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THE EMPIRE OF TEA

Name: THE EMPIRE OF TEA
Author: Alan MacFarlane
ISBN: 1-58567-493-1

THE REMARKABLE HISTORY OF THE PLANT THAT TOOK OVER THE WORLD

by Alan MacFarlane & Iris MacFarlane ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 12, 2004

Those Twinings cans may be decorative, but the history of their contents is not always so pretty, even as it makes for an...

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Somewhat stiff but unfailingly informative history of tea, from the widow and son of a tea planter.

Though the Macfarlanes’ prose cannot be said to be as liquid as its subject (“The idea of adding a leaf to boiling water, however, is not a very obvious one, and certainly not an option open to the monkeys . . . that first consumed tea”), the story of tea can’t help but fascinate due to the sheer scope of its influence. Tea played a critical role in the evolution of Japanese porcelain and British ceramics; it fueled the expansion of the British Empire and the Industrial Revolution, keeping workers alert beyond the toil and drudgery. It both soothes and invigorates, and its medicinal properties are little short of miraculous: antiseptic and antibacterial, tea “lowers cholesterol levels, reduces blood pressure, helps strengthen the walls of arteries, and consequently reduces the level of strokes and heart disease.” It may inhibit cancer and diabetes; the simple boiling of its water helped free humans of waterborne disease. What really captures the reader’s attention, though, is the authors’ description of the tea plantation, palatial for the managers, squalid and miserable for the workers, from the early colonial farms in Assam to contemporary tea plantations. (The Macfarlanes concentrate on India, though circumstances can't be much different in Sri Lanka, Java, or China.) Tea pickers are mostly women, harvesting approximately 3,000 shoots an hour, “co-ordinated into a reaching-plucking-and-depositing set of movements every second or less for many hours a day, six days a week.” They also reap boredom, rotten pay, occasional rape by employers, and the opportunity to be held in contempt by their colonial masters, who once described Indians, for example, as “chilarky . . . a word that covered lying, cheating and a general (innate, of course) inability to resist being saucily devious.”

Those Twinings cans may be decorative, but the history of their contents is not always so pretty, even as it makes for an absorbing read. (14 b&w illustrations)

Pub Date: April 12, 2004

ISBN: 1-58567-493-1

Page Count: 308

Publisher: Overlook

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2004

Categories:

CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | GENERAL CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES

- BOOK REVIEW
THE EMPIRE OF TEA
by Alan MacFarlane & Iris MacFarlane

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THE ABORTIONIST

A WOMAN AGAINST THE LAW

by Rickie Solinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 2, 1994

Though she has a superb story, Solinger never quite finds the voice with which to tell it. Despite these rough edges, well...

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Solinger's (Wake Up, Little Susie, 1992) biography of abortionist Ruth Barnett introduces us to a compelling character and to the underdocumented history of illegal abortion before Roe v. Wade.

Between 1918 and 1968, Ruth Barnett performed some 40,000 abortions in Portland, Oreg. Her life story reveals as simplistic the popular stereotype of illegal abortionists as unscrupulous, predatory opportunists indifferent to women's health and safety. Although Barnett lived well and flamboyantly, she was also motivated by a profound desire to help those in need. All her life, she acknowledged that her work was illegal but insisted that abortion should be a woman's personal decision. Indeed, she could not turn down women and girls who had no other options. Barnett's skills—she never lost a patient, and medical complications from her operations were extremely rare—were well-known to doctors throughout the Northwest, who frequently referred patients to her, and her antiseptic offices with up-to-date-equipment were hardly the dangerous, infection-ridden sites of current "back-alley'' mythology (though such outfits certainly did exist). Solinger manages to thoroughly engage the reader in Barnett's life without excessively lionizing her or retreating into revisionist polemics. This groundbreaking work should encourage further research on—and popular interest in—the pre-Roe abortionists. Unfortunately, Solinger's prose is inconsistent: at times too dry, at times overwritten and melodramatic. A plethora of mixed metaphors muddy the text, and awkward phrasing disrupts the narrative throughout.

Though she has a superb story, Solinger never quite finds the voice with which to tell it. Despite these rough edges, well worth the attention of anyone interested in the history of women's reproductive rights.

Pub Date: Oct. 2, 1994

ISBN: 0-02-929865-2

Page Count: 250

Publisher: Free Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994

Categories:

- BOOK REVIEW
BEGGARS AND CHOOSERS
by Rickie Solinger

- BOOK REVIEW
WAKE UP LITTLE SUSIE
by Rickie Solinger

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TALKING FROM 9 TO 5

HOW WOMEN'S AND MEN'S CONVERSATIONAL STYLES AFFECT WHO GETS HEARD, WHO GETS CREDIT, AND WHAT GETS DONE AT WORK

by Deborah Tannen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 19, 1994

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The workplace (primarily the office) is the setting for this third volume of Tannen's Linguistics Lite trilogy. Tannen (Sociolinguistics/Georgetown) sticks close to the main idea she popularized almost a decade ago in That's Not What I Meant (1985): Men and women have different conversational styles that are equally valid (though unequally valued). Here, she describes women's disadvantages in the workplace: They are paid less than men for the same work and face ``sexism'' (a term Tannen keeps dubiously between quotation marks), a glass ceiling, and sexual harassment. Why do such problems persist? Tannen considers the difference in male and female conversational style as a primary cause. Women are likely to have an indirect manner, to apologize more, and to offer softer criticism; they're problem preventers instead of heroic crisis solvers; they generally strive for the appearance of equality with, not superiority to, their co-workers. Many (male) bosses overlook the value of this style. Tannen concludes that women should go with their own approach, but they should also try to be assertive and worry less about being liked than about being competent. Yet in the next breath, she acknowledges that women who act assertive may bring unpleasant consequences on themselves. In the end, she reaches for platitudes, blithely recommending that workers adopt a mix of styles and that managers learn to recognize and appreciate quality in diverse forms. She says ``on that happy day, the glass ceiling will become a looking glass through which a fair percentage of Alices will be able to step.'' Readers of her earlier books will find much that is familiar, from the research to the conclusions. Women facing a hostile work environment and seeking substantive improvements in their situation are likely to find that Tannen's recourse to ``stylistic differences'' ultimately offers little help. (First printing of 200,000; first serial to New York Times Magazine and Redbook; Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection; Quality Paperback Book Club main selection; Fortune Book Club main selection; author tour)