Author: Peter Hargreaves

Rather disappointing There is quite a lot on the evidence from particular sites, but I was hoping for a much bigger study of the landscape and how its development marked changing ritual, society and economy. The suggestion Stonehenge may have been an oracle is interesting but neither substantiated nor fully explored.

Thought provoking, if not the easiest read. Bradley suggests that pits, where grain was stored over the winter, were a metaphor for regeneration. The grain was buried and then planted in spring, coming back to life. Pits were cleaned and reused until they became the place of special deposits. These included animals and quern stones, … Continue reading Review: Ritual and Domestic Life in Prehistoric Europe by Richard Bradley (2005) Assessment 8 out of 10

An extremely readable account, revising the Stonehenge Timeline. The Stonehenge Riverside Project, which Parker-Pearson led from 2003 to 2009, stressed the unifying importance in the Landscape of the River Avon, proving the Avenue connected it to Stonehenge and a short, 150 metre long, but wide, causeway connected it to Durrington Walls. Durrington Walls is an … Continue reading Review: Stonehenge; Exploring the Greatest Stone Age Mystery by Mike Parker Pearson (2013) Assessment 7 out of 10

This is a great Book, but not easy reading. It should be read and re-read as a source book for further study. It runs to 686 pages, plus maps, family trees, a glossary, index, notes, chronology. and lists of emperors, and German and Italian kings, The product of a lifetime’s study, it covers the thousand … Continue reading Review: The Holy Roman Empire; a Thousand Years of Europe’s History by Peter H Wilson (2017) Assessment 8 out of 10

This is a short but thought provoking Book. It melds the author’s experiences as a war-journalist with conclusions from anthropological and psychological research. Why did so many Europeans in frontier and colonial America join native tribal groups, but virtually no-one made the move in the opposite direction? Why do many war survivors, from the London … Continue reading Review: Tribe; on Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger ( 2016) Assessment 7 out of 10

Recommended; reading it made it less likely I shall return to Japan  I read this book having cycled in Japan. Entranced by its beauty and the courtesy of its people, I wished to return. The book is lyrically written by a Japanese speaking, Oxford educated, American. Throughout it is tinged with regret, for the damage … Continue reading Review: Lost Japan by Alex Kerr ( 2015) Assessment 8 out of 10

A sweeping account of how the First World War ended not cleanly, but in chaos The Central Powers expected victory after their successes in 1917, defeating Russia and with the near collapse of Italy. This lead to the perception of “being stabbed in the back” when, in November 1918, the war on the Western Front … Continue reading Review: The Vanquished; Why the First World War Failed to End 1917-1923 by Robert Gerwarth ( 2017) Assessment 7 out of 10

Oral history, which helps explain Albania’s strangeness, but not in a good way. Albania is a strange mountainous country, little known and little visited by other Europeans. Six Albanians tell how they survived the Communist dictatorship which continued for 47 years, 40 under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha. All were affected, variously compromised or persecuted. … Continue reading Review: Life is War: Surviving Dictatorship in Communist Albania by Shannon Woodcock (2016) Assessment 5 out of 10

A beautifully written elegy for the last Hunter-gatherers. Brody suggests the greatest contrast and source of displacement in the human past was that by farmers of hunter-gatherers. The modern unequal capitalist world is the direct outcome of what farmers became, those who had left or been expelled from Eden Hunter-gatherers are those living on the … Continue reading Review:The Other Side of Eden; Hunter-gatherers, Farmers and the Shaping of the World (2002) Assessment 8 out of 10

The Book has fine qualities, but limitations. The fine qualities It is a pleasure to read, with numerous beautiful colour illustrations. Reading it, you hear the voice of the polymath, Neil MacGregor. He shows, through objects, places and rituals, how religious impulses built communities and how community built religion and states. “Who do we include … Continue reading Review: Living with the Gods; on Beliefs and Peoples by Neil MacGregor ( 2017) Assessment 6 out of 10