History Recent Picks

October 2010

The title-underlined links will take you directly to our catalogue.
Some featured items are linked via a book cover to enable you to read more reviews.

Shattered glory : the New Zealand experience at Gallipoli and the Western Front / Matthew Wright.
"The Gallipoli campaign of 1915 destroyed New Zealand's fantasies of war as a glorious schoolboy adventure on behalf of a beloved Empire. The Western Front campaign that followed in 1916-18 gave shape to the emotional impact. it was a horror world of death and mud that destroyed the souls of the young men who fought in it. Together, these two campaigns shaped the lives of a generation of New Zealanders and have given a particular meaning to modern memory of war. In Shattered Glory, highly regarded historian Matthew Wright illuminates New Zealand's human experience during these two First World War campaigns, exploring the darker side of New Zealand's iconic symbols of national identity and explaining some of the realities behind the twenty-first century mythology." -- Back cover.

Curfewed night : a frontline memoir of life, love and war in Kashmir / Basharat Peer.
"Curfewed Night is a brave and unforgettable piece of literary reporting that reveals the personal stories behind one of the most brutal conflicts in modern times. Since 1989, when the separatist movement exploded, more than seventy thousand people have been killed in the battle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Born and raised in the war-torn region, Basharat Peer brings this little-known part of the world to life in haunting, vivid detail.
Peer tells stories from his youth and gives gut-wrenching accounts of the many Kashmiris he met years later as a reporter. He chronicles a young man's initiation into a Pakistani training camp, a mother forced to watch her son hold an exploding bomb by Indian troops, a poet finding religion when his entire family is killed. He writes about politicians living in refurbished torture chambers, idyllic villages rigged with land mines, and ancient Sufi shrines decimated in bomb blasts.
Curfewed Night is a tale of a man's love for his land, the pain of leaving home, and the joy of return -- as well as a fierce and moving piece of reportage from an intrepid young journalist." (Amazon)

The woman who fell from the sky : an American journalist in Yemen / Jennifer Steil.
"In a world fraught with suspicion between the Middle East and the West, it's hard to believe that one of the most influential newspapers in Yemen--the desperately poor, ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, which has made has made international headlines for being a terrorist breeding ground--would be handed over to an agnostic, Campari-drinking, single woman from Manhattan who had never set foot in the Middle East. Yet this is exactly what happened to journalist, Jennifer Steil.
Restless in her career and her life, Jennifer, a gregarious, liberal New Yorker, initially accepts a short-term opportunity in 2006 to teach a journalism class to the staff of The Yemen Observer in Sana'a, the beautiful, ancient, and very conservative capital of Yemen. Seduced by the eager reporters and the challenging prospect of teaching a free speech model of journalism there, she extends her stay to a year as the paper's editor-in-chief. But she is quickly confronted with the realities of Yemen--and their surprising advantages. In teaching the basics of fair and balanced journalism to a staff that included plagiarists and polemicists, she falls in love with her career again. In confronting the blatant mistreatment and strict governance of women by their male counterparts, she learns to appreciate the strength of Arab women in the workplace. And in forging surprisingly deep friendships with women and men whose traditions and beliefs are in total opposition to her own, she learns a cultural appreciation she never could have predicted. What’s more, she just so happens to meet the love of her life.
With exuberance and bravery, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky offers a rare, intimate, and often surprising look at the role of the media in Muslim culture and a fascinating cultural tour of Yemen, one of the most enigmatic countries in the world." (Amazon)

Two men of mana and other stories : a celebration of Wairarapa's early days / by Gareth Winter.
"Two Men of Mana is a colourful collection of stories about Wairarapa's early days. The 25 chapters bring 19th century New Zealand to life with true tales about people, places and memorable moments. There are the challenges of pioneering life - from arduous journeys to the ever-present fear of fire - and the personalities who helped shape settler society. There are poignant love stories and no-holds-barred politics. There are shipwrecks on the coast and a tumultuous reception when the railway finally reached Masterton. These illustrated stories, written by Gareth Winter over several years, draw on the extensive Wairarapa Archive collection of regional records, newspapers and photographs." (http://www.wheelers.co.nz)

Every man in this village is a liar : an education in war / by Megan Stack.
"*Starred Review* Society assigns war to the military, not the media, yet journalists venture into combat zones ahead of, alongside, and well after the troops whose stories they tell. As a 25-year-old correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, Stack covered Afghanistan in the days immediately following 9/11, then traveled to other outposts in the war on terror, from Iraq to Iran, Libya, and Lebanon. In a disquieting series of essays, Stack now takes readers deep into the carnage where she was exposed to the insanity, innocence, and inhumanity of wars with no beginning, middle, or end. Her soaring imagery sears itself into the brain, in acute and accurate tales that should never be forgotten by the wider world, and yet always are. Stack grew increasingly demoralized with each new outburst of hostilities, and clearly covering the violence took its emotional toll: the uncomfortable hypocrisy of Abu Ghraib, the unconscionable confusion over women's subjugation, the unfathomable intricacies of tribal allegiances. Anyone wishing to understand the Middle East need only look into the faces of war that Stack renders with exceptional humanity the bombers as well as the bureaucrats, the rebels and the refugees, the victors and the victims.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2010 Booklist" (Booklist)

Swimming with sharks : tales from the South Pacific frontline / Michael Field.
"'On the last day, we flew out to Manono aboard an RNZAF Iroquois. The doors were open and the beauty of Samoa was literally beneath our feet. I have always known it to be a fragile kind of place: tsunamis, like all the other disasters, big and small, show that we have a pact with nature to enjoy 'paradise'. Sometimes nature reasserts supremacy and paradise becomes a nightmare.' The South Pacific is in the midst of calamitous times. Even now, shops burn and people die in anti-Chinese riots in Papua New Guinea, reporters are censored in Fiji, and countries like the Solomon Islands and Tonga live in non-democratic twilight zones: one occupied by foreign powers, the other controlled by an ageing bachelor king. It is a region ravaged by ongoing tragedy, both natural and man-made. Swimming with Sharks is roving reporter Michael Field's absorbing account of first-hand experiences within this historic unrest. Rich with anecdotes from 30 years of living and working in the region, this timely book is at once an investigation of the Pacific's recent political history, a collection of disarmingly frank, pieced-together memories, and a window into the Pacific's illusory, often indescribable way of life." (Real Groovy)

Churchill's empire : the world that made him and the world he made / by Richard Toye.
"Churchill is widely hailed as one of the greatest men of the twentieth century, but it is a historical irony that he was very much a product and representative of the nineteenth century. As this excellent analysis illustrates, Churchill's attitudes and beliefs are particularly evident in his actions, writings, and offhand comments regarding the sprawling British Empire. Churchill was no armchair imperialist; his military experiences in India, the Sudan, and South Africa were formative episodes in his youth. Toye offers a nuanced portrait of Churchill as an imperialist that contradicts some of the simplistic views of him as a reactionary, Colonel Blimp-type character. It is true that he viewed the empire as a great promoter of world progress, and his racially tinged comments about Anglo-Saxon superiority and the barbarism of some native cultures remain offensive. Yet Churchill often showed admiration and respect for the nonwhite citizens of the empire, and he strongly protested against some of the brutalities carried out by colonial administrators. This work is a valuable contribution to greater understanding of a historical icon.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist" (Booklist)

A history of Greece / Nicholas Doumanis.
"Drawing on the latest research into ancient, medieval and modern history, this single-volume traces the history of Greek culture and societies from the Bronze Age to the Present. Written for the general reader and undergraduate student, it examines the continuities and changes across the entirety of Greek history." (Syndetics summary)

The ivory tower and beyond : participant historians of the Pacific / by Doug Munro.
"Munro (history, Victoria U. of Wellington, New Zealand) profiles a five historians, most of them based at the Australian National University, who engaged with the subjects of their study and drew on that personal experience to interpret and augment more conventionally academic sources. The historians are public intellectual and critical conscience J. C. Beaglehold, prehistorian J. W. Davidson, the perfectionist Richard Gilson, Harry Maude as a loyal lieutenant and incurable romantic, and journeys and transformations of Brij V. Lal. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)" (Syndetics summary)

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