Genre: History

Review – A Brief History of the Countryside in 100 Objects

Posted May 27, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

A Brief History of the Countryside in 100 Objects

by Sally Coulthard

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 333
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
For most of human history, we were rural folk.

Our daily lives were bound up with working the land, living within the rhythm of the seasons. We poured our energies into growing food, tending to animals and watching the weather. Family, friends and neighbours were often one and the same. Life revolved around the village and its key spaces and places – the church, the green, the school and the marketplace.

And yet rural life is oddly invisible our historical records. The daily routine of the peasant, the farmer or the craftsperson could never compete with the glamour of city life, war and royal drama. Lives went unrecorded, stories untold.

There is, though, one way in which we can learn about our rural past. The things we have left behind provide a connection that no document can match; physical artefacts are touchstones that breathe life into its history. From farming tools to children’s toys, domestic objects and strange curios, the everyday items of the past reveal fascinating insights into an often-forgotten way of life. Birth, death, celebration, work, crime, play, medicine, beliefs, diet and our relationship with nature can all be read from these remnants of our past.

From ancient artefacts to modern-day memorabilia, this startling book weaves a rich tapestry from the fragments of our rural past.

Sally Coulthard’s A Brief History of the Countryside in 100 Objects pretty much explains itself in terms of content. Each entry is pretty short, and focused on a particular item (though it may ramble around the subject before or after introducing the item). Each is included as a pen-and-ink sketch, usually at the end of the chapter.

I found at times that the objects were… not what I’d choose, or the potted histories were a bit rambly/random, but overall it’s a format I enjoy in and of itself, and I had fun reading it. I’d say take the historical accuracy with a heaping of salt, as it lacks any kind of references (not just numbered references, but in my edition, any kind of references at all). More one to read for entertainment and to see someone else’s train of thought on the matter than for information.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, history, non-fiction, Sally Coulthard

Review – Fighting Fit

Posted May 22, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Fighting Fit: The Wartime Battle for Britain's Health

by Laura Dawes

Genres: History, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 250
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
At the beginning of the Second World War, medical experts predicted epidemics of physical and mental illness on the home front. Rationing would decimate the nation's health, they warned; drugs, blood and medical resources would be in short supply; air raid shelters and evacuation would spread diseases; and the psychological effects of bombing raids would leave mental hospitals overflowing. Yet, astonishingly, Britain ended the war in better health than ever before. Based on original archival research and written with wit and verve, FIGHTING FIT reveals an extraordinary, forgotten story of medical triumph against the odds. Through a combination of meticulous planning and last-minute scrambling, Britain succeeded in averting, in Churchill's phrase, the 'dark curse' on the nation's health. It was thanks to the pioneering efforts of countless individuals - doctors, nurses, social workers, boy scouts, tea ladies, Nobel Prize winners, air raid wardens, housewives, nutritionists and psychologists - who battled to keep the nation fit and well in wartime.

As Laura Dawes shows, these men and women not only helped to win the war, they paved the way for the birth of the NHS and the development of the welfare state.

Laura Dawes’ Fighting Fit: The Wartime Battle for Britain’s Health was a fascinating choice for me, with my interest in infectious diseases, and especially given my electives (which included a module about nutrition and infection). It’s basically the perfect case study for many of my interests, though sadly it doesn’t discuss tuberculosis at much length (and WWI and WWII were times when tuberculosis infection numbers increased after having been in decline).

As a note of caution though, I would point out that it really is about Britain, not the British Empire. It gives no picture of how things went outside of the islands that constitute Great Britain. So it is quite narrow in scope, and I suspect it’d be a less triumphant picture if it discussed the wider picture: there’s some reference to the soldiers fighting, but mostly just to the populace at home, and pretty much nothing to the wider world.

But as I’ve implied, it paints a surprisingly rosy picture of health in the UK during the war, with some bumps here and there (haha) as refugee children passed around childhood diseases rife in the cities they came from to host families in the country, or respiratory infections rippled through bomb shelters. It discusses some fascinating experiments and number crunching that led to conclusions about how to provide people with rations, and the results of rationing. It was an endeavour that seems to me very linked to the formation of the NHS, and that makes it extra interesting reading at this time, when the NHS is being eroded.

One thing I will say… if you have phobias about biting insects, there’s a whole chapter you might want to skip which discusses scabies, lice, etc. It really made me feel itchy — I even had a nightmare about it afterwards, because this is one subject that still makes me feel rather anxious. I suspect the descriptions of some of the scabies experiments would make anyone feel itchy! So, reader beware on that front.

Overall, I found it a surprisingly quick read, and definitely fascinating.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, history, Laura Dawes, non-fiction, science

Review – The Virtues of Underwear

Posted May 11, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

The Virtues of Underwear: Modesty, Flamboyance and Filth

by Nina Edwards

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 285
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Laced with illustrations of undergarments both prosaic and exotic, a global exposé of the hidden meaning of knickers, lingerie, and everything in between.

This book unravels the intimate narratives woven into the fabric of our most personal garments. From the first loincloths to the intricate layers of shapewear, the narrative explores the concealed world of underwear as a silent communicator of individual desire and societal affiliation. As an indicator of the pulse of fashion, underwear has evolved from minimalism to intricate designs with new materials. Beyond its role in denying our corporeal nature, underwear safeguards and exposes, reflecting our innermost desires and past experiences.

From clean underclothing resisting carnal urges to the protective embrace of fabric, this book illuminates the profound, often hidden stories told by the garments beneath our outer layers. It rewards the reader with historical insights into both women’s and men’s underwear and global cultures of dress.

If I look back at reading Nina Edwards’ The Virtues of Underwear, it’s hard to say quite what I took from it. I definitely found it interesting and a fun read, but it feels like the information was a bit badly structured — I wouldn’t know where to turn in the book to follow-up on and remind myself about something, even though the chapters are loosely themed. That can be fascinating to read (and it’s probably like talking to me, let’s be honest), but it makes it hard to have a structured idea of what I think of it, too.

I think it’d be a good read for a broad history of underwear and how people have felt about it, and how it’s changed over time (both the underwear worn and the attitudes toward it). I think it’s less good if you want a reference work to refer to about the history, though, because I think it’s more interested in the attitudes that informed choices of underwear, as the subtitle (“Modesty, Flamboyance and Filth”) indicates. I enjoyed it.

It has a pretty good references section, and some interesting images included, including e.g. cartoons that mention underwear, which can be very revealing about prevailing attitudes.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, history, Nina Edwards, non-fiction

Review – The Roads to Rome

Posted May 6, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Roads to Rome

by Catherine Fletcher

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 400
Rating:

Synopsis:
Inspired by original research and filled with color and drama, this is an exploration of two thousand years of history as seen through one the greatest imperial networks ever built.

"All roads lead to Rome” is a medieval proverb, but it's also true: today's European roads still follow the networks of the ancient empire—and these ancient roads continue to grip our modern imaginations as a physical manifestation of Rome’s extraordinary greatness.

Over the two thousand years since they were first built, these roads have been walked by crusaders and pilgrims, liberators and dictators, but also by tourists and writers, refugees and artists. As channels of trade and travel—and routes for conquest and creativity—Catherine Fletcher reveals how these roads forever transformed the cultures, and intertwined the fates, of a vast panoply of people across Europe and beyond.

The Roads to Rome is a magnificent journey into a past that remains intimately connected to our present. Traveling from Scotland to Cádiz to Istanbul and back to Rome, the reader meanders through a series of nations and empires that have risen and fallen. Along the way, we encounter spies, bandits, scheming innkeepers, a Byzantine noblewoman on the run, young aristocrats on their Grand Tour, a conquering Napoleon, John Keats, the Shelleys, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and even Mussolini on his motorbike.

Reflecting on his own walk on the Appian Way, Charles Dickens observed that here is "a history in every stone that strews the ground.” Based on vibrant original research, this is the first narrative history to tell the full story of life on the roads that lead to Rome.

Catherine Fletcher’s The Roads to Rome was a miss for me. It took me months to read, slowly, because something about the style or content was just completely undigestible for me — I literally couldn’t remember what I’d just read, more than half the time. I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly it is about it, but I just couldn’t retain any of it. Take this with a pinch of salt: maybe it’s just me.

Ostensibly, the subject is fascinating to me, but I think part of the problem is the format: it’s partly Fletcher’s own travelogue and thoughts about her own travel, about which I couldn’t possibly care less. The history gets unspooled in disconnected snippets, surrounded by her comments on her hotels and train trips. Yawn.

It also moves from discussing the Roman Empire toward more modern stuff, which… if I could retain any of it, would fill a gap in my knowledge about Fascist Italy, but I doubt I’ll remember.

All in all, should probably have just not finished it. Oh well.

Rating: 1/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Catherine Fletcher, history, non-fiction

Review – Who Owns This Sentence?

Posted April 29, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs

by David Bellos, Alexandre Montagu

Genres: Non-fiction, History
Pages: 384
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Who Owns This Sentence? looks at how throughout history, principled arguments, greed, and opportunism have ensured copyright's ascendency, and unveils those who are behind a phenomenon that has faced little public debate.

David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu’s Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs is surprisingly readable, for a book on a subject that could be incredibly dry. It helps that they split things down into plenty of chapters, and take one or two examples at a time — they’re quite thorough in discussing the development of each successive law and expansion to law, but the chunks are pretty bitesize for the most part, and the tone is fairly casual.

If you are pro copyright without limit including for corporations, then you probably won’t enjoy the general tone they take, pointing out multiple times (and in multiple ways) that the argument that copyright gives people a livelihood and fosters creativity isn’t a universal truth (people will often create without financial incentives) and that the laws anyway aren’t focused on providing that (you wouldn’t need lifetime + 70 years just for that).

Their argument is that far too much stuff is tied up in copyright in a way that hampers creativity and the sharing of knowledge, and they make a fair case for it, especially when it’s clear that a bare handful of companies own almost all of it anyway, and the net result is that the rich keep on getting richer and richer — based on the hard work of others who are often dead.

That said, it is a fairly opinionated account, so if you want a dispassionate rundown of what copyright is, you don’t want this book.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: Alexandre Montagu, book reviews, books, David Bellos, history, non-fiction

Review – Sheeplands

Posted April 23, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Sheeplands: How Sheep Shaped Wales and the World

by Alan Marshall

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 256
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Human civilisation was not just created by humans: we had the help of many creatures, and foremost among these were sheep. From Argentina to Australia and from Mesopotamia to Mongolia, just about every country with hills and meadows has adopted and then developed sheep farming as a way of living. And in Wales in particular, sheep played a central role in shaping landscape and culture.

Sheeplands outlines the journeys taken by some of these sheep as they voyaged across the world, both by themselves and with human shepherds, from the earliest human settlements to the present day. Along the way, Alan Marshall paints vivid portraits of the roles sheep have played in the development of the modern world, in times of peace and war, and describes how our sheeplands might continue to influence Wales and the wider world in future years.

Alan Marshall’s Sheeplands is, as it says, a history of Wales (and the wider world) through the lens of sheep and sheep-farming. This isn’t trivial: farming has been very important over the years, and the development of farming techniques, breeds of sheep and ways of transporting the sheep have been vital in the economy, war, colonisation, and everyday lives. I definitely appreciated a history that kept coming back to Wales, specifically, and from a very pro-Welsh point of view.

However… the problem is, the book doesn’t have numbered references, just a list of sources in the back, making it very difficult to follow up a particular anecdote and reference it. Sometimes something is stated as sheer fact when it sounds like mere theory, and sometimes the flippant easy tone elides the author’s lack of knowledge on a subject (“Homer” didn’t “scribe into text” anything, folks; Homer quite possibly never existed — it’s all more complicated than that). Sometimes that doesn’t affect the underlying point, and it didn’t in the case of this example. But. What about inaccuracies in the stuff I don’t have personal knowledge of? How can I tell apart flippancy, opinion, and fact, without proper sourcing?

I know it’s meant for a popular audience, but that shouldn’t mean you put yourself beyond fact-checking. Adding numbered sources doesn’t interrupt the flow for someone who is reading very casually, and allows anyone to look up the source for more information if they’re curious, sceptical, etc.

I did also find that I wasn’t so keen on the personal interjections about the author and his son Shelley. It’s cute, but it doesn’t really add to the narrative for us to be told what the author’s six-year-old son thinks about a given fact or location.

So… there were definitely things I enjoyed about the reading experience, don’t get me wrong, but it did also leave a lot to be desired in other ways.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: Alan Marshall, book reviews, books, history, non-fiction

Review – A History of Britain in Ten Enemies

Posted April 18, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

A History of Britain in Ten Enemies

by Terry Deary

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 256
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
Ah, Britain. So special. The greatest nation on earth, some say. And we did it all on our own. Didn’t we?

Well, as it happens Britannia got its name from the Romans, and for the past two centuries we have been ruled by Germans. But then, as Horrible Histories author Terry Deary argues, nations and their leaders are defined by the enemies they make.

The surprisingly sadistic Boudica would be forgotten if it weren't for the Ninth Legion, Elizabeth I a minor royal without the Spanish Armada, and Churchill an opposition windbag without the Nazis. Britain loves its heroes so much we have been known to pickle them in brandy to keep them fresh. And after all, every nation sometimes needs a bit of unifying Blitz spirit (although in an ideal world, we wouldn’t have accidentally let Corporal Hitler go in the first place).

The British have a proud history of choosing their enemies, from the Romans to the Germans. You might even say those enemies made Britain what it is today.

A History of Britain in Ten Enemies is an entertaining gallop through history that will have you laughing as you find out what they didn't teach you in school.

Terry Deary’s A History of Britain in Ten Enemies is pretty much what you’d expect of someone who wrote for Horrible Histories: flippant, irreverent, willing to be sarcastic about everything, and… almost completely unsourced in a gossipy, opinionated account of history. It’s especially jarring when what he writes is contradictory to something I know is a prominent theory (e.g. that the building of wooden henges wasn’t replaced by the building of stone ones, as Deary suggests, but contemporaneous with them and linked to them: wood for the living, stone for the dead).

At that point I settled in to read it more or less for the tone and anecdotes, and to take everything with a heaping of salt. Each chapter does have a couple of references, but since they’re unnumbered and there’s only 2-3, it’s not very convincing.

If you’re just interested in a casual read, it’s probably perfect; for me, the tone didn’t quite land, and it turns out I get really irritated by such flagrant lack fo sourcing.

Rating: 2/5

Tags: book reviews, books, history, non-fiction, Terry Deary

Review – Endangered Languages

Posted April 13, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Endangered Languages

by Evangelia Adamou

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 264
Series: The MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
A concise, accessible introduction to language endangerment and why it is one of the most urgent challenges of our times.

58% of the world’s languages—or, approximately 4,000 languages—are endangered. When we break this figure down, we realize that roughly ten percent of languages have fewer than ten language keepers. And, if one language stops being used every three months, this means that in the next 100 years, if we do nothing, 400 more languages will become dormant. In Endangered Languages, Evangelia Adamou, a specialist of endangered languages and a learner of her own community language, Nashta, offers a sobering look at language endangerment and what is truly lost when a language disappears from usage.

Combining recent advances from the Western scientific tradition—from the fields of linguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, language attrition, population genetics, and natural language processing—and insights from Indigenous epistemology, theory, and ethics, Adamou examines a wealth of issues surrounding endangered languages. She discusses where endangered languages are found, including how they are faring in a digital world, why these languages are no longer used, and how communities can reclaim languages and keep them strong. Adamou also explains the impact of language continuity on community and individual health and well-being, the importance of language transmission in cultural transmission, and why language rights are essentially human rights.

Drawing on varied examples from the Wampanoag Nation to Wales, Endangered Languages offers a powerful reminder of the crucial role every language has in the vitality and well-being of individuals, communities, and our world.

Endangered Languages, by Evangelia Adamou, is part of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, so it’s essentially an introduction, a bit of a primer on what it means for a language to be endangered, what we might do about it, etc. As a Welsh person (who doesn’t speak Welsh), obviously I have a bit of a vested interest here: Welsh is the least endangered of the Celtic languages, but it isn’t for lack of trying on the part of our English rulers (see also: the Welsh Not, Brad y Llyfrau Gleision, etc).

Welsh is a bit too successful for Adamou to spend much time on here, despite all that, though I think the revival efforts probably deserved a bit of a mention alongside the revival efforts for Breton, Cornish and Irish, including stuff like the Welsh Language Acts. To compare how Welsh is doing compared to other more endangered languages is pretty instructive — but there’s a limited amount of space in any one book, of course.

In the end, discussing endangered languages and how to protect them is surprisingly similar to discussing conservation, though of course it’s best not to stretch the similarity too far. I was interested to read about the fact that languages should be considered “dormant” rather than “extinct” now: I don’t know if I think that’s a nice way to look at it, or perhaps one which softens the tragedy of losing all native speakers of a language a little too much.

Anyway, an interesting introduction.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Evangelia Adamou, history, non-fiction

Review – Conspiracy Theory: The Story of An Idea

Posted April 6, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Conspiracy Theory: The Story of an Idea

by Ian Dunt, Dorian Lynskey

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 184
Series: Origin Stories #2
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
What makes people believe in conspiracy theories? Why have they taken over our political sphere? And how do we counter them before it’s too late?

The world has always had conspiracy theories. From the Illuminati to the deep state, the JFK assassination to the death of Princess Diana – there have always been those who believe that events are manipulated by shadowy forces with sinister intent. But in recent years, conspiracism has colonised the mainstream. These days, it is a booming industry, a political strategy and a pseudo-religion – and it’s threatening the foundations of liberal democracy.

Where once political battles were fought over ideas and values, it now feels as though we’re arguing over the nature of reality itself. The problem is bigger than lizard people or UFOs: left unchecked, conspiracy theories have the power to warp the fabric of society and justify unspeakable crimes.

In Conspiracy Theory: The Story of an Idea, Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey pull back the curtain on conspiracy theories: where they come from, who promotes them, how they work and what they’re doing to us. From biblical myth to online hysteria, this book explains what happens when the human gift for storytelling goes wrong – and how we might restore our common reality.

If you’ve already read about conspiracy theories much before, Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey’s Conspiracy Theory doesn’t offer a lot that’s new. They try to tackle the history of conspiracy theories, the psychology of why we believe them, and also what can be done about them, which is a big ask in a small space.

The history manages to be reasonable thorough, or that’s my impression: I only vaguely knew about the original actual Illuminati, and there were aspects of historical USian conspiracy stuff that I didn’t know a lot about. It discusses Kennedy’s assassination, of course, but also more recent stuff like Pizzagate: it’s definitely modern and relevant, though feels slightly weird that it doesn’t address Trump’s new presidency and what that might mean for conspiracy theories (which is not the book’s fault, to be clear — it was released only just after the US election).

In a way, that fact makes the book feel defeated right away once we get onto the stuff about what to do about conspiracy theories, to be honest. How can one focus on deplatforming people who spout conspiracy theories when Trump’s about to be president again? [Not to mention everything that’s happening at the time of this review’s posting — it was originally written in January.] The chapter on defanging conspiracy theories is also quite short, because I think if that was the problem you want to solve… you wouldn’t want to start from here.

Ultimately, it was interesting but didn’t really add much for me. Rob Brotherton’s Suspicious Minds (which the authors reference) is better and more in depth.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Dorian Lynskey, history, Ian Dunt, non-fiction

Review – Soda and Fizzy Drinks

Posted March 31, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Soda and Fizzy Drinks: A Global History

by Judith Levin

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 184
Series: Edible
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
More than eighty years before the invention of Coca-Cola, sweet carbonated drinks became popular around the world, provoking arguments remarkably similar to those they prompt today. Are they medicinally, morally, culturally, or nutritionally good or bad? Seemingly since their invention, they have been loved—and hated—for being cold or sweet or fizzy or stimulating. Many of their flavors are international: lemon and ginger were more popular than cola until about 1920. Some are local: tarragon in Russia, cucumber in New York, red bean in Japan, and chinotto (exceedingly bitter orange) in Italy. This book looks not only at how something made from water, sugar, and soda became big business, but also how it became deeply important to people—for fizzy drinks’ symbolic meanings are far more complex than the water, gas, and sugar from which they are made.

Judith Levin’s Soda and Fizzy Drinks is another entry in the “Edible” series, all global histories of particular food items. Levin discusses the development of fizzy drinks and also their modern popularity, what they mean to people, and why they keep coming out with weird seasonal flavours (basically, to grab people’s attention and keep up demand, which isn’t a surprise).

I was surprised to learn about flavours of soda like celery, turkey and gravy, etc, and not surprised by much else such as the history of Coca-Cola and various reactions to Coca-Cola like Inca Cola. I was surprised that (according to Levin) Coca-Cola is viewed as pretty much holy by the Maya people. (Mostly so far in my external reading inspired by this book I’ve found sources discussing it as a part of diet in Mexico, and discussing changes brought by “coca-colonisation”, but less about it actually being a part of religious ceremonies.)

As usual with this series, the book is illustrated (sometimes making reference to the images and sometimes not really), and has a bunch of recipes in the back.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, history, Judith Levin, non-fiction