I’m back with more book reviews. There’s a bit more variety this time round.
Continue reading “November Reviews: Part Two”
Tag Archives: History
Blodmonath
Sacrifice.
November Reviews: Part 1
Good evening, ladies and gents; the new job is taking up a fair bit of my time but I’ve managed to get some reading done.
Continue reading “November Reviews: Part 1”
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
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.
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ARC review: ‘I Freed Myself’ by David Williams
8th April 2014
Cambridge University Press
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Frisian Chieftain Radbod: ‘I’ll See You in Hell’
Beautiful piece of embroidery and an interesting look at seventh century European politics.
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.
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…
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Review: ‘Guns, germs and steel’ by Jared Diamond
First published:
1997
Chatto & Windus
This edition:
2005
Vintage Books
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Review: ‘Slavery’s Exiles; The story of the American Maroons’ by Sylviane A Diouf
New York University Press
11th February 2014
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”
