Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah

Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah by Charles King

Handel's Messiah has become one of the most famous classical works. It's Irish debut at a charity function was very well received. After that, it faded in popularity before it boomed again. The book focuses mostly on the background of the time and characters involved. Handel had leaned into playing for his audience. He took elements of popular opera, but made them accessible in English. Scriptural stories were also understood. Oratorios were an alternative to the high production costs of opera. The book also delves into the history of one of the early stars of his opera. She was a popular actress, but then had a scandalous personal life due to an affair and distance from her playboy husband. Years after things calmed down she was ready to make a comeback with Handel.

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King

It was once common for anthropologists to grade societies based on their evolution. They would evolve from more primitive to more advanced states. Any societies that differed from the western standard were thought to be primitive. This book looks at the anthropology of the anthropologists as they adopted cultural relativism. Different cultures and peoples do things differently. This is not necessarily good or bad, just different. We may be shocked at some practices of others, just as they would abhor some of ours. Scientists should seek to understand. This puts being "progressive" or "conservative" on it's head. We are evolving just as others are evolving. Some of our "progressive" behaviors have likely been held by others with conservative views. This book focuses on the anthropologists and their struggles to break from the mainstream to adopt a relativistic view of other cultures.