Tag: Book Review
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Review: What is History, Now? How the past and present speak to each other (2021)
Written by Georgia Smith. What is history? The question retains its validity, evidenced by the recent release of a spiritual successor to E.H. Carr’s 1961 modern classic. As Georgia Smith’s review argues, the question is more what histories should be, rather than how they are constructed.
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Review: The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance
Written by Melissa Kane. Examining the recent work by acclaimed Renaissance scholar Catherine Fletcher, ‘The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance’, Melissa Kane questions. the extent to which it rightly can be called an alternative history.
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Review: Sistersong, Lucy Holland (2021)
Written by Melissa Kane. Lucy Holland’s Sistersong is an enchanting piece of historical fantasy that digs into early Anglo-Saxon Britain.
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Review: Our Time is Now: Race and Modernity in Postcolonial Guatemala, Julie Gibbings (2020)
Written by Jamie Gemmell. Dr Julie Gibbings’ 2020 work on postcolonial Guatemala offers an ambitiously broad examination of race and modernity, creating a multi-vocal historical narrative which is simultaneously complex and readable.
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Review: Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell (2020)
Written by Melissa Kane. Maggie O’Farrell’s is a magisterial text. The writing is sublime, bringing to life Elizabethan Stratford-upon-Avon. However, it is a difficult text and requires a degree of familiarity with its inspiration, Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
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Review: Goodbye, My Havana, Anna Veltfort – A Saga of Memories, Idealism, and Undying Love
Written by Lingxiao “Linda” Gao. Anna Veltfort’s book, Goodbye, My Havana: The Lift of a Gringa in Revolutionary Cuba, is both extremely detailed and expressive. Through its use of primary sources, it works both as a piece history writing and history-making.
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The Song of Achilles, 10 Years On
Written by Justin Biggi. The Song of Achilles has been praised for it’s treatment of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, one which has historically been controversial for academics. But does Miller’s retelling stand the test of time?
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Review: Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World, Jessica Marie Johnson (2020)
Written by Jamie Gemmell. Dr. Jessica Marie Johnson’s 2020 book explores the lives of black women in colonial Louisiana. Beginning in West Africa and moving through colonial rule to the formation of the USA to produce a history of the Atlantic world.
Retrospect Journal 