Books
by Robert Hughes
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Goya |
This account of the turbulent life of this extraordinary artist with his penetrating portrait studies of Spanish Bourbon royalty and terrifying etchings and paintings of the effects of Napoleon's invasion of Spain in his series 'Disasters of War' who became totally deaf at 46 years, is made more poignant by Hughes' own near fatal car accident which painfully crippled him. Very well illustrated, it makes you want to fly to Madrid and the Prado pronto.
(James Baker - bwl 27 December 2004) |
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The Fatal Shore: A History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia, 1787-1868 |
Honest, deeply felt, scholarly and eminently readable, this is a truly terrible revelation of the almost medieval and inhuman judiciary situation in late Georgian and Victorian England and the shameless way in which the government chose to free England of her criminals. Transportation was the answer for the slightest infringement or the worst crime. Transcending the purely historical, this indictment of what ravages personal power can effect on a dependent society is chilling in its objectivity and fairness.
(Kathie Somerwil Ayrton - bwl 70 Autumn 2013) |
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