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x + y: A Mathematician’s Manifesto for Rethinking GenderSection:ChooseTop of pagex + y: A Mathematician’s ... <<Tycho Brahe and the Measu...Anti-vaxxers: How to Chal... x + y: A Mathematician’s Manifesto for Rethinking Gender, Eugenia Cheng, Basic Books, 2020, $28.00 Women face more barriers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics than men. To get at the root of the problem, Eugenia Cheng explores personal characteristics in her new book, x + y. She argues that society values ingressive behaviors, such as being competitive and independent, more than congressive ones, such as being collaborative and caring toward others. But if we focus less on whether those characteristics have masculine and feminine connotations and instead redefine successful people to include those with predominantly congressive behaviors, the representation of women and other underrepresented groups in science may improve. —al Tycho Brahe and the Measure of the HeavensSection:ChooseTop of pagex + y: A Mathematician’s ...Tycho Brahe and the Measu... <<Anti-vaxxers: How to Chal... Tycho Brahe and the Measure of the Heavens, John Robert Christianson, Reaktion Books, 2020, $22.50 A new biography aims to restore early modern Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe to what the author, historian John Robert Christianson, asserts is his rightful place as a “world-class figure of the late Renaissance.” Richly illustrated and based on a detailed analysis of Tycho’s surviving texts, Tycho Brahe and the Measure of the Heavens also draws on significant new scholarship written in the Nordic languages. Christianson deftly depicts Tycho’s tumultuous relationship with his one-time assistant Johannes Kepler, while paying careful attention to the context of Tycho’s position in the Danish and Bohemian courts and the sociopolitical ramifications of the Reformation. Ultimately, Christianson argues that Tycho’s empirical methods had a “profound and enduring” effect on the history of science. The book is required reading for scholars of early modern astronomy. —rd Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed MovementSection:ChooseTop of pagex + y: A Mathematician’s ...Tycho Brahe and the Measu...Anti-vaxxers: How to Chal... << Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement, Jonathan M. Berman, MIT Press, 2020, $19.95 (paper) Written by renal physiologist and science educator Jonathan Berman, Anti-vaxxers is a how-to guide for those looking to counter rising anti-vaccine sentiment across the globe. Nevertheless, much of the book describes the intertwined history of vaccinations and anti-vaccine movements; surprisingly, Berman shows that anti-vaccine sentiment has existed since the first vaccine was developed in the 19th century. Today the movement is fueled by social media, “fake news,” and other disinformation. Berman argues that “community-based” strategies that consider the identity and values of parents and groups targeted by anti-vaxxers are the most likely to succeed in convincing them of vaccine safety. The book will be of interest to science-minded parents and policymakers alike. —rd © 2020 American Institute of Physics.

Editorial Letter

Editorial| November 01 2020 Editorial Letter Eric C. Rath Eric C. Rath Eric C. Rath is Professor of History at the University of Kansas, where he teaches courses on food history and premodern Japan. A specialist in Japanese food, his books include Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan (University of California Press, 2010), Japan's Cuisines: Food, Place and Identity (Reaktion Books, 2016), and the forthcoming Oishii: The History of Sushi (Reaktion Books, 2021). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Gastronomica (2020) 20 (4): iv–vi. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2020.20.4.iv Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Eric C. Rath; Editorial Letter. Gastronomica 1 November 2020; 20 (4): iv–vi. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2020.20.4.iv Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentGastronomica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2020 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2020 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Technology and Taste in East Asia: An Introduction

Research Article| November 01 2020 Technology and Taste in East Asia: An Introduction Eric C. Rath Eric C. Rath Eric C. Rath is Professor of History at the University of Kansas, where he teaches courses on food history and premodern Japan. A specialist in Japanese food, his books include Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan (University of California Press, 2010), Japan's Cuisines: Food, Place and Identity (Reaktion Books, 2016), and the forthcoming Oishii: The History of Sushi (Reaktion Books, 2021). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Gastronomica (2020) 20 (4): 51–52. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2020.20.4.51 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Eric C. Rath; Technology and Taste in East Asia: An Introduction. Gastronomica 1 November 2020; 20 (4): 51–52. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2020.20.4.51 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentGastronomica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2020 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, https://www.ucpress.edu/journals/reprints-permissions.2020 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

James Brooke-Smith. Gilded Youth: Privilege, Rebellion and the British Public School. London: Reaktion Books, 2019. Pp. 296. $25.00 (cloth).

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

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William Faulkner (Critical Lives). By KirkCurnutt. Pp. 224, London: Reaktion Books, 2018, £11.99.

The Heythrop JournalVolume 61, Issue 3 p. 578-579 Book Review William Faulkner (Critical Lives). By Kirk Curnutt. Pp. 224, London: Reaktion Books, 2018, £11.99. Patrick Madigan, Patrick Madigan Campion Hall, OxfordSearch for more papers by this author Patrick Madigan, Patrick Madigan Campion Hall, OxfordSearch for more papers by this author First published: 24 April 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/heyj.13551Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume61, Issue3Special Issue: Literature and ReligionMay 2020Pages 578-579 RelatedInformation

Leo Tolstoy (Critical Lives). By AndreiZorin. Pp. 219. London: Reaktion Books, 2020, £11.99.

The Heythrop JournalVolume 61, Issue 3 p. 568-568 Book Review Leo Tolstoy (Critical Lives). By Andrei Zorin. Pp. 219. London: Reaktion Books, 2020, £11.99. Patrick Madigan, Patrick Madigan Campion Hall, OxfordSearch for more papers by this author Patrick Madigan, Patrick Madigan Campion Hall, OxfordSearch for more papers by this author First published: 24 April 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/heyj.13542Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume61, Issue3Special Issue: Literature and ReligionMay 2020Pages 568-568 RelatedInformation

VictorStoichita, Darker Shades. The Racial Other in Early Modern Art. London: Reaktion Books, 2019. 288 pp. £25.00. ISBN 978‐1‐78914‐056‐9.

Renaissance StudiesVolume 35, Issue 4 p. 729-730 Book Review Victor Stoichita, Darker Shades. The Racial Other in Early Modern Art. London: Reaktion Books, 2019. 288 pp. £25.00. ISBN 978-1-78914-056-9. Sara Ayres, Sara Ayres Visiting Researcher, Centre for Privacy Studies, Copenhagen University, CopenhagenSearch for more papers by this author Sara Ayres, Sara Ayres Visiting Researcher, Centre for Privacy Studies, Copenhagen University, CopenhagenSearch for more papers by this author First published: 07 April 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/rest.12674Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume35, Issue4September 2021Pages 729-730 RelatedInformation

Dmitry Shostakovich by Fairclough Pauline (review)

SEER, 98, 2, APRIL 2020 366 istinnaia pravda. The word dolzhen can also be problematic. I sometimes felt (e.g., on p. 213) that it would have been better to translate it as ‘should’ or ‘ought to’, rather than ‘must’. For those who will not have the time to read the whole text, I should mention that the Subject Index is particularly well done. Some readers will find it comforting and reassuring that the author concludes Part 3 with the assertion that ‘[o]ne cannot transcend Westernism, since Westernism itself means the continuity of self-transcendence’ (p. 173). University of Glasgow Martin Dewhirst Fairclough, Pauline. Dmitry Shostakovich. Critical Lives. Reaktion Books, London, 2019. 191 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Select bibliography. £11.99 (paperback). This is a sensible and insightful book. Much of Shostakovich’s reception has been distracted by political agendas wielded both for and against the man and his works, and interpretation of the music has often been a fraught affair played for high stakes. Pauline Fairclough deals with these ‘Shostakovich Wars’ (p. 9) calmly and judiciously, without attempting to resolve ‘his divided existence’ (p. 177) in favour of either his public or private side. She also, to the relief to the general reader doggedly interested in the composer and his music, deals with them quickly, passing over the musicological intricacies of, for example, the Volkov case in order to open up spaces in which the music can be heard for what it was, is, and might be worth. There is much to be gained from this slim volume, and hardly any theoretical weight to slow down the general reader (the occasional mention of ostranenie (p. 152) and other culturally appropriate terms). Aside from the programme notes on individual works, which consist of the sorts of explications that the general reader might desire (the string quartets are treated to some wonderful interpretative prose), the book also includes genuinely new archival material, in the form of a complete letter written by the composer in 1949 about a potential trip to New York (pp. 96–97). Shostakovich’s film music is given space alongside his concert music, all the better for the book’s portrait of the composer as a Soviet artist. There is ample attention devoted to Shostakovich’s personal life, and especially his important friendship with Sollertinskii, not as a vulgar interpretative cipher, but simply as another register in which our understanding of the composer needs to dwell. There is also a fair amount of discussion, mostly at the ends of the book, but also scattered throughout, of what we might make of the composer’s music in our currently political, financial and cultural contexts; one question concerns the music’s understandable popularity and whether that itself poses an obstacle REVIEWS 367 to our fuller understanding. Fairclough’s own desire is ‘to challenge the idea, still commonly held, that Shostakovich’s music is depressing, and that he himself was a broken man at the end of his life’ (p. 11). In this respect, Dmitry Shostakovich is a success, for by the end the general reader emerges with a clear picture about the composer’s status within Soviet society in the 1960s and early 1970s: for example, his marriage in 1962, his slow rise within the Communist Party, the studied ambiguity — ‘so oblique as to be invisible’ (p. 136) — of his public position under Brezhnev, the profoundly brave decision to set certain texts, the diagnosis of lung cancer in 1972 (p. 156), and so on. In the final couple of chapters, some of the works are interpreted in terms of a return home full circle (p. 168), a kind of symbolic closure that perhaps seduces biographers more than listeners. There are some interesting and tantalizing references over the course of the booktowritersandcomposerswithoutwhomShostakovichwouldhavebecome a wholly different artist. Of the musicians, one encounters time and again the interventions that Mahler made in his life (e.g. pp. 30, 54, 170). With additional space, it would have been useful to dwell on this epic figure, considering the ways in which Shostakovich’s heteroglossia (including allusions both to specific music and to generic gestures and archetypes) is found ‘not just in an opera’s message...

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Glacier: Nature and CultureSection:ChooseTop of pageGlacier: Nature and Cultu... <<Our Universe: An Astronom...A Polar Affair: Antarctic...Ingredients: The Strange ...Archaeology from Space: H... Glacier: Nature and Culture, Peter G. Knight, Reaktion Books, 2019, $24.95 (paper) Among the many victims of climate change are glaciers. The huge bodies of dense ice that form on land and are constantly moving from the force of their own weight no longer cover as much of Earth’s surface as they once did. In Glacier: Nature and Culture, geographer Peter Knight discusses not only the science of glaciers but also their importance and influence on the environment, weather, and even art and culture. Featuring more than 100 illustrations, Glacier pays homage to one of Earth’s most majestic, yet fragile, features. —cc Our Universe: An Astronomer’s GuideSection:ChooseTop of pageGlacier: Nature and Cultu...Our Universe: An Astronom... <<A Polar Affair: Antarctic...Ingredients: The Strange ...Archaeology from Space: H... Our Universe: An Astronomer’s Guide, Jo Dunkley, Harvard U. Press, 2019, $29.95 Written for a general audience, Our Universe: An Astronomer’s Guide aims to instill in readers a sense of the wonder and mystery of the cosmos and whet their appetites for future discoveries. Starting with an overview of Earth and the solar system, astrophysicist Jo Dunkley continues outward, explaining star formation, black holes, and dark matter and finishing up with what the author calls a “whistle-stop history” of the universe. Discussions of major scientific theories, their evolution, and the ever-improving technologies used to peer deeper into space lead to an inspiring epilogue on the many mysteries that remain to be solved, such as whether extraterrestrial life exists and what the invisible part of the universe is made of. —cc A Polar Affair: Antarctica’s Forgotten Hero and the Secret Love Lives of PenguinsSection:ChooseTop of pageGlacier: Nature and Cultu...Our Universe: An Astronom...A Polar Affair: Antarctic... <<Ingredients: The Strange ...Archaeology from Space: H... A Polar Affair: Antarctica’s Forgotten Hero and the Secret Love Lives of Penguins, Lloyd Spencer Davis, Pegasus Books, 2019, $29.95 Only recently come to light is the first scientific study of penguin sexuality in Antarctica, written by George Murray Levick, who served as physician for Robert Scott’s Antarctic expedition of 1910–13. Contrary to popular belief that penguins are monogamous and mate for life, Levick observed them committing a number of what he considered to be sexual depravities and misbehaviors. Indicative of the Victorian mores of the times, the manuscript was marked “NOT FOR PUBLICATION” and hidden away. Those long-forgotten pages serve as the impetus for A Polar Affair, a combination of adventure and natural history by modern-day penguin expert and Antarctic explorer Lloyd Spencer Davis, who discusses the life and times of the scientist who wrote them, drawing parallels between Levick’s findings and his own research, carried out almost a century later. —cc Ingredients: The Strange Chemistry of What We Put in Us and on UsSection:ChooseTop of pageGlacier: Nature and Cultu...Our Universe: An Astronom...A Polar Affair: Antarctic...Ingredients: The Strange ... <<Archaeology from Space: H... Ingredients: The Strange Chemistry of What We Put in Us and on Us, George Zaidan, Dutton, 2020, $27.00 From eating cheese puffs to smoking cigarettes to applying sunscreen, humans ingest, breathe, and absorb numerous chemicals every day. What’s harmful, and what isn’t? In Ingredients, science communicator George Zaidan delves into what science can and cannot tell us about the potential dangers of those and other commonplace products. Aimed at a popular audience, the book presents the latest scientific research in a lighthearted and occasionally irreverent manner. —cc Archaeology from Space: How the Future Shapes Our PastSection:ChooseTop of pageGlacier: Nature and Cultu...Our Universe: An Astronom...A Polar Affair: Antarctic...Ingredients: The Strange ...Archaeology from Space: H... << Archaeology from Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past, Sarah Parcak, Henry Holt and Co, 2019, $30.00 When you think of an archaeologist, you may picture someone bent over in the dirt carefully uncovering a fragment of ancient history. Space archaeology, though, is a newer and complementary specialty that employs aerial photography and satellite imagery to reveal undiscovered sites and other topographical features on Earth that wouldn’t be readily visible from the ground. In Archaeology from Space, archaeologist Sarah Parcak provides a comprehensive review of the new subfield. She covers the science’s history from the first attempts in which balloons and satellites were used to some of today’s endeavors with the newest tools, such as unmanned drones. In addition to explaining the science of remote sensing, Parcak constructs historical narratives for the sites she’s studied across 12 countries and 4 continents. —al © 2020 American Institute of Physics.

The Anatomy of Riches: Sir Robert Paston's Treasure. Spike Bucklow. London: Reaktion Books, 2018. 280 pp. £20.

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Hinterland: America's New Landscape of Class and Conflict by Phil A. Neel

Reviewed by: Hinterland: America's New Landscape of Class and Conflict by Phil A. Neel Andy Oler Phil A. Neel, Hinterland: America's New Landscape of Class and Conflict. London: Reaktion Books, 2018. 192 pp. $14.00 (paper). Phil A. Neel's Hinterland examines American economic life through a geographic lens, focusing specifically on areas located some distance away from the major cities that are perceived to be the center of the global economy. Neel explores life in multiple U.S. regions, including the Midwest, Northwest, and Southwest. To do so, he anchors his analysis in the growth of white nationalist groups in the Southwest as well as his experience of populist uprisings in Ferguson, Missouri, and Seattle, Washington. Hinterland is not primarily a book about the Midwest, but Neel's focus on the economic struggle of the American countryside will feel familiar to scholars of the region. This is not least because he addresses many of the same spaces that preoccupy the field of midwestern studies. But because it covers impoverished zones across the country—and even recounts some of his travels in China—Neel's "hinterland" is more diffuse than even the expansive boundaries of (and endless bar debates about) the Midwest. Despite the term's connotations, Neel argues that the new American hinterland is not entirely rural. Instead, he defines the hinterland based upon its economic function: "as a disavowed, distributed core, distinct from the array of services and FIRE industries of the central city but more integral to the 'immediate process of production,' in which labor meets capital and value is produced" (17). Within this analysis, Neel distinguishes the spaces and economic activities of what he terms the "far" and "near" hinterland. According to Neel, the near hinterland differs depending on the country and is composed of suburban logistics hubs as well as peri-urban apartment complexes and "slum cities" that have been intentionally separated from wealthier parts of the city. The far hinterland covers a broad swath of American geography, including areas of agricultural production, extractive industries, and even the declined inner cities of the Rust Belt. [End Page 213] Neel illustrates how global capitalism extends into the hinterland in a complex, interconnected fashion. For instance, in chapter 1, Neel's time working for the Bureau of Land Management in northern Nevada gives him a window into the Southwest's mining and natural gas industries. after the initial boom that occurs as these industries extract value from the land, property values diminish, causing a lower tax base and fewer services for new and old residents alike. Neel describes people who, like he himself, are oft en driven there by "the twin gravities of wages and debts" and who experience economic exploitation as a series of "rents;" Neel uses that term in the Marxist sense to mean taxes, land rent, and interest on debt (43). Drawing parallels between the residents and the land, Neel argues that this is a system in decline—that exploitation and crisis are not temporary, but enduring. Hinterland's purpose, however, is not doom-saying. Neel turns an encounter with a fox who made its den in a tangle of sagebrush into a metaphor for possible responses to the "Long Crisis" he describes: "In those eyes was a reminder that despite the mundane world-breaking driven by price and profit, worlds could still be born, linked together, made to bloom—that even when the economy seemed to have reached an unprecedented expanse, it was driven by a crisis that forced its very core constantly to decay, interstices opening within the cycles of accumulation and devastation" (51). In the Southwest, the communities blooming in these interstices are right-wing ones, whose members comprise the so-called Patriot Movement. In the Midwest, the long-term deindustrialization of St. Louis and the imposition of dehumanizing fines and fees on its poor residents—focused disproportionately on the area's black population—resulted in the protests following Michael Brown's murder by the Ferguson police. Neel traveled to Ferguson with a group of Occupy veterans to observe the formation of riots in the hinterland space. His observations there contribute to Hinterland's thesis that twenty-first-century...

The Europe Illusion: Britain, France, Germany and the Long History of European Integration by Stuart Sweeney

Reviewed by: The Europe Illusion: Britain, France, Germany and the Long History of European Integration by Stuart Sweeney Benjamin J. Thorpe The Europe Illusion: Britain, France, Germany and the Long History of European Integration. Stuart Sweeney. London: Reaktion Books, 2019. Pp. 384, notes, index. $40.00, hardcover, ISBN 978-1-78914-060-6. Analyses of Brexit have tended to portray it as an unprecedented rupture, a reversal of the process of European integration. Stuart Sweeney's premise in The Europe Illusion is that these debates are underpinned by a condensed view of history that treats European integration as a post-1945 phenomenon, and that we need to greatly expand our historical range in order to put the events of the present in perspective, and thereby to understand the forces at play in the longue durée. Sweeney's book provides a history of European integration from the 1648 Peace of Westphalia to the present day, and asks how this history illuminates the contemporary geopolitical situation. The vast ambition of this undertaking is tempered only by the choice to limit his focus to Britain, France, and Germany as the dominant powers controlling the fate of Europe in this period. Two overarching arguments are threaded throughout the book. The most explicit is that differences between British, French, and German attitudes toward European integration may be explained by their differing histories. There is a well-worn theory that their differing experiences in the twentieth-century world wars convinced Britain of its self-sufficiency and convinced France and Germany, for different reasons, of the necessity of European integration. Sweeney follows this logic but argues that it ought to be pursued by pushing the historical frame far back, and that in fact Britain's "semi-detached" stance toward European entanglement has been cultivated over centuries, as has French and German enthusiasm for European engagement. Behind these rather static generalizations, Sweeney provides a more nuanced and dynamic analysis of the ever-shift ing patterns of alliance that have united and divided the three powers as their fortunes have waxed and waned over the centuries. He contends that alliances between two of the three powers have oft en ostracized the third and that this situation is the norm, while the forty-seven years that Britain spent as a member of the EC/EU alongside France and Germany constitute a rare—and unstable—period of harmony uniting the three. Seen this way, Sweeney argues, Brexit "does not undermine the strong forces [End Page 183] tending to European integration. It simply spells more pragmatic and variable geometry in Europe" (11). The book is structured by way of four successive thematic histories, each running from 1648 to the present. The first two substantive chapters tackle the diplomatic history of the interrelationships of Britain, France, and Germany. (Sweeney treats "Germany" as being represented by the Holy Roman Empire up to 1740, and by Prussia from 1740 to unification). Sweeney's contribution here is to interweave a diplomatic history of states and alliances, in the manner of British diplomatic historian A. J. P. Taylor, with a history of the utopian schemes to unite Europe. The third and fourth chapters offer an economic history of the interrelations of Britain, France, and Germany, drawn in terms of the long wrestle between Anglo-Saxon laissez-faire and continental mercantilism and cameralism. The fift h and sixth chapters focus on the differing imperial histories of the three powers, advancing the broad argument that while Britain has tended to prioritize empire over engaging with Europe, for France "empire was oft en a means to European aggrandizement," and Germany's own enthusiasm for European aggrandizement is a product of her "relatively empire-free" history (198–99). Lastly, the seventh chapter looks at the history of how religion (and secularism) have divided and united the three powers. A key puzzle that Sweeney poses is why it is that right-leaning Christian political parties have played a key role in supporting European integration in France and Germany, but not in Britain. Sweeney adopts a conversational tone throughout, aimed at capturing and retaining the interest of the general reader, and aside from a few familiar names (Said, Fukuyama, Huntington), references to...

Virginia Woolf by Ira Nadel

 Reviews American reality. Wilson, the study argues, employs sympathetic but ultimately ineffectual characters to condemn kindness without justice and utilizes images of childhood innocence and naturalism to subvert conceptions of black unworthiness. A novel interpretation of Keckley’s memoir, reflecting her time as the Lincolns’ seamstress and servant, views black female textile production as a critique of white, normative aesthetics devaluing black creation, and the memoir’s deliberate use of epistolary evidence as exposing the unspoken racist and misogynistic notions beneath seemingly supportive assertions of liberalism. eories of sonicity and aurality are brought to bear on Anna Julia Cooper’s A Voice from the South, as Fox argues that music serves as an alternative rhetoric countering the vacuity of abstract political ideas that yield no meaningful social reform. Sherley Anne Williams ’s Dessa Rose is framed as the response to the call of the earlier texts. rough a politics of sound embracing spirituals, love songs, and call and response, the novel is seen as undermining conventional sign systems that demean black women. Placing these works in conversation reveals black women as activist theorists, not merely the objects of theory. At some points, the language of Resistance Reimagined is more complex than it needs to be. For instance: ‘e domain of resistive praxis subsequently takes on a proprietary cast, as an entity irretrievable beyond the bounds of outwardly incendiary transgression at the hands of embattled masses or of charismatic/celebrity male leadership via authorized avenues of dissent’ (p. ). Frequently one has the sense that new terminology is being applied to prevailing ideas. While not always novel, however, Resistance Reimagined is always informative. Photographs of the Sojourner Truth memorial and the Underground Railroad monument in Battlecreek , Michigan, of the Harriet Wilson monument in Milford, New Hampshire, and of a portrait of Anna Julia Cooper in doctoral regalia are among the items of visual evidence that add to an edifying argument. Relegating black women’s critiques to the societal margins will be impossible aer engaging with Fox’s analysis of the multiple forms through which black women contested injustice. E U V B Virginia Woolf . By I N. (Critical Lives) London: Reaktion Books. .  pp. £.. ISBN ––––. Biographies of Virginia Woolf cover a small but substantial shelf. Ira Nadel’s recent Virginia Woolf in Reaktion’s Critical Lives series contributes to this abundance by participating in the ‘spatial turn’ in literary studies. As Warf and Arias note in their Introduction to e Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (London: Routledge, ), ‘space is every bit as important as time in the unfolding of human affairs [. . .] where things happen is critical to knowing how and why they happen’ (p. ). We might see Woolf, especially in To the Lighthouse, prefiguring at least one of the emphases in this field: ‘the notion of the autonomous subject standing apart from the world he/she observes has come under question’ (p. ). Nadel structures the MLR, .,   biography into chapters focused on Woolf’s residences throughout her life—from  Hyde Park Gate as a child to Monk’s House in the last years of her life. is spatial organization allows Nadel to consider ‘Woolf’s use and need of place’ (p. ), for example in A Room of One’s Own, but also how ‘where she was defined who she might become’ (p. ). Nadel makes the most of this methodology. His chapter ‘ Gordon Square, –’ summarizes well the significance of this period to Woolf and her siblings by stressing how changes of London neighbourhood, architecture, and household arrangements—along with a string of family deaths—led to what we know by the spatial designation ‘Bloomsbury’. Using varied sources, including essays, memoirs and autobiographies, and critical works, Nadel provides a compressed and readable overview of the founding of Bloomsbury. One of the strongest sections of the volume is the exploration of photography’s meanings for Woolf; this appears in the final chapter, ‘Monk’s House II, –’. Nadel offers tantalizing biographical details: Woolf was ‘thrilled with Leonard’s purchase of a [. . .] Zeiss camera’ in  (p. ); she ‘refused to be photographed by Cecil Beaton and was furious at appearing in a collection of his images’ (p. ); she ‘asked Vita for [a photo...

Pieter Bruegel and the Idea of Human Nature by Elizabeth Alice Honig

Reviewed by: Pieter Bruegel and the Idea of Human Nature by Elizabeth Alice Honig Rachel Daphne Weiss Elizabeth Alice Honig, Pieter Bruegel and the Idea of Human Nature (London: Reaktion Books 2019) 272 pp., 68 ills. For an artist whose mention popularly evokes scenes of peasant merrymaking and sedate, wintry landscapes, Pieter Bruegel the Elder has aroused fierce debate among twentieth- and twenty-first-century scholars. Controversy has erupted over the correct orthography and pronunciation of his family name, conflicting [End Page 279] theories about his socioeconomic background have generated radically opposed interpretations of his art, and speculation over his religious and political persuasions continue to overburden pictures that may have been fairly benign in his day. It is hard to fault these zealous historians; Bruegel's artistic legacy is a seductive cocktail of scant archival evidence and complex, enigmatic imagery. The opacity of Dulle Griet (1563), for instance, could lead even the most pedantic of scholars to flights of interpretive fancy, and it is often the boldest assertions that best contend with the vibrancy of Bruegel's art. But rather than court controversy, Elizabeth Alice Honig's new book elaborates Bruegel's body of work with plausibility, offering elegant, convincing solutions to the artist's pictorial puzzles. Honig's diplomatic insights are rooted in the premise that Bruegel's pictures were fundamentally discursive objects. Not content with conceiving of these works as ornaments or as handmaidens to propagandistic aims, Honig posits that Bruegel's compositions functioned actively, sparking lively conversation, selfexamination, and forms of philosophical meditation among beholders. These claims ring of credibility, as the titular "idea of human nature" was inarguably a preoccupation for Bruegel and his audience, as it has been throughout recorded history. But Honig's study never descends into platitudes; the book's investigation of art and human nature is historiographically rigorous and thoroughly nuanced. Honig is undaunted by the capacious, universal implications of her title, assembling a formidable amount of evidence to support her thesis. Instead of excavating obscure sources with tenuous links to Bruegel's imagery, as some students of Bruegel have been inclined to do, Honig fleshes out the most probable climate of thought. She defers often and effectively to Erasmus, not to suggest a direct correspondence between the philosopher's writings and Bruegel's visualizations, but to demonstrate how Erasmus's ideas on human nature were ubiquitous in Bruegel's world. She also references other worldview-shaping philosophies, such as Neo-Stoicism, Christianity, and Humanism, which were so prevalent as to be inescapable. As a consequence of building out this rich context, Honig is able to theorize the reception of Bruegel's work instead of laboring to reconstruct artistic intent. The emphases on human nature and reception have two advantages: first, they allow Honig to explore the myriad meanings available to contemporary viewers instead of hewing to narrower iconographic possibilities; second, they permit a truly comprehensive odyssey into the artist's oeuvre, as ideas of human nature and their provocations suffuse the full scope of Bruegel's artistic chronology and the multiple mediums in which he worked. Accordingly, the book's chapters cohere around subthemes instead of more familiar organizing principles, such as mediums or stylistic progress. Each chapter theme addresses a feature of human nature—from connection with the natural world to the traumas of war—that manifests in Bruegel's art. The first chapter, "Humanity and Self-Knowledge," is the most broadly philosophical, engaging classical, medieval, and early modern writings on selfhood and the soul to elucidate prints such as Bruegel's Everyman (ca. 1558) and his Seven Virtues series (1560). Attention to elite philosophy is balanced by a complementary focus on folk knowledge, which Bruegel vividly pictorialized in his Netherlandish Proverbs (1559). Honig's explication of these various knowledge [End Page 280] sources emphasizes the diverse milieus in which these objects could have stimulated discourse. She also stresses the artist's innovations, by pointing out discontinuities between written articulations of human nature and Bruegel's visual interpretations. Discrepancies between text and image are revisited in the sixth chapter, "Laughing Man," in which Honig considers Bruegel's spin on kermis imagery. Prints of this type conventionally ridiculed peasants in...

Monsters under Glass: A Cultural History of Hothouse Flowers from 1850 to the Present, by Jane Desmarais

Reviewed by: Monsters under Glass: A Cultural History of Hothouse Flowers from 1850 to the Present by Jane Desmarais Mary Bowden (bio) Monsters under Glass: A Cultural History of Hothouse Flowers from 1850 to the Present, by Jane Desmarais; pp. 248. London: Reaktion Books, 2018, £25.00, $40.00. In On the Origin of Species (1859), Charles Darwin noted "the increased size and beauty which we now see in the varieties of the heartsease, rose, pelargonium, dahlia, and other plants, when compared with the older varieties or with their parent-stocks" ([Penguin, 2009], 42). Darwin uses these transformed flowers as evidence for his analogy between artificial and natural selection: their enhanced size and altered appearance indicate the Victorians' ability to modify nature according to human desires. This Victorian emphasis on floral manipulation extended to the cultivation of exotic species in British glasshouses. By the mid-nineteenth century, middle- and upper-class consumers had benefited from new methods of manufacturing glass and cast iron, which made the materials for constructing conservatories more affordable, and from improved technologies for transporting plants, which made plants from distant reaches of Britain's Empire newly accessible. Exotic flora filled British glasshouses. These exotic plants—or "monsters under glass"—were natural objects that were artificially modified and maintained. Jane Desmarais argues in Monsters under Glass: A Cultural History of Hothouse Flowers from 1850 to the Present that in the late nineteenth century, these hothouse flowers "enter literary language in a highly charged way" (7), offering an important challenge to traditional symbolic associations that "equated flowers with beauty and femininity" (8). Instead, the artificiality of hothouse flowers, and the precarity of their existence, evoked darker associations with exotic invasions, sickness, and rot. Desmarais argues that by the twentieth century, these metaphoric meanings offered an idiom for "comment[ing] on the contradictions and complexities of modern existence" (12). While Desmarais's work offers a brief history of plant cultivation in artificially heated and humidified spaces before 1850—in the first chapter, she tracks the development of hothouse technology from ancient Rome through the "Dark Ages," Renaissance, and eighteenth century—her primary focus in the remainder of the book is the decadent literary and artistic culture of fin-de-siècle Britain and France (17). Desmarais convincingly argues that during this period, the hothouse and the hothouse flower "became key metaphors to describe the experience of living in a rapidly modernizing city-world," as the artificial construction of a cosmopolitan vegetal space paralleled late-nineteenth-century urbanization (7). Desmarais's chapters range broadly across various cultural associations with hothouses and hothouse flowers in this period: she examines the city as hothouse; dandies' flower fetishes; "florientalism," or exoticizing associations with hothouse flowers, particularly through perfume (99); the garden as a paradise or torture site; the "fleur fatale," or the renovation of older associations between women and flowers to encompass dangerous or seemingly degenerate New Women (13); the use of glass, including aquaria and bell jars, "as a metaphor of mental space" (14); and weeds, which she suggests represent fears of primitive invasion. Desmarais's archive of sources is similarly impressive in scope, including the works of writers such as Oscar Wilde and J. K. Huysmans; works of art by artists such as Aubrey Beardsley, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, James Tissot, and Édouard Manet; and cultural texts such as perfume advertisements and illustrations from horticultural magazines. While the book's title and introduction suggest a kind of genealogical examination of the ways in which late-Victorian interactions with hothouse flowers continue to inform our cultural understandings of them today, I found the more contemporary interludes in Desmarais's work—such as a brief reading of Raymond Chandler's 1939 [End Page 516] novel The Big Sleep and its 1946 film adaptation—comparatively underdeveloped, and not wholly integrated into a work mainly concerned with the cultural resonances of these flowers in decadent Britain and France. Desmarais's methodology is panoramic. In the introduction, she likens this book to a "cabinet of curiosities" rather than "an exhaustive study of the metaphors of the hothouse and the hothouse flower" (14). Indeed, I found her work most successful when approached as an assemblage of insights rather...

Review: Palm, by Fred Gray

Book Review| April 01 2019 Review: Palm, by Fred Gray Palm. By Fred Gray. 2018. Reaktion Books. (ISBN: 9781780239170). 232 pp. Hardcover, $18.22. The American Biology Teacher (2019) 81 (4): 296–297. https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2019.81.4.296a Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Review: Palm, by Fred Gray. The American Biology Teacher 1 April 2019; 81 (4): 296–297. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2019.81.4.296a Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe American Biology Teacher Search The palm – tall, slender, graceful, and picturesque – is found in the tropics as well as in many other world ecosystems. Because of its “noble and impressive shape,” it was dubbed “the prince of plants” by Swedish botanist and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus. Usually called a tree, its structure is more like that of herbs and grasses. It has no wood, doesn't produce growth rings, and has no bark on the outside. Among the nearly 3000 species, the palm holds many plant records. The longest leaf, at 25+ meters (82 feet), belongs to the African raffia palm; the largest number of flowers on a plant is the 24 million miniature flowers in a cluster on the stem of the talipot palm of India; and the largest seed is that of the coco de mer palm, which checks in at 30 kilograms (66 pounds). Palm fossils extend back 100 million years,... You do not currently have access to this content.

Review: Sunflowers, by Stephen A. Harris

Book Review| April 01 2019 Review: Sunflowers, by Stephen A. Harris Sunflowers. By Stephen A. Harris. 2018. Reaktion Books. (ISBN: 9781780239262). 240 pp. Hardcover, $21.42. The American Biology Teacher (2019) 81 (4): 296. https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2019.81.4.296 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Review: Sunflowers, by Stephen A. Harris. The American Biology Teacher 1 April 2019; 81 (4): 296. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2019.81.4.296 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe American Biology Teacher Search We may not be in Kansas anymore, but that doesn't keep us from enjoying the striking symbol of the Sunflower State. These gorgeous flowers form crowns on single stems, having been recorded at heights as tall as 7 meters, and the young flower heads are capable of tracking the sun. Sunflowers belong to the world's largest plant family, Asteraceae, which includes dandelions, thistles, daisies, lettuce, and artichokes, and whose members have composite flower heads. The sunflower head consists of a ring of yellow ray flowers surrounding a large cluster of disk flowers, which, in the words of sixteenth-century English herbalist John Gerard, are “set as though a cunning workeman [sic] had of purpose placed them in very good order.” The disk flowers, after pollination, produce the fruits that we call sunflower seeds. An extensive discussion of the variation and taxonomy of the sunflower family over the past few... You do not currently have access to this content.

Review: Zebra, by Christopher Plumb and Samuel Shaw

Zebra . By Christopher Plumb and Samuel Shaw. 2018. Reaktion Books. (ISBN: 9781780239354). 216 pp. Softcover, $15.94. Everything you ever wanted to know about zebras can be found right here in black and white in this remarkable book. Zebras are popular animals, being described in Thomas Pennant's 1871 History of Quadrupeds with words such as elegant , useless , gregarious , untamable , and vicious . Many regard zebras as striped horses, but more likely horses could be considered zebras whose stripes have been lost. Like the other equids, zebras probably originated in North America, but since the last Ice Age they are found only in Africa. The three zebra species have many differences in physical and behavioral characteristics. They feature hooves consisting of one large toe, powerful jaws with durable teeth for grass grazing, and large eyes with binocular vision, but an inability to focus sharply. Two zebra species are considered endangered, and conservation efforts are critical. Like many other animals, they are being threatened by overexploitation, habitat destruction, and climate …