Jessica Jacobson

Hollow Bodies: Institutional Responses to Sex Trafficking in Armenia, Bosnia and India

admin — Thu, 07 May 2009 10:30:00 +0000

In Hollow Bodies, Susan Dewey travels to Armenia, Bosnia, and India to look at the institutional responses to sex trafficking in the three different cultural and governmental contexts. Armenia is plagued by poverty, unemployment and a poor quality of life that encourages migration. Bosnia is recovering from a violent war in which many women were victims of rape and forced into prostitution. However, unlike Armenia, its close proximity to Western Europe brings large amounts of donor aid and pressure to integrate with the West. Further east lies India, which receives little Western aid for trafficking issues. Therefore, its purpose in the book is to serve as an example of what can be done at a local level.

Dewey demonstrates her passion for the issue by telling her audience how her great-grandmother and grandmother survived the Depression by becoming prostitutes. This personal connection is felt throughout the text. Dewey’s greatest strength as a writer is her ability to bring the three different countries to life. In doing so, she notices the details of the landscape, the social structure of the setting and even utilizes private conversations to provide a useful context for the environment the women are operating within.

Her research mainly comes from her time as a volunteer consultant with the International Organization for Migration. Through her work with this multi-lateral association as well as through interviews with various policymakers, prostitutes and NGO leaders, she gives voice to the people involved in trying to reduce trafficking.

Dewey notes that institutions can fail to serve victims of trafficking. She is quick to criticize what bureaucrats, agencies and developmental programs do wrong, though she’s reluctant to point out what statistics she’s using to back up her claims. For instance, in the successful intervention she cites in India, she doesn’t provide impact or evaluation data, which leaves claims of effectiveness to be based solely upon subjective assessments.

Dewey admits approaching her research with a bias favoring prostitutes. Her emotional connection colors her discussions with bureaucrats and her critiques of their work loses force when she fails to address the policy aspects of trafficking or to suggest concrete changes that she thinks would improve upon current practices. Dewey’s suggestion that readers write to lawmakers to “refuse to support temporary U.S. funding initiatives that do not consider local needs and operate on a short-term basis that renders them unable to effect real or sustainable change” is insufficiently concrete. Why should US funding be permanent and how can this be achieved given the needs for benchmarks of effectiveness and our own political term limits? What type of local input should be collected and how? What is real and sustainable change? What specific goals should taxpayer dollars aim to achieve?

One of Dewey’s main criticisms is that programs fail to take into account the views of trafficking victims. Given that, the book could have benefited from more in-depth interviews of prostitutes in the three countries so that readers could gain a better understanding of what type of assistance these women would value and why.

Dewey appropriately highlights some of the failures of international institutions. She also presents a refreshingly honest portrait of the practical, ethical and personal difficulties a researcher can face. What is lacking is a more detailed picture of the women needing help and ideas of what specifically should be done to improve services to assist them.

Written by: Jessica Jacobson, May 7th 2009

Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster

admin — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 10:48:00 +0000

By Alison Weir

Random House

Mistress of the Monarchy is a biography of Katherine Swynford, the Duchess of Lancaster. Swynford was the long-time mistress and eventual third wife of John of Gaunt. She also became the ancestor of every English monarch since 1461 as well as such notable personages such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Franklin Roosevelt, Princess Diana, Sir Winston Churchill, and George Bush.

Author Alison Weir is a prolific historian who has authored many books, non-fiction and novels, about members of the royal family. Weir did a meticulous job in researching this book, but despite her efforts, little information about Katherine has survived. So she describes those who surrounded Katherine, including her brother-in-law Thomas Chaucer, and the particularities of the time.

The most interesting aspect of the book is the insight she provides into life in the 1300s. The cultural trends she describes, from the tendency to marry young (Katherine married between twelve and thirteen years of age and had her first child one year later) to the debilitating effects of the Black Death gives readers a vivid insight into the challenging environment people lived in at that time. Weir describes the vast wealth and luxury of the noble class, the resentment of the common people, the difficulties of battle, relations between states and high-ranking people, moral codes, lawlessness at the borders, the importance of religion and the roles of women.

The main details readers can infer about Katherine is that she was beautiful, intelligent, accomplished, discreet, good with children, didn’t abuse her influence and kept on good relations with people. While the book opens with an intriguing scene in which John of Gaunt rode around estates with mistress, holding her bridle in public (a public sign of his possession of her) and in the presence of his own wife, Weir doesn’t return to this sense of confrontational scandal later in the book. Besides the fact that the affair and the later marriage were scandalous, the focus remains on Katherine’s discretion and devotion.

Given the lack of information available about Katherine, the title used in the UK version, Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and His Scandalous Duchess, gives a more accurate impression of the book. The figure of John of Gaunt comes through more clearly than does Katherine, as do his first two wives and his dealings with various heads of state. Readers see his love for his first wife, his propensity toward promiscuity, his religious repentance and renewed devotion to his second wife, his bravado in battle, his relations with his relatives and children.

The strength of the book lies in the detailed historical research, the sense of place and time and the resurrection of a forgotten matriarch. Occasionally, the voice loses its vigor, descending into extensive genealogical information or architectural descriptions. Since Katherine’s main contribution to history was her romantic liaison and her descendants and the available details of her personal life are few, there is little narrative arc or tension to propel readers through the book. For those with an interest in the middle ages or in royal history, this is a valuable reconstruction of an overlooked woman and a fascinating historical period.

Written by: Jessica Jacobson, April 12th 2009

Bombay Anna: The Real Story and Remarkable Adventures of the King and I Governess

admin — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:50:00 +0000

By Susan Morgan

University of California Press

Almost everyone in America has heard of Anna, the famous upper class English lady who held her own with the King of Siam. What most people haven’t heard is the real story behind the better-known, fictionalized character. Susan Morgan has devoted over a decade to fleshing out the life of Anna Leonowens in Bombay Anna. This was not an easy job given the lengths Anna went to alter her past, even writing a false biography for her grandchildren.

Contrary to Anna’s claims of an upper class English upbringing, she was actually a mixed-race child born in India to a mixed-race mother and a low-ranking English soldier. She grew up in tented barracks and among the local children. Her intellect and facility with language set her apart. When her husband, the love of her life, died, Anna faced limited prospects as a widow. For the sake of her children, she moved to Singapore, where no one knew her, and cleverly recreated her past.

Morgan shows the readers how successful Anna was at reinvention. Not only did her story hold, but her children moved freely among the upper classes, and her grandchildren attended prestigious universities. Morgan’s painstaking research is clear, and her devotion to this topic comes through in the book. She describes the stages of Anna’s life with precise detail, sometimes more than a general reader may need, but Bombay Anna serves the dual purpose of bringing the real Anna to life for pleasure readers and providing a treasure trove of facts for historians and scholars. Morgan even provides a brief biography of Margaret Landon, whose book (Anna and the King of Siam) catapulted Anna Leonowens to fame.

Often times, such fact-laden books can be cumbersome to read - not this one. Morgan writes skillfully, and Bombay Anna often reads like a novel. By the end, the reader holds an intimate knowledge of Anna and may even regret not having been able to meet her.

Anna was a woman ahead of her time. She refused to live her life subject to racial discrimination and social constraints, and adapted in order to overcome a system designed to hold her back. Anna rejected proselytizing in favor of respect for world religions, she had a strong social conscience, and she valued education more than anything else. She could make herself comfortable among a wide variety of people – from Russian peasants to residents of the king’s harem and Siamese nobility to American literary intellectuals.

See the movie with Jodie Foster. Enjoy the musical. But if you want to know the real story, pick up Bombay Anna and be prepared to find an inspiring story of an incredible woman.

Written by: Jessica Jacobson, October 10th 2008

Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America

admin — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:43:00 +0000

By Norman Hadler

University of North Carolina Press

It is refreshing to see find a doctor who is willing to question the establishment. In Worried Sick, Dr. Norman Hadler begins with the observation that the national health-care plans of “advanced” countries (other than the United States) cost a quarter of what Americans spend on health insurance, their survival rates are higher, and their citizens have more years of a better quality life. Rather than focusing on extending life, he believes, we should focus on maximizing the possibility for high-quality life, with eighty-five years old being the aim for a ripe old age. Hadler believes life circumstances are often the reason people cannot cope with their medical issues and recommends making changes in work, family life, and self-care rather than turning immediately to medication or surgery.

Hadler takes readers through many common illnesses: heart disease, cholesterol, colon problems, bone fractures, and neuromuscular disorders. For each, he highlights the treatments commonly prescribed in America, many of which he considers ineffective, a waste of money, and perhaps a risk to one’s health. He reminds readers that certain aches and pains, a reduction in bone density, and other minor ailments are natural elements of aging. He tries to turn the dialogue away from “What is wrong with me?” and toward “Why am I unable to cope with this episode?”

The last two chapters are the strongest part of the book. Hadler lays out an intriguing proposal for a health-care plan in the United States. He suggests it be an employer-based plan, and even provides the possibility of a state-based plan, but he does not explain why it shouldn’t be national. In his plan, employers would contribute twelve percent of a worker's annual wage. One percent would go towards administrative costs, one percent toward profit, and the rest toward an indemnity plan. There would be a conflict of interest policy, and no one working for the plan would earn more than five times the plan’s average employee wage.

Worried Sick is a book worth keeping on the shelf to double check the risks and benefits of a doctor’s suggested treatment. The ideas in the book deserve a larger audience, and I hope Hadler will collaborate with a professional for his next book because the clumsy writing style and complicated phrasings results in important ideas being lost within the text and can dissuade the reader from continuing on. The proposed health plan also deserves discussion, but would generate more interest if presented in a more accessible form. Hopefully, the author’s next book will accomplish that.

Written by: Jessica Jacobson, August 2nd 2008

O, The Oprah Magazine Cookbook

admin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:29:00 +0000

By O Magazine, Oprah Winfrey

Hyperion

Cooking with O, The Oprah Magazine Cookbook is an exploration of taste. The cookbook is arranged by the type of food—salads and appetizers, drinks, desserts, meats, vegetables—and the recipes come from a series of chefs who have contributed their favorites. Colorful photos and commentary from the chefs accompany the recipes.

Unlike other cookbooks, there is no clear theme here. The selection includes a wide variety of tastes and geographic influences—from a simple sliced tomato sandwich (do we really need a recipe for that or are we being reminded that a tomato can be sandwich fodder?) to Caribbean Callaloo, Pecan Coated Fried Chicken, and Vermont Maple Sugar Pie. At the back of the book are recommendations of what to serve to children, vegetarians, and dinner guests and what to make when short on time. The book also suggests wine pairings.

At first glance, the recipes don’t seem to be aimed at the average cook. Ingredients such as crème fraîche, ras el hanout, pancetta, and file powder aren’t readily stocked in the common kitchen. Neither is it intended for meals on the run, as some of the recipes are fairly complicated.

What the book does with flair is bring together tastes combinations that sparkle. African Chicken in Peanut Sauce is worth the effort involved, the creamy sauce a perfect compliment to the spiced, succulent poultry. The successful pairing of cherry tomatoes with shallots in Sauteed Chicken with Cherry Tomatoes results in a colorful, easy, and flavorful dish that is appropriate to serve to company for an evening meal. You’ll never make standard potato salad again after trying Sweet Potato Salad by chef Art Smith. Easy to make, colorful, and with a taste that will keep people talking (imagine sweet potatoes, pineapple, green onions, pecans, dijon, mayo, and more—yum!). It’s the perfect side dish to bring to summer barbeques.

I would have preferred to have nutrition information provided instead of the sidebars written by chefs, but perhaps the absence of nutrition information was intentional – allowing readers to indulge in a smorgasbord of flavors without worrying about the long-term effects. When looking for something elegant and unique, to add some pizzazz to your table, O, The Oprah Magazine Cookbook offers excellent ideas.

Written by: Jessica Jacobson, July 10th 2008