Month: March 2016

Coming Out by Jeffrey Weeks. Homosexual Politics – A History

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This book is a study of homosexual politics in Britain from the C19th to the 1970s. It was written by the historian, sociologist and gay activist Jeffrey Weeks.

Coming Out By Jeffrey Weeks

From the back cover of the book

“Coming Out records the growth of homosexual law reform from the development of harsh legal and social oppression in the late 19th century to the tremendous impact of the gay liberation movement today”

You can find the book here at Amazon UK

You can find the book here at Amazon USA

The Chapters in the 1983 edition are as follows.

Part One: Definitions and Self Definitions

1. From Sin to Crime

2. The Medical Model

3.  A Way of Life

Part Two: Pioneers

4. Speaking Out: John Addington Symonds

5. Havelock Ellis and Sexual Inversion

6 Edward Carpenter and Friends

Part Three: Invisible Women

7. Lesbianism and the Position Of Women

8. Lesbianism and the Women’s Movement

9. Emerging Identities

Part Four: Approaches to Reform

10. Creating a Consciousness

11. Reform Societies

12. Homosexuality and the Left

13. Norman Haire and Sex Education

14. Prelude to Reform

15. Law Reform

Part Five: The Gay Liberation Movement

16. The Gay Liberation Front

17. A Gay Community

18. Old Ways, New Departures.

From the Introduction

“This book is intended as an exploration of a particular homosexual experience – that of reform groupings – but in pursuing this I hope to be able to offer some more general comments about the nature of the changing homosexual situation in Britain over the past 100 years:

Quotes from the back cover of the book

“This important book has a part to play in the revolutionary struggle by recognizing an oppressed minority and allying that fight against this oppression within the broader struggle against sexism” – Emmanuel Cooper. Morning Star.

“Jeffrey Weeks’s through, entertaining, and generally well written books surveys changing attitudes, and movements attempting to change them, over a century – Keith Walker New Society”

 

 

 

 

Nottingham in Old Photographs 1944 – 1974

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This book is a collection of old photographs of Nottingham.

Nottinghaham

You can find the book here at Amazon UK

You can find the book here at Amazon USA

From the back cover.

“The photographs in his selection, taken in Nottingham between fifteen and fifty years ago, are a nostalgic review of some of the sights and events of the period. Although they depict a time that is still within living memory, the city has undergone considerable change since the end of the Second World war, and many people will be surprised by how much they have forgotten.

Nottingham In Old Photographs

Photographs of the floods of the 1940s, of the railways in the atmospheric days of steam and of the Goose Fair in the years immediately after the war evoke another age altogether and remind us how history is made within our own lifetimes. Some of the most notable pictures how local people celebrating VE Day and the city’s Quincentenary, and views of a number of historic properties which have since disappeared and of the Old Market Square and the activities carried on there will revive many fond memories. Sections on Nottingham people at work and at play recall a time when the pace pf life was a little less hectic than our own, and a series of photographs taken from extraordinary vantage points offer an unusual  view of the city.

Goose Fair Photographs

The photographs are, in the main, the work of three local photographers; the late Frank Stevenson, John Lock and the author (Douglas Whitworth), who is responsible for the majority of the views and whose desire to to chronicle the changing view of his home city has made possible this fascinating visual record of a period which is often overlooked”.

Old Photos of Nottingham

This book was first published in 1991. It has 160 pages.

It has chapters on; The End of the War, The Quincentenary, Streets, Shops, Boots The Chemist, Buildings, The Old Market Square, The Goose Fair, The River Trent (and Floods), Sports and Pastimes, Transport and Views.

 

 

The New Matriarchy. Woman’s Legal Status in History

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This book is a critique of the notion that patriarchy is somehow a “natural state of mankind.” It is also a history of woman’s legal place throughout history. It was published in 1965

The New Patriarchy

 You can find the book here at Amazon UK

You can find the book here at Amazon USA

From the preface

“…as historians probe back into the twilight period of pre-history, it is becoming accepted that an ancient matriarchy existed when women were both honoured and looked upon as the guiding element in society”.

Index
Index

From the forward

“When I began many years ago to write a short account of the legal position of women from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day, I had no intention of embarking on a wider field. Then someone said to me: “You know, the mere account of the legal position of women affords a very partial view of their actual status at any given period.” This I saw was particularly true in medieval times when the influence of tradition and custom did much to mitigate the position of subjection laid down by Common Law. Gradually I started to collect the material to place a social and economic study guide side by side with the legal one and, in doing so, to endeavour to give a more complete picture of the status of women. Circumstance intervened and the manuscript was forgotten for many years. During this time I had become greatly interested in the Science of Religion, a profound metaphysical  school of thought that bridges the material world of action to the immaterial world of idea. I realised that it is the thoughts of men and their philosophy of life which are the underlying causes of historical development. Thus eventually the present work emerged which views the subjection of women, and their emancipation, a part of the psychological development which cannot be shown without spanning the ages and placing it in the framework of an evolutionary process”.

Help with Nervous Suffering, Anxiety and Agoraphobia

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Doctor Clair Weekes’ book ‘Peace From Nervous Suffering‘ is a practical guide to understanding, confidence and recovery from nervous suffering. In the author’s preface she describes it as being:

“..offered as treatment for nervous illness, not merely as reading. The nervously disturbed person is often so tired and confused, he (or she) finds concentrating and remembering difficult; therefore I have written this with as much emphasis – repetition, even italics – as I though helpful.”

Doctor Claire Weekes

She goes on to say in her introduction that;

“In (her) earlier book ‘Self-Help For Your Nerves‘ (she) talked about the commonest kind of nervous illness – the anxiety state (often called nervous breakdown). In the present book, while (she) offers additional help to those suffering from the anxiety state in general, I offer especial help to those whose illness is dominated by a particular fear – agoraphobia”

 

YOU CAN FIND THE BOOK (and  read the excellent reviews) HERE AT AMAZON UK

YOU CAN FIND THE BOOK HERE AT AMAZON USA

The book is divided in to two sections. The contents are as follows:

The Housebound Wife, The Citybound Executive

1.Sensitization: The Simple Cause of so much Nervous Illness

2. Fear of Leaving the Safety of the House (Agoraphobia)

3. Cure of Physical Nervous Symptoms binding Housewife to House, Executive to City

4. Unravelling the Maze of Nervous Experience

5. Solving the Apparently Insoluble Problem

6. Do – Don’t Just Think About Doing

7. Taking The First Steps

8. A Husband’s Attitude To His Wife’s Illness

The Journals

9. Journal 1

Why Recovery Seems so Difficult to so Many Nervously Ill People

10. Journal 2

Plan For Recovery

Tranquillization

Special Fears

11. Journal 3

At the Bus-stop

Right reaction readiness

Confidence

Going On Holiday

12 Journal 4

Floating

Flash-experiences

Low Tranquilization

13. Journal 5

Special Encouragement

Home From Holiday

14. Journal 6.

Depression (Depletion)

Change Of Life

15 Journal 7

Touching The Stars

What Is Reality?

Take Yourself by the Hand

16. Journal 8

Understanding Setback

The Importance of `hasbit

Struggling The Wrong Way

Letter From a Woman who Suffered for 28 Years

17. Coming Through Setback

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Geldermalsen: the Wreck and the Porcelain

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GeldermalsenThis is a book about the sinking of the Dutch trading vessel the Geldermalson which was wrecked on a reef in January 1752 as it returned from the East Indies.

You can find the book here at Amazon UK

You can find the book here at Amazon USA 

From the preface by Christian Jörg.

“In December 1985 I received a telephone call from Christie’s in Amsterdam. Michael Hatcher had found a new ship with over 150,000 pieces of porcelain. Most of it was already in Amsterdam for an auction in ’86. Perhaps I could come over and have a look.

My acquaintance with Hatcher dates back to 1984. At that time  there was an auction at Christie’s of mid-17th century porcelain, which Hatcher had recovered from the wreck of a Chinese junk. The pieces exceeded everyone’s expectations, to the great disappointment of the museums, whose budget is very limited these days.

Hatcher then donated over 50 pieces to the Groningen Museum as a basis for a public reference collection.

And now Christie’s had called about a much larger find. I’m not likely to forget the visit I paid to Amsterdam shortly after that phone call. We went to a shed in the dock area and there, on wooden racks, I saw endless rows of porcelain, Cups, saucers, plates, bowls…stacks and stacks of them. This is how it must have looked in the days of the Dutch East India Company, I thought. Just a warehouse full of porcelain, in all shapes and sizes, merchandise ready for auction. The warehouse of a large present -day department store looks exactly the same; racks of simple crockery meant for the general public. For a little while it was very difficult to see 18th century Chinese porcelain as something exclusive and rare.

Geldermalson Porcelain
Geldermalson Porcelain

After this first impression, excitement and curiosity got the upper hand. What I saw here corresponded nicely to the pictures I had formed of such a cargo when writing my thesis “Porcelain and the Dutch China Trade”. The records had given the impression of the type of porcelain the Dutch East India Company was shipping around the middle of the 18th century., and now I was eSeeing the real thing with mu very own eyes.

But if this had really come from a Dutch ship, then which East Indiaman could it be? The most obvious candidate was the Geldermalsen, which had sunk on her homeward voyage in 1752.