The Faber Book of Reportage

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Most of the accounts I read were fascinating, such as a woman's harrowing account of having a mastectomy in the early 1800s (without anesthesia! That said, there is precious little from African, Latin American, or Asian history (unless there is a colonial, pseudo-colonial or ex-colonial war going on.

The Faber Book of Reportage by John Carey | Goodreads The Faber Book of Reportage by John Carey | Goodreads

Into its design went millions of man-hours of what is without doubt the most concentrated intellectual effort in history. Most disappointing is the 20th century section, which is overwhelmingly given over to wars: WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged.A true five-star masterpiece that collects hundreds of eyewitness accounts of important historical events from the age of antiquity to the overthrow of Marcos.

Faber Book of Reportage by Carey John: Books - AbeBooks Faber Book of Reportage by Carey John: Books - AbeBooks

And although I intended to just dip in and out of this book, it became hard to put down when the pieces that immediately followed included an eyewitness account of the eruption of Vesuvius, a dinner with Attila the Hun, a Viking funeral (the poor girl sacrificed to accompany her dead master! More Hamburger icon An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by interacting with this icon. The eye-witness accounts in this book have been chosen from hundreds of memoirs, letters and travel books, as well as newspapers. The next moment my knees crumpled up and I was falling, my head hitting the ground with a violent bang which, to my relief, did not hurt. Lots of fascinating material, although obviously it's patchy, and there are an awful lot of battle reports.It's quite a hefty book and well, not literally everything interested me (descriptions of battles, no matter who's doing the describing, tend to bore me to tears, so i skipped those), but it was still an otherwise quite engrossing volume. Entering a large paved courtyard, around which ran galleries filled with slaves of all ages, sexes, and colours, I heard the snap of a whip, every stroke of which sounded like the sharp crack of a pistol. Wasn't originally interested in reading all of the 300+ accounts, some of events that held little of my interest, but as they were all very short, it was easy enough to wade through, and a worthwhile wade it was. Often extremely harrowing, the eyewitness accounts have an urgency which history books usually lack.

The Faber Book of Reportage: Professor John Carey The Faber Book of Reportage: Professor John Carey

I knew immediately that I was hit, but because of the seeming bang and flash I thought it was a rifle nearby that had gone…. On the downside I would have liked more reportage from the 20th Century - there's surprising little! Recommended to those looking for an overview of history, both the large events and day to day occurrences. Edited by Oxford professor and renowned literary critic John Carey, and initially released in 1987, my only complaint would be that these accounts are overwhelmingly written by white men – too often recounting battle scenes that failed to engage me – but I understand that this reflects the interests of the book's editor and the ethos of its time; I wouldn't want this book itself to be changed but I would be interested in reading other books of this type with more varied points-of-view. Anyone for "'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!JO BRAND (on BBC 2's Between the Covers) What was it like to be caught in the firestorm that destroyed Pompeii? I turned my head, and beheld a sight which absolutely chilled me to the marrow of my bones, and gave me, for the first time in my life, the sensation of my hair stiffening at the roots. Lastly, and possibly as a consequence of the emphasis on WW2, almost half the statements in the book are taken from the 20th century.

The Faber Book of Reportage - Google Books The Faber Book of Reportage - Google Books

On Monday [in April, 1324] at the hour of vespers John, son of William de Burgh, a boy five years old, was in the house of Richard le Latthere and had taken a parcel of wool and placed it in his cap. There are numerous executions (from the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots, the massacre of Tsar Nicholas II's family, to the Nazis sentenced to hanging after the Nuremberg Trials), scientific reports (Charles Darwin in the Galapagos, Captain Scott's South Pole Expedition, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon), and frequent slice of life essays (derbys and hunts, the Louis-Schmeling fight in 1938, a man loses a foot trying to hop a train to Winnipeg in 1899). Our donations to The Rainbow Centre have helped provide an education and a safe haven to hundreds of children who live in appalling conditions. The format of the book, entirely first-hand accounts with sometimes a bit of contextual information, is something I haven't read before, and it was very refreshing. There are many famines recounted (spoiler: famines always lead to cannibalism) and many accounts of cruel and inhumane behaviour (from the rapacious Spanish conquering the New World, to American slavery, bull-baiting, and factory conditions in Britain).I was intrigued by Walt Whitman's description of the assassination of President Lincoln in 1865 and was thoroughly entertained by Mark Twain's breaking of a quarantine to visit the Acropolis in Athens in 1867. Reading too much of it in one sitting would have been a bit overwhelming and - certainly in the latter 20th century chapters - also somewhat depressing. Overall good, a bit unbalanced in the timeline, about a third of the book was 1914-1950, almost nothing from 1950-1980, I would expect less from ancient and ramping up to printing, as was the case, but it felt like the editor was very focused on early to mid 20th C. And although each piece was no more than a few pages, sometimes a little less than one, it was like reading a compendium of world history. All in all, i'd recommend it to any history buffs who enjoy the occasional 'light' history book, one that you can put down and come back to again and again and learn something new and fascinating from.