Blackbeard, Angus Konstam

Another entry in “Nikki picks up the most random stuff at the library”, though this might’ve been around the time Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag came out, when I also picked up a book on George Washington I haven’t read yet… In any case, this turned out to be a bit disappointing. There’s a wealth of information here about pirates in general, their ports and habits and motivations, and yet it all seems to work out to a big heap of nothing when it comes to Blackbeard. The conclusion seems to be he’s more myth than man, because what we have of him was witnessed by terrified victims and the authors of sensational tales — i.e., not the most likely group to stick to the truth and nothing but the truth.

It’s interesting to get an idea of what does survive from the period, but most of it is very flimsy, and it makes it worse that Konstam will introduce it, dismiss it, and then still build other suppositions on it. For example, he establishes that there’s no proof beyond gossip for Blackbeard being a Bristol boy, and then goes on to build a whole theory about his piratical career on the basis of him being a Bristol boy. The two theories then prop each other up, neither very substantial. Not good practice!

Rating: 2/5

Stonehenge, Mike Parker Pearson

The whole idea of Stonehenge is a potent one. Those massive stones, dragged there from so far away (40 miles, by the most conservative theory) by people so long ago, for purposes that have puzzled us for centuries. Pearson’s work acknowledges the hold it has on our imaginations, and discusses a lot of the different theories before setting out his own and that of the excavation team he worked with. That aspect may be disappointing to you if you believe in a Mycenaean influence, or aliens building it, or that it’s an astronomical observatory. Or that Merlin brought the stones from Ireland and erected them with magic.

Overall, though, Pearson discusses the excavations themselves, the actual results of the digs and surveys, and the definite facts that came out of them. His interpretation is included, but I think he’s fairly clear that most of it is a working theory, albeit considered proven by himself and his team. I don’t know what archaeologists more generally think of it; to me, his theories seemed to make sense, but then I’m not an archaeologist, I have no particular specialist knowledge relevant to Stonehenge, and he wouldn’t exactly write the book to make himself sound like a crank. It does help that it seems aligned with theories about Seahenge that I read about by a different writer (review here).

If there’s a sense of wonder at history here, it’s about the things that humans could do, from so early in our history. It’s not about any religious awe; Pearson seems pretty devoid of that, at least as regards Stonehenge. And maybe a sense of wonder at what we can recover.

I think in some ways he theorises beyond his data, as the temptation always is with something like Stonehenge. I think he’s pretty convinced his theories are right, despite the fact that you can’t prove a lot of it (e.g. we can’t prove that henge burials tend to be of a family lineage over generations). But it’s overall a compelling book that pulls together the facts we have.

Rating: 4/5

When Life Nearly Died, Michael J. Benton

For all that this purports to be about the end-Permian extinction — the greatest of the extinction events, where maybe 90% of living organisms were wiped out — this actually contains a lot more information about the end-Cretaceous. This makes some sense, because we have a much better understanding of what caused the end-Cretaceous extinction, and it helps that it’s also the most widely known and understood. People don’t really want to hear about the extinctions in the Permian, however much more disastrous, because the image of the extinction of the dinosaurs is so entrenched in our minds.

But I kind of did want to know about the end-Permian extinction, and I wasn’t so interested in chapters and chapters of set up, particularly when it came to the history of catastrophism. It’s enough that I grasp the concepts, and that they haven’t always been agreed upon or understood the way they are now — I don’t really want to know the personal details of loads of scientists’ lives. (Some are interesting characters in themselves. Some are not. Either way, I’m actually here for the end-Permian, not upheavals in Earth sciences.)

I was a bit staggered by a couple of assertions — “all organisms have DNA”, for example, including “the simplest virus”. But no: a virus contains RNA. It’s quite an important distinction, and shouldn’t have slipped past editors, particularly when the book does touch on heredity and descent. And then there was the rather bizarre idea that the Marie Celeste’s crew were struck by a burp of gas which killed them, made their bodies disappear, and left the ship itself untouched. Hm.

Mostly it seems reasonably solid, but bits like that made me raise my eyebrows a bit.

Rating: 2/5