August 2018

From the history of Scotland to veterinary medicine in Peru, this month's bookshelf beautifully showcases the varied interests of our alumni authors.

1.

Author

Alima Bucciantini

Degree MSc Nationalism Studies, PhD Economic and Social History
Book

Exhibiting Scotland: Objects, Identity, and the National Museum

In 1707 Scotland ceased to exist as an independent country and became part of Great Britain. Yet it never lost its distinct sense of identity, history, and politics. To preserve the country's unique antiquities and natural specimens, a Scottish earl founded the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1780, at the beginning of the Enlightenment's museum boom. Now numbering twelve million objects and specimens and representing everything from archaeology to applied arts and design, from social history to science and the natural world, these collections formed the foundation for what eventually became the National Museum of Scotland. In Exhibiting Scotland, Alima Bucciantini traces how these collections have helped tell the changing stories of this country for centuries and how the museum reflects the Scots' continuing negotiation of their place within modern Britain.

Exhibiting Scotland: Objects, Identity, and the National Museum

2.

Author

Alasdair Douglas-Hamilton

Degree Law
Book

Devoted Lyon: The Life, Letters & Diaries of Lt Col The Hon Malcolm Bowes Lyon

Born in 1874, he joined the 2nd Life Guards, and served in the Boer War, the First World War, and as a Superintendent of Air Raid Wardens in London in the 2nd World War. In between, he served in the West African Frontier Force in Northern Nigeria. He travelled widely, including residence in Egypt for 5 years, and spoke French, Arabic, and Hausa. He was an uncle of the late Queen Mother, thus Great Uncle of the present Queen, and a regular visitor to his old home at Glamis. The letters and diary excerpts, from which this story is derived, give a fascinating insight into the life of another age, including the demanding life of a soldier in the field of battle, where bivouacs, very early starts, long marches, and danger were commonplace. He lived his later years in Chelsea. In his obituary in 1957 it was written: “Col Bowes Lyon was loved wherever he went. He was a Scot first and foremost, steeped in the history and tradition of Scotland. His kindness, sincerity, warmth of welcome, humour, ease, grace and talents made him one of nature’s gentlemen; an example of what a Christian should be. His memory and his work will live on.”

For more information, email: amdhlessudden@gmail.com

3.

Author Elizabeth Dulemba (illustrator)
Degree Illustration 
Book

Crow Not Crow

New York Times bestselling children's author, Jane Yolen, and her son Adam Stemple have teamed up to write a gentle tale of a father introducing his daughter to the joys of bird watching using the "Crow, not Crow" method for distinguishing birds. Elizabeth Dulemba's delightfully warm illustrations bring the story to life.

Crow Not Crow

Elizabeth's website 

4.

Author Ali Akbar Husain
Degree PhD Architecture
Book

Scent in the Islamic garden: A study of Literature in Persian and Urdu

Scent in the Islamic Garden is an interdisciplinary study that bridges across medicine, horticulture, and poetry in Islamic India. It was first published in 2000 and this new edition is much improved with better-quality illustrations and an updated and partially revised text that makes for greater coherence. The introduction by William Dalrymple expresses the perceptions of a writer who is familiar with the region and its history. It also indicates how the work engages the reader. Scent in the Islamic Garden seeks to find relations between cultural values and landscape expression. It does so through particular reference to the significance of fragrance in Islam as understood in medicinal and horticultural texts, and through essential focus on Hyderabad, one of the last bastions of Islamic culture in the Indian subcontinent. The nature-culture question is examined in garden poetry, a genre associated with the Arabo-Persian and Urdu literary tradition and, at Hyderabad, the Deccani Urdu tradition. The study makes clear that Deccani gardens, as gleaned through literary texts, are Persian in inspiration but rooted In India and permeated with the rasas of Indian forests. The idea that scents, by enhancing sensory perception, can be a cue for certain kinds of behaviour in garden settings is also strongly suggested.

Scent in the Islamic garden: A study of Literature in Persian and Urdu

5.

Author Wesley M. Shennan
Degree M.Phil. Urban Design and Regional Planning
Book

White Mask

Why are so many Natives, First Nations, Indians, Metis, Inuits, Aboriginals, Indigenous People, and Amerindians ashamed of whom they are? Where does this shame come from? Why does it exist today? These questions are the underlying fabric of the memoir but are only alluded to in the first half of the story. About half way through, a flash back to the very first memory initiates the story behind the story, wherein shame is discussed and explored in narratives, interactions, quotations and teachings from childhood to middle age. The author's re-celebration of his First Nation heritage evolves until he feels the same joy as at age 10 when he first learned of his ancestry. Up to five generations of First Nations have been traumatized by residential school and societal racism, but the grasp of shame is becoming weaker.

White Mask

6.

Author Roger S. Windsor
Degree Veterinary Studies
Book

The Veterinary Detectives: A Vet in Peru

To be released on 28 September 2018.

In the second volume of his memoirs Roger tells the story of a pioneering British veterinary aid project, established in conjunction with a local farmers’ co-operative, to bring self-financing veterinary services to thousands of dairy, farmers and llama and alpaca keepers in the high Andes in southern Peru. 

This heart-warming story tells how a team of young Peruvians under Roger’s leadership built and delivered a new veterinary service to farmers in an area the size of England against challenging odds. A resurgence of the Shining Path terrorist group threatened the safety of the team and the farmers; terrible inflation of the local currency wreaked havoc with an already tight budget – not to mention constant battles with British and Peruvian bureaucracy. 

But the book is not just about animal diseases, the challenges of running an aid project, nor how Roger’s wife, Maxine flourished as a concert pianist. It is about the country that he came to love: the art, the Andean music, the coast with its huge populations of birds and sea mammals, the glorious scenery, the many ancient civilizations and above all the delightful people fighting to survive through a period of massive economic turmoil and terrorism, yet still managing to smile.

The Veterinary Detectives: A Vet in Peru

Globetrotter: A profile of Roger S. Windsor

Your book

If you are a member of the alumni community and have recently published a book, we would be delighted to include it in the Alumni Bookshelf. Email the details, along with your degree details, to Brian Campbell:

Email Brian Campbell

Please note

Books are added to the bookshelf in order of submission. All of the further information links listed are the external websites of the book publisher, the author, or the bookseller. The University of Edinburgh is not responsible for the content and functionality of these sites.