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By Ms. G, December 19, 2021 2:36 pm

I did not read nearly enough books this year. Blame it on the pandemic, I conveniently and shamefully say.

I started and got 300 pages into Barack Obama’s A Promised Land, really liking the personal and family bits. But I found myself politically tired as I read the sections on passing bills in Congress. By the time Afghanistan rolled around I could not stomach it anymore. I really admire Obama’s non-cynical nature and his careful examinations of his decisions. However, reading about damned if you do and damned if you don’t discussions on Afghanistan just tested my patience too much and I abandoned the book, hoping to return one day.

This one I got through pretty quickly. As usual I picked it up at my local Book City on one of the remains table. Liking social histories, I thought it would offer a good perspective on those who don’t always make it to the historical headlines, domestic servants. Yes, I’m a fan of Downtown Abbey and I used this book as a measuring stick to gage Julian Fellows’ historical accuracy! That aside, the book was fast moving, filled (nay – jammed) with incredible quotes. The only problem was I probably ended up learning more about the wealthy employers than the servants themselves. That is partially owing to the nature of the sources.

I have no problem plainly saying that every Canadian should read this book. Though I considered myself relatively educated about the Indian Act prior to reading this short but devastating book, I realize that was just dispersed knowledge. Here Bob Joseph puts it all together, with historical context, quotes and commentary, in a way that is incredibly readable and relevant. There is just no way to understand Canada’s history without a full picture of the intents and damages of the Indian Act.

I’m not ashamed to admit I read Romeo and Juliet for the first time in modern English “translation.” Though I am of course familiar with the story through movies and the ballet (to which I took my mom some years ago), I had not actually read the play (it was Twelfth Night for grade 9s at St. Andrew’s Junior High School back in the 1980s). I started out reading the original play but I found it very difficult to navigate those little footnoted comments on the bottom of the page. My aging brain just could not handle going back and forth – it just broke the momentum of the narrative. So I picked up a few copies of the No Fear version, intending to read it with one of my credit recovery students. That didn’t happen. Nevertheless, I found it a fast-moving, relatable story. It provoked some uncomfortable thoughts about young love and its not so reliable passions.

I have now nearly finished this new book from Margaret MacMillan. Even when I am tired on my morning subway and bus rides, if I am sitting, I pull it out. It’s quite an addictive, easy read. Most of the examples are western, many pulled from the World War One era. Obviously I feel most comfortable with this book when it’s on familiar terrain (both the author’s and mine). She challenges me as a history teacher who likes to ignore war as too messy a subject, reminding me that so much comes of war. True. True. As much as I have enjoyed it, I would like to see the author stop using “the great” as a descriptor for all kinds of historical figures. It drives me mad!!!

The few other books I read this year have already been reviewed on this blog: David Chariandy’s I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You, Melissa Gould’s Widowish, and Dava Sobel’s The Glass Universe.

I resolve to read more this year, starting with Malcolm Gladwell’s Talking to Strangers which I just received as a gift from the kind and generous Barry Pietersen.

Special magazine mentions:

When I’m on the streetcar heading down to riding at the Horse Palace, I often bring a copy of The Walrus or Scientific American. Here are some standout articles from this year.

“Journey into the Americas” by Jennifer Raff, Scientific American, May 2021 – about when and where the early people of North America came from (I am fascinated by this topic as a world history teacher)

“Deadly Kingdom” by Maryn McKenna, Scientific American, June 2021 – about the rise of fungal diseases (surprises lurking)

“Why Animals Play” by Caitlin O’Connell, Scientific American, August 2021 – who wouldn’t want to read an article accompanied by cute animal photos

“Lifting the Venus Curse” by Robin George Andrews, Scientific American, September 2021 – the case for new missions to study one of Earth’s closest neighbours

“Women at Risk” by Melinda Wenner Moyer, Scientific American, September 2021 – part of a special report on autoimmune diseases, this article really shows the double burden of the female body – incredibly interesting potential reasons why suffer disproportionately from autoimmune diseases such as lupus.

“Northern Inroads” by Gloria Dickie, The Walrus, Jan./Feb. 2021 – surprising ways China is making its way into Canada’s north

“How Immigration Really Works” by Kelly Toughill, The Walrus, May 2021 – we always think of federal jurisdiction when it comes to immigration but these days so much more is locally driven

“Justice on Trial” by Eva Holland, The Walrus, June 2021 – Canada’s legal system through the eyes of Indigenous Canadians

“Students for Sale” by Nicholas Hune-Brown, The Walrus, Sept./Oct. 20`21 – an indictment of the international student racket run by Canadian colleges and universities.

“The Campus Mental Heath Crisis” by Simon Lewsen, The Walrus, November 2021 – important reading for a high school teacher – the need to know what happens to mental health after high school is pressing

“The RCMP Revisited” by Jane Gerster, The Walrus, November 2021 – fascinating history of the national police force and its origins in the policing of reserves

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By Ms. G, July 13, 2021 1:48 pm

I’ve been reading, too.

I came to know David Chariandy’s work through his young adult novel, Brother. I recently re-read it with a reluctant reader in my credit recovery class. We both loved its sympathetic and blunt portrayals of characters and of the sting of racism within Toronto!

This little book is addressed to the Vancouver writer’s young daughter, who, like him, is of mixed heritage. He expands on his background, his parents from Trinidad, and experiences in Canada, visiting Trinidad, and around the world. Much like in Brother, he shares stories of culture and belonging. He writes of the challenges his daughter will face growing up in Canada, a country full of opportunity but also full of racism, classism and anti-feminism.

In one message to her, he implores:

“You did not create the inequalities and injustices of this world, daughter. You are neither solely nor uniquely responsible to fix them. If there is anything to learn from the story of our ancestry, it is that you should respect and protect yourself; that you should demand not only justice but joy; that you should see, truly see, the vulnerability and the creativity and the enduring beauty of others. Today, many years after indenture and especially slavery, there are many who continue to live painfully in wakes of historical violence. And there are current terrible circumstances whereby others, in the desperate hope for a better life, either migrate or are pushed across the hardened borders of nations and find themselves stranded in unwelcoming lands. We live in a time, dearest daughter, when the callous and ignorant in wealthy nations have made it their business to loudly proclaim who are the deserving “us” (those really “us”) and who are the alien and undeserving “them.” But the story of our origins offers us a different insight, The people we imagine most apart from “us” are, oftentimes, our own forgotten kin.”

Though published in 2018, the book is made even more relevant by the pandemic and its pushing open of Canada’s need to address its multifaceted problems. I highly recommend it for its brevity, lyrical writing and powerful message.

Next, I’m well into Barack Obama’s Promised Land.

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By Ms. G, March 21, 2021 3:00 pm

The author of this book, Melissa Gould, is my cousin. She was married to my cousin Joel, who died about eight years ago. Joel had MS and was struggling, but then he got West Nile Virus and could not be helped. He was 50 years old. Their daughter was only 13 at the time.

Melissa, who was a screenwriter for tv shows, recently wrote this memoir of her experiences with Joel and without Joel.

Getting through it was both hard and easy. I cried a lot to the point I had to put cucumber on my eyes to depuff them and stop them from stinging. But I also couldn’t put the book down and finished in a few hours Normally I am a slow reader. I just had to know how Melissa was going to figure life out without her beloved husband.

And she has.

As I often do upon finishing a book, I wrote to Melissa via her website. She was kind enough to answer and was pleased that I related some of my best memories of Joel.

Life is very precious and we must live every day in a meaningful way. Even during a pandemic. There’s nothing more to say than that.

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By Ms. G, February 1, 2021 7:44 pm

One thing I miss is browsing in my local bookstore, where I picked up this gem from 2016. I had read two books by Dava Sobel previously: A More Perfect Heaven, a play about Copernicus and his astronomical discoveries, and my all-time favourite book, Galileo’s Daughter. Students who’ve taken my grade 12 history class know how much I love Galileo – a colourful figure if ever there were one.

Continuing the sky-gazing theme, here Sobel tells the story of the women who worked at the Harvard Observatory from the mid-1800s up to the 1950s. At a time when few women could find professional places in the world of science, hundreds of women worked at Harvard cataloguing the stars via photometry – glass plate photos of the stars. And they didn’t all work in obscurity; many of them were highly notable at the time. No, they were not equals. They did not earn the same as their male peers, nor did they have as many opportunities. Yet, surprisingly, the environment for these women was relatively tolerant for the time. It was not a place of conflict or pettiness, at least according to Sobel’s telling.

That’s something, even for our own times. And thus I found the book equally calming and engaging at the same time. Sobel doesn’t make loud arguments. She paints a steady and intriguing picture through the details of the women’s lives. And astronomical observation is a very detailed field! though I read Scientific American, I admit to often skipping the articles on black holes and the like. We also subscribe to Sky News, the Canadian periodical. Usually I don’t spend much time on it. Now I feel more equipped to understand it a bit better. Hat’s off to Sobel for making the science of stellar observations seem so interesting and understandable.

Whenever I finish a book that I really enjoy, I check the author’s webpage to see if they have a “contact” section. Often I get no response. Not so with Dava Sobel. She replied to me very quickly:

Dear Risa,
Thanks so much for your thoughtful note and kindest comments about my work.

The Glass Universe was published right after the 2016 presidential election. A cousin close to me in age and temperament said the book gave her a calm place to escape to, so your remark really resonates. The people in that chapter of science history were genuinely respectful of one another. It was a pleasure to be with them over the years of research.

I so appreciate your affection for Galileo’s Daughter, which may be my favorite of the stories I’ve told. Certainly it stretched me in several directions. And I agree something of the convent spirit hovered about the observatory. Now I’m discovering it again in the Curie lab.

I’m happy for your students, as I can imagine the example you set for them..
Warm and grateful regards,

d.

Such a treat.

Reading brings such unexpected pleasures. I so look forward to Dava Sobel’s next book.

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By Ms. G, January 16, 2021 1:31 pm

This is a beautiful, mostly uplifting book that offers a different perspective than what we’re used to seeing – bad news about Aboriginal peoples of Canada. That’s not to stay that reality isn’t full of positive stories; it’s just that the media hones in on the negative.

Published in 2019, about four years after the author had started posting archival photos of Aboriginal Canadians on his social media, the book goes far beyond photography. It’s part anthropology (probably what drew me to it), in that it offers little snippets of Aboriginal lives from eight parts of Canada (and the northwest US – borders were irrelevant up to a certain point in our joint colonial histories). It’s part history, such as the section on the James Bay Hydro Project that initially left the Cree population out of all decision-making.

The nicest part of this book is the glimpse it offers into people’s everyday lives. Kids playing, artists sketching, writers writing, mothers carrying babies… we can all use a reminder of our shared humanity.

Knopf Canada, 2019.

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By Ms. G, August 19, 2020 7:33 am

The Yellow House had been on my book list since I saw it noted on Barack Obama’s end of 2019 list. It did not disappoint. Sarah M. Broom has written a memoir integrated with a family history and an urban history of a part of New Orleans that the ordinary tourist would not be familiar with. The lens, of sorts, for her history is the small yellow house her family lived in in New Orleans East.

Broom’s family history centres on her mom’s house. Ivory Mae, who unfortunately had two husbands die on her, had 12 kids from her two marriages. They did not all grow up in the house but some of them have a strong connection to it and the neighbourhood that started out as a dream of a planned suburb yet ended up a forgotten, somewhat dilapidated wasteland crossed by a very dangerous highway.

After the house was seriously damaged in Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and then taken down by the city, Broom went on an odyssey to figure things out: who is she, what’s her identity? What’s her relationship to New Orleans? Most importantly, for me at least, how did New Orleans become so dysfunctional, often at the expense of its Black citizens?

Some things you learn about the narrowly integrated schools are very disappointing, such as that this obviously smart girl is never steered toward any top colleges. A fiercely independent person, Broom managed to get herself to college in Texas and eventually on to a Masters in journalism at Berkeley in California.

This book takes you from New Orleans East to New York, to Burundi back to New Orleans (to the French Quarter, the part of the city we all know about, where Broom lived for a year while researching for her book). I can’t say I understood how the Burundi chapter fit in, but I definitely liked when she came back (not necessarily home) to New Orleans.

I look forward to Sarah Broom’s next book, hoping she’ll veer more towards history as she is clearly a talented researcher and writer.

The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty is not a book I sought out. I had heard of the author before (having seen him do a guest appearance on a southern American cooking show, the Chef and the Farmer, on PBS). Finding it at Book City, I thought, why not? I like food. I know who Twitty is. I’m interested in African-American history.

What a perfect book for me! Twitty is a lyrical writer, if the food associated with slavery can be described in lyrical terms. He has a very big personality which he lets shine through in this memoir crossed with a history. The general premise is that he is searching for his family’s history through its relationship to food. He dives very deeply into genealogy, the flora and fauna of the south (its many parts – it is not a one-note region). While doing this he is giving a history of enslaved people in America.

This book jolted my memory back to life. When I was in university, I studied a lot about the American South, particularly about slavery. I had almost forgotten how important migration was in the internal history of slavery in America. Twitty reminded me that, in addition to the forced migration of the millions of enslaved people from Africa, there were also the migrations west and south as cotton supplanted tobacco and farmers sought out new land (in the process also displacing Native peoples). Twitty includes in his study some painful accounts of enslaved families being sold apart as these migrations took place. There was also the migration of millions of Black people escaping the horrors of the South post Reconstruction, and post both world wars. Twitty’s point is that the food always accompanied these journeys.

Another strong theme of Twitty’s is the intertwining of the history of Black and White people in the south. Genetically, yes. Culturally, yes. The roots of the southern diet are in West Africa, not surprisingly. The roots of Twitty’s family (or at least part of it) are there, too. When discussing the kitchen and Black cooks and other enslaved people, he cannot and does not avoid the subject of rape. The genes bear it out; Twitty is able to trace quite a number of his White slaveholder ancestors.

Of all the books I’ve read lately, the author I’d most like to meet would be Michael W. Twitty. In his writing, both personal and historical, he so obviously has a huge. giving heart. He truly feels that the food we eat proves that we’re all together in this messy struggle of life.

There are recipes, none of which this vegan will be making. But that really isn’t the point of this fascinating book.

Definitely the best known of the three books is Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. Quite a few people had recommended this book to me. I’m just sorry it took me so long to listen!

I cannot say just how much I enjoyed this book from the very first comedic anecdote to the poignant end. Though it’s a personal memoir (actually more of a family memoir), Noah weaves in his very sharp-tongued interpretation of South African history prior to almost each chapter.

Though I have studied apartheid rather well (or so I thought), there’s a lot I learned from this book. Trevor Noah, as a smart observer, offers insights into the way apartheid was designed to work to keep South Africa’s diverse population separate. His vantage point, as a mixed-race child in a country that outlawed such relationships, gave him the ability to cross boundaries and languages and ways of life as he grew up.

Much like Sarah Broom in The Yellow House,  Noah has written an ode to his mother, Patricia Noah, a very strong, independent character.  His ability to translate her fierce personality on to the page is a huge star in this book.

Despite containing a number of very sad and scary moments, the book is full of humour (not surprisingly), astute historical interpretations, and adept characterizations. I would love for my grade 12 world history students to read it. I have now passed on my copy to my sister-in-law and have reserved it for my husband next. I can’t wait to discuss some of the stories with them – for now I am holding my tongue.

None of the above books relate to Canadian history and the experience of Black Canadians. That is a shortcoming that I definitely must address.

However, for school I recently read a young adult novel called Brother by Canadian author David Chariandy. What a beautiful (but difficult) story written by a gifted writer.

Chariandy constantly flashes back to 1991 to the youths of the two main characters, brothers Michael and Francis. Their mom, Ruth,  is also portrayed as a very strong, independent character, even despite the understandable setbacks she suffers in the wake of Francis being shot.

The city itself is a character in this book: the family’s ventures into the haven of the Rouge River valley; Francis’ social hangout at Desirea’s barbershop; the local air-conditioned library branch where Michael’s relationship with his first girlfriend Aisha develops; the maze of apartments where the family lives, described as such:

“All around us in the Park were mothers who had journeyed far beyond that they knew, who took day courses and worked nights, who dreamed of raising children who might reward sacrifice and redeem a past. And there were victories, you must know. Fears were banished by the scents from simmering pots, denigration countered by a freshly laundered tablecloth. History beaten back by the provision of clothes and yearly school supplies. ‘Examples’ were raised.”

The story is difficult, lives are lost. I cried my way through this book, for sure. But how relevant it is to read an account of 1991’s the summer of the gun when real neighbourhoods that “The Park” is modeled on are living it everyday, sadly.

After a neighbourhood  shooting, Michael, the narrator comments: “You caught in the eyes of strangers the suspicion or outright fear. You sensed the halo of menace above your head, glimpsed the turbulence swirling behind as you walked. On TV and in the papers, politicians promised to crack down on criminals, which echoed agreements from suited community spokesmen. But criminals weren’t the only target. Every day, neighbourhood kids were stopped by the cops, the questions about their actions and whereabouts more probing. We were being watched by everyone, shopkeepers, neighbours, passersby.”

Every Toronto student should read this book. In fact, I bought it to read with some students, but that didn’t quite work out. Next year, if I have students in credit recovery who didn’t read a novel the first time around, this will be the book we will read together. I am looking forward to their reactions!

And I must read some of Chariandy’s other books.

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By Ms. G, March 16, 2020 8:27 am

I took it out of the YM library on the Friday before March Break began; I started it on the streetcar ride over to the Horse Palace Friday evening. I read it all day yesterday. I finished it this morning – it’s Monday.

I don’t normally read so quickly. Something propelled me through “Educated” by Tara Westover even though it’s actually really difficult to read. Not the words – they are beautiful and haunting. The pain of the book is hard; she experienced physical pain working in the family junkyard under her misguided father and being abused by her brother. She survived the emotional trauma of living in a Mormon family where fear of government overrode safety, health and well-being.

The book is about education in its multiple forms; she didn’t go to formal school as a child in Idaho but she was still educated even in not being formally educated. Her parents’ pious and rigid views influenced her, even infected her, I’d say. Tara Westover’s book is the journey to reclaim where she starts and they end. Formal education is part of her reclamation process as she has studied at BYU, Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard.

But it’s education in life that has really saved her; learning to unlearn, learning to accept, learning to see through a different lens.

We can all learn from that in these troubled, polarizing times.

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By Ms. G, December 31, 2019 9:14 am

You will notice that my list is almost entirely non-fiction. I do not apologize for this at all.

More and more students tell me they don’t read. That I find highly depressing and I want to inspire them to get their minds working! Offline.

Reading does truly take you to new worlds.

Don’t be prehistoric.  Read! https://www.goalexandria.com/dinosaur-posters/

Top 10 Books of 2000-2020

Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel, 1999 (so I count it as within the parameters as I read the paperback version). I have repeatedly said that this is my favourite book of all time. Given to me by a beloved student, this book is deeply personal yet also historical. It made Galileo, an arrogant yet brilliant guy, one of my favourite characters in history.

Becoming by Michelle Obama, 2018. I especially enjoyed the first part of the book about her childhood in Chicago. She’s candid and thoughtful and has a sense of social history without being ‘historical’. I honestly didn’t pay much attention to her when she was First Lady but I’m very impressed with her now.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, 2006. This book got me started on my journey toward veganism. Pollan, a journalist, investigates the American food system and alternatives to factory farming.

Salt by Mark Kurlansky, 2002. One of the first “commodity” books about the history of a thing. The author takes you on a trip shaped around everything related to salt, its making, different types that come from different parts of the world.

Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang, 2013. A book about a very powerful figure (yet highly limited because of being a woman) with good and bad sides. History is complicated – very rarely will we find someone to admire 100%.

Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome by Anthony Everitt, 2009. Ever since I had to compare Hadrian and Trajan in a 2003 course on Roman history, I have had an interest in Hadrian (I chose him as a better ruler than Trajan). He was a complicated fellow, shall we say, who had very good intentions. But he was not nearly as well liked as his predecessor, the wildly popular Trajan.

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard, 2015. A wonderful writer who loves her subject makes for an excellent read. She has humour, ability to make the reader forget the present, and sharp analytical honesty. No wonder I am now on my third Mary Beard book. I hope to review it soon on the blog. She’s also a tv presenter of the most casual nature – I love how she travels to historical and archaeological sites in her high tops.

The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed by Judith Flanders, 2003. Maybe this too can be seen as a commodity book? It takes every room in a Victorian house and looks at the historical context, weaving in technology and gender roles and expectations. It took me forever to read this dense book but it was worth it!

The First Signs: Unlocking the Mysteries of the World’s Oldest Symbols by Genevieve von Petzinger, 2017. An anthropologist’s attempt to make sense of the symbols on paleolithic cave walls. It’s very scientific yet also takes some liberties to try to help the reader feel what it might have been like to be part of a paleolithic community.

Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Sven Beckert, 2015. Probably the best researched book I have ever read. This book looks at every angle on cotton and its interwoven history with industrialization, slavery and imperialism.

Fiction (mostly books I read for English credit recovery, but I only listed them here if I enjoyed them)

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, 1996 – I admit that I was sparked to read it by the 2017 tv series. However, I really enjoyed the mix of fiction and fact (real-life letters from the time of the trial of Grace Marks for an 1843 murder north of Toronto).

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, 2008. Much better than the movie! Sure, it’s a young adult novel, but it has sharply drawn, complicated characters.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, 1937. I originally read this book in grade 10 English class and I can’t say that it had any impact on me then. Reading it now, I see so much more in it – small, meaningful details in the sparsely written descriptions and keen dialogue.

Overall, what does my list say about me?

I’m a vegan historian.

Happy reading in 2020.

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By Ms. G, July 20, 2019 7:51 pm

With more time to read, I’ve recently finished Ross King’s Mad Enchantment. It’s the story of Claude Monet and the painting of his water lilies. Obviously I’m a fan of Ross King having read five of his other art history books. I quite liked the style of this one but I can’t quite say the same for Monet. A person can love his art yet think he was a big whining old fart. At least in the later stage of his life, Monet was a disagreeable codger who got a lot of favours done for him during World War I. Otherwise, it’s an interesting portrait of Georges Clemenceau, a figure I knew little of.

I’m nearly done Jack Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, a really intriguing book. To say that Temujin had a hard life is a gigantic understatement. But to say that he was smart is too. The author is fairly heavily biased toward the great khan, but he backs it up with a lot of details about how he unified the Mongols. Unfortunately not all of his children and grandchildren were so intellectually inclined. I’m just at the part now where Kublai Khan takes over China. It’s quite a different story than what we read in the textbooks. Where the truth lies, I’m not sure. I’ll have to research that more. One thing that has struck me is the religious openness of the Mongols – aside from their own form of spiritualism, there were also Mongol Christians, Buddhists and Muslims. In this book the Mongols are painted as early globalizers. Fascinating and timely.

I’m well into The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. However, I can’t seem to keep with it. I absolutely love the writing and am enamoured of the main character, Aminata; it’s just too sad. It’s rare for me to read fiction so I’m kind of daring myself to finish it despite the horrible subject matter.

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By Ms. G, April 29, 2018 2:36 pm

I’ve fallen a bit behind in my book reviews so I’ll just quickly say a few words about a some books I’ve read lately.

The Trouble with Brunch: Work, Class and the Pursuit of Leisure by Shawn Micallef (2014).

Someone at Val’s office lent him this book and I pilfered it. It was a short and relatively fast read, kind of interesting.

Micallef details his Windsor sort of working class background and how it gives him a more realistic sense of class. He does discuss brunch a lot, probably too much. He dissects it as a reflection of our class consciousness. He also quotes Thorstein Veblen a lot. Veblen was a late 19th century – early 20th century thinker who wrote about the leisure class and conspicuous consumption.

Micallef also writes some things that he doesn’t quite finish up on about farmers markets. Though his experiences aren’t just Toronto-centered, I did like his local references, particularly to the Riverdale Farmers Market (which is quite different from the ones I frequent at East York Civic Centre and in Peterborough).

Micallef is a freelance columnist for the Toronto Star. He has a good sense of a city as a living, breathing entity. That I like a lot.

—

Ancient Worlds: A Global History of Antiquity by Michael Scott (2016).

This big book didn’t start off too well for me – the chapter on Roman-Indian interaction just went over my head. However, the subsequent chapters really captivated me. Scott’s main idea is that cross-cultural interaction defines history, yet each particular interaction has its own characteristics.

His case studies, so to speak, were Han China and its incorporation of Buddhism from India, Armenia and its incorporation of Christianity, and Constantine’s slow road to Christianity in the eastern half of the Roman Empire.

I have to say that I absolutely loved the parts on Armenia and Constantine. Who knew I had such interests? I have never read anything about Armenia’s ancient history. It turns out that Christianity was incorporated in such a way to bolster the ruling class. What a surprise! The parts on Constantine were eye opening too even though I know a fair bit about him and his time. What I did glean is a lot more about the way that the internal divisions within early Christianity were used by Constantine and his advisors to bring in tolerance of a highly persecuted religion.

As a person who teaches ancient history this book presents a real challenge to me. I absolutely want to incorporate its findings, and more importantly its global history ethos. However, time is limited and students don’t tend to do well in a global framework without a culture-specific framework first (at least in my experience they don’t). It’ll take me some time to figure out how to make use of this.

For those interested in this new stream of global histories, I highly recommend this book.

—

Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga (2017).

I wrote about this book in my OHASSTA blog post in March after having heard the author speak at our TDSB PD conference in February.

I was very touched by it, so much so that I kind of developed an anger toward Thunder Bay. I wanted to visit the north shore of Lake Superior – now I’m not so sure.

I truly feel all Canadians should read this book. We need to know that the legacy of residential schools lives on in such horrible ways. Yet the people portrayed in the book are so full of resilience and caring.

—

I have just started a new book. After reading about paleolithic cave paintings earlier in the school year I thought I’d follow up with something on archaeology.

Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives: Sex, Gender, and Archaeology by Rosemary Joyce (2008).

More to come when I finish it. I’m only a few pages in – interesting interpretations about Venus figurines already!