Gods, Mongrels and Demons : 101 Brief but Essential Lives

by Angus Calder

Gods, Mongrels and Demons Oddballs, tinks, heidbangers, saints, keelies, nutters, philosophers and freaks - these apparently marginal lives are not only interesting in their own right but often tell us more about the mores of a country or a time than the lives of its better known citizens. This work is an anthology of 101 alternative essential lives. Full description

Genres: History, Nonfiction

448 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2004

About the author

Angus Lindsay Ritchie Calder was a Scottish academic, writer, historian, educator and literary editor with a background in English literature, politics and cultural studies.

He was a man of the Left, and in his influential book on the home front in the Second World War, The People's War (1969), he complained that the postwar reforms of the Labour government, such as universal health care and nationalization of some industries, were an inadequate reward for wartime sacrifices, and a cynical betrayal of the people's hope for a more just postwar society.

Other books include Revolutionary Empire (1981), The Myth of the Blitz (1991) and Revolving Culture: Notes from the Scottish Republic (1994).

Reviews

[Rachel Glass]

There were some bizarre and unusual lives described here, some of which I'd heard of but most I hadn't. Of the more famous names, Calder focusses on the lesser-known facts about the person. He doesn't try to cover every detail, so the entries do not read as endless lists of dates and achievements. However there were a few entries where the name mentioned seemed to be an excuse for the author to bring up a historical event he had a particular interest in, and in some occasions the name given in the heading was only mentioned once or twice. Some of the time frames were also quite confusing, with Calderon preferring to order his entries by topical events in some peoples' lives, rather than chronology.

[Elfbiter]

I recommend readers check other sources about some of these people - assuming some of them actually existed...