I Read, Therefore I Blog

The Blurb On The Back:

”Afropean. Here was a space where blackness was taking part in shaping European identity ... A continent of Cape Verdean favelas, Algerian flea markets, Surinamese shamanism, German reggae and Moorish castles. Yes, all this was part of Europe too.”

Afropean is an on-the-ground documentary of the places where Europeans of African descent live their lives. Setting off from his hometown of Sheffield, Johny Pitts makes his way through Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, Moscow, Rome, Marseille and Lisbon, through council estates, political spaces, train stations, tour groups, and underground arts scenes.

Here is an alternative map of the continent, revealing plural identities and liminal landscapes, from a Cape Verdean shantytown on the outskirts of Lisbon to RInkeby, the eighty per cent Muslim area of Stockholm, from West African students at university in Moscow to the notorious Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. A Europe populated by Egyptian nomads, Sudanese restaurateurs, Belgo-Congolese painters. Their voices speak to Afropean experiences that demand to be heard.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Johny Pitts is a writer, photographer and broadcaster who founded the online journal Afropean.com. In this insightful, compassionate and thought-provoking book that’s part anthropology, part memoir, part travelogue and part rumination on the black experience within Europe, he seeks to “honestly reveal the secret pleasures and prejudices of others as well as myself” and make sense of what it means to be a black citizen in Europe.

AFROPEAN: NOTES FROM BLACK EUROPE was released in the United Kingdom on 6th June 2019. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

50 common cultural mistakes made in business settings are presented in the form of short conversations which show that there's always a reason why people do the strange things they do, the reason is almost never to upset you, and there's always a way forward.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Craig Storti has over 25 years' experience in intercultural communications and in this book, which focuses on the Arab Middle East, Brazil, China, England, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico and Russia, he uses dialogue to highlight common mistakes Americans make when carrying out business with or in the same and although necessarily generalised in its approach he makes some interesting points and suggestions for avoiding culture clash.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

What do the invention of anaesthetics in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Nazis’ use of cocaine, and the development of Prozac have in common? The answer is that they’re all products of the same logic that defines out contemporary era: ‘the age of anaesthesia’. Laurent de Sutter shows how large aspects of our lives are now characterised by the management of our emotions through drugs, ranging from the everyday use of sleeping pills to hard narcotics. Chemistry has become so much a part of us that we can’t even see how much it has changed us.

In this era, being a subject doesn’t simply mean being subjected to powers that decide our lives: it means that our very emotions have been outsourced to chemical stimulation. Yet we don’t understand why the drugs that we take are unable to free us from fatigue and depression, and from the absence of desire that now characterises our psycho-political condition. We have forgotten what it means to be excited because our only excitement has become drug-induced. We have to abandon the narcotic stimulation that we’ve come to rely on and find a way back to the collective excitement that is narcocapitalism’s greatest fear.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Laurent de Sutter is Professor of Legal Theory at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and in this book he aims to describe how contemporary life is characterised by the use of drugs to manage human emotions and how this is manipulated to benefit the capitalist system but although I enjoyed the historical sections, I found de Sutter’s arguments confusing and unconvincing, which ultimately made for a disappointing read.

NARCOCAPITALISM was released in the United Kingdom on 3rd November 2017. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Every arena of science has its own flash-point issues – chemistry and poison gas, physics and the atom bomb – and genetics has had a troubled history with race. As Jonathan Marks reveals, this dangerous relationship rumbles on to this day, still leaving plenty of leeway for a belief in the basic natural inequality of races.

The eugenic science of the early twentieth century and the commodified genomic science of today are unified by the mistaken belief that human races are naturalistic categories. Yet their boundaries are founded neither in biology nor in genetics and, not being a formal scientific concept, race is largely not accessible to the scientist. As Marks argues, race can only be grasped through the humanities: historically, experientially, politically.

This wise, witty essay explores the persistence and legacy of scientific racism, which misappropriates the authority of science and undermines it by converting it into a social weapon.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Ultimately I found this a clearly written, fascinating read about the misuse of genetics and anthropology with clear arguments that I found compelling and I would definitely check out the other 2 books in this series (IS RACISM AN ENVIRONMENTAL THREAT? By Ghassan Hage and ARE WE ALL POSTRACIAL YET? By David Theo Goldberg).

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, the inspiration behind Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World, was mong the last of a legendary breed of British explorers. For years he explored the Amazon and came to believe that its jungle concealed a large, complex civilization, like El Dorado. Obsessed with its discovery, he christened it the City of Z. In 1925, Fawcett headed into the wilderness with his son Jack, vowing to make history. They vanished without a trace.

For the next eighty years, hordes of explorers plunged into the jungle, trying to find evidence of Fawcett’s party, or Z. Some died from disease and starvation; others simply disappeared. In this spellbinding true tale of lethal obsession, David Grann retraces the footsteps of Fawcett and his followers as he unravels one of the greatest mysteries of exploration.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

The book is a curious mix of biography, history, anthropology, tropical disease, geography and, in the case of Gann himself, self-discovery. Fawcett’s story is a compelling one – driven, complicated and ambitious, he was one of the last gentleman explorers who genuinely loved the jungle he explored but who had no tolerance for weakness in others and who had a slightly more enlightened attitude to the indigenous people of the region than his contemporaries. However, the book doesn’t give a definitive answer as to what happened to Fawcett, which is a major failing and worse, Gann never even tries to test the answer that he does find. The writing at the start of the book is a little disjointed, with Gann going off on tangents as he seeks to introduce Fawcett, his own mission and then the kidnapping of James Lynch, a banker who set off on his own mission to discover what happened to Fawcett, only to get kidnapped by an indigenous tribe. I was particularly irritated by the Lynch element because Gann sets this up as a big deal very early on and then the resolution is given away as an aside when Gann finally meets him. I would have also liked to have known a bit more about Fawcett’s loyal wife, Nina, who stayed loyal to him until the end despite Fawcett originally breaking off their engagement on the grounds of a slanderous rumour about her chastity. Ultimately, I did find the story fascinating enough to keep turning the pages and Gann has a comprehensive bibliography, which I found interesting and as such I would recommend it albeit with the caveat that it doesn’t quite deliver on its set up.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the review copy of this book.