Books Read in December 2008 (6)

1, Captain Cook: The Life, Death and Legacy of History's Greatest Explorer by Vanessa Collingridge

Cook went from being a farm worker's son in Yorkshire to being a Royal Navy captain who three great voyages of exploration charted more of the planet than anyone in history. But this book is not only about Cook but also a 19th century relative of the author who was not welcomed by Australian contemporaries for arguing that the Portuguese had got to Australia well before Cook.

Cook had only four years of formal schooling but became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He took advantage of the latest technology, the chronometer, to achieve his meticulous charting. He was a fine leader of men and cartographer but the author believes ill health contributed to a decline in his leadership and to his death at the hands of the Hawaiians. I do not believe this biography is hagiography. He is here warts and all. Mrs Cook. left by her husband for most of their married life, suffered also the loss of her children. Unfortunately she destroyed the family letters which would have told us so mush more about one of history's greatest sailors.

One small criticism. The book would be much improved by more maps of the voyages.

2. The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857 by William Dalrymple

Having really enjoyed White Mughals I opened this book with anticipation which was not to be realised. In his previous book I saw Dalrymple did not like the Evangelicals who gained control of The East India Company. Here his dislike really shows. He simplisticly seems to put them as the cause of the mutiny and the encouragers of brutal reprisals. Other sources do not agree. In his Urdu book, Asbab-e Baghawat-e Hind (Causes of the Indian Mutiny),[25] Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan asserted
"I believe that there was but one primary cause of the rebellion, the others being merely incidental and arising out of it ... [T]he Natives of India, without perhaps a single exception, blame the Government for having deprived them of their position and dignity and for keeping them down ... Was not the Government aware that the Natives of the very highest rank trembled before its officers, and were in daily fear of suffering the greatest insults and indignities at their hands?" The resulting atrocities would make Cromwell in Ireland appear to be a model of military rectitude.

In his previous book there was one character whose story held the narrative together. The last emperor holds no such fascination. Despite the rave reviews my interest was not held.

3.Prisoner of War: My Secret Journal by B. Arct

The author was a Polish RAF pilot, shot down over Holland in late 1944. This is his secret journal reproduced facsimile, a fascinating account of what a POW endured at the hands of the Germans, who, contrary to the stereotype, were not very efficient. The prisoners starved for several months in early 1945 when their Red Cross food parcels were misdirected elsewhere. Apart from hunger, his worst experiences were from German civilians who had suffered the Allied bombs. With the Red Army approaching in late April 1945, the Germans left the prisoners in charge of the camp.

4. The Things He Carried by Stephen Cottrell - A Journey to the Cross: Meditations for Lent and Holy Week

I was asked to read this for a magazine review so it will be a couple of months before the review is published and copied here. Suffice to say at present that penal substitution is not to be found here.

5. MacBook for Dummies by Mark L. Chambers

Whether you are a novice or an experienced old Mac user you will find this book has much to each you. However, like its subject, it has parts you may never use and sometimes, what you want to know is not there. But if you want one reference work for the joy that is MacBook, this is it.

6. Shakespeare: The World as a Stage (Eminent Lives) by Bill Bryson

This is the only Bryson I have read which I thought lacking in his characteristic wit. He tells us that little is known about The Bard. He starts with his portraits but the book has no illustrations. He does give us rich historical context for the bard so we do learn a lot about his world and how slowly his historic reputation grew. He debunks the critics who want Baconian or other supposed authorship. One clear prejudice comes through. Bryson dislikes the Puritans. He describes them as a threat to Christian orthodoxy and attributes their fleeing to the American wilderness to their refusal to embrace tolerance rather than to their true motivation, reform of an intolerant Church of England which under the Stuarts wanted to enforce conformity in worship, a folly which gave us not only Pilgrims but civil war.