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…
Tag: History
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
King Alfred to Alien
Via Jude the Obscure and Hovis No-one knows exactly when, but around the year 888, Alfred the great king of the Anglo-Saxons founded an abbey and set up his daughter Æthelgifu there as Abbess. It became in time a powerful institution, home to several memorable and influential English women. And at one stage it was… Continue reading King Alfred to Alien
We are here because you were there.
Sathnam Sanghera, Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain (Penguin 2021) Sanghera is a British Sikh writer whose parents emigrated to Britain from the Punjab. Or to put it another way, the author is as British as anyone else. Yet the experience of living in multicultural Britain is – for those whose families were from… Continue reading We are here because you were there.
Telling Africa’s story
Inventing Africa is the title of a fascinating book by Robin Derricourt. It traces several themes of how outsiders have told the history of Africa in order to bolster their own worldview. There are terrific examples of archaeologists who have either contrived to present evidence to suit their own agendas or challenged the prevailing views… Continue reading Telling Africa’s story
Book Review – How to Draw a Map (sort of…)
This is an attractively produced book which desperately needed an editor.
Book Review – First Class: A History of Britain in 36 Postage Stamps
“What a country chooses to display on its postage stamps can be revealing in itself, and often what is not shown is most telling.”
Book Review – Index, A History of the
“The humble back-of-book index is one of those inventions that are so successful, so integrated into our daily practices, that they can often become invisible.”