Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged history

Black on Earth: African American Ecoliterary Traditions

African American literary contribution to the national conception of nature, in all of its symbolic ambiguity and historical twists and turns, is a subject that has been little studied. In fact, African American writers have contributed profoundly to our popular understanding of nature and to our ecological concern.

The Skin Quilt Project

Without the preservation of historical text, artifact, and art, history can slowly fade from memory. Stories of survival can easily become short-lived memories as they are passed from one generation to the next before they are forgotten. For Black African American women, their history has been and continues to be woven together in quilting. The Skin Quilt Project is a documentary featuring various quilters, artists, academics, and historians discussing the necessity, purpose, benefits, and impact of Black African American women quilters and what their artistry does for their families and communities.

When Did Indians Become Straight?: Kinship, the History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty

In When Did Indians Become Straight?, Mark Rifkin takes on a monumental task, exploring the intersections between sexuality, race, colonization/imperialism, sovereignty and nationhood as they apply to Native American tribes and their struggles over the centuries. As someone who is both of Native descent and gay, I was intrigued.

Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance

You may already know (and I hope you do) that zoos and circuses aren't good places for animals. But how do we know? Jason Hribal's Fear of an Animal Planet argues that we only need listen to what the animals themselves are telling us. He fills the pages with story after story of animals who "misbehave": who escape, who refuse to perform and reproduce, who attack (and often kill) human handlers.

Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures, 1960s to Now

Signs of Change is both a coffee table book and a full-color history lesson. For those who prefer an alternative to a boring textbook, this book is the ticket. In September of 2008, Exit Art began a traveling art exhibit to showcase the works of artists whose materials reflect cultural and social uprisings around the world, including posters, photographs, and graffiti. The pages are full-color and let the art take center stage, but historical context is provided in a way that is educational without being stifling.

Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories

Historiography and corporeality have challenged queer theorists, or perhaps more accurately, have been fiercely challenged by queer theorists. From deconstructive viewpoints that question physicality as such, to radical disavowals of any belonging to historical legacies, the transcendental tendencies of queer thought have not come without their casualties. In her most recent addition to the burgeoning queer theory bookshelves, Elizabeth Freeman tackles both historiography and corporeality head on.

Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen

Pay cable offers us a whole new realm of addictions and one of the most recent was Showtime's production of The Tudors. The program, now ended with the inevitable death of King Henry (no spoilers in history), portrayed the complicated realm of the Tudor Dynasty, which included two notable queens—sisters Mary and Elizabeth. This historic era, because of Queen Elizabeth, offers us a space to enter and critique how women were used for political gain, often not their own.

Gay Bar: The Fabulous, True Story of a Daring Woman and Her Boys in the 1950s

Will Fellows has uncovered a gem with Gay Bar, a re-issue of the 1957 novel by Helen Branson. The original memoir, typed up on an old Polish typewriter, tells the tale of the gay establishment she operated in 1950s Los Angeles. The story revolves heavily around her clientele, a group of businessmen and entrepreneurs whom she affectionately refers to as “her boys.”

Women's History Has Many Points of View

With the question "who gets to write history?" at its center, RE/VISIONIST is an online publication started by a handful of graduate students at Sarah Lawrence College who study women's history. Many historians push to catalog the discipline of history as a pure science, but this group is instead interested in critiquing the supposed objectivity of their discipline, and giving credence to subjective perspectives. Even more, the editors aim to analyze history through the lens of multiple feminisms.

Mädchen in Uniform (Girls in Uniform)

Manuela von Meinhardis despondently lays flowers on the grave of her mother. It is Prussia in 1910, and as an orphaned teenager, she isn’t left with many options. Manuela’s aunt takes her to a convent, which is described as a citadel by the Headmistress, Sister Superior. “Poverty is an honor,” she barks at Manuela upon the girl’s arrival.

The Pillars of the Earth

The Pillars of the Earth is the best kind of paint-by-numbers historical fiction: while it exhausts almost every cliché of its period and genre, it is nonetheless entertaining, perfect for lovers of history, action, romance and drama. Set during the twelfth century period in England known as “the Anarchy,” The Pillars of the Earth comes complete with lustful monks, displaced monarchs, incest, power-mongering, jealousy, greed, rape and treachery.

The Two Horses of Genghis Khan

When actor Urna Chahar-Tugchi was growing up, her grandmother showed her the hand-carved neck of an ancient violin—all that was left of a precious family heirloom. On it were a few words from a once-popular song called "The Two Horses of Genghis Khan." "No other song touches the soul of the Mongolian people like this one," Chahar-Tugchi says in Davaa Byambasuren’s powerful documentary, a tribute to cultural legacies called The Two Horses of Genghis Khan.

Paradoxes of Utopia: Anarchist Culture and Politics in Buenos Aires, 1890-1910

In Paradoxes of Utopia, social and labor historian Juan Suriano explores the Argentinean urban anarchist movement at the fin de siecle. Drawing on archival sources, Suriano analyzes libertarian theory and practice in Buenos Aires through an analysis of anarchist books, newspapers, lectures, rallies, propaganda tours, fundraisers, theater groups, songs, rites, symbols, educational projects, and union organizing campaigns.

Band of Angels

It might be said that at heart, Band of Angels is a love story. But the course of love between Catherine Carreg and her childhood friend Deio is a convoluted, meandering one. Catherine and Deio grew up riding horses together in Wales in the 1850s. But when Catherine matures, her family puts a stop to her adventures with Deio, seeing it as improper for a young lady. After her mother dies in childbirth, Catherine feels lost and isolated.

Glamour: Women, History, Feminism

The word glamour has lost a lot of its allure and power these days, bandied about by fashion writers who use glamour interchangeably with polished, chic, elegant, and sophisticated.

Colonial Metropolis: The Urban Grounds of Anti-Imperialism and Feminism in Interwar Paris

Interwar Paris conjures up images of romance and renewal. From the ashes and rubble of the First World War, families reunite and rebuild under what seemed to be the end of the most dire of circumstances.

Anarchism and Its Aspirations

Anarchism and Its Aspirations is a collection of several essays that together offer an introduction to modern anarchist thought and its applications. The title essay, which is the first and longest essay in the book, discusses anarchism’s historical and philosophical roots, as well as its fundamental tenets.

Sacred Hearts

Sarah Dunant's first historical novel, The Birth of Venus, captured my attention right away with one of the best openings I've ever read. I picked up Sacred Hearts hoping for something equally brilliant. While I enjoyed the book, it is not one that will make your heart race; instead, you should immerse yourself in it, let it surround you so you are living with the nuns, at their pace. Enjoy the opportunity to sink into another life and time.

Fearless Female Journalists

Fearless Female Journalists is a set of ten short profiles of female reporters, photojournalists, and newscasters hailing from various times and places over the last two centuries. Among the women featured is one of the early pioneers of modern journalism: nineteenth-century American newspaperwoman Nellie Bly, a daredevil stunt reporter.

The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age

The Great Silence starts out with a story that is never fun to tell—the story of a war—the First World War. Nicolson writes of a part of life that divides humans like no other, but also remedies that story with one that is incomparable in drawing us together—that of music.

The Tyranny of Opinion: Honor in the Construction of the Mexican Public Sphere

A coworker who saw this book sitting on my desk commented, “The tyranny of opinion? Isn’t the whole point of an opinion that it’s free from tyranny?” Not quite. Even today, public opinion can make or break a celebrity’s or politician’s career.

Universal Women: Filmmaking and Institutional Change in Early Hollywood

In Universal Women, Professor Cooper launches a multidisciplinary investigation into the mystery of why it was that Universal Film Manufacturing Company broadly supported women directors during the 1910s before abruptly reversing the policy.

The Feminist Promise: 1792 to the Present

The appropriate feminist response to The Feminist Promise is to send truckloads of gratitude to Christine Stansell, professor of history at the University of Chicago, who collected and digested a vast array of material, much of it ephemeral, and put it in a history book. Some of us hang on to the materials of history—like Laura Murra and my late friend Arlene Meyers, who preserved so much of the material base of second wave feminism as it was happening.

Philosophy: An Innovative Introduction: Fictive Narrative, Primary Texts, and Responsive Writing

I was interested in Philosophy: An Innovative Introduction because I so thoroughly enjoyed Steven Church’s Theoretical Killings.

Italian Anarchism, 1864-1892

Armed with footnotes and provisioned with a healthy bibliography, Italian Anarchism, 1864-1892 is not an easy read for the casual reader, or even the casual “antiauthorian leftist.” Isn’t that the euphemism for anarchist these days? Still, I don’t regret the time I spent reading—insurrection after insurrection, congress upon congress—the nearly 300 pages of text in Nunzio Pernicone’s history of these three decades.

Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town

"Anybody that’s ever lived on earth knows that the earth is the geography of our being." - Charles Olson Dogtown is a rocky 3,000-acre swath occupying the interior centre of Cape Ann Peninsula in the northeast corner of Massachusetts. Gloucester, renowned as a fishing village, is located on Cape Ann (the fishermen of The Perfect Storm worked out of Gloucester).

From Criminality to Equality: 40 Years of Lesbian and Gay Movement History in Canada

I was around eight years old when I went to my first Pride parade with my mom and her girlfriend. I was fourteen when my mom went on national television for a campaign demanding the right to marry for lesbians and gays. And I was twenty-five when I married my long-term girlfriend within months of same-sex marriages becoming legal in my country.

Who Do You Think You Are?

Genealogy has never been so entertaining. Making its debut this evening, Who Do You Think You Are? explores the family history of a celebrity who travels about to find missing information and reconnect with their ancestors by seeing for themselves the location of their family’s historical events. Sponsored by Ancestry.com, the celebrities, of course, use the website as a primary source of their research.

Cleopatra: A Biography

Cleopatra is a cipher, an enigmatic and historically remote figure reimagined until she has become, for much of the world and for much of modern history, the apotheosis of desire, representative of the potency of feminine allure. As with the search for the historical Jesus, separating the real figure from the myth is complicated not only by our fascination with all the artistic interventions and the millennia of (mis)representation but also by the paucity of hard evidence.

No Mexicans, Women or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement

So often, when studying the history of civil rights in the United States in school, the curriculum concentrates on the struggles faced by African Americans and white women. The plights of other minority groups though, such as Asian Americans or Hispanic Americans, are often omitted from the textbooks. In those rare instances when these other groups are mentioned, their histories are condensed into a paragraph or side note. Cynthia E.
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