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BOOK REVIEW: Simon Schama’s A History of Britain Vol. 1: At The Edge Of The World?

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The first volume of Simon Schama’s History of Britain is a poetic, dramatic and page-turning revitalisation of early medieval Britain’s royal grandeur

Edition: 2009, The Bodley Head

At this point, fellow history buffs will need no introduction to Simon Schama. British-born but long-time professor of History and Art History at Columbia University, New York, he’s been gracing my TV screen for as long as I can remember.

Little did I know that his early-00’s BBC documentary series was also fleshed out in three books. It was his latest documentary series, The Romantics And Us, that spurned me to get my hands on any literature he’d written. So now that I’m here – and given the entirely necessary reappraisal and uprooting of much of British history within the last 12 months – how does A History of Britain: At The Edge Of The World? Stand up in 2021?

Well, it does and it doesn’t. On the one hand, it’s an immensely readable, poetic and entertaining thing. Schama doesn’t cover any massive new ground, nor does he pretend to. His remit and refreshing eye is contained in his lyrical writing, bringing the full peacock-ish sense of Elizabethan splendour, or the gruelling Machiavellian antics of Anglo-Saxon Britain, to zesty life.

Schama in 2009. Image credit: Monica Flickr.

Royal Grandeur

Whereas most of Schama’s focus is on the royal court, with all its scheming backstabbers and political intrigue, there are ruminations on feudal normality; how the people endured after the coronation of William the Conqueror, for example, or the helplessness of the periodic plagues that ransacked Plantagenet & Tudor Europe.

But largely, this is a book about grandeur, and how ultimately hubris has constantly determined the fate of our rulers. So far, so medieval Britain, you might think.

But where Schama really reigns supreme is in his characterisations. His reappraisal of Anne Boleyn as a chief architect in the seemingly permanent cultural Reformation is brilliantly realised. As much as he draws on Thomas Cromwell’s ruthlessness in bringing about her demise (‘pure devilry’, as he calls it), he draws out her political nuance:

‘It’s not only reasonable but essential to come back to Anne Boleyn as both the occasion and the cause of this extraordinary change in direction’.

Anne Boleyn, capable of much more than history often remembers. Image credit: Loz Pycock Flickr.

He does the same for Thomas Becket, who we ‘rightly’ think of as a stuffy religious zealot, but:

‘the truth is he was a real Londoner, with an instinctive flair for the things that Londoners have always cared most about: display and costume; the getting and spending of money; theatre, private and public; and (even though his stomach was delicate) fine food and drink. He was street smart and book smart. He was, from the get-go, a Player.’

What can we learn from it?

For all his poeticisms, there isn’t much in the way of prophetic nuance here. But it’s not a book that forgets that the modern world exists, and Schama finds parallels that were as relevant in 2000 as they are today.

He distils and summarises the lingering impact of nationalism in a brief half paragraph:

‘Nationalism, we are trained to assume, is a modern invention. But then what do we make of these utterances with their passionate attachment to territory and local memory? They document, unmistakably, if not nationalism, then at least ‘nativism’, a politics of birthplace, of land and language. After these voices were heard, Britain would never be the same again’.

Elizabeth I. Image credit: Francisco Anzola Flickr.

And as he navigates the tumultuous relationship between Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart, he exposes how the former’s body and politics became commodified by the men surrounding her, but also how she was far from bendable to their whims. One glaring caveat is that there’s no mention of the early slave trade, which seems even more odd in today, especially given Schama’s political sensibilities.

Studious readers of medieval history might not learn much from A History of Britain: At The Edge Of The World? But if you’re looking for an antidote to the usually pretty dry storytelling of much history writing, then this is no bad place to start.

You can buy A History of Britain Volume One: At the Edge of the World? here.

BOOK REVIEW: Raven Leilani’s Luster

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Luster by Raven Leilani | Waterstones

US debutant Raven Leilani comes firing out the blocks with Luster; a brilliantly funny, artistic and painful portrayal of modern womanhood

Edition: Picador, January 2021

As far as first sentences go, Raven Leilani’s debut novel Luster lands on an absolute gold mine:

‘The first time we have sex we are both fully clothed, at our desks during working hours, bathed in blue computer light’.

It’s the sort of opening that tells us exactly where we are without telling us much. Almost immediately, we’re plonked down in a world of millennial dread, dating anxiety and a thoroughly modern prism. And that’s perfect. Because although we don’t quite know it at this stage, the novel’s protagonist Edie lives in that prism too.

A 23-year-old assistant at a New York publishing house, Edie finds herself dating a man twice her age, eventually becoming entangled in an open marriage. On a surface level, it’s the story of being the ‘other woman’, albeit in 21st century suburbia and not wild and despotic Thomas Hardy English countryside.

But the battles Edie has to fight – a deep sense of self-loathing, being an orphan, the struggling artist routine and normalised bouts of racism – are huge. And the novel’s prescience seeps and ekes out of nooks and crannies, rising at the most unexpected moments, slithering tenaciously from loose mundanity; a visit to an art exhibition for example (parenthood), or taking an adopted daughter to her martial arts classes (attraction, isolation AND parenthood).

Power Imbalances In An Unbalanced City

The beauty in Leilani’s writing is that it makes existential anguish and prejudice hit just as they should; like a sledgehammer. The sinister moments, executed in that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it style, reflect how absorbed into everyday consciousness many biases, injustices and inaccuracies are.

The way Edie approaches the power imbalances in pretty much every aspect of her life, presents her as a personality who soaks inequity up like a sponge. Someone who doesn’t necessarily believe bad things happen to her for a reason but struggles to express internal righteousness in her shape-shifting, often unfinished self-portraits.

The mythical grandiosity of New York is unpicked in Luster. Image Credit: thenails Flicker.

Things get fascinatingly bleak in the book’s final third, where ruminations on motherhood, police brutality and a sense of belonging sting particularly hard. By this point, there’s very little humour left, Leilani instead using resonant pathos to depict a reality that is often overlooked but never – in New York’s ‘bounty of holes’ – uncommon.

Much has been written about the book’s theorising on art and the machinations of craft in particular as a mirror for life. And there’s always that sense of dogged determination in Edie, as art becomes the necessary documentation of survival that creatives will always recognise.  

Womanhood As Solace In the 21st Century

It’s a definably assured debut novel. Often as hilariously filthy as it is acerbic, Leilani has done a grand job of presenting stream-of-consciousness and unflinching trauma just as it might appear in one’s brain.

As a white man I can’t claim any of these experiences for myself. But Luster is also a unifying piece of work; Edie’s confusion eventually finds solace in womanhood, what it should and should not be, and how it has moulded survival to its hands in a unique way. The novel itself is similarly singular.  

You can buy Luster here.

BOOK REVIEW: Jackie Wills’ A Friable Earth

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A Friable Earth: Amazon.co.uk: Wills, Jackie: 9781911469940: Books

Jackie Wills’ beautiful ode to ageing womanhood is strangely relatable in a world smothered by Coronavirus

Originally Published by: Arc, 2019

Ageing womanhood is still a taboo in Western society. Frequently misrepresented and oftentimes ignored, the perspectives of women over 60 should be another bolt in the educational foundations of life.

As a woman in that demographic, legendary British poet Jackie Wills is succinctly placed to dictate the mental and physical realisations of that stage in life. But A Friable Earth casts its net wide, and like all the best poets, she teases those realities – sometimes beautiful, often excruciating – out of both big societal discussions and matters that seem pedestrian in comparison.

There’s also plenty here that’s relevant to many of our current realities. The places her mind wanders, the uncertainty about the future and constantly evolving approach to time are all easily accessible to those currently living in a lockdown. But almost all the poems here, whether they ooze quiet humour or real despondency, take Wills’ identity and transcend it to something that needs to be perceived.

The Natural World Can Help Us

There’s a hefty helping of ecological love in A Friable Earth. For example, in Watering she manages to encapsulate facets of love and missed opportunities via the outline of humanity’s relationship with nature:

‘the city’s staggered roofs house chicks who mew like cats, how earth sends back the sounds of rakes and spades, that you and me can blur somewhere in between’

In the staggering Road From the North she expertly uses spaciousness and contrasting language to reflect the beauty of nature, its relationship to humans, a deep spiritual connection with it and racial apartheid. Tortoise is an ode to looking for/finding purpose in the later stages of life. The obvious connotations of its title aside, this collection ultimately seeks recovery in the beauty of the natural world.

Are we more akin with Tortoises than we think? Image credit: Chris Parker Flickr.

Life Through an Experienced Lens

It being A Friable Earth’s default purview, there are essences of ageing on almost every page. Where they really stand out is when they’re used to highlight universal prejudices. In Glamour she wonders whether women who refuse to pluck their bodily hairs are the truly glamourous ones, taking a hammer to the Hollywood-affirmed definition of beauty.

Wandering womb is a beautiful discussion of womanhood’s purpose after having children, when shallow, misogynistic attitudes can no longer physically apply:

‘compared to a womb, which is now joined in its ambling by a kidney, eye, spleen, all of them nomads seeking relief from a 24-hour contract to remain in the same’

Vho Mjedzi – one of many poems where Wills conveys her South African experience – wonderfully explores the relatability of women across cultures, but also the ways in which femininity excels in those cultures – and they’re often ways that ours doesn’t.

South African & nature are almost constant muses for Wills. Image credit: Water Alternatives Photos

Pocket St. Anthony is an almost maudlin take on ageing, before Silver Inkwell counteracts it brilliantly, playing on the ‘you decide what to do with your time’ motif.

There are myriad other strains and resonances – revolving around death, racial prejudice and motherhood – that I’ve barely touched on here. But throughout A Friable Earth, Wills has a graceful nuance that whether in short or long-form verse, she executes with real beauty. It’s a touching and strangely relatable snapshot of a moment in life.

You can buy A Friable Earth here.

World Book History #9: Maps Of Desire

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Love and compassion bring people together. That sounds obvious, but the current state of world affairs suggests otherwise. Now and throughout history, those things are bypassed in the name of individualistic interest.

Manuel Forcano, one of Catalan’s leading love poets, primarily focuses on romantic love. That’s true of his 2019 collection Maps of Desire (Arc Publications) too.

But he also explores how romanticism can be extended to societal love and community cohesion. As the book’s translator Anna Crowe says:

‘I believe Maps of Desire succeeds in suggesting both the physical and psychological reaching-out towards other parts of the world that characterises the poems within its pages’.

Forcano centres his sense of motion around travel in the Middle East. Crucially, he both celebrates and breaks down the differences by tying communities together via love; we all feel it, we all mourn it when it’s over, and we all need it if society is going to function properly.

So how do the poems offer insight into love’s necessity in a societal context? Here are three interesting ways…

The History of Love and Landscapes

Much of the emphasis in Maps of Desire is on how love responds to landscapes. Or indeed, how landscapes reflect or influence love.

‘The Baghdad Train’, for example, is rich in the history and geographical prowess of the Middle East and, while capturing a contemporary moment, shows how those connections stretch back centuries.

But he also uses history to explore how the end of love can unite cultures:

‘People search among the stones
for pieces of those mirrors where joy
remained engraved. Even now
we dream the pleasure of others.’

Every society around the world has a distinct culture, but feelings are universal. When societies aren’t functioning peacefully, they often look to those who are for guidance.

Foreign aid is one thing, but it needs to come from a true place of love to actually heal divisions.

Baghdad, 2018; the muse for Forcano’s epic ‘The Baghdad Train’.

Identity, War and Peace

Identity and deepening diversions due to it reflect that lack of love.

In ‘The Huge River’, Forcano hones his practice of taking the personal and making it universal:

‘But often love means trying to hold water
in the fingers of an open hand’.

Those fears and perceptible doubts are felt just as keenly by communities healing from conflict as they are by individuals. Whilst those feelings are deep-rooted, by recognising that issue we can start to make a difference.

And Forcano does offer hope for those affected by contemporary conflict. In ‘Beirut’, he combines the sentimental value of memory with nationalistic symbolism to great effect:

‘…And memory,
at first so sharp in the mind
then later leaching colour
like a flag too long in the wind.’

By pointing to decaying authoritarian power, Forcano mirrors the drive to stop the current stream of nationalist uprisings.

People in oppressed communities know they aren’t that different from us. There needs to be further recognition of that from the Western world.

‘Poetry, for me, is like an oasis in a desert of words’. Manuel Forcano on his influences and translation in poetry.

Religion

Organised religion’s relationship with love is a complex one.

With so many factions in the leading faiths having different interpretations, it’s pretty much impossible to pinpoint a unifying definition of love.

Hailing from Catholic Spain, Forcano reflects religion in a societal sense both in terms of community and via the homoerotic tones in his verse. In ‘The Baghdad Train’, he chimes into the idea that (in theory) forms the origin of all religious love:

‘God is beautiful and that is why he delights in beauty,’
someone recited from the Qu’ran’.

But he mines another inclusive angle on ‘Egyptian Mysteries’. After referencing discussions around religion and love, sex and ‘sin’, he alludes to how gay desire is STILL halted by religion within many societies. When he rounds off the poem by saying:

‘I don’t know which I should thank: whether philosophy
or religion’

he shows doubt, before deciding that he looks to religion for guidance in love in too much.

Mainstream religion has a long way to go before being a totally safe space for gay people, but Forcano owns and embraces his sexuality all the same. In some societies that’s currently not possible, but increasing awareness is a kick-starter for a more equal world.

Conclusion

Love – in all its forms – is something everybody experiences.

Identity, religion and history change love’s meaning, and politics struggles to deal with those changes.

It might seem facile to turn to love poetry as a demarcation of unity. But poetry has always been about deeper connectivity, and Manuel Forcano’s work is proof of that in a context which effects every society.

Find out more about how Forcano uses love to reflect society by grabbing a copy of Maps of Desire today.

World Book History #8: Let Me Tell You This

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In 2020, racism is still a very global problem. Events in the US over the last two weeks have brought about awareness on the biggest scale that many of us can remember. But it’s far from just an American problem.

Here in the UK and wider Europe, the attitude that ‘our society can’t ever be as bad as America’s’ is both widespread and deeply problematic.

And Nadine Aisha Jassat is all too aware of racial divisions in her native Scotland. As a woman of colour, her perspective on race, heritage and integration in the UK is profound and affecting. In her debut poetry collection Let Me Tell You This, she lays out that perspective in direct style that’s brutal, uncomfortable, wise and truthful in equal measure.

It’s a book that – along with those highlighted by this petition last week – could do wonders on the UK educational syllabus. It’s full to the brim with crucial material, but there are three poems in particular which confront that very British strain of racism head-on.

And they are…

Paki Hands

As white people, it’s vital that we start checking our privilege. Early on, Jassat confronts that issue in ‘Paki Hands’. The poem shows just how normalised racist language has become in British dialect, and is pertinent regarding current events in the USA;

I could ask her what she means, but then I’d be told I’m making a scene. But if I stay quiet – gaze lowered to pale-dark hands, feet and knees – what will the silence do to me?

Here Jassat highlights another crucial way in which white people have to become able and proud allies to people of colour. If we’re not checking our friends – calling them out on the use of racist or generally problematic language – then we’re not helping.

So entrenched are offensive ideas about ‘foreignness’ that people are often shouted down for trying to be the difference. But the fight for race equality has never been quick or easy to resolve.

An ITV news report on racism in the UK, dating from 2016. Have thing got any better for BAME people?

Built to Last

A post-colonial mindset still has a strong grip on many Britons. This gets even murkier when nationalist groups, politicians and activists begin re-branding and reinventing the truth about entire sections of society to adhere to some notion of ‘Britishness’. In ‘Built to Last’, Jassat writes:

I’m starting to learn your ways, through your attitude to names. Stories untold, makers’ hands forgotten, once the item is marked ‘sold’ (or ‘gifted’, never stole – )’

At some level, all white people benefit from what other cultures offer us. Jassat’s allusion to that colonial mindset, which positions the values and beliefs of non-white societies as being lesser than our own, is clear-cut and powerful.

Not only does it show the confusion caused by white superiority, but also that people of colour have to work so much harder to gain acceptance in UK society. Only through amplifying voices like Jassat’s is that going to become a thing of the past.  

Hopscotch

Unfortunately, the majority of British people of colour will be familiar with the question ‘where are you from originally?’. Which is why Jassat’s inclusion of it in ‘Hopscotch’ is so pertinent. It’s the sort of thing that many would associate with a mentality from a bygone era. But Jassat, as a young woman, has still experienced it. It’s a signifier that things haven’t changed enough.

Jassat entwines that realisation with notions of toxic masculinity:

              Hey beautiful – isn’t she Gorgeous, Stunning, Bollywood Babe – I want you.

Combined with the inevitable question about origin, Jassat exposes how any supposed ‘compliments’ she’s given are ultimately about control and denigration. They mask a very real, very vicious kind of belittlement.

‘Where your blood comes from is such a small portion of who you really are.’ British people give their perspective on the ‘where are you really from?’ question.

Conclusion

Jassat’s observations are both personal and universal. Personal because she has experienced them first hand, and universal because many women of colour in the UK have experienced them too.

Let Me Tell You This could go a long way to improving the representation of BAME voices in both UK consciousness and representation.

The longer texts like this are ignored, the harder the fight becomes.

Grab yourself a copy of Let Me Tell You This via the 404 Ink website today.

World Book History #5: Jailbirds: Lessons From A Women’s Prison

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Image credit: Grazia Horwitz Flickr

Between 2014-2017, UK-based writer and charity worker Mim Skinner worked in prisons as an art teacher. Jailbirds: Lessons from a Women’s Prison is the product of running various creative courses for inmates in a women’s institution. The mainstream UK press is quick to cover occurrences in men’s prisons, but just like in wider society, women’s prisons are a blind spot for many and hardly ever feature in the wider discussion around the criminal justice system. Jailbirds seeks to change that.

In her introduction, Skinner writes that ‘we hear headlines and news reports and Jeremy Kyle’s views, of course, but rarely hear the individual stories of those whose lives are tangled up in the criminal justice system’. This quote entails almost everything Skinner is attempting to do with the book; change the perception of women in prison and attitudes towards prison in general.

Whether dealing with drugs, mental health or intimately feminine issues like pregnancy, Skinner focuses on tackling stigma. This is not just the stigma around women in prison, but also addiction and the decisions people make when in the most desperate of situations. It’s easy to look and judge from afar, but one can never know how they’d behave or react until they were in that situation.

An interview with a series of American female prisoners. A different country but with many of the same issues.

One of the biggest problems people face upon release is rehabilitation back into everyday life and the ongoing mental health of those struggling to adapt. As Skinner writes at one point, ‘The NHS and prison budgets, it seemed, could stretch to pills but rarely to CBT or counselling’. The problem is that oftentimes these people aren’t seen as redeemable, but they’re just as capable of contributing to society as anyone else, if given the chance.

There are consistent examples throughout the book of the residents being encouraged to form a real sense of identity for themselves and as a family. This is particularly pertinent when Skinner writes about one of her classes entitled A Stitch in Time and that ‘this was the first time anyone had asked these women what their dreams for the future might be’.

This is symptomatic of the ignorance of the ruling/upper classes in Britain; those less well-off never feel validated or cared for. This is, of course, something we’ve seen extensively in Britain over the past decade and has been highlighted by Brexit. The socio-economic issues that can contribute to women winding up in prison permeate the rest of society and restoring class balance is imperative if these women are going to be supported upon release.

One paragraph in particular is almost as a call to arms:

                                           ‘If you’re a member of the press, rest assured –

                                           being in prison isn’t nice. It also isn’t that good at

                                           rehabilitating people, because politicians don’t

                                           want to look like they’re putting money into the

                                           prison system rather than the NHS… It’s about time

                                           we acknowledge that both of these institutions

                                           deal with our national health’.

If society is going to become better at supporting women and gaining maximum equality, then it needs to start with those who have the very least. Prisons are centres of punishment, but the discussion around the circumstances that see women deprived and forced into them needs to become more widespread. Jailbirds is helping to kick that narrative into gear.

You can find out what life is really like within women’s prisons by ordering a copy of Jailbirds: Lessons from a Women’s Prison today.

World Book History #4: Inside Voices, Outside Light

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Image credit: Jen Flickr

Iceland is often perceived as one of the world’s most mysterious countries. Exposed in the far north, miles from any mainland, it’s sometimes depicted as a lonely, cut-off place, with harsh winters but one of the planet’s most breath-taking landscapes.

Yet, just like its fellow Scandinavian countries, it has an incredibly rich and historic literary culture. Sigurdur Palsson, whose repertoire includes plays, poetry and prose is one of Iceland’s most renowned exports. Inside Voices, Outside Light was translated by long-time collaborator Martin S. Regal and published in 2014 and features poems from almost 40 years of Palsson’s work.

There are a number of ways in which Palsson’s poetry can both reflect and educate humanity. Just like much Icelandic poetry, Palsson constantly references Icelanders’ deep relationship with land and the power of nature. It takes all of Iceland’s previously discussed idiosyncrasies – particularly its landscape and geographical nuance – and turns them into a beautiful component of national pride, one which is shared by pretty much all Icelanders.

As Regal writes in his forward for Inside Voices, Outside Light: ‘Even the most complex of Palsson’s images or meditations are outward looking, not products of a dramatized or analysed self; they are offerings to the reader rather than insights into the writer’s mind’. Palsson’s vivid and gorgeous vision works in tandem with the wider implications of global warming. The systematic protection and upkeep we, as humans, need to devote to the planet is absolutely our responsibility – and we’ve been neglecting it.  

This has been part of the very fibre of his work right from the earliest collections. In ‘Nocturne for Saturn’ (1980) the title planet is depicted as a ghostly, wraith-like presence full of ‘blonde tears’ and silence; not worlds away from the potential future of Earth in 2019. By contrast, the final contribution, ‘By River and Ocean’ (2012), draws on Greek mythology and tracks the beauty and growth of Earth through the millenia, indulging in mankind’s consistent misunderstanding of nature.

But there are also lessons in how to emphasise the power of natural beauty in writing. ‘Plywood’ (one of the poems Palsson specifically asked Regal to translate) references the ‘nature vs industrialism’ debate that has been engulfing Iceland for decades. Ultimately though, it asserts that Iceland owes all its beauty, pliability and growth to both the elements and mankind working in conjunction.

Image credit: Chris Yunker flickr

In ‘The Art of Poetry’ he suggests that his writing is entirely dictated by the actions and patterns of snow blizzards, and in ‘The Black Land’ he asserts that without its freezing backdrops and icy/snowy measures Iceland feels like a paralysed, alien world. The dense winter snows make vast swathes of the country impassable, but in Palsson’s view they open up the potential for real, raw beauty.

Inside Voices, Outside Light doesn’t preach – in fact, it seems as though social consciousness was never at the top of Palsson’s writing agenda. But his connection with nature, so clearly persistent here, should be a point of inspiration.

In Part three of ‘Poem Energy Need’ (2009), he writes that we are ‘throwing stones from glass houses, or glass from stone houses, depends on the mood’. We, as humans, have a duty to save the planet. In 2019, it is only us that can do so, and only us that can condemn it to death. Inside Voices, Outside Light presents the message we should have been aware of all along.

If you want to explore more of Palsson’s intoxicating relationship with nature, then pick up a copy of Inside Voices, Outside Light today.

World Book History #3: With Their Backs to the World

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Serbia, Belgrade. Credit: Alex Blokstra

People who were born in the 1990s probably won’t remember the Balkans war. However, as the images of the horrendous conflict flooded evening news bulletins here in the UK at the time, they were difficult to ignore. Asne Seierstad is a Norwegian journalist whose 2005 book With Their Backs to the World: Portraits from Serbia is as authentic a depiction of the region post-war as there ever has been.

The book documents her time spent travelling around Serbia and the neighbouring states between 1999 and 2004. It follows and presents the lives of ordinary Serbs leading up to and following the fall of the dictator Slobodan Milosevic, and the chaos that continued to engulf the region afterwards.

The divisions in the Balkans run so deep and so historically that it’s impossible to get a complete guide to the situation from just one source. Seierstad doesn’t attempt this in With Their Backs to the World. Instead she engages the most honest journalistic trait possible – to present these people without judgement and delve into the true psyche of a nation in crisis.

Throughout the ‘90s and into the 00s, there was a real sense of ‘otherness’ towards the Balkan situation in Western and Northern Europe. As Seierstad writes in the forward of her book: ‘I read everything I could get my hands on… But I found little that really told me who they were, these people who – virtually overnight – found themselves cast as warmongers and butchers.’

Indeed, the situation in Serbia was bleak. But what Seierstad’s sensitive, humane approach does is show how a lot of these people are victims of their own circumstances. Take Michel, a man who poses as a lingerie salesman on a high street but actually participates in illegal (at the time) currency trading and selling gold, jewellery and cars on the black market. Or Bojana Letvic, the stoic journalist who sacrifices almost all pleasure in life in her attempts to topple Milosevic’s state-owned TV channel.

There are remarkable parallels between the mentality of Serbia in the early noughties and the increasingly fiery discussions about the European Union today. Firebrand rhetoric and dishonesty revolve around the same political viewpoints; the nationalism of the Brexit Party and the anger of the generally youthful left. In Britain, it feels like certain newspapers either side of the divide are as embroiled in their own vision as Milosevic’s TV channel.

Soldiers in Croatia during the Balkans war, 1991. Credit: Peter Denton

The book demonstrates the troublesome reality of tarring an entire nation with one brush. Most wings of the UK press stop short of this directly, but the implied hegemony of certain cultures is a growing issue in Britain and on the European mainland. The idea that people adhere to the same ways of life, opinions and march mechanically inline with one another is becoming ever more dangerous in political discourse.

Books like With Their Back to the World represent the way in which subjects like this should be presented. Journalism has never been completely unbiased, but books like Seierstad’s prove that it when it is, it can be just as powerful and important.

Get inside post-war Serbia yourself by picking up a copy here today. 

World Book History #2: Dubliners

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Credit: Christoph Scholz

Where do you even start with Brexit these days? It’s safe to say that most of the country has spent the last three years in a state of almost complete confusion. Whatever your views, it has been incredibly divisive both in Britain and on the European continent.

James Joyce’s Dubliners was first published in 1914, when Europe was on the cusp of the first world war. Joyce would also be alive for the beginning of the second world war over twenty years later. He spent much of his life living in and travelling around Europe and used his worldliness as a crucial component in all of his writings.

Dubliners mostly revolves around life in Joyce’s city of birth and is written from a despairing point of view. But given that Joyce put so much stock in European identity and unity, there are lots of parallels to be drawn between Europe in 1914 and modern Britain.

Three stories in particular exemplify this, and reflect the disassociation and disappointment many people are feeling.

After the Race

This story, although ultimately sad, is delivered through the lens of a proud European identity, centring around four friends from different states and with different backgrounds. 

The four men represent the organic friendships that many people both in modern Britain and Europe have formed thanks to freedom of movement. Joyce clearly references wanderlust and community inclusion, as well as the alliances the European Union symbolises. 

Brexit has given voice to many people who feel certain ways about national British identity. But for many younger people in particular, the same desire to travel and indulge in foreign culture is very present in After the Race. In both 1914 and 2019, Europe represents change and exploration in the most positive way.

A Little Cloud

These days, London is considered to be one of the greatest cities in the world. When Joyce wrote A Little Cloud it was not nearly as buzzing, but it still signified freedom, art and a place where one could spread their wings and live a fulfilling life.

As a city that voted Remain in the EU referendum, it’s easy to see that the same joys and excitements that inspired Joyce still exist today. London is proudly multicultural and has a huge amount of growth and development as a result. Whereas most of England’s South-East voted to leave, London represents the continued love of multiculturalism that Joyce had.

A statue of James Joyce in Dublin. Credit: Mike_fleming

Ivy Day in the Committee Room

Joyce was famously a proud Irish nationalist and given that Brexit has reopened old wounds resonating from the Troubles, the inspirations behind Ivy Day in the Committee Room have somewhat come full circle.

But Ivy Day also describes the perceived imbalance between the ‘metropolitan elite’ and the rest of society that informed much of the Brexit vote. There are particular references to patriotism – a word that has become just as muddied and uncertain as everything else since Brexit – that could be analogous to politicians on either side of the 2016 referendum, depending on your opinion. The independence referred to in Ivy Day exists under completely different circumstances to Brexit, but it’s profound in that the same debates about national identity were being had a hundred years ago as they are now.

James Joyce’s Dubliners is proof that history has a way of haunting the present. You can find out the other ways it does so by picking up a copy today.