dmathuna's reviews
22 reviews

There's always an Irish man involved somehow (derogatory)

A solid book that gives an overview of conspiracies throughout time and the social and political events that makes people susceptible to believing in them. 

Was depressing to read just how many conspiracies had an Irish component and made me realise we are not immune to these kinda things on our shores either.

I'm also more aware of the role the internet plays in propagating these lies and how the algorithms of social media incentivises engagement over quality which is rife when conspiracies are posted to the detriment of the user experience. 

Thought it slightly lacking in the amount of references per chapter however.

Heart Of Darkness (1899) - Joseph Conrad.  Overall score 3.5/5

The 1st half of this book didn't engage me in the same way that the second half did.

The characters were very human and well written and this is one of the strengths of this book. Pairing this with Conrad's eloquent prose paints very vivid scenes and he loves to use these tools often.

The Narrator of this audiobook David Horovitch really elevated the quality of this book with excellent emotional weight in his narration.

It feels like there is so much more for me to dig into on rereads, a critique that follows on from the use of such flowery prose is that things can get confusing in a negative way that doesn't add to the narrative experience.

Caroline sets out to weave an ambitious narrative, highlighting the British Empires enduring doublethink that enabled it to commit atrocity after atrocity in its colonies and still assuage the british public that Imperial benevolence was required to uplift "uncivilised" nations until they were ready to self govern. 

She accomplishes this gargantuan task by highlighting how violence was an intrinsic part of colonial rule and spotlighting the fact that this was covered up by a familiar and often trotted out process of consecutive governments of setting up enquiries and commissioning reports that would eventually say it was the acts of individual "bad actors" as opposed to the systematic standard operating procedure that this landmark book would showcase it to be. This script is repeated all across the former colonies from Malaya, India, Kenya, Palestine, Egypt, South Africa, Ireland, Jamaica, & Northern Ireland.

I was curious in how this narrative would be wrapped up by it's laid out in plain sight that modern day british politics is still in the same place it was 300 years ago and is only regurgitating the same racist talking points. 

Thoroughly researched with the last 200ish pages being solely comprised of notes & bibliography.
Highly recommended, with the caveat that it is incredibly dense & there will be many names, titles, positions and places mentioned.

A funny, witty, entertaining and insightful look at some of the more obscure, weird and wonderful words and turns of phrase in the Irish language. Recommended for language lovers, linguistic enthusiasts and Irish speakers.

It took me quite a while to get through this book and that was simply because the reading was so dense and it's a lot of information to take in even if the broad strokes are known to me already. I appreciate that this book went to great lengths to situate the colonialism Ireland experienced and how that has led to our current position today of being broadly anti-colonial and anti-imperialist in global politics. I also appreciate that it tracked the development of the two irish states and their relationship with colonialism and how the government of ireland act is still so relevant to our day to day lives. A recommended read for anyone with an interest in irish history, colonialism, imperialism or just modern day politics. I do have to mention that there are some spelling and date mistakes as well as 2 chapters that have the wrong reference numbers and these do detract a slight bit from the overall reading experience but not too much to make me want to put it down at any stage.

A well researched deep dive into the events surrounding this trial. Giving equal looks into both defence and prosecution sides of the case as well as including juror, Judge and media perspectives this is the preeminent book to start with regarding anything about the case.

I don’t even know what to say about a book that covers such topics. I’ll start by saying that it’s short enough at around 230 pages and aims to give an overview of such a wide ranging event that it can’t seriously detail much but what is told in here is extremely harrowing to read and then to comprehend that these acts were all done by humans to other humans. 

The sheer barbarity and brutality shown to the Chinese inhabitants of Nanjing  is staggering and each page you uncover a new horror you previously thought incomprehensible. The detailing of how widespread the systematic rape of all women regardless of age, pregnancy, occupation churned my stomach in a way I don’t think has ever happened to me. I am absolutely forever changed by the contents of this book and it will never leave me for the rest of my life..

The fact that elements of Japanese society still can’t accept that this event occurred much less that their soldiers carried it out with explicit knowledge by their government leaders is tragic and should be a crime akin to denial of the holocaust. I can only hope that since the time the book was published that attitudes there have started to change. More than 300,000 people were murdered by the occupation and we did them a disservice by not remembering this event more. 

At the time of me writing this review Iris Chang would have been 56.