Enh. The life stores a a bunch of different Old West prostitutes and madams. It's oriented more towards storytelling than being a book of history, andEnh. The life stores a a bunch of different Old West prostitutes and madams. It's oriented more towards storytelling than being a book of history, and there are some quirks in the writing that irritated me, like using slang of the period without defining it, or leading the reader down the garden path with a tall tale before saying that that isn't how it actually happened at all. Rutter gives a list of sources, but there aren't references in the text that tell you which ones pertain to which women. So, some interesting enough stories, and if that's all you're looking for you might rate it higher than I did....more
I could not stop thinking about this book (and my friends will tell you I kind of had to talk about it a lot to). This is the story of Ewan Forbes, a I could not stop thinking about this book (and my friends will tell you I kind of had to talk about it a lot to). This is the story of Ewan Forbes, a trans man who received hormone treatments in the 1930s, got his birth certificate changed to reflect his male name and gender in the 1950s, and had to go to court in the 1960s when a cousin challenged his right to inherit his brother's baronetcy. (It's not clear that Ewan cared that much about being a baronet, but if the court ruled that he was male, his marriage would have been invalidated and he and his wife might have gone to prison.) (And if you're think that he sounds privileged af, he absolutely was, and Playdon in no way sugarcoats it.) It is also a history of the legal treatment of trans people in the UK from the early 20th century until 2020, with additional information on press coverage, medical advances, medical definitions, political theory, and some coverage of overseas nations as well.
That's a LOT. And it's all scrupulously researched and clearly communicated. In other hands, such a book could have been dense and dry, valuable but unpalatable, but Playdon has made it riveting. She has pieced together the story of Forbes's life -- he was a quite private person in some ways, so that is a non-trivial undertaking -- and used it as the living heart and soul of the book. His experience illuminates the broader trans history she is telling and vice-versa. I was not quite as entirely captivated after his case ended, but stayed engaged and interested through the very end.
I have a couple of quibbles with the book. I do not feel that Playdon has entirely supported her contention that (view spoiler)[the judge in Corbett vs. Corbett was acting primarily in response to Ewan's (suppressed) victory in his case and in defense of the institution of male primogeniture. (hide spoiler)] However, it is to her credit as a historian that she is sufficiently clear in laying out her evidence that I can judge her conclusion in this way.
Playdon was very persistent in labeling some medical thinking on trans people as "scientific medicine" and some other medical thinking as "pseudo-medicine". The two terms came up again and again, every time she mentioned any medical theories, papers, conferences, guidelines, etc. was repeated so many times that it started to feel like some kind of special pleading -- even though I don't think she's wrong, and I even think I understand the great importance of the distinction, given how medicine (pseudo-medicine, she would be quick to point out) is being used to fuel anti-trans legislation and other government action in both the US and the UK at our current political moment. Even with that, though, the incessant drumbeat got wearing.
So I don't agree with everything in the book, but it is a fascinating story, expertly told, and I learned a lot about the history of trans rights and trans medicine in the last hundred years. I cannot recommend this book too highly.
3.5 stars. This is an odd combination of memoir, modern social history, intellectual history, and musings on the meaning of self. It shed some int3ere3.5 stars. This is an odd combination of memoir, modern social history, intellectual history, and musings on the meaning of self. It shed some int3eresting light on Dykes to Watch Out For and was interesting and enjoyable in itself. I did sometimes mix up the different figures from the 18th and 19th century, but all in all, well worth reading....more
This was just so sweet. I get that that is a weird way to describe a story about pornography and murder in Victorian London, but the MCs (re)finding oThis was just so sweet. I get that that is a weird way to describe a story about pornography and murder in Victorian London, but the MCs (re)finding of each other is just a delight. It sounds like Charles has done a ton of research on the Victorian porn industry -- I hope she had fun doing it! Also -- British historical romance with both MCs being POC. Yay!
I listened to the audiobook, and I appreciate Tantor's choice of Vikas Adam, who is both of South Asian heritage and a very experienced and accomplished narrator....more
Even a popular treatment of queer theory is necessarily dense and heady, and I'll have to look at this more times so I can absorb it further. At the mEven a popular treatment of queer theory is necessarily dense and heady, and I'll have to look at this more times so I can absorb it further. At the moment my mind is blown by the notion of homonormativity....more
This is an engrossing and important book. Journalist Andrea Pitzer has written a story of concentration camps from their origins at the very end of thThis is an engrossing and important book. Journalist Andrea Pitzer has written a story of concentration camps from their origins at the very end of the 19th century through the beginnings of the 21st. Only the Nazis had technological death factories bent on genocide, but extrajudicial mass detention of civilians in the modern sense started in Cuba shortly before the Spanish-American war and was indeed one of the justifications for it -- the sinking of the Maine was the spark but the horrors of the camps for "reconcentración" provided much of the moral force. And yet, though we ostensibly opposed the camps, the idea was so useful that we had our own camps in the Philippines before you could blink.
Pitzer traces the idea and the institution from its origins through colonialist wars in Africa, enemy alien camps in the two world wars, the horrors of the Nazi camps, America's Japanese internment camps, the gulags, Asian communist reeducation camps, repression of African freedom movements, anticommunist repression in South America, and finally Guantánamo and the other camps of the US "war on terror". She catalogs the gradations and varieties -- simple detention, starvation, disease, torture, labor camps, and extermination camps. Each chapter covers another place, time, and stage in the development of camps. In most chapters, she weaves information from the experiences of one or a few individual camp survivors with the larger sweep of historical information. Some of the events she covers I knew about in detail -- there was relatively little new to me in the chapter on the Nazi camps -- but others I knew only as phrases (the Mau Mau rebellion, for instance), or not at all. It's all riveting and important and the news sounds very different to me now that I have read it.
I quite enjoyed this. Kauffman profiles 10 African men and women who lived in England in the 16th and 17th centuries. None were enslaved; they had a vI quite enjoyed this. Kauffman profiles 10 African men and women who lived in England in the 16th and 17th centuries. None were enslaved; they had a variety of stations, from trumpeter to salvage diver to silk weaver to countrywoman to prostitute. The book is meticulously researched, and the reader can clearly see what is explicit in the historical records (payrolls, court records, and parish registers) and what is inferred. ...more
What a fascinating book! Mann untangles many of the ecological and human consequences of the meeting of worlds and mixing of species and cultures thatWhat a fascinating book! Mann untangles many of the ecological and human consequences of the meeting of worlds and mixing of species and cultures that started with the establishment of an ongoing European presence in the Americas. For example -- Europeans overturned many Native American cultural practices in ways that made perfect breeding grounds for disease-carrying mosquitoes that were recently introduced from Africa. Africans were far more resistant to both malaria and yellow fever than were either Europeans or North Americans. This may have been one of the economic forces that caused the American south to be founded primarily on African chattel slavery rather than European indentured servitude. We see the potato go from America to Ireland and create a population boom, followed by the tragedy of the famine when the potato blight follows after. There are so many amazing stories here -- biology, warfare, economics, suffering, resistance. Highly recommended....more
Four stars for being good, scholarly historical work; the fifth star for being interesting, thought-provoking material that broadened my mind and worlFour stars for being good, scholarly historical work; the fifth star for being interesting, thought-provoking material that broadened my mind and worldview. Be aware that some of the material in here is kind of harsh (eugenics, forced sterilization, murder and abuse of enslaved people, decimation of the Native population)....more
I listened to the book on Audible, and this was a great way to experience it. There was an intimacy to hearing Noah tell his own story, and I marveledI listened to the book on Audible, and this was a great way to experience it. There was an intimacy to hearing Noah tell his own story, and I marveled at his ability to drop fluently into a variety of different African languages and accents. His life was extraordinary and his observations on how injustice and poverty act on people's choices and characters are apt. I found the sequence of events confusing -- he jumped around in time -- but all in all, I feel I've broadened my perspective on the world from this book....more