Historical hoarding
I wonder if my adoration of history is related to my incorrigible hoarding. Oh yes, it is incorrigible: those of you at school in Australia in 1988 may remember receiving a dinky commemorative coin for the Bicentennary. I’ve still got mine (primary school, thanks very much). I used it, for some reason, to collect the signatures from some has-been cricketers at an exhibition match in Darwin the same year. I kept my cinema tickets for ages. As if anyone would ever be interested in my ephemera! But then, there are are historians who examine the minutae of everyday life, so – you know …. I, though, am not one of them.
At the same time, I am also a tragic nostalgic: I wish my college friends were all still talking, because I’d love to have a ten-year reunion next year – but it ain’t gonna happen. I love my family history, partly for bragging rights and partly for interest.
I think this might be a bit of a chicken/egg issue. But it is an interesting thing to consider.
BBC History May 2007
Yeh, bit slack with reading these mags at the moment… I got stuck on an article about Charles II and the restoration, and then it occurred to me that I didn’t have to finish reading it – novel, eh?
The two articles about the mutiny/insurrection/pick your favourite word in India, against the Brits, were fascinating. Saul David and William Dalrymple give different perspectives on it (literally: one Brit, one Indian). Given I knew zip about the issues and results of the conflict, these articles were intriguing for me. The question about motivations, and whether it was religious or political or how those things worked together in somewhere like India, with Hindus and Muslims and Christians, was absorbing. And I am not willing to draw any modern parallels.
I’ve heard the word Oxyrhynchos (sharp nose) with reference to papyri before, but never really knew what was going on there. Now I know, thanks to Peter Parsons! I love things like this: piles of rubbish being preserved for millenia, and then being just the ticket for archaeologists – a great big mound of treasure, basically. Yay for the preserving sands!
It’s the 300th birthday of the union between England and Scotland this year, and apparently there’s a bit of grumbling and muttering, in Scotland especially, about what a bad deal they got. Not so, according to Eric J Evans, who reckons the Scots got a very good deal indeed – especially economically, if not politically.
There’s a new book coming out about Stalin as a young man – who’s not interested in analysing the youth of a nutter, to see what caused him to be like that, to reassure ourselves that something went wrong so he wasn’t just a normal man who did dreadful things? Anyway, according to Simon Sebag Montefiore, he developed a taste for violence early on, but also was into seducing women and writing poetry… which may be connected to one another…. I don’t think I’ll read the book, but it’s an interesting idea, and I think I’m glad someone has done it.
Diarmid MacCulloch’s article on Christians and Muslims today, and whether this is some inevitable (argh! anathema word!) clash of faiths or a result of the last 200 years of history, is fascinating – because I don’t know a lot of it, and he makes a compelling case. As a Christian myself, I think that there is (inevitably!) tension between the faiths because of their differences, but this doesn’t necessarily translate onto the world stage… I’m not convinced Bush makes his decisions as a Christian and nothing else, and I am also not sure about the various Islamic states – because I just don’t know enough about them. Anyway, very interesting stuff.
Finally, let me just mention the short article on ERII’s coronation. Interesting stuff about the behind-scenes events, and the stress over whether or not to broadcast it.
Not the best issue of BBC History, for my tastes, but still quite good.
Hatshepsut
They found her mummy! – well, they think so, and it’s not so much found it as identified it…
Hatshepsut is so cool. Her iconography is fascinating, false beard and all (although, despite how incredulous the narrator of that vid sounds, male pharaohs did the false beard thing too… and I have never actually heard someone say Thutmose. I’ve only heard Tutmosis…). I think actually one thing that makes her so interesting is the fact that her descendents tried so damned hard to erase her from history. Humans are contrary like that; tell me something I don’t want to know about and dammit, I do!
I also like that Zahi Hawass sometimes seems to be a bit of a rock star in Egypt. Not everyone likes the way he does his job, but darn he is a good front man for archaeology in Egypt.
Flat packed boats
Apparently, Carthage had them! And apparently, that was eventually bad, because when the Romans caught one they took it apart, found the numbered planks, and were therefore able to copy them and make something like 200 ships in 45 days. That sounds a bit ridiculous to me, but hey….
I found this out in an old doco on Carthage – I think I taped it last year or the year before, and only just got around to watching it last night. It was quite interesting – I actually learnt something new, like that Hannibal’s father actually set up Carthage #2 in Spain, and that people in Carthage #1 weren’t entirely happy with what he did. The doco started with the founding of Carthage, basically, talking about them using the Mediterranean as their own little pond. It very quickly gets to talking about the First Punic War, of course. This section was interesting, but it also leaned towards Rome – as these things always do – with sentences like Rome becoming a naval power “at last“: as if it was (gasp) inevitable that that would happen.
The bit I was disappointed about was the section on the Second Punic War, and Hannibal. There was, to my mind, too little on the man and very little even on the war itself! I did like the bit on Cato, though; a vicious little self-important declaimer is generally entertaining, especially at a two-millenium remove.
Most disappointingly, though, was the fact that I missed the end of the doco! It stopped right after talking about Carthage rebuilding, against the Roman treaty… so I didn’t get to diss them for including the ol’ salting the earth story.
Sad me. But it was a good doco.
Dr Zhivago
I am watching this tonight, in bits and pieces, trying to find appropriate bits to show the kiddies tomorrow – preferably the parts about the Civil War, and the privations suffered under War Communism and the Bolsheviks. I would quite like to watch the whole thing – I think the only time I have was about a decade ago, and I remember liking it then… but it’s just so long! I simply can’t watch the whole thing tonight, and the thought of watching a 3-hour movie just seems too difficult these days.
Omar was quite devilishly handsome in his day. I’ve just got to the part where Zhivago is about to meet Lara… terribly exciting. Truly, it is a grand narrative.
Have they not learnt?
Just caught a snippet of Hack, on Triple J. It was obviously about ANZAC Day, asking young people what they think of the day.
I don’t know what the actual question was, but the responses I heard were along the lines of ‘I don’t agree with it because it’s, like, glorifying war and stuff (?) (the ? is because of the upwards inflection at the end of the sentence…’.
I don’t much care what your opinion of ANZAC Day is – well, I do, but I respect your right to hold any opinion (with all the usual caveats of respectfulness), but truly – have you not learnt? Do you not understand? There are so many things wrong with that statement – how could commemorating ANZAC Day, initiated to mourn the dead, celebrate war? And I thought that the aftermath of the peace protests against the Vietnam War had taught people to divorce soldiers, doing their job, from war as a concept – it has become trite, listening to American protests, but it really is possible to support and sympathise with soldiers while still protesting the war they are fighting.
I was mad at the ignorance. Now I’m just sad.
BBC History March 2007
Good thing I finished this recently, since April just arrived!
Just a quick review of this issue, looking at some of the articles that I really enjoyed:
“Bomber Boys,” by Patrick Bishop, was fascinating – I had no idea that the bomber crews had got a rough ride after the war, but it does make sense (not that they should have, I mean, but the way it was done, or not done… does that itself make sense??). The sheer statistics of artillery and casualties and damage done, by and to both sides, was staggering. And the picture of Cologne in 1945 is … well. Devestating.
David Okuefuna looking at Albert Kahn and the photographers he patronised, in “Bringing Colour to a Pre-War World,” was brilliant. The pictures themselves are amazing, and the stories of the photographers just added poignancy to the stories of the subjects. I am a firm believer in the idea that knowing about the producer/author/artist can, indeed, add to your understanding of a piece of art – at least give it context, if not enrich it greatly.
I didn’t reliase that there was some ‘cash for peerages’ scandal surrounding Tony Blair. How interesting. The double-page spread looking at the precedents for that sort of thing was illuminating (bad, bad James I and Bill Gladstone!).
I loved the article about Mr Stanley. All I really knew about the man was his “Mr Livingstone, I presume?” – which he probably never actually said, surprise surprise. I had no idea he had been reviled as cruel and so on, although I am terribly surprised by that, either. And sometimes, I just love revisionist history.
Cannibals! And medicine! And Europeans! Never knew that powdered corpse had been used for medicinal purposes, But, with the idea of sympathetic magic – I mean, medicine – it’s no huge leap, I suppose.
I had never heard of the Hottentot Venus. Truly people did (do) weird and bizarre things when they thought (think) they were (are) superiod racially etc… I wonder if there is antything that ‘rational’, ‘moral’ beings do today that will be reviled in 200 years?
The booklet about the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade was brilliant – worth getting this issue just for it. The background to the law being passed, the stress of getting it passed, and the consequences… plus people reflecting on its ramifications, or lack thereof, and the legacy of slavery today, was riveting. I have to admit – and I apologise to Toyin Agbetu for this, and thank him for pointing it out – that I had been thoughtless of my terminology up to this point: it is very easy to keep referring to Africans who were enslaved as ‘slaves’, rather than ‘enslaved Africans’ – a small but, I think, vital difference.
And then there’s “‘I Defy Them All!'” – about 17th century women; particularly the Verney women. Illegit pregnancies, fiance-stealing, blackmail… they did the lot. I appreciated that at the end Adrian Tinniswood concedes that this may not have been the norm, since up to that point I wondered if that was what he was driving at… it is interesting to think about just how many, and how much, women at the time ‘broke the rules.’
Lots of reviews. Places to go, but too late since I won’t be going back for ever such a long time.
Good issue.
Robin Hood
We saw the final episode of this in the UK – oops. But it did get us quite excited about the fact that ABC bought it, and it started tonight.
It’s pretty bad, and pretty good at the same time.
Bad:
Oh, the action
The music – very Superman/Star Wars
So, so may cliches
Two arrows at once?!
Robin is short
Good:
Oh, the action
Robin has to work for Marion
The music – very Superman/Star Wars
Very, very modern
OK, so overall it was pretty bad. Definitely no Ivanhoe, Will Scarlet is no Christian Slater, the scenery didn’t even try to emulate 1190s reality (1190s? Didn’t he mention it was Urban II’s crusade??). But the sheriff – he is SO bad; and Guy of Gisborne, from what I have seen in this and the final episode, walks that wonderfully fine line of being bad but evoking a fair amount of sympathy from the audience – enough that it makes things a little bit uncomfortable for them, And, to make matters worse in the UK, just after the final episode was the Christmas episode of the Vicar of Dibley, in which the actor who plays Guy was the romantic lead… very, very funny.
I think I will be watching more. If only to find out how the Arabic girl (oops, slight spoiler there) makes it into the Merry Men.
History of Writing
Finally finished this today – you know how it is when you’re nearly finished a book, but the last half a chapter just seems like such a slog… yes. Well, that’s exactly how I’ve felt with this book, much as I have enjoyed it.
Let me get the gripes out of the way to start with. Lack of definitions irked me. Maybe Steven Roger Fischer is only writing for experts – although it doesn’t really seem like it – but he talks about graphemes and logography and other such words and doesn’t give a definition for any of them until about chapter 5, and then only defines a couple! So that was a bit annoying. I also should say that I didn’t entirely understand all of it; part of that is me – I am definitely not an expert in the area, and some of it just went over my head, as I knew it would – but some of it is Fischer: while he mostly writes plainly, every now and then he got a bit carried away with fancy-pantsed academic language that may not have been necessary.
Anyway… the first chapter is “From Notches to Tablets” and the second “Talking Art” – fairly obvious what they’re about. Mostly concentrating on the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian area (Fischer is a proponent of the idea that ‘complete writing’ started in just one place, Sumer, and developed everywhere else because of foreign influence), it looks at why complete writing developed, and how, and the advantages that came because of it. Knots, notches, pictography… humans really are quite creative. In the development of writing I particularly like the idea of the rebus – smart cookie, whoever realised that you can substitute a picture of one thing for something else that sounds the same but means something else (eg a bird’s bill for Bill).
Chapter 3 is “Speaking Systems,” It looks at the dissemination of writing throughout the Mediterranean and into India, Phoenicians and the Middle East and all. Basically tracing how syllabaries (where a sign represents a syllable) developed and influenced one another.
“From Alpha to Omega” is the fourth chapter, and there are no prizes for guessing its emphasis: the Greek alphabet. From Greece to the Etruscans to the Romans, and then on into all areas conquered by them, is the story told here. Mention is made of Ogham, Slavonic scripts, and Gothic script too. Very interesting, and lots of pretty pictures showing different writing styles.
Fifth is “The East Asian ‘Regenesis'”, which mostly looks at Chinese writing – its development, changes, and how it has influences cultures within its orbit, such as Vietnam, Korea, Japan and Mongolia. I had already read about the Korean script somewhere else, but the story of it being developed in the 1400s by the king (or at least under his aegis) is a brilliant one. And I had no idea just how complicated Japanese is… crazy, the amount of stuff Japanese kids have to learn just to be literate! And my students complain!
“The Americas,” the sixth chapter, is not one I had expected to be very long, but it was actually quite involved. It looked at who might have had writing when, who influenced who, and what role writing might have played in the different Mesoamerican (primarily) societies. The Spanish have a lot to answer for, with regard to destroying Aztec records, but then I guess we knew that.
Penultimately, “The Parchment Keyboard” looks at the development of handwriting styles in Europe basically from Charlemagne on, the dissemination of them and literacy more generally, and then the development and impact of printing. It always amuses me that we place so much emphasis on Gutenber, in the West, when the Chinese had been using paper and block printing for centuries before him. The joys of Eurocentrism…
Finally comes “Scripting the Future,” which is Fischer’s attempts at prognostication, for the most part. What the impact of computers will be, the likely success of trying create a ‘visual language,’ and the scripts that will still be around in 400 years.
This is a very, very brief overview of the book. I really liked that, in general, Fischer was not triumphalist, smug or assured about the overwhelming use of the Latin-based alphabet. Indeed, he went out of his way to emphasise that this is not necessarily the ‘best’ alphabet – pointing out a lot of the problems with it, calling it deficient, which I liked – and holding up the longevity and usesfulness of Japanese writing systems (three of them!) in contrast. It is mostly readable, and reveals things about writing that I had never thought about. Good for nerds who like thinking about the way things are done, and why, and the history of things we take for granted.
Spicy history
I finished Jack Turner’s Spice: The History of a Temptation yesterday. Overall, I really enjoyed it. It’s quite an idiosyncratic history, and deliberately so – writing about absolutely everything to do with spice, even just in western Europe and/or just in the Middle Ages would be an incomprehensibly huge project, I would imagine. So he hasn’t done that: although he does go into great detail in some things, in others he skips over stuff a bit. He does seem to have a fairly good bibliography at the back, so I guess if you were so inclined you could chase stuff up yourself.
The first part is about the spice race – Columbus, Magellan, and their cohort, who opened up the world for Europeans – at least the western ones – all, or at least partly, in the name of spice, I love the idea of Portugese or Spanish explorer getting to Malabar or other such places and finding Italian merchants already there; the look on their faces must have been priceless… much like the spice there were seeking.
The second part focusses on the palate – the thing that I was expecting most of the book to look at, to be honest, despite the fact that I know spices were used in incense etc. Anyway, this section was really interesting: it looked at recipes, it looked at how spice helped to create/maintain class distinction; discredits the idea that spice was used in the Middle Ages to hide the taste of rotting meat (it was rich people who used spice – do you think rich people would be eating rotting meat in the first place? It was at least partly to hide the taste of the salt used in curing the meat, probably).
The third part focussed on the body, in two ways: spice in medicine, and spice for love. Starting with cloves being shoved up Ramses II’s nose, as part of the mummification process, and then talking about the whole idea of pomanders and bad air (mal aria…) being respondible for disease. The section on spice as aphrodisiac was quite funny. And almost entirely male-centred – the remedies suggested, that is, not Turner’s treatment of it, since he himself points it out.
Part four is on the spirit: the use of spice in incense, for example. It mostly focussed, though, on the changing attitude of Christians towards spice in worship. The earliest Church fathers thought it was ok-ish – Christians were often anointed with spices for burial, since Christ was. Then people went a bit off it, because after all if God is incorporeal then presumably he doesn’t enjoy pleasant smells (personally I think this is a daft argument: so you’re limiting what God is able to do, then?). This is a very, very brief overview, of course.
The last chapter is called “Some Like it Bland,” which is a great heading. It talks about the movement – slowly – against spices, for a range of reasons, including that it was a drain of resources away from Europe towards those nasty, decadent Easterners; plus, interestingly, he links the development of the nation-state and national sentiment to the development of a national cuisine, which makes sense, and in England at least this led to a bland cuisine they were proud of, contrasting it with those very spices their forebears used to love.
As I said, this is a ridiculously brief overview, but it gives an idea what the book was about. It’s really well written, and a lot of fun to read; Turner’s not afraid of pointing out the humorous and ridiculous nature of some of the things he discusses.
Randomly Yours, Alex 