While reading The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste, I was reminded of the David Foster Wallace novel Infinite Jest. On the surface, this may seem like a far-fetched and even absurd comparison — The Shadow King is a fictional account of the role of female soldiers in the 1930s Italian invasion of ...
Read ReviewThe Fusil Gras (Wujigra) in Ethiopia
In The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste, Hirut has a particular attachment to a rifle that her father gave her, a Wujigra, which she goes out of her way to retrieve after Kidane takes it away from her while stockpiling weapons for his army. 'Wujigra' is the Ethiopian term for the Fusil Gras, a ...
Read ArticleA young governess finds herself pregnant and in prison for theft and attempted murder. An Irish thief and herbalist finds her medical skills in high demand on a convict ship bound for Australia. A young Aboriginal girl is placed in the home of a British family where she is meant to become "civilized...
Read ReviewMathinna and the British Treatment of Aboriginal Australians
In The Exiles, Christina Baker Kline tells the stories of three women caught up in the British colonization of Australia and the nearby islands (which today form the Commonwealth of Australia). One of these stories is that of a young Aboriginal girl named Mathinna. Although Kline has embellished on ...
Read ArticleReligious scholar Robert P. Jones doesn't pull any punches in his latest book, White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity: "White Christian churches have not just been complacent; they have not only been complicit; rather, as the dominant cultural power in America, they ...
Read ReviewReparations for Black Americans
In White Too Long, Robert P. Jones makes clear that his view of racial justice includes a 'tangible economic accounting' of the ways in which churches have benefited from slavery and white supremacy, as well as restitution to the Black community. In doing so, Jones joins a large chorus of ...
Read ArticleIn 2020, the word "racist" remains taboo. Conceptually, racism is so culturally unacceptable, so ugly and indefensible, that even the alt-right take pains to acquit themselves of accusations of it. However, despite the fact that almost nobody will admit to being racist nowadays, inequality and ...
Read ReviewIn Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson describes how, in a caste system, challenges to the superiority of the dominant caste can produce 'an epic existential crisis.' This is particularly true for the people situated at the bottom rung of the dominant caste group (in the ...
Read ArticleAuthor Richard Grant frequently uses his wanderlust to explore diverse stories that create a complex sense of place. Certainly Natchez, Mississippi proves worthy of close examination given its grim legacy of slavery on its once expansive cotton plantations. In The Deepest South of All, Grant reveals...
Read ReviewRichard Grant's The Deepest South of All examines the aftermath of slavery in the Deep South through the lens of Natchez, Mississippi. One clear inference that can be made from his Natchezian narratives is that the past must be confronted before it can lay dormant in its grave. Unfortunately, ...
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Seduced by her employer's son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious...
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Master storyteller Ben Macintyre tells the true story behind the Cold War's most intrepid female spy.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
