An intriguing window into the past.
A real-life forensic thriller revealing the secrets of ancient and modern bodies preserved in bogs—some for nearly 3,000 years—in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, and northern Germany.
Aldhouse-Green (Emeritus, Archaeology/Cardiff Univ.; The Celtic Myths: A Guide to the Ancient Gods and Legends, 2015, etc.) describes how the environments of these bogs, formed from marshes filled with half-decomposed, partially decayed vegetation, are both the subject of myth and of scientific interest. “Bogs were and are special places, miasmic and fearsome,” she writes. “They hover in the ’tween space between land and water.” The preserved dead bodies found in them “are an archaeologist’s dream.” Their lack of oxygen, combined with bog acids and a particular bog moss, creates the conditions in which bodies are preserved, “complete with soft tissue, skin, hair, finger- and toenails and with their internal organs intact too.” The discovery of hundreds of bog bodies offers clues to their social statuses, the foods they ate, and the manners of their deaths. With modern forensic tools, it is possible to probe whether the cause of death was accidental or the result of violence and whether the victim was killed as a ritual sacrifice, punished for heinous crimes, or denied a traditional burial as a mark of shame. Some individuals no doubt met accidental deaths, and more recently, others have been identified as probable murder victims. Aldhouse-Green relies on her archaeological expertise and knowledge of Celtic myths, along with accounts of ancient authors on barbarian rituals, to ponder “the million-dollar question: whether human sacrifice was behind some or all of the Iron- and Roman-period bog deaths.” Wisely reminding us that the bog bodies “are not artifacts but people” worthy of respect, the author speculates on the fact that a number of the bodies seem to reveal deformities that may have singled individuals out for ritual sacrifice, perhaps to deities thought to reside in the bogs.
An intriguing window into the past.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-500-05182-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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