October Reviews: Part Two

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, once again I return with a collection of book reviews. Work is still occupying half my days and the rest I am trying to dedicate to writing. Best of luck to everyone taking part in NaNoWriMo 2014, have a good November.
Continue reading “October Reviews: Part Two”

October Reviews, part 1

While I’m getting used to my new job I’m going to post my reviews in a single blog post. They will probably be quite short, a summary of the content or plot, followed by my opinion and reasons for that opinion.

Enjoy

Continue reading “October Reviews, part 1”

June reviews: part one

It’s the middle of the month and yet I haven’t posted a single book review. To make up for it I’m going to review four today.
Continue reading “June reviews: part one”

ARC review: ‘I Freed Myself’ by David Williams

8th April 2014
Cambridge University Press

Continue reading “ARC review: ‘I Freed Myself’ by David Williams”

Frisian Chieftain Radbod: ‘I’ll See You in Hell’

Beautiful piece of embroidery and an interesting look at seventh century European politics.

Kim Rendfeld

In the best known legend about Frisian chieftain Radbod (d. 719), from The Life of Wulframn of Sens, he stuck his toe in the baptismal font and asked a profound question: would he see his ancestors in the afterlife? Told that his kin were in hell while he would be in heaven, Radbod refused the rite. He would rather spend eternity damned with the ancestors he loved rather than be in paradise with the Franks he hated.

We have no way of knowing whether this particular story is true, but it might reveal Radbod’s reasoning for considering conversion but staying with his pagan gods. Both decisions had more to do with politics than spirituality.

Embroidery depicting Radbod refusing baptism Sixteenth century embroidery depicting the legend in which the Frisian chieftain Radbod refuses baptism at the last moment (public domain image via Wikimedia Commons).

Around the 690s, Radbod had been fighting with Frankish Mayor of…

View original post 421 more words

Review: ‘Guns, germs and steel’ by Jared Diamond

First published:
1997
Chatto & Windus

This edition:
2005
Vintage Books

Continue reading “Review: ‘Guns, germs and steel’ by Jared Diamond”

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

New York University Press
11th February 2014

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.

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

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.

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