Longhorn Reviews

By: Barber, E. J. W.

The best parts of this book are the chapters on the development of string.
Barber’s hypothesis is the ability to make string is an important precursor to the
development of civilization. Her point is that once people can make string, then
they can tie things together. This means you can make rope and rope can be used to
tether an animal or child, it can be used to make fishing lines, fishnets, bags and
just as importantly you can use string to carry items on your back. Once you can
carry loads then you can begin to move goods. And once you can do these things you
are on track to make coiled pottery and weave. What interested me the most was the
description of how easy it is to make string. The easiest way is to use already
existing vines, the second step according to Ms Barber is to take plant fibers and
roll them on your leg to make an every expanding string. Rope is merely a number of
strings put together. The evidence cited in this book is pottery and wall paintings,
since most fabric doesn’t survive. Barber examined thousands of early pots and
paintings looking for evidence of early cloth making.

Reviewer: Susan Ardis

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By: Kempe, Margery

Who would have thought that the first known biography in English would be written
by a woman, brewery owner, Christian mystic, and mother of 14 named Margery Kempe.
Margery was illiterate so she dictated her biography to a scribe between 1436 and
1438. Her biography begins with her conversion experience which was heralded by a
vision of Christ in her bedroom one night. The story then follows Margery through
pilgrimages across Europe and the Holy Land. She also tells about her heresy trial
in England and her burgeoning mystical life. After the trial the judge gave her a
piece of paper saying that she was not a heretic. Margery used this piece of paper
many many times when people complained to their local religious leaders about her
loud crying, laughing and preaching. His opinion, like most of her contemporaries
seemed to be that she was she was religiously insane. He was also surprised that she
followed Catholic dogma exactly. She never deviated from the church’s teaching even
when she was ranting and raving.

The book is amazingly lively. You get insight into
the personality of a woman who thought Jesus told her to wear white, live apart from
her husband and give voice to her religious opinions loudly and continually. Her
neighbors, her child and her husband complained regularly about her religious
activities. The book gives dramatic accounts of every day experiences, in Margery’s
home town, in many English regions, and as far away as Brandenburg, Rome and
Jerusalem. Just reading about how she traveled in Europe and how she got to
Jerusalem is illuminating.

Reviewer: Susan Ardis

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By: Thubron, Colin

Thubron has penned a number of entertaining and insightful books over a long
career, and he may be one of the last in the British tradition of "gentleman
travelers." His is an elegant style. He writes with crystalline clarity and his
narratives, and travels, inevitable veer from the beaten track, bringing us vivid
tales from faraway places inhabited by strangers who soon become our familiars. In
this book, he details his journey through modern Asia along the ancient Silk Road
from China to the Mediterranean through Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iran
and Turkey, revisiting some of the same people and places he detailed in two earlier
books, only twenty years on. His descriptions of history, cultures and people are
vivid and unforgettable.

Reviewer: Tim Strawn

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By: Horwitz, Tony

When it comes to history and the "discovery" of America, Tony Horwitz is a dummy
and he is betting that his readers are as well. During a visit to Plymouth Rock,
Horwitz discovers, much to his priate school educated chagrin, that he knew next to
nothing about the people who traveled the continent (before and after Columbus),
much less the folks who inhabited "America" before European contact commenced.
Horwitz writes a well-paced and humorous travelogue of self-tutoring as he sweats it
out in a lodge with MicMacs in Newfoundland, follows Coronado's trail all the way to
Kansas (who knew?) and tours present-day Roanoke which was briefly settled, not by
fantasized Pilgrim forebears, but by a, "... motley crew of slave traders, tourists,
castaways and Tudor knights...." Horwitz neatly balances historical narrative with
his own present-day travel stories for an engaging and entertaining history
lesson.

Reviewer: Tim Strawn

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