Scan barcode
Reviews tagging 'Animal death'
Undreamed Shores: The Hidden Heroines of British Anthropology by Frances Larson
1 review
megelizabeth's review
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
3.5
"It was lonely, haphazard and fleeting, but in the right hands it could make you immortal."
This book wasn't what I was expecting at all - I picked it up thinking it was about general explorers rather than academic anthropologists - but I found it thoroughly fascinating nonetheless. It's incredibly well-written and clearly meticulously researched, and it does such a great job of showcasing the women's lives and in highlighting the ways they were shaped, ruined, and in some cases ended by the misogyny they experienced. Although it was sometimes a little confusing trying to keep each woman's timeline straight, generally I enjoyed the narrative structure and found the storytelling effective. It provides a great insight into colonial life and into the world wars and the inter-war years, and it taught me a lot about an area of history I knew next to nothing about going in.
My issue with this book is its lack of real criticism of the colonial nature and general invasiveness of the practice of anthropology. I hugely appreciate the way it shines a light on the difficulties the women faced within the discipline, but I felt uncomfortable reading about some of their beliefs, actions, and experiences nonetheless. If only the book had explicitly connected the misogyny faced by the women studied as well as those doing the studying, and recognised that the women anthropologists still deserve serious criticism, it would've been an even stronger, more rounded, more feminist read. It does what it set out to do well, and I generally thought it was a good read, but I just wish it'd gone that bit further and done justice to the lives it touches on.
This book wasn't what I was expecting at all - I picked it up thinking it was about general explorers rather than academic anthropologists - but I found it thoroughly fascinating nonetheless. It's incredibly well-written and clearly meticulously researched, and it does such a great job of showcasing the women's lives and in highlighting the ways they were shaped, ruined, and in some cases ended by the misogyny they experienced. Although it was sometimes a little confusing trying to keep each woman's timeline straight, generally I enjoyed the narrative structure and found the storytelling effective. It provides a great insight into colonial life and into the world wars and the inter-war years, and it taught me a lot about an area of history I knew next to nothing about going in.
My issue with this book is its lack of real criticism of the colonial nature and general invasiveness of the practice of anthropology. I hugely appreciate the way it shines a light on the difficulties the women faced within the discipline, but I felt uncomfortable reading about some of their beliefs, actions, and experiences nonetheless. If only the book had explicitly connected the misogyny faced by the women studied as well as those doing the studying, and recognised that the women anthropologists still deserve serious criticism, it would've been an even stronger, more rounded, more feminist read. It does what it set out to do well, and I generally thought it was a good read, but I just wish it'd gone that bit further and done justice to the lives it touches on.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Misogyny, Suicide, and Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Death