Nuri is 12 when his mother dies, 14 when his father is kidnapped by political opponents and probably murdered; he spends the next few years shuffling...moreNuri is 12 when his mother dies, 14 when his father is kidnapped by political opponents and probably murdered; he spends the next few years shuffling between his English boarding school and the apartment of his beautiful young step-mother, Mona, on whom he is uncomfortably fixated. I liked the prose of Anatomy of a Disappearance—there were one or two of the more lyrical lines which didn't quite work for me, but otherwise Matar's style manages to be spare while also being descriptive and suggestive. That's quite a skill! However, I was disappointed by the overall story. I could have dealt with the lack of resolution of many of the main plotlines if there had been some sense of emotional growth or change on Nuri's part. Nuri is largely passive throughout, his character somewhat opaque even from a first person POV, and I was uncomfortable with many aspects of the construction of the female characters. There's enough promise in Matar's writing to make me willing to read more of his work, but I doubt that I will be returning to this particular book. (less)
Survival and Success on Medieval Borders is a comparative study of six Cistercian houses which existed in northern frontier regions of medieval Europe...moreSurvival and Success on Medieval Borders is a comparative study of six Cistercian houses which existed in northern frontier regions of medieval Europe: three in Scotland and three in what is now Poland. Jamroziak looks at how establishing a monastic house could be a means of establishing political control on the part of secular patrons, and at how the Cistercians themselves were successful in these areas because of their immense adaptability. This is I think an interesting example of how historians can pay attention to space/location/landscape in order to understand more about how medieval religious orders worked; I particularly liked the analysis of the response of monasteries to incidents of violence. Jamroziak also provides a useful discussion of how later, nationalist historiographies were written around these houses, particularly focusing on competing German/Slavic historiographies, which I found fascinating. (less)
The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin is another example of a book which is not quite about what its title implies. Gessen docum...moreThe Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin is another example of a book which is not quite about what its title implies. Gessen documents many of the ways in which Russia under Putin is breathtakingly corrupt—how a man who's been a government official all his life has amassed a fortune of US$40bn is interesting to contemplate—and is (mostly) convincing in her argument that Putin presides over a state-authorised regime of murder, blackmail and oppression. Yet we actually find out very little about how he came to be the person holding supreme power in Russia—perhaps not surprisingly, given that Gessen has no access to Putin and I'm sure that few people in Putin's inner circles would be willing or able to speak to her. This means that several aspects of Putin's rise were just as opaque to me on finishing the book as they were when I began it, and the kinds of armchair psychoanalysis which Gessen employs are not always very interesting. Still, this is undeniably a very brave book, and provides an interesting perspective from someone who is both an insider (Russian) and an outsider (journalist, political activist, spent much of childhood in the U.S., Jewish, lesbian) in contemporary Russian society.
(I listened to this in audiobook form, and the narrator was really irritating. Particularly towards the beginning, she spoke in an affected, overly emphatic, quavering voice, and used a pretty awful faux-Russian accent to voice all the direct quotes. I mean, I couldn't distinguish a Muscovite accent from a St Petersburg one if you paid me, but I do know the appropriate pronunciation of Vladimir, Ingushetia, Angela Merkel (!) and so on.)(less)
Menocal's objective is clear from the subtitle of her book: she sets out to demonstrate to a popular audience the culture of convivencia, religious an...moreMenocal's objective is clear from the subtitle of her book: she sets out to demonstrate to a popular audience the culture of convivencia, religious and ethnic co-existence, which predominated in medieval Iberia. There's certainly much to back up her argument, with the presence of Arabic-speaking and writing Christians and Jews; Jewish officials reaching high ranks in Christian governments; the preservation, transmission and transformation of classical knowledge by Muslim translators and scholars; a tremendous artistic, architectural and literary history. It's certainly true that al-Andalus reached a level of cultural sophistication and syncretism which great swathes of northern Europe couldn't even have imagined at the time—the great library at Cordoba contained hundreds of thousands of manuscripts at a time when the greatest libraries of northern Europe would have boasted barely a couple of hundred.
Yet because this book consists mostly of a series of case studies or vignettes rather than a sustained narrative, Menocal often ignores evidence which would support a different interpretation of medieval Iberian societies. Convivencia is a pretty controversial topic amongst medieval scholars, but you wouldn't really know that just from reading this book. I do admire Menocal's goal in pushing back against the popular conception of "medieval" as a synonym for "barbaric" and "primitive", and of Islam as a wholly non-European phenomenon, I just thought a more balanced approach would have strengthened her overall argument. (As, to be honest, could the deletion of at least half the adjectives she uses here. This is a book of great erudition and passion, but not one of great prose.)(less)
Engrossing and horrifying in equal measure, King Leopold's Ghost tells the story of the atrocities committed by Europeans in the Congo in the nineteen...moreEngrossing and horrifying in equal measure, King Leopold's Ghost tells the story of the atrocities committed by Europeans in the Congo in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing on the period when this vast area of central Africa was the personal fiefdom of Leopold II of Belgium. In secondary school, I learned about the sympathy and outrage created in Europe at the beginning of WWI, when 'poor little Belgium' was invaded by Germany—yet Belgium's government had for many years presided over a regime in the Congo which was propped up through an institutionalised use of murder, torture, rape and mutilation on a vast scale, and all motivated by greed and racism. The incidents which Hochschild recounts were sometimes almost unbearable to hear about, particularly when they involved children, even at the remove of several decades and confined to text.
Hochschild does a good job of reconstructing what happened as best he can—though, as he acknowledges, it is largely a story which must be told through the eyes of (mostly white) Westerners because almost no accounts survive from any Congolese witnesses, and understandably traumatised survivors didn't pass their experiences down through oral history. In addition, Leopold ordered the whole scale destruction of almost all the colonial administration's records so it was hard to get a sense of just how the system worked in the Congo, and how much Leopold specifically and unambiguously knew about what was going on. There's no equivalent here to the Wannsee papers—though I do wonder if there might be untapped sources in the Vatican archives, given how complicit several members of the Catholic clergy were in what happened.
This is a must-read—if not for the sake of the text in and of itself, for the sake of knowing about a history which the world outside the Congo has largely forgotten. (less)
This is one of the foundational books in the field of medieval studies, and as such worth reading despite its venerable age. (It was first published i...moreThis is one of the foundational books in the field of medieval studies, and as such worth reading despite its venerable age. (It was first published in 1927.) Haskins was one of the pioneers in reassessing the Middle Ages, demonstrating that the twelfth century is a key period in the history of Europe, a time of intellectual revitalisation and profound socio-economic change. Haskins writes quite fluidly and accessibly (though of course at several points he sees no need to translate the Latin quotations which he provides), and it's interesting to see here the beginnings of several avenues of inquiry which later medievalists would follow. That said, this book is almost ninety years old, and its scholarship is quite dated and has been surpassed in many ways: not least because Haskins twelfth-century Europe is inhabited almost entirely, it seems, by men. Worth reading for those who are studying the field.(less)
A geniza(h) is a kind of storeroom found in a Jewish synagogue or cemetery, used to store old Hebrew religious texts, as it was forbidden to throw awa...moreA geniza(h) is a kind of storeroom found in a Jewish synagogue or cemetery, used to store old Hebrew religious texts, as it was forbidden to throw away or destroy any document which contained the name of God. Over time, genizot also came to contain many writings of a secular nature in languages like Yiddish or Ladino, because even personal letters and legal contracts could begin with a divine invocation. The Cairo Geniza is one of the largest medieval genizot, with documents and document fragments numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
The title of this book is a little misleading—Sacred Trash is really more a collection of linked biographies about key scholars, such as Solomon Schechter and S.D. Goitein, who've worked on the Cairo Geniza since its "discovery" in the late 19th century. To that extent, it may be a little dense for someone who doesn't have much background in the area; certainly, while I've read some about this Geniza before, and about the Jewish community of Fustat, there were parts that went over my head. Hoffman and Cole do seem to assume a Jewish readership, or at least a readership which has done more focused reading in the area than I have. Still, I think if you do have an interest in the area, or even just in the role of serendipity, chance, and hard work in scholarly endeavours, Sacred Trash makes for a very interesting read.(less)
This slim book is a very interesting look at how a community of Western Apache people—centered around the village of Cibecue, Arizona—conceive of thei...moreThis slim book is a very interesting look at how a community of Western Apache people—centered around the village of Cibecue, Arizona—conceive of their relationship with their past, the process of passing on their culture, and how they view the physical world around them. "Wisdom Sits in Places" is more than a catchy title; it is how the Apache themselves think of 'wisdom'. It's something which is gained from a long meditation on the symbolic dimensions of the physical landscape, and on the stories which are linked to particular locations through place names. Indeed, the Apache people see the land around them—their continual contact with it, how they have shaped it and named it, and how they continue to remember those moments of naming—as being a far better means of understanding themselves as a people than an abstract process of placing discrete events into a linear chronological narrative (in other words, the Euro-American historical tradition). Really fascinating reading. (less)
The Inventor and the Tycoon is readable, but I think that's more in spite of Edward Ball's writing than because of it. The subject matter is great: Ea...moreThe Inventor and the Tycoon is readable, but I think that's more in spite of Edward Ball's writing than because of it. The subject matter is great: Eadweard Muybridge, an Anglo-American who was as notorious for the murder he committed as for his pioneering photographs and Leland Stanford, the railroad tycoon and founder of Stanford University. Both men played key roles in the history of 19th century California, and both were utter bastards to boot. Great fodder for a book, right?
Sadly, The Inventor and the Tycoon could profitably be used in the college classroom as an example of how not to write history. Ball's narrative jumps backwards and forwards in time for no good reason; I think he was attempting to add drama, but all of his attempts fall flat. The same information is often given three or four times, the thematic links which Ball could have emphasised are often ignored, and Ball has a terrible penchant for speculating about what someone "might have thought" and for reading people's character through portrait photography. Yes, someone might well seem distant and reserved in a mid-19th century formal portrait, when the subject had to hold themselves still for a minute or more in order not to spoil the shot—that doesn't give us some deep insight into their personality! Someone needed to go through this manuscript with a red pen, excise a hundred pages and rearrange the rest in order for this to work. (less)
Just My Type is a rather freewheeling look at the development of typography from the invention of Gutenberg's printing press through to the present da...moreJust My Type is a rather freewheeling look at the development of typography from the invention of Gutenberg's printing press through to the present day. It's more a collection of anecdotes than it is a history, strictly speaking, and while that does prevent things from becoming too dry, it also prevents the book from cohering into anything more than a lightweight distraction. Entertaining, but not the kind of thing one will ever revisit, or likely remember much from. (With the exception of what I learned about the guy who invented Gill Sans. There's a font I'll never use again.)(less)
The second volume picks up with the movement of Vladek and Anja to Auschwitz, paralleling their time there with Vladek and Art's troubled father-son r...moreThe second volume picks up with the movement of Vladek and Anja to Auschwitz, paralleling their time there with Vladek and Art's troubled father-son relationship. The ending is perhaps a little abrupt, and I think in this volume I felt even more the absence of any real discussion of Spiegelman's mother. I know this is in large part because her diaries were destroyed, but surely there is more fallout from her suicide that's never truly dealt with? I also wondered why it was that we got photographs of Vladek and Richieu (the older Spiegelman son who was killed as a toddler during the War), but never one of Anja. (less)
This is a very clever way of presenting not just the horrors of the Holocaust, but the ongoing consequences for the survivors and for the survivors' c...moreThis is a very clever way of presenting not just the horrors of the Holocaust, but the ongoing consequences for the survivors and for the survivors' children. In this graphic novel, Spiegelman recounts the story of his parents' experiences as Polish Jews during the Second World War, using the conceit of representing each character as an animal. Jews are mice, Poles are pigs, Germans are cats, Americans are dogs. For me, at least, the artwork had the curious effect of making what happened seem not more remote, but more immediate. Our awareness that the concentration camps existed is something which occasionally is blunted by distance, by time, by the fact that there are fewer and fewer people still around who survived those places. The reader doesn't have that luxury with Maus. Every time the art shows one of the mice being shot, beaten, hanged, gassed, you think, but these were really people. They were really people. (less)
Marie de France is one of the earliest known female authors, though we know little about her beyond her name, that she wrote in French and was evident...moreMarie de France is one of the earliest known female authors, though we know little about her beyond her name, that she wrote in French and was evidently of French origin, and that she spent part of her life in England. To that extent, I found myself interested by these stories, and from a historical perspective there's a lot here. But my problem with the stories—and the reason why I'm a socio-economic historian and not a scholar of literature—is that they reflect such different sensibilities from mine that I find it extremely difficult to relate to the characters or to understand their actions. Marie does a better job than most medieval authors at making her characters something more than mere ciphers whose primary task is to communicate a moral lesson, but there was still more than one occasion where I found myself completely unable to believe that someone would (re)act in the way they did here. There's a lot of telling, not showing, and I find that difficult to relate to. (I read the edition translated by Robert Hanning and Joan Ferrante, which is a model of clarity; good explanatory notes.)(less)
Despite the title of this book, Innes is really focusing on the late eighth and early ninth centuries, looking at how power and authority worked at th...moreDespite the title of this book, Innes is really focusing on the late eighth and early ninth centuries, looking at how power and authority worked at that period in the Middle Rhine Valley. Innes chose that area because of the unusually high survival of charters (from Lorsch and Fulda), and indeed this is why I read the book: it's outside of my usual geographical and temporal foci, but I was interested to see the techniques which Innes uses to analyse his source evidence. Particularly how he recreates power relationships, which he sees as being based on fluid social relationships and not state institutions. In other words, the traditional historiographical concept of "feudalisation" happening in the late Carolingian period when power is "privatised" in the hands of the aristocracy is not viable, because there was no "state", let alone "state institutions", from which power could be transferred. It's a very interesting and cogent argument, and Innes' writing is always clear, if perhaps a little dry. A very useful book for those interested in the period. (less)
This is an interesting look at the impact of Martin Luther King's assassination on American politics and racial discourses. April 4, 1968 was publishe...moreThis is an interesting look at the impact of Martin Luther King's assassination on American politics and racial discourses. April 4, 1968 was published just before Barack Obama won the Democratic presidential nomination, and so now feels very incomplete as an analysis of MLK's legacy. Still, Dyson's consideration of how various leaders have taken on the mantle of charismatic black leader in the years after MLK's assassination is mostly an incisive one, and while more commentary than empirical, well worth the read. The one thing which I was really iffy about was the rather hokey epilogue, in which Dyson conducts an imaginary interview with MLK on his 80th birthday. Not only does it read like poor MLK fanfiction, but it makes of the man just the kind of paragon which Dyson was trying to deconstruct throughout the rest of the book. (less)
If you didn't know that it was all true, the life story of Joanna I, Queen of Naples, would read like something from a terrible daytime soap: heir to...moreIf you didn't know that it was all true, the life story of Joanna I, Queen of Naples, would read like something from a terrible daytime soap: heir to the throne of Naples, she inherits the throne from her grandfather at the age of 17. She marries first her younger cousin, Andrew, who lacked both intelligence and charm; Andrew was murdered by some of her partisans, and accusations that Joanna had been involved led to Andrew's family taking away Joanna's toddler son by Andrew, who died shortly afterwards. Joanna then married another cousin, who was a total bastard, and had two more daughters by him (who both died young); then a Spanish king-without-a-kingdom who turned out to be insane; and finally to an older German duke who was attractive because of his military savvy. Are you boggling yet? This is all before I tell you that this took place against a backdrop of plague, Papal schism, economic collapse, the writings of Boccaccio, and general political intrigue.
Goldstone does a pretty good job at piecing together Joanna's life from the surviving sources--the medieval sources for the kingdom were largely deliberately destroyed by the Nazis in '43. Where the book is weak is in some of its treatment of the chronicle sources, and in how consistently it tries to place Joanna in her wider context, or in using some of what we do know about Joanna to plausibly extrapolate more about her role. Goldstone has also a tendency to go off on tangents which I suspect she felt necessary in order to pad out the word count—did we really need a blow-by-blow account of the battle of Crécy when our focus in on Sicily? All that said, I think it wouldn't be a bad text to use in an undergraduate history course, especially as Goldstone's conscious aim is to show how a woman could successfully govern a medieval kingdom, despite the ways in which Joanna was largely dismissed by later historians. There's a lot here which undergrads could usefully tackle in terms of both the pros and the cons of historical writing.
(As an aside, I can't believe the number of reviews on this site about The Lady Queen which dismiss it for 'not being a very good novel'. Are there really so many people out there who don't grasp the difference between a novel and a biography? Between fiction and non-fiction? 'Novel' is not a straight synonym for 'book'.)(less)
Butterfly's Sisters is an exploration of how Japanese women--and in particular geishas--have been represented in the West. Kawaguchi argues that the i...moreButterfly's Sisters is an exploration of how Japanese women--and in particular geishas--have been represented in the West. Kawaguchi argues that the image of the geisha as the ultimate in female subservience, passive, trained to please men, and at once beautiful and alien--has affected how Westerners see Asian women in general. The bulk of the book is taken up with a discussion of influential nineteenth century Western works, from paintings and sculpture to photography, movies and books and operas such as Madam Butterfly and Madame Chrysanthème; less time is devoted to how World War Two and the American Occupation affected Western ideas of Japanese women, and more recent incidents of appropriation (Madonna, Memoirs of a Geisha) are confined to the epilogue. I did wish that Kawaguchi had explored some of those later periods a little more, but there's more than enough food for thought in the rest of the book. While it's not a light read, Butterfly's Sisters is well-written and engaging even for someone like me with very little background in the subject. Recommended for those interested in Japanese culture, or in understanding more about cultural appropriation.(less)
This is a nicely written memoir of the author's childhood in the Puerto Rico of the 1950s—Santiago can write vividly and lucidly. Unfortunately, the s...moreThis is a nicely written memoir of the author's childhood in the Puerto Rico of the 1950s—Santiago can write vividly and lucidly. Unfortunately, the subject matter seemed to hamper the book a little—no one's life has a narrative arc the way that a novel does, so things are of necessity somewhat episodic, and as she is a young child for most of the book, her experiences are mostly passive ones, caused by the actions of other people. I was also a little irked by the narrative device of scattering some Spanish words and phrases throughout the text—with the exception of those which are genuinely untranslatable, I don't see the need for it. That device always seems a cheap way of creating an aura of exoticism. Still, enjoyable—perhaps best suited for a YA audience and/or one with a connection to Puerto Rico. (less)
This is a pretty entertaining, if somewhat shallow, slice of pop history which derives much of its verve from its vivid subject matter: the Everleigh...moreThis is a pretty entertaining, if somewhat shallow, slice of pop history which derives much of its verve from its vivid subject matter: the Everleigh Club, an exclusive, world-famous brothel founded in fin de siècle Chicago, populated by Balzac-quoting prostitutes and run by sisters Minna and Ada. Sin and the Second City covers the club's foundation, its rise to notoriety, its ongoing battle with reformers and religious campaigners, and its eventual closure, and it rattles along at a breezy pace.
As a narrative, it's very readable, a sort of nonfiction equivalent of an airport thriller, though as history it's much less satisfying. There are things which Abbott claims are unknown which she could surely have made an attempt at verifying (though I'm sure that doing so would remove a little of the story's glamour and mystique), things which she states as fact which are surely invented (how on earth does she know what people were thinking or feeling at particular moments?), things which are not explored as thoroughly as they could be (race, gender; the fates of some of the prostitutes who passed through the Everleigh Club, because I'm sure some of them at least could be traced).
Abbott's desire to romanticise the sisters—so much classier than those other madams! and of course she never even tries to question their assertions that they never engaged in the practice of buying women or coercing them into prostitution, though by her own account they barter with another madam over a prostitute at least once—is super problematic on a couple of levels, particularly a class one. Have sex with someone for 50 cents: Awful! Be referred to in the text as a whore! Have sex with someone for $500: Well, nothing inherently wrong with that! Be referred to in the text as a courtesan! Blergh.
Great subject matter, but could probably be treated much more thoughtfully by another writer. (less)
In Sister Citizen, Melissa Harris-Perry sets out to examine what it means to be a black woman who is also an American citizen, melding a more empirica...moreIn Sister Citizen, Melissa Harris-Perry sets out to examine what it means to be a black woman who is also an American citizen, melding a more empirical political science approach with discussion of literature and popular culture. She argues that the prevailing stereotypes about African-American women—the promiscuous baby mama, the asexual Mammy who's there to teach white folks, and the Angry Black Woman—trap them on both sides. African-American women have to deal with the structural and cultural inequalities that arise from an unquestioning acceptance of such stereotypes on one hand, and on the other the immense strain and burden that comes from striving to be almost superhuman in working within/against such societal forces. Harris-Perry sees shame as fundamental to black women's experience of "misrecognition", of being misunderstood or seen as unworthy on both racial and gender grounds. There are some new ideas here, some with which I was already familiar, but while my reading in this area is pretty limited, I think that the frame within which Harris-Perry is presenting her work is somewhat new. I'm not quite sure that she pays enough attention to class, and to the diversity which exists within the African-American community, but Sister Citizen is still well worth the read.(less)
Imagine, if you will, that Lady Catherine de Bourgh from Pride and Prejudice is reincarnated towards the middle of the nineteenth century as a woman c...moreImagine, if you will, that Lady Catherine de Bourgh from Pride and Prejudice is reincarnated towards the middle of the nineteenth century as a woman called Amelia Peabody. She develops an interest in archaeology, and marries an Egyptologist who is supposed, I think, to be stirringly alpha male but who is in fact emotionally and physically abusive. She delights in establishing how intelligent and feisty she is by denigrating other women, and spawns an obnoxiously precocious offspring who has a cutesy nickname, an even cutesier speech impediment and the ability to comprehend archaeological reports and offer opinions about them by the age of three. All this would have been irritating enough, but Peters caps it all off with godawful Orientalising tropes and an Irish character so overwhelmingly stereotypical (a redheaded freckled Irishman called O'Donnell who frequently says "top o' the morning" and "begorrah" and is compared to a leprechaun) that I'm surprised I didn't develop a facial tic while reading. Dreadful.(less)
**spoiler alert** There were things that I didn't find satisfying about The FitzOsbornes at war. While it is possible to have a character suddenly rea...more**spoiler alert** There were things that I didn't find satisfying about The FitzOsbornes at war. While it is possible to have a character suddenly realise that what she feels for someone isn't just friendly affection, but romantic love (c.f. Jane Austen, Emma), I didn't think it was well done here. It wasn't that the character build-up wasn't there between Sophie and Rupert, I just thought Cooper's writing was lacking something in that scene—a little too confusing, a little too tell-not-show. Likewise, while I appreciated that the book was primarily about—and really good at showing—what it was like to be a young woman during the war, I did miss the interactions between the various members of the family and I missed Montmaray. I really was expecting that the island would play some bigger role in the war—surely its location would have made it a strategic prize worth retaking for the Allies, and that and its size a more easily attainable target, comparative to the Channel Islands?
Those quibbles aside, I really enjoyed this conclusion to the trilogy. Cooper is quite an honest writer—by which I mean, even though this is YA lit, she's not really afraid to pull her punches. I can't say that I particularly mourned Henry's death—I always found her a little tiresome, to be honest, because her character was just a tad too precious—but if there's one character who normally wouldn't be killed off, it's the precocious youngest sibling, and it definitely upped the book's emotional stakes. I'm also incredibly impressed that Cooper essentially ended a young adult novel with one female character having a career that successfuly combines writing, motherhood and building sustainable and responsible housing; another happily living with someone outside of marriage and never having children; and a third living in a harmonious polyamorous relationship with her husband the king and his gay lover? Two thumbs up. (Also, where's the fanfic?)(less)
Another compulsively readable installment, which I think benefits from its narrator being that little bit more mature and capable of more thoroughly a...moreAnother compulsively readable installment, which I think benefits from its narrator being that little bit more mature and capable of more thoroughly appreciating some of the things going on around her. Parts of the book do drag somewhat if you already know what's going on at this time in European history, and I know that I got pulled out of things a little by the cameos made by some of the Kennedy clan—it's hard not to have the fact Kick Kennedy will be dead in a few years at the back of your mind, or what happened to poor Rosemary. At times, I also couldn't help but feel that the social/political machinations and manoeuvrings which Cooper invents don't quite ring true, especially when they're butting up against things which really did happen. Still, it's a charming read, and I only wish that I had a teenage sister or cousin to press these books on. I know I would have eaten them up at the right age.(less)
One of the few monographs on the Premonstratensians, Petit's book (first published in French in 1927; translated into English in 2011) covers the hist...moreOne of the few monographs on the Premonstratensians, Petit's book (first published in French in 1927; translated into English in 2011) covers the history of the Order's early years, with particular emphasis on its spirituality and theological writings. Well, I say 'the Order' but what I really mean is 'the male members of the Order'. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the time at which he was writing, Petit treats 'male Premonstratensian' and 'Premonstratensian' as synonyms, and the Order's female members get scant look in. (Except for their almost totemic use by men: see particularly the almost pathological way in which some of the writing describes the Virgin Mary). As Petit was also a member of the Order and thus a devout Catholic, this is also not an attempt at an objective history—he treats most of the medieval texts as factual and literal. Still, a useful summary which points in some interesting directions for further research. (less)
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