Mike Jay: The Air Loom Gang (2003)

Edition: Bantam, 2003
Review number: 1228

The most famously insane person of the eighteenth century was of course George III, one of the most celebrated madmen of all time. Yet his case is not as interesting in itself (rather than for who the patient was) as that of a contemporary Englishman, James Tilly Matthews. The turn of the nineteenth century was a pivotal time in the history of the treatment of the insane, as asyla began to be built which were more like hospitals than the prison-like buildings which preceded them, and the way in which Matthews was incarcerated turned out to be important in the precipitation of this change. Matthews' life and delusions are fascinating in themselves, as well as being unusually well documented (this fact meaning that he is one of the first cases where psychologists have been able to attempt to make a modern diagnosis).

The Matthews case basically begins, as does Jay's book, with a disturbance at the Houses of Parliament. Matthews interrupted the closing stages of a debate in the early 1790s, the one which lead to the declaration of war with revolutionary France, by shouting out "Treason!" from the Visitors' Gallery. He was led away and committed to Bethlem Hospital, the place that is the origin of the term "Bedlam". He remained there for a couple of decades until just before his death. His delusions were principally that a secret organisation was using a device called an "Air Loom" to control people's thoughts and precipitate a war between France and Britain. The really odd thing is that Matthews had actually been involved in secret negotiations with the revolutionary government, so that his delusions had some basis in reality. That of course was not acknowledged by the British government of the time.

So many elements come together in the Matthews case that it is easy to see why Jay chose him as the subject of his book. He has responded to the story with a book which is exciting as well as fascinating. In places it even seems as though it is a historical thriller rather than a non-fictional narrative. (It reminded me of "steampunk" novels, like K.W. Jeter's Infernal Devices, for example; this is partly because of the science fiction resonances of the air loom device.) The Air Loom Gang is very highly recommended; wonderfully written, engrossing.

Simon Schama: Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations (1991)

Edition: Granta, 1991 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 968

A death forms the centre point of each of the two parts of this book. The first is a famous death, that of General Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham as his army was victorious. Schama looks at the way the event has been mythologised, including the completely unhistorical painting by Benjamin West and the more accurate account by American historian Francis Parkman. The second death is that of this historian's uncle, which prompted a famous murder trial in Boston in the 1850s.

The section on Wolfe is more conventional history than the other, and is rather like some of the essays on the reinterpretation of historical events in M.I. Finley's The Use and Abuse of History. It is, as one would expect from Schama, extremely well written, but it doesn't catch the interest as much as the Parkman murder.

The murder case is described as though it is a crime novel, complete with courtroom confrontation. It is a fascinating story, with circumstantial evidence the main prop of the prosecution case, the identification of the body right at the limits of the forensic science of the time, incompetent advocates, and an antagonistic judge.

In the afterword, Schama tries to show a connection between the two stories which means more than the relationship between historian and murder victim. It strikes me that he could probably be as convincing about any pair of tales of this length, and that the real connection between them is that they appealed to the historian.

The "Unwarranted Speculations" part of the title refers to the novelistic way in which the stories are told, with feelings and internal narratives attributed to the characters involved in a way that departs quite significantly from normal historiographical practice. It seems to me that this helps the stories come alive and, unlike the way in which historical novels work, it is quite easy to separate what Schama has added from the information which comes from the source documents - at least, it seemed to me to be simple.

Isabel Leighton: The Aspirin Age (1949)

Edition: Penguin, 1964
Review number: 529

A collection of essays devoted to US politics in the period 1919-42, each choosing a pivotal person or event, The Aspirin Age succeeds in painting a clear picture of a time which still affects the world today. (One of the most trends which can be seen is the move from an isolationist stance towards the current interventionist, almost imperialist, attitude to foreign affairs - and this has continued to affect millions, from Korea to Iraq.) There is a companion volume, The Age of Anxiety, devoted to British affairs.

The book succeeds because of the quality of the writing and the interest of the subjects, which range from Amy Semple Macpherson to Huey Long, from Versailles to Pearl Harbour (there is just about one essay for each year). Most of the writers are journalists who were involved in the original reporting of the events that they are writing about, and they are often quite partisan, which increases the entertainment value. (The essays on Harding and Coolidge are particularly vitriolic.) Overall, though, the presentation is less one sided and more illuminating than that given by dos Passos' USA trilogy (which I was reading at more or less the same time).