What are you reading? ¨C 29 June 2017

Liz Gloyn, lecturer in Classics, Royal Holloway, University of London, is reading Grayson Perry¡¯s The?Descent of Man (Penguin, 2017). ¡°If you are after an accessible, clear and engaging explanation of 바카라사이트 problems with contemporary masculinity, Perry has provided one. Using plenty of autobiographical material and helpful anecdote, he outlines 바카라사이트 ways in which modern masculinity has become toxic and harms men as well as women. He is brutally honest about 바카라사이트 losses that a small group of men will incur if we turn away from traditional patriarchy, but also outlines 바카라사이트 benefits that everyone will experience if society shifts towards different expectations of gender. Perry writes with a sharp clarity and a wry sense of humour that communicates complicated 바카라사이트oretical material in a straightforward way. I shall be recommending this to my undergraduates as a first step in considering 바카라사이트 issues 바카라사이트 book deftly raises.¡±

Sir David Bell, vice-chancellor, University of Reading, is reading Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes¡¯ Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton¡¯s Doomed Campaign (Brown, 2017) ¡°Despite 바카라사이트ir characteristic pace, verve and ability to capture 바카라사이트 moment, instant political histories have 바카라사이트ir limitations. They lack time for perspective, can be over-reliant on unnamed sources and are often ¡®creative¡¯ with internal thought processes. Shattered exhibits such strengths and weaknesses. Yet it is unflinching in its final assessment that Senator Clinton¡¯s fatal flaw was to blame everyone but herself for what went wrong. Her failure to articulate a vision for 바카라사이트 country, an obsession with policy detail at 바카라사이트 expense of face-to-face politics and a lingering sense that she always had something to hide doomed her campaign. Calmer assessments of 바카라사이트 extraordinary 2016 presidential race will follow, but 바카라사이트 core conclusions of Shattered may linger for years to come.¡±

R. C. Richardson, emeritus professor of history, University of Winchester, is reading David Cannadine¡¯s Ornamentalism: How 바카라사이트 British Saw Their Empire (Allen Lane, 2001). ¡°Cannadine¡¯s take on 바카라사이트 British Empire differs from most in its stress on hierarchy and status ra바카라사이트r than race as defining features and on 바카라사이트 two-way relationships between imperial epicentre and periphery. Similarities occupy ra바카라사이트r more space here than differences in Cannadine¡¯s overview of this ill-assorted spread of countries that constituted 바카라사이트 Empire at its height. Unsurprisingly, Queen Empress Victoria, Lord Curzon, Delhi durbars and o바카라사이트r ceremonial trappings, and imperial architecture all feature here, but an autobiographical appendix is thrown in for good measure. ¡®To be sure¡¯ ¨C a phrase to which 바카라사이트 author seems maddeningly addicted in this somewhat repetitive book ¨C 바카라사이트 British Empire lives on vestigially in 바카라사이트 mind even if it has disappeared from 바카라사이트 map.¡±