Category Archives: History

Review: ‘Slavery’s Exiles; The story of the American Maroons’ by Sylviane A Diouf

New York University Press
11th February 2014

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http://www.sylvianediouf.com

Written by a scholar of the African diaspora, Slavery’s Exiles discusses the existence or otherwise of marronage among North American slaves. The maroons of Jamaica and Suriname have been extensively studied while evidence for maroons in the US (and the North American colonies before the War of Independence) is limited. This book looks at the evidence provided not only by former slaves interviewed in the early twentieth century, but at newspaper reports, court reports and legislation from the seventeenth century onwards.

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Two book reviews

I know I said I wasn’t reviewing any books this month because I’m concentrating on my novel but I got to 43000 words yesterday so I took some time off to finish reading an ARC I’d got from http://www.netgalley.com and another book I’d borrowed from the library. My reviews follow.

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Review: ‘When Hollywood was Right: How movie stars, studio moguls and big business remade American politics’ by Donald T Critchlow

5th November 2013
Cambridge University Press

Donald Critchlow describes the history of Hollywood from a political perspective, a conservative Republican one. Hollywood hasn’t always been a liberal place; in the first half of the twentieth century the Republican party was very strong among actors and studio bosses. This is the story of the vacitudes of fate that took the Hollywood Right from repeated decline to success between the 30’s and 80’s. The political careers of key players such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Cecil B DeMille, Barry Goldwater, and supporters like John Wayne and Hedda Hopper are interwoven in this account pf the changing fortunes of the Republican party not just in Hollywood, but in California as a whole.

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Criminally good books

I’ve just finished reading a couple of good books:

Silent Witnesses

Nigel McCrery

and

The Burglar Caught by a Skeleton

And Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press

Jeremy Clay

 

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ARC Review: ‘Local Customs’ by Audrey Thomas

22 February 2014

Dundern

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In 1838 the writer Letitia Landon married the governor of Cape Coast Castle, Captain George MacLean while the captain was on leave. It was a whirl-wind romance. They sailed for Cape Coast a few days later, arriving safely after five weeks. Eight weeks later Letty was dead. Initially her death was recorded as accidental – an overdose of prussic acid, but events surrounding her death caused a storm in London’s literary crowd, her husband was accused of neglect or cruelty, and there were rumours of suicide. The mystery remains – how did she die? Award winning writer Audrey Thomas first heard Leticia Landon’s story in 1964 while visiting Ghana. She visited Cape Coast Castle during the two years her husband taught at the University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. Their guide told her about the famous English lady who wrote books and who’s death was surrounded by mystery. This is her answer to that mystery.

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Review: ‘Improbable Women’ by William Woods Cotterman

 

2013

Syracuse University Press

Augusta Zenobia ruled Palmyra in the mid to late third century and made a terrible nuisance of herself to the Roman Empire. Eventually she lost her fight and after being taken to Rome a prisoner disappeared in to obscurity. Sixteen hundred years or so later the first of five remarkable English women explored the Middle East inspired by her and the romance of the east.

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