Category: Reviews
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Top 10 Horrible Histories Songs, Ranked
Horrible Histories was a memorable part of growing up for a lot of history students today. Naomi Wallace selects ten of the best songs from the show and explores why they are so entertaining.
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Dederer’s Monsters: Notes on Art and Ethics
People have long debated whether it is possible to separate the art from the artist. Georgia Smith discusses Claire Dederer’s book Monsters, and its attempt to answer this question.
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Book Review – The Earth Transformed by Peter Frankopan
Peter Frankopan’s The Earth Transformed explores the role of the climate across a vast span of history. Ailsa Fraser discusses the book and its contributions to environmental history.
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The History of Sex, Scandal and Society: Betwixt the Sheets with Kate Lister
In “Betwixt the Sheets”, historian Dr Kate Lister takes listeners on a journey of sex, scandal, and society throughout history, whilst tackling themes that are incredibly pertinent today. Naomi Wallace shares her review of the podcast.
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Six the Musical: A History Student’s Perspective
Six the Musical has been a smash hit since it first ran in 2017, but how does it hold up historically? Naomi Wallace analyses its portrayal of the six wives.
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‘Every baby needs a da-da-daddy’: Andrew Dominik’s Blonde
Georgia Smith explores themes of gender, sex, and the self in a review of the 2022 film “Blonde”, which tells a fictionalized account of Marilyn Monroe’s life.
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Book Review – Parreñas, Rhacel. 2011. Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration, and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Rhacel Parreñas’ 2011 text, “Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration, and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo”, seeks to examine the misconceptions surrounding the Filipina hostesses of Japan whose livelihood came under global scrutiny through the US-led anti-trafficking campaign. Rosie Inwald discusses Parreñas’ work and the issues with a top-down perspective on the agency of these women.
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Book Review – Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence
R. F. Kuang’s 2022 novel, “Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence”, holds a critical lens to the British Empire, examining the atrocities perpetuated by academic institutions. Naomi Wallace discusses Kuang’s work which combines fantasy with a powerful critique of imperialism, set in nineteenth-century Oxford.
Retrospect Journal 