Just Finished Reading: The Tribe of Tiger – Cats and their Culture by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (FP: 1994) [234pp]

As my regular readers will know I have a love of all things Feline. OK, maybe not *all* things – litter trays, spraying & cat urine…. NOT nice!! But MOST things feline. Growing up we never had cats because my mother really doesn’t like them. We had just about everything else though, from snakes, fish, a whole host of birds and rabbits as well as various rodents. Just not cats. It was only in my late 20’s that a cat almost literally fell into my lap and I had her (or she had me – it’s hard to tell) for the next 16 years.

As I only ever had a single cat I could observe her behaviour as an individual but I never directly observed (at least not close up) how cats acted around each other – siblings or not – so I never experienced anything that could be called ‘culture’. The author recognised that her use of ‘culture’ in this regard was, at the very least, controversial but stuck to her rather unscientific guns throughout this chatty and often fascinating look at cats – both large and small. Hopping between her day to day experiences with several generations of house/farm cats, her stays in Africa with various local tribes and their contacts with lion populations and her encounters with large cats in North America this was much more than the standard ‘Why your cats does X’ book you often find in pet stores. With a family background in Anthropology, although not being a trained anthropologist herself, she has a number of interesting insights and ideas regarding both territoriality in cats and their social hierarchies – even in unrelated house/farm cat groupings. Using the more domesticated and more familiar house cat as reference the author shows how their behaviours are much more explicable when related to their much larger brethren on the African savanna or in the wild places of North America. Although I no longer have a cat I found this to be both an interesting and often heart-warming read from someone who really knows her subject and whose love of these creatures shines through on every page. Full of personal stories from both Africa and the States this was a delight from beginning to end and often felt like spending time with a favourite Aunt in a cosy room at the end of a long and productive day. Definitely a must read for all cat lovers out there. Recommended.    

 

 

 

 One of my favourite sequences from my favourite dance movie......

 

 Well, Sulu was *OK* but Pavel Andreievich Chekov was much cuter......... 

 

 What sharp teeth you have...........

Just Finished Reading: The Whites of Their Eyes – The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History by Jill Lepore (FP: 2010) [175pp]

I will be the first to admit that my knowledge of the American Revolution/War of Independence is…. Somewhat limited. My knowledge of the factors running up to the break with Britain and the people involved (including the ‘Founders’) is likewise sketchy at best. I am planning to dig into such things in the near future (probably showing up in my review pile next year at the earliest) but for now what little I did already know has been enhanced (somewhat) by this excellent little book. But, as you can no doubt tell from the sub-title, this slim volume isn’t wholly about that event. It’s about how the Revolution is thought about today (or actually back in 2010) and how it’s being used – and abused – to promote a certain political ideology.

The author most definitely knows her ‘stuff’. She a Harvard professor of American History and a Pulitzer Prize nominee. So you can imagine how pleased she was with the renewed interest in the founding of America – her specialist subject. She was less pleased, however, to discover exactly what those on the Right (and especially on the far-Right) had been saying about the history of the Revolution and, of course, the practically sanctified ‘Founding Fathers’. Of course most countries have their founding myths but such a modern country as the United States also has a lot of documentation (and research!) covering that period which can be access and compared to the myths that surround it. More often than not the myth does not do well when it meets the historical facts of the case. Myths do, of course, have their uses especially to those who want to clothe their particular political beliefs in the ideas and ideals of the Founders in order to gain credibility amongst their followers. Inconvenient facts, opinions and documents – even by the Founders themselves – need to be side-lined, disputed or (best!) ignored and forgotten. This is what the author discovered to be the case, not only at grass-roots level where it might be expected but also in the leadership of the movement who had invested in a particular image of the Revolution that was too often cherry-picked from the facts at hand. For those the myth and the image of the Revolution had become far more important and, more importantly, far more usable than the messy and inconvenience truth of the matter.

Looking across the Atlantic Ocean it has always confused, confounded and somewhat amused me how (apparently) many American citizens revere the Declaration of Independence as well as the Constitution and have deified the Founding Fathers who contributed to them. I can certainly understand interest in them, study and serious thought but reverence? That, to be honest, might just be my reaction – being the cynical atheist that I am. I don’t tend to revere anything or anyone. But it is clear, even from the little I do know of these times, people and events, that the Founders were VERY human. They were not gods or in the least god-like in intelligence or moral judgement. Nor are the documents they produced or the Republic that grew out of them perfect or anywhere close to that. No doubt when I dig deeper into the subject I’ll discover just how messy, disorganised, partisan and imperfect the whole thing was. Long running disagreements, enmities and questionable compromises are scattered like spent musket balls throughout the deliberations. The result was far from perfect it was, in fact, human. To mythologise the Revolution and its many protagonists is to do it a dangerous disservice. To understand it and to learn from it requires actual knowledge of the real history of the events – warts and all. I’ll be seeing if I can do that… Recommended and much more from this author to come.  

 

"Anger is a waste of energy. Steam which is used to blow off a safety valve would be better used to drive the engine."

Winston S Churchill.

 

Looking Backwards: Nice Place You Have (2)

As I’ve said before here many places in England (and the rest of the UK) have odd, unusual and often funny names because of their individual histories. Because occupying groups changed over time as well as languages and language usage you might easily get a Celtic village which had its name Latinised later changed into Medieval English and then updated into what it is today. Such a long and often convoluted process can produce apparently bizarre place names but once you dig into their histories it can all become almost obvious and also reveal a LOT about what was going on back at the very edges of the historical record.

Following my ancestors records again I came across my 5^th great-grandfather who lived and died in the village of Albrighton in Shropshire from 1773-1858. The village was mentioned in the Domesday Book as Albricston(e) or the home/farm of Albric/Aethelbeorht, it received its charter in 1303, which was renewed in 1662 for rather unusual reasons. The charter declared that "because Albrighton (then) adjoined Staffordshire on the east, south and west sides, felons and other malefactors fled Staffordshire to escape prosecution because there was no resident justice of the peace in that part of Shropshire". [From Wiki] Interestingly Charles Dickens stayed there in the local Public House briefly whilst working on The Old Curiosity Shop.

My 6^th great-grandfather lived in a little village called Wem (again in Shropshire) during the 18^th century. For a place with such a small name it has a LONG history.  The name of the town is derived from the Old English wamm, meaning a marsh, as marshy land exists in the area of the town. Over time, this form evolved into "Wem".  The area now known as Wem is believed to have been settled prior to the Roman Conquest of Britain, by the Cornovii, Celtic Iron Age settlers: there is an Iron Age hillfort at nearby Bury Walls occupied over into the Roman period, and the Roman Road from Uriconium to Deva Victrix ran close by to the east at Soulton.  Weme was an Anglo-Saxon estate, which transitioned into a planned Norman castle-town established after the conquest, with motte-and-bailey castle, parish church and burgage plots. The town is recorded in the Domesday Book as consisting of four manors in the hundred of Hodnet. The Domesday Book records that Wem was held by William Pantulf. [From Wiki]

Another of my 6^th great-grandfather’s lived during the mid-18^th century in King’s Bromley in Staffordshire. The manor was anciently called Brom Legge, and derived its present name from the circumstances of its being the property of the Crown for nearly two centuries after the Norman Conquest, previous to which it had been distinguished as the residence of the Earls of Mercia. Leofric, the husband of the famous Lady Godiva, died here in 1057. Henry III granted the manor to the Corbetts, who sold it, in 1569, to Francis Agard, of Ireland. About 1670 it was sold by Charles Agard to John Newton, of the island of Barbados, and in 1794 it was bequeathed by Sarah Newton to her cousins, John & Thomas Lane. [From Wiki]

Lastly (for now) is the intriguingly named village called Tong in Shropshire, birthplace of my 6^th great-grandmother in 1708. Presently Tong has a population of around 243. I have to wonder what the population was over 300 years ago! The name of the village derives from the Old English Tweonga, which means a pinched piece or spit of land. This stems from the fact that Tong sits between two tributaries of the infant River Worfe.  In "White-ladies," one of the "Boscobel Tracts" that describe the events of the escape of Charles II from England after the Battle of Worcester (3 September 1651), there is a statement that Charles, while sheltering at Boscobel House about two miles away, "had the pleasure of a prospect from Tong to Breewood (sic), which satisfied the eyes, and of the famous bells at Tong, which entertained the ear." The bells he heard were the bells of St. Bartholomew's. During the escape Charles also spent the night of 4/5 September 1651 at Hobbal Grange in the parish of Tong as a guest of Richard Penderel.  The village is remarkable mainly for its church, St Bartholomews, outside of which is the supposed grave of Little Nell, a fictional character in Charles Dickens's book, The Old Curiosity Shop. It is thought that Dickens visited Tong church. His grandmother is supposed to have worked at Tong Castle many years before as a girl. The Castle (demolished in 1954) stood to the south; its site is now occupied by the M54 motorway.  The 'grave' is thought to have come about because Charles Dickens's novel was serialised and shipped over to America, and as a result, Americans began coming over to England to visit scenes featured in the book. The tourists recognised the references to Tong church from the book and came to view the supposed 'grave', which of course was not there. However, a verger and village postmaster, George H. Boden (16 August 1856 - May 1943) apparently asked local people to pay for a headstone, forged an entry in the church register of burials (apparently the giveaway was that he used post office ink to do this), and charged people to see the 'grave'. The marker has been moved from time to time to make way for genuine graves. [From Wiki]

Finally, in related news Ancestry.Com has just updated my genetic profile on their website. Originally I was 59% Irish, 36% Scottish (STILL a mystery to me!), 3% English/North European and 2% Swedish. The update has tweaked that a bit as their database grows and their algorithm improves. The new details are now 62% Irish, 32% Scottish (!), 3% English/North European and 3% Welsh – so I’ve lost my Swedish connection…. [sobs]. More to come… [grin]  

 

 I think the word you're looking for is 'style'.

 

 

Just Finished Reading: The Uses and Abuses of History by Margaret MacMillan (FP: 2008) [170pp]

What can we learn from History, apart from the fact that we seem to learn very little indeed from our past? This is just one of the intriguing questions raised by this fascinating little book. History, as all readers of non-fiction know, is not simply a statement of what happened in the past. Being story telling creatures, as well as meaning seeking ones, we look at History to produce a narrative – a coherent story. In order to do that the actual historical record needs to be manipulated, massaged and packaged in such a way that what we regard as a meaningful story arises from the chaos of real life events. The problem then is just what kind of ‘History’ is the end product of that process and, more importantly, what can it be used for.

History, as we all know, is usually written by the victors. Orwell was quite correct when he put these words into the mouth of his ‘1984’ protagonist Winston Smith: “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past…” Control of History is sought after by those who need to define their origins – as a group, a people or a nation – so that they can shape their future. Nations often have foundation myths that they hold onto tightly and fight to preserve despite the messy reality of what actually happened. Of course if an origin story is missing it can always be created or ‘enhanced’ in such a way to legitimate the policies or positions of those in power centuries later. Control of past events helps solidify power in the present. Likewise revolutionary forces can use past events and past heroes (most especially if said ‘hero’ has biographical details that are historically “fuzzy”) in order to bolster support and justify actions that would be in normal circumstances questionable or actually unjustifiable. History can also be used to bind multiple peoples or countries together in the name of past debts or past agreements. ‘Special [Historical] Relationships’ can be invoked to justify going to war against countries that pose no direct threat to another’s national security, an ancient prophecy can be used to define modern international relationships and so on. History, real or far too often imagined, can have real world consequences in the here and now.

Knowing how History can be manipulated, suppressed or simply ignored for a whole host of reasons the author – a celebrated historian herself – calls on more historians to help fill the increased desires of the reading public with works of accessible but quality history texts rather than leaving it to non-historians (too often flouting actual historical research and rigour in favour of a good story that can sell copy) to fill out bookshelves and either mislead or confuse readers about what really happened in the past. Popular history doesn’t need to be bad history is her message and good history can provide the foundation not only for a true understanding of the past but a clear-eyed understanding of the present – and the future. A quick read and an interesting one which leaves you wondering about the idea of history and how it’s constructed and, more importantly, why it’s constructed the way it is. Recommended.