The Museum of Other People: From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan Exhibitions by Adam Kuper (2023, Profile Books, 416 pages) Jump in… Holiday Souvenirs As Western Europeans forged trade routes and “discovered” New Worlds in Africa, Asia and America, planting their flags and striding over their colonies, so the first huge accumulations of cultural artefacts were… Continue reading Losing Your Marbles
Tag: History
Firestarters
The Prometheans: John Martin and the Generation that Stole the Future by Max Adams Published by Quercus, 2009, 300 pp. There are young radicals calling for the overthrow of the system; here is art and literature stirring up popular unrest, and incurring a culture war backlash; and bewildering advances in science and technology giving people… Continue reading Firestarters
Teaching the garden to weed itself
What do you get if you cross an unconventional economist with a talented journalist? If the economist if Steven D Levitt and the writer is Stephen J Dubner, then the result is a series of best-selling books and a hugely popular podcast. Along the way it will entertain and astonish a lot of people, make… Continue reading Teaching the garden to weed itself
Other Worlds
A History of Delusions: The Glass King, a Substitute Husband and a Walking Corpse by Victoria Shepherd (2022, Oneworld Publications) Distorted Mirrors A book of famous case histories of delusional individuals, could so easily become a distasteful sideshow, like visiting a Hall of Mirrors, or paying your penny to gawp at the inmates in Bedlam.… Continue reading Other Worlds
When I was Ten
Jump to it! Your World of Adventure – in Living Colour! I am writing this on my eldest grandson’s 10th birthday. What was I doing when I was ten? One thing I am certain of: I was reading Tell Me Why magazine, which may be the source of most of the general knowledge that I… Continue reading When I was Ten
Africa is not what we think
The Rift: A New Africa Breaks Free by Alex Perry (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2015) The “Rift” is … … the Rift Valley that cuts through central and north-east Africa, a vast region which was the cradle of human pre-history. It is where our hominid ancestors lived and died, leaving traces – like Lucy in the… Continue reading Africa is not what we think
Charged with meaning
Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree. Ezra Pound (How To Read, 1931) The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams (Vintage 2020/2022) Who write’s the dictionary? Who decides which words are included and which excluded? Whose language is it, anyway? This wonderful novel is anchored in the real… Continue reading Charged with meaning
Stories tumbled by the tides of time
Philip Hoare’s digressions and tangents balloon into sea monsters, bigger than the narrative boat we thought he was steering.
At the Crossroads…
Crossroads: In search of moments that changed music by Mark Radcliffe (2019 Cannongate Books) The Crossroads: where Robert Johnson bargained his soul for the Devil’s music; where Tony Iommi guillotined his fingers and was inspired by the gypsy jazz guitar legend Django Reinhardt; where Kurt Cobain’s girlfriend’s deodorant inspire the grunge anthem of the 1990s.… Continue reading At the Crossroads…
Outside, looking in
The Lighted Window: Evening Walks Remembered By Peter Davidson (Bodleian Library Publishing; 2021) The homeward traveller sees a distant light in the gathering gloom; a stranger looks up to the bright unshuttered window; in a distant tower, the light from a sputtering candle betrays the scholar late at his books. That figure on the road,… Continue reading Outside, looking in