As the end of the summer draws ever nearer here are a few books to read in those final days before school and college start up and the trees start painting the world in reds, browns, and yellows.
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
While most of the Western world knows of the famous European passages to Asia through the writings of the great trader and explorer, Marco Polo, the Silk Road he travelled had long linked East and West. More than one single path the Silk Road, or Silk Route, was a tapestry connecting China, India, the Middle East, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, and Europe. Many centuries before Marco Polo first set out goods, ideas, religions, and culture were flowing back and forth along this ancient thoroughfare.
This international interconnectedness is something that we too readily forget today. The human desire to explore the world and hunger for exotic and foreign goods has always been strong and globalisation, far from being exclusive to the modern world, linked the cities of Ancient Greece and Rome with their counterparts in India and China. Those who lived along this busy path flourished off the passage of merchants and pilgrims and descriptions of the peaceful and prosperous Middle East of the past are a stark contrast for the world today.
Peter Frankopan’s, ‘The Silk Roads: A New History of the World’, tells the story of these ancient highways, the amazing material it was named after, and the world that it helped to create. He not only manages to bring the varied worlds he describes to life, Frankopan also shows how the constant flow between East and West created the cultures and identities of the wider world. This book should fascinate anyone with an interest in the history of the ancient world and how it came to be formed.
The Global Dimensions of Irish Identity: Race, Nation, and the Popular Press, 1840-1880
There are few races whose identity is as tied into global travel as the Irish. As transported convicts, political or religious exiles, economic migrants, and soldiers for hire the Irish were scattered around the world. The Great Famine of 1845 to ‘52 began a new chapter of migration though as people left Ireland’s shores in ever greater numbers, most of them hesitant travelers.
As these reluctant migrants settled around the New World and Old a new global dimension entered into the idea of Irishness and the Irish identity. The growing Irish communities in places like America and Australia became, in many regards, more Irish than those who had been left behind. Their identity was something that could be lost and so they reinforced it by holding onto, and often creating, traditions and keeping up with news from home.
As his title indicates Cian T McMahon uses 20 American and two Australian newspapers aimed at Irish Catholic readers from 1840 to 1880 to explore ‘The Global Dimensions of Irish Identity’. Usually delivering stories distorted during their crossing these papers helped build up a sense of Irishness that returned home to Ireland in the form of a few returning expats. A great study of how Irishness was forged in foreign fields this book is a good read for anyone interested in modern Irish culture and nationalism.
Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties
When Bob Dylan took to the stage at the Rhode Island’s Newport Festival on July 25th, 1965 and plugged in a Fender Stratocaster the musical world changed. With these first electric notes he enraged the crowd and threw away his mantle as the crown prince of folk. In the years that followed this concert became seen as a turning point in the Sixties; for many it was a sorrowful betrayal of the folk ideals and for others it was a glorious step into the future where everything was electric.
Yet the picture at the time was far more nuanced than the story that is painted today. Sure Dylan was leaving the movement and heroes that had launched his career, but he had never asked to be enshrined as their leader. He was 24 years old and hungry for the world. The folk movement too wasn’t some outdated beast that stood lonely in a field; it would play a huge role in the rest of the ‘60s and continue to survive to this day.
In his account of this fateful night Elijah Wald looks beyond the myths that have arisen to tell the real story of the ‘Night That Split the Sixties’. He doesn’t find Pete Seeger hunting for an axe to kill the music. Nor too is the movement Dylan is leaving behind just fading leftist ideals. In ‘Dylan Goes Electric!’ Wald brings all of the complexities of the Sixties to life. This is a great read for anyone interested in Dylan, the Sixties, and the history of music.
