eishiya reviewed History as hot news, 1865-1897 by Leonard de Vries
The late 19th century as captured by the papers
4 stars
Like its prequel, this 1865-1897 volume collects engravings and articles from illustrated newspapers (the Illustrated London News and the Graphic this time), covering a broad range of subjects, such as the French Commune, social trends and fashions, the British expedition to Ethiopia, the installations of the Statue of Liberty and Cleopatra's Needle, the sinkings of the SS Irex and HMS Victoria, and, of course, many inventions.
I found this volume less interesting overall than the 1842-1864 one. Perhaps this was a less eventful era, or perhaps the sorts of events that most interest me were no longer deemed worthy of articles and illustrations like they had been earlier in the century. But, as a first-hand-ish look at the second half of the 19th century, this is as good as the first book had been. The articles and illustrations are well-chosen and reproduced in high quality, text added by the editor …
Like its prequel, this 1865-1897 volume collects engravings and articles from illustrated newspapers (the Illustrated London News and the Graphic this time), covering a broad range of subjects, such as the French Commune, social trends and fashions, the British expedition to Ethiopia, the installations of the Statue of Liberty and Cleopatra's Needle, the sinkings of the SS Irex and HMS Victoria, and, of course, many inventions.
I found this volume less interesting overall than the 1842-1864 one. Perhaps this was a less eventful era, or perhaps the sorts of events that most interest me were no longer deemed worthy of articles and illustrations like they had been earlier in the century. But, as a first-hand-ish look at the second half of the 19th century, this is as good as the first book had been. The articles and illustrations are well-chosen and reproduced in high quality, text added by the editor provides context on lesser-known political events, and it's all beautiful to look at. Unfortunately, some images do not have articles to go with them (but do have captions), and some of them are not listed/sourced in the table of contents.
One aspect of both volumes I didn't mention in my review of the first one is just how much the Victorians' pride in their country and scientific progress shows through in the articles. The way these articles are written is unlike modern news articles; there's so much more opinionated excitement in them, they're delightful to read. This is true for the press of the era in general (even in industry journals, which you'd expect to be dry), but History as Hot News offers a good taste of that.