reviews

Haunted by History... Author:  Eula Biss Writing about race isn’t easy.  It’s loaded with the potential to offend, regardless of one’s intent.  But Eula Biss isn’t a writer who shies away from hazardous topics.  Occasionally describing her race as “mixed” – despite her two white biological parents – she refers to her black step-siblings and cousins, Cherokee aunt and step-fathers of various colors.  A veritable rainbow of race, which tends to poke holes into what the concept even means.  She touches on the topic frequently in Notes from No Man’s Land, a collection of thirteen essays.  Catching my attention immediately [...]

Ancient Adventures... Author:  Alan de Queiroz Scholars have been studying human history for millennia, recognizing that to understand the present, one must know the past.  The same is true in biology.  Ever since Darwin transformed biology into a historical science, researchers have been trying to decipher the history of life.  Once life developed – a substantial puzzle on its own – how did the myriad life forms colonize the Earth’s various environments?  The specific questions one might ask are endless.  Why do penguins only live in the Southern Hemisphere?  Why do kangaroos live only in Australia?  How did spiders get [...]

Explorations of Savagery and Civilization William Golding Disaster and the absence of law shows us, ultimately, what we really are. When shipwreck casts an assortment of young boys onto a deserted island, the trappings of adult enforced civilization soon wilt under the primal nature of competition, hunting, and the devolution into power play and murder. Ralph, the fair haired leader of the gang and his loathed sidekick, the chubby, asthmatic Piggy, are pitted against Jack, the serpent in the desert, so to speak, who sways the younger children to his side with tribal war paint and rituals of blood and [...]