2010 Reading List #1 and #2
Real updates? We don't need no stinkin' real updates!
Because of the move, it took me foreeever to finish Stolen Continents: 500 Years of Conquest and Resistance in the Americas by Ronald Wright, but I'm glad I did. It's hardly cheery reading, as you might expect from the title. It does a lot to deconstruct the language of oppression and conquest that most of us have absorbed in the name of historical "discovery". I think we all understand that native Americans suffered a great deal at the hands of European colonists, but I doubt the average person has any idea of the EXTENT to which this happened, and the number of cultures that were all but obliterated through disease and violence. Lately I've seen some people try to put emphasis on the savagery of the native peoples and the need for the colonists to protect themselves, but I think the atrocities and treacheries against the aboriginal populations far outweigh in scope any response in kind. Darrin read this book before me (I got it for him because we both really liked R. Wright's A Short History of Progress, and because he is particularly interested in Mexican and Central American history) and we have talked a few times since then about some of the key points in the book.
1: Far from being overwhelmed and awed by the white European visitors, there's a lot of evidence that these "primitives" knew perfectly well that the invaders were human beings and not some kind of white gods.
2: By far, the Europeans' greatest ally in the conquest of the Americas was disease. Jared Diamond goes into this somewhat in Guns, Germs, and Steel but the numbers and descriptions Wright cites are totally devastating.
3. The conquest of the Americas *continues*. Land was set aside for the descendants of those who had been shoved aside by the colonizers of the Americas, and guess what... we are still shoving them aside. I would be very curious to hear a report about what went down in BC in preparation for the Olympics; I attended a talk a couple of years ago by two women from one of the reserves on the west coast who were raising awareness of the injustices being perpetrated against native peoples there. Same old same old: if you're bigger, more important and you have more money, not a lot stands in the way of you getting what you want from an underdog, even if it should be illegal.
We have talked a lot about this and what it means for future relations with native communities. What's done cannot be undone, in this case. It's hard to see how reparations can ever be made when so much change has happened. They are not the people they once were, and neither are we the same people as the colonists who came before us. Messy collision of history, justice, and reality. I'm not at all going to say I know everything about this issue or that I have totally zero sympathy for anyone who has clashed politically or culturally with aboriginal nations. But I think this book made me realize I need to know a LOT more about it, because to look at it this way is to accept that I was born, lived, and grew up on stolen land. Not a light matter to content with.
I feel like my book reviews are getting dumber and dumber. I'm not trying to write them professionally; I do this because I tend to forget what I read after I've read it, but a few notes help keep my memory fresher.
#2 of the year was Thomas Cahill's Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter. Or, as I prefer to call it, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: 5 or 6 Chapters of Disorganized Thoughts and Simplistic Conclusions about the Greeks. Okay, so it's for the average reader and has to synthesize hundreds of years of Greek history and culture, not to mention centuries of cultural echoes and reverberations into modern times. Trouble is I think it's just a bit too much to bite off and chew in such a short book. He seems to sort of graze the surface of a number of issues, then grinds to a halt to pontificate on miniscule points, and then makes sweeping statements that suggest deep understanding without offering sufficient evidence.
In one section I have furious notes scribbled in the margin -- specifically, next to his assertion that nobody saw childhood as a distinctive phase of development until after the medieval period (as in Aries' Centuries of Childhood). This is kind of ridiculous, especially since Aries' work has been heavily criticized. I'm not a child development expert but I can show you in my bloody dissertation that the Romans considered childhood a distinctive phase of development. Honestly.
Ironically he also has a choice section in which he denies that European sicknesses are chiefly to blame for the wiping out of native American cultures, and reasserts that they were terrified of the godlike Europeans. You know what? I'm going to go with the well-researched, footnoted, 500-page book I just read for the answer to that one. I wrote "NO!!!" in the margin.
It makes me not want to read either of his other two books about cultures at the "hinges of history" or whatever he calls it. There's one about the Irish and one about the Jews. If they're as roughshod as his Greek book, I'll pass. Truth be told I didn't even bother with the last chapter, so whatever. NEXT PLEASE!!
I'm reading Plato's Republic for my ancient philosophy class. But for fun? Darrin bought me Brothers Karamozov and a book on China for Christmas. A Connie Willis novel also awaits me. Where to start?
Because of the move, it took me foreeever to finish Stolen Continents: 500 Years of Conquest and Resistance in the Americas by Ronald Wright, but I'm glad I did. It's hardly cheery reading, as you might expect from the title. It does a lot to deconstruct the language of oppression and conquest that most of us have absorbed in the name of historical "discovery". I think we all understand that native Americans suffered a great deal at the hands of European colonists, but I doubt the average person has any idea of the EXTENT to which this happened, and the number of cultures that were all but obliterated through disease and violence. Lately I've seen some people try to put emphasis on the savagery of the native peoples and the need for the colonists to protect themselves, but I think the atrocities and treacheries against the aboriginal populations far outweigh in scope any response in kind. Darrin read this book before me (I got it for him because we both really liked R. Wright's A Short History of Progress, and because he is particularly interested in Mexican and Central American history) and we have talked a few times since then about some of the key points in the book.
1: Far from being overwhelmed and awed by the white European visitors, there's a lot of evidence that these "primitives" knew perfectly well that the invaders were human beings and not some kind of white gods.
2: By far, the Europeans' greatest ally in the conquest of the Americas was disease. Jared Diamond goes into this somewhat in Guns, Germs, and Steel but the numbers and descriptions Wright cites are totally devastating.
3. The conquest of the Americas *continues*. Land was set aside for the descendants of those who had been shoved aside by the colonizers of the Americas, and guess what... we are still shoving them aside. I would be very curious to hear a report about what went down in BC in preparation for the Olympics; I attended a talk a couple of years ago by two women from one of the reserves on the west coast who were raising awareness of the injustices being perpetrated against native peoples there. Same old same old: if you're bigger, more important and you have more money, not a lot stands in the way of you getting what you want from an underdog, even if it should be illegal.
We have talked a lot about this and what it means for future relations with native communities. What's done cannot be undone, in this case. It's hard to see how reparations can ever be made when so much change has happened. They are not the people they once were, and neither are we the same people as the colonists who came before us. Messy collision of history, justice, and reality. I'm not at all going to say I know everything about this issue or that I have totally zero sympathy for anyone who has clashed politically or culturally with aboriginal nations. But I think this book made me realize I need to know a LOT more about it, because to look at it this way is to accept that I was born, lived, and grew up on stolen land. Not a light matter to content with.
I feel like my book reviews are getting dumber and dumber. I'm not trying to write them professionally; I do this because I tend to forget what I read after I've read it, but a few notes help keep my memory fresher.
#2 of the year was Thomas Cahill's Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter. Or, as I prefer to call it, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: 5 or 6 Chapters of Disorganized Thoughts and Simplistic Conclusions about the Greeks. Okay, so it's for the average reader and has to synthesize hundreds of years of Greek history and culture, not to mention centuries of cultural echoes and reverberations into modern times. Trouble is I think it's just a bit too much to bite off and chew in such a short book. He seems to sort of graze the surface of a number of issues, then grinds to a halt to pontificate on miniscule points, and then makes sweeping statements that suggest deep understanding without offering sufficient evidence.
In one section I have furious notes scribbled in the margin -- specifically, next to his assertion that nobody saw childhood as a distinctive phase of development until after the medieval period (as in Aries' Centuries of Childhood). This is kind of ridiculous, especially since Aries' work has been heavily criticized. I'm not a child development expert but I can show you in my bloody dissertation that the Romans considered childhood a distinctive phase of development. Honestly.
Ironically he also has a choice section in which he denies that European sicknesses are chiefly to blame for the wiping out of native American cultures, and reasserts that they were terrified of the godlike Europeans. You know what? I'm going to go with the well-researched, footnoted, 500-page book I just read for the answer to that one. I wrote "NO!!!" in the margin.
It makes me not want to read either of his other two books about cultures at the "hinges of history" or whatever he calls it. There's one about the Irish and one about the Jews. If they're as roughshod as his Greek book, I'll pass. Truth be told I didn't even bother with the last chapter, so whatever. NEXT PLEASE!!
I'm reading Plato's Republic for my ancient philosophy class. But for fun? Darrin bought me Brothers Karamozov and a book on China for Christmas. A Connie Willis novel also awaits me. Where to start?