And we have a winner! (Two, actually)
Thanks to all of you who took the time to throw your names in to the medium size mixing bowl to win a copy of Chris West's A History of America in 36 Postage Stamps or his earlier foray into history through philately.
As always when I do a give-away, I learn something from your comments. Several of you shared childhood stamp collecting memories. Friend and regular reader Karen Holden mentioned the difficultly the US Postal Service had in creating stamp glue that could be licked by vegetarians and other groups who avoid specific foods. She suggested this might be the origin of stamps that don't have to be licked.* I love the way the Marginites think.
Yeah, yeah, you say. But who won? Patience, my dears. A little conversation is required. A drumroll. A little fanfare. Are you ready? The winners are: Nancy Friesen and Nancy Saunders. Congratulations!
*For me this idea raised echoes of the British troubles in India in 1857, when troops mutinied over the rumors that gun cartridges (which were opened by biting them) had been greased with a combination of pork and beef fat--making them anathema to Muslim and Hindu troops alike. But I digress.
Medieval People
In Medieval People: Vivid Lives in a Distant Landscape, historian Michael Prestwich [author of Knight: The Medieval Warrior's (Unofficial) Manual] challenges generalities about the Middle Ages* by looking at the specific: biographies of 69 people who lived between 800 and 1500, a period that stretches from Charlemagne's empire to the early Renaissance.
Prestwich's choice of title invites inevitable comparison with Eileen Power's classic Medieval People (1924). Like Power, Prestwich is interested in giving history what Power called the "personal treatment": making the past accessible for the general reader by putting a face on it. Many of his essays deal with the usual suspects (kings, popes, emperors). But Prestwich moves beyond the expected. He recognizes the importance Muslim scholars and the Central Asian conquerors Ghengis Khan and Tamerlane** played in shaping medieval Europe. He includes biographies of illustrious women, noting that their contributions were more remarkable than those of their male counterparts because of the difficulties they faced in making their voices heard. To the extent that quality sources are available, he includes individuals from the middle classes or lower: merchants, mathematicians, artists, a leper and a French peasant leader, Guillaume Cale. (There are inherent limitations on writing about individuals on the fringes of power. As Prestwich points out, it is impossible to consider the career of a specific hermit unless his contemporaries wrote about him at some length.)
Written with authority and occasional humor, illustrated with both contemporary artwork and modern photographs of key historical sites, Prestwich's Medieval People brings the Middle Ages to life in all its complexity and diversity. Eileen Power would have approved.
*As I've mentioned before, the terms Middle Ages and medieval are culturally charged. Prestwich is explicit about the pitfalls and uses both terms with awareness.
**Or more accurately Chinggis Khan and Timur.
Much of this review appeared previously in Shelf Awareness for Readers
Stopping to Give Thanks
It's almost Thanksgiving and things are hopping at Margin Central. The first out-of-town guests have arrived. I have turkeys thawing in the refrigerator* and lists of my lists on the kitchen bulletin board.
It's going to be a busy few days, so I'm taking this week off from blogging. But I wanted to take a moment to thank all you who read History in the Margins, send me e-mails, make comments, ask hard questions, point out my mistakes, and generally keep me on my toes. Without you, I'd just be talking to myself.
*Yes, more than one turkey. And a ham. We're going to be a big group this year.