May we recommend . . .
A handful of interesting titles for the discriminating–and desperately shopping–book-buyer.
First, something of a publishing miracle: The 20 British Prime Ministers of the 20th Century (Haus, $16.95 each). This is a series of brief paperback biographies of such uniform interest and quality that American readers, who may know the names of only a handful of British prime ministers, might find themselves consuming the entire series for sheer pleasure.
Some of the subjects (most notably Winston Churchill) cover ground that is well-traveled; but even the Churchill volume (by Chris Wrigley) puts its hero in fresh perspective, and tells the nonspecialist reader everything worth knowing. Some of the more recent lives will be of particular interest to STANDARD readers–Clare Beckett on Margaret Thatcher, Mick Temple on Tony Blair–but the century has coughed up some fascinating characters (Eric Midwinter on Lord Salisbury, Francis Beckett on Harold Macmillan) and seminal events (Hugh Purcell on Lloyd George, Anne Perkins on Stanley Baldwin) and ideas (David Howell on Clement Attlee, Denis MacShane on Edward Heath) that still resonate.
This is an extraordinary achievement, not least because the accounts of the lesser known (Andrew Taylor on Bonar Law, Lord Hattersley on Henry Campbell-Bannerman) are as riveting as chronicles of the famous (Graham Macklin on Neville Chamberlain, Peter Wilby on Anthony Eden). It also puts the recent American Presidents Series, edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., to shame: While a handful of those presidential lives are distinguished (Josiah Bunting III on Ulysses S. Grant), others are symptoms of Schlesinger’s misjudgment and wearisome bias (John Dean on Warren G. Harding). As with parliamentary debate and serial television dramas, this is just one of those things that the British do better than we can.
Which brings us to Marking the Hours: English People & their Prayers 1240-1570 by Eamon Duffy (Yale, 208 pp., $35). Duffy, a Cambridge historian of religion, considers the Book of Hours as a mirror to medieval devotion, the literature of faith, Christian art, and the lives of those readers who annotated these illuminated manuscripts with reflections, amendments, and homely details. Scholars have generally regarded such marginal comments as a form of bibliographic vandalism, but Duffy considers them “valuable clues to the beliefs and devotional habits of medieval people–not least to the innermost thoughts of women, who formed a large proportion of the medieval market for such books.” This is an eloquent and compelling work, splendidly illustrated, and drawing from the remnants a complex picture of an alien society.
Now, three unique volumes for disparate needs and tastes. If your reaction to the sight of those gray, bushy-tailed rodents swarming across the garden is to grab your shotgun–figuratively speaking, of course–then Squirrels: The Animal Answer Guide by Richard W. Thorington Jr. and Katie Ferrell (Johns Hopkins, 208 pp., $24.95) is essential reading. As it happens, the variety of squirrels is not only abundant–there are some 278 species on all continents except Australia and Antarctica–but astonishingly diverse. They come in different sizes, colors, and shapes, and with differing skills (some can fly), but a uniformly satisfying temperament. Kindly disposed towards humans, they are not averse to eating from the proffered hand, sharing indoors warmth, and matching wits about the bird-feeder. And while some people may persist in regarding squirrels as pests, the authors make the case that we ought to accept them on their own terms as consummate entertainers, skilled engineers, and friendly, family-oriented neighbors.
Books about celebrity residences tend to involve lush, full-color photographs of professionally decorated rooms devoid of personality. Whether or not the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) qualifies as a celebrity, his austere, three-room, cozy-Teutonic writing cabin near the village of Todtnauberg in the high Black Forest of southern Germany provides a matchless glimpse of the domestic life of a famous mind of the 20th century. Heidegger’s Hut by Adam Sharr (MIT, 112 pp., $24.95) requires no familiarity with Heidegger’s complicated, abstruse thought; but its plain black-and-white pictures and illuminating text allow the reader to decide about the relationship, if any, between die Hütte and Heidegger’s controversial life and philosophy.
Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery (Rowman & Littlefield, 276 pp., $24.95) contributes new evidence to the debate–and in readable form. Their thesis is that the Earth is, indeed, warming, but doing so as the consequence of “a moderate, irregular 1,500-year-sun-driven cycle that governs most of the Earth’s almost-constant climate fluctuations.”
Global warming seems to be, among other things, a natural phenomenon, not fully understood. And while this does not mean there’s no point in cutting down on greenhouse gases and cleaning up the atmosphere, it does suggest that the genuine challenge lies in dealing with the consequences of gradual warming–protecting low-lying regions of the world, for example–and not battling technology or predicting cinematic disasters for political purposes.
–Philip Terzian
