This post originally appeared in Cleveland Review of Books Caroline Fraser’s Prairie Firesis a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the internationally famous Little House books. In it, Fraser tells a story of sweeping historical significance, at
In her recent book Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, Kate Manne offers a framework for understanding how misogyny operates in contemporary Western societies, and a vocabulary (‘himpathy’, ‘herasure’) for discussing some of its more insidious aspects. Drawing on recent
An edited version of this review appeared in issue 9.3 of ImageTexT: read it here To what extent can our favourite comic book superheroes be viewed as sovereigns in their own realms? And how does the role of superhero complicate or otherwise
Volume one of The History of England takes us from a geographical overview of prehistory through the tribal chieftain-monarchies of early England and the establishment of single ruling dynasties, up to the reign of the first Tudor monarch, Henry VII. The
The Daemon Knows is an exploration of what Bloom calls the “American sublime”: that class of literature that reaches beyond the human, in a way that is distinctly American. What is beyond the human falls, by Bloom’s estimation, into three
In this book, Robert Colls sets out to chart George Orwell’s changing attitudes towards “Englishness”, and the various positions he holds, and tries to hold, in relation to it. He achieves this through a mixture of biography, political history, and
The emerging field of comics studies has grown rapidly in recent years. This has seen the publication of a number of introductory and theoretically engaged books aiming to provide comics and graphic novels with their own theoretical language, separate from
Tim Harris’ book offers a detailed and multifaceted account of the reigns of the Stuart monarchs, James I (also James VI of Scotland), and his ill-fated son, Charles I. For anyone who isn’t familiar with this period of history, James
Tim Parks’ The Novel: A Survival Skill is part of Oxford University Press’ “The Literary Agenda” series, which has a rather wonderful aim: “to start reinvigorated work into the meaning and value of literary reading.” Parks’ monograph steps up to