As publisher of the flagship forum of equalitarianism at The Backlash! I have long prized my well worn copy of Reay Tannahil's Sex in History: It is an unbiased overview of sexual relationships throughout history. In highly readable prose Tannahil tells the truth about women and men without lapsing into rants about either sex, and I recommend her book to everyone.

It pinpoints clearly where many current but odd behavior patterns derive from. 5 Stars are not enough to describe this most unusual combination of high quality in research, structure and common sense. Many authors should take stile and approach as an example. As a typical human I have a complaint, the book is too thin.

A most informative and very objective book on this delicate subject... I enjoyed it so much that I have given this very title 24 times as a gift... "go girl"

This book is a comprehensive overview of both the history of food and how food changed history. Tannahill describes what people ate all over the world from prehistoric times through the present. The book is divided into the following sections: prehistoric times, 3000 BC to 1000 AD, 1000 AD to 1492, 1492-1789, and 1789 to the present. In each section, there are separate chapters on areas of the world, such as China, India, the Arab World, Europe, and the Americas. One slightly annoying facet of the book is Tannahill's tendency to shift focus from one time or region to another as she describes a topic in detail (for example, in chapter 12 where she is describing the animals that were kept in medieval towns in Europe, she includes comments about 19th century New York.) Tannahill writes from a British vantage point, and occasionally displays some lack of understanding of American culture, which can be either amusing or annoying for American readers (such as when she suggests that America is "more hygiene-conscious than other countries" "because it played host to so many religious sects that held cleanliness inseparable from godliness"). Nevertheless, these shortcomings are quite small, and the book is extremely informative and interesting to read.

Food in History is an excellent introduction to a piece of human history that is probably so obviously important it's not widely researched: the crucial part that food played and plays in human society. Sure, everyone learns about how the spice trade was a leading factor in the Age of Exploration, and the discovery of crop rotation in the early Middle Ages, which "killed more than one child's interest in history" as the author rightly points out. This book goes much farther than that, showing the development of eating habits from neolithic man up to the early/mid 20th Century. Along the way, the author points out some truths that will be unpleasant to the food faddists of the early 21st Century: Humans ARE omnivores by evolution, and salt is also an evolution-induced craving, are just two of the basic points in the story of humans and food. (Speaking of food fads, these aren't limited to our Century and the US, fruit was considered dangerous by more than one culture and for reasons that sound depressingly familiar concerning dietary recommendations today...)
In a survey like this one, it can't do justice to EVERY culture's cuisine, but it does come close. Roman, Arab, Indian, Asian, and the influence of the Americas on European foods are well covered. The prose is lively, much wittier than I thought it would be given the subject, but also scholastic.
Is this a "popular" history? Yeah, I would say so, but there is also great material in here for the student and historian. So much so, that Food in History would make a great supplemental book for a World History course. Highly recommended.

This book is a fascinating trip through history viewed from food - what people ate, why they ate it, how it changed them and the world. No recipes - but plenty of menus from pre-history to Rome, China, the Americas, the Industrial Revolution to the late 20th century.

Every aspect of the influence of food on human development and worl history is examined - everything from vegetarianism to cannibalism.

As for me, I finally know what "pease porridge" really is!

I bought this book a few months back on a trip to London. Had not previously heard of the author, nor this title. The cover 'comments' proclaim it the Scottish GWTW and also compare it to The Thorn Birds. Big shoes to fill! And.....I thoroughly enjoyed the first 200 pages, would rate them 5 stars. The storyline hooked me rather quickly and the heroine is most appealing. The middle 200 hundred pages or so slowed a bit for my taste and the 'love interest' virtually disappears. At best 3.5 stars. I literally had to force myself to read the final 150 pages of this book. Starting from a terrific, most readable tale I found my enjoyment of the story going rapidly downhill to the point I could almost rate it a 1 by the end. The author seemed to me to forget her basic storyline and was going more for sheer number of pages......a bright beginning to one huge yawn.

"A Dark and Distant Shore" is a real masterpiece of its genre. That historical novel is so well-written, the descriptions are breath-taking and the characters well-developed. Even though the book is long (over 1000 pages in the paperback edition), it reads so well because of the story that is simply captivating. Briefly, it is the story of a woman whose father, when she was a little girl, sold the family estate in Scotland. All her life, her goal is to get back that estate from the family that now owns it. To read that book is to acquire a definitive taste for Scotland and its magnificient wilderness. A must!

The book started out fairly well I thought, although being an avid "fan" of Mary Queen of Scots I kept noticing little details here and there where I was thinking "That didn't really happen like that" or "This could really have been expanded on". I found this latter one particularly grating at the end, where Mary is imprisoned and years slide by so quickly one can hardly get a feel for the isolation she must have felt. And her death at the end I thought should have been more emotional...though I did like the one sequence of Elizabeth and the "scream". The one point on which I completely agree with the reader from Canoga Park is Tannahill's treatment of Bothwell. Initially I thought he was going to be characterized positively, but then he became the murderous, uncivilized lout that I also thought historians had done well to disprove now...and the "kidnapping and rape" was in actuality almost certainly done with Mary's collusion. Tannahill also takes Antonia Fraser's tremulous view that Mary had been five weeks pregnant at the time of her miscarriage, and not five months, which was initially reported and far more likely...because this would prove that she did indeed have an adulterous affair with Bothwell. Instead of putting in the entirely probable romance between Mary and Bothwell, Tannahill tacks on details about the relationship between Lethington and Mary Fleming, which I was only mildly interested in at best. I guess this was to substitute for the total lack of love she portrayed in Mary's life, but it didn't work for me and left me feeling really unsatisfied.

This is a book that needs to be read in a quiet corner where you won't be disturbed. It can get a bit difficult to keep track of the many plots, counter plots and even the changes of names of the characters.

Mary returned to Scotland from France to take up her throne when she was 18 years old. From that moment, she lost control of her destiny as she became the object of other people's ambitions and schemes. Her half brother James wanted to be the King of Scotland. Her secretary of state, Lethington, wanted to gain the thron of England for Scotland. Her two husbands both wanted the throne. The only people who had her interests at heart were the four ladies in waiting who came with her from France.

If Mary had had the cunning of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England, she may have survived. As it was, it seems that she was manipulated by everyone who came in contact with her. She was completely out of her depth.

The book didn't seem to provide any insight into Mary's thoughts or feelings. One example being when she was held prisoner in England for 18 years. She must have wondered about her small son still in Scotland. This is barely mentioned.

I learned some Scottish history but Mary, Queen of Scots is still a mystery to me.

This was a departure from the types of books I usually read, but one that I found very enjoyable. It read like a thriller, even though I already knew the outcome. The author is from Scotland and the book was naturally sympathetic to Mary.

The book begins in 1561 when the 18 year-old Queen Mary returns to Scotland for the first time in 13 years, as the widow of the king of France and its former Queen, albeit briefly. The story follows the plotting of her half-brother James who wants the throne for himself; her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England who sees Mary as a personal threat; and the brilliant leadership of Lethington, her Secretary of State, whose only agenda is to place a Stewart on England's throne. Although Mary and her ambitions were portrayed in a favorable light, I found that she also seemed to be a woman who was manipulated by the men who advised her, men who were out for their own personal gain (with the exception of Lethington and a few others).

The author has managed to make this story into a romantic thriller, in the best sense of the term. She brought these characters and the history of the time to to vivid life.

I was fortunate to have visited the palace (Holyroodhouse) and castle (Edinburgh Castle) where much of the action of the story took place, which greatly added to my interest.