The Faber Book of Reportage

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Despite those opening and closing chapters, you can tell that this is a book published in Britain, with a British editor. The reports include a disproportionate number of incidents that either occur in Britain or at least involve British people in other countries. There will always be disagreement over the selection of material for a collection like this, but in my opinion there’s also an over-concentration on descriptions of wartime events. WW2 takes up an enormous section, but many other wars are included as well. 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

And there were so many fascinating literary references, as with the open-air cremation of Percy Shelley, written by Edward John Trelawny in 1822: “The only portions that were not consumed were some fragments of bones, the jaw, and the skull, but what surprised us all, was that the heart remained entire. In snatching this relic from the fiery furnace, my hand was severely burnt; and had anyone seen me do the act I should have been put into quarantine.” John Carey is a British literary critic and retired emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. He has twice chaired the Man Booker Prize judging panel and is chief book reviewer for the London Sunday Times and appears in radio and TV programs such as Saturday Review and Newsnight Review.urn:lcp:faberbookofrepor0000unse:epub:eab9de26-4d39-493b-a835-479082ae68e5 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier faberbookofrepor0000unse Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s2b50h36n72 Invoice 1652 Isbn 0571141633 Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-1-g862e Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9783 Ocr_module_version 0.0.14 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000516 Openlibrary_edition

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

Tsar Nicholas II and the Russian Imperial family shot 1918 - not sure why they had to shoot the doctor, the maid and 2 waiters also? Stunning . . . There are descriptions in this book so fresh that they sear themselves into the imagination.'Las Casas, who became a Dominican missionary, was the first European to expose the oppression of the native races of Latin America He had himself taken apart in the conquest of Cuba, 1513 The abandonment of the Gallipoli Campaign brought about the resignation of Churchill, the chief supporter of the venture. Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, 1791, on fleeing the French Revolution and coming to the United States. This book is a collection of primary sources for more than 24 centuries of historical events. It is very good, but definitely uneven, and that's why it doesn't get a higher rating. I think anyone who is serious about studying history or more important BEING an historian needs to read this. Reading primary sources like this is good training—it allows one to see things through different perspectives and worldviews.

The Faber Book of Reportage: 9780571141630 - AbeBooks The Faber Book of Reportage: 9780571141630 - AbeBooks

This observation by Amerigo Vespucci is an example. He assumes that war has causes that he is familiar with. The concept that maybe war is an innate part of human essence is alien to him. The Faber Book of Reportage is John Carey's remarkable collection of eyewitness accounts that draws on the voices and emotions of the people who experienced some of history's most memorable events. Made up of nearly three hundred contemporaneous accounts, Eyewitness to History gives a truly fascinating insight into what people were thinking in the moment while experiencing those events from the past 2500 years that we still talk about today. 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. Thoroughly valuable romp through history, as recorded by the folks who were there to witness it. The first-person accounts cover history from Greek and Roman times up to the middle 1980's - though coverage of any given timeframe may be uneven. It is relatively Euro/Anglo-centric, with only a few non-Western anecdotes. The mix of topics covered is also somewhat uneven - I found myself skimming many of the battle accounts - however, I imagine the source material for that type of event was more abundant than the "slice of life" accounts I found more interesting.In the introduction, Professor Carey informs us that the book is one of reportage, of written accounts by eyewitnesses. According to him this makes for authenticity by relying on information from people who can say, “I was there,” such as the bystanders, travellers, warriors, murderers, victims, and professional reporters he has included in his collection. George Bernard Shaw, writing about his mother's funeral in 1914, begins with, “Why does a funeral always sharpen one's sense of humour and rouse one's spirits?” And after humourously describing his mother's cremation – making plain that she would have joined in on the laughter – GBS concludes with, “O grave, where is thy victory?”