Eyewitness to History - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674287509 ISBN 13: 9780674287501

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1989

Synopsis

A carefully selected anthology of eyewitness reports ranges from Thucydides' description of the 430 BC plague in Athens to James Fenton's observations on the fall of President Marcos

About this title

About the Author

John Carey is Merton Professor of English at Oxford University, a distinguished critic, reviewer and broadcaster, and the author of several books, including The Intellectuals and the Masses.

Review

A wonderful book to browse in--a treasury of curious, touching memorabilia, shocking facts, and occasional stretches of brilliant writing. It deserves a place by the bedside of every literate insomniac. (Jonathan Raban The Observer)

The book is a mosaic of startling, unforgettable images...[Carey] has created something rarer than history. He has made the past tangible, often terrifying. To read Eyewitness to History is to be assaulted with voices and images that will linger long after the accounts in formal histories are forgotten. These scenes will last not necessarily because they are artfully rendered, but because they draw on one of the most resonant sentences in English: I was there, and I saw it with my own eyes. (Edward Dolnick Wall Street Journal)

A quite stunning collection. There are descriptions in this book so fresh that they sear themselves into the imagination. (Jeremy Paxman The Independent)

This unusual 700-page anthology of eyewitness accounts invites readers to dine with Attila the Hun, gaze on daffodils with Dorothy Wordsworth, attend Gauguin's impromptu wedding to a Tonga girl and roam Africa with Stanley as he searches for Livingston...This collection...is endlessly fascinating; its firsthand reports of acts of courage, cruelty, intolerance, discovery and simple pleasures burn indelible images into the mind. (Publishers Weekly)

This book is a found treasure; it is also Pandora's box revisited. Make a list for yourself of the moments you would chose from history, and look at what you're saying about your politics, sins, desires and hopes. (John Calvin Batchelor Chicago Tribune)

It's impossible not to be captivated by Eyewitness to History...These narratives make history come alive as no scholarly tone ever could. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

This book will make a history buff out of anyone. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

This collection is endlessly fascinating; its firsthand reports of acts of courage, cruelty, intolerance, discovery and simple pleasures burn indelible images into the mind. (Publishers Weekly)

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0674287509
• ISBN 13: 9780674287501
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 750
• Editor: Carey John