And the foregoing, and the desire-for-and deployment of "power" both as manifestation and being synonymous with "agency", "change" "ability" is why" every marginalised population *is* marginalised.

#disability #ableism #disablism #carcerallogic

1. Geology. Simmons could've spent a couple of minutes checking and discovered that there are several well-known "soft" stones such as soapstone, slate, serpentine, etc but she chose not to: "Like its limestone cousins - marble included - it is the only rock that can be scored with a butterknife". No.

2. History. Simmons prides herself on her travel journalism from the "Middle East", meanwhile back in England the self-described "medievalist" says: "The pond [where a broken axehead was found] was quite close to the present church, so this fitted with the theory that Christian sites appropriated pagan ones to smooth the transition between religious belief systems." Erm, like in Jerusalem? Smooooooth! Or genocidal. One of those. Also, not true that Christian sites appropriated Pagan places except occasionally in urban areas where space was limited.

3. History. Simmons mourns the loss that the Cluniac monastery in Lewes that she claims was "the heart and soul of the town" before the dissolution of the monasteries when in 1537 the 24 monks, who offered the town their thoughts and prayers, were supported by over 22,000 acres of land in Sussex (and more elsewhere so about 1,000 acres per monk). The land had been partially cleared of local peasants, who were replaced by sheep, and was run by unpaid servants known as lay brothers. I suppose unpaid servant was a step up for a starving landless unmarried male peasant, but I wonder where the women went....

4. Gibberish. As I mentioned before, this was clearly not read by an editor and is relentless nonsense, e.g.: "It had been a dry winter so far. In wet weather, travellers followed the ridgeway on the top, avoiding the boggy bottom of the valley. So that's what I would do also." Wet is dry and dry is wet, apparently.

5. History. Simmons describes the Christian crusades as: "the series of religious wars involving Christians and Muslims between 1096 and 1291. One of the Christians' avowed aims was to protect pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land" and one of their aims was large scale genocidal land-theft. Also Louis IX of France figure-headed crusades against the Holy Roman Empire, the Balts, and Tunis, amongst others, even within Simmons' chosen period which conveniently excludes the most embarrassing genocidal xtian on xtian crusades that occurred later.

6. Dis/Ablism. And lastly, on page 323 of 324, we discover illness and disability don't exist in Simmons world, even during a pandemic: "We humans are made to walk, and if we continue walking we'll stay fit and agile into old age, as the many white haired people I met climbing the hills between Southampton and Canterbury proved." Selection bias much?

Don't read this book, obv. /end thread and onwards to more edifying and entertaining reading

#books #reading #history #EnglishHistory #geology #Christianity #ChristianHistory #Catholicism #ablism #disablism