-
The Prehistory of Sex
The Prehistory of Sex is one of those books that makes its point by somewhat overstating the evidence (if you see what I mean). Taking things a step further than you really should, in order to make people re-think their entrenched positions is a well-established thing to do, and I think that's what's being aimed for here. People are so used to ( Read more... ) -
Estates: an Intimate History
Estates: an Intimate History is a great book. It's an 'intimate history' because the author grew up on an estate in Birmingham, and wrote the book living on an estate in London - but it takes a broader view as well. From the poor quality problems of council housing from the 50s onwards, to the ghettoisation of council housing even where it was of ( Read more... ) -
Aktion T4: the holocaust of disabled people
Hitler's Forgotten Victims: The Holocaust and the Disabled provides a good survey of the subject.
Disabled people were the first to die; the people on whom gas chambers were tested. They were still being killed shortly after the war - institutions didn't stop the killing simply because the war was over (it's unclear how long this lasted for). They ( Read more... ) -
The Invention of Tradition
The Invention of Tradition is quite old, but I'd say still a good introduction to the subject - that a lot of the things we think of as having gone on for time immemorial are either recent innovations, or recastings of old traditions.
I particularly liked the quote about the preservation/innovation of the Welsh language, which could well be applied ( Read more... ) -
Old School Male Companions
Had to screengrab this because I can't do fancy-schmancy tumblr things, but it was very necessary to share :) Classic Who male companions:
( Read more... ) -
Gorilla Gorilla
"Whatcha doing gorilla?"
"You know, just hanging around Being Awesome. As befits someone whose scientific name is so good they named it thrice."
( Read more... ) -
History Matters
History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism is awesome, brilliant, wonderful, excellent, fantastic (apart from the cover, which looks like a woman from a medieval manuscript has been caught up in a nasty transporter accident, but we can ignore that). Oh, and really readable, which is something that is often missing from feminist books ( Read more... ) -
English Libel Law
c1893
"After endless testimony of Tottenham and Monson lying, cheating, forging, doctoring letters, reneging on agreements, defrauding each other and anyone else within sight, the judge reminded the jury that libel had to lower a man's reputation in the eyes of the world."
From this excellent book. -
Cleansing water
At first I thought that Westminster Abbey putting the queue underneath where the gargoyles spit out was simply being nasty, but then I remembered that it was a general folk belief that the water running off church roofs was holy (unbaptised infants were buried where the runoff splashed down). Therefore, it's the Abbey's attempt to cleanse the ( Read more... )
