A gem. The author’s enthusiasm for her subject and her lighthearted scholarship make this a pleasure to read or just browse....
English journalist Young takes an engaging journey around the human heart, exploring the manifold meanings that have been attached to this vital human organ.
Variously defining the heart as the “the link between flesh and soul and God” and “the home of humanity’s great mystery, great energy, great blessing: love,” the author begins by offering a brief look at the organ itself. In “Chamber One: The Anatomist’s Heart,” she traces the evolution through the ages of knowledge about its anatomy and function, describes what can go wrong with it and how these wrongs are righted. “Chamber Two: The Religious Heart” reveals the roles the heart has played in the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians and Aztecs, Christians, Muslims, and Hindus. Young delineates the magical power attributed to the heart among peoples around the world, illuminating its power as a symbol with such examples as the sacred hearts of Jesus and Mary, bloody sacrifices to the god Quetzacoatl, cannibalistic rituals in ancient Egypt and modern-day China. Her scope is broad in “Chamber Three: The Heart in Art,” encompassing Leonardo drawings, Bernini sculpture, African drums, playing cards, and postage stamps. “Chamber Four: The Lover’s Heart” argues that as the heart sexualizes spirituality so does it spiritualize sex. Here, Young fills her pages with love poems, from the lyrics of a Hank Williams ballad to the sonnets of Shakespeare, and with gruesome tales of love gone wrong. (Apparently, tricking a faithless spouse into eating her slain lover’s heart was once deemed appropriate.) The quote-heavy text is fascinating, along with especially appealing illustrations ranging from cave drawings to Frida Kahlo paintings.
A gem. The author’s enthusiasm for her subject and her lighthearted scholarship make this a pleasure to read or just browse. (80 b&w illustrations, 2 appendices)Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50173-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A disturbing, significant contribution to our knowledge of official Soviet anti-Semitism, based on recently declassified Communist Party and KGB archives. Kostyrchenko earned his doctorate and high positions in the Soviet Union as a researcher and archivist of WW II history and the USSR's aircraft industry. As formerly secret archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the KGB became available to the public, Kostyrchenko began recording this dispassionate yet voluminous study of the Soviet Union's obsession with obliterating Jewish life. Soviet Jews were the first to discover that ``the victory over fascism did not put an end to the Jewish national tragedy'' in Eastern Europe. At first, Stalin's attacks on organized Jewish life appeared to be just another arm of his Russification program that affected Armenians and other Soviet nationalities. But the author cites several reports and letters that make clear how disturbed the inner circle of the Kremlin was that so many prominent figures in the Soviet arts and sciences were Jews. Stalin appeared to give Jewish nationhood a boost with the 1934 establishment of the semi-autonomous region of Birobidzhan. Documentation published here, however, suggests that the remote region, far from being a ``Crimean Zion,'' was a typically cynical response to Stalin's fears of a ``Soviet Zionism.'' The uncanny ability of Stalin's kingpins to sniff out ``hidden sedition'' in anything Jewish is linked to large and small policies, from the Soviet Union's turning on the fledgling (and then quite socialist) state of Israel to the banning of Jewish burial societies. Kostyrchenko considers whether state anti-Semitism was Stalin's personal vendetta against Jews or a logical outgrowth of totalitarianism, concluding that the answer lies squarely between the two. Lurid documentation here, heaping layers of bitter irony upon Jewish and gentile hopes that the USSR would be the anti-fascist champion of multiethnic comradeship. (36 pages photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Jan. 30, 1995
ISBN: 0-87975-930-5
Page Count: 331
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994
How six resourceful women faced the perils of being married to King Henry VIII and managed to play an active role in the man's world of early 16th century England. Sex scandals and power politics interacted with the intellectual and religious ferment of the Renaissance and the Reformation. Conventional accounts of Henry VIII and his wives turn on the bizarre figure of the king, with his wives appearing as a backdrop and supporting cast as victims of his caprice. Lindsey (Women's Studies and Writing/Emerson College; Friends as Family, 1981, etc.) is part of a movement to correct this perspective. Prefacing her account with Margaret Beaufort, who brought her son, Henry VII, to the throne and thus ended the Wars of the Roses, the author offers sensitive and detailed portraits of Henry VIII's six wives, concluding her narrative with his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, who successively ruled the country in their own right. Lindsey, admitting to reinterpreting rather than disputing the accepted facts, claims that her book is an advance on the recent works by Alison Weir and Antonia Fraser, since she makes use of the ideas about women's lives advanced by feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Germaine Greer. Thus she holds that the image of Henry's fifth wife, Catherine Howard, remains tarnished because of our failure to accept female sexuality. Similarly, she takes seriously the religious integrity of both the Catholic Katharine of Aragon, Henry's first wife, and the Protestant Catherine Parr, who managed to outwit and to outlive Henry. Lindsey writes with a pleasing and elegant style, enlivened by flashes of ironic humor. Her brisk account teams with anecdotes and names, and to help the breathless reader, she provides a useful glossary. She has a special talent for exploring the feelings of all her characters, the men as well as the women. Entertaining and sensitive.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-201-60895-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994
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