A journal by Peter Hargreaves
Culture is viewed as escapism from nature. Yi Fu Tuan, the doyen of humanist geography, summarises human geography as focused on migration and a desire to change our surrounds. Escapism is the construction of culture away from nature and in denial of our animal selves, which we seek to avoid, in the way we eat, … Continue reading Review: Escapism by Yi Fu Tuan (1998) Assessment 9 out of 10
The National Trust for Jersey has organised a Petition “to Save Our Coastline”. I circulated a WhatsApp post encouraging all Members of the Jersey Canoe Canoe Club to sign. Included in the positive responses I received was one from Andy Sibcy , a skilful paddler and editor of the “Jersey Evening Post”. He asked me … Continue reading Save our CoastLine Petition
From the bestselling author of The Shadow of the Wind: The Cemetery of Forgotten Books 4 A wonderful novel beautifully written in translation from the Spanish original. I rarely read, still less review, works of fiction. However I loved this wonderful novel, post-modern, Gothic and retelling modern Spanish history, all at the same time. “ … Continue reading Review: The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (2019) Assessment 9 out of 10
Published in 2005, 60 years after the end of the Occupation, with assistance from Jersey Heritage Trust and Société Jersiaise, it is based on extensive documentary research. It is both scholarly and admirably balanced. • Showing that the situations in the four separate British Channel Islands, Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark, were different. In Jersey … Continue reading Review: The British Channel Islands Under German Occupation 1940-45 by Paul Sanders (2005) Assessment 8 out of 10
Sir Ian Kershaw notes that continuing to fight on to the bitter end in a war is rare. Casualties spiralled, German military losses in the last 10 months of the war were equal to those in the four years to July 1944, 350,000 German soldiers dying in each month of the final cataclysm. Allied bombing … Continue reading Review: The End: Germany, 1944-45 by Ian Kershaw (2011) Assessment 9 out of 10
Addresses the questions of whether High Culture, art, music and literature, changed under an authoritarian regime and how Culture was adapted as means of control and influence. Book burnings and cultural exhibitions, “The Degenerate Art” exhibition which toured Germany and “The Eternal Jew” exhibition and film, showed what to dislike. There was a failed search … Continue reading Review: Culture in Nazi Germany by Michael H. Kater (2019) Assessment 7 out of 10
Of Books, Bikes & Islands 