Tag Archives: history

REVIEW: THE TOWER By Nigel Jones

by mwgerard Posted on January 15, 2013

Tower

Jones’ overview of the Tower of London’s thousand year history was no doubt a massive undertaking. Imagine it: ten centuries worth of sieges, celebrations, world-altering decisions, wrongful deaths and sovereign decrees all held within these walls, on just a few acres of land.

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A chamber inside the Tower of London

Jones visits the (in)famous as well as the less well-known.  Henry VIII’s wives are well represented, as is the disreputable reputation of torture of its prisoners.  But it also unearths more obscure facts like Issac Newton’s position as the Warden of the Mint.  For several hundred years the coins of the realm were stamped on the grounds.  And I only knew of the menagerie because of my visit there last year.  But I didn’t realize that William Blake visited the tiger in order to observe the “fearful symmetry” of the fierce cat.

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My photograph

Jones’ indexed book is well-researched and, while educational, it is far from dry.  This is partially due to the Tower’s rich history, but Jones also presents the information in an absorbing manner.  It manages to encompass the years 1078 to present day all within an approachable format.  His rich descriptions bring the ancient past to life:

Minting money was hot, hard, laborious, noisy and dangerous work.  The interior of the mint’s workshops were a hellish inferno full of the clash and splash of metal, both hard and molten.  A sweaty, smoky, smelly world where hammers clanged deafeningly and glittering, jagged splinters of precious metal and molten droplets flew through the filthy air, causing painful injuries.  Few mint workers escaped their service without losing a finger or an eye to their risky craft.   ~Pg. 35

A good deal of my knowledge of British regicidal history comes from Shakespeare’s plays.    It was enjoyable to put those pieces together with the documented stories, and learn more about the place I was fortunate enough to visit.  Surely there are layers yet to be discovered, and there is no doubt that some things will just never be known.

This is an excellent handbook for those interested in English history in general as well as the past days of the Tower.  I cannot wait to visit again, now with this insight.

** I suggest following @ravenmaster1 on Twitter.  Chris Skaife is the official Ravenmaster for the Tower of London and posts great pictures from the site.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for the review copy.
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October 2012
Hardcover
ISBN: 9780312622961
ISBN10: 0312622961
6 1/8 x 9 1/4 inches, 464 pages
Plus one 16-page b&w photo insert and map endpapers

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REVIEW: CITY OF RAVENS BY Boria Sax

by mwgerard Posted on August 9, 2012
The Extraordinary History of London, the Tower, and its Famous Ravens

Last summer I went to the Tower of London.  There I made a number of unexpected discoveries, although if I had ever stopped to think about it would have seemed rather obvious.  For instance, there are several buildings that make up the “tower”, the oldest and most famous being the White Tower.  It isn’t really a tower, but a fortress or a castle. Unlike the Buckingham guards, the Yeomen are very much allowed to talk to you and are wonderfully friendly folks.  The real Crown Jewels really are kept there – provable by the fact very strict British advertising laws actually prevent any sort of “bait and switch”.  If they advertise it, they have to be real.

And as a “fan” of ravens in general I was very excited to see the avian residents at the Tower.  They are incredibly curious and obviously intelligent.   One of the many things that makes me such an Anglophile is their unwavering adherence to tradition.  So having a warder whose sole job is to tend the ravens at the Tower is amazing to me.

And like the thousands upon thousands of visitors to the Tower each year, I believed the general story that they had been part of the Tower for centuries.  Apparently the true story is a bit more complicated.

Boria Sax’s book is a neat thesis the explores the history of ravens (Corvus corax) in general, in England and at the Tower.   These background chapters were my favorite.

Their [the raven's] complex social structure resembles that of human beings.  Ravens live within a nuclear family and raise their young collectively, yet they also assemble in huge gatherings for reasons that are not fully explained.  They communicate in part through a large range of vocalisations, and they have long been renowned for their intelligence.  Because ravens can seem ‘almost human’, they elicit strong feelings from people, and have been alternately revered and persecuted throughout human history.

Because of their extraordinary cleverness, people can find ravens irascible and, at times, even diabolic.  A recent publication of the US National Park Service advises tourists that, “Ravens have learned how to unzip and unsnap packs.  Do not allow them access to your food.” But despite their reputation as tricksters, ravens have often been able to thrive in human settlements, and Aristotle considered them birds of the city.  Pliny tells of one raven that made its next in the shop of a cobbler in Rome and became so beloved that a man who killed it was punished with death.  the raven was given a splendid funeral attended by a large crowd of mourners.  ~Pgs. 24-5

Sax then explores how the legend of the Tower ravens was born.  The answers are surprising and enlightening (but I will leave it to the reader to discover).

The book lands somewhere between academic and popular history.  It is accessible for a casual reader but full of well-researched quotes and references.  I recommend it for any history buff or Anglophile’s shelves.

Many thanks to Overlook Press for the review copy.

You can follow the Tower of London’s Ravenmaster on Twitter here.

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ISBN: 978-1-59020-777-2
ISBN 13: 978-1-59020-777-2
Trim Size: 5 x 7
206 pages
Hardcover

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GIVEAWAY: Midnight in Peking

by mwgerard Posted on April 19, 2012

Thanks to the folks at Penguin, I am giving away a hardcover copy of MIDNIGHT IN PEKING by Paul French.  It’s the best historical true crime I’ve read since The Devil in the White City. (My full review is here)

To enter, please:

1. Leave a comment, with link to a Facebook or Twitter post in which you linked to this giveaway

2. Submit between now and Monday, April 23, 2012 at 4p.m. EST,

2.2 Due to technical difficulties on my part, I’ve extended this giveaway until Monday, April 30, 2012 at 4 p.m. EST.

3. In the comment, include your email in the following format (to reduce spam): name (at) domain (dot) com.

Winners will be chosen via random.org from among the valid entries. US mailing addresses only, please.

Good luck!

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REVIEW: AMERICA WALKS INTO A BAR by Christine Sismondo

by mwgerard Posted on November 22, 2011
A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops

As someone who grew up on episodes of Cheers and lived in a colonial-era tavern and inn, I suppose I might have been somewhat predisposed to be enamored by the subject.  But if you stop to consider, I think most people are.  The gathering of community is something we all need and create.  
This is a fascinating social history of our relatively young country.  And with all we have been though as a nation, one thing that has been a constant is the bar — even when they were banned.  Not just as a place to imbibe, but a place to gather.  Revolutions and crimes alike have been planned in them.  The Salem Witch Trials just may have been started because of one. 
The Green Dragon Tavern, the cradle of the Boston Tea Party
Sismondo brings into focus the history of America’s founding, growing pains and social reforms through the lens of the community tavern.  She reminds us that a pioneer town was likely to have tavern before it had a church or courthouse.  The bar was pressed into many civic uses, but it was also the hub of the people.  It was a place to get warm, to see friends, to hear the news and to grumble about life.  
The book traces, in relatively chronological order, the evolution of the bar as meeting place from the Puritans to Colonialists, early temperance movements in the literary sphere,  political machines, speakeasies, the repeal of Prohibition, dessert cocktails and more.  
It’s quite stunning, actually, to look at ourselves as a nation, in the mirror of a backbar.
 

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Many thanks to the folks at Oxford University Press for the review copy.

America Walks into a Bar
A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops
Christine Sismondo
ISBN13: 9780199734955
ISBN10: 019973495X
Hardback, 336 pages

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REVIEW: THE HEAVENS ARE EMPTY by Avrom Bendavid-Val

by mwgerard Posted on June 13, 2011
My introduction to this mystical place was in the film Everything Is Illuminated (based on the book of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer).  While Foer’s story is a novel, it does base its setting of “Trochimbrad” on the real life Trochenbrod.  But why this place?  Of all the lives ended, towns burned, hopes crushed, and families decimated by World War II, why has this one become a focus for so many?
A still image from “Everything is Illuminated”
Bendavid-Val’s grandfather was a Trochenbroder, as was his father.  Stories of the fabled town floated around his family history but he was unaware of the significance until after his father’s death.  The author spent twelve years researching and collecting stories.  He writes:
“I was lucky to fall under Trochenbrod’s spell at a time when a few dozen people who knew Trochenbrod first-hand were still alive.  I talked with people born there from 1912 through 1932, and who left as late as 1942.  I was able to hear a different perspective, how Trochenbrod and Trochenbroders appeared to Ukrainians and Poles living other places in the area, from people who still live there and remember well their childhood visits to Trochenbrod.  Personal recollections, as unreliable as any one of them might be, collectively made it possible to fill in the outlines with the feel of Trochenbrod, with a sense of what it was like to live there.  My father left Trochenbrod in 1932; I was capturing things he would have told me.“
Trochenbroders on the main street
But this book is not simply a quest for personal genealogy.  In fact it focuses very little on his own hereditary connection to the place.  It is much more about uncovering and reanimating a vivid, lively town that has completely disappeared.  Indeed, that seems to be the main crux.  While horrors of WWI, a Bolshevik revolution, and a deep depression consumed the Western world, Trochenbrod remained relatively untouched.  This is not to say it was immune from hardship, but compared to the difficulties endured by Jews in ghettos in urban settings, life in Trochenbrod was heavenly.  Set deep in the Ukrainian forest, miles from the nearest road (really a track) and rail station, it was a world apart.  Jewish traditions flourished here, and so did its residents.  By the 1930s, the list of businesses included: Bakeries, barber shops, butchers, candy store, fabric shops, grain mills, furniture makers, horse traders, ice, inn, lumber mills, oil presses, pharmacies, produce, restaurant, and tailors — to name just a few from the list in the book.  
What used to be the main street of Trochenbrod today
Today, nothing is left of Trochenbrod.  Its residents suffered horrific persecution and murder from the inhuman Nazi regime.  Of the approximately 6000 people who lived in the area, about 60 managed to escape by living in the Radziwell forest or by slipping through to other countries.  What is amazing is that those who survived, have only love and happiness to express when they remember Trochenbrod.  Bendavid-Val’s extensive interviews with survivors and other descendants recall many things about those times, but their descriptions of life in Trochenbrod are full of warmth.  Life was plentiful.  Which is why it was all the more painful when it was torn from them and burnt to the ground. 
This book is a fascinating read for anyone interested in history or family stories.  While there are very upsetting passages, most of the book uplifting.  It manages to to be neither too didactic nor too depressing.   The author’s collection of first-person narratives is so important and brings this lost town to life.  As Foer notes in the preface that this book is “the definitive history of this definitive place.  If this book feels more fantastical than my novel, or any novel you have ever read, it is because of Trochenbrod’s ingenuity, the Holocaust’s ferocity, and Bendavid-Val’s heroic research and pitch-perfect storytelling.” Read this book to understand the strength of human tenacity and the power of memories.
Learn more at Bet-Tal’s website and the author’s site.
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Hardcover: 256 pages  Publisher: Pegasus (October 15, 2010) Language: English ISBN-10: 9781605981130 ISBN-13: 978-1605981130 ASIN: 1605981133 Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1 inches 
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Pictures of Colonial Park Cemetery, Savannah

by mwgerard Posted on July 22, 2010
One of the original burying grounds of early Savannahians.  It also has some devastating history.  Savannah was hit by three major yellow fever epidemics before doctors figured out it was transferred via mosquito.  
It is the resting place of many famous Savannahians, included those of the Habersham clan, some of the city’s founders.
It was also used as a camp site for Sherman’s army when they marched into Savannah.  Sherman did not burn the city in return for unopposed quartering, the city’s surrender and a large shipment of cotton.  The soldiers who stayed in the cemetery took down several headstone and altered the epitaphs and many more.  When they left, it was unknown where many stones belonged, so they were placed along the east wall.

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