John P. McKay

Okay, it has been four-and-a-half years and it is time to accept that not only am I not gonna finish this breakfast book (which was a thing I used to do where I'd get a big book that was awkward to hold and read like a textbook or reference work and save it for the breakfast table, and read a page or two each day) but that when you have a small child, a breakfast book is just not remotely a possibility (not that I'm mad about that! I would much rather eat butter toats with Emmett on the kitchen floor and talk about what we're gonna do today and get butter smeared on me! Truly!). This book was fine in its allotted time and I learned some things about it while it was here.… (altro)

Well, it's a textbook: nothing deep here, and it's written by a consortium of area experts each trying to get their little viewpoint in (Catholic historians are especially bad about this, sorry.) But just reviewing the facts is such a good exercise, and you come out with things you didn't know--just e.g., I had no idea that medieval Russia was so free--peasants able to move as they pleased, healthier and happier and more prosperous than in the West--until they were crushed up by the Mongols and king-aristocrat collusion and reduced to classic serfs. You always wonder how that frontiery Russia was born and persisted, and this gives you a bit of a clue--and then it makes you think too about the peasant as a Communist rhetorical figure, and how this lost eden changes the angles there. That's something I got out of it. Your little piece of filled-in context could be something else entirely.


Also, this book is the right size and weight to lie open on the table while you eat, and it has been my breakfast book since like September. Looking forward to going through the three companion volumes!… (altro)