This book is so timely. In Australia, we’ve just had
a referendum on including an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the
Constitution. It failed because most Australians didn’t know enough about our
history to see that we need to listen attentively to First Nations people.
What David Marr has given us in Killing for Country is a grim, long,
cinematic account of frontier violence. Marr is well known in Australia as a
trenchant journalist, writer, and broadcaster. Recently, he learned that two
ancestors were among the Native Police forces who committed massacres.
He
presents this terrible family history with a sense of responsibility. It is
based on exhaustive research and is written in spare, compelling prose.
A gripping reckoning with the bloody history of Australia's frontier wars
David Marr was shocked to discover forebears who served with the brutal Native Police in the bloodiest years on the frontier. Killing for Country is the result - a soul-searching Australian history. This is a richly detailed saga of politics and power in the colonial world - of land seized, fortunes made and lost, and the violence let loose as squatters and their allies fought for possession of the country - a war still unresolved in today's Australia. "This book is more than a personal reckoning with Marr's forebears…
Anna Funder’s prize-winning novels have centered on
East Germany. So perhaps it’s not surprising that she has turned to the author
of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.
But this marvelous
biography is not about George Orwell; it’s about his wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy --
whom Orwell largely erased from his own writing. With just a few letters by
Eileen, Funder has conducted copious research, producing a brilliant book
mixing fact, fiction, history, and her own daily life.
It’s at once a meditation
on how women are subordinated and wives exploited and the story of a fascinating
woman. We learn about O’Shaughnessy’s overlooked influence on Orwell’s work and their milieu in England and Spain.
A word of warning: you may end up not
liking Orwell quite as much as you did before.
At the end of summer 2017, Anna Funder found herself at a moment of peak overload. Family obligations and household responsibilities were crushing her soul and taking her away from her writing deadlines. She needed help, and George Orwell came to her rescue.
"I've always loved Orwell," Funder writes, "his self-deprecating humour, his laser vision about how power works, and who it works on." So after rereading and savoring books Orwell had written, she devoured six major biographies tracing his life and work. But then she read about his forgotten wife, and it was a revelation.
When I want a gripping
read on the lighter side, Sujata Massey is my favorite writer. She has a very
impressive list of mysteries.
Her latest series is my top favorite, following
lawyer and detective Perveen Mistry through a series of murders in 1920s
Bombay. Because I’m a historian, I’m picky about historical fiction. Massey has
researched and read widely. Her work presents a reliable picture of the British
Raj in India with rising anti-colonial nationalism.
Perveen Mistry is a bold
feminist, the first woman lawyer in Bombay. In this latest novel, Perveen
tracks down the murderer after a woman student is killed when Prince Edward
visits Bombay.
It’s beautifully written, rich in cultural and social detail—not
least of gender and race relations--and a terrific story. It is highly recommended!
Bombay’s first female lawyer, Perveen Mistry, is compelled to bring justice to the family of a murdered female Parsi student just as Bombay’s streets erupt in riots to protest British colonial rule. Sujata Massey is back with this third installment to the Agatha and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning series set in 1920s Bombay.
November 1921. Edward VIII, Prince of Wales and future ruler of India, is arriving in Bombay to begin a fourmonth tour. The Indian subcontinent is chafing under British rule, and Bombay solicitor Perveen Mistry isn’t surprised when local unrest over the royal arrival spirals into riots. But…
In Settler Society, I set out to give a fresh,
holistic look at what was arguably Australia’s most foundational period, the
1820s to the 1860s. In these decades, settler colonialism overtook the penal
colonies.
Waves of free British settlers arrived, responsible self-government
was won, and pastoralism, mining, and commerce flourished. Weaving together
individual life stories and defining episodes, the book takes a clear-eyed look
at a frontier culture based on violence, gender and racial hierarchies, and
harsh labor systems.
Australian colonies became world leaders in democratic
practices, such as proportional representation and the secret ballot, while
some women demanded political rights well before the early suffrage movements. At
times, white settlers and Aborigines co-existed uneasily. But militarism and
violence often exceeded the rule of law.
