ordinary events in his life and the goings on around him. For example: 24th July 1794 temperature 23 degrees, 36 people guillotined. 25th July 1794 23 degrees, 38 people guillotined. 26th July 1794 still 23 degrees, 52 people executed. When he makes love to his “long-term dining companion” Madame Sellier he will put an asterisk in the margin of his diary.</p>
<p>It was the events of 27 July 1794 – or 9 Thermidor Year II according to the new Revolutionary Calendar – that moved him to uncharacteristically dramatically record his view of the CONSPIRACY that had threatened all of France.</p>
<p>Colin Jones, author of “The Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Revolutionary Paris” introduces us to citizen Floriban and many other people from the streets, squares and houses of Paris on 27 July.</p>
<h3 id="the-people-have-spoken" tabindex="-1">The people have spoken</h3>
<p>The great success of the book is that it mixes the ordinary and everyday (people going to work, noting the temperature, grumbling about wages) and the sensational (the revolt of the head of the National Guard, threatening the nations’ politicians with cannon, the outlawing of Robespierre). It also shows you just how far the shocking and unthinkable had been normalised – Floriban calmly noting down the day’s victims of the Guillotine as we saw, or government agents trying to boost the number of people on their execution lists to meet their tough targets.</p>
<p>By telling the story of Robespierre’s dramatic and unexpected fall from grace, Jones gives voice to all these people who in different ways contributed to his misfortune and death – and ultimately to a fundamental reshaping of French Revolutionary Government.</p>
<h3 id="the-smallest-unit-of-history" tabindex="-1">The smallest unit of history</h3>
<p>Because it does this over a single day and in great detail we can see the processes of change operating at the level of individuals – which is after all the most granular unit of history. It is fascinating to trace what happens when those in power give orders, people decide whether or not to go along with them, and then… everything goes crazy. It made me much more attentive to what political power actually means – and the highly uncertain distinction between the illusion of power and its reality.</p>
<h3 id="so-what-did-happen%3F" tabindex="-1">So what did happen?</h3>
<p>After initially being a sort of French 18th Century lib-dem (ie progressive liberal) Robespierre became increasingly radical. This can be seen in his views on capital punishment: initially he was dead against it, before changing his mind and arguing forcefully for the execution of the French King XVI in January 1793. He then went on to push laws through parliament that made it relatively straightforward to kill pretty much anyone should the political accusations grow loud enough. The Law of Suspects of September 1793 came to interpret a political suspect as <em>“Individuals who, without doing anything against freedom, have also done nothing for it.”</em> The jails of Paris were bursting at the hinges even with the steady stream of victims to the executioners.</p>
<p>This radicalism and ruthlessness was viewed by many as principle and purity – revolutionary virtue – and Robespierre grew into a celebrity politician who in some ways embodied the Revolution. Certainly he seemed to consider himself its guardian.</p>
<h3 id="a-conspiracy%2C-but-of-who%3F" tabindex="-1">A conspiracy, but of who?</h3>
<p>So it was bad news for the rest of the political class when he decided in the summer of 1794 that a highly efficient foreign conspiracy originating in London had extended its tendrils into the heart of Paris. For a man of Robespierre’s level of paranoia there was only one thing for it: another round of political mass murder. And if anyone denied the existence of such a conspiracy… well that could only mean they were in on it too!</p>
<p>After a 6 week self-awarded holiday from government duties (he was on the notorious Committee for Public Safety but had absented himself) to mull over this nebulous yet deadly conspiracy, he re-emerged with a speech in the Convention (ie the national parliament) on 26 July 1794 in which he let everyone know that the game would soon be up and heads would roll. But because he didn’t name any names pretty much everybody was terrified that it could be them on the naughty list.</p>
<p>On the following day when a small group of politicians who felt they had nothing to lose started heckling Robespierre and his allies, this grew into an almost unanimous mob of parliamentarians baying for Robespierre’s arrest – probably much to their own surprise. A counter narrative was put in place: instead of a conspiracy against the Revolution, Robespierre himself was the conspirator: conspiring for his own installation as dictator of France. This sets the stage for the dramatic ebb and flow of support for and against Robespierre or the Convention across Paris.</p>
<h3 id="on-the-edge-of-my-train-seat" tabindex="-1">On the edge of my train seat</h3>
<p>The tension I experienced when reading this was remarkable. Even though I knew exactly how it was going to end – Robespierre’s death – the twists and turns had me totally enthralled. From one moment to the next Robespierre’s demise can seem inevitable… and then impossible. And it is not just Robespierre’s fate which hangs in the balance: anyone choosing the losing side in this contest is likely to be killed – and they know it.</p>
<p>It is also fascinating that Robespierre very quickly becomes a passive participant in the power struggles that are taking place around him, even where they take place in his name. You could see the “fall of Robespierre” as something that happens very early on in the day, the rest of the day is about the shifting mass of forces and people that his arrest has set in motion.</p>
<h3 id="a-structural-masterclass" tabindex="-1">A structural masterclass</h3>
<p>Colin Jones manipulates the presentation of these forces with aplomb. The events are carefully linked back to their sources: I was even able to partially fact-check one scene describing the moment of conception of a young master Miquet at around midnight on 27 July. But the evidence never intruded, and I was swept along by the story. Jones’ pacing has a cinematic quality: written in the present tense and starting out with longer meditative chapters, as the excitement builds the chapters get shorter and shorter, building to the crescendo: the storming of “Robespierre HQ” in the Maison Commune. I even found myself looking forward to my commute on the tube – an uninterrupted 40 minutes running around on the streets of late 18th Century Paris, eager to find out what was around the next corner.</p>
<h3 id="any-negatives%3F" tabindex="-1">Any negatives?</h3>
<p>So what are the negatives? It does require some patience to register the names and roles of the many different people who feature in the story, and more so if you are approaching it from a standing start with little background in the period as I was. However for me that made the narrative more authentic: any big historical “event” will by definition involve lots of people.</p>
<h3 id="a-reader-rant" tabindex="-1">A Reader Rant</h3>
<p>The only other thing I would like to bring up probably belongs to the “reader rant” category: Jones has clearly paid a lot attention to the style of the book, making it accessible and drawing the reader in, but he seems to drop the ball on one of his main supporting characters. This is Tallien – the French revolutionary / politician who is credited with lighting the match in the Convention, forming a crucial political alliance the night before and initiating the heckling in parliament that rapidly snowballed into Robespierre’s arrest.</p>
<p>One of Tallien’s key motivations, we are led to believe, is to save his lover Theresa Cabarrus, an ex aristocrat who has been jailed by Robespierre and faces execution. We meet Cabarrus at the beginning of the book in jail, losing weight and becoming ill. Tallien smuggles her a note telling her to “Be as prudent as I’ll be brave and above all stay calm”. Then we see her again barricading herself into her cell in the fear of a prison massacre. Then inexplicably… nothing. Was she freed? Did she get guillotined anyway? Did she and Tallien establish a stable long-term relationship?</p>
<p>Maybe everyone else is fully up to speed with the Tallien-Cabarrus love story but not me: I wanted closure and didn’t get it! Luckily this is real life not fiction and I could find out what happened to her on the internet, but there is no romance in a Wikipedia page…</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Now I’ve got that off my chest I am happy to say that overall this is a classic: living up to the title exactly, it does so with full marks for style and substance. As diarist Floriban might say: <strong>GREAT BOOK</strong>. If you have any interest in the French Revolution, or politics in general, or the “processes of history” you will find “The Fall of Robespierre” a riveting, rigorous and thought-provoking read.</p>
From Rebel to Ruler - review
Anthony Webb
My in-laws like to tell a story about when the communists came to town.
Their home was in a small village just outside the county town, about 5 hours west of Beijing. In the 1930s and 1940s the town...
2021-10-22T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/10/22/from-rebel-to-ruler/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0674988116.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="From Rebel to Ruler - review" /><p>Our review of From Rebel to Ruler: One Hundred Years of the Chinese Communist Party, by Tony Saich, first published in July 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>If you want to understand where the Chinese Communist Party has come from and what shapes its thought today, From Rebel to Ruler is an excellent and fair-minded text.</p><p>But if you are looking for an easy to read history that will bring the period to life, this scholarly work will be a struggle.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <p>My in-laws like to tell a story about when the communists came to town.</p>
<p>Their home was in a small village just outside the county town, about 5 hours west of Beijing. In the 1930s and 1940s the town was overrun by the Japanese and then re-conquered by the Guomindang (the Nationalist Party). The Japanese occupation in particular was a very tragic and traumatic time. When the Red Army came to attack the town in turn, they realised that the high walls that then surrounded it would need to be scaled with ladders – and that they would need to make the ladders.</p>
<p>The Communist army troops visited the houses in the village and asked to borrow tools – my grandfather-in-law was asked to hand over an axe.</p>
<p>The soldier who took it carefully wrote out a receipt for the axe, signed it and left the note with them.</p>
<p>After the night time battle, the town won, the most incredible thing happened: a soldier came and returned the axe.</p>
<p>This was so unexpected – a soldier actually giving something back – that it has deserved retelling for (so far) three generations.</p>
<p>It wasn’t the same axe, the story goes, but it was still a pretty good one, and well you can’t have everything.</p>
<p>The Communist Party of China has – I believe – profoundly affected more people’s lives than any other political movement in history, punctuating the micro-histories of every family in China. Some stories end well like the one above, others less so.</p>
<p>Tony Saich in “From Rebel to Ruler: One Hundred Years of the Chinese Communist Party” wants to tell the story from the top down, focussing on the leading people and party policies from the time of its founding in 1921 to the centenary in 2021.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-all-about%3F" tabindex="-1">What is all about?</h3>
<p>Whatever your views of the Chinese Communist Party, their story over the last 100 years is incredible: starting from a position of a few thousand members in the 1920s, mainly in the major southern cities, the Chinese Communist Party was almost completely wiped out by an extermination campaign launched without warning by their then ally Chiang Kai-shek of the Nationalist Party. Then, regrouping in the countryside, it was again almost destroyed in a systematic military campaign. The Japanese invasion gave them a reprieve and in the civil war showdown after the Japanese were defeated, again against expectations they came out on top in 1949. The Nationalists were forced to flee the mainland to Taiwan where they remain to this day.</p>
<h3 id="one-step-forward%E2%80%A6" tabindex="-1">One step forward…</h3>
<p>It doesn’t stop there: after consolidating their position in power and keen to deliver on the promises of the revolution, they launched upon the essentially calamitous Great Leap Forward. Encouraged / forced to waste their time on unproductive activities like making useless DIY steel meant people produced less food and many died as a result.</p>
<h3 id="generation-red" tabindex="-1">Generation Red</h3>
<p>This was followed by the Cultural Revolution from 1966 which, Saich tells us, was Mao’s attempt to shake things up so that the younger generation could undergo a “baptism of fire” like the political and social maelstrom that buffeted Mao himself as a young man. The result was</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>a shattered social fabric, with students turning on their teachers and fellow classmates, children encouraged to denounce their parents, workmates fighting one another leading to ridicule and disrespect of authority in all its forms with the exception of the holy writ of Mao.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tony Saich, From Rebel to Ruler</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="things-can-only-get-better" tabindex="-1">Things can only get better</h3>
<p>Finally things calm down a bit after Mao’s death in 1976 and the Communist Party turned its focus to economic objectives rather than prioritising class struggle – generating in the end the incredible economic successes of the 90s and 2000s.</p>
<p>Saich takes us all the way to the present day, musing on the very different communist party that we now see – and tracing the threads that still bind it to the traditions and values of its past.</p>
<h3 id="let-a-thousand-facts-bloom" tabindex="-1">Let a thousand facts bloom</h3>
<p>Saich clearly knows his stuff. The level of political detail is compendious, and he references a wide range of primary and secondary sources. He is also very even handed in his assessments, acknowledging the huge benefits that the Chinese Communist Party has brought to many ordinary Chinese people, but also some of the disastrous mistakes that it has made along the way – and the structural weakness (particularly around leadership succession) that it still faces.</p>
<p>Picking out a few highlights: I enjoyed the section right at the end of the book where Saich expounds on The Importance of History to the Communist Party (it is very important… and I suspect that the Communist Party would see Saich’s history as off-message a lot of the time despite its neutral and factual tone).</p>
<p>I also enjoyed the chapter discussing what led to the Communists winning the civil war in 1949 where I was happy to see that luck was discussed amongst the other factors – something that historians often see it as their duty to explain away rather than acknowledge.</p>
<h3 id="what-about-the-peasantry%3F" tabindex="-1">What about the peasantry?</h3>
<p>What I missed from this book was a sense of why people followed the communist party, particularly in its early years. Because Saich is so focused on the top of the tree, we never get a view from the grass roots. What was it that attracted people? Why did some people devote themselves to the cause, others acquiesce and others resist? After finishing the book I still don’t have a clear idea.</p>
<h3 id="the-curse-of-knowledge" tabindex="-1">The curse of knowledge</h3>
<p>The main weakness of the book is probably linked to just how much stuff Saich does know. The text is written in a style which conveys maximum information in the minimum number of words. There are very few embellishments (such as personal anecdotes) and lots of acronyms. Although I am not a fan of over-personalising history, “From Rebel to Ruler” goes to the other extreme and is only really interested in people as vehicles for national policies.</p>
<p>In combination, this means it is not a book that I would recommend reading from start to finish, as I did! For me the book is best treated as something to dip in and out of – and I suspect it was written primarily with students in mind.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>If you want to understand where the Chinese Communist Party has come from and what shapes its thought today, this is an excellent and fair-minded text. If you want to get the low-down on what was happening at the top at key moments in Chinese twentieth century history this is the book for you. But if you are looking for an easy to read history, from the bottom up – stories of ordinary people getting their axes back… or not – this scholarly work will be a struggle.</p>
Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister - review
Anthony Webb
This is a book about the three most famous sisters in Chinese history: the Soong sisters. They were international celebrities: highly educated, politically pivotal and ridiculously rich. They embodied...
2021-10-15T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/10/15/big-sister-little-sister-red-sister/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1910702781.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister - review" /><p>Our review of Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China, by Jung Chang, first published in October 2019.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>The story of the three Soong sisters bring the politics of early 20th Century China to life – I would recommend it for anyone with an interest in this period.</p><p>Well written and engaging… but the book suffers from explaining critical events simply as the will of the big man – or a reflection of his mistakes. This veneer of superficiality is what prevents a good book from being a great one.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <p>This is a book about the three most famous sisters in Chinese history: the Soong sisters. They were international celebrities: highly educated, politically pivotal and ridiculously rich. They embodied the changes and tensions of early twentieth century China as the country set its political engine-room to warp speed 9: in a little over 30 years the country went from empire, to parliamentary democracy, to warlordism, to quasi-fascist dictatorship to foreign occupation and civil war before becoming a totalitarian one party communist state.</p>
<h3 id="who-were-these-sisters%3F" tabindex="-1">Who were these sisters?</h3>
<p>The Soong sisters lived through this period intimately connected to the political movers and shakers. The youngest sister – Mai-ling – was the wife of the nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. The middle sister – Ching-ling (aka Red Sister) – was the wife of Sun Yat-sen (the father of modern China). Ching-ling was subsequently a devoted supporter of the communists. The eldest sister Ei-ling was married to the nationalist finance minister and direct male-line descendent of Confucius, H.H. Kung. She was also financially astute and shamelessly corrupt, amassing one of the largest fortunes in Republican China.</p>
<h3 id="big-sister%2C-little-sister%2C-red-sister%2C-husband-of-red-sister%2C-husband-of-little-sister" tabindex="-1">Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister, Husband of Red Sister, Husband of Little Sister</h3>
<p>By necessity the story is not only about the three sisters. It is as well about the “programme-setters and history-changers” that the author has also researched thoroughly over the last few years.</p>
<p>So Sun Yat-sen the aforementioned “father” of modern China, and Chiang Kai-shek the nationalist leader / dictator get at least as much if not more attention.</p>
<p>This is partly because the sisters lives are so bound up with these two towering figures, but also because Jung Chang portrays history as a fundamentally personal process and so wants to get as close as possible to the people who “made history”: what were the motives for their decisions and how did their personalities affect the course of events.</p>
<p>Getting close to in this case means giving the dirty laundry a good airing.</p>
<h3 id="sun-yat-sen%2C-the-bad-father-of-china" tabindex="-1">Sun Yat-sen, the bad father of China</h3>
<p>Sun Yat-sen’s sheet inspection is particularly interesting. I have come across him in other books where he is presented as a slightly otherworldly sage-like politician who was a key inspiration for the creation of post-empire republican China but refused to sully himself with the direct exercise of political power.</p>
<p>In Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister he is the polar opposite: a two-dimensional megalomaniac douche-bag. The reason he didn’t achieve ultimate power was not reticence, it was incompetence.</p>
<h3 id="puncturing-the-mystique" tabindex="-1">Puncturing the mystique</h3>
<p>To illustrate this with an example from the book: in 1922 Sun was inciting an army under his nominal control to launch an unprovoked attack on the democratically elected government in Beijing in order to install himself as president. When the commander of these soldiers refused to do as he was told Sun publicly threatened to shell him and his troops with poison gas. Thus provoked the commander then attacked Sun’s (fortified) house / palace in Canton in order to force Sun from office.</p>
<p>Quietly sneaking away before the attack started, Sun left his then pregnant wife Ching-ling (the titular Red Sister) to hold the outnumbered, outgunned and surrounded fort. When they were almost out of ammunition she decided that she had to make a run for it. Under heavy fire, with attendants shot and killed beside her, she began an exhausting two day ordeal that included fainting, feigning death in the middle of the street, and tragically suffering a miscarriage that meant that she was never able to have children.</p>
<p>Meanwhile and early in the attack Sun had reach his gunboats close off-shore and was now shelling Canton more or less indiscriminately.</p>
<h3 id="using-his-wife-as-bait" tabindex="-1">Using his wife as bait</h3>
<p>During this entire episode he had done absolutely nothing to help his pregnant wife, not even sending word that he was safe aboard his boat – which he had reached even before the attack began. According to Chang “Sun clearly intended to make his wife the bait so that the charge would develop into a heated battle. This gave Sun an excuse to bombard Canton from his gunboats.”</p>
<p>These are not the actions of a dreamy revolutionary who only wanted the best for China, they are consistent with a man who was willing to see the Chinese people suffer – including those closest to him – in order to satisfy his outsized ambition.</p>
<p>In telling the story of Ching-ling, Ei-ling and Mai-ling Chang wants to provide a window into the politics of the period and shine a light on some uncomfortable truths.</p>
<h3 id="the-writing-style" tabindex="-1">The writing style</h3>
<p>The book is written in a breezy and accessible style. I found it easy to read with a clear narrative thread. Chang expertly blends the life stories of the three sisters to guide us through the history of early modern China.</p>
<p>She also has a good eye for an anecdote: with perhaps the most memorable one being the toilet habits of the first president of China Yuan Shi-kai (new fangled flushing toilets in the presidential palace were less comfortable than his trusty old wooden poo stool – and we can guess it wasn’t him cleaning up the mess).</p>
<p>Overall it is enjoyable and packed with detail. However it suffers in my view from an important flaw.</p>
<h3 id="the-pitfalls-of-biography-as-history" tabindex="-1">The pitfalls of biography as history</h3>
<p>Written in biographical style the book explains all of the key historical events as the outcome of personal decisions.</p>
<p>In some cases this leaves big unanswered questions. For example: Sun Yat-sen is described as the number one villain who undermined democratic republican China because he was quite willing to destroy the fragile but precious political equilibrium in order to satisfy his personal lust for power. The final blow came when he effectively promised away huge tracts of traditionally Chinese territory to Soviet Russia in exchange for the training of a well drilled modern army that – after his death – was used to crush the parliamentary system.</p>
<p>I can accept that Sun Yat-sen was reprehensible particularly to those who stood in his way. I can accept too that he was willing to cut shady deals with foreign powers that were in his but not China’s interest – presumably he meant to break any promises he made. (Although I should point out that these are two very inflammatory statements even today.)</p>
<h3 id="leadership-in-a-vacuum" tabindex="-1">Leadership in a vacuum</h3>
<p>But what we are not told is why people still followed his lead? Why did his opinion matter? What was it that made people listen to him? Without influence all these destructive dreams mean nothing. I am non the wiser after reading this account, but to say it was all Sun’s fault seems superficial to say the least.</p>
<p>In other cases Chang’s biography as history approach seems unbelievable bordering on preposterous.</p>
<h3 id="for-want-of-a-son%E2%80%A6-the-kingdom-was-lost" tabindex="-1">For want of a son… the kingdom was lost</h3>
<p>The clearest example of this is the explanation of why Chiang Kai-shek never managed to destroy the communists in China despite coming close. The author’s explanation is that it was because Chiang’s son was being held hostage in Russia: in order to preserve his son he deliberately refrained from the killer blow. So when the communists (including Mao Zedong) were driven out of the South East of China and had to flee thousands of miles northwards on the “Long March” Jung Chang notes “that the Reds were able to survive it, was fundamentally thanks to Chiang Kai-shek’s design to have his son released.”</p>
<p>In my view this is redundant as a causal explanation and it is inconsistent with all of Chiang’s actions and words that I am aware of. It also denies agency to anyone other than Chiang, and is only necessary if you want to go back to history as the will of “great men” without anyone else getting a look in.</p>
<h3 id="idiosyncratic-interpretations" tabindex="-1">Idiosyncratic interpretations</h3>
<p>The book also stood out for me in its slightly left-field take on some well known events. So for example the “warlord period” of Chinese history – broadly speaking the 1920s – is for Chang an unfairly maligned episode: while there were multiple armies across the country all fighting each other, they weren’t really trying that hard – “Fatalities were low” – and “At the first drop of rain, fighting stopped and the umbrellas were opened, turning the battlegrounds into fields of colourful mushrooms.” Presumably if it had rained all the time no-one would have died at all.</p>
<h3 id="double-plusses" tabindex="-1">Double plusses</h3>
<p>With these health warnings in place: where it really succeeds for me is with the framing of the narrative by the lifetime of the three sisters. With Mei-ling being the last to pass away in 2003, it moves beyond the stopping points of traditional histories. For Chinese history this can often mean 1949 when the communists took power. But Chang diverts us to Taiwan where Mei-ling lived with Chiang Kai-shek and gives us an insight into another 50 years of fascinating changes that are very relevant to the headlines today.</p>
<p>The three sisters also act as natural bridges, between historical periods as noted above, but also between different points of view – with Ching-ling as the Red Sister having a very different outlook on the world to Ei-Ling the Big Sister. And despite these differences in politics they managed to sustain a warm relationship between the three of them that is part of the charm of this book.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>I would recommend this book for anyone with an interest in early 20th Century China. Using the three sisters it brings the politics of the period to life. You will get most out of it if you already have some knowledge of this period because you will then be able to appreciate just how controversial Chang is on occasion – and also weigh up more independently whether you think she is right or wrong in her judgements. It is these judgements – which for me come across as superficial and / or misguided on critical points – that prevent a good book from being a great one.</p>
Personality in popular history
Anthony Webb
Can there be too much personality in popular history?
This post is a rumination on the pitfalls and promises of focussing a history book too much on personality… or not at all. Along the way I will...
2021-10-08T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/10/08/personality-in-popular-history/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1646084236/posts/biography_as_history.png" alt="Personality in popular history" /><p>Can there be too much personality in popular history?</p>
<p>This post is a rumination on the pitfalls and promises of focussing a history book too much on personality… or not at all. Along the way I will touch upon the toilet habits of the first president of the China, the ancient secret to a healthy life, and the views of a talking mouse – so read on.</p>
<hr />
<p>I am currently reading two books (reviews coming soon) covering 20th century Chinese history. While the period they cover is identical the way in which they approach the subject is totally different.</p>
<p>The first book “<em>From Rebel To Ruler: One Hundred Years of the Chinese Communist Party</em>” by Tony Saich has a focus on policy and politics – people are interesting only when they instigate or react to policies. The second “<em>Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth Century China</em>” by Jung Chang is all about people with a focus (so far) on Sun Yat-sen – the “father of China” – and Chiang Kai-shek – the Nationalist party leader.</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1646084236/posts/biography_as_history.png#center" alt="From Rebel Ruler vs Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister" title="From Rebel Ruler vs Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister" /></p>
<h3 id="all-brains-and-no-brawn" tabindex="-1">All brains and no brawn</h3>
<p>From Rebel to Ruler aims to be comprehensive in its coverage of the political events: Saich is careful that we get to see what is going on in different parts of China and we get full disclosure of all the intra-party machinations.</p>
<p>At the end of each section it reflects on some of the causes of the events that it describes. For example: why was the Chinese communist party successful in taking over China? What is the balance between the various factors: the importance of Soviet support? nationalist feeling provoked by the Japanese invasion? the socio-economic policies of the Communist party? incompetence of their enemies? and just plain luck?</p>
<p>We get very little idea of what the movers and shakers were like as people – were they nice to their romantic partners? were they good to their friends? This is all left unsaid: Saich is only interested in whether they were politically effective or not.</p>
<h3 id="say-that-again%3F" tabindex="-1">Say that again?</h3>
<p>The content is excellent but because it is so dry and analytical it is difficult to absorb. I have found myself needing to re-read paragraphs because my eyes slid over the page without making any sense of the words. Although – full disclosure – lack of sleep from looking after a restless two year old has also had an effect.</p>
<p>So it is great stuff but I suspect my retention rate will be pretty poor when I am finished.</p>
<h3 id="personality-as-history" tabindex="-1">Personality as history</h3>
<p>Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister on the other hand tells us a lot about what the movers and shakers were like as people. For example when introduced to Yuan Shikai the first president of China we are told that:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“Yuan’s personal habits were conservative. After bathrooms were introduced to the presidential palace, he still eschewed the flush toilet, preferring his old wooden stool” (sic)</p>
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<p>Jung Chang, <em>Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister</em></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>And if that’s not enough personal detail:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“The route to a healthy life for him was the ancient Chinese recipe of drinking human milk; two wet nurses were employed to squeeze their milk into a bowl for him.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Jung Chang, <em>Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister</em></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>I’m not going to forget that in a hurry… but did I need to know it in the first place?</p>
<h3 id="great-men-of-history-%E2%80%93-but-what-about-everyone-else%3F" tabindex="-1">Great men of history – but what about everyone else?</h3>
<p>Politics as described by Chang is basically biography: the battle of wills between powerful men (who sometimes listened to their wives). The reason the Chinese republic failed for instance is in large part due to the megalomania of Sun Yat-sen who sold-out China to the Russians in order to finance his modern army (later inherited by Chiang Kai-shek).</p>
<p>And because biography is fundamental to the book we get the scandalous details of Sun Yat-sen’s private life: he was happy to use and discard anyone he came across, from his wives and concubines to his brother and children, seemingly qualmless.</p>
<p>But we don’t get to hear about why so many people did follow and respond to Sun. He becomes a cipher for a socio-political movement but that movement itself is anonymous. Is Sun riding a horse steering at will, or riding a wave and following the current? We are left guessing.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-your-learning-outcome%3F" tabindex="-1">What is your learning outcome?</h3>
<p>I am really enjoying the book but what am I learning? I suspect I will come away with a bunch of anecdotes which I can use to needle my wife (who is from China and Chinese friends (Sun Yat-sen is still seen as a pretty great guy). But no real understanding of why things turned out as they did.</p>
<h3 id="the-benefits-of-biographical-bridging" tabindex="-1">The benefits of biographical bridging</h3>
<p>One aspect of biographical history that does work well is that a cradle to grave story can go beyond the typical stopping points: for example: life doesn’t stop when the communist party took over China but many history books do. Equally following a lifetime can tie together different historical “periods” in a very natural way.</p>
<h3 id="neither-too-hot-nor-too-cold" tabindex="-1">Neither too hot nor too cold</h3>
<p>So where do I end up? After having denounced right deviation and left deviation I need to make a case for the central ground.</p>
<p>I think popular history needs strong characters because that is how humans tell and remember stories. They can also be an entry point to a different time or place because our brains are hard-wired to empathise.</p>
<p>But if we forget that the characters are a product of their society and that they are constrained in how they operate by that society we end up with “legendary history”: a few heroes using their superhuman powers explain everything. History becomes an-only-slightly-more-sophisticated Just So story. We think we know everything but we understand nothing.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion%3A-celebrate-in-style" tabindex="-1">Conclusion: celebrate in style</h3>
<p>How do we achieve this middle ground? I am a twitter follower of the Mouse Bishop of St Albans (@MouseBishop – surprisingly well informed for a mouse) who worries (on Twitter) that academics are concerned about writing too accessibly as this may make them less credible. As a first step perhaps we have to encourage (compel?) all of our academics to write for the public and celebrate it when they do.</p>
<p>And maybe I also need to be more open minded. Perhaps I should also celebrate more the “biography as history” category because if the choice is reading nothing about the past or reading and enjoying something… the latter is better and may kindle a deeper interest. I should also remember that it wasn’t too long go that I wrote a post arguing that <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/06/11/if-history-is-wrong-does-it-matter/">it doesn’t matter if history is wrong</a> (as long as you try to get it right).</p>
<p>The deeper answer may be that whether it is good or bad, just reading one book is never enough!</p>
Dress Codes - review
Jenny Blakeley
Is fashion frivolous? Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History acknowledges that it can judged to be, but also shows that it is and has been a serious matter. Whether we want them to or not,...
2021-10-01T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/10/01/dress-codes/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1501180061.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Dress Codes - review" /><p>Our review of Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History, by Richard Thompson Ford, first published in February 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Our clothes project an image of us to the world, and how that image has been controlled and read in the past still has an influence on us today. This book gives a fascinating insight into how.</p><p>A great read for anyone interested in fashion, tailoring – or simply social history.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>Is fashion frivolous? Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History acknowledges that it can judged to be, but also shows that it is and has been a serious matter. Whether we want them to or not, our clothes project an image of us to the world, and how that image has been controlled and read in the past still has an influence on us today, and this book gives as an insight into how.</p>
<p>Richard Thompson Ford, the author of Dress Codes, loves suits. Really loves them. And to some extent, he has written a book explaining how all fashion up to the present day leads to suits as the ultimate in menswear. He traces clothing from the “birth of fashion” in the 1300s when men “stopped wearing draped garments and began wearing tailored clothing” to the present day, when he identifies a return from the aberration of athleisure back onto the path of suits. “Young people are,” he claims, “for the first time in half a century, discovering the refined pleasures of tailored clothing … in short, they are experiencing the pleasure of dressing like adults.”</p>
<h3 id="fashion-snapshots-through-time" tabindex="-1">Fashion snapshots through time</h3>
<p>Along the way he provides us with a number of historical fashion-related snapshots. He outlines how clothing has been legally restricted to reflect and shore up status; restrictions on voluminous trousers in the Elizabethan era in England, restrictions on red cloaks in Castile in the 13th century, veil mandates, veil bans. Economic prosperity had led to holders of new money being able to dress like aristocrats: clearly unacceptable. Everyone in Britain is probably familiar with pictures of Henry VIII’s elaborate clothing; it is less well-known that under his reign clothing was restricted according to rank for all strata of society from a ban on serving men using over two-and-a-half yards of cloth for a short gown or three for a long one, to a ban on men under the rank of knight wearing velvet, silk or damask. Cloth of gold and silver was restricted to lords and above. These rules were made yet more complicated and restrictive in Elizabeth I’s reign.</p>
<p>Thompson Ford connects the development from the wearing of draped garments, such as togas, to wearing tailored garments, with an increase in individuality and the ability to show individuality, with the caveat that “Perhaps true individuality in dress is almost never seen. But the ideal of individuality is everywhere, even if it is expressed in the same way by many different people.” He traces the idea of individuality as appearing alongside the emergence of fashion in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance in the West.</p>
<h3 id="dressing-up-and-social-status" tabindex="-1">Dressing up and social status</h3>
<p>He looks at dress codes and concedes that some may be discriminatory, but finds that the absence of written dress codes creates its own problems as they tend to be replaced by unwritten dress codes so entrenched within certain groups that they can almost only be understood by those who already understand them. He argues that even without sumptuary laws, dress indicates status, with those of high status dressing in a way which shows this. While Henry VIII restricted certain types of fabrics, in later eras the upper echelons developed a custom of having different clothing for different activities and times of day, making it unaffordable and impractical for the lower classes to emulate the ton.</p>
<h3 id="the-civil-rights-movement-and-respectable-appearance" tabindex="-1">The civil rights movement and respectable appearance</h3>
<p>A fascinating section on restrictions on and expectations of fashions for Black people in the US looks at the importance of “respectable appearance” in the civil rights movement as a sign of the activists’ seriousness and importance, and the tensions between the proponents of respectable dress and younger protestors in the 1960s who opted for denim clothing as they aimed to emphasise their alliance with rural labourers. In general though, as a UK reader, the sections on the contemporary and recent US are more difficult to truly understand than the sections on European history; this may prove Thompson Ford’s point that the nuances of dress codes (and the even more nebulous idea of good taste) are obscure to outsiders and very easy to get wrong unless you are steeped in that particular culture.</p>
<h3 id="women-and-modesty" tabindex="-1">Women and modesty</h3>
<p>Women’s fashion, according to Thompson Ford, followed a different trajectory to men’s. While men’s clothing was increasingly tailored, women’s remained draped for much longer, particularly over the lower body. While men wore padding during the neo-classical era to try to appear as if their bodies were similar to Greek statues, women wore classical Greek style dresses, updated for the era’s modesty requirements. When men withdrew from bling in the “Great Masculine Renunciation” many of them continued to show off their status by transferring that bling to their wives, mistresses and daughters. Thompson Ford is excellent on the difficulties faced by women in trying to dress themselves appropriately for traditionally male roles and careers. On the subject of suitable attire for lawyers, he comments that “women lawyers have greater freedom in their choice of attire than men… But as a consequence, women are relentlessly judged on their choices.”</p>
<p>Although the book does cover women’s clothing, from nuns to flappers to high school students sent home for showing their collar bones, it often looks at women’s fashion as it relates to men. Thompson Ford is particularly interested in tailoring and where he goes into real detail about clothing it is usually men’s. The sections about women’s clothing tend to focus on social issues and the difficulties professional women face in walking a line in which they are expected to be attractive, but not too attractive, to men.</p>
<h3 id="clothing-past-and-the-present" tabindex="-1">Clothing past and the present</h3>
<p>I found the sections on historical fashion and clothing legislation particularly interesting; although strict laws on clothing seem odd to us in the West today, previous legislation and attitudes have clearly shaped the way we see fashion now. The more contemporary sections of the book trod more familiar ground resulting in fewer “wow!” moments.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>How Dress Codes will naturally appeal to people who already have an interest in fashion but also contains lots that will be of interest to people who believe themselves to be above all that. A great read for anyone interested in fashion, tailoring – or simply social history.</p>
Past Mistakes - review
Anthony Webb
Close your eyes and conjure up an image of Christopher Columbus… Did you do it? What did you see?
If you are anything like me you will envisage a cheerful little fellow wearing a captains hat,...
2021-09-24T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/24/past-mistakes/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1785786628.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Past Mistakes - review" /><p>Our review of Past Mistakes: How We Misinterpret History and Why it Matters, by David Mountain, first published in November 2020.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Past Mistakes will open up new perspectives: in a refreshing and accessible way, despite the seriousness of the subject matter. And even where the book treads familiar ground, Mountain’s engaging style and talent for synthesis makes the revision worthwhile.</p><p>So unless you are already an expert in all the topics covered you will find plenty to enjoy.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>Close your eyes and conjure up an image of Christopher Columbus… Did you do it? What did you see?</p>
<p>If you are anything like me you will envisage a cheerful little fellow wearing a captains hat, pantaloons and buckled shoes, perhaps stepping onto the sandy beach of a newly discovered American island with some picturesque palm trees framing the scene.</p>
<p>Now contrast this with the picture painted by David Mountain in “Past Mistake: How We Misinterpret History and Why it Matters“</p>
<p>In the first two years of the establishment of slavery on Hispaniola [the ‘New World’ discovered by Columbus], an estimated 50,000 natives died from disease, starvation and overwork. Tens of thousands more chose to take their own lives rather than endure the hellish system of enslavement established by Columbus. In 1492 Hispaniola was home to anywhere between 300,000 and 1 million indigenous people. By 1548 that number had dropped to about 500. An entire people were lost within a single lifetime.
David Mountain, Past Mistakes</p>
<p>Clearly the common “western” mental image of Christopher Columbus / Cristobal Colon / Cristoforo Colombo is far removed from the reality of a rapacious adventurer who, along with his gangsterish brothers, was quite happy to tyrannise, abuse and kill to achieve power, wealth and fame. This applies equally to his relations with the Spanish colonists under his rule as it does to the Tainos, who were living on the island of Hispaniola when he arrived.</p>
<p>This is not a modern revelation. Mountain tells us that Columbus the psychopathic tyrant is a well documented phenomenon and has been written about in English since the end of the 19th Century. But the mental image of happy-go-lucky adventurer who boldly went into the ocean blue where no-one had gone before is the one that sticks.</p>
<p>Partly this is because the “bold Columbus” narrative slots nicely into the traditional national histories that have helped formed the identities of both European and American states – or at least groups within them. Contradicting that narrative can then be seen as an attack on identity and therefore rejected by the cultural immune system. But whether or not it is comfortable to acknowledge doesn’t change whether or not it is true.</p>
<p>As Mountain puts it:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>it’s impossible to deny the role of history in shaping our perceptions of society, both past and present…. History, whether we like it or not, has an annoying habit of being relevant.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>David Mountain, Past Mistakes</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>“Past Mistakes” can be read as an attempt to identify and debunk some of the most persistent and pernicious historical myths that we still lug around with us as mental baggage today. Mountain is doing his bit to overturn our comfortable view of the past to reveal the complexity that lies underneath. He wants us to replace Columbus the cartoon with Columbus the killer. In doing so we achieve a better understand of what has created our present.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-in-the-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s in the book?</h3>
<p>His nine shibboleths are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Hunter gatherers are primitive</li>
<li>Pythagoras was good at maths</li>
<li>The barbarians were the bad guys</li>
<li>The dark ages was full of dimwits</li>
<li>Columbus discovered America and was a nice chap</li>
<li>The natural place for women is in the home</li>
<li>National historical narratives are reliable</li>
<li>The pyramids were built by aliens (/ any other archaeo-conspiracy theory you can think of)</li>
<li>The American wild west was a violent gun-toting free-for-all</li>
</ol>
<p>You can see immediately that his targets are pretty varied – and each chapter can be read as a standalone essay. I jumped around to read the ones that took my fancy first and this didn’t interfere with the flow of the book.</p>
<h3 id="an-easy-target%3F" tabindex="-1">An easy target?</h3>
<p>Some of his targets are fairly well battered already. I’m not sure that many people now would agree with John Milton who (writing in the 17th century) depicted the Dark Ages as a time of “blind illiteracy” populated with “utterly stupid monks”. In fact I scarcely even hear the term Dark Ages these days, instead the reference is to the Middle Ages.</p>
<p>However even where Mountain has chosen a soft target, he explores the subject in an engaging way, giving us some of the historiography – how was it that it became called the dark ages in the first place? – before opening out the historical perspective and applying the coffin nails. For example we hear of the brilliant Byzantines and the intellectually enlightened Islamic world.</p>
<h3 id="horses-for-courses%3A-a-pic-%E2%80%98n%E2%80%99-mix-approach" tabindex="-1">Horses for courses: a pic ‘n’ mix approach</h3>
<p>Of course while picking on medieval monks for their “ignorance, stupidity and superstition” (David Hume) might seem old fashioned to me it might be less so for others – so different chapters will appeal to different people.</p>
<p>I tended to enjoy most the subjects I knew least about: for example reading that Pythagoras, the supposed father of right angles triangles, was actually a mystic cult leader who only bothered with maths when it helped with his numerology.</p>
<p>Conversely where I had already read quite a lot about the subject – such as hunter gatherers and the origin of farming – I sometimes found Mountains enthusiastic debunking a bit annoying. And at times his over-exuberance in setting the record straight can seem to echo in style the archaeological conspiracy theorists he dislikes so much.</p>
<h3 id="over-egging-it%3F" tabindex="-1">Over egging it?</h3>
<p>For example Mountain reporting back from the famous hunter-gatherer-crop-grower archaeological site Gobekli Tepe quotes “all our theories were wrong” while we read in the bestselling but bonkers Magicians of the Gods on the same site that “everything we have been taught about the origins of civilisation could be wrong” (Graham Hancock).</p>
<p>Of course Hancock then goes on to talk about Atlantis and aliens while the Mountain instead grounds us in warnings against excessive agriculturalophilism (my word). But there is a reason for this (occasional) similarity in style, which is that Mountain – like Hancock – is not primarily interested in a balanced assessment. Mountain is interested in presenting the “other side” of the argument and can therefore sometimes be guilty of overstating his case.</p>
<h3 id="nicely-put" tabindex="-1">Nicely put</h3>
<p>Mountain writes well with a clear refreshing style. Each of his chapters crams in a lot of content but keeps it pretty punchy – I found I could get through a chapter per tube journey to work. This means it is an easy book to pick up and get stuck into, or indeed to recommend.</p>
<p>In fact I would only not recommend Past Mistakes if you are already well versed in all of Mountain’s chosen topics. If this is you: well done! but you probably won’t get a lot out of this book.</p>
<p>I suspect most of us will find plenty to enjoy.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Past Mistakes will open some new perspectives: in a light, refreshing and accessible way, despite the seriousness of the subject matter. Even where the topics are reasonably familiar, Mountain’s engaging style and talent for synthesis makes the revision worthwhile.</p>
Trauma or nostalgia? What does history mean in the USA 🇺🇸 and the UK 🇬🇧?
Anthony Webb
I have lived all my life in the UK and have a certain idea about what history is. But history can mean different things to different people. How is my UK perspective on the subject different from a...
2021-09-19T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1646083485/posts/UKvsUS.png" alt="Trauma or nostalgia? What does history mean in the USA 🇺🇸 and the UK 🇬🇧?" /><p>I have lived all my life in the UK and have a certain idea about what history is. But history can mean different things to different people. How is my UK perspective on the subject different from a United Statesian’s for example? What is the best way to study this difference? And why should we care?</p>
<p></p><div class="toc_list"><hr /><h3><strong>Contents</strong></h3><p><i>Links are to the headings in the article below</i></p><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#the-top-12-history-books-in-the-us-right-now%3A">The top 12 history books in the US right now:</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#the-top-12-bestselling-history-books-in-the-uk%3A">The top 12 bestselling history books in the UK:</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#history-in-the-uk-and-history-in-the-us-is-not-the-same%E2%80%A6">History in the UK and history in the US is not the same…</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#%E2%80%A6but-we-share-some-common-interests">…but we share some common interests</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#in-the-uk-history-ends-with-world-war-2%E2%80%A6">In the UK history ends with World War 2…</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#%E2%80%A6in-the-us-history-is-still-happening">…In the US history is still happening</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#history-is-authority-in-the-us%2C-in-the-uk-it-is-for-pleasure">History is authority in the US, in the UK it is for pleasure</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#nostalgia-in-the-uk">Nostalgia in the UK</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#trauma-in-the-us">Trauma in the US</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#the-dangers-of-over-interpretation">The dangers of over-interpretation</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#keep-reading!">Keep reading!</a></li></ol><hr /></div><p></p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1646083485/posts/UKvsUS.png#center" alt="A US and a UK history book" title="A US history book bestseller and a UK history book bestseller" /></p>
<p>In this post I will be exploring some of the – for me – surprising answers to these questions.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>England and America are two countries separated by the same language</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>George Bernard Shaw, perhaps partly contemplating history books <sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>One way to compare attitudes to history in the UK and US is to look at the history bestseller lists here and there. If it is not just the same list twice (which it isn’t) what are the similarities and what are the differences?</p>
<p>And the “why” is that the history books we choose to read tell us a lot about our preoccupations in the present. We will gain an insight into British and North American society now, by examining what interests us most from the past.</p>
<p>So what are the history bestsellers<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup> in the UK and the US?</p>
<h3 id="the-top-12-history-books-in-the-us-right-now%3A" tabindex="-1">The top 12 history books in the US right now:</h3>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1646170450/pophist_static/USflag.png#center" alt="US flag" /></p>
<div class="grid_book_small">
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0062316117.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="A Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind" title="A Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0393418243.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Give Me Liberty!" title="Give Me Liberty!" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/154173033X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Hero Of Two Worlds: The Marquis De Lafayette In The Age Of Revolution" title="Hero Of Two Worlds: The Marquis De Lafayette In The Age Of Revolution" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1637582617.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Red, White, And Black: Rescuing American History From Revisionists And Race Hustlers" title="Red, White, And Black: Rescuing American History From Revisionists And Race Hustlers" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1465475850.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Smithsonian: History Of The World Map By Map" title="Smithsonian: History Of The World Map By Map" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0307742482.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Killers Of The Flower Moon" title="Killers Of The Flower Moon" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0062397346.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="A People's History of the United States" title="A People's History of the United States" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0316296619.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, A Temptation, And The Longest Night Of The Second World War" title="The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, A Temptation, And The Longest Night Of The Second World War" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1631494538.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Color Of Law: A Forgotten History Of How Our Government Segregated America" title="The Color Of Law: A Forgotten History Of How Our Government Segregated America" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0385545681.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Empire Of Pain: The Secret History Of The Sackler Dynasty" title="Empire Of Pain: The Secret History Of The Sackler Dynasty" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0316492930.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="How The Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With The History Of Slavery Across America" title="How The Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With The History Of Slavery Across America" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1620973928.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" title="Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" />
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<h3 id="the-top-12-bestselling-history-books-in-the-uk%3A" tabindex="-1">The top 12 bestselling history books in the UK:</h3>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1646170450/pophist_static/UKflag.png#center" alt="UK flag" /></p>
<div class="grid_book_small">
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1529073405.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Lily's Promise: How I Survived Auschwitz And Found The Strength To Live" title="Lily's Promise: How I Survived Auschwitz And Found The Strength To Live" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0099590085.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind" title="Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1786330997.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Anglo-Saxons: The Roots Of England" title="The Anglo-Saxons: The Roots Of England" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241283981.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The Children Of Ash And Elm: A History Of The Vikings" title="The Children Of Ash And Elm: A History Of The Vikings" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/1788704819.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Traitor King: The Duke And Duchess Of Windsor In Exile" title="Traitor King: The Duke And Duchess Of Windsor In Exile" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008296804.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="The White Ship" title="The White Ship" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241287898.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Josiah Wedgwood: The Man Who Designed Britain" title="Josiah Wedgwood: The Man Who Designed Britain" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/178649647X.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Scoff: A History Of Food And Class In Britain" title="Scoff: A History Of Food And Class In Britain" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0752450115.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="A 1950s Childhood: From Tin Baths To Bread And Dripping" title="A 1950s Childhood: From Tin Baths To Bread And Dripping" />
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<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0751582891.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="52 Times Britain Was A Bellend: The History You Didn't Get Taught At School" title="52 Times Britain Was A Bellend: The History You Didn't Get Taught At School" />
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<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0241986958.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy" title="Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy" />
</div>
<div class="image_cover_container">
<img loading="lazy" class="image_book_cover" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/f_auto/acovers/0008353115.02._SCM_.jpg" alt="River Kings: A New History Of Vikings From Scandinavia To The Silk Roads" title="River Kings: A New History Of Vikings From Scandinavia To The Silk Roads" />
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<h3 id="history-in-the-uk-and-history-in-the-us-is-not-the-same%E2%80%A6" tabindex="-1">History in the UK and history in the US is not the same…</h3>
<p>The first and most obvious thing to say is that the lists are not the same. There is only one book that repeats across the two lists which is <em>Sapians: A Brief History Of Humankind by Noah Harari</em>. All of the books on this list are available for sale in both countries but clearly there is a different set of authors and a different set of history books in each market, with a focus on what happens close to home.</p>
<h3 id="%E2%80%A6but-we-share-some-common-interests" tabindex="-1">…but we share some common interests</h3>
<p>The second is that there are some common themes: both lists feature stories about World War Two: <em>Lily’s Promise: How I Survived Auschwitz and Found the Strength to Live</em>, <em>Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy in the UK</em> and <em>The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, A Temptation, And The Longest Night of the Second World War</em> in the US. This is an event that looms large in the consciousness of people from both countries. If I had included all military history books within my sample we would see an even clearer bias towards the second world war.</p>
<h3 id="in-the-uk-history-ends-with-world-war-2%E2%80%A6" tabindex="-1">In the UK history ends with World War 2…</h3>
<p>This similarity highlights an interesting difference in the two lists. In the British list there is only one history book set after world war two. Many national histories of the UK chose to end at this point. It is almost as if victory in this war marked the perfect culmination of the national British story and to say any more would just spoil the ending.</p>
<h3 id="%E2%80%A6in-the-us-history-is-still-happening" tabindex="-1">…In the US history is still happening</h3>
<p>The US list however contains plenty of books on contemporary history, in fact 3 out of 12 of them are based after 1945 and others will have later sections too. Perhaps this reflects a sense in the United States that history is still being made, and momentous events are still in train? Whereas in the UK history is something we did a while ago but have since given up on.</p>
<h3 id="history-is-authority-in-the-us%2C-in-the-uk-it-is-for-pleasure" tabindex="-1">History is authority in the US, in the UK it is for pleasure</h3>
<p>What else can we determine?</p>
<p>It strikes me that the US list shows a more serious and authoritative set of books. We have two or perhaps three books giving us “a history of the United States” – here, they seem to declare, is what you need to know. Cosmetically too the US books as a group seem to have more sober less colourful covers. In the UK’s list there is no “History of Britain” style book and one book is so keen to show it is not serious that it depicts a hand-drawn scrawl of a penis full-size on the front cover: <em>52 Times Britain Was a Bellend</em> but James Felton. History in the UK as represented by these books seems a more fun – and also frivolous – activity.</p>
<p>The overriding thing that strikes me though as I compare these lists is that in the UK history is nostalgia, in the US it is trauma.</p>
<h3 id="nostalgia-in-the-uk" tabindex="-1">Nostalgia in the UK</h3>
<p>In the UK the books are romantic tales from the past: Vikings, 1950s childhoods, food we ate, a man who made crockery. While I haven’t read them I suspect they represent a nice little holiday from the present: there is little soul searching going on.</p>
<h3 id="trauma-in-the-us" tabindex="-1">Trauma in the US</h3>
<p>The US list deals with anguished national subjects such as slavery, racial segregation and drug abuse – all hugely traumatic areas that society has not come to terms with. The range of the books also hints at the current cultural division: <em>Give Me Liberty!</em> and <em>A People’s History of the United States</em> contend with <em>Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong</em> and the troubling <em>Red, White, And Black: Rescuing American History From Revisions and Race Hustlers</em>.</p>
<p>Rather than a holiday from the present, the past in the US seems to be visited as a business trip where allies are sought for present day struggles.</p>
<p>Neither the choice of historical subjects nor the polarised views on the past that can be represented make for cheerful reading. It is going too far to say that society in the UK is unified and doesn’t also struggle with racism, racial segregation and drug abuse. But the marked difference in these lists imply that these issues are much more acute in the US – I was surprised to see how stark these differences are.</p>
<h3 id="the-dangers-of-over-interpretation" tabindex="-1">The dangers of over-interpretation</h3>
<p>I have to be a bit careful about over-interpreting my data set: it is based on 24 books and I might have drawn different conclusions if I had chosen 20 or 30 instead, or done it at a different point in time. I’m also contending with the Amazon algorithm to identify best-sellers (see notes below). The difference in book lists might also reveal differences in book buyers rather than populations – we will get a skewed picture if the history reading public in the UK comes from a small isolated section of society for example. On top of that each reader will have their own individual motivations and viewpoints.</p>
<p>Finally my own mental baggage will have a bearing. While I have tried to let the books speak for themselves I’m sure my perception of the UK and the US in general has coloured what I have chosen what to highlight. And also my existing ideas about what is and isn’t important. For example: why haven’t I focussed on the representation of women (or not) in history? (Two female leads in the UK, none in the US.) Is it because I am man? Possibly.</p>
<p>My view is that we have to be alive to problems of interpretation, and by considering them we can usefully challenge ourselves. But interpretation is still a productive activity – and can be improved with further investigation and feedback: comments below welcome!</p>
<h3 id="keep-reading!" tabindex="-1">Keep reading!</h3>
<p>I started this article with the aphorism “<em>England and America are two countries separated by the same language</em>”. From this mini historiographical investigation we can see that the shared language does range over some major differences of perspective – is history about Liberty (a US perspective) or about bellends (a UK perspective)? Does it even make sense to think of one “US perspective”? Might we now say that “<em>America is a country separated by the same language</em>”?</p>
<p>But to end on an optimistic note: a shared language can help us understand each other better, both between societies and also within our societies, if we keep listening – and keep reading.</p>
<p>Do you agree with my observations? Let me know your own thoughts in the comments.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Attributed semi-reliably to George Bernard Shaw. See <a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/04/03/common/">https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/04/03/common/</a> <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Bestseller lists derived by a Books / Advanced Search on amazon.com (US) and amazon.co.uk (UK) selecting the category “history” and sorting by “bestseller”, done on 13 September 2021. I then ignored the books I felt were not history books (eg “Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action”), ignored all sponsored results, ignored overtly military history (eg “The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War”), ignored books that looks suspiciously like promoted books (eg “Teachers’ pick” books) , ignored books that looked like they were published too recently to be credible bestsellers (eg “Blood and Ruins: The Great Imperial War, 1931-1945” published in the UK on 26 August 2021) and returned what was left. Even with these common sense adjustments it is clear that the amazon bestseller algorithm is quite complex. For example it must be using multiple time periods to measure sales, including bestsellers in the last week, in the last month, in the last year perhaps and bringing back all results at once. It might also be using other metrics such as best-selling within historical sub-categories as a positive factor. It will favour books that have recently gone on sale and have temporarily (artificially?) boosted the sale numbers. All this boils down to two key issues: firstly the amazon bestseller lists are designed to highlight books that have not only done well in the past but also those that will do well in the future – and this is partly a self-fulfilling prophecy. Secondly publishers are free to categorise any book they want to as a history book, and they will choose to do so if they think this will increase sales, not necessarily because they genuinely believe it to be a history book. However… the good news is that you get the same results with and without cookies, ie amazon is not tailoring the search results to me personally. Also the same systematic biases and my adjustments are present in both lists so a comparison across the two is still valid. The caveat is that these are my personal observations only – I’m sure that there are lots of blog posts out there that cover amazon bestseller ranking factors in a lot more detail! <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/19/popular-history-books-in-the-usa-vs-the-uk/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
About Time - review
Anthony Webb
Clocks are about more than just telling the time.
At one level this is a statement of the obvious: we all know that the watch you wear is not chosen purely for its practicality as a time-keeping...
2021-09-10T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/10/about-time/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0241370493.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="About Time - review" /><p>Our review of About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks, by David Rooney, first published in June 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>About Time will give you a new perspective on otherwise familiar landmarks – it can help you see the everyday in new and insightful ways.</p><p>A well written and pleasantly proportioned book, it is highly recommended and will appeal to all sorts of people.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>Clocks are about more than just telling the time.</p>
<p>At one level this is a statement of the obvious: we all know that the watch you wear is not chosen purely for its practicality as a time-keeping device, because otherwise everyone would wear the classic Casio F-91W as I do. (Although even this is a statement to say that I am deliberately eschewing the ridiculously anachronistic wrist-watch fetishization that others fall prey to.)</p>
<p>But at another level this is easy to forget – and David Rooney’s book “About Time” is an excellent reminder to keep your eyes open and mind open when you come across a clock or timekeeping device.</p>
<p>This was brought home to me as I was cycling past Stockwell Tube Station in London on my way to work, where there is a small rectangular stone tower with a clock at the top. I have cycled past this clock hundreds of times but have never previously given it a second glance. Seeing it again after reading Rooney’s tome – with a fortuitous red light buying me some extra time – made me look more closely.</p>
<p>On the side of the tower facing me as I waited in the cycle lane was the inscription: “These were our sons who died for our lands” with a long list of names chiselled into the stone underneath. I realised that the clock was the focal point of a large stone war memorial for local Stockwell men who had died in the First World War.</p>
<p>Seen in this light, the choice of a clock was a poignant reminder of the life-time that we have, that was denied to these men who died young and violently.</p>
<p>The fact that the clock told the time became incidental to the purpose of the memorial. But the clock is nevertheless central: intrinsically and symbolically linked to the memorialisation of the dead.</p>
<p>Reading Rooney’s book gave me a new perspective on an otherwise familiar landmark – it can help you see the everyday in new and insightful ways.</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/w_350/v1645393560/posts/stockwell-war-memorial.jpg#center" alt="Stockwell War Memorial clock tower" /></p>
<h6 id="seeing-the-familiar-in-a-new-light.-stockwell-war-memorial-clock-tower-(picture-credits-and-article)" tabindex="-1">Seeing the familiar in a new light. Stockwell War Memorial clock tower (<a href="https://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2014/11/stockwell-war-memorial-and-mural-stockwell-south-london/">picture credits and article</a>)</h6>
<h3 id="what-is-it-about%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it about?</h3>
<p>“About Time” takes us on a roughly chronological journey, highlighting the different ways that clocks have been used by different people throughout history. Each of the 12 chapters is titled by a theme, representing a real or symbolic use for clocks beyond time telling.</p>
<p>For example we start with the theme of “Order” and the installation of the first sundial in Rome in 263 BCE, looted from a Sicilian Greek city. While this was a celebration of Rome’s successes in war, it was also, Rooney tells us, the moment “Romans were forced to live their lives by the clock”. A playwright (maybe Plautus) complains that the day has been “smashed into bits” and that his complaining hungry stomach has to wait to eat until “the sun says so”. While we might gripe about the tyranny of time nowadays, according to Rooney this tyrant was established at the moment that public clocks were first installed.</p>
<p>The other chapters deal with Faith, Virtue, Markets etc… up to War and Peace and atomic time keepers.</p>
<h3 id="dipping-in-and-out" tabindex="-1">Dipping in and out</h3>
<p>Each chapter can be read as a standalone essay and I suspect every reader will have their own favourites. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on Markets, Empires and War – which is perhaps a subconscious reflection of my supressed megalomania but also because these are the chapters that seemed most relevant to me now.</p>
<h3 id="calling-time-on-financial-markets" tabindex="-1">Calling time on financial markets</h3>
<p>To take the chapter on Markets: Rooney describes the role of clocks as financial regulators from Antwerp in the early 17th Century through to Canary Wharf in London in the early 21st Century. The role of a clock in a market is pretty simple: to make sure that people don’t trade when they are not supposed to. But you need to define “when” very carefully to make sure that no-one cheats the system. So if you defined “when” in seconds, someone could trade 0.1 seconds before they were supposed to, and you would never know because you would round the time for all trades to the nearest second. The level of clock accuracy now required is 1 millionth of a second. This means that you can’t tell the regulator that you bought a load of shares in Facebook at 1 second past 12:30 on Tuesday, you have to tell them that you bought a load of shares at 12:30 and 1.000001 seconds (on Tuesday).</p>
<p>As a child I used to compete with my brother on how fast we could press start and stop on our Casio F-91W stopwatches. The record was 0.06 seconds which we were pretty happy about (anyone trying the same may find it helpful to use a table top or other hard surface to get the quickest double press). But for current financial regulatory purposes we would need to be 60,000 times faster.</p>
<p>Rooney describes some of the infrastructure needed to make this happen in London’s financial companies – the precious atomic clocks in North-West London; the dedicated fibre-optic cables transmitting the time signals that run underneath London’s streets; and the intimidating high security prison like buildings stuffed full of computer servers that receive the time signals, process them, and spit them out to the masters of the universe in their shiny glass office blocks at Canary Wharf – or at least to their algorithmic virtual drones who do their bidding at ludicrously fast speeds.</p>
<h3 id="a-london-focus-with-a-global-scope" tabindex="-1">A London focus with a global scope</h3>
<p>Although the book is global in scope, London provides the setting for many of the stories. As a London resident myself I enjoyed this aspect – I now know what those intimidating high security prison like buildings near to Canary Wharf are for example – but there are plenty of anecdotes from other places to make it accessible to all.</p>
<h3 id="a-timely-gift" tabindex="-1">A timely gift</h3>
<p>In fact this, combined with the pleasant and unadorned prose style – a bit like George Orwell writing for the New Scientist – makes it an ideal gift for pretty much anyone. Jot down a clock or time related joke on the inside cover to make it look like you put some thought into it, wrap it up, and you are done until next year. Whoever it is you give it to is sure to find something in there that they enjoy.</p>
<h3 id="over-clocking-it%3F" tabindex="-1">Over clocking it?</h3>
<p>My negative for this book is that sometimes I feel the author stretches his claims a bit far. I can’t blame him: he is trying to tell some good stories and if you insert too many caveats the story is lost. If you want to write a blockbuster Christmas history book you can’t stuff it with footnotes.</p>
<p>But sometimes I felt my credulity stretching. Returning to the Roman sundial: we are told that Romans were forced to live their lives by the clock from BCE 263 when the sundial was installed. But the only thing we have to back up this claim is a couple of quotes: one uncertainly attributed to Plautus (mentioned above) and the other from Alkiphron whose wikipedia entry notes “Regarding his life or the age in which he lived we possess no direct information whatsoever.” So did the new sundial change life for Romans? I doubt it… but it is a good story.</p>
<h3 id="a-techno-cultural-history-not-a-social-history" tabindex="-1">A techno-cultural history not a social history</h3>
<p>Picking holes in one anecdote in the book is a bit pedantic of me, but it does illustrate that this book works best as a history of techno-cultural reflections, and is less convincing as a social history. It will tell you what some people thought, not what everyone thought.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>This book is an easy one for me to recommend – it will appeal to a wide range of people in line with the broad scope of the book. It is written in an engaging style and will give you plenty of anecdotes to relate to your friends if time starts to drag. And it will help you to see afresh the many time-keeping devices that are all around us, perhaps even the humble Casio F-91W.</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/ar_1.0,c_crop,r_max,f_png/v1645394392/posts/casiof91w.jpg#center" alt="Casio F-91W" /></p>
<h6 id="time-for-a-closer-look%3F-(casio-f-91w-image-credit-and-more-info)" tabindex="-1">Time for a closer look? (<a href="https://retromash.com/galleries/casio-f-91w/">Casio F-91W image credit and more info</a>)</h6>
Augustine - review
Andy Salisbury
Introduction
The tagline for this book could be ‘a biography of an autobiography’ – it conveys a sense of what Robin Lane Fox manages to achieve in his award winning book, an analysis of how one of...
2021-09-10T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/17/augustine/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0241950759.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Augustine - review" /><p>Our review of Augustine: Conversions and Confessions, by Robin Lane Fox, first published in November 2015.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>An analysis of how one of the greatest thinkers in Christian theology thought about himself and his relationship to God; Augustine’s ideas spanned and merged philosophy and theology, and this history book will be of particular interest to anyone interested in these subjects.</p><p>A highly talented historian, Robin Lane Fox engages meaningfully but objectively with this person whose ideas and worldview is so alien to our own: tolle, lege!</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <h3 id="introduction" tabindex="-1">Introduction</h3>
<p>The tagline for this book could be ‘a biography of an autobiography’ – it conveys a sense of what Robin Lane Fox manages to achieve in his award winning book, an analysis of how one of the greatest thinkers in Christian theology thought about himself and his relationship to God.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-about%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it about?</h3>
<p>Winner of the Wolfson History Prize in 2016, Robin Lane Fox’s work is a biography of a book, Saint Augustine’s ‘Confessions’, which the Saint started (and, in the Lane Fox’s view, completed) when he was 42 years old in 397 AD, shortly after becoming sole Bishop of Hippo in what was then Roman North Africa. The Confessions were themselves, in part, an autobiography by Augustine of parts of his life up to that time.</p>
<p>The focus of Robin Lane Fox’s book is on the development of Augustine’s intellectual and religious ideas in this period, covering his early classical education, ten years spent as a Manichaean, a career as a rhetorician, his interests in the philosophical schools of Scepticism and Neoplatonism, and his famous ‘conversion’ in 386 (at the age of 31) under a fig tree upon hearing a child’s voice call ‘tolle, lege’ (take up and read). Augustine’s thinking spanned and merged philosophy and theology, and this book will be of particular interest to anyone interested in these subjects.</p>
<h3 id="a-meticulous-analysis" tabindex="-1">A meticulous analysis</h3>
<p>Robin Lane Fox’s analysis of those ideas is meticulous, in many cases examining the use of particular words and phraseology and tracking their origins. The author is excellent at providing the necessary context where it is useful to his narrative, but the focus is on what was going on inside Augustine’s head. Just as Augustine’s Confessions come across as a highly introspective work, so Robin Lane Fox’s book is a story of Augustine’s ideas and beliefs and how these developed.</p>
<p>Robin Lane Fox shows how these ideas and beliefs came together to form the Confessions. Although Augustine was to live for another 33 years following its completion (in Lane Fox’s timeline), and was to compose many more famous works (including The City of God) the impression given by Robin Lane Fox is of the Confessions as a culmination of a period of intellectual development. In fact, this feeds into (or is fed by) Lane Fox’s own views on how the Confessions were composed.</p>
<h3 id="portrait-of-augustus-as-a-young-man" tabindex="-1">Portrait of Augustus as a Young Man</h3>
<p>Contrary to what Lane Fox’s claims is the prevailing academic consensus, he argues that the Confessions were composed as an almost continuous spontaneous prayer in a single burst of intense literary output in Lent 397. In the author’s view, the facts point to the Confessions being dictated to a secretary (writing in short hand) as a unified whole, probably whilst Saint Augustine was kneeling in prayer (which would have also been the most comfortable position for him at the time due to piles and anal fissures), climaxing in a mystical outburst of religiosity in the Confession’s ‘perplexing’ final three chapters, meditating on the meaning of Genesis as Easter Day, 397 approached. The impression given is almost cinematic.</p>
<h3 id="that-damned-boat" tabindex="-1">That damned boat</h3>
<p>Many years ago, at university, an evangelical Christian explained to me that humanity was on a boat (metaphorically speaking) which was heading towards a precipice (damnation) but that God’s giant hand reached down and plucked a lucky few (the pre-destined ‘elect’) to save them from this watery fate. This idea is essentially Augustinian and demonstrates the profound influence Augustine has had on Christian ideas for the last 1,600 years. He was the dominant theological influence on medieval Catholicism, but his ideas also formed the basis for much of the theology of the Protestant Reformation.</p>
<p>Robin Lane Fox admits at the start of the book that he is a non-believer. Notwithstanding this, he is clearly sympathetic to his subject matter and engages in Augustine’s worldview and ideas, although at times he is able to step back and include wry observations on how Augustine’s life and ideas might be viewed today. This mixture of engagement and objectivity is a great strength of the book.</p>
<h3 id="a-triptych" tabindex="-1">A triptych</h3>
<p>Throughout the book, the author contrasts and compares Augustine’s life with those of two other nearish contemporaries: Libanius, a pagan Greek teacher of Rhetoric; and Synesius, a fellow Christian bishop (portrayed in the 2009 film Agora). In Robin Lane Fox’s own words, the intention is to compose something akin to ‘triptych on a medieval Christian alter’. In fact, Robin Lane Fox is excellent at drawing interesting comparisons with other historical and fictional characters throughout his book, ranging from Tolstoy (who composed his own Confessions late in life) to Paul Morel in D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. The two other contemporary Great Doctors of the Western Church, Saint Ambrose and Saint Jerome, also make frequent appearances, with their lives overlapping and influencing Augustine’s own.</p>
<h3 id="demonic-sperm" tabindex="-1">Demonic sperm</h3>
<p>If someone were to ask me ten years from now what I remember most about this book, sad to say I would probably respond with the Manichaeans…</p>
<p>Augustine spent ten years as a Manichaean, and then devoted the rest of his life to violently denouncing them. The Manichaeans were a religion that most people today would not have heard of (except as a word denoting a black and write point of view, as in a ‘Manichean worldview’ etc.). It originated in Persia with a prophet called Mani, and its dualist belief in light and darkness shares some similarities with Zoroastrianism, another Persian religion. However, Manichaeans also believed that plant life derived from the ejaculated sperm of demonic male members of the Zodiac; animals came from the aborted foetuses of demonic female members of the Zodiac.</p>
<p>These beliefs were meant to be taken literally. Male members of the ‘Elect’ reputedly engaged in a ceremony involving ejaculating on flour spread on the floor, mixing them and then making a loaf of bread which they ate. Augustine never belonged to the Elect so could not vouch for the veracity of this story himself, although he took it seriously enough later in life to use it in his arguments with Manichaeans. Unfortunately for him, he was apparently accused of doing it himself by a fellow Christian bishop. Robin Lane Fox speculates that the rumour reached the recipient of this ‘seeded’ loaf, who thereafter broke off contact with Augustine for some time.</p>
<h3 id="cry-me-a-river" tabindex="-1">Cry me a river</h3>
<p>Something else which struck me about this book was the amount of crying that went on. Late forth century / early fifth century Christians apparently spent quite a lot of time crying. They cried ‘rivers’ of tears; they cried ‘floods’ of tears; the ground was often ‘soaked’ with their tears. Crying could be continuous over years. They cried whilst hearing a sermon, or giving one. They cried whilst reading Scripture. If they were lucky, they cried whilst praying: Augustine’s mother Saint Monica was particularly adept at this, which Augustine believed increased the power of her prayers. Augustine cried a lot after giving up sex. Being a Christian at this time seems to have been emotionally exhausting.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h3>
<p>This is probably the history book I have read which has done most to convey not only a time when people lived in material conditions very different from our own, but thought about the world in an entirely different way. This is partly a product of the book’s focus, which is ideas and beliefs, rather than events or material conditions.</p>
<p>It is also because this book is about a period of history in which religious figures stepped to the forefront. Those religious figures were preoccupied by matters of the spirit and inner contemplation, and their experience of religion was characterised by intense emotionality.</p>
<p>This unfamiliarity is both a source of the book’s fascination, and also a challenge. How do you relate to (or take seriously the ideas of) people who appear preoccupied by matters which do not preoccupy your own thoughts? Or whose thoughts were predicated on concepts whose existence they took for granted but which much of the world no longer does (God; the spirit; the soul)? It is a bit like the apocryphal story of the Scholastic debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. At times, the discussions of Augustine’s ideas can come across as arcane and rambling. The word ‘love’ is used a lot, and after a while I got a little tired of discussions about ‘ascending’ to God, ‘turning’ towards God, with ‘love’, through ‘love’ etc. etc. – eventually the words and phrases began to swirl around my head in a slightly psychedelic fashion.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Robin Lane Fox does what a good historian should; he engages meaningfully but objectively with a person whose ideas and worldview is so alien to our own. Looking back across 1,600 years it can be difficult to get into the head of people for whom inward looking spiritualism gave life meaning; if they were looking at us, they may well be shocked by the shallow materialism of our thoughts. Robin Lane Fox bridges that gap in understanding in a way that only a talented historian can do.</p>
Thebes - review
Anthony Webb
In 371 BCE the Thebans achieved one of the most shocking victories in the history of warfare, by trouncing the previously invincible Spartans at the battle of Luectra despite being outnumbered almost...
2021-09-02T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/09/03/thebes/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1509873163.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Thebes - review" /><p>Our review of Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece, by Paul Cartledge, first published in May 2020.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A highly enjoyable read: I was illuminated (although not vitally), thought provoked and engaged.</p><p>So I liked the book… but it didn’t make me like the Thebans. Even so I am happy that I understand them and their world a little better.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>In 371 BCE the Thebans achieved one of the most shocking victories in the history of warfare, by trouncing the previously invincible Spartans at the battle of Luectra despite being outnumbered almost two to one.</p>
<p>To put this into context for sports fans: the Thebans winning this contest was as unexpected and incredible as the hitherto abject Leicester City winning the English premier league in 2016: a result that so stunned one veteran pundit that he removed his trousers on live television (I’m not making this up: link). It was shocking, disorientating and to many deeply distressing. The Theban victory was at first sight a similarly freakish event.</p>
<h3 id="the-secret-of-success" tabindex="-1">The secret of success</h3>
<p>So how did the Thebans do it? They had spent the previous few years enhancing their military capability, for example in 378 BC with the formation of an elite group of 300 homosexually paired Theban soldiers called the Sacred Band. Perhaps, Cartledge tells us, this was modelled after the Spartan kings’ 300 strong long-haired (bisexual) royal bodyguard known as the Hippeis. More important although less intriguing / titillating to our modern sensibilities was the fact that they also had a highly effective leader called Epaminondas who used some nifty tactics at the battle itself (and made some clever strategic decisions in the aftermath).</p>
<p>Surely there was some luck involved as well? We are told that the Thebans arranged their best troops to face the Spartan elite soldiers – and that Sparta lost 400 citizen soldiers to Theban losses of under 50 – a complete reversal of the normal course of a battle for the Spartans.</p>
<p>Finally there is the slow weakening of the Spartan hegemony itself to consider. It was running out of decent soldiers and willing allies: the Spartan state by the BCE 370s was in a particularly brittle condition.</p>
<p>Whatever the causes the Theban victory over the Spartans was so complete that it marked the end of Spartan pre-eminence in Greek politics forever.</p>
<h3 id="heroes-made-zeros" tabindex="-1">Heroes made zeros</h3>
<p>When I learned of the Spartan’s defeat as a young adult 2,371 years later I still felt a sense of loss and humiliation that this non-entity Greek power had brought low such immortal warriors (I was into camping at that time so had a sense of affinity to the Spartans given their own emphasis on physical endurance and masochistic suffering.) How undignified to lose to the Thebans who up to that point I hadn’t even heard of!</p>
<h3 id="rescuing-the-thebans" tabindex="-1">Rescuing the Thebans</h3>
<p>Paul Cartledge’s book “Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece” has a mission-statement of rescuing ancient Thebes from obscurity – and helping us understand how this relatively unknown Greek city (compared to the celebrated Athens and Sparta) managed to rise – briefly – to dominate the ancient Greek world, before being utterly destroyed in turn (spoiler alert).</p>
<h3 id="what-does-it-cover%3F" tabindex="-1">What does it cover?</h3>
<p>He succeeds in his aim. This is a fluent and highly readable account that takes us from pre-historic Thebes through to the archaic then classical period getting more detailed as the sources allow. He also gives us good breadth for a relatively short book (274 pages) covering archaeology, myth (Oedipus and co.), Theban religion and culture, before focussing in on the political and military manoeuvrings that form the majority of this book, describing the aforementioned rise and fall.</p>
<p>He rounds off with a chapter on the integration of Thebes into today’s world – plays, operas, books and Sigmund Freud.</p>
<h3 id="he-knows-his-stuff" tabindex="-1">He knows his stuff</h3>
<p>A key strength is Cartledge’s clearly intimate relationship with the source material: primary and secondary. Having been a Cambridge professor of classics since 1979 (before I was even born) means that he has accumulated a huge store of knowledge. I suspect that he has accumulated a wealth of experience in how to communicate that knowledge too, having presumably given innumerable tutorials to wet-behind-the-ears undergraduates.</p>
<h3 id="an-avuncular-style" tabindex="-1">An avuncular style</h3>
<p>The style is scholarly but chatty, even rambling at times – but in a reassuring avuncular fashion. I could almost imagine Cartledge lying down on a sofa with his shoes still on and dictating the entirety of this book in one go, without hesitation, repetition and only a modest amount of deviation.</p>
<h3 id="one-criticism" tabindex="-1">One criticism</h3>
<p>My one criticism of the book is that it fails the “cricket test”.</p>
<p>I never at any point wanted the Thebans to win.</p>
<p>Usually when reading a book on an ancient people you develop an sense of empathy – you celebrate their successes and lament their failures. This can happen even with history’s most violent sociopaths: that murderous youngster Alexander the Great for example. But in this case I could never overcome my feelings of slight distaste for Thebes and the ancient Thebans.</p>
<h3 id="theban-threat" tabindex="-1">Theban threat</h3>
<p>There are reasons for this which are outside Cartledge’s control of course. It is not his fault that:</p>
<ul>
<li>Nearly all of our sources on the Thebans are Athenian or Spartan partisans, both of whom harboured neighbourly grudges.</li>
<li>It is also not his fault that the Thebans committed policide twice (the complete physical destruction of an enemy city, including the murder of the men and sale of the women and children into slavery) and would have done it to the Athenians too were they not forcibly restrained by Sparta.</li>
<li>And finally it is not his fault that we don’t know individual Thebans anywhere near as well as we do individual Athenians or Spartans.</li>
</ul>
<p>But even so I was hoping to finish the book at bit more pro Theban, and a bit more emotionally involved in their hubris and nemesis.</p>
<h3 id="held-back-at-the-walls" tabindex="-1">Held back at the walls</h3>
<p>On reflection the reason for this may be that the ancient Thebans are defined by their edges: where they rub up against the Athenians or the Spartans. The Athenians we recognise as thinkers, sailors and democrats; the Spartans as warriors, oppressors and oligarchs. The Thebans are… well… the other ones: not Athenians or Spartans. But we don’t get a sense of what it is to be a Theban. We are left staring at the city walls and we don’t get invited in. For me at least they lack a historical personality.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Such amateur philosophical musings aside however I really enjoyed this book. It was illuminating (although not vitally), thought provoking and engaging. And even if I still don’t really like the Thebans I am happy at least that I understand them and their world a little better.</p>
In Defence of History - review
Anthony Webb
I have never knowingly met a post-modernist. Perhaps I have been going to the wrong parties – back in the days when I went to parties. I am keen to meet one. If you are one or can introduce one get in...
2021-08-25T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/26/in-defence-of-history/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1783784598.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="In Defence of History - review" /><p>Our review of In Defence of History, by Richard J. Evans, first published in September 1997.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A classic of historiography, In Defence of History gives you an insight into the different ways a modern professional historian operates and what they are trying to achieve.</p><p>And if you come across an argumentative post-modernist at a party, telling you that you don’t know anything, this book will supply you with plenty of arguments to try to convince them otherwise!</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>I have never knowingly met a post-modernist. Perhaps I have been going to the wrong parties – back in the days when I went to parties. I am keen to meet one. If you are one or can introduce one get in touch.</p>
<p>The reason that I am so interested to make this acquaintance is that Richard J. Evans, author of the 1997 classic of historiography “In Defence of History” sees this tribe as the key protagonists in the cut and thrust of historiographical debate. The post-modernist assault on history seems to be what made Evans circle the faculty wagons, corral the college horses – and write this book.</p>
<p>The most extreme positions in post-modernist thought, we are told, deny the fundamental reality of the past, and argue that all that matters is the interpretation in the present – with every interpretation being equally valid. This is because there is no objective standard against which to assess the competing narratives.</p>
<p>You can see how this would make the study of history tricky to justify.</p>
<p>But would anyone really go so far as to make this claim? If you are a post-modernist please do drop me a line and let me know.</p>
<h3 id="not-new-but-still-current" tabindex="-1">Not new but still current</h3>
<p>Evans’ book while not new, is perhaps the next significant stepping-stone in the popular understanding of what the current study of history is all about, after E.H. Carr’s masterpiece What is History (also reviewed on this site).</p>
<p>And Carr is very much in Evans’ mind with the structure, arguments and conclusion of In Defence of History paying homage to What is History? For example his chapter headings are similar and his concluding paragraph is a homage to the concluding paragraph in Carr’s book.</p>
<p>But while Carr provides the bones of the story, the post-modernists provide the meat – they are the ones who Evans really wants to get his teeth into.</p>
<h3 id="how-has-the-study-of-history-changed-over-time%3F" tabindex="-1">How has the study of history changed over time?</h3>
<p>We are first taken on a tour of what the (European) study of history was thought to mean through time: it is no longer considered “scientific” by most – although Evans is quick to reassure us that it is just different and not worse. It is also not currently a moralizing profession – serious historians try to better understand the human past not to pass judgement upon the individuals. And the belief in the predictive power of history is not what it once was…</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“while a chemist… knows in advance the result of mixing two elements… the historian has no such advance knowledge of anything, nor is trying to gain such knowledge central to the business historians are engaged in.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Richard Evans, In Defence of History</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>This all represents something of a retreat for the historical profession, or perhaps a planned withdrawal, from the territory occupied by the more ambitious historians of the past.</p>
<h3 id="here-come-the-post-modernists!" tabindex="-1">Here come the post-modernists!</h3>
<p>Smelling blood the post-modernists now enter the scene, denying not only the scientific basis of historical knowledge but also the ability to say anything objective about the past at all. In it’s most extreme framing nothing can truly be rescued from the past because it is obscured firstly by a historical writer who makes subjective choices on what to write about, then by a historian reader who makes subjective choices about how to read what’s written.</p>
<p>Or in the re-quoted words of Jacques Derrida, history is “an inscription on the past pretending to be a likeness of it” (1968).</p>
<h3 id="learning-from-the-enemy" tabindex="-1">Learning from the enemy</h3>
<p>The aim of The Defence of History is to provide a bulwark against this extreme relativity – the idea that no-one can know anything – while also guarding against the opposite sin of supposing perfect objectivity when approaching the past. Evans also tries to recognise the positive impact that post-modernist thought has had on the historical profession by providing new ways to think about the past and new subjects for study.</p>
<p>For example would we have The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller by Carlo Ginzburg, a micro-history of an eccentric 16th century miller living in north-east Italy during an Inquisition, average 4.5 stars on Amazon, were it not for the post-modernist influence? Maybe not.</p>
<p>But given this is a defence manual, most of the book is focussed on first outlining and then rebutting the outlandish statements about historical reality made by a cast of post-modernist scholars.</p>
<h3 id="the-dangers-of-extreme-relativism" tabindex="-1">The dangers of extreme relativism</h3>
<p>It is interesting to read it now in 2021 because Evans anticipates some of the uncomfortable consequences of a highly “relativist” position, which was originally conceived of as a way of undermining a conservative hold on the past and therefore the present social structure. But is now more often associated with (from a British perspective) highly conservative US citizens trying to erase uncomfortable historical truths in order to retain their sense of status in society. Or to put it another way: Trump lying through his teeth with impunity.</p>
<p>So it is still fresh today more than twenty years after it was first published.</p>
<p>For me it also succeeds in its argument that we can know about the past and we can find meaning in the past.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-not-to-like%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s not to like?</h3>
<p>I think it falls short in two areas:</p>
<p>The post-modernist arguments advanced feel a bit too much like straw men. They don’t seem to stand a chance. But these people are presumably not idiots (are you? as I said earlier please get in touch!) so would they really agree with how Evans is framing their arguments? Or are we missing something interesting and important? This feeling is exacerbated by the writing style which is a bit like when you come back home from a confrontation at the roller disco and you play back in your head the conversation as it should have gone with all the clever things that you would have said and think about how satisfying it would have been to see the look on your opponent’s face as you comprehensively out-witted them. Here at times Evans seems to be spooling out a similar monologue. Which isn’t to say that it is not a valid monologue but it can feel a bit… polemical.</p>
<p>I was also a little disappointed in what the book was not: it is not a call to arms or a rousing inspiration to take up the pen and make the world anew. For example the concluding sentence is:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“I will look humbly at the past and say despite them all: it really happened, and we really can, if we are very scrupulous and careful and self-critical, find out how it happened and reach some tenable though always less than final conclusions about what it all meant.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Richard Evans, In Defence of History</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Is this a lack of ambition from Evans? Or a sensible scholarly statement in view of past historians’ intellectual over-reach? Either way the blue touch paper remains unlit.</p>
<h3 id="what-have-you-got-to-show-for-it%3F" tabindex="-1">What have you got to show for it?</h3>
<p>Perhaps the main difficulty for the historian in rebutting relativism is that there is no clear positive statement that can be made about the successes of the profession. Whereas a scientist like Richard Dawkins might say “that’s all very well you saying scientific knowledge is a sham: but the aeroplane still got you from New York to London in 8 hours”. But a historian cannot easily say something similar…</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>However with those relatively minor gripes out of the way this is still a good read. It gives you an insight into the different ways a modern professional historian operates, what they are trying to achieve and why what they do – and what we read – has meaning. And if you do come across an argumentative post-modernist at a party telling you that you don’t know anything, you will have plenty of arguments to try to convince them otherwise!</p>
Castlereagh - review
Andy Salisbury
Why Bew why now?
John Bew’s biography of Robert Stewart (generally known as Viscount Castlereagh, the courtesy title he held most of his adult life) was published ten years ago, which raises the very...
2021-08-14T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/19/castlereagh/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0857381865.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Castlereagh - review" /><p>Our review of Castlereagh: From Enlightenment to Tyranny, by John Bew, first published in September 2011.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>This book comes recommended as a comprehensive and highly readable account of the life of one of Britain’s most influential Foreign Secretaries, with a particular focus on the earlier stages of Castlereagh’s life and career and the formation of his political philosophy.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <h3 id="why-bew-why-now%3F" tabindex="-1">Why Bew why now?</h3>
<p>John Bew’s biography of Robert Stewart (generally known as Viscount Castlereagh, the courtesy title he held most of his adult life) was published ten years ago, which raises the very reasonable question of why it is being reviewed on a website whose mission statement is to review recently published history books. I don’t have a particularly good excuse for that, except that it has been sitting on my book shelf for almost as long and needed reading. In my defence I would note that the author (Professor in History and Foreign Policy at King’s College London) recently joined the Number 10 Policy Unit as Boris Johnson’s foreign policy advisor and was involved in drafting the British government’s ‘Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy’, published earlier this year. So I thought now would be a good opportunity to review his ‘magisterial’ (in other words, very long) biography of one of Britain’s most famous and influential Foreign Secretaries and, perhaps, get an insight into the thinking of someone at the heart of formulating Britain’s post Brexit foreign policy strategy.</p>
<h3 id="why-castlereagh%3F" tabindex="-1">Why Castlereagh?</h3>
<p>Most of Castlereagh’s adult life was spent at the forefront of Irish and the British politics. Entering the Irish House of Commons at the age of 21 in 1790 he was, with some brief interludes, intensively engaged in politics until his death in 1822 at the age of 53. As Chief Secretary for Ireland between 1798 and 1801, he was instrumental in the suppression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and the Act of Union in 1800. As Secretary of State for War and the Colonies between 1807 and 1809, he expanded and modernised the British Army, promoted the career of Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) and provided crucial political backing for Britain’s vigorous engagement in the Peninsula War. As Foreign Secretary and leader of the House of Commons (with the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, sitting in the House of Lords) between 1812 and 1822 he was at the forefront of British politics and was the face of the British government in the Commons and, in many respects, to the wider public. In that period, he was frequently mooted as Liverpool’s natural successor on the numerous occasions when Liverpool considered, and then decided against, stepping down. It was in the role as Foreign Secretary that he did most to cement his lasting reputation, with the author stating that:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>‘with the exception of Palmerstone, it is hard to think of a Foreign Secretary in British History who has exercised more influence on the international stage‘.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Castlereagh assembled international coalitions to defeat Napoleon, twice, in 1814 and then again in 1815 and helped to put in place the so-called ‘Concert of Europe’ that endured until 1914. Academics debate about whether the international system he helped forge was durable or brittle, but in his defence it should be noted that Europe avoided any war on the scale of the Napoleonic Wars until World War One.</p>
<h3 id="ireland" tabindex="-1">Ireland</h3>
<p>John Bew’s book gives significant attention to the earlier stages of Castlereagh’s life and career in Ireland and how these contributed to the development of his political outlook. I suspect this is where his scholarship builds and expands on previous histories of Castlereagh, with the typical focus being on his last ten years as Foreign Secretary (although the latter is also comprehensively covered in this book). John Bew (who is himself of Northern Irish background) concedes that Castlereagh will never be forgiven by the Irish for his role in the suppression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and the Act of Union in 1800, but does a lot to explain the complexities and nuances of these events and Castlereagh’s role in them.</p>
<p>Castlereagh was Irish, born in Dublin to an Irish Presbyterian family and raised surrounded by Enlightenment ideas and values. His own family was associated with the Whigs and those pushing for reform of the British controlled Irish government. Castlereagh started his career in a similar fashion and was naturally associated with the reforming faction within the Irish House of Commons. However, the French Revolution was a turning point in his political mindset, as with many others. Many Irishmen were drawn to its revolutionary ideals. Castlereagh travelled to the continent on multiple occasions in the 1790s to research what was going on for himself, and what he saw and heard made him increasingly concerned by France’s descent into violence and tyranny. As with other Whigs, most famously Edmund Burke, Castlereagh became convinced that Britain should not pursue a similar path. It was fear of revolutionary France using Ireland as a platform for an invasion of England that coloured British policy to Ireland in the 1790s, and Castlereagh helped the Pitt government put down the Irish rebellion in 1798 and to achieve union in 1800. For these acts Castlereagh was never forgiven, tarnished as a turncoat and a murderer of those rebels hanged in 1798 (although, in fact, Castlereagh pushed for clemency for some of them).</p>
<p>One of the things I had not fully appreciated before reading this book was the extent to which much of the framework in which we are accustomed to view modern Irish political struggles is misleading in the Ireland of the late eighteenth century. At that time, political debates were fought principally between different groups of Protestant aristocrats. The Irish Catholic majority were, in comparison, politically peripheral. John Bew makes a convincing case that the Irish Catholic hierarchy may have been tentatively open to the idea of union with Britain, on the basis that it would be accompanied by state support for the Catholic Church in Ireland and Catholic emancipation. The latter was inconceivable at the time for the separate Irish parliament (where Catholics would have formed a majority) but might be envisaged in the larger British parliament. Lord Castlereagh was unable to formally link union and emancipation because of the opposition of Protestant political elites in the Irish House of Commons and, once Union was achieved, George III was instrumental in blocking Catholic emancipation. Castlereagh remained a supporter of expanding voting rights to Catholics throughout his life, but was unable to push it through in his lifetime. This lead to the charge that his support was disingenuous (with a similar argument made about his support for abolition of the slave trade), but John Bew links his approach (to both emancipation and the slave trade) to his broader political style, which was collegiate, pragmatic and cautious; a style of politics well suited to diplomacy but perhaps less so to pushing through contentious measures of this sort. Catholic emancipation was finally achieved in 1829, seven years after Castlereagh’s death.</p>
<h3 id="the-case-for-the-defence" tabindex="-1">The case for the defence</h3>
<p>A running theme of the book is an analysis of the way that Castlereagh was perceived, both by contemporaries and by subsequent observers. It is clear that Castlereagh was, and to an extent remains, a contentious figure. We have already touched above on the way he is remembered for events in Ireland in the earlier part of this career. But Castlereagh was also the target for virulent political abuse after his career moved to London, from both radicals and the Whig establishment. Whigs saw Castlereagh as an unprincipled defector from his earlier political home, with his subsequent association with Pittite Tories. There is also a sense that Castlereagh’s approach to politics and international affairs, based above all on realism and pragmatism, run counter to the Romantic spirit of the day, and it is notable that two of his fiercest critics were Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. Even in his own political home, his style of politics never sat easily with the High Tory Anglicanism of poets such as Coleridge and Southey.</p>
<p>John Bew assesses the particular criticisms levelled at Castlereagh on a case by case basis and gives them a fair hearing. Overall, John Bew comes across as an admirer of Castlereagh and his contribution to British politics, but his approach seemed to me relatively even-handed, and on numerous occasions he concedes where he thinks criticism of Castlereagh was legitimate.</p>
<h3 id="an-intellectual-lightweight%3F" tabindex="-1">An intellectual lightweight?</h3>
<p>One respect in which John Bew does a lot to defend Castlereagh is against the charge that he lacked intellectual depth. Castlereagh was mocked mercilessly by contemporaries for his periodic verbal slips and mixed metaphors in the House of Commons. The impression John Bew gives of the political culture of Georgian England is not particularly flattering; he paints a vivid portrait of Whig grandees tittering to themselves on the opposition benches, passing around slips of paper with Castlereagh’s latest confused metaphor, as Castlereagh stoically waded through hours of intense debate in the Commons. This contributed to the impression that Castlereagh was an intellectual lightweight, but he was probably just not a very good public speaker. In the earlier parts of the book, John Bew shows how Castlereagh’s background immersed him in the Enlightenment thinkers of his day and shows how he engaged with many of those ideas and then applied them to his own political philosophy. However, Castlereagh was not given to intellectual ostentation, and tended to couch arguments in pragmatic rather than theoretical terms, a style of argumentation that was, as with so much about Castlereagh, out of sync with the spirit of his day. A later admirer, Lord Salisbury, agreed, believing that his legacy was stunted by his failure to coin phrases and create his own lexicon of political discourse.</p>
<h3 id="political-violence-in-georgian-england" tabindex="-1">Political violence in Georgian England</h3>
<p>One of the strengths of the book is that it paints a convincing picture of the political scene in early nineteenth century Britain and Europe. I was struck by just how combustible British politics was at that time. We tend to think of politics now as polarised, with arguments about Brexit, the co-called culture wars, and over-zealous students throwing statues into rivers. But it all starts to seem a bit tame once you read what was going on in Regency London. Castlereagh and Canning fought a duel to settle their differences; London mobs were frequently whipped up into bouts of politicised frenzy by rabble rousing radicals and Lord Castlereagh was often physically threatened, at one point abandoning his London home to sleep in his office because of the threat from fans of Queen Caroline (who the King was trying to divorce, with Castlereagh’s help). In 1820 there was a plot by radicals to assassinate the entire cabinet whilst they had dinner together, the intention being to display their decapitated heads on Westminster Bridge as a signal for national uprising. On finding out about the plot in advance, Castlereagh’s preference was for the cabinet to ambush the assailants themselves and fight it out, but sadly for history the police intervened. Castlereagh himself was the target of vitriolic verbal abuse his entire political life and afterwards, with Lord Byron’s reaction to Castlereagh’s suicide being to recommend pissing on his grave.</p>
<h3 id="castlereagh-as-diplomat" tabindex="-1">Castlereagh as diplomat</h3>
<p>Lord Castlereagh is probably most well-known today for his post-Napoleonic foreign policy, particularly at the Congress of Vienna and the re-establishment of the Bourbon monarchy in France within its pre-revolutionary boundaries. In the short term Castlereagh successfully navigated the tensions among Britain’s coalition partners, all of whom were seeking territorial gains or to expand their sphere of influence following the aftermath of the war (with the exception being Britain, which actually gave up colonies taken from France during the war). The resulting ‘Concert of Europe’ had critics at the time and subsequently, with some seeing it as a cynical reestablishment of reactionary regimes at the expense of the liberalising and democratising spirit of the time, but John Bew explains the constraints Castlereagh was operating with. The other ‘Great Powers’ (Austria, Prussia and Russia) were much more reactionary in their inclinations than Britain. For Britain, the war and her post war priorities were principally about the balance of power and maintaining peace, and she was relatively agnostic about the internal political structures which prevailed in the countries she dealt with (provided they did not threaten neighbours). For the other powers, above all Russia, the war was much more about restraining the forces of liberalism and secularism which were unleashed by the French Revolution, which formed the basis of the Holy Alliance (which Britain refused to join). Castlereagh was criticised for his relative reluctance to condemn the priorities of the Holy Alliance in the House of Commons, but John Bew shows that Castlereagh was trying to preserve relations with the other powers of Europe by steering clear of public criticism, and his opposition in behind the scenes diplomacy was much more vigorous in restraining the reactionary instincts of his continental counterparts. One of Castlereagh’s most significant contributions to the post war settlement was to restrain the wishes of the other powers to treat France punitively; a similar approach may well have been useful in 1918.</p>
<p>In this book, John Bew sticks to a factual recounting of Castlereagh’s life and policies and avoids wider digressions into foreign policy theory, although the latter is clearly an interest of his and he has written separately on this topic (<em>Realpolitik: A History</em>). There is no doubt that Castlereagh has become emblematic of a certain type of hard headed international politics, with this aspect of his career being the focus of most previous historians and commentators. Henry Kissinger wrote his PhD thesis on Castlereagh and Metternich (Castlereagh’s Austrian counterpart). This type of pragmatic ‘Great Power’ bargaining (relatively unburdened by ethical considerations and tending to steer clear of ‘humanitarian’ interventionism) gets a bad press. But this book made me realise that in the hands of Castlereagh it was, first and foremost, a peace policy: a practical strategy for managing the conflicting interests of nation states without resorting to armed conflict. In our own world of renewed superpower rivalry, it raises interesting questions about what foreign policy strategies might best serve the cause of peace in the twenty first century.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>Given Castlereagh’s close involvement with many of the most momentous events of his day, this biography provides a fascinating insight into late Georgian British politics and European diplomacy during and after the Napoleonic Wars. John Bew comes across not only as a talented history writer, but as a natural biographer<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/19/castlereagh/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup> with an ability to create an affinity with his subject matter whilst remaining objective about their strengths and weaknesses.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>…and having read this book on Castlereagh, I am now looking forward to reading his well received biography of Clement Atlee. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/19/castlereagh/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
Dictators - review
Adrian Webb
Frank Dikotter’s ‘Dictators: the Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century’ is a highly readable potted history of eight twentieth century dictators, charting the rise and (more often than not) the...
2021-08-08T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/08/how-to-be-a-dictator/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1526626993.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Dictators - review" /><p>Our review of Dictators: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century, by Frank Dikötter, first published in September 2019.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A highly readable potted history of eight twentieth century dictators, in whose dictatorships the cult of personality played a prominent part.</p><p>While it doesn’t say anything particularly new, it is praiseworthy for being both absorbing and accessible.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <p>Frank Dikotter’s ‘Dictators: the Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century’ is a highly readable potted history of eight twentieth century dictators, charting the rise and (more often than not) the fall of Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il-sung, Duvalier, Caucescu and Mengistu respectively, in whose dictatorships the cult of personality played a prominent part, albeit in different forms.</p>
<h3 id="fake-it-until-you-make-it%E2%80%A6" tabindex="-1">Fake it until you make it…</h3>
<p>Dikotter states in the introduction that “The paradox of the modern dictator… is that he must create the illusion of popular support”, and that this is where the cult of personality comes in, being a tool in the dictator’s toolbox, a means by which a dictator can retain and strengthen his grip on power. As I turned to chapter 1 I was keen to understand why (as Dikotter suggests) the cult of personality is a more effective trick in the dictator’s playbook than any other, such as the use of the secret police, the carrying out of purges or the manipulation of the press. I also wanted to understand how it could be said that the cult of personality was effective, if ‘popular support’ for these dictators remained illusory. For the reasons set out below, I felt Dikotter never quite satisfactorily addressed these points.</p>
<h3 id="familiar-names-with-some-new-faces" tabindex="-1">Familiar names with some new faces</h3>
<p>Each of Dikotter’s dictators are afforded a chapter each, running chronologically from Mussolini to Mengistu. I was pleased to be introduced to Duvalier of Haiti, and Mengistu of Ethiopia, about both of whom I knew very little prior to reading this book, taking their place alongside the more familiar Hitler, Stalin et al. Clearly covering the careers of eight dictators in one book means that detail will inevitably be lacking, and while I enjoyed cantering through the lives and times of some of recent history’s most vile personalities, I was sometimes left wishing there was a bit more detail as to how the cult of personality was able to develop and flourish. In respect of Mussolini for example, I would have liked Dikotter to flesh out how he came to be seen as a “demi God” or “prophet” in such a short space of time, particularly in light of the continuing existence of other powerful institutions in Italy such as the papacy and the monarchy. In respect of Duvalier, I would have liked to have better understood how his cult of personality came to be, in light of the fact that “There was no official ideology… no attempt to institute thought control… The radio occasionally broadcast his speeches, but until 1968 radios in the north of the country were too weak for reception. Newspapers carried his pronouncements, but were rarely seen in the impoverished countryside, where few could read”.</p>
<h3 id="one-cult-or-many%3F" tabindex="-1">One cult or many?</h3>
<p>In fact, this made me question what indeed Dikotter means by ‘cult of personality’ at all. Certainly there are common features to each of these dictatorships, such as the veneration of the leader, but there are notable differences too, for example regarding statues (Hitler didn’t allow statues of himself to be erected whereas statues of Stalin and Kim Il-sung abound in the USSR and North Korea) and ideology (Duvalier didn’t espouse one whereas others did). Most notable for me though, was the fact that despite the control exercised by these dictators, their peoples (according to Dikotter) did not believe the hype presented to them. In respect of Stalin, Dikotter notes “large swathes of the population apparently remained indifferent”. When Mao died, “liquor sold out overnight”, and in the countryside, “few people sobbed”. When North Koreans gathered to hear Kim Il-sung’s obituary, “They all cried, although no one could tell who was sincere and who was not”. Indeed “One five-year old spat in her hand to wet her face with saliva, making it look as if she was crying”. In Caucescu’s Romania, “ordinary people… seemed to lack enthusiasm”. Mengistu’s revolution “vanished the moment he fled”.</p>
<p>This led me to wonder how, if the majority of the population was merely acting and did not believe in the cult, it can in fact be said that an effective cult of personality existed at all. If a cult of personality is in essence illusory, what actually is it? Perhaps it is just an inevitable extension and consequence of dictatorial power, simply proof itself that a dictatorship exists.</p>
<h3 id="adoration%2C-fear-and-expediency" tabindex="-1">Adoration, fear and expediency</h3>
<p>Dikotter comes closest to answering these questions in an almost throwaway line written in respect of Caucescu (though it could be said to apply equally to the other dictators): “The cult of personality effectively prevented anyone else from building an independent power base”. I would have liked Dikotter to explore this theme further however, perhaps to explain what comes first, the dictatorship or the cult of personality? I felt that Dikotter didn’t quite address how the cult of personality was more valuable than any other tool at the dictator’s disposal as a means to retain power. Indeed if it was so important, surely it is a feature of every dictatorship?</p>
<h3 id="conclusions" tabindex="-1">Conclusions</h3>
<p>Despite the questions I felt Dikotter left unanswered, this is an entertaining and informative read, and I learned some interesting facts along the way. As an example, of Mao’s minister Lin Biao, Dikotter notes (without providing a source) “The mere sound of running water gave him diarrhoea”, though it’s unclear whether or how this altered the course of the revolution. The book is a useful introduction to eight of the twentieth century’s most successful dictators, and while it doesn’t say anything particularly new, it is praiseworthy for being both absorbing and accessible.</p>
Why new history books? What's wrong with the old ones?
Anthony Webb
“Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
George Orwell, agreeing with me that new history books are important, in his recent...
2021-08-06T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/06/why-new-history-books-whats-wrong-with-the-old-ones/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1646084435/posts/new_vs_old.png" alt="Why new history books? What's wrong with the old ones?" /><blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>George Orwell, agreeing with me that new history books are important, in his recent book 1984</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>On this site we try to find, read and review new history books (or mostly new ones – see <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/faq/">FAQ</a>. But are we right to focus on new books? Is there any reason to prefer a book about the Normans written in the last 5 years to one written 30 years ago – or 130 years ago?</p>
<p>My hypothesis is that in general new history books are “better” than old ones. Many history books seem to have a half-life so that every 20 years (say) they become half as interesting to us as they were 20 years before.</p>
<p></p><div class="toc_list"><hr /><h3><strong>Contents</strong></h3><p><i>Links are to the headings in the article below</i></p><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/06/why-new-history-books-whats-wrong-with-the-old-ones/#new-is-better-than-old">New is better than old</a><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/06/why-new-history-books-whats-wrong-with-the-old-ones/#new-history-books-are-about-what-interests-us-right-now">New history books are about what interests us right now</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/06/why-new-history-books-whats-wrong-with-the-old-ones/#we-know-more-now-than-we-once-did%E2%80%A6-don%E2%80%99t-we%3F">We know more now than we once did… don’t we?</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/06/why-new-history-books-whats-wrong-with-the-old-ones/#old-history-is-old-news">Old history is old news</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/06/why-new-history-books-whats-wrong-with-the-old-ones/#golden-oldies">Golden oldies</a><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/06/why-new-history-books-whats-wrong-with-the-old-ones/#there-are-lots-of-older-history-books%2C-surely-they-can%E2%80%99t-all-be-rubbish%3F">There are lots of older history books, surely they can’t all be rubbish?</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/06/why-new-history-books-whats-wrong-with-the-old-ones/#what%E2%80%99s-the-inter-quartile-range%3F">What’s the inter-quartile range?</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/06/why-new-history-books-whats-wrong-with-the-old-ones/#a-window-into-the-past">A window into the past</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/06/why-new-history-books-whats-wrong-with-the-old-ones/#conclusions%2C-retractions-and-a-plea-for-help">Conclusions, retractions and a plea for help</a></li></ol></li></ol><hr /></div><p></p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1646084435/posts/new_vs_old.png#center" alt="Old vs New" title="Old vs New" /></p>
<p>Why might this be the case? Here are three factors:</p>
<h2 id="new-is-better-than-old" tabindex="-1">New is better than old</h2>
<h3 id="new-history-books-are-about-what-interests-us-right-now" tabindex="-1">New history books are about what interests us right now</h3>
<p>Firstly and most importantly, history books are written with the present day reader in mind. They are tailored to current tastes and appetites. For example a book written 150 years ago is more likely to be focused on a narrower cross-section of society than one written 15 years ago – perhaps reflecting the broader social backgrounds of the current readership.</p>
<p>Or to take another example: as the pandemic dominated our lives in the last year or so, histories of pandemics – previously boring – now became intriguing and important. The recent Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe by Niall Ferguson is one such tome.</p>
<p>In a few years time when we are back to shaking hands in public and hoovering up the leftover cocktails, no doubt Ferguson’s book, and the many other similar ones, will be consigned to the dust-heap.</p>
<h3 id="we-know-more-now-than-we-once-did%E2%80%A6-don%E2%80%99t-we%3F" tabindex="-1">We know more now than we once did… don’t we?</h3>
<p>The second reason is that our knowledge of the past is greater than it was. Right now, I contend that we tend to accumulate new information on the past without losing information that we previously had. The most spectacular examples are where new scientific techniques have revealed the previously unknown. Archaeologists used to argue about when things happened, but with the use of dating techniques (eg carbon dating) they can now more often than not agree the timelines, and get on with the more important business of arguing why things happened.</p>
<p>A modern historian will have access to all the sources of their predecessors, and their books plus anything that has come to light since. Maybe a box of Winston Churchill’s previously lost war-time limericks turns up in the attic – by trawling through these you have gained an edge on the last generation of Churchill historians.</p>
<p>To be honest this reason is highly dependent on the area of history that is under investigation – some areas may not have much or any new evidence. But historians should anyway attempt to stand on the shoulders of their forebears, even it ends up being more of a piggy back.</p>
<h3 id="old-history-is-old-news" tabindex="-1">Old history is old news</h3>
<p>The third reason is that, even if you haven’t read it, you may well find an old history book old news. Any revelations or bold new ideas or spilled beans are likely to have percolated into the public consciousness and become mainstream. So while you may not have read the book you have probably spoken to someone who spoke to someone else who read a newspaper article written by someone who had dinner with someone who read the book. Any juicy stuff has already seeped into your brain, making the book you hadn’t read appear banal and obvious when you do at last leaf though it.</p>
<p>So there you have it: new history books are better than old ones: if you browsed ten history books from 2005 I would be confident that you would add more of them to your e-basket than if you browsed ten history books from 1955.</p>
<p>However…</p>
<p>There are a few issues with my hypothesis:</p>
<h2 id="golden-oldies" tabindex="-1">Golden oldies</h2>
<h3 id="there-are-lots-of-older-history-books%2C-surely-they-can%E2%80%99t-all-be-rubbish%3F" tabindex="-1">There are lots of older history books, surely they can’t all be rubbish?</h3>
<p>A few years ago I remember listening to Bob Dylan on his radio show responding to a listener who had asked why he didn’t play more new music: instead he played mainly “old” songs. Dylan’s response was fair:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There are just many more old songs than new ones to choose from”</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Bob Dylan</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Equally there are just many more old history books than new ones. Let’s say in 2020 there were a hundred history books published. If the number of history books published per year stays constant then in one hundred years we will accumulate ten thousand books. Even if only a tiny fraction of these are still considered “good” that’s still a lot of books.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-the-inter-quartile-range%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s the inter-quartile range?</h3>
<p>Another statistical argument to contend with is the range or spread of quality. While on average a book from 2020 may now be considered better than one from 2010 that may not tell you much about how good any individual book is from the earlier or later year.</p>
<p>This is analogous to the “girls are better than boys at maths” statistic. Or is it the other way around? For our purposes it doesn’t really matter. The point is this typically doesn’t tell you anything about how an individual girl or boy is likely to perform. Why? Well the kids get a range of scores from 20% to 100%. The average for boys might be 79%. And the average for girls might be 81%. But knowing these averages is not much help if you have one child and you are trying to guess their score. The kid could be a genius with 100% or a struggler with 20% or anywhere in between, whether or not they are a boy or a girl.</p>
<p>Returning to history books: knowing that books from 2020 are better for us on average than books from 2010 is not enough for us to be able to dismiss the class of 2010. There are likely to be some belters in there – works of careful scholarship that define their period – that we wouldn’t want to miss.</p>
<h3 id="a-window-into-the-past" tabindex="-1">A window into the past</h3>
<p>The final reason for not dismissing the oldies – whether or not they are golden – is that they are themselves a snapshot of the period in which they are written. The history books themselves become history. So while we may not now read Macaulay’s The History of England to find out what happened, we can read this 19th century classic to find out how people of this time approached their history, and what this reveals about their views and preoccupations – our history.</p>
<h3 id="conclusions%2C-retractions-and-a-plea-for-help" tabindex="-1">Conclusions, retractions and a plea for help</h3>
<p>I seem to have argued against myself quite successfully because I am now going to modify the hypothesis: reading new history books, or indeed just following what is being published, is in general more interesting than reading old history books.</p>
<p>But that still leaves a galaxy of older but still great history books.</p>
<p>So how do we know where they are? How do we find these books which have withstood the test of time? Here I am at a loss – are there any reliable websites that can help? If you have any good ideas let me know!</p>
Making Deep History - review
Anthony Webb
How do you envisage a million years? Clive Gamble in “Making Deep History: Zeal, Perseverance and the Time Revolution of 1859” tell us that Charles Darwin was advised in 1868 to try this exercise:...
2021-08-06T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/13/making-deep-history/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0198870698.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Making Deep History - review" /><p>Our review of Making Deep History: Zeal, Perseverance, and the Time Revolution of 1859, by Clive Gamble, first published in March 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A valuable book that will reignite the spark of excitement created by ancient flint tools – and make you appreciate just how much our perception of the past has changed in the last 200 years.</p><p>The density of biographical material can make it feel like an unnecessary slog at times, but perseverance will be rewarded with a deeper understanding of a different age.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <p>How do you envisage a million years? Clive Gamble in “Making Deep History: Zeal, Perseverance and the Time Revolution of 1859” tell us that Charles Darwin was advised in 1868 to try this exercise: take a strip of paper 83 feet 9 inches (25.4 metres) long and stretch it around the walls of a large room. Then draw a thick thin pencil line across the strip that is 0.1 inches (2.5 mm) wide. This pencil line represents 100 years.</p>
<p>By contemplating the width of the (conceivable) 100 years pencil line we can begin to grasp the enormity of the (almost inconceivable) million years stretching round the room.</p>
<h3 id="what-came-before-adam%3F" tabindex="-1">What came before Adam?</h3>
<p>Gamble’s book sets out how the human past was given access to these immense time-scales. Because, in Europe before the 1850s, humans were thought to have arrived in 4142 BC or 6,000 years ago. If we take our “million year” 25 metre strip of paper going round the room, this is the span of time represented by a hand-width of 15cm.</p>
<p>Why 6,000 years ago? It was simply a matter of adding up the ages of all the generations that had ever lived. This was easier than you might think because the Bible has a great long list of Adam and Eve’s descendants plus their ages. Because humans stated with Adam, created by God, that’s as far back as we need to count.</p>
<h3 id="absence-of-evidence" tabindex="-1">Absence of evidence</h3>
<p>It was already understood that the world itself was extremely old – how else to explain the layers and layers of rock and other materials, populated by banded sequences of tiny fossils creatures? – but divinely created humans were a late-comer.</p>
<p>This was not an unreasonable assumption: no human fossils had been found buried deep in the earth and without human fossils there was no evidence of truly ancient humans.</p>
<h3 id="the-key-to-the-door" tabindex="-1">The key to the door</h3>
<p>But this worldview was smashed apart on 27 April 1859 with a crunching blow from a fist sized “pre-historic” hand axe. By recognising these worked flints as the work of man (a nod here to Victorian gender biases) two gentlemen scientists found the evidence of humans that had eluded earlier generations. And because these “worked flints” were buried deep within the layers of the earth and mixed in with the bones of woolly mammoths and woolly rhinos and other ice-age creatures it was clear that humans had been around for literally ages: and a long long time before Adam.</p>
<h3 id="another-proxy-hand-axe" tabindex="-1">Another proxy hand axe</h3>
<p>The amazing thing was that these hand axes or worked flints were not rare, they were all over the place. If you dug down to the right gravelly levels of the earth you might find on average one per cubic mere. When people knew what to look for, the lack of human evidence turned into thousands and then millions of tools made by previously unimaginable humans ancestors.</p>
<p>A modern day analogy might be looking into space for signals of extraterrestrial life. So far we have found nothing. The ‘time revolution’ for the 19th century is equivalent to us one day tuning our telescopes to the right frequency and all of a sudden discovering that the sky is awash with alien signals, that we previously just didn’t know how to look for.</p>
<h3 id="a-biographical-history-book" tabindex="-1">A biographical history book</h3>
<p>Gamble’s history then is a history of the year 1859, following the lives of the key gentlemen scientists who unearthed and interpreted these discoveries. It reads a bit like a multiple biography (a triography?) as we are presented with the world as it might have looked to these eminent Victorians: John Evans, Joseph Prestwich and John Lubbock.</p>
<h3 id="fun-with-timescales" tabindex="-1">Fun with timescales</h3>
<p>The subject of the book is timescales, and Gamble also has a bit of fun with this concept as he narrows the focus of the book to the (slightly arbitrarily chosen) single day in which the age of humanity was suddenly and vastly widened in scope. He then zooms out to consider the year of 1859 and how this new view of the world was spread around the scientific literati, then zooms out again to the following decades when it became more widely accepted.</p>
<p>Reigniting the flame</p>
<p>The great success of this book is that allows us to share in the disorientating excitement or repugnance (opinions differed) of this “revelation”. What if we had spent our whole life happily placed on that divinely inspired thick pencil line and were told simultaneously: that this is actually an insignificantly small sliver of existence, and that your presumed celestial origins are to be replaced by the begetting of a zoo animal.</p>
<p>(Although Gamble does remind us that most British people were more worried about the much more immediate shock of the Indian Rebellion (1857-8) or the trauma and hardship caused by the American Civil War (1861-5).)</p>
<p>After you read the book, the next time you go into a museum and see another dusty old hand axe, you can really appreciate the profound revolution in thought that this represents, and share in some of that excitement again. At least, it worked for me last week in a museum in Budleigh Salterton! (<a href="https://www.fairlynchmuseum.uk/">visit if you can</a> although warning for those with small kids: no toilets…)</p>
<h3 id="trying-to-keep-the-flame-alive" tabindex="-1">Trying to keep the flame alive</h3>
<p>The biggest drawback is that the book takes so long to achieve this. I get that micro-history can draw you into a new period, but it felt like over-sharing at times: so what if Joseph Prestwich’s eggs benedict arrived cold<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/13/making-deep-history/#fn1" id="fnref1">1</a></sup>? And do we really need a digression into the varied experience of 1850s railway travel because Evans and Prestwich took a train to meet a fellow antiquarian<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/13/making-deep-history/#fn2" id="fnref2">2</a></sup>?</p>
<p>Perhaps this reflects my own impatient attitude to time, but I would have chopped out about a third of the text.</p>
<h3 id="a-british-and-european-focus" tabindex="-1">A British and European focus</h3>
<p>We also need to appreciate that this a history focussed closely on the European and specifically British experience. Other people in other places no doubt had different ideas about the birth of humanity but this is not covered here, as Gamble is tracing the origin of the “scientific” approach to our past.</p>
<h3 id="a-twist-in-the-tail-%E2%80%93-don%E2%80%99t-miss-it!" tabindex="-1">A twist in the tail – don’t miss it!</h3>
<p>The last two chapters were the ones I enjoyed the most as Gamble brings us up to date and reflects on his own experience researching this book – revealing a delightfully unexpected twist at the end, so please do persevere if you do decide to read it!</p>
<p>A present day timescale analogy</p>
<p>I will finish with another analogy. Imagine instead of a pencil line, a single hair. This hair 0.1mm thick represents one year. If we lay 100 of these hairs side by side and squash them close together we represent 100 years – 1 cm wide. 100 metres is now 1 million years.</p>
<p>We now believe humans diverged from our chimpanzee common ancestors about 7 million years ago (<a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/05/26/a-story-of-us/">see this book review</a>), so 700 metres on our scale. If we want to travel back in time to the presumed beginning of the Universe 13.9 billion years ago we need to travel 1,390 km – the huge distance from one tip of the UK – Lands End in the far south-east of England – to the other – John O’Groats in the far north of Scotland. (We can stop-off in the middle of England for the formation of the Earth 4.5 billion years ago)</p>
<p>So we can measure the whole length of our lives in the width of a finger, compared to the hundreds and hundreds of kilometres of time that has gone before us. For us, as for Darwin, time is still an almost unfathomable chasm that our minds struggle to bridge.</p>
<h3 id="in-conclusion" tabindex="-1">In conclusion</h3>
<p>This is a valuable book that I am glad that I have read… but with a bit of cutting, rearranging and less editorial deference it could have been a much better reading experience. So if you feel time stretching out luxuriously before you I would recommend you give it a go. If for you the seconds are forever slipping by to be lost forever, you may wish to settle for this review instead.</p>
<hr class="footnotes-sep" />
<section class="footnotes">
<ol class="footnotes-list">
<li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Ok I made this one up. But it is the level of detail the book can delve into. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/13/making-deep-history/#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Not made up: a two page fully illustrated digression. <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/08/13/making-deep-history/#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</section>
What Is History? - review
Anthony Webb
There is something about the theory of history or historiography – ie how and why the study of history is conducted – that can inflame passions among professional historians. Seemingly mild mannered...
2021-07-31T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/07/30/what-is-history/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0141010207.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="What Is History? - review" /><p>Our review of What Is History?, by E. H. Carr, first published in January 1961.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Everyone should read this book.</p><p>A classic of historiography that has yet to be equalled. Written in a light and enjoyable prose, it helps us to consciously think about what “doing history” really means – and why this is relevant not just for the past but also our future.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <p>There is something about the theory of history or historiography – ie how and why the study of history is conducted – that can inflame passions among professional historians. Seemingly mild mannered individuals can become enraged, and previously impersonal prose becomes peppered with personal insults.</p>
<p>Take this for an example, in a review (by professional historian Alan Munslow) of a book of historiography called “The New Nature of History” (by another professional historian Arthur Marwick):</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“There is a common saying that when you are in a hole you should at some juncture cease excavating further. Marwick’s failure to adopt this policy is embarrassingly revealed in some of his throw away sentiments. I am astounded that he should say, for example, that John Warren is a defender of postmodernism, or that postmodernists don’t write books, or that historians are not idealist or materialist, just historians… There are many other regrettable /ludicrous/bizarre/funny/plainly wrong statements of this kind. I would like to say the book is worth the sale price just to find them as, dependent on your point of view, you may find them diverting, but as I got the book free to review I can’t really comment…”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Alan Munslow, Sept 2001 <a href="https://archives.history.ac.uk/history-in-focus/Whatishistory/munslow5.html">history in focus archives</a></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Marwick in reply:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“At least, unlike Munslow, I have written a fair amount of archive-based history on topics of, I would say, some significance. And, despite Munslow’s snide remarks… I am perhaps less conceited than Munslow would seem to be suggesting… According to Munslow my book is a sour diatribe against my fellow historians. On the contrary, it is a joyous celebration of the immense achievements of professional history… We need an understanding of the distant past as well as the recent. Do we need Munslow? One has to admire Munslow’s resilience. But does he really have to go on boring the pants off us?”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Arthur Marwick, Sept 2001 <a href="https://archives.history.ac.uk/history-in-focus/Whatishistory/marwick2.html">history in focus archives</a></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>The drawing of the battle lines suggests there is no clear consensus on why people “do history” or even what it is they are doing.</p>
<h3 id="just-get-on-with-it%3F" tabindex="-1">Just get on with it?</h3>
<p>But this lack of agreement on the foundations of history doesn’t deter professional historians, or people like me (us?) who read popular history books, who seem to just get on with it and not worry too much about the why.</p>
<p>This assumption here is backed up anecdotally by the fact that it was only in year three of a three year history degree that my fellow students and I had the option of a module in historiography. Up until that point I hadn’t really thought about what it was that we were doing other than that it was interesting. In retrospect we should have done that module in the first term of the first year.</p>
<p>By analogy: we were all gleefully mixing flour, water, milk, butter, eggs (sometimes with beer and wine too) and enjoying ourselves immensely but without having given any thought to what might result: was it going to be a loaf of bread or a biscuit? Who was going to eat it? Should it be nutritious? We had no clue. And (perhaps because we were bad students) it didn’t even occur to us to ask these questions.</p>
<p>So we all appear to be doing or reading history happily without stopping to wonder why: but when we do stop to discuss we find we have strongly contradictory views.</p>
<p>Here are some basic questions that every reader of history books should ponder:</p>
<ul>
<li>Why do we focus on some events intensely and others not at all?</li>
<li>Is history flexible enough to fit any interpretation or are some interpretations right and some wrong?</li>
<li>Are historians working collectively towards any objective or goal? If so what?
Why you should read What is History</li>
</ul>
<p>Enter “What is History” by E.H. Carr, probably the most influential and certainly the most popular history book on historiography written in English. First published in 1961 and still in print, there is still no more thought provoking and fun-to-read book on the topic. If you disagree with this statement let me know because I would love to hear about any other classics of historiography that I have missed!</p>
<p>If you like reading about history and have not yet read “What is History” you should head over to your favourite bookstore (or click the links in this review) buy it immediately and put it to the top of your book pile.</p>
<h3 id="structure-of-the-book" tabindex="-1">Structure of the book</h3>
<p>It is made up of 6 chapters each covering a lecture on a historiographical topic:</p>
<ol>
<li>The Historian and His Facts</li>
<li>Society and the Individual</li>
<li>History, Science and Morality</li>
<li>Causation in History</li>
<li>History as Progress</li>
<li>The Widening Horizon</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="so-what-does-carr-think-it-is%3F" tabindex="-1">So what does Carr think it is?</h3>
<p>Carr tries to steer for a middle course between relativism (ie all history is relative and any interpretation of what happened is equally valid and the objective view (ie it is the job of the historian “simply to show it really was”). The analogy he uses (borrows?) is that while there is an infinite number of views of the mountain there is only one mountain. Generally speaking I think he succeeds in plotting this course, but others have disagreed with him passionately (see above) – accusing him of either leaning too far one way or the other. Whether or not you agree I think everyone needs to engage with his arguments.</p>
<p>My personal hesitation with Carr’s arguments is his search for the single “ideal” historian – i.e. the implication that there is one best way of doing history which everyone should strive for. If you are not doing it his way then you are doing it wrong. My view is that there is room for more than one way to do or read history – although not an infinite number of ways! – even if each of us might have a favourite approach.</p>
<p>Perhaps the main thing I appreciate in this book it’s uplifting tone: problems can be solved and the world can be made better. For example Carr has a view of progress in history which is inspiring to read – whether or not you find his views convincing. It is also a reminder that the controversies of history – are we or not working towards progress in human affairs? – are the controversies of everyday life. Clarifying your thinking on how you view the past inevitably clarifies your thinking on how you view the now and the future.</p>
<h3 id="the-writing-style" tabindex="-1">The writing style</h3>
<p>The writing style is highly engaging. I don’t know how accurately the book repeats the lectures that Carr gave but you can almost hear the conversational and personable tone as you read. It can feel a little dated in places, for example Carr uses the pronoun “he” exclusively as was common when he was writing, and describes “man” before the “advent of reason” as “primitive man”. But the message is inclusive and warm and this comes across in the text.</p>
<p>I will finish with a somewhat controversial quote from the chapter on History as Progress:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“You can, if you please, turn history into theology by making the meaning of the past depend on some extra-historical and super-rational power. You can, if you please, turn it into literature – a collection of stories and legends about the past without meaning or significance. History properly so-called can be written only by those who find and accept a sense of direction in history itself. The belief that we have come from somewhere is closely linked with the belief that we are going somewhere. A society which has lost belief in its capacity to progress in the future will quickly cease to concern itself with its progress in the past”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>E.H. Carr, What is History?</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>I would urge everyone to read this book and consciously think about what it means to read or “do” history which is relevant not just for the past but also the future. If more people engage with historiography earlier we might have more, but less violent, debates than those we saw between Munslow and Marwick. And who knows, rather than a mess of flour eggs and beer we could end up with a beautiful fluffy – pre-sliced – loaf: now that is progress.</p>
Ten Caesars - review
Anthony Webb
A week ago I went to see a blockbuster exhibition about an accused arsonist who murdered his wife and his mum. The star of the show (running until October 2021 at the British Museum in London) is of...
2021-07-24T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/07/24/ten-ceasars/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/145166883X.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Ten Caesars - review" /><p>Our review of Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine, by Barry Strauss, first published in March 2019.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>If you want a handy summary of the key Western Roman emperors from Augustus to Constantine, with an up-to-date view of the deeds and their legacies, I can confidently recommend this book: a strong work of narrative history.</p><p>If you are already a well-read Roman history patrician you may turn your nose up at this offering for the masses.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <p>A week ago I went to see a blockbuster exhibition about an accused arsonist who murdered his wife and his mum. The star of the show (running until October 2021 at the British Museum in London) is of course the Roman emperor Nero. But was he really a bad guy? Maybe he was quite nice to the people who he didn’t kill? And did he or didn’t he burn down Rome to build himself a giant palace on the ashes?</p>
<p>These are the sorts of questions that people like to ask about Roman emperors. Professor Barry Strass’ Ten Ceasars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine – published in 2019 and prominently displayed in the exhibition gift shop – is an exemplar of this tradition: find out what really happened and then consider what side to take. On the one hand an emperor might have destroyed a town and slaughtered its inhabitants but on the other hand he secured the borders of the empire and kept the army happy. Pros and cons.</p>
<p>As Strauss notes in the summary of his chapter on Nero:</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“Nero did quite respectably at some of the aspects of his job. He won the support of the common people. He was a great builder. He was a superb impresario. He presided over a cultural renaissance. He loved Greece and won the support of the Greek East. It should also be remembered that for about the first five years of his reign, he had the support of the Senate as well.</p>
<p>Where did Nero fail? By appointing an incompetent governor, he caused a major revolt in Judea. By confiscating property, he stirred up revolt in the Western provinces. By persecuting and executing elite enemies, and by embarrassing himself in the eyes of the elite through his personal behavior, he stirred up conspiracy and revolt.</p>
<p>Nero was the most cultivated and cruelest emperor Rome had seen… Nero’s predecessors, aristocrats all, were more martial and sometimes madder, but none was more magnificent.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Barry Strauss, Ten Ceasars</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>So even 2000 years later we are still judging the Romans. And in fact whenever we come across an individual in history it seems we can’t resist assessing their character and wondering what they would be like to meet. The Roman emperors are particularly enticing because we have enough source material to consider them as people, and as role models for absolute power they convey an extra frisson of pleasurable excitement.</p>
<h3 id="a-personalised-history" tabindex="-1">A personalised history</h3>
<p>An academic work might try to avoid over personalising history – it can after all result in crude oversimplification – and might instead delve into social status and change, or centrifugal and centripetal pressures. But the rest of us are still trying hard to remember which emperor was next and should it be AD or BC? When we have got the hang of the politics then we might think about the deeper questions.</p>
<p>Ten Ceasars (and the exhibition) is consciously and unashamedly “popular” as it tries to set (get?) the record straight: for now, if not for-once-and-for-all.</p>
<h3 id="why-ten%3F" tabindex="-1">Why ten?</h3>
<p>The name of the book is populist too. Strauss has explained that the reason he chose “Ten Ceasars” is that “Twelve Ceasars” was already taken (by Suetonius) and nowadays the number ten is more trendy. It could equally have been called “Best Ceasars: 10 most significant roman emperors in the first Millennium” which would have boosted the click-through rate.</p>
<h3 id="structure-of-the-book" tabindex="-1">Structure of the book</h3>
<p>Ten Ceasars is divided into ten chapters each covering a significant emperor, but the narrative is actually a continuous one from Augustus to Constantine when the character of the Roman empire changed in important ways. The temporal gaps between emperors are filled in at the beginning or end of chapters when a few emperors in a row might be speedily introduced and swiftly dispatched.</p>
<p>So who do you think are the ten most significant Ceasars? According to Strauss they are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Augustus</li>
<li>Tiberius</li>
<li>Nero</li>
<li>Vespasian</li>
<li>Trajan</li>
<li>Hadrian</li>
<li>Marcus Aurelius</li>
<li>Septimius Severus</li>
<li>Diocletian</li>
<li>Constantine</li>
</ol>
<p>If you managed to guess all of their names in advance: well done.</p>
<h3 id="what-do-we-learn-about%3F" tabindex="-1">What do we learn about?</h3>
<p>Each chapter is a run through of the life of that emperor – what were the circumstances of their birth, who was their family, how was it they got lined up for the top job. When in power we are told of the things they did, what important events were taking place in the empire at that time, and how they met their end. At the close of each chapter there is a short summation giving us Strauss’ view of the legacy of each emperor. The book mainly concentrates on politics and war. It also rounds off the story by telling us a bit about the significant women in the lives of the significant emperors, and a little on the intellectual and religious ideas at the time.</p>
<p>It is not a social history – if you want to find out what it was like to be an “ordinary person” in this period – what you might have eaten for breakfast, whether you made yourself sick to eat some more, and if you really wiped your bottom with a communal sponge on a stick – you will have to look elsewhere (figs; don’t think so; evidence very scatty).</p>
<h3 id="a-missing-theme%3F" tabindex="-1">A missing theme?</h3>
<p>There is no clear over-arching theme to follow, no master narrative with which to tell the story: Rome is not necessarily declining, nor falling, it is just sort of bumbling on from one emperor to the next. Of course this itself could be seen as the theme – the lack of fixed principle beyond the practical pursuit and continuation of power – but if so it is not well signposted to the reader.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h3>
<p>The writing style is clear, authoritative and ever-so-slightly boring: a bit like reading the Economist. To make it a little more entertaining I imagined Strauss’ reading it out loud because his speaking voice is deep, melodic and thoughtful (have a listen to one of his many excellent podcast appearances) and I would encourage other readers to do the same.</p>
<h3 id="a-criticism%3F-or-a-strength%3F" tabindex="-1">A criticism? Or a strength?</h3>
<p>The main criticism of the book is also a strength – it sticks closely to “showing how it really was” and never really tries to probe beyond the politics. You could see this as a missed opportunity, but equally if you haven’t read many books on this period before and this is what you want, it will meet your expectations nicely. I personally enjoyed it as a nice intro on the emperors that I hadn’t read much about before, and as a refresher on Nero before visiting the British museum.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>So if you want a handy summary of the key Western Roman emperors and who did what at that time – or you are going to visit the Nero exhibition in London – I can confidently recommend this book. If you are already well-read on Roman politics and are looking for a fresh perspective I suspect you will find the content old news.</p>
<p>(1) A footnote on footnotes. Ten Ceasars is unusual in that there are no footnotes in the text. But if you look at the back of the book each chapter has a comprehensive list of references. In the Kindle version you can even click the on the reference to take you to the corresponding place in the chapter – but there is no link the other way. The references are key if you want to work out what is the origin of a particular story and so how likely it is to be true. I guess the footnotes in the text were removed to avoid interrupting the reader, but it is reassuring to know that the references do exist even if they are a little hidden (a bit like this footnote)!</p>
The Last Embassy - review
Anthony Webb
The Dutch present ships have arrived at the Tiger’s Mouth,
like tall inns on the oyster-shell mirror of the water, a joyful noise ringing out.
They’re filled with precious offerings, but first they...
2021-07-16T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/07/16/the-last-embassy/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0691177112.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Last Embassy - review" /><p>Our review of The Last Embassy: The Dutch Mission of 1795 and the Forgotten History of Western Encounters with China, by Tonio Andrade, first published in July 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>The Last Embassy offers an alternative viewpoint to that of China vs the West, an absorbing travelogue, and a sneak peek into the Qianlong Emperor’s court. It is also a very engaging read with a smooth but vivid writing style.</p><p>I would enthusiastically recommend this to anyone with an interest in China’s past – or present.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>The Dutch present ships have arrived at the Tiger’s Mouth,
like tall inns on the oyster-shell mirror of the water, a joyful noise ringing out.
They’re filled with precious offerings, but first they must transmit their official document, wrapped in gold.</p>
<p>荷兰贡舶虎门收,蠔镜声嚣水上楼。
琛献先传金叶表,翎开还整翠云裘。</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Wang Wengao 王文诰</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Tonio Andrade in his compelling new book “The Last Embassy: The Dutch Mission of 1795 and the Forgotten History of Western Encounters with China” tells us that this poem was written by the Chinese scholar Wang Wengao in 1795 to commemorate a Dutch embassy setting out for Beijing from Canton (now Guangzhou) in the far south of China. The ambassadors are heading off to congratulate the Qing emperor on a significant anniversary – 60 years on the throne.</p>
<p>Poetry was and is deeply integrated into Chinese culture. Most high-ranking Qing officials would be expected to be able to rattle out a few high-quality off-the-cuff stanzas on demand. Chinese emperors joined in the fun and many beautiful texts by ancient Chinese poets also include the margin notes and signatures of a whole sequence of sovereigns. Today as well, most Chinese kids will be able to recite a few poems by the age of four: my young son (half Chinese) enjoys a famous poem about a swan paddling on a lake, and this poem was itself composed by a seven year old in the 7th Century (“Swan, swan, swan: you sing towards the sky with your curved neck etc etc”).</p>
<p>British history and culture is much more a-poetic. I would guess that, like me, most Britons could name a famous poet or two but could not recite from them – other than perhaps a few vague ideas about daffodils, tigers, or summer days. The idea of government officials past or present composing poetry is laughable. The only recent example that springs to mind is Boris Johnson who – just before becoming foreign secretary in 2016 – composed a limerick about Recep Erdogan (the President of Turkey) that was deliberately as crude and insulting as possible – the context being that it was his entry for a “most offensive limerick” competition run by a magazine.</p>
<p>But while there are certainly differences between China and the West – poetry being just one – Tonio Andrade wants to remind us that the story of “culture clash” is an over-simplification. In particular, the story of late 18th century and 19th clashes between the west and China, both cultural and military, was not the only way for these two “worlds” to interact. There was another way, and this was demonstrated by the Dutch embassy of 1795. And while Andrade is careful to confine himself to the past, it is easy enough to draw parallels with the present where we have again a situation in which the “collision” of China and the West (i.e. the US) is sometimes portrayed as an unavoidable slow motion car crash. This book is a reminder that the steering wheel is a viable option.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-all-about%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it all about?</h3>
<p>90% of the book is the story itself: following the Dutch embassy as they make their way to Beijing, spend a few weeks there, and then return to the South coast. It is written in the present tense and follows three people in particular: the ambassador himself: Titsingh; a director of the Dutch East India Company in Canton: Van Braam; and a rather embittered translator: Guignes. We see the world through their eyes because the book is primarily constructed from their journals and later publications.</p>
<p>The other 10% is the introduction and conclusion, which provide Andrade’s interpretation of what happened – what was its significance and why has the embassy been consistently downplayed or denigrated since it took place?</p>
<h3 id="it-doesn%E2%80%99t-have-to-be-like-this" tabindex="-1">It doesn’t have to be like this</h3>
<p>His argument is that the Dutch embassy is significant in itself, by showing that relationships between European powers and the Qing Empire at that time didn’t have to be confrontational – and also as a symbolic turning point in the perception of China in the West. While China was often admired before the end of the 18th Century, after this point it was increasingly seen as more-or-less hopelessly backward. Titsingh and Van Braam can be seen as the last of the European Sinophiles.</p>
<h3 id="british-machinations" tabindex="-1">British machinations</h3>
<p>So why was the embassy downplayed subsequently? This was mainly due to the British who had visited recently themselves with the much more famous embassy of George Macartney. By painting the Dutch effort as a failure, their own disastrous embassy in 1793 could be presented as par-for-the-course rather than a double bogey (which it was). And because Holland was overrun by Napoleon at the same time as the Titsingh was greeting the Emperor, and the Dutch East India Company went bust soon after, there was no one left to defend the Dutch ambassadors, or profit from their efforts.</p>
<h3 id="it%E2%80%99s-all-about-the-journey" tabindex="-1">It’s all about the journey</h3>
<p>However, this book is mostly about the journey, taking pleasure from travelling alongside Van Braam, Titsingh and Guignes as they experience the excitement, disappointments, the wonder and the dangers of traveling overland to Beijing. Then the thrill, satisfaction, confusion and anxiety of mingling with the imperial court celebrating the New Year and sixty years of rule.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h3>
<p>Andrade’s writing style is very easy to read – I felt the chapters fly by effortlessly and pleasantly, in stark contrast to the struggles and tribulations of the Dutch and their Chinese escorts as they sank into muddy paths or heaved up steep, slippery mountain passes. He balances the available sources expertly, occasionally intervening to explain what the Dutch may have misunderstood or overlooked in their accounts. Stunning pictures, helpful maps and beautiful poems are blended into the text.</p>
<h3 id="another-point-of-view" tabindex="-1">Another point of view</h3>
<p>While the viewpoint of the Dutch is brought vividly to life, the Qing viewpoint is less well represented. I would have liked to see the Dutch as the Chinese saw them, rather than being left to infer this for ourselves. The reason we don’t get this is that the sources are just not so available. But it means that, although we broaden our horizons beyond the British view of the Qing, we are still getting a very Euro-centric outlook. Even if it is, in general, more positive, it is still highly prejudiced and very much an outsider’s perspective.</p>
<p>This book can also be challenged on its arguments: was the Dutch embassy really a viable alternative template for European states in their relationships with China? Or was it instead a rather desperate response to the increasingly beleaguered and precarious situation of the Dutch East India Company? I am persuaded by the former viewpoint – and the fact that it was possible to constructively engage – but I suspect that others won’t be.</p>
<h3 id="concluding-remarks" tabindex="-1">Concluding remarks</h3>
<p>The Last Embassy is “filled with precious offerings”: an alternative viewpoint to that of China vs the West, an engaging travelogue, and a sneak peek into the Qianlong Emperor’s court life. And while saying that it is “wrapped in gold” feels too flowery for this British reviewer, it is certainly pleasantly easy to swallow and digest. Given the current potential for storm clouds in the pacific, I would enthusiastically (and ineffectually…) recommended this for US, Chinese and European leaders. Even our own Boris Johnson might find it a source of future inspiration.</p>
Slavery After Rome, 500-1100 - review
Andy Salisbury
Health warning: the reviewer got a bit carried away and has written a rather long review – you may want to make yourself a cup of tea before starting it.
What is it about?
Professor of Medieval...
2021-07-11T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/07/12/slavery-after-rome-500-1100/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0198704054.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Slavery After Rome, 500-1100 - review" /><p>Our review of Slavery After Rome, 500-1100, by Alice Rio, first published in April 2017.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>What happened to you if you were a slave after the fall of the Roman Empire? Did Alaric give you a friendly slap on the back, explain to you your newly gained rights in his Visigothic Empire and allow you to go on your merry way? Sadly, it seems that things were not quite so straightforward. In fact, according to this fascinating new book on early medieval slavery, you may well have ended up getting buried alive with your boyfriend or girlfriend.</p><p>A thought-provoking history book that I would have no hesitation in recommending to anyone that enjoys history that is both well written and scholarly.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p><em>Health warning: the reviewer got a bit carried away and has written a rather long review – you may want to make yourself a cup of tea before starting it.</em></p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-about%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it about?</h3>
<p>Professor of Medieval History at King’s College, London, Alice Rio, looks at unfreedom in the early Middle Ages, focusing on Western Europe in the period 500 to 1100.</p>
<p>This period of history is bookended by iconic forms of unfreedom: the period before is associated with classical Roman slavery, which involved an all-encompassing form of domination by a slave owner. From the 11th century onwards, Western Europe is associated with both serfdom (compared to Roman slavery, arguably less comprehensive in terms of control but perhaps applying to a larger swath of the rural population) together with, in Southern Europe, a revived chattel slavery dealing with religious outsiders (principally Muslims but also Greek Orthodox).</p>
<p>The classical and later medieval forms of unfreedom described above are readily known and relatively easy to picture and describe. What came between them, and how one state of affairs developed into another, is a complex question which has long fascinated historians.</p>
<h3 id="isn%E2%80%99t-it-just-the-%E2%80%98bit-in-between%E2%80%99%3F" tabindex="-1">Isn’t it just the ‘bit in between’?</h3>
<p>In Alice Rio’s view, previous historians have tended to focus on early medieval unfreedom as merely a period of transition. If there is a central premise of this book, it appears to be that unfreedom in the early Middle Ages is a topic in its own right, with characteristics which warrant independent analysis and consideration. Rather than being just the ‘bit in between’ (part classical and part medieval but not fully either) it exhibits characteristics which distinguish it significantly from both. In particular, it was a period of experimentation and diversity. Some of that experimentation would form of the basis of later medieval serfdom, but other experiments responded to the particular circumstances of the time and differ significantly with both classical slavery and medieval serfdom. Part of what makes unfreedom in this period difficult to picture is precisely because it was more varied and less consistent in usage than the periods which came before and after it.</p>
<p>Alice Rio’s focus is on the strategies adopted and decisions made by individuals and institutions to achieve their own objectives. I found this approach refreshing and enlightening. By avoiding grand sociological theorising, her observations felt concrete, plausible and grounded in real life situations.</p>
<h3 id="breaking-down-the-book" tabindex="-1">Breaking down the book</h3>
<p>The book is divided into three parts, with separate chapters within those.</p>
<p><strong>Part</strong> I looks at how status labels became attached to individuals: <strong>Chapter 1</strong> focuses on raiding and slave trading; <strong>Chapter 2</strong> looks at other ways into forms of unfreedom, such as self-sale, debt slavery and penal slavery; and <strong>Chapter 3</strong> looks at freedmen and manumission.</p>
<p><strong>Part II</strong> considers wider trends, particularly the use of unfreedom to achieve economic objectives, with household service considered in <strong>Chapter 4</strong> and estate tenants considered in <strong>Chapter 5</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>Part III</strong> (consisting of one chapter, <strong>Chapter 6</strong>) looks at the law and the institutional framework.</p>
<p>Each Chapter in Parts I and II is divided into different geographical regions, with a particular focus on the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Francia and Anglo-Saxon England, with other regions drawn upon (such as Ireland, Wales and Byzantine Europe) where relevant or useful for comparison. This flexible geographic approach was, to my mind, a strength, allowing Alice Rio to illustrate characteristics and trends by comparison (one criticism I have of some academic history writing is that by merely describing a state of affairs at a particular point in time without any temporal or geographic comparison, it can be difficult to appreciate what makes such information of particular interest or relevance).</p>
<p>Each Chapter has its own conclusion, and there is an overall conclusion at the end of the book drawing together the various themes discussed. This is extremely helpful in making sense of what can, at times, feel like a smorgasbord of evidence and analysis.</p>
<h3 id="chapter-1-%E2%80%93-raiding-and-slave-trading" tabindex="-1">Chapter 1 – raiding and slave trading</h3>
<p>In Chapter 1, Alice Rio explains that, pre-eighth century, early medieval European slave raiding tended to be frequent but low level. The Irish may have occasionally raided Wales and England and took home hostages for either ransom or household slavery (as happened to Saint Patrick) but there didn’t exist the type of international slave market which would have made large scale operations profitable. This all changed from the eighth century onwards with the advent of the Muslims and Vikings, the former providing the demand and the latter the supply (or, at least, the trade conduits) to reinvigorate an international slave market, dealing mostly with Slavs as slaves (perhaps to the extent of explaining the etymology of the word slave in most Western European languages). Contrary to some previous historiography, Alice Rio contends that more centralised polities such the Carolingian Empire and Anglo-Saxon England had a peripheral role in such slave trading, focusing instead on maximising profits on land with the use of domestic labour (which they were reluctant to sell into slavery as they were more valuable working the land). This may explain, to some extent, the moralising of some later Frankish and Anglo-Saxon clerics regarding slave trading. Southern Europe (southern Italy/Spain) presents another picture, with more religiously mixed populations giving rise to some slave trading in the later period in Muslim populations. The overall picture is that slavery involving being bought and sold became increasingly associated with ‘outsiders’ (particularly of the religious type) and there was a growing distinction with other forms of unfreedom which did not involve being bought and sold.</p>
<h3 id="chapter-2-%E2%80%93-forms-of-unfreedom" tabindex="-1">Chapter 2 – forms of unfreedom</h3>
<p>In Chapter 2, Alice Rio looks at different ways in which native populations may have ended up in forms of unfreedom, particularly self-sale, debt slavery and penal slavery. The picture here is one of extreme diversity of practice and terminology. Making sense of the evidence in this context can be challenging, but Alice Rio finds common themes in what she describes as the ‘commodification of status’ and the increasing use of the language of gift to describe the actions of both the person entering into slavery and those becoming their masters. The Romans took a fairly strict attitude to freedom: a person was either free or not free. For a free person to sell themselves into slavery was shameful and illegitimate (although the punishment was to remain a slave, so the outcome was the same). Early medieval attitudes to self-sale were much more permissive and reflected the Christian view that the person entering slavery was a victim of his or her circumstances, and the lord accepting their slavery was performing an act of piety. A person selling themselves into slavery might do so for the promise of some food to prevent starvation; some land and/or the right to some of the produce of it; or for the protection and legal representation their new lord may offer. Debt slavery and penal slavery overlap since penal slavery invariably arose when a person who committed a crime could not pay the debt to the aggrieved party levied as a result (and so became their slave instead, in contrast to Roman style penal slavery which was owed to the state). What we are witnessing is the opportunistic use of the status of unfreedom to achieve the objectives of the persons involved.</p>
<h3 id="chapter-3-%E2%80%93-freedmen-and-manumission" tabindex="-1">Chapter 3 – freedmen and manumission</h3>
<p>Freedmen and manumission are considered in Chapter 3. Previous historians have seen the evidence from this period as pointing to ever greater restrictions being placed on freedmen, and as this forming the genesis for later medieval serfdom with the increasing blurring of the distinction between free and unfree tenants. Alice Rio rejects this argument. Again, what she describes is a multiplicity of different trends pointing in different directions. She does engage with the evidence for more ‘strings attached’ to manumission: for example, she describes instances of a lord gifting land to a monastery on his or her death; some or all of the tenants may be manumitted, but with obligations associated with the memory of the lord, for example by paying symbolic dues on particular feast days, with some of those dues earmarked for the continued memorialisation of the donor. Those obligations might be hereditary and come with restrictions on the freedmen moving from that land. In that sense, the donor was using the freed tenant to embody the memory of the patron. Furthermore, the connection of the freedman with the monastery might provide the freedman with a form of protection and legal representation. This may not have been necessary in the Roman period, with a relatively strong state and more opportunities for freedmen to integrate themselves into a developed commercial economy, but became relevant in the context of the relatively weak states of the early medieval period and the greater difficulty a freedman might face in achieving economic independence.</p>
<p>Part II looks at broader trends, with Chapter 4 considering household slavery and Chapter 5 estate communities.</p>
<h3 id="chapter-4-%E2%80%93-household-service" tabindex="-1">Chapter 4 – household service</h3>
<p>Again, the overall theme is diversity. For example, in Chapter 4, Alice Rio points to the way that, towards the end of this period, household slavery in Southern Europe becomes increasingly associated with religious and cultural outsiders, particularly Muslims and may, as a result, have become taboo for those who considered themselves ‘insiders’ (i.e. Christians living locally). In contrast, Francia appears to show evidence of a great fluidity of personnel between household and estate, with landlords utilising the resources available to them flexibly, in what they perceived as the way best suited to achieve their objectives at any particular time.</p>
<h3 id="chapter-5-%E2%80%93-estate-tenants" tabindex="-1">Chapter 5 – estate tenants</h3>
<p>In many respects I found Chapter 5 the most interesting in the book, as it appeared to provide some form of trajectory from early medieval forms of unfreedom to the type of later medieval serfdom that Alice Rio described in her introduction (a link which, as I mention later in the review, I felt somewhat lacking in the book as a whole). The early medieval period witnessed the end of the type of classic latifundia model of large scale direct exploitation of slave labour for cash crops which was seen during the Roman period. The early medieval economy was simply not developed enough to make it worthwhile. Instead, it became replaced by a multiplicity of practices, but with unfree labour typically only used directly on a small enough scale to be manageable (often a single household and farm) with the majority of the estate’s lands exploited indirectly through tenants who paid dues. Then, from about 800 onwards in Northern Francia and Northern Italy, historians such as Chris Wickham (I recommend his excellent The Inheritance of Rome) have described the emergence of the bipartite estate, with tenants responsible for not only the cultivation of their own land but also for cultivating the landlord’s reserve (the demesne of Norman England). This eventually gave rise to something akin to this system across most of Western Europe by the eleventh and twelfth centuries (under the more generic term of ‘manor’, this model being somewhat more flexible, with labour dues from tenants satisfied by either direct labour service or a monetary or non-cash equivalent as suited the landlord at that time).</p>
<p>Alice Rio states that her aim is not to provide an agrarian history of this period, and instead she focuses on how an intensification of demand by landlords on their tenants (presumably arising from these agrarian economic trends) lead to increasing conflict and renegotiation between landlord and tenant. Status labels were an integral part of that process. To give a simple example, a landlord (often institutional landlords such as churches, where much of the evidence comes from, presumably because they were good at keeping records) might ask a tenant to do more work on that landlord’s reserve. The tenant might resist. The landlord might then claim that the tenant and his ancestors had performed that work and that, furthermore, they did so as ‘unfree’ tenants (to which various terminology might be applied). A dispute might arise, and as part of that dispute the landlord might be able to get other, different tenants, to confirm that the tenant and his family were indeed ‘unfree’. Those other tenants might be offered an inducement to testify on behalf of the landlord (by being offered free status or other benefits) in what appears to be a type of ‘divide and rule’ strategy (my wording, not hers) on the part of landlords. Eventually the tenant might agree to do the extra work originally asked of them, in exchange for the landlord dropping their claim that they and their family are unfree. This is the type of scenario that Alice Rio appears to find in the evidence from this period. It is possible to pick holes in her reading of the evidence: for example, how do we know the landlord was always lying and the tenant always telling the truth? Notwithstanding this, the picture she presents is a compelling one, and does seem to make sense of the evidence available.</p>
<h3 id="chapter-6-%E2%80%93-the-law-and-the-institutional-framework" tabindex="-1">Chapter 6 – the law and the institutional framework</h3>
<p>In her final chapter, Chapter 6 of Part III, the author looks at the institutional framework; what were the rules and concepts that prevailed? This might be formal laws given by kings, Church statements or simply norms of practice prevalent among landlords. The general trend she describes is of the church and state being somewhat conservative in their legal concepts, often drawing upon late antique precedents. But, for Alice Rio, this conservatism is not in conflict with landlords, but rather provided landlords with what she describes as ‘instruments of exploitation’. An example might be rules regarding marriage between unfree tenants. In theory, the law took a very strict approach to this. In practice, landlords could interpret the rules as they saw fit, allowing marriages to go ahead provided they got what they wanted, often a compensatory payment of some sort. But, of course, that was up to the person who owned them: in one case narrated by Gregory of Tours in the sixth century, two unfree lovers who belonged to the dux Rauching fled to a church to be married. The priest returned them to their owner on condition he allowed them to remain together. Clearly a sentimentalist, the dux Rauching agreed and upon the slaves being returned to him he kept to his word, burying them alive in the same coffin.</p>
<h3 id="the-concluding-chapter" tabindex="-1">The concluding chapter</h3>
<p>In her conclusion, Alice Rio describes the end of this period as a lessening of diversity in uses of unfreedom. Of the many conflicting and varying trends of unfreedom in the early medieval period, one became dominant, partly because it was the one most suited to the requirement of the largest and most powerful landlords (who, perhaps inevitably, had the most influence on the development of law). The dominant model from the eleventh century onwards became that of the unfree tenant: tied to the land; perhaps having more rights than a Roman slave, but such rights being ‘conditional’ (for example, on payment) and therefore serving as a tool of domination by the landlord. This eventually became codified into a set of rules by a new generation of legal scholars into the system we recognise as serfdom.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h3>
<p>This is an interesting and thought provoking book. Alice Rio provides a rare combination of scholarly knowledge together with an ability to set out an argument coherently and clearly. She is a good writer, a gift not necessarily common in all academic historians, and her approach, grounded in evidence and the experiences and actions of individuals and institutions, is realistic and convincing.</p>
<h3 id="a-minor-criticism%E2%80%A6" tabindex="-1">A minor criticism…</h3>
<p>If I had to levy one minor criticism of this book, it is that, whilst she is very convincing at presenting early medieval slavery as a standalone phenomenon, the connections she makes between that and what came before and after are less developed. This applies particularly with respect to the connections between early and later medieval forms of unfreedom. Regarding the transition away from the Roman model, whilst it is not a focus of the book, the picture she presents is a convincing one: i.e. that a weaker state and less developed commercial economy made the style of slavery prevalent in the Roman world unsustainable in the circumstances found in early medieval Europe.</p>
<p>Where I was left with questions unanswered was the transition from early to later medieval forms of unfreedom. In her conclusion, she describes the ‘homogenization in the preferences of lords’. But what explains that homogenization? Why did strategies of unfreedom that were useful to lords in the early Middle Ages cease to be relevant? I think there are answers in the book: changes to the agrarian economy as described in Chapter 5; the fact that large landlords tended to be at the forefront of such economic changes and therefore had a prevalent influence on the development of the law in this area; and perhaps that stronger and more legalistic states lead to a greater and more consistent codification of the law in this area (and such states were more activist in enforcing those laws), narrowing down the opportunities for experimentation. However, whilst these arguments can be found in (or inferred from) the book, I found it odd that these strands were not drawn together in the conclusion.</p>
<h3 id="where-did-all-the-serfs-come-from%3F" tabindex="-1">Where did all the serfs come from?</h3>
<p>A separate question might be how prevalent serfdom was compared to forms of unfreedom in early medieval Europe. If it was more prevalent, how did formally ‘free’ tenants find themselves as serfs? Was this linked to the types of disputes described in Chapter 5? But I find it difficult to understand how such processes could be systematic enough to effectively ‘enslave’ an entire class of free peasants, particularly as Alice Rio herself appears to describe a type of divide and rule strategy by lords which would, presumably, have resulted in some ‘winners’ (i.e. free tenants) as well as some ‘losers’ (i.e. unfree tenants or those with greater labour obligations).</p>
<p>Perhaps this is a topic of a different book. If Alice Rio ever writes it I would read it, based on the quality of this book.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>A thought-provoking history book that I would have no hesitation in recommending to anyone that enjoys history that is both well written and scholarly.</p>
The Horde - review
Anthony Webb
I first learned to fear the power of the Mongols while playing the computer game Medieval II Total War. Playing as king of the English I was pretty pleased with my thuggish army of knights and...
2021-07-04T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/07/05/the-horde/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0674244214.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The Horde - review" /><p>Our review of The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World, by Marie Favereau, first published in April 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Favereau’s ‘The Horde’ gives you a glimpse of the world as it might have seemed to the Mongols – a vast stretch of grassland, mountains, rivers and forests, full of peoples with celebrated histories and complex lifestyles. “City land” was on the outside or the edge of this world and was relevant mainly when it could be exploited.</p><p>While the narrative can feel dense at times, this is an excellent book which will bring this world to life.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>I first learned to fear the power of the Mongols while playing the computer game Medieval II Total War. Playing as king of the English I was pretty pleased with my thuggish army of knights and archers. By the year 1250 they had expanded my empire into most of France, a good proportion of the German states and also the Russian principalities. A small advance force of bowmen and men-at-arms had just attacked and captured Novgorod (unprovoked) when the Mongols appeared on the horizon.</p>
<p>It was a terrifying sight. The little Mongol figures – each one representing an entire army – popped up again and again on the edge of the battle map. There were literally hordes of them.</p>
<p>Their siege engines made short work of Novgorod’s gates and walls and the waiting Mongolian mounted troops sprang into action, racing towards the now defenceless city. I withdrew my meagre forces to the town square where I could at least be sure they wouldn’t run away – they had no-where left to go.</p>
<p>My doom was upon me (or at least upon my virtual electronic proxies) but for one thing: before withdrawing from their positions by the devastated walls the English archers had planted a double row of sharpened wooden stakes.</p>
<p>Unable to detect the spikes due to a bug in the game’s AI, wave upon wave of Mongols impaled themselves on the pointed stakes. It was carnage. The ones at the back pushed forward and those at the front died in their thousands. The lone surviving Mongol horse archer finally broke – and fled the battlefield.</p>
<p>It was over. I had won.</p>
<p>My memories of the Mongols then are of a huge and terrifying war machine, invincible… except for their inability to detect a row of wooden stakes whose touch spelled instant death to mounted troops. But that’s the trouble with getting your history from computer games in general and Medieval II Total War in particular. You miss a lot of the subtleties.</p>
<p>This was why I was delighted to read Marie Favereau’s ‘The Horde, How the Mongols Changed the World’ – it goes far beyond the binary kill or be killed narrative of Mongols in the entertainment industry to a much deeper understanding of their society, giving the reader the perspective of an insider looking out, rather than an outsider looking in.</p>
<h3 id="back-to-the-book%E2%80%A6" tabindex="-1">Back to the book…</h3>
<p>Favereau’s focus is the Horde (derived from the Mongol “Orda”) also known as the Golden Horde, whose foundations were laid by by Chingghis Khan’s first son Jochi in the 1250s. It lasted as an empire or regime for about 250 years until the late 15th century. And it was enormous: even though it was only the “left bit” of the Mongol Empire it stretched from Bulgaria and Ukraine to Kazakhstan and Russia. If you wanted to walk today from its westernmost point (say Varna on the Black Sea Coast of Bulgaria) to its Easternmost point (perhaps Semey on the Irtysh River at the border of Kazakhstan), according to Google it would take you about four months continuous walking (8 hours a day at a good steady pace) to cross the almost 5,000km (3,000 miles).</p>
<p>Google maps link here if you are planning to give it a go: <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/nEos7ZaMSYtSc31t9">https://goo.gl/maps/nEos7ZaMSYtSc31t9</a>.</p>
<h3 id="destroyers-or-builders%3F" tabindex="-1">Destroyers or builders?</h3>
<p>While the focus is the Horde, her theme is their agency and legacy. She is keen that the Mongols should be appreciated beyond their ability to annihilate their contemporaries – they were not just destroyers they were also builders.</p>
<p>But even though the Mongols were not just destroyers they were nevertheless very good at destruction. The first section of the book describes the sweep westward in the 13th century in order to pursue and overcome their nomadic enemies. Their ambition, according to Favereau was not to take over the world, but instead to conquer their steppe rivals. This led them to conquer more and more lands as their enemies ran further and further away. But the victories were often hard fought and the battles sometimes lost – it is only in retrospect that we view the Mongols as the invincible killers.</p>
<h3 id="a-different-regime" tabindex="-1">A different regime</h3>
<p>It is the Mongol Horde as a developing and evolving regime that she is really interested in.</p>
<p>The nature of the Mongol regime was fundamentally different to most of the empires that we tend to be familiar with mainly because it was always on the move. There was an annual migration to and from the summer and winter grazing locations – as well as an ability to up sticks and relocate to a whole new area at will. The Horde did build cities but they were not for Mongols to live in. Instead they were to visit and a place of work for foreign traders and craftsmen.</p>
<p>Sedentary types such as ourselves easily make the mistake of thinking that a pastoral way of life is a primitive way of life. This is not necessarily the case. The origins of pastoralism in fact seem to have been as a response to the localised failure of urbanism – a handy “technology” that allows you to travel freely with tame food supplies in tow. The Mongols certainly had a highly sophisticated social structure that complemented their nomadic way of life.</p>
<h3 id="changing-over-time" tabindex="-1">Changing over time</h3>
<p>Favereau also describes the Horde’s power structures: how they evolved from consensus building initially, to bloody family purges, on to a system where power rested in a “council” of regional leaders. She writes about how the Horde differed from other Mongol regimes in how they controlled their subject peoples, and the forces that bound the Mongols regimes together or pushed them apart.</p>
<h3 id="i-like-nice-stuff" tabindex="-1">I like nice stuff</h3>
<p>She is particularly good at bringing to life the importance of the trade for the Horde – how the acquisition and distribution of “nice stuff” was what bound the elites to their khan and the people to their elites.</p>
<p>Expressing a sentiment that Maynard Keynes would have heartily approved of 700 hundred years later, one Mongol Khan stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“What benefit do we derive from all these stores [tens of thousands of bars of silver]? They have to be constantly guarded. Have it announced that everybody who wants a bar should come and take one!”</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Rashid al-Din, Compendium of Chronicles</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="the-mongol-worldview" tabindex="-1">The Mongol worldview</h3>
<p>One reason I liked this book so much is that it creates a feeling empathy with the Mongols of the Horde. It allows you a glimpse of the world as it might have seemed to them – a vast stretch of grassland, mountains, rivers and forests, full of peoples with long and celebrated histories. “City land” was on the outside or the edge of this world and was relevant mainly when it could be exploited.</p>
<h3 id="the-negative" tabindex="-1">The negative</h3>
<p>The one thing that I felt interfered the creation of this world-view, was the historical name-dropping. We are zooming through hundreds of years of Mongol family history, and just as I got familiar with one set of names, the next generation was plonked unceremoniously onto the page. To some extent this is unavoidable: there are just lots of people involved. But I felt that some of the narrative detail was very dense and not always needed. Anyone coming to the topic relatively fresh as I did will need to show some patience to figure out who all these people are – and whose names they will need to remember later.</p>
<p>But overall this is an excellent work and well worth the effort invested in it.</p>
<h3 id="final-thoughts" tabindex="-1">Final thoughts</h3>
<p>The effects of the Horde have echoed down the centuries: from “successor states” in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, to a continuity of culture, faith and political traditions in a much wider area. Instead of viewing the Mongols simply as savage uber-warriors – the baddies in a computer game – we should perhaps instead think of them more as we do Alexander the Great’s Greek empire: born in conquest, breaking down into constituent political parts, but nevertheless having a huge impact both in space and through time. Favereau’s ‘The Horde’ is an excellent book that will bring this world to life.</p>
Empire of Silver - review
Anthony Webb
Silver mining is not an easy job – when you dig the raw ore out of the ground it typically contains less than 0.1% silver – 1 part in a thousand. You then have to go through a laborious process of...
2021-06-17T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/06/18/empire-of-silver/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0300250045.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Empire of Silver - review" /><p>Our review of Empire of Silver: A New Monetary History of China, by Jin Xu (Author), Stacy Mosher (Translator), first published in April 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Reading the financial history book Empire of Silver: a new monetary history of China by Jin Xu can feel a bit like mining silver. The valuable nuggets of insight can be very labour intensive to extract. After you have finished you will have a little pile of intellectual treasures but many readers may feel that the payoff was not worth the effort.</p></strong></p> <p>★★☆☆☆</p><hr /> <p>Silver mining is not an easy job – when you dig the raw ore out of the ground it typically contains less than 0.1% silver – 1 part in a thousand. You then have to go through a laborious process of discarding the the 0.99% that you don’t want and turning that precious 0.1% into something shiny, attractive and valuable. Reading the financial history book Empire of Silver: a new monetary history of China by Jin Xu can feel a bit like mining silver. The valuable nuggets of insight can feel very laborious to extract. After you have finished you will have a little pile of intellectual treasures but many readers may feel that the payoff was not worth the effort.</p>
<h3 id="a-history-of-chinese-money" tabindex="-1">A history of Chinese money</h3>
<p>The story of Chinese money over the last thousand years is intriguing: full of drama, twists, and bankruptcies. And the story is as much about paper money as about silver currency. China was probably the first country to issue paper money: the Song dynasty (960–1279) – and its subjects – enjoying the benefits of lightweight, flexible and easily stackable wealth. In fact we are told that paper money originated in Sichuan because the main form of money in use at that time was iron coins – copper, used by the rest of the country, was in too short supply. But because iron is and was so abundant you would need to carry huge weights of it around to buy anything.</p>
<p>I’ve spent countless hours trudging back home from the supermarket with heavy bags of food, but the ordinary people of Sichuan in the 10th Century probably found the return journey from the market a relief because the stuff they bought was so much lighter than the coins that they had to hoick over there to buy it. We are told that some common purchases in the marketplace would require up to 5 strings of coins. With each string containing 770 coins this implies something more than 3,000 iron coins would be needed for routine shopping. This amount of coin weighed a staggering 30 kilograms (65 pounds).</p>
<h3 id="papering-over-the-cracks" tabindex="-1">Papering over the cracks</h3>
<p>In order to get around the ridiculous amount of effort required to go shopping, someone had the bright idea of using the relatively advanced technology of paper to make a note representing the iron coins. As long as everyone agreed that this paper note could be converted back into metal money whenever you wanted, you have achieved the same spending power but at a fraction of the weight.</p>
<p>This local initiative was eventually recognised by the emperor who decided to do it on a country-wide scale, and the first national paper currency – jiaozi – was born in 1024. For a while everything went fine until towards the end of the 11th Century the (Northern) Song found itself strapped for cash and facing enemy armies all over the place. In this existential crisis money was printed in such large amounts that any one note was pretty much worthless and people stopped accepting them as payment. And presumably in Sichuan they flexed their muscles and returned to their back-breaking iron coins.</p>
<h3 id="silver-wins-the-race" tabindex="-1">Silver wins the race</h3>
<p>The Mongol Yuan (1271 to 1368) and Ming (1368 to 1644) dynasties which followed are described by the author as a contest between paper money (which the emperors liked because they could print it whenever they felt like it) and silver or copper (which most other people liked because the emperors couldn’t just print it whenever they felt like it). Eventually paper money was increasingly shunned as people came to the view that it was only worth the paper it was written on – and in the latter half of the 16th century the Ming emperor Longqing gave up the struggle and silver became the dominant currency – boosted by the massive influx from the silver-mines the Spanish had seized in Peru.</p>
<h3 id="politics-and-monetary-policy" tabindex="-1">Politics and monetary policy</h3>
<p>The book then takes us on a thousand year journey tracing the ups and downs of Chinese dynasties by charting the history of financial innovations and changes, ending with the fall of the Nationalist regime in 1949. The theme is that money in general and silver in particular has been both a cause of political and economic change and also an effect of political and economic change. Jin Xu handles the interaction of monetary history and political history adroitly – recognising for example that declining imports of silver which helped to weaken and undermine the Ming dynasty are not necessarily to “blame”. You could equally blame the brittle or passive imperial system. Or indeed note that monetary instability was common around the world.</p>
<p>She is also scrupulously fair minded. The section on the Opium Wars being a great example of her thoughtful approach on what is often a highly inflammatory (/shameful) episode.</p>
<h3 id="three-strikes" tabindex="-1">Three strikes</h3>
<p>So we have a fascinating subject matter and a careful author in Jin Xu. On paper it is a great combination, but my enthusiasm for the book was hugely deflated by three things:</p>
<h3 id="1.-turgid-prose" tabindex="-1">1. Turgid prose</h3>
<p>It is a real struggle to read. I don’t mean that it covers tricky concepts or you have to engage your brain – which you do – but that it is about twice as long as it needs to be, padded out with countless quotes from economists and respected historians, which are mostly unnecessary except as a way to bolster the creds of the author. Partly this may be a “clash of styles” as it was originally published in 2017 in Chinese, and this style – so I am told by my wife (who is from China) – represents a long and often admired writing tradition. But even allowing for that the narrative has a tendency to meander, detour and repeat. I would have given up on this book if I didn’t have the intention of writing this review.</p>
<h3 id="2.-who-is-it-for%3F" tabindex="-1">2. Who is it for?</h3>
<p>I don’t know who it is written for. Of course I was hoping it was written for me and on the face of it I think I am an ideal reader for this book: I work in the finance sector, am interested in Chinese culture, and enjoy history books. But it was too dry and focussed too often on what seemed like arcane details. Equally if I was an academic I might be wondering why there are so many Milton Friedman quotes, or why it starts off with a section on “what is money”? It ends up occupying a no-mans land: too dull for the average punter but too lightweight for the serious historian.</p>
<h3 id="3.-all-roads-lead-to-the-present" tabindex="-1">3. All roads lead to the present</h3>
<p>A lesser charge but still worth airing is the implicit assumption underlying this book that history inexorably tends towards progress and that our current (financial) situation is the ideal to strive for. For example the author notes that a return to the gold standard is “unrealistic and inconsistent with the laws of historical evolution”. I would agree that it is unrealistic but I’m less convinced on the case for historical laws. Also the 500 year paper money period from about 1000 CE is described as an “ultimately failed” experiment – because silver is subsequently adopted as currency. But viewed another way paper money did a pretty good job for a very long time. You could equally argue that humans had a three thousand year “failed experiment” with horses until cars came along.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>These criticisms come across as pretty harsh, and should be balanced by the fact that I am glad I read this book. I extracted some nuggets of pure silver which I will cherish and hoard away in the recesses of my brain, retrieving them occasionally to try to impress my wife. But the extraction was a painful process. Somewhere then, in this leaden work, is a brilliant and much shorter book – perhaps (this reviewer writes hopefully) a sequel written by the author for her English reading audience?</p>
Soldier, Priest, and God - review
Andy Salisbury
What is it about?
Alexander the Great is one of the most famous, and studied, figures in history. What more is left to be said? According to Professor Fred Naiden, rather a lot. In his opening chapter...
2021-06-15T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/06/16/soldier-priest-and-god/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0190875348.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Soldier, Priest, and God - review" /><p>Our review of Soldier, Priest, and God: A Life of Alexander the Great, by F. S. Naiden, first published in December 2018.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>This book is an engaging study of the life of Alexander the Great with a particular focus on the role of religion. It will be of interest to those wishing to approach a familiar subject from a new perspective – ranging from Babylonian ritual slappings to Egyptian deific-adoption.</p><p>But while good, Soldier, Priest and God can be accused of over-reach, stretching arguments too thinly for the evidence – and wandering off into the no-man’s land beyond.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★☆☆</p><hr /> <h3 id="what-is-it-about%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it about?</h3>
<p>Alexander the Great is one of the most famous, and studied, figures in history. What more is left to be said? According to Professor Fred Naiden, rather a lot. In his opening chapter of <em>Soldier, Priest and God: A Life of Alexander the Great</em>, he asserts that <em>‘among the hundreds of Alexander biographies, none has focused on the topic of religion‘</em>. The author then goes on to explain the deficiencies of previous efforts to understand the role of religion to Alexander and his times: apparently, ancient sources took religion for granted and so said little about it; the Romans knew and cared little about Near Eastern religions; the British viewed Alexander as a proto-Anglican who was punctilious in matters of ceremony but otherwise indifferent; other biographies have tended to focus on the military aspects of his reign. I confess to having not read those hundreds of other Alexander biographies, so I cannot comment on whether any of this is accurate or fair to them, but Professor Naiden certainly makes a convincing case that there is a gap in the market for his book.</p>
<p>Professor Naiden states in the introduction that his primary target audience is the general reader rather than the academic or student, although the latter is likely to find much that is worthwhile in the book, not least the appendices which include useful tables setting out acts of sacrifice and related rituals, acts of supplication, and formal meetings of Alexander’s companions.</p>
<p>Each chapter concludes with an extended quote from later historical writings on Alexander, drawing in particular from the Alexander Romance. These are fascinating, and the question of how later cultures and religions have portrayed and remembered Alexander is a substantive topic in its own right.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-it-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is it like to read?</h3>
<p>Professor Naiden integrates religion into the story of Alexander in a number of different ways, some of which I found more convincing than others. However, even where I wasn’t entirely convinced by the book’s line of argument, I found the ideas and evidence presented thought-provoking.</p>
<p>At its most convincing, the book establishes the interaction of political and religious legitimacy in ancient Europe and the Near East. As well as being a king and military leader, Alexander performed various religious roles: he oversaw divinations; led his companions in rites of thanksgiving; conducted funerals; became a son of Amun in Egypt; and engaged in ever more peculiar religious ceremonies (my favourite involves Babylonian priests slapping Alexander repeatedly, which had to be continued until he cried). Alexander used the religious authority conferred on him to achieve his objectives: when an annual religious observance threatened to interfere with the timing of a proposed invasion, he altered the calendar; when a priest interpreted an omen in an unhelpful way, Alexander claimed the authority to reinterpret it.</p>
<h3 id="how-religious-was-alexander-the-great%3F" tabindex="-1">How religious was Alexander the Great?</h3>
<p>Religion permeated the life of ancient peoples in a way that is, to some extent, alien to us. Military leaders relied on diviners scrutinizing sheep livers when making decisions; a multitude of free men (and occasionally women) from different stratum of society, from kings, through to chieftains, magistrates and the heads of households, performed rituals, including animal sacrifices, to help make predictions about the future. It is debatable how useful the term ‘priest’, used frequently in this book, is to the general reader when understanding such a society.</p>
<p>How religious was Alexander, and to what extent did religion motivate his decisions? The author describes Alexander as ‘devout’, whose military decisions and route of conquest was often driven by religious considerations. But was any of this unusual or unexpected in the context of the society he lived in? The book does not engage with this question. The author refers to Alexander as a ‘religious innovator’ but in my opinion does not do enough to substantiate this statement.</p>
<h3 id="alexander-as-an-%E2%80%98armed-tourist%E2%80%99" tabindex="-1">Alexander as an ‘armed tourist’</h3>
<p>At times, the books makes specific claims about what motivated Alexander, but even after consulting the corresponding footnotes I was left unclear what justified these statements. We are told that ‘Alexander wanted pitched battles, no matter the odds, because he wanted proof that Zeus favoured him’; elsewhere we are told that Alexander thought of the expedition as a ‘personal holy war’. But how do we know this? Given the lack of direct evidence for Alexander’s own beliefs and motivations, any assertions on these topics appear speculative. The performance of religious ceremonies might denote underlying beliefs; or Alexander could have been merely performing a role which augmented his legitimacy in the eyes of newly conquered subjects.</p>
<p>The original, ‘official’, justification for the expedition was to punish Persia for invading Greece and to liberate Greek Asia Minor. But after conquering Persepolis they largely achieved this, and after taking the Persian city of Ecbatana, the Macedonians started to run out of rich cities to plunder. After this point, Alexander encountered growing opposition from his own troops and generals to further expansion. Subsequent excursions into central Asia and India can strike the modern observer as vanity projects, with Professor Naiden referring to the invasion of India as a ‘folly’. So what drove Alexander on? It is a fascinating question, but one that is difficult to answer. Perhaps Alexander was trying to immortalise his name as the greatest conqueror of all time; perhaps he was trying to outdo Cyrus the Great and establish a new dynasty; or perhaps he was some sort of ‘armed tourist’ (as described by Naiden) out to tick off some sights off from the bucket list.</p>
<p>Alexander as son of Amun and oath-man to Marduk
Did Alexander’s approach to the religions of the places he conquered explain his successes and failures? The book argues that they do.</p>
<p>In the early chapters, the book contrasts Alexander’s religious policies in Egypt and Mesopotamia favourably with those of Darius. We are told that Darius did not serve the Egyptian gods as a pharaoh would, and that he did not serve as king or priest in Babylon. In this light, Alexander viewed ‘several great thrones of the Near East as effectively vacant’. In contrast, Alexander embraced the religious connotations of becoming pharaoh with particular enthusiasm. On his deathbed Alexander’s expressed his wish to be buried as a pharaoh at the Siwa Oasis where the oracle declared him to be the son of the deity Amun in 332 BC. For me this was amongst the most compelling evidence for Alexander’s own attitude to religion, or at least how he would like to be remembered by posterity. In Babylon, Alexander swore an oath to Marduk and became king, and therefore ruled legitimately in the eyes of the local priesthood.</p>
<h3 id="religious-rebellions%3F-or-just-rebellions%3F" tabindex="-1">Religious rebellions? Or just rebellions?</h3>
<p>As Alexander moved east his approach to the new religions he encountered became less conciliatory. At Persepolis he killed the male captives, some of whom were Persian priests (whether he knew that was unclear). We are told he largely ignored the local Persian gods, and refused to become king (at first because Darius was still alive). At Bactra, the Macedonians burned and buried bodies in contravention of local religious tradition. The author draws a link between these failures to accommodate local religious sensibilities and opposition to Alexander in Persia, including the rebellions of the Persian satrap Shatibrzana appointed by Alexander. But were these rebellions driven by religious considerations? No direct evidence is presented on this question.</p>
<p>We are also told that a conflict arose between the cult of Alexander as son of Amun, and the ‘cult of companionship’, with some companions such as Parmenio and his son Philotas denigrating Alexander’s Egyptian religious status and this contributing, in part, to Alexander’s decision to have them killed. By doing so, Alexander gave preference to his religious role in Egypt and weakened his bond with his companions. But Philotas was accused of conspiracy against Alexander and that was the ostensible reason for him being put to death; regardless of Alexander’s attitude to the ‘cult of companionship’, I am not clear that he would have spared Philotas in these circumstances. We are told that Alexander neglected Macedonian rites and therefore lowered his own troops’ morale, but what did this neglect consist of?</p>
<h3 id="priests%2C-monkeys-and-rivers" tabindex="-1">Priests, Monkeys and Rivers</h3>
<p>In India, the evidence for Alexander’s policies towards the local religions is patchy, but appears mostly to consist of misunderstanding and lack of engagement. He pursued a policy of mass enslavement that angered the Indians, whose own religion forbade the enslavement of worshippers of the gods of India. The author appears to draw a link between these policies and Alexander’s decision to turn back at the river Beas, stating that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>‘an invader with no local god to help him had made unwinnable wars on priests, monkeys and rivers.’</p>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>F. S. Naiden, Soldier, Priest, and God</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>On returning to Babylon, Alexander’s religious aptitude, previously a strength, deserted him. In a bizarre ceremony, Babylonian priests responded to a bad omen for Alexander by having him substituted by a simpleton who they treated as king (so as to lure misfortune to the mock king). Alexander at first went along with this, but eventually lost patience and had the substitute executed. Following this misstep, the Babylonian clergy withdrew from Alexander and ceased to assist him.</p>
<p>In summary, the general thesis appears to be that, in his earlier conquests, Alexander was familiar with the religions of the peoples he conquered and was able to assimilate their cultures to his own purposes (the most obvious example being Egypt, whose religion and culture would have been familiar to educated Greeks of the time). But as his conquests took him further afield, the religions became more exotic, and he less able or willing to accommodate them. His refusal to understand the religions of the peoples he conquered resulted in opposition which frustrated his plans.</p>
<h3 id="but-everything-seemed-to-work-out-ok%E2%80%A6" tabindex="-1">But everything seemed to work out ok…</h3>
<p>I found this line of argument intriguing but unconvincing. The books draws attention to apparent mistakes Alexander made towards the end of his reign. I have no particular expertise in this area of history, but as a general observer I was left wondering what tangible impact these shortcomings had. For example, his religious policies in Persia may well have been cack-handed, but it still formed part of his empire on his deathbed. Perhaps if he had lived longer, his failures as an administrator and religious conciliator would have become apparent; but perhaps thankfully for him, he did not. He died controlling one of the largest empires in history, so whatever he did, he presumably did reasonably well up to that point in time.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>I found this book an interesting and enjoyable read. The book itself states that it is targeted at the general reader. In addition, I feel those with some existing knowledge of this topic may enjoy it, by being presented with a perspective and ideas which, whilst debatable, are certainly thought-provoking.</p>
If history is wrong, does it matter?
Anthony Webb
...at the end, Garder [the last Norse settlement in Greenland] was like an overcrowded lifeboat… famine and associated disease would have caused a breakdown of respect for authority… starving people...
2021-06-07T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/06/11/if-history-is-wrong-does-it-matter/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1646515673/posts/Vikings_kidsvsadults.png" alt="If history is wrong, does it matter?" /><blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>...at the end, Garder [the last Norse settlement in Greenland] was like an overcrowded lifeboat… famine and associated disease would have caused a breakdown of respect for authority… starving people would have poured into Gardar… slaughtering the last cattle and sheet… eating the dogs and newborn livestock…</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Jared Diamond, Collapse</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>So writes Jared Diamond on the end of the Norse (Viking) settlement in Greenland, evoking the visceral terror of crazed and desperate Vikings on the rampage for whatever raw meat they could lay their hands on. The trouble is – as Gordon Campbell points out in his recent book Norse America (see my review here), and as others have pointed out before him – there is no evidence for this. In fact it is just as likely they sailed back to Norway and lived happily ever after.</p>
<p>To be fair to Diamond (who is one of my favourite authors) he does precede this passage by saying “<em>I can’t resist fleshing out [sic] the end with some speculation</em>“.</p>
<p>But even so others of his more sober supporting arguments now look to be proven incorrect – for example carbon in sediments appears to be evidence of manure on the fields rather than Vikings burning precious trees to clear land.</p>
<p>Collapse was and still is one of the best popular history books I have read. But for the 15 years since I read the book I have had the wrong idea about the Norse in Greenland.</p>
<p>Does it matter?</p>
<h3 id="does-it-matter-if-history-is-wrong-in-general%3F" tabindex="-1">Does it matter if history is wrong in general?</h3>
<p>There are of course different ways to be wrong. Here are three:</p>
<ol>
<li>You can be deliberately misleading</li>
<li>You can misinterpret information and then be shown to be incorrect</li>
<li>You can make a conclusion on insufficient information and later turn out to be incorrect (when more info is available)</li>
<li>You could have no information and just make something up that seems plausible</li>
<li>If we caught someone doing the first of these we wouldn’t think much of them. But in fact in terms of impact they are all equivalent: we end up believing something which is untrue.</li>
</ol>
<p>But whatever the cause of the error I would argue that the error is unimportant.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter.</p>
<h3 id="if-history-is-wrong-that%E2%80%99s-fine" tabindex="-1">If history is wrong that’s fine</h3>
<p>This is because – if we assume that we are reading history to extend our knowledge or experience – even incorrect histories help to build a framework of knowledge, or scaffolding for our thoughts. As we read more we can adjust the framework or hang extra things off it. But without a framework it is very difficult to retain any information at all in our heads.</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1646515673/posts/Vikings_kidsvsadults.png#center" alt="Vikings for kids and adults" title="Two views of the vikings" /></p>
<h6 id="which-one-is-righter%3F" tabindex="-1">Which one is righter?</h6>
<p>For example, when I was an undergraduate studying modern history, we would be given reading lists at the beginning of a term, packed full of learned and often very dense text, usually on an area of history of which we had no previous knowledge. I discovered it was much easier to read and enjoy these academic books if first I went to the library and got out a kids book on the same subject. It might have been full of dubious generalisations and out of date opinions (and fun pictures), but when I went back to the “serious” book I had a context in which to place it and I could absorb it much more easily – and rebuild and replace the framework created by the kids book.</p>
<h3 id="caveat-lector" tabindex="-1">Caveat lector</h3>
<p>There are a couple of caveats that I should make to this claim.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Firstly incorrect history books don’t matter only if we are as readers always reading with an open (but also sceptical) mind, and ready to cut out the mental deadwood that we inevitably build up.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Secondly there are extreme cases where incorrect history books definitely do matter: where they lead to violence or other sorts of harm.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>So we must accept responsibility as a reader to read critically.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Paradoxically: as long as we care about history being right, it doesn’t matter if it is wrong.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Going back to the example of Diamond’s book Collapse: before I read this book I had no idea that Norse settlers lived in Greenland for 500 years. I also had no idea about the other peoples who lived in this part of North America – the Dorset peoples or Thule Inuit. My understanding of what happened was incorrect but I was given the context in which to appreciate other stories about this period. Our horizons can be wider even if the view is dubious!</p>
<p>But there can be a related problem with history writing which I think is much worse: selectivity.</p>
<h3 id="a-fate-worse-than-being-wrong" tabindex="-1">A fate worse than being wrong</h3>
<p>If we only read and write about a narrow set of topics, ie we are too selective, we will have historical blind spots that can be much more damaging. Back to Greenland: if we only read about the Vikings we might skim over the more important and more relevant experience of the 50 million native American peoples who were there for thousands of years before Europeans.</p>
<p>I’m British and the historical myopia we collectively suffer from is in my view an obsession with World War 2. This 6 year period (for the British) accounts for easily more than 50% of all history books sold in the UK (source: guesstimate). But by just reading about this one event we miss a wider perspective that allows us to understand our ourselves better, or other people from other countries.</p>
<p>So it doesn’t matter if history is mistaken, but it does matter if history is myopic.</p>
<p>Going back to Collapse by Jared Diamond: I would still encourage everyone to read this book, but read it critically, and don’t make my mistake of only reading this book, read other books too!</p>
<p>While on the subject, don’t trust me either (why would you?). You might think I’m wrong about being wrong. If you do, then set me right with a comment.</p>
Checkmate in Berlin - review
Maddox von Ranke
When the Americans and British rolled into Berlin in June 1945, optimism was high that power sharing with their Russian allies would work – it was imperative it did. But Stalin had other plans,...
2021-06-05T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/06/06/checkmate-in-berlin/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/1529393159.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Checkmate in Berlin - review" /><p>Our review of Checkmate in Berlin: the first battle of the cold war, by Giles Milton, first published in July 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>A thrilling read, Giles Milton combines a strong narrative of four tense years in Berlin in the aftermath of the Second World War with personal stories at turns harrowing and uplifting.</p><p>Checkmate in Berlin describes the opening gambit in a conflict which would continue for the next 40 years.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <p>When the Americans and British rolled into Berlin in June 1945, optimism was high that power sharing with their Russian allies would work – it was imperative it did. But Stalin had other plans, despite agreements reached at Yalta and Potsdam. After an orgy of violence, rape and looting, the Communists set out to seize control over Berlin, culminating in the blockade. Ultimately though, a defiant airlift, in an effort resonant of Dunkirk, brought food and supplies to 2.4 million freezing, starving West Berliners. Shortly afterwards, NATO and the Warsaw Pact were established, and the battle lines were drawn for the Cold War.</p>
<p>A thrilling read, Giles Milton combines a strong narrative of four tense years in Berlin in the aftermath of the Second World War with personal stories at turns harrowing and uplifting.</p>
<h3 id="clash-of-cultures" tabindex="-1">Clash of cultures</h3>
<p>The book charts the build up in tension between the occupying powers with a sense of foreboding and inevitability. The Russians have a clarity of strategic vision which completely outclasses their Western allies who struggle to grasp the Communists have a different objective from what had been agreed: to bring all Europe into their sphere of influence. Frequently the Western allies could not agree amongst themselves, making it difficult to resist, or even understand, the Russian threat.</p>
<p>This failure to appreciate reality has its parallels in the current day as Putin plays out his grand strategy to the West’s often ineffectual and disjointed response.</p>
<p>Nowhere was this clash of cultures more aptly illustrated by the wild boar hunt organised by Brigadier Hinde, the leading British representative on the Berlin Kommandatura, who invited his US and Russian counterparts, Colonel Howley and General Kotikov respectively. The Russians opened up with submachine guns leaving a massacre of boar, and the Americans and British speechless, scrambling on the ground for safety.</p>
<h3 id="primacy-of-personality" tabindex="-1">Primacy of personality</h3>
<p>It was fascinating how much came down to personalities: in the words of Howley they ‘determined which nation was most influential’. Milton focuses on these influential military and political characters, describing a rich array of their stories, successes and flaws, engaging the reader in a way which was utterly absorbing.</p>
<p>He does not neglect the German civilians, however, contrasting their experiences with those of the occupying powers. Berlin was a ‘city that no longer had any cats, dogs or birds, for all had been eaten by starving Berliners’, whilst the senior military commanders consumed copious quantities of caviar in their requisitioned villas. If this were a game of chess, the board was a certain hell on Earth.</p>
<h3 id="opening-gambit" tabindex="-1">Opening gambit</h3>
<p>The logistical triumph of the airlift is brilliantly recaptured in the final chapters of the book as further characters and eccentrics take to the stage. As Milton points out: ‘there are times when the only solution to a problem is to summon the service of a British-born maverick’. How true.</p>
<p>But whilst this was a heroic success for the West, and undoubtedly important in setting the scene for the formation of NATO, this was less checkmate in Berlin and more opening gambit in a conflict which would continue for the next 40 years.</p>
Norse America - review
Anthony Webb
On a clear sunny day in 1170 CE, the Welsh prince Madoc, illegitimate son of the famous Owain Gwynedd, set sail from Rhos-on-Sea on the north coast of Wales. Travelling with him in his several ships...
2021-06-03T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/06/03/norse-america/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0198861559.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="Norse America - review" /><p>Our review of Norse America: The Story of a Founding Myth, by Gordon Campbell, first published in March 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>Norse America gives us an authoritative and very readable account of Viking settlement in North America. But it is also the fascinating and sometimes troubling story of the “Vikings first” advocates: a mix of dreamers, pranksters, fraudsters – and those trying to drum up the tourist trade.</p><p>A gripping read, it makes us question the “truth” of history that we sometimes take for granted, and how we choose our stories is as important as their accuracy.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★★</p><hr /> <p>On a clear sunny day in 1170 CE, the Welsh prince Madoc, illegitimate son of the famous Owain Gwynedd, set sail from Rhos-on-Sea on the north coast of Wales. Travelling with him in his several ships were over 100 men, women and children. Passing the Great Orme copper mound and then rounding the sacred and ancient druidical island of Anglesey, the voyagers shed tears of joy as well as sadness. They were fleeing the deadly conflict between Owain Gwynedd’s sons and seeking a new life. Undergoing great hardship they crossed the vast expanse of the Atlantic ocean, whizzed down the eastern cost of north America, nipped round the great Florida peninsular before pulling up in Mobile Bay in the state of what is now Alabama.</p>
<p>Kissing the sand and giving thanks for their deliverance, they unloaded their gear and established a small but thriving Welsh speaking colony over 300 years before the Genoan Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic with his own flotilla. Evidence for this precocious feat of colonisation was preserved in the language of the settlers, with reports of Welsh speaking groups of “native Americans” persisting through to the 18th Century.</p>
<p>The problem with this particular foundation narrative, as Gordon Campbell tells us in his thought provoking new book <em>Norse America: The Story of a Founding Myth</em>, is that it is complete fabrication: there is no such person as Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd and no such voyage took place. It may not even have been a sunny day when they (didn’t) set off.</p>
<h3 id="what-counts%3F" tabindex="-1">What counts?</h3>
<p>Which raises the interesting question of what counts and doesn’t count as a North American origin story?</p>
<p>A story that clearly didn’t happen like the Madoc one above is a step too far for most people: this doesn’t count. The Norse (Viking) settling in Greenland for 500 years since the 10th century? This also doesn’t count because Greenland is not “proper” North America despite being part of the same continent. Christopher Columbus? He disembarked on the Caribbean islands only and insisted until his dying day that he had discovered the eastern part of the Indies and that there was no such place as America. But that counts. A handful of Norsemen arriving in what is now the United States of America, this also “counts” – if we can find the evidence.</p>
<p>What about native American peoples who had been in the Americas for tens of thousands of years and numbered perhaps 50 million before Europeans arrived? For those writing the history books since Columbus – tragically – they do not seem to have been considered particularly relevant.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-the-book-about%3F" tabindex="-1">What is the book about?</h3>
<p>Gordon Campbell’s excellent book is really two books in one: an evidence-based assessment of what we know (and don’t know) about the Greenland Norse settlements, their voyages further south, and their eventual abandonment of Greenland. But it is also a “story about the story”: how and why people have interpreted and often invented evidence to promote the “Norse first” narrative.</p>
<h3 id="a-story-of-the-norse-in-north-america" tabindex="-1">A story of the Norse in North America</h3>
<p>The first section (actually the chapters 4, 5 and 6) examining what we know about what happened to the Greenland Norse conveys a sense of what it might have been like to be there, without dramatising or straying from the evidence – which is all carefully explained.</p>
<p>It functions as a useful corrective to other accounts, which for example have tended to read the sagas as if they were “log books” rather than “family history books” written down centuries after the events they are describing, and which blend reality with myth and flattery. It also provides a useful warning against over-interpretation of what we do know. For example Jared Diamond’s popular account of the Greenland Norse’s disappearance in his book <em>Collapse</em> (which I enjoyed and value) is rightly criticised for inventing a turbulent history of the last 40 years of the settlement – because there is no evidence to suggest this is the case. (The only thing which we can say for sure is that it looks like a planned and ordered abandonment given that everything had been tidied up and all the valuables had been packed.)</p>
<p>We also get a careful consideration of what evidence there is for North American Norse settlements outside Greenland.</p>
<p>A story of the story of the Norse in North America
The second book (chapters 1 – 3, and 7 – 10) deals with the historiography of the Greenland Norse story. Firstly, why do we care about it at all? A few hundred Vikings may or may not have had a short-lived settlement somewhere on the edge of the main North American landmass – but given their direct impact was either zero or vanishingly small, what’s all the fuss about?</p>
<p>The benign view is that it is a mysterious and heroic death or glory adventure far from home that we can enjoy in much the same way as we might a Spiderman movie. The Vikings are perennial favourites as lovable but murderous rogues and this is just the New World chapter of a wider obsession.</p>
<p>The more disturbing perspective is that it has and still can function as a classic piece of historical misdirection that distracts from and often undermines the history of the native American peoples.</p>
<p>For perhaps the most obvious example of this: the impressive pre-Hispanic Cahokia Mounds have been classified as Viking on the assumption that native Americans wouldn’t have been able to build them – and the idea Vikings that were the builders persists among some visitors today, according to Campbell.</p>
<h3 id="dreamers%2C-pranksters-and-fraudsters" tabindex="-1">Dreamers, Pranksters and Fraudsters</h3>
<p>So as well as a story about Vikings, <em>Norse America</em> is a fascinating and sometimes troubling account of the main promoters of the “Vikings-were-here” school of thought, who seem to be a mix of dreamers, pranksters / fraudsters, and those trying to drum up the tourist trade.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-not-to-like%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s not to like?</h3>
<p>The only criticism I would level at this book is that at times it feels that Campbell goes too far down the conspiracy theorist rabbit hole: is overly concerned with documenting and debunking whatever crazy viking-templar mash-up that is doing the rounds on Snap-Tok or Twitter-Book. Just because someone has #vikings on the internet should we pay attention?</p>
<p>The flip side of this is that Campbell is clearly a thorough investigator who tries to understand rather than lambast the Viking’s supporters. Although he clearly thinks that many of them are bonkers.</p>
<h3 id="conclusions" tabindex="-1">Conclusions</h3>
<p>Campbell himself comes across as the very opposite of bonkers (saners?) with his lucid, precise and succinct writing style – plus relevant academic credentials. I found this to be a gripping read, despite Campbell’s clear intention to eschew the dramatic narrative.</p>
<p>It makes us question the “truth” of the stories from history that we tell ourselves, and going further: how we choose those stories is as important as the accuracy of the stories. We might also ask why we choose to re-tell stories that we know to be false – of clear-eyed Prince Madoc sailing towards the setting sun, with a hymn on his lips, salt on his beard, and a wetted finger raised to test the direction of the hot mid-Atlantic air.</p>
The English People at War in the Age of Henry VIII - review
Andy Salisbury
Disclaimer: the reviewer is an ex student of Professor Steven Gunn.
Based on James Ford Lectures in British History given in 2015, Professor Steven Gunn’s book considers warfare in the ‘age of Henry...
2021-05-28T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/05/28/the-english-people-at-war-in-the-age-of-henry-viii/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0198802862.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="The English People at War in the Age of Henry VIII - review" /><p>Our review of The English People at War in the Age of Henry VIII, by Steven Gunn, first published in January 2018.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>The Reformation is of undisputed importance in subsequent English history. It can be argued that, as a result, the history of warfare during this period and its importance to the lives of ordinary Englishmen and women have been, in relative terms, neglected.</p><p>This informative and insightful book does a commendable job of rectifying this imbalance.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p><em>Disclaimer: the reviewer is an ex student of Professor Steven Gunn</em>.</p>
<p>Based on James Ford Lectures in British History given in 2015, Professor Steven Gunn’s book considers warfare in the ‘age of Henry VIII’ (adopting a loose definition covering a period of around hundred years from the 1470s to the 1570s) and how it was experienced by the English people, from nobility, gentry, clergy, through to artisans, yeomen, and peasants. The focus is on the impact of war on English governance and people, rather than recounting the strategies of battles fought or the politics of international relations.</p>
<h3 id="what-it-is-all-about%3F" tabindex="-1">What it is all about?</h3>
<p>The book commences by establishing the prevalence of war in England during this time frame. In this period, England pursued wars against its traditional enemies the French and the Scots, as well against onetime allies the Low Countries. The period also witnessed domestic revolts and, from 1534, a sustained military campaign in Ireland. When added together, nearly three-quarters of the years between 1475 and 1575 saw some form of military activity by the English. As Professor Gunn notes, this was an ‘age of war’, and he makes a convincing case that the impact of war on England in this period should be given a similar historical treatment as that of the Reformation; parallels between the impact of war and the Reformation on English society are a recurring theme of the book.</p>
<p>The book then considers how warfare impacted on the English from a number of different perspectives: how information on wars was spread and consumed; the adoption of new weaponry and military terminology from the continent; the mechanics of how armies were put together, armed and financed; the role played by the nobility and gentry, town and country, in organising and participating in warfare; the impact of war on the economy; the extent to which ordinary people fought, died and were injured in wars; and how warfare impacted on the relationship between a monarch and his or her people, including the ideological justification for wars.</p>
<p>The book concludes by comparing the impact of warfare on the English people with experiences and developments elsewhere in Europe. By doing so, the book helps put the matters considered in a broader international context.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is like to read?</h3>
<p>The depth of information drawn upon means that one of the book’s strengths is its ability to convey the nuances and range of different experiences of warfare. For example, how the role played by a household servant in fighting for his lord might differ from a tenant; how a village, a market town, a coastal port and a town bordering Scotland might all experience, and respond to, the demands of warfare in different ways. The breadth and range of the book is impressive.</p>
<p>The book, at just over 150 pages (excluding notes, bibliography and index), manages to include a wealth of information, including extensive quotes from primary written sources. The focus is on the source materials, with reasoned analysis and conclusions drawn from that. The range of sources referred to is extensive, covering everything from almanacs, books, letters, diaries, case law, parish records, coroners’ inquest reports through to buildings and fortifications.</p>
<p>Professor Gunn was a tutor of mine at university. The last time we met, Professor Gunn sat next to me at dinner and explained his work on the ‘Everyday life and fatal hazard’ project which uses coroners’ inquest reports on accidental deaths to research causes of death in Tudor England. I was fascinated by some of the insights Professor Gunn had gained as part of that project. For example, the frequency of accidental deaths by archery practice demonstrating how widespread archery practice was at that time. It is clear that a lot of that know-how has gone in this work, and I would encourage anyone interested in this period of history to examine the project’s website which has an abundance of similarly intriguing information and insights: <a href="http://tudoraccidents.history.ox.ac.uk/">http://tudoraccidents.history.ox.ac.uk/</a>.</p>
<h3 id="any-negatives%3F" tabindex="-1">Any negatives?</h3>
<p>As with any history book, the style of writing may appeal to the general reader or not, depending on his or her taste. It will certainly be of interest, and use, to students and academics studying related topics. For the general history reader, many will enjoy and be interested by the granularity of the information included; others may find the analysis drawn from that information somewhat cautious. It does not put forward any overarching or unifying theories that link together its various observations; if you are fan of grand theory history (in the style of Yuval Noah Harari perhaps) then it is possible that you might find the style of writing in this book a little on the dry side.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>The book is likely to be of interest to students and academics studying Tudor England and military and social history in early modern Europe. The book clearly benefits from extensive familiarity with the source materials and considerable original research. At 121 pages, the notes and bibliography sections provide ample opportunity to explore related topics and review source materials in further detail.</p>
<p>The book will also be of interest to the general reader. Such a reader is likely to be attracted to the book’s clear writing style, together with Professor Gunn’s talent for the well-placed anecdote and wry observation.</p>
<p>An informative and engaging book on an important topic, the book is highly recommended.</p>
A Story of Us - review
Anthony Webb
When choosing a (male) partner, to get a handle on the level of support they will provide, I invite you to weigh up the size of his testicles. If he has very large testicles compared to the size of...
2021-05-26T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/05/26/a-story-of-us/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/acovers/0190883200.02._SCL_.jpg" alt="A Story of Us - review" /><p>Our review of A Story of Us: A New Look at Human Evolution, by Lesley Newson, Peter Richerson, first published in March 2021.</p> <p><strong><hr /><p>An excellent book that will enrich your understanding of the past and what has made us who we are.</p><p>It has helped me to build some mental scaffolding across a 6 million year gap in my historical knowledge, the almost magical transformation from ape to human that has given us language, festivals, machines, art – and tiny balls.</p></strong></p> <p>★★★★☆</p><hr /> <p>When choosing a (male) partner, to get a handle on the level of support they will provide, I invite you to weigh up the size of his testicles. If he has very large testicles compared to the size of the rest of him (as a Chimpanzee does, and as presumably our common ancestor with the Chimpanzee did) they are likely to be putting all their energy into procreation and very little or none at all into the post-creation phase. If like humans, his testicles are pretty unimpressive, size-wise, this indicates that their ancestors were focussing more on the raising rather than begetting children. Between species (we are told in chapter 5 of this book) testicle size is a very reliable guide.</p>
<p>But attitudes to (males) raising or supporting children can vary from culture to culture. Males can be more or less helpful from place to place and attitudes can change significantly over time too.</p>
<p>This is the key theme of the book: <em>culture</em> can evolve by selection over time, and this can have an impact on our <em>genes</em>, which in turn can impact on <em>culture</em> and so on. We should think of ourselves simultaneously as animals and deliberating beings.</p>
<p>Returning to the testicles (and I’m inferring rather than quoting from the book here) a change in cultural behaviour that involves less promiscuity and more male ape participation in child raising could – in the right circumstances – lead to more successful offspring. These offspring would learn this <em>cultural</em> trait from their parents and continue this success with the next generation. Over time this group would no longer need to invest so much energy in large testicles which could eventually shrink from the size of an orange to the size of a red grape.</p>
<p><em>A Story of Us</em> by Lesley Newson and Peter Richerson uses this theory of “gene-culture inheritance” to provide a narrative of how we evolved from our common chimpanzee ancestor about 7 million years ago to who we are today, and how we are still changing. It is human history on the broadest possible stage.</p>
<p>Each chapter is a snapshot at a point in time:</p>
<ul>
<li>7 million years ago when our group of apes diverged from the chimpanzee group of apes</li>
<li>3 million years when we moved to the grasslands and started walking around</li>
<li>1.5 million years ago when we started to get bigger brains and use more tools</li>
<li>100,000 years ago when we looked as we do now</li>
<li>30,000 years ago when some humans groups became more complex in their interactions with each other</li>
<li>from 20,000 years ago when we domesticated ourselves
today when culture is global in scope and can shift quickly</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="what-it-is-all-about%3F" tabindex="-1">What it is all about?</h3>
<p>I found the early chapters in particular to be fascinating, explaining how the ape to human-ape transition might have occurred, highlighting changes in the material evidence – bones and stones – and what we know of chimpanzees, and using this to infer likely patterns in collective behaviour over time. For example: the authors propose that as we changed over millions of years our energy hungry brains could only have been supported through working together in groups – to find widely dispersed but tasty food on the grasslands for example.</p>
<p>Working together in groups provided more opportunities for behaviours to be copied from one person to another, providing an environment for more cultural evolution. Changes to the cultural “landscape” would have favoured some genes above others. This would have adapted the hominid to thrive in that cultural environment and simultaneously extend or change the boundaries of possible behaviours that they – through cultural shifts – could potentially adopt.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-like-to-read%3F" tabindex="-1">What is like to read?</h3>
<p>The ideas in each chapter are introduced in little stories in which the authors imagine what it is like to be an early human. I really enjoyed these exercises in imagination. They helped bring the book to life, in a similar way to Steven Mithen’s After the Ice, another excellent book dealing with pre-pre history.</p>
<p>The book is also pretty short which I see as a good thing! Ignoring notes it is only 235 pages long. Ignoring the last chapter on “today” – which let’s face it is not really history – it is only 185 pages long. The authors have done a great job of packing in 7 million years worth of history, plus evidence, plus some historical fiction into a very digestible package.</p>
<h3 id="any-negatives%3F" tabindex="-1">Any negatives?</h3>
<p>The final chapters in the book were interesting but felt narrower somehow in outlook. I’m not sure if this is just because the closer we get to the present the more mental baggage I have about those periods – i.e. I have certain preconceptions of what they should be writing about – but I felt that the last two chapters lacked the penetration of the first four or five.</p>
<p>Of course in any book covering this much ground this quickly there are bound to be some things that you disagree with. For me what stuck out was the brief suggestion that early humans might have lived in mixed brain sized groups – with the big-brains telling the hardy-half-wits what to do. Sounds pretty unlikely to me: a sort of hominid version of a Brave New World arising spontaneously on the grasslands of Africa.</p>
<p>But overall the arguments were put forward thoughtfully and with supporting notes. Where I did disagree it made me think more deeply about the topic and why I disagreed.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion" tabindex="-1">Conclusion</h3>
<p>These little gripes are minor issues in what is an excellent book that will enrich your understanding of the past and what has made us who we are. It has helped me to build some mental scaffolding across a 6 million year gap in my historical knowledge, the almost magical transformation from ape to human that has given us language, festivals, machines, art – and tiny balls.</p>
What is Popular History?
Anthony Webb
ContentsLinks are to the headings in the article belowWhat can I expect from a popular history book?What’s the difference between a popular and an academic history book?A book as a conversation… but...
2021-05-21T00:00:00Z
https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/05/21/what-is-popular-history/
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/c_pad,ar_1,w_900,b_auto:border/f_png/r_40/v1645998525/posts/whatispopularhistory2.png" alt="What is Popular History?" /><p></p><div class="toc_list"><hr /><h3><strong>Contents</strong></h3><p><i>Links are to the headings in the article below</i></p><ol><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/05/21/what-is-popular-history/#what-can-i-expect-from-a-popular-history-book%3F">What can I expect from a popular history book?</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/05/21/what-is-popular-history/#what%E2%80%99s-the-difference-between-a-popular-and-an-academic-history-book%3F">What’s the difference between a popular and an academic history book?</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/05/21/what-is-popular-history/#a-book-as-a-conversation%E2%80%A6-but-with-who%3F">A book as a conversation… but with who?</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/05/21/what-is-popular-history/#is-a-popular-history-book-a-less-reliable-history-book%3F">Is a popular history book a less reliable history book?</a></li><li><a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/2021/05/21/what-is-popular-history/#a-popular-choice%E2%80%A6">A popular choice…</a></li></ol><hr /></div><p></p>
<h3 id="what-can-i-expect-from-a-popular-history-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What can I expect from a popular history book?</h3>
<p>A popular history book is really just a history book that is not aimed at professional historians.</p>
<p>So if you are not a professional academic historian and you find a history book interesting then you can classify it as popular history.</p>
<p>This can cover a very broad range of topics and time periods, from things that happened fairly recently, such as the cold war, to things that happened ages ago, before humans started planting their own vegetables.</p>
<h3 id="what%E2%80%99s-the-difference-between-a-popular-and-an-academic-history-book%3F" tabindex="-1">What’s the difference between a popular and an academic history book?</h3>
<p>People often read popular history to find out what happened. Whereas an academic already knows the key events of their period and could instead be looking at a very particular aspect of their topic.</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/ds2o5ecdw/image/upload/v1645998525/posts/whatispopularhistory2.png#center" alt="A popular history book and an academic history book" title="Rubicon vs Roman Masculinity" /></p>
<p>For example, if you read “<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rubicon-Triumph-Tragedy-Roman-Republic/dp/034911563X/" title="Rubicon book">Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic</a>” by Tom Holland you will get a rollercoaster narrative account of the expansion and fall of the Roman republic. It costs about £10 from Amazon.co.uk or $9 on Amazon.com. It has attracted (at time of writing) 417 global reviews on Amazon.</p>
<p>An academic book on the same period (chosen at random) is “<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Masculinity-Politics-Routledge-Monographs-Classical/dp/0367480468/" title="Roman Masculinity book">Roman Masculinity and Politics from Republic to Empire book</a>” by Charles Goldberg. According to the publisher it “<em>provides a fascinating insight into the intertwined nature of masculinity and political power for anyone interested in Roman political and social history, and those working on gender in the ancient world more broadly</em>”. It costs £120 / $135 on Amazon and so far has attracted no reviews on that site (although to be fair it was only published 6 months ago in December 2020).</p>
<h3 id="a-book-as-a-conversation%E2%80%A6-but-with-who%3F" tabindex="-1">A book as a conversation… but with who?</h3>
<p>You can think of any book as a conversation – or at least the attempt at one – between the author and the reader. The deeper you get into a historical topic the fewer people will be interested in having that conversation with you, and so the smaller the readership. When you get deep enough your book will only be able to “talk” to academics, because they are the only ones who have the foundation of knowledge needed for that conversation. At this point it becomes an academic history book and only librarians can afford a copy.</p>
<p>Over time (we hope!) the knowledge and insights accumulated by professional historians will percolate out of the ivory towers and into the public consciousness, usually through a popular history book or television series.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One of the things that we are trying to do with this book blog is root around in the publishers’ catalogues for popular history books that are not getting much coverage but look really interesting – with topics that we want to hear and talk about.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="is-a-popular-history-book-a-less-reliable-history-book%3F" tabindex="-1">Is a popular history book a less reliable history book?</h3>
<p>You can probably see by now that I am a big fan of popular history. But the genre does have its detractors. It has sometimes been seen as less rigorous in its approach and more likely to cover the same old topics – another helping of World War 2 anyone? I think that this can be true of popular history. But it can also be true of any work of non-fiction including academic work.</p>
<p>When I studied history at university I would occasionally get frustrated that the topics historians chose to write about would follow pretty narrow tramlines – and would usually be in direct response to another book or article on the same topic. So “more of the same” can be a problem in academic history too.</p>
<p>And you can have more or less reliable academic history articles as well.</p>
<h3 id="a-popular-choice%E2%80%A6" tabindex="-1">A popular choice…</h3>
<p>And going back to popular history: so many of these books are published every month covering such a wide range of geographical areas, time periods, subjects and styles that you can always find something new and interesting to get your teeth into.</p>