Jeremy Baker
provenb0f341
Started reading: The Wolf Age by Tore Skeie 📚
Finished reading: The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber 📚
The History of Ukraine-Rus’ (Mykhailo Hrushevsky) #ukraine #history #ukrainehistory #ukraineisnotrussia 🇺🇦
Finished reading: The End of Antiquity by J. K. Knight 📚
Finished reading: Seven and a Half by Christos Tsiolkas 📚
Deciphering Linear B
Really enjoying reading three related books at once:
- The Decipherment of Linear B by John Chadwick 📚
- The Man Who Deciphered Linear B by Andrew Robinson 📚
- Riddle of the Labyrinth by Margalit Fox 📚
The first was published in 1958, by an academic who worked with Michael Ventris, the eccentric architect who deciphered the ancient Greek (as it turned out) script found at Knossos, Pylos and Mycenae. The second was published in 2002 by Andrew Robinson who has written numerous books about the history of language; and focuses on Michael Ventris. The last was published in 2014, and covers three individuals who played key roles in the discovery and decipherment - Arthur Evans, Alice Kober who systematised the analysis of the script, and Ventris who completed the work after her death.
It is fascinating to read all three together. All have a slightly different story and perspective. Only the most recent tells the wider story of both discovery and decipherment. It fully acknowledges that decipherment was the work of many hands, including those of Alice Kober, who if she had not died so young, may have succeeded before Ventris.
Finished reading: Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham 📚
A great start to an new series by one of the authors of "The Expanse" series.
Books on Early Medieval England
Two new books on Early Medieval England. Quite apart from anything else, both are exquisite objects.
"The First Kingdom" - Britain in the Age of Arthur (Max Adams 2021)
Focuses on the two centuries after the end of the Western Roman Empire around 400AD. Explores the archeological, geographical and limited textual evidence for continuity and change in this period, and the emergence of new forms of political and social organisation in the post-Roman era. [LibraryCatalog]
"The Anglo-Saxons" - A History of the Beginnings of England (Marc Morris 2021)
Covers a longer period from the end of Roman Britain to the Norman Conquest of 1066AD. Draws on much recent scholarship, archeology and analysis, but also seeks to provide a coherent narrative for the era. The role of the church and religion, and state formation, are given prominence, as well as key individuals both ecclesiastical and royal. [LibraryCatalog]
American Gods - Vols 1 - 3
Two new books...
Two new books arrived today. 📚
Both advance the notion that key philosophical ideas 'remade the world' - but advance completely opposite views of what that driver was. Tom Holland argues that Christianity is the defining underpinning of the modern world, while Stephen Greenblatt argues that it was the rediscovery of pre-Christian thinking in the renaissance that defined modernity.
Dominion - How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (Tom Holland, 2019)
The Swerve - How the World Became Modern (Stephen Greenblatt)
NZ Photography Collected
Excellently curated selection of Aotearoa New Zealand photography from some of the earliest nineteenth-century images to contemporary art photography.
5 stars to Inventing the World: Venice and the Transformation of Western Civilization by Meredith F. Small 📚
I’ve now been using LibraryThing for 15 years….
River Kings: A New History of Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads 📚
An exciting new book arrived today, detailing some fascinating new bioarchaeological findings from the Viking ‘Great Army’ mass burial at Repton, UK. A carnelian bead identified connections between western and eastern Viking expansion, travel and trade.
“Azadi” - Freedom, Fascism, Fiction - Arundhati Roy
An incredible set of essays on our times, focussed on India, but relevant everywhere.
4 random beautiful books from the Library. #beautifulbooks #buylocal #buylocalnz @vicbks @unitybookswgtn @goodbookshopnz #saynotoamazon
"The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in the Late Iron Age Scandinavia"
Neil Price (Oxbow Books 2013), 2nd Edition, 432 pages, hardback.
I have waited for this book for years - and now its here! What a tome. . .
mbnov
“Landscape and Memory" by Simon Schama made a huge impression on me when it first came out in 1995. It still resonates today. A masterwork of history and sociology. #mbnov
LibraryThing Catalog Entry
Bad Diaries, Verb Wellington, LitCrawl - truly wonderful#litcrawl #verbwellington #wellington #wellingtonnz #aotearoa #literature #poetry
This book pretty much is everything about me at the moment … #books #sheep #history #life #work #farming
