Paperback History - December

By Mark Clapson | Published in 1982

The current paperbacks of the month.

The Atlas of Medieval Man by Colin Platt (Macmillan, 1979)
Calendar of Creative Man by John Paxton and Sheila Fairfield (Macmillan, 1979)
The Macmillan Dictionary of Biography by Barry Jones and M.V. Dixon (Papermac, 1981)
The Lost Revolution, Germany, 1918-23 by Chris Harman (Bookmarks, 1982)
Industrial England, 1776-1851 by Dorothy Marshall (Routledge and Kegan Paul from their Development of English Society series)
The Making of Modern English Society from 1850 by Janet Roebuck (Routledge and Kegan Paul from their Development of English Society series)

The latest translations into paperback from Macmillan's illustrated reference books, Colin Platt's The Atlas of Medieval Man and the Calendar of Creative Man by John Paxton and Sheila Fairfield both aim to present an overview of cultural history worldwide. The Atlas covers five centuries, from the eleventh to the fifteenth, in as many chapters and, after a brief historical introduction to each chapter, devotes itself to the 'material culture' of the period for example, we are shown the Bayeux tapestry together with the refined delicacy of Chinese paintings and the complex architecture of Ananda Temple, Burma, all of the eleventh century, to illustrate the concurrent art of the time. The authors of the Calendar are involved in a more precise and scholarly attempt to compare cultural dates and, while the book is not so visually appealing as the Atlas and the colour reproduction neither so extensive nor so accurate, it functions as a reference tool far more effectively and covers a satisfyingly greater range of creative work from 38,000 BC to 1970 AD.

The Macmillan Dictionary of Biography by Barry Jones and M.V. Dixon (Papermac) contains succinct entries, often with a brief bibliography, on 7,000 people ranging from Aaron to Zinoviev, taking in on the way Quennell, Peter one of the founding editors of History Today.

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Paperback History - December

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