An imaginative weaving of the personal and political into a fresh narrative of an archaeological icon.
How the discovery of Tutankhamun’s grave has resonated in cultural and political history well into the present.
As a point of departure, Riggs, the author of multiple books about ancient Egyptian culture, uses the lessons she learned about King Tut in her rural Ohio public school, knowledge that led to an enduring fascination with ancient Egyptian history and subsequent profession as an Egyptologist. As her teacher scrolled through the images on the projector, “something wonderful shimmered into view,” writes the author, echoing the supposed utterance of the original discoverer, Howard Carter. “Ten years old and miserable, I had never seen anything so splendid and surreal. I had to know more about this Tutankhamun and his tomb in the Valley of Kings, not knowing, not able even to imagine, how it would change my life.” The author moves from the thrilling excavation led by Carter and the Earl of Carnarvon, through the puzzling dynastic antecedents of Tut and his brief yet glorious life 3,000 years ago. Riggs also examines the “Tut-mania” that followed the discovery of his grave and how his story “has as much to do with geopolitics, post-war utopias, and consumer capitalism as it does with priceless treasures, thrilling discoveries, or hidden burials.” Resurrected in the 1960s, the King Tut exhibit was first promoted by first lady Jacqueline Kennedy at the National Gallery of Art, which spurred subsequent tours and established a complicated, interconnected web of celebrity archaeologists, blockbuster exhibitions, and global geopolitics. “By the 1970s…as the Middle East peace process and free-market economics entangled Egypt with America,” writes the author, “Tutankhamun did the diplomatic work of presenting his homeland as a friendly face and worthy ally.” At the time, she continues, there was “a concerted effort to educate Americans about the region and cultivate a positive attitude towards Egypt and the Arab world, the source of the oil on which the American way of life depended.”
An imaginative weaving of the personal and political into a fresh narrative of an archaeological icon.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5417-0121-2
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.
A popular novelist turns his hand to historical writing, focusing on what shipwrecks can tell us.
There’s something inherently romantic about shipwrecks: the mystery, the drama of disaster, the prospect of lost treasure. Gibbins, who’s found acclaim as an author of historical fiction, has long been fascinated with them, and his expertise in both archaeology and diving provides a tone of solid authority to his latest book. The author has personally dived on more than half the wrecks discussed in the book; for the other cases, he draws on historical records and accounts. “Wrecks offer special access to history at all…levels,” he writes. “Unlike many archaeological sites, a wreck represents a single event in which most of the objects were in use at that time and can often be closely dated. What might seem hazy in other evidence can be sharply defined, pointing the way to fresh insights.” Gibbins covers a wide variety of cases, including wrecks dating from classical times; a ship torpedoed during World War II; a Viking longship; a ship of Arab origin that foundered in Indonesian waters in the ninth century; the Mary Rose, the flagship of the navy of Henry VIII; and an Arctic exploring vessel, the Terror (for more on that ship, read Paul Watson’s Ice Ghost). Underwater excavation often produces valuable artifacts, but Gibbins is equally interested in the material that reveals the society of the time. He does an excellent job of placing each wreck within a broader context, as well as examining the human elements of the story. The result is a book that will appeal to readers with an interest in maritime history and who would enjoy a different, and enlightening, perspective.
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250325372
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
