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Category: Book Reviews

Book Review: The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England

August 9, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Ian Mortimer illuminates an Elizabethan England in all its horrifying glory. He shows what was, not what we might wish it to be. Mortimer gives credit where credit is due, but he doesn’t hesitate to reveal the disturbing aspects of society.

Sometimes the past will inspire you and sometimes it will leave you weeping.

Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England

I love his writing style. It feels like a confidential guide giving you “insider” advice for your upcoming “trip,” or perhaps even move, to Elizabethan England. Even those who balk at reading a nonfiction history book will be pleasantly surprised at his convivial tone and presentation suitable for the “historical layman.”

Each chapter is themed on a different aspect of 16th century society. You find out about the lay of the land in the first chapter, Landscape. Then you discover what sort of mindsets you might encounter during your social interactions in the chapter, Character. What might Elizabethans think of foreigners? Education? Superstition? Violence?

Along the lines of violence, Mortimer exposes the details of gruesome punishments used in the 16th century. One that particularly struck me was death by crushing. Called peine forte et dure, which means strong and hard punishment, the victim was forced to lie beneath a board, sometimes with a sharp rock underneath their back. More and more stones were then placed on top of the board until death occurred. And that was only one method of punishment.

Another theme in the book is Hygiene, Illness, and Medicine. I found the subject of washing revealing. Mortimer writes that “in the modern world we are fixated on washing in soap and water but there are many other ways to remove dirt,” (pg. 242). We judge people in the past by how many baths they took! However, just like us, they cared about cleanliness.

In a time where water was harder to come by, especially clean water, it was easier and more sensible to “wash” with linen. The wealthy would have new linen every day, rubbing down with it and changing out their linen undergarments which had absorbed sweat. The poorer you were, the less often you could wash your linen, but society definitely looked down on the dirty.

Women had many legal restrictions in Elizabethan England, particularly married women. But in an interesting turn of events, sometimes women went unpunished while men suffered. For sexual sins, one had to provide enough compurgatrices – or compurgators – (witnesses) in court to be exonerated. Sometimes the man ended up doing penance when the woman was able to secure the required compurgatrices and he was not.

One subject that demonstrates some of the extremes of Elizabethan knowledge is the practice of surgery. Mortimer says that surgeons then were actually really close to the skill level of modern surgeons. If you needed a bullet removed, or a piece of skull replaced, they had expert knowledge of how best to perform the procedure. But their major shortcoming was fatal: sanitation. Ironically, one might be sutured up skillfully, but die of infection.

…The image of mankind in the mirror of the moment is a relatively superficial one. Indeed, it is only through history that we can see ourselves as we really are.

Ian Mortimer, THE TIME TRAVELER’S GUIDE TO ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND

These are just a few samplings of the many fascinating accounts Mortimer writes. I laughed, I cringed, and I truly felt like I had a chance to travel back to a real Elizabethan England.

The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England informs and entertains, but it’s also thought provoking. Do not skip the Envoi (the afterword)! Mortimer steps out of his role as our tour guide and gives his thoughts on the importance of history and its relevance to our own lives.

5 stars!

Dr Ian Mortimer: author and historian

‘The endlessly inventive Ian Mortimer is the most remarkable medieval historian of our time.’ – The Times

Currently under construction, but hopefully not for long:

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Book Review: Diary of an Early American Boy: Noah Blake 1805

June 6, 2020 / / 1 Comment

My sister chose this book for me to read, and boy am I glad she did! The Diary of an Early American Boy, written by Eric Sloane, is so unique, and makes a delightful, easy read for both children and adults. With numerous illustrations, it’s not a huge commitment for busy people 😉

The book is based on the real diary of Noah Blake, who turned 15 years old in 1805. Need perspective? Blake mentions a day of remembrance for General George Washington, who died only 6 years prior.

Throughout the book, Sloane quotes directly from the diary. In-between those excerpts, he fills in the story with conversations and elaborations. He explains all the terms and activities Noah writes about that we might not understand as 21st century readers.

A talented artist, Sloane illustrated the entire diary. The pictures make unfamiliar tools and processes understandable, and I was able to really appreciate the work that was described because of it.

I loved finding out the origins of terms and customs. For example, Sloane notes that in the word “plumb” meant “lead,” and so men who worked with lead were called “plumbers.” At first, water pipes were made from lead, so plumbers worked on them, and the name stuck (pg. 74).

I also enjoyed noticing things in my life similar to what I was reading about. At one point, Noah writes that he helped with stump-pulling. Sloane explains that oftentimes the stump’s root balls were pulled into a line to serve as a fence (pg. 29). Just down the street from me, there is a house sporting a rough fence made up of logs and root balls propped up on their sides.

Seeing the author’s commentary on the present day (already from over 50 years ago!) was thought-provoking. Sloane interjects that we’ve lost knowledge of the moon and weather because it’s no longer necessary. He encourages every child in America to plant an apple tree. And he says that being disconnected from making the things in our life easily leads to unawareness of the wonders of life, (pg. 40). This made me immediately think of my post on Cræft, which is a whole book devoted to practically the same subject!

Book Review: Cræft

What if society is losing something? Irrevocably discarding innately satisfying skills that have sustained us for millennia? What are we missing in our commercialized culture? Lately I have been craving a way to make “creating” a regular part of my life.

I only have a couple criticisms. 1. Sloane never gave the name of the town Noah Blake lived in! (just my own curiosity), and 2. He simplified Noah and Rachel a bit much in my opinion. It was probably in order to give answers to their questions, but Noah seemed to be portrayed as too childish for a 15 year old with a love interest.

However, those hardly detract from the whole of this wonderful book. The Diary gives a great picture of what tools, projects and relationships were like in 1805 farm life. It’s a very personal account that shows how people – just like us – lived in totally different circumstances over 200 years ago. And it gives us pause that not everything is better now – we could still stand to learn things from those in the past.

Home – Friends of the Eric Sloane Museum

The Eric Sloane Museum was created through a partnership between the Stanley Tool Works, the State of Connecticut, and author and artist Eric Sloane (1905-1985). The museum was completed in 1969 and houses Eric’s extensive collection of early American hand tools and a re-creation of his studio.

This interesting video about Eric Sloane is featured on the Friends of the Eric Sloane Museum’s website. (Skip to :30)

Eric Sloane Museum // Connecticut’s Cultural Treasures

Connecticut’s Cultural Treasures is a new series of 50 five-minute vignettes that profiles a variety of the state’s most notable cultural resources. Connecti…

Book Review: The Complete Maus

May 9, 2020 / / 2 Comments

Warning: Adult Content

When Maus was first published in the 1980’s, readers were shocked. Not only was it a graphic novel – before graphic novels were a thing – but it dealt with the Holocaust in comic book form. There were many skeptics; such a serious topic had never been put into such an informal style before. But the author, Art Spiegelman, blew everyone away.

May 8, 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of V-E Day, or Victory in Europe Day. Allied soldiers and citizens celebrated – World War II was over, at least mostly. Germany had surrendered. The day commemorates the end of a war which left many longing for its end. So many atrocities were committed, only some of which Spiegelman writes about in Maus.

This book is definitely not for children. As you may guess, there is a lot of disturbing content related to the Holocaust. However, even after that introduction, I still highly recommend reading Maus. Not because it’s uplifting, but because the story is important, well-written, and thought-provoking. I loved it in the most miserable sort of way.

Spiegelman is so honest and real. It’s like reading two stories at once: one about Art’s relationship with his father, and one about his dad’s experience during WWII. Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, speaks with an accent, and his inaccurate grammar and quirks – both the endearing and annoying – are all included. Art doesn’t gloss over anything, writing about his rocky relationship with his dad, up to Vladek’s outright racism towards blacks. The honesty made it very real.

Looking at black and white drawings of animal-headed figures makes you think about the issues in a different way too. Someone who might not usually want to learn about the Holocaust might read Maus because it’s a graphic novel. And someone put off by the visuals in something like Schindler’s List might be willing to read this instead.

The use of animals heads makes it digestible. Seeing human faces going through those horrific situations would be more disturbing. The Jews are mice – prey, eaten and chased by cats. Germans are the sneaky, predator cats. Poles are non-Kosher pork-eaters, shown by their depiction as pigs. Americans are dogs –good-hearted, but too bull-headed. And the French are frogs, coinciding with a derogatory slur for the French, perhaps because of their ambivalence towards the Jews.

There were so many crimes depicted in this book, it would be difficult to pin down one that horrified me the most. However, there is one line that I won’t forget.

Spiegelman is talking to Pavel, a Holocaust survivor and his psychiatrist. They are talking about the Holocaust and Spiegelman’s upcoming sequel to Maus I. They address the guilt of surviving and whether there was value in another book about Auschwitz. Pavel says, “I’m not talking about your book now, but look at how many books have already been written about the Holocaust. What’s the point? People haven’t changed… Maybe they need a newer, bigger Holocaust,” (Maus, panel 4, 205).

That perhaps is the scariest part of the book. Not the brutality of humans towards other humans, but the chance that we haven’t learned our lesson. That the stories are being forgotten, ignored, and replaced. That the horrific truth of the Holocaust is fading with every survivor who dies, with every story that lies dusty on a library shelf.

Pavel’s words suggest that society is no longer shocked by the Holocaust’s atrocities; they have become used to its horrors and need something new to shock them into action. 

We need to remember these stories. I strongly recommend this book, but for a mature, older crowd.

Book Review: Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier

March 1, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Warning: this post is not for the squeamish.

Lice, death, and soapy peas. The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier is a unique–albeit gruesome–account of Napoleon’s conquests. It’s told from the perspective of a peasant, Jakob Walter, which is a rare occurrence. All other accounts of these wars are from the more well-to-do.

Walters was also ahead of his time in giving an even-handed recounting of the war’s events. Though we applaud telling both sides of an issue nowadays, in the late 18th/early 19th century, it was much more common to write only in favor of one side.

In addition to being innovative and historically piquant, Walter’s diary is also just an honest account of a man’s life during bleak times. It’s not an authoritative text on the tactics of war, dates of battles, and characters of leaders. Instead, Walter tells it like it is: war that is hungry, savage on both sides, and either freezing cold or blisteringly hot.

While reading, I found myself squirming a lot. Walter describes the rampant infestation of lice the army dealt with. At one point, his captain asks him to help him, as his lice are really bothering him.

“…for this reason he asked me to kill the tormentors in his shirt collar. I did it; but, when I had his collar open, his raw flesh showed forth where the greedy beasts had gnawed in. I had to turn my eyes way with abhorrence and reassure the master that I saw nothing, telling him that my eyes hurt so much from the smoke that I could not see anything. These pests, however, were no less to be found on me, thousands of them.”

Jakob Walter, (78)

Walters does a really good job of depicting the desensitization that was required of soldiers just in order to survive the horrors they were experiencing. He sees thousands killed and wounded, but there is no way to save the wounded, so they are left to die as well.

One night, while trying to find a place to sleep in the dark, Walter curls up next to his horse on a bit of ground that is softer than its surroundings. In the morning, he discovers that he slept atop a dead man’s belly that hadn’t frozen solid yet. And then he moves on.

He also talks of his desperate search for food when traveling through frozen Russia. He and his comrades would head towards burning villages to scavenge any hidden food stores. I couldn’t help but think of the hungry peasants the soldiers left behind when they were victorious.

Walter and some of his comrades combine some of their meagre food supplies for a memorable meal. A rare pot of seasoned peas with lard, they are forced to throw away – the “frozen lard” was actually soap.

Uniforms of La Grande Armée - Wikipedia

To put Walter’s account into a historical perspective: Napoleon’s campaign in 1812-1814 sent 650,000 men into Russia. 200,000 were captured, and only 30,000 soldiers returned. Miraculously, Walter was one of those who returned to his family.

Walter gives all the credit for his survival to God. He notes that “since I did not suffer the misfortune of being wounded, I thought: ‘God, Thou hast allowed me to live till now. I thank Thee and offer up my sufferings to Thee and pray Thee at the same time to take me further into Thy protection,” (Walter, 49). With all the horrific misadventures Walter endured, it’s hard to believe his survival was anything but supernatural.

Book Review: The Last Dickens

December 31, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Sometimes historical fiction hits the spot when a thick tome of erudite research seems too difficult to read. Or perhaps you’re just in the mood for an intriguing story set in a different time. Either way, The Last Dickens, by Matthew Pearl, is an excellent selection.

The Last Dickens is set in the 1860’s, based around the death of Charles Dickens, who was in the midst of writing a serial mystery novel when he died.

The Boston publishing firm, Fields, Osgood, and Company, was Dickens’ legal American publisher. But the firm is threatened by Dickens’ death and pirates in the book trade. In order to save his firm, James R. Osgood must discover how Dickens intended the mystery to end.

Sailing across the Atlantic with his loyal bookkeeper, the publishing agent finds himself the center of attention in dangerous circles.

Pearl skillfully weaves fact and fiction together, creating an intricate story based on a real-life mystery. The Last Dickens made me interested in the 19th century publishing trade and the fate of Dickens final book.

The research to write this book must have been exhaustive, for many elements throughout the book are from Dickens’ actual life, even including the loss of a diary.

I have read one other of Pearl’s books, and I’ve noticed his fascination with publishing, authors, and their writing. Pearl’s unique take on history provides a fresh prospective on an era filled with Civil War accounts and reconstruction controversies.

Pearl is a superb writer, and if you pick up any of his works, you’re in luck!

Book Review: Cræft

July 16, 2019 / / 0 Comments

What if society is losing something? Irrevocably discarding innately satisfying skills that have sustained us for millennia? What are we missing in our commercialized culture?

Lately I have been craving a way to make “creating” a regular part of my life. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I wanted to be doing more than just clicking away on the computer. I desired to really use my hands to live my everyday life. While I was pondering on this, I found Alexander Langland’s book, Cræft. Immediately, I was consumed.

WE’RE INCREASINGLY CONSTRAINED BY COMPUTERS AND A PIXELATED ABRIDGEMENT OF REALITY THAT SERVES ONLY TO MAKE US BLIND TO THE TRULY INFINITE COMPLEXITY OF THE NATURAL WORLD.

Alex Langlands, Cræft

Though I’ve never met him, Alexander, Alex, Langlands seems a friend to me. I have watched several of his TV series and read his thoughts in the series’ books. He has appeared in the BBC’s Victorian Farm, Edwardian Farm, and Wartime Farm, to name a few.

In each program, Alex, along with the rest of the team, spent a year experimenting with living life as it would have been in the past. Through these programs, everything from how to catch a rabbit, smoking fish, and basketmaking, to rearing sheep, sowing grains, and harvesting crops was explored.

Over the years, Langlands has accumulated an impressive array of skills and experiences. Cræft assembles all this knowledge into a thought-provoking, exceedingly well-written account. An archaeologist by training, the perspective he brings to issues in Cræft is thoughtful. He asks meaningful and practical questions as to why a particular item or practice fit into a historic culture.

Langlands states that these skills still fit into our modern culture. The satisfaction that is derived from making with one’s hands cannot be obtained from a computer. Furthermore, cræft provides a sustainable and responsible alternative to the commercial industries we rely so heavily upon.

THE GOAL, IN BEING CRÆFTY, IS NOT TO USE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE OF THE TECHNOLOGY AND RESOURCES YOU HAVE AT YOUR DISPOSAL BUT TO USE AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE IN RELATION TO THE JOB THAT NEEDS UNDERTAKING. THIS IS THE RESOURCEFULNESS IN CRÆFT. HAVING PHYSICAL ADEPTNESS, STRENGTH AND FITNESS REPRESENTS THE POWER IN CRAEFT. AND FINALLY, UNDERSTANDING THE MATERIALS, MAKING CRITICAL DECISIONS ABOUT HOW TO APPROACH THE WORK, AND FACTORING IN WIDER FINANCIAL AND TIME CONSTRAINTS REPRESENTS THE KNOWLEDGE IN CRÆFT.

Alex Langlands, Cræft

Cræft identifies the significance of skills such as weaving, shepherding, pond digging, lime burning, and leather making in the history–and future–of mankind. Langland’s descriptions of his own attempts at using a scythe, hedging, and more are entertaining and informative.

Read the foreword and preface even if you aren’t able to read the entire book!

Afterwards, you might think twice the next time you sit down to the computer, zip out to the grocery store, or throw away a rusted farming relic from the shed.

In Cræft, Langlands delves into his insights on exactly what society is losing as true cræftiness disappears. He explores why we so desperately need cræft, and what cræft has meant and will mean to us. All this he does while writing in an engaging, personal style. I finished the book with the sense of having spoken with Alex myself.

Did I say I gave it 5 stars?

Note: even though each chapter could be read on its own, I enjoyed reading them in order, as there were references that built upon each other. Also, I found my copy at the local library!

Cræft

https://youtu.be/CZBqLb_nk6g In the midst of a seemingly endless supply of mass-manufactured products, we find ourselves nostalgic for products bearing the mark of authenticity-hand-made furniture, artisan breads, craft beers, and other goods produced by human hands. What often goes unnoticed is the transformation of our understanding of craft-or rather, craeft-in the wake of industrialization….

This video was shared by Langlands on social media; it’s an interesting perspective on society’s relationship with cræft today.

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