Longhorn Reviews » history

A strange eventful history : the dramatic lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and their remarkable families

Matt — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:51:54 +0000

From the 9/6/08 Times review by Michael Arditti: “He [Holroyd] creates a saga in which the glories of an older generation are dissipated by children.”

Christian Lacroix : histoires de mode

jade — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:43:11 +0000

Quoting Eddy in the BBC’s Absolutely Fabulous, “Lacroix, darling.”

The Saga of Billy the Kid

Meghan — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:02:14 +0000

Billy the Kid is the subject of many books and movies. Bob Dylan, called by one of our English faculty “the American Homer,” wrote the music for one of movies. Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient, wrote a book of poems and vignettes in Billy’s stead. I doubt our interest in Billy would have thrived so if not for Burns’ book, published in 1926 and based on accounts of people living then who had known Billy. Burns creates such a sympathetic character and tells the story so well, not wanting to go to sleep with Billy’s end on my mind, I had to stop reading just before the death scene.

Los comerciantes de Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca, 1920-1980

tdomf_4d405 — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:55:21 +0000

Interesting book with lots of information about the time period and interpersonal relationships/dynamics between influential families in a typical Mexican town.

The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket

Meghan — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:48:30 +0000

The story starts in medieval Japan with the development of proto sushi which is whole fish pressed on top of rice in a specially designed weighted box through the development of sushi rice and finally to how sushi developed in Japan after World War II. Once you have this background the story moves to the United States. The author delves into how sushi became an American food item now sold in grocery stores across the country. Corson shows that it was the development of sushi schools in California that made it possible for sushi chiefs to be trained more quickly than in Japan. These schools also lead to sushi innovations that would eventually travel back to Japan—the inside out roll being a classic example. Truly an American tale of taking something very foreign and making it American.

Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times

Meghan — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:46:25 +0000

The best parts of this book are the chapters on the development of string. Barber’s hypothesis is the ability to make string is an important precursor to the development of civilization. Her point is that once people can make string, then they can tie things together. This means you can make rope and rope can be used to tether an animal or child, it can be used to make fishing lines, fishnets, bags and just as importantly you can use string to carry items on your back. Once you can carry loads then you can begin to move goods. And once you can do these things you are on track to make coiled pottery and weave.

What interested me the most was the description of how easy it is to make string. The easiest way is to use already existing vines, the second step according to Ms Barber is to take plant fibers and roll them on your leg to make an every expanding string. Rope is merely a number of strings put together. The evidence cited in this book is pottery and wall paintings, since most fabric doesn’t survive. Barber examined thousands of early pots and paintings looking for evidence of early cloth making.

Tobacco: The Story of How Tobacco Seduced the World

Meghan — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:41:27 +0000

I’m not one for conspiracy theories but this was a fascinating book. I never would have thought that tobacco growing and selling played such an important part of our history. One factoid tells the tale: when Benjamin Franklin was sent to London to negotiate a peace treaty between Great Britain and the future United States he was also given the task of negotiating the loans George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned to merchants in England on their tobacco holdings.

This book is essentially about how drawing smoke from a plant grew from a ceremonial activity in the new world to a social activity that spread around the world. It is now hard to find a culture where tobacco smoking is not evident. The subtitle tells it all – “a cultural history of how an exotic plant seduced civilization.” The story is fascinating and the book is very well written.

The Book of Margery Kempe: The Autobiography of the Madwoman of God

Meghan — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:05:25 +0000

Who would have thought that the first known biography in English would be written by a woman, brewery owner, Christian mystic, and mother of 14 named Margery Kempe. Margery was illiterate so she dictated her biography to a scribe between 1436 and 1438. Her biography begins with her conversion experience which was heralded by a vision of Christ in her bedroom one night. The story then follows Margery through pilgrimages across Europe and the Holy Land. She also tells about her heresy trial in England and her burgeoning mystical life. After the trial the judge gave her a piece of paper saying that she was not a heretic. Margery used this piece of paper many many times when people complained to their local religious leaders about her loud crying, laughing and preaching. His opinion, like most of her contemporaries seemed to be that she was she was religiously insane. He was also surprised that she followed Catholic dogma exactly. She never deviated from the church’s teaching even when she was ranting and raving.

The book is amazingly lively. You get insight into the personality
of a woman who thought Jesus told her to wear white, live apart
from her husband and give voice to her religious opinions loudly and continually. Her neighbors, her child and her husband complained regularly about her religious activities. The book gives dramatic accounts of every day experiences, in Margery’s
home town, in many English regions, and as far away as Brandenburg, Rome and Jerusalem. Just reading about how she traveled in Europe and how she got to Jerusalem is illuminating.

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World

tdomf_4d405 — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:14:58 +0000

When it comes to history and the “discovery” of America, Tony Horwitz is a dummy and he is betting that his readers are as well. During a visit to Plymouth Rock, Horwitz discovers, much to his priate school educated chagrin, that he knew next to nothing about the people who traveled the continent (before and after Columbus), much less the folks who inhabited “America” before European contact commenced. Horwitz writes a well-paced and humorous travelogue of self-tutoring as he sweats it out in a lodge with MicMacs in Newfoundland, follows Coronado’s trail all the way to Kansas (who knew?) and tours present-day Roanoke which was briefly settled, not by fantasized Pilgrim forebears, but by a, “… motley crew of slave traders, tourists, castaways and Tudor knights….” Horwitz neatly balances historical narrative with his own present-day travel stories for an engaging and entertaining history lesson.

Historia del estado Zulia

tdomf_4d405 — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:56:38 +0000

Traditional, though still very useful, history of this important western Venezuelan state. The approach is chronological, and each volume includes interesting and useful transcriptions of primary documents, without, however, providing information about their sources.

Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America

tdomf_4d405 — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:29:58 +0000

If you are interested in a compelling and easy-to-read overview of the history of Latin America, this is the book for you. Instead of trying to relate the events that took place throughout Latin America over five centuries, Chasteen looks at larger themes and movements shared by countries throughout Latin America. These themes include the first indigenous encounters with Spaniards, colonialism, independence, neocolonialism (America’s policy of influencing Latin America), national movements, and neoliberalism, among others. Each chapter is broken into a theme, and Chasteen effectively demonstrates how that theme affected and directed the energies of countries throughout the hemisphere. The book is enjoyable to read, and perfect if you need to know the high points of Latin American history but would also like a more in-depth insight into its complexities. If you are traveling in Latin America, doing business there, interested in the relationship between the U.S. and Latin America, or just interested in history, this is the book for you.