The life story of an unlikely voyager from Japan provides a fascinating look into 16th-century geopolitics.
An account of a 16th-century enslaved Japanese man who endured abduction and hard labor among pirates to become the first documented Asian to learn English and set foot in North and South America and Britain.
Historian Lockley, co-author of African Samurai, found reports of "Christopher" from archived private diaries and letters and presents the young man's life as close to fact as possible. Enslaved by an Andalucian merchant in Manila, Christopher was bound aboard the Spanish ship Santa Ana in 1587 when it was overtaken in waters offshore Cabo San Lucas by English "privateers" working for an expedition led by Thomas Cavendish. As the author recounts, Christopher translated some prized booty into English: a map of China that formed the basis for charts later used by Westerners. Brought to England in 1588, he made a sensation in his “exotic robes” and "innate nobility,” and he was granted an audience with Queen Elizabeth. Lockley narrates parts of the story close to Christopher's perspective, emphasizing his discoveries and insights. For example, as a guest of London society, Christopher marveled that the English seldom bathed and lived with indoor animals. Pressed into service in Cavendish's next attempt to reach the Far East, he "almost definitely succumbed to the perils of the voyage," which was storm-tossed, violent, and, ultimately, doomed. However, in his adventures, Christopher inadvertently became a "pioneer in global travel, technology transfer, international relations, and cross-cultural communication." Lockley succeeds in focusing his history on the contributions of the "oppressed, trafficked and marginalized" who have otherwise left no record. In the process, he tells a lively tale of maritime adventure, piracy, and advancements in science and global economics. Extensive notes and bibliographies help fill in the political and cultural landscape.
The life story of an unlikely voyager from Japan provides a fascinating look into 16th-century geopolitics.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781335016713
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A compelling, often chilling look inside today’s version of the Gulag.
The WNBA star recounts her imprisonment by the Putin regime.
“My horror begins in a land I thought I knew, on a trip I wish I hadn’t taken,” writes Griner. She had traveled to Russia before, playing basketball for the Yekaterinburg franchise of the Russian league during the WNBA’s off-season, but on this winter day in 2022, she was pulled aside at the Moscow airport and subjected to an unexpected search that turned up medically prescribed cannabis oil. As the author notes, at home in Arizona, cannabis is legal, but not in Russia. After initial interrogation—“They seemed determined to get me to admit I was a smuggler, some undercover drug lord supplying half the country”—she was bundled off to await a show trial that was months in coming. With great self-awareness, the author chronicles the differences between being Black and gay in America and in Russia. “When you’re in a system with no true justice,” she writes, “you’re also in a system with a bunch of gray areas.” Unfortunately, despite a skilled Russian lawyer on her side, Griner had trouble getting to those gray areas, precisely because, with rising tensions between the U.S. and Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s people seemed intent on making an example of her. Between spells in labor camps, jails, and psych wards, the author became a careful observer of the Russian penal system and its horrors. Navigating that system proved exhausting; since her release following an exchange for an imprisoned Russian arms dealer (about which the author offers a le Carré–worthy account of the encounter in Abu Dhabi), she has been suffering from PTSD. That struggle has invigorated her, though, in her determination to free other unjustly imprisoned Americans, a plea for which closes the book.
A compelling, often chilling look inside today’s version of the Gulag.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9780593801345
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: yesterday
BOOK REVIEW
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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