History Recent Picks

October 2009

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Some featured items are linked via a book cover to enable you to read more reviews.

Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers.
"When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous 47-year-old Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the days after the storm, he travelled the flooded streets in a second hand canoe, passing on supplies and helping those he could. A week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared. Eggers's riveting nonfiction book, three years in the making, explores Zeitoun's roots in Syria, his marriage to Kathy -- an American who converted to Islam -- and their children, and the surreal atmosphere (in New Orleans and the United States generally) in which what happened to Abdulrahman Zeitoun was possible. Like "What Is the What," "Zeitoun" was written in close collaboration with its subjects and involved vast research -- in this case, in the United States, Spain, and Syria." (Real Groovy)

The cave and the cathedral: how a real-life Indiana Jones and a renegade scholar decoded the ancient art of man, by Amir D. Aczel.
"What France's ancient cave drawings may reveal about the origin of language, art, and human thought - insights into one of the greatest mysteries in anthropology. They roam deep underground in the recesses of French (and some Spanish) caves: Bulls and bison. Horses and stags. Rhinos, bears, human-like creatures, and more. Painted, drawn, or engraved, these incredible images are 32,000 years old, yet they seem full of personality and life. Who were the artists? How did they make these paintings miles into labyrinthine caves with only stone candles to light the way? Why did the artists make them and what do they mean? What about the undecipherable signs accompanying the art? Popular science writer Amir Aczel examines the cave drawings and the theories scientists have put forward to explain them, including religious iconography, hunting trophies, and a leap in human brain development. Drawing on years of research and his own visits to Palaeolithic caves, Aczel takes us underground on an unforgettable journey of discovery at the crossroads of art, science, and history in the quest to solve the mysteries of this Stone Age art and deepen our understanding of human evolution." (Real Groovy)

The man who outshone the Sun King: the rise and fall of Nicolas Foucquet, by Charles Drazin.
"Sometime late in 1664, the musketeer D'Artagnan rode beside a heavily armoured carriage as it rumbled slowly southwards from Paris, carrying his friend Nicolas Foucquet to internal exile and life imprisonment in the fortress of Pignerol. There he would be incarcerated in a cell next door to the Man in the Iron Mask ... From a glittering zenith as the King's first minister, builder of the breathtaking chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte, collector of books, patron of the arts and lover of beautiful women, Foucquet had fallen like Icarus. Charged with embezzlement, he was convicted and sentenced to banishment until the King intervened to increase his sentence to life imprisonment. Charles Drazin's account brings to life the rich and hazardous world in which Foucquet lived. As a child Nicolas learned from his devout mother how to mix herbal remedies for the patients at the Hotel-Dieu and from his father, a creature of Cardinal Richelieu, he learned the demands of political life. Drazin tells of the young man's first adventures as a tax-collector, caught up in revolt in the Dauphine, of his loyal service to Cardinal Mazarin and of his financial wizardry, which somehow kept France's finances together. Foucquet's cunning, charisma and charm enchant and beguile as they reveal the seeds of his destruction." (Library Catalogue)

White cargo: the forgotten history of Britain's white slaves in America , by Don Jordan and Michael Walsh.
"White Cargo is the forgotten story of the thousands of Britons who lived and died in bondage in Britain's American colonies. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, more than 300,000 white people were shipped to America as slaves. Urchins were swept up from London's streets to labour in the tobacco fields, where life expectancy was no more than two years. Brothels were raided to provide "breeders" for Virginia. Hopeful migrants were duped into signing as indentured servants, unaware they would become personal property who could be bought, sold, and even gambled away. Transported convicts were paraded for sale like livestock. Drawing on letters crying for help, diaries, and court and government archives, Don Jordan and Michael Walsh demonstrate that the brutalities usually associated with black slavery alone were perpetrated on whites throughout British rule. The trade ended with American independence, but the British still tried to sell convicts in their former colonies, which prompted one of the most audacious plots in Anglo-American history. This is a saga of exploration and cruelty spanning 170 years that has been submerged under the overwhelming memory of black slavery. "White Cargo" brings the brutal, uncomfortable story to the surface.." (Real Groovy)

Hopping: the hidden lives of an East End hop picking family , by Melanie McGrath.
"The sequel to the bestselling Silvertown, which tells the story of Aunt Daisy, and all the other Aunt Daisys -- the locals of the old East End. For more than a century, hopping was the main event in the East End calendar -- an annual expedition of over 200,000 East Enders out to the Kentish countryside to look for casual work picking hops and stripping bines. Aunt Daisy was one of those day trippers. For her, the train ride from London Bridge to Faversham was a kind of magic that she always passed in a rush of sensation. To be away from the tight hustle of the city and lose herself in the open spaces and pollen mists of the Kentish summer provided her with a succour that would last her through the long winters back in London. Her delicate demeanour had never really suited the smutty terraces of the East End; rather she considered herself a countrywoman who just so happened to be stranded in the city. Married young and yet not unhappily to Harold Baker, a closet homosexual who would never consummate their union, at some early point she wrote an escape clause into her life that shielded her from her life's difficult realities. It was this resolve, a kind of armour born out by her dreamy nature, that more than anything else marked Aunt Daisy out as an East Ender. Thoughtful, moving and beautifully rendered, Hopping captures the essence of ordinary family lives often obscured from history during an extraordinary period in London's past. Regardless of era or circumstance, chartering the shift of the East End from a hive of poverty whose dimmed population toiled daily at the docks, to a Blitzed-out community that defiantly rose to confront the brutalities of World War II, through to the gamble and risk emanating from behind the glass and steel towers of today's Canary Wharf, Hopping stands as testament to the true East Ender disposition - an agility of spirit to endure your lot and get by." (Amazon)

Saviors and survivors: Darfur, politics, and the war on terror, by Mahmood Mamdani.
"From the author of the highly praised "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, "the first analysis of the crisis in Darfur that considers the events of the last few years within the broad context of the history of Sudan, as well as examines the efficacy of the world's response to the crisis. Illuminating the deeply rooted causes of the current conflict, Mahmood Mamdani explains how it began as a civil war (1987-89) triggered by a severe drought, its effects shaped by the way British colonial officials had tribalized Darfur, dividing its population between "native" and "settler" tribes, thereby creating homelands for the former at the expense of the latter; how the war was reignited in the 1990s when the government tried to address this problem, unsuccessfully, by creating homelands for dispossessed tribes; how the involvement of opposition parties gave rise in 2003 to two rebel movements, leading to a brutal insurgency and a horrific counterinsurgency but not genocide, as the West has declared. Mamdani explains, too, how the Cold War exacerbated the forty-year civil war in Chad, powerfully impacting upon neighbouring Darfur. By 2003, the conflict involved national, regional, and global forces, including the powerful Western lobby calling for military involvement dressed up as "humanitarian intervention." Incisive and authoritative, "Saviors and Survivors" will radically alter our understanding of the crisis in Darfur." (Real Groovy)

The story of the negro: the rise of the race from slavery, by Booker T. Washington.
"This is an account of Africans and Americans of African descent before, during and after slavery by one of the most important figures in the campaign for racial equality in the U.S.A. Beginning with a description of the African heritage of black Americans, Booker T. Washington goes on to focus on the history of the Atlantic slave trade and how slaves were exploited in North America, before detailing how slavery came to be abolished there and the effect it had on the African American population who found themselves finally free. His description of "The Negro as a Freeman" is particularly important because Washington was himself born a slave, freed at the age of nine, and witnessed this period of American history for himself. Authoritative and broad in scope, "The Story of the Negro" is an especially relevant book in this bicentennial year of the abolition of the slave trade throughout the British Empire." (Real Groovy)

Israel is real, by Rich Cohen.
"Reading the Bible and Jewish history both literally and symbolically, this eclectic and passionate, wide-ranging history of Israel and Zionism by the author of Tough Jews decodes the story of Jonah in the whale's belly as the Diaspora Jew in Nazi concentration camps. Cohen catalogues the accomplishments of first-century Jewish scholar Jonathan ben Zakkai in the way Willie Dixon catalogues a man's deeds in a blues song, and summons Kierkegaard and Allen Ginsberg as he muses about Abraham, a crazy old man willing to murder his son to earn God's blessing: Everything in Judaism is a repetition of this scene, Cohen asserts. Of Herzl, he says it was his career writing whimsical newspaper essays that made his mind fluid and open to the vision of Zionism. He sees Ariel Sharon as a tragic Shakespearean character who was driven to dismantle the settlements in Gaza out of a great love for Israel. Finally, Cohen does not believe that the Holocaust justifies the state of Israel - or that Israel needs to be justified. Cohen's idiosyncratic yet often lyrical take on Israel is sometimes exasperating but always deeply felt and refreshing." (Publishers Weekly)

The dark side: the inside story of how the war on terror turned into a war on American ideals, by Jane Mayer.
""In the days immediately following September 11, the most powerful people in the country were panic-stricken. The radical decisions about how to combat terrorists and strengthen national security were made in a state of utter chaos and fear, but the key players, Vice President Dick Cheney and his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington, used the crisis to further a long-held agenda to enhance presidential powers to a degree never known in U.S. history, and obliterate constitutional protections that define the very essence of the American experiment." "The Dark Side is a dramatic, riveting, and definitive narrative account of how the United States made terrible decisions in the pursuit of terrorists around the world - decisions that not only violated the Constitution, which White House officials took an oath to uphold, but also hampered the pursuit of Al Qaeda. In gripping detail, acclaimed New Yorker writer and bestselling author Jane Mayer relates the impact of these decisions - U.S.-held prisoners, some of them completely innocent, were subjected to treatment more reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition than the twenty-first century." "In all cases, whatever the short-term gains, there were incalculable losses in terms of moral standing, our country's place in the world, and its sense of itself. The Dark Side chronicles one of the most disturbing chapters in American history, one that will serve as the lasting legacy of the George W. Bush presidency." (Library Catalogue)

Maori life and custom , by W.J. Phillipps; revised by John Huria.
"First published in 1966 this encyclopaedia is the fruit of a lifetime's study into pre-Pakeha Maori society, and is a full and authoritative guide to old Maori customs. Drawing on a range of ethnographic research and intimate professional knowledge, Phillipps gathers together in one comprehensive volume an array of subjects including food gathering and preservation, agriculture, buildings, canoe-building and navigation, garment-making, basket and mat-making, plaiting, games and toys, music, carving, weaponry, tattooing and the social rituals of birth, marriage and burial. Sensitively revised and updated for modern readers, and illustrated with almost 200 original line drawings, this is a truly indispensable reference work." (Real Groovy)

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