[books 2010] A Traffic of Dead Bodies
May. 31st, 2010 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro35. A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America by Michael Sappol
Arguably the best book I read while failing to finish my PhD was Ruth Richardson's Death, Dissection and the Destitute. At the time I could bore for England on the passing of the Anatomy Act. So it was not surprising that when I found out about the existence of this book, on the American experience of the same issues, I added it to my wish list. Someone bought it for me right away, but it's been sitting around for years as it's very much an academic book & not a popular history; at the time my brain just wasn't up to all the big words.
Having already tackled a proper academic history book this year, I gave this a go. Only a small part of it is devoted to the passing of anatomy acts in America (and only New York State). Instead, it's about how anatomy became part of popular culture and co-opted by the emerging middle classes in 19th century America (mostly the North, pre-Civil War). Hard going, but worth it.
Not surprisingly the chapter I found most interesting was the chapter on anatomy in the sensationalist fiction of the mid-19th century, and the discovery that there was an author, George Lippard, (a friend of Poe's) who wrote best-selling (at the time the best-selling ever American novels) sensationalist novels but who is now completely obscure.
Recommended. If you like that kind of thing.
May's reading stats
Books read: 7
Non-fiction: 2
Library books: 3
Books purchased: 2
So, um, not doing very well at getting rid of the to-read pile. Again.
Arguably the best book I read while failing to finish my PhD was Ruth Richardson's Death, Dissection and the Destitute. At the time I could bore for England on the passing of the Anatomy Act. So it was not surprising that when I found out about the existence of this book, on the American experience of the same issues, I added it to my wish list. Someone bought it for me right away, but it's been sitting around for years as it's very much an academic book & not a popular history; at the time my brain just wasn't up to all the big words.
Having already tackled a proper academic history book this year, I gave this a go. Only a small part of it is devoted to the passing of anatomy acts in America (and only New York State). Instead, it's about how anatomy became part of popular culture and co-opted by the emerging middle classes in 19th century America (mostly the North, pre-Civil War). Hard going, but worth it.
Not surprisingly the chapter I found most interesting was the chapter on anatomy in the sensationalist fiction of the mid-19th century, and the discovery that there was an author, George Lippard, (a friend of Poe's) who wrote best-selling (at the time the best-selling ever American novels) sensationalist novels but who is now completely obscure.
Recommended. If you like that kind of thing.
May's reading stats
Books read: 7
Non-fiction: 2
Library books: 3
Books purchased: 2
So, um, not doing very well at getting rid of the to-read pile. Again.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 08:09 am (UTC)One of my main problems was that while they had experts in various forensic fields for the scientific aspects of each case, for historical research they had... a forensic scientist. Because that history stuff is, like, dead easy. I think my most major rant came when they had a skeleton that could have been North African, but tests showed could also have lived anywhere around the Mediterranean. However, they were so desperate to prove he was North African they completely ignored trading communities and the Moorish population of Southern Spain. Because, y'know, the Nasrid kingdoms only occupied most of the Iberian peninsula at that time...
Then there was the teenager with syphillis. Not once did anyone raise the fact that the age of consent and the legal age for marriage were much lower in the 19th century.
So it was fun, and I think you'd like it, and the science bits are interesting, but they do send a scientist to do a historian's job, which is frustrating.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 10:10 am (UTC)