An eminently readable book that offers contemporary readers valuable insights into racial relations of centuries past.
An intriguing history of Africans in Tudor England.
Kaufmann (Senior Research Fellow/Institute for Commonwealth Studies, Univ. of London) presents the stories of 10 African men and women engaged in a variety of occupations, from trumpeter to trader. The author argues that the common perception that all Africans were enslaved by the British is erroneous and that Renaissance England had many free Africans who were part of the social fabric. “Despite the insatiable appetite for all things Tudor, from raunchy television series to bath ducks modelled as Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn,” she writes, “the existence of the Black Tudors is little known.” Through meticulous archival research, Kaufmann creates compelling portraits of her subjects, including a trumpet player at Henry VIII’s court, a salvage diver, a circumnavigator, a porter, a silk weaver, a Moroccan convert, a prince involved in trade negotiations, a mariner, a woman involved in sex work, and an independent single woman. Since they left few documents behind, Kaufmann pieces together their histories from church records, references in various documents by influential Englishmen, literary works, paintings, and other sources. Each story is anchored in the social and political history of the time. Thus, readers learn much about Henry VIII’s courtiers; West African deep-sea divers, who used no diving equipment but could reach sunken ships to retrieve goods; Francis Drake and his treacherous ways; prostitution in Tudor and Stuart England; and the processes of silk weaving and dairy farming. The narrative is engaging, and the author’s argument about how Africans were generally accepted in Tudor England is persuasive. She provides a wealth of detail and only occasionally gets lost in minutiae, making the book a highly instructive history of an understudied part of Tudor society
An eminently readable book that offers contemporary readers valuable insights into racial relations of centuries past.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78607-184-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 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.
