Left-Wing Ladies
I received this book as a gift for speaking at a meeting quite some months ago, and I’ve only just got around to reading it – not from lack of interest, but just… you know. Life.
So! It’s quite short, at only 177 pages, and it’s very readable. There are a lot of acronyms, so it’s a good thing there’s a list of them at the start of the book. It probably helps to have a bit of knowledge about Australian, and particularly Victorian, history from 1950-2000, but honestly it wouldn’t matter if you knew nothing. It’s based on a lot of archival research – someone has clearly been very conscientious at keeping minutes, pamphlets, letters etc – and some oral history interviews as well.
I knew a very small amount about the Union of Australian Women before diving into this: that they existed, in the first place, which is probably more than most people my age. I had come across them in my anti-Vietnam War research, as there were several women in both Save Our Sons and UAW, and they kept getting discussed in passing with regard to other actions around peace and women’s stuff. What I did not know was the extraordinary breadth of issues that the UAW took on, nor anything about their internal politics.
For me, the most interesting aspect is what the women in the UWA worked towards. They started out as an explicitly working-class organisation, and saw themselves as more aligned with unions than anyone else; there’s a really interesting discussion about being concerned with wages not keeping up with price hikes, rather than being concerned with salaries, which I think is a difference that doesn’t get discussed so much these days. When you add that concern for class difference to the fact that in Victoria, in particular, the UWA had Aboriginal members and worked to support ideas like land rights – well before that was popular – and that they printed their information in languages other than English and worked to support migrant women workers: I rather think these women – many of whom would not have described themselves as feminist! – were expressing intersectional feminism decades before it was being discussed in those terms. Which is not to say they were always on the cutting edge of women’s issues; the book points out how members reacted to discussions of prostitutes as workers, for instance, and the early reluctance of UWA to support ease of abortion access. On both topics, though, the UWA did come around to supporting women broadly.
One of the things I can’t get over is that so many of the things they were agitating for from the 1950s on are still relevant today. Pay equity (although at least that’s now legislated…). Accessible childcare. The problem of the price of goods rising faster than wages. Aboriginal rights. Environmental issues. Safety for women and children. And their number one issue, across five decades: peace.
The internal political situation is an important aspect, if not quite as gripping. As with so many organisations like this, there was much external discussion about whether they were merely a front for the Communist Party. And it’s true that many early members were members of both, and that the CPA contributed to the UWA and may have had a hand in guiding it. They were also associated with international socialist organisations for several decades, and the Australian issues brought about by the Sino-Soviet split showed themselves in the UWA too. But it’s clear that the UWA was never just a Communist organisation.
The Victorian branch of the UWA was the last one in existence. It has basically folded now: in 2021 they announced that their remaining funds would be used to fund activities for “the leadership, training and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, girls, non-binary and gender diverse young people.” I can’t help but be a bit sad that I will never experience the UWA, although I have met some women who were themselves members.
A Bite-Sized History of Italy
Read courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. It’s out at the start of June.
This book was an absolute delight.
The ‘bite-sized’ is an important part of the title, and the point is reiterated in the introduction: Callegari isn’t claiming this as a definitive look at Italian food, Italian culture, Italian identity, or their connections. What it is is a starting point, a set of vignettes (appetisers?) pointing to important moments and aspects of food and culture and identity, which are starting points for a deeper investigation – if you want to. If you just want an overview, that’s what this is!
Starting from Roman history and coming through to today, touching on many geographical areas and many Significant Italian Foods, Callegari touches on how certain things became ‘Italian” – tomatoes are not even European, let alone originally Italian! – as well as what it means for certain foods to exist in very specific regions. And beyond that, she touches on what it even means to be “Italian,” how that has changed / is changing, how food has influenced it, and also how talking about food (looking at you, Dante) has been a factor in this.
Not only is this a really great overview of a lot of interesting topics, it’s incredibly engaging. Chapters are short – like I said: appetisers – but they usually don’t feel too superficial because Callegari is very clear about the purpose of the book.
If you’re interested in food history but not looking for an encyclopaedia, this is an excellent starting point on Italy. Also: what a brilliant bibliography.
Lords of the Salt Road
I read this courtesy of the publisher, Osprey, and NetGalley. It’s out at the start of June.
Overall I enjoyed this book very much. I have a couple of caveats, which I’ll get to, but in general it has expanded my understanding of the role “the Norse” played in the history of the British Isles, as well as what it meant to be Norse / a Viking.
I came to this book with some knowledge already of “the Viking Age” – and I use those quote marks advisedly, since it’s a term that many historians aren’t happy about and is anyway incredibly vague (after all, what is “viking”?). Still, this is my context: I have a decent understanding of British history between when the Romans nicked off and the Normans stomped in; I have slightly less, but still some, knowledge of what was going on with that area now called Scandinavia. Would this book be as accessible to someone with zero knowledge of those things? It’s hard to say. Perhaps not, not least because one of the very difficult things is all of the Hara/olds, and there are a couple of other names that pop up repeatedly too; it’s hard to keep track of who’s who, even if you have a basic grasp of who should be when.
So, the book: a history of the Earls of Orkney (who also had control of the Shetlands, for most of their existence, as well as parts of northern Scotland for a fair chunk of time). It uses as its base a Norse saga about the earls, along with some other bits and pieces. Konstam makes a good argument for seeing the earls as a really important part of understanding the history of both Scotland, and Britain more broadly, and Norway in particular. It has been very easy for a very long time to insist on a French/maybe also Spanish tilt to British history, but the truth is that the Norse played much more of a role than just occasionally burning some monasteries down. And this book goes a ways to showing how that was true. I learned a great deal that I had no idea about, and some things I did already know got a lot more context.
Now, the caveats.
- The treatment of women. There’s one woman in particle, Ragnhild the daughter of Queen Gunnhild, whose role in various terrible events is taken with basically no hesitation straight from the sagas – that she was responsible for the deaths of “four notable men”, was evil, nearly destroyed the earldom, blah blah. I honestly can’t believe that this got past the editors: that there was no discussion about “maybe something else was going on here?”
- The first irked me. The second is actually more of a problem: there are a couple of things that I know for sure are actually errors. Harald Hardrada is described as having founded the Varangian Guard – nope. And a couple of the earls had to do with Macbethad ac Findleach – Macbeth. Konstam says that “Shakespeare followed the right historical script” in terms of murdering Duncan; again, nope, it seems to have been in battle. Both of these things do trouble me as to the veracity of other parts.
- Linked to the above: there’s not quite as much external verification of the Orkney saga as I might hope. The author brings in points from other sagas, and I get that there’s not many other sources, but the book also doesn’t caveat a lot of the ideas quite as much as I might have liked.
- Finally, a stylistic choice that drove me spare. Most of the Earls and other significant men have nicknames, like Harald Hardrada and Magnus Barelegs. Throughout the book, Konstam writes this as Harald ‘Hardrada’. And I can’t help but read these as ironic quote marks, as if the author is having a little joke or something. I’m sure that’s not true, but it did make for a frustrating reading experience.
Do I regret reading the book? Not in the slightest. It’s definitely made my knowledge of the late 800s-1200s in northern Scotland and Norway much more expansive. It’s not perfect, but that’s why multiple books should be written about similar topics.
The Brilliant Boy, Gideon Haigh
Doc Evatt and the Great Australian Dissent
Ok. So. Firstly, this is not the book I thought it was going to be. Partly that’s on me – I didn’t read the blurb carefully. So that’s a lesson. It’s also on the person who recommended it to me, because he led me to believe it was a proper – that is, complete – biography of Doc Evatt. And it’s not.
So, actually, possibly firstly: did you know that Gideon Haigh wrote full-on proper history, and not just cricket?? Me neither, until I was recommended this book.
Maybe this is first: until last year, I really didn’t read modern biographies, and I certainly didn’t read modern Australian biographies, let alone modern Australian political biographies. And now I’ve read two, arguably three, and I am having a minor (very, very minor) identity crisis.
All of that out of the way:
I know of Doc Evatt for having been instrumental in setting up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, doing other important work at the UN, and then being shuffled off and ignored by the Labor Party and Australian politics more broadly. I had absolutely no idea about his early life, how he got into politics, or what he was like as a human – except that he’s generally regarded as “brilliant and/but mad.” This book is almost entirely about Evatt’s early life, focused on his career as a lawyer and then as an exceptionally young High Court judge.
Do I care much about the law, the legal profession, or even much about how the Constitution is interpreted? No I really do not. Were there bits – large chunks excerpted from lawyers’ speeches, and bits from judgements – where my eyes glazed over? What do you think. Did I nonetheless find this a fascinating biography? I am almost embarrassed to admit that I really did. And that’s partly because Haigh is a really great writer, and partly because of the actual point of the book. Yes, it’s about Evatt. But it’s also about the idea that someone should be recompensed for the suffering they experience – not just physical injury – when someone has done them wrong.
The book opens not with Evatt, but with the death of a young boy – “the brilliant boy” – a child of Polish Jewish migrants who drowned in water collected in a hole in a road thanks to roadworks, in the early 1930s. The council hadn’t put up much in the way of protection. The mother suffered enormously from what was then termed “nervous shock” in the months and years after his body was found. And that was the focus of many court cases. Were the council liable for the mother’s suffering?
Warning: there’s a lot of callous and misogynist language in the judgements handed down.
I did, indeed, learn a lot about Evatt. I have much greater respect for his intellect and achievements – as well as some appreciation for why he was and is regarded as a bit mad. There have been two full biographies written of the man, but they’re both quite old and I don’t feel like I can go read them now. Along with all of that, I also learned a great deal about the development of how pain and suffering are viewed in the law, and – knowing that our current system is very, very far from perfect – feel very thankful that I live now, rather than a century ago.
Object Lessons: Lipstick
I read this courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, Bloomsbury. It’s out on Feb 19.
I have a fraught relationship with the idea of femininity. I obstinately rebelled against participating in most forms for a long time, for complex reasons that mostly had to do with what I thought was important about my identity. Eventually, I realised I was being stupid, and that things I enjoyed were not things that got in the way of who I was. I was 35 when I decided actually, I do like lipstick, and started regularly wearing it to work, and when I went out.
So this new Object Lessons, about lipstick, and in particular about how it is viewed, used, stigmatised, discussed, and historicised? This book was written for me.
And it is very well written. As with all of this series, the book is intensely personal as well as being well researched and reported. Given the way lipstick is viewed by different groups and individuals I particularly liked the way G’Sell incorporated the views of other people – those who love wearing it, and those who hate it, all for valid and important reasons. There aren’t all that many apparently innocuous objects that can get such intense, contradictory, and equally important reactions (although the bra does spring to mind, as it were).
As always, we get some history – folks of all genders wearing makeup in ancient Greece, 1930s film femme fatales, etc – as well as some anthropology (Iranian women wearing lipstick, examining the perennial comment about sales of lipstick going up in times of economic hardship), along with the intensely personal reflections.
The list of chapter titles will give a sense of what the book encompasses:
- Painted Ladies and Tainted Men
- Painted Ladies and Painted Men
- Lipstick Feminism and Sticky Pleasures
- Whitewashed Beauty, Appropriation, and Lipstick Legacies
- A Femme-Friendlier Future?
I loved it. This is a book for anyone who has thought about what it means to wear lipstick. or makeup more generally.
Object Lessons: Ballot
You can take compulsory voting from my cold dead hands.
I read this book c/ NetGalley and the publisher, Bloomsbury. It’s out now.
I love every Object Lessons book. In some ways, this one is like the rest – part history, part social commentary (almost anthropology), part personal experience. However, it’s a much more immediately relevant topic than, say Skateboarding or Perfume. As well, all of those have been partisan – they’re written by people who like skateboarding and perfume – but it’s much more obvious in this one: the author is outspokenly progressive – votes Democrat, because America, although – happily – she is also very clear on the failures of various Democratic leaders.
Compulsory voting forever.
One important thing to note here is just how American this book is – more noticeably than many of the others I’ve read. The author is American, and it’s one of the most personal Object Lesson I’ve read, so the narrow focus flows from that. Which is not inherently a problem – American voting is a fascinating / appalling thing to view from afar. What is… let’s say disconcerting is the way the book is written without acknowledging that it is, functionally, entirely aimed at an American audience. Does anywhere else vote on its judges? The local equivalent of district attorneys or sheriffs? Maybe they do, but nonetheless – that shit’s wild. Plus all the state vs federal laws, not to mention the college system OMG. Thus much of what the author says is not automatically applicable to my experience, and I would guess not to the experience of many other people around the world. (This comment also reflects that I had not carefully read the blurb, so partly this is on me.)
I will fight for compulsory voting.
(Note: it’s actually not compulsory to vote. It’s compulsory to get enrolled; then it’s compulsory to choose between a fine ($100) or rocking up at the election and having your name marked off. No one compels you to mark a ballot and put it in the box.)
I knew some bits and pieces examined here. The whole voter ID thing, and how it’s manipulated – wild. (Doesn’t happen in Australia.) “Use it or lose it”?? See note re: compulsory voting. The ways in which prison populations – mostly filled with people who can’t vote – are still counted as population for purposes of figuring out county borders etc?? Everything about this system makes me, an Australian with a clearly perfect and incorruptible election system,* laugh at the idea of America as a wonderful democracy.
Another thing to note is that this is not a history of the physical ballot process, which I initially assumed it would be. The process (as it happens/ed in the USA) is covered super briefly. Instead, this is essentially an overview of voting practices in the very recent US past. Which is certainly interesting, if not what I thought I was getting (see previous comment about not having read the blurb, and that’s on me.)
It’s very well written, and completely depressing.
* This is a joke.
The Man Who Stopped the Sultan
Read courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley. It’s out at the end of January, 2026.
This book is pretty great. For a reader even vaguely interested in the Europe and Ottoman Empires of the 1400 and 1500s, it provides a brilliant perspective that is often missing from other, entirely Euro-centric accounts I’ve read.
Did I know Henry VIII, Frances I. Suleiman, and Charles V were all around the same age?? No I did not. Doesn’t that give the 1500s a slightly different complexion. (Also I love the dismissal of Henry VIII and England as not particularly relevant to the happenings on the Continent at this point….)
This is larger than JUST a biography of Gabriele Tadino, although it is also that. Tadino is himself a fascinating figure – an engineer when military engineering is completely changing in reaction to technology, basically in the centre of things because of birth (living near Venice when shit is getting real, thanks very much not-so-Holy, definitely-not-Roman Emperor) and then being persuaded to join in with the Knights of St John over on Rhodes when Suleiman and his crew are laying siege. Tadino is not perfect, and there’s also bits of his life where the records completely dry up – but Albert has done a convincing job of recreating a lot of his experiences, and suggesting the whys and wherefores around them.
Alongside the Tadino exploits, though, this is also a magnificent examination of European and Ottoman relations in this key period. I don’t know all that much about Suleiman, nor the Ottomans at this time more broadly – but I know more now, and my disgruntlement at writing European history of the 16th century without reference to what was going on over East, and indeed well into central Europe, is Large.
Well written and accessible for the generally historically intelligent reader – no need to have very specific knowledge of people or places – this is a really great book.
Taco, by Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado
I received a copy of this from the publisher, Bloomsbury, at no cost. It’s out now.
I love everything about the Object Lessons series. Basically I’ll read every single book, no matter the subject matter. In this case, the subject matter is a bonus: I am a massive fan of food history, and food as social commentary. The taco works beautifully for that.
I am Australian, which means I have little knowledge of “the taco” as cultural object. My first experience was your classic Old El Paso hard shell, and I was well an adult before I discovered that this was not the “authentic” way to eat them – and having said that, Sanchez Prado’s discussion about the question of authenticity is a thing of absolute beauty. I knew that there was controversy within the US about Mexican food, because racism; I knew that “Mexican food” is a multifaceted thing. Sanchez Prado brings all of this to light in a rigorous and readable way – within the under-150-pages context of an Object Lessons book. He provides an extensive reading list, too, for those who want to go further.
This is a fabulous celebration of what was once street food, poor food, and has now suffered “elevation” and popularisation and has become symbolic of much, much more than some food wrapped in some other food. It’s a great introduction to a lot of issues. Definitely one for the food nerd in your life.
Frostbite, by Nicola Twilley
I came to this book because I am a fan of the podcast Gastropod, and Twilley is one of the hosts. She’s an immensely engaging host there, and she’s also an immensely engaging author. Her interest in and passion for “food through the lens of science and history” (the podcast’s tagline) comes through here: the history, present, and future of refrigeration and its connection to food is told thoughtfully, clearly, and with honest acknowledgement of the issues as well as the benefits.
One of the things I hadn’t really expected, but should have given the podcast, is just how much time Twilley spent actually experiencing the things that she discusses. She works some shifts in cold storage warehouses! She visits farms and factories! She goes to China and Rwanda as well as all over the US! And she has clearly talked to A LOT of people about all of the issues.
A fairly big focus of the book is the development of artificial refrigeration for food: the reasons for its necessity and the various people who were involved in trying to do so, the things they tried and how often they failed. I had no idea that people thought it would be ear impossible, but Twilley lays out the reasons for why it was so very hard and honestly I ended up surprised that it happened at all.
The bit that I found quite distressing was the reality of how much space is used for cold storage, and its environmental impact. But Twilley also points out how important refrigeration can be for things like reducing food wastage – one of the things I like about her reporting is that it’s not just two-sides-ing for the sake of it, but is looking at the issues very clearly and thoughtfully.
It’s a great book. Definitely one for people who are interested in how processes that we absolutely take for granted actually work.
(One thing to note, for those of us not in the USA: the book does use Fahrenheit throughout, which meant for me that I have no idea what the temperatures she’s referring to actually feel like.)
Margaret Beaufort: Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker
I read this courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. It’s out in November.
Absolutely fantastic biography, and also introduction to the entire period.
I love a biography that (re-)examines a woman in her context. Johnson is clear that she’s not the first to write a biography of Margaret Beaufort, but that one of the new things she’s doing is putting her very much in the context of women – the women she interacts with over her life: her mother and half-sisters, mothers-in-law and friends and servants and rivals, daughter-in-law and granddaughters. This gives a fantastic insight into what’s going on for noblewomen at this time in England, Wales, and even Scotland.
Of course, an enormous amount of the book is about Margaret’s interactions with men, too: husbands, mostly, but then eventually her son, as well as various half-brothers and stepchildren, not to mention cousins. My goodness, the cousins: when you’re a noble with a long lineage, you are related to EVERYONE of any importance. And, apparently, you knew them, or could at least call on them in times of need / just for the heck of it. Which really puts the War of the Roses in context, because it’s all about brothers and cousins fighting amongst themselves and devastating the countryside in the process.
Margaret Beaufort had a remarkable life. Terrible, at some points – pregnant and widowed at 13 – but also long, with many healthy and loving relationships (as far as we can tell), and eventually a son and then grandson on the throne. Not a terrible ending, one suspects. Lauren Johnson does an excellent job of making Margaret as human and relatable as feasible, while still reminding us that her life 500 years ago was very, very different from what we experience today. She does a very good job of trying to make the names easy to process (TOO MANY HENRYS and JOHNS), and the politicking easy (ish) to follow. This is a really great book.
Randomly Yours, Alex 