The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History
In this remarkable reconstruction of an eighteenth-century woman's extraordinary and turbulent life, historian Linda Colley not only tells the story of Elizabeth Marsh, one of the most distinctive travelers of her time, but also opens a window onto a radically transforming world.
Marsh was conceived in Jamaica, lived in London, Gibraltar, and Menorca, visited the Cape of Africa and Rio de Janeiro, explored eastern and southern India, and was held captive at the court of the sultan of Morocco. She was involved in land speculation in Florida and in international smuggling, and was caught up in three different slave systems. She was also a part of far larger histories. Marsh's lifetime saw new connections being forged across nations, continents, and oceans by war, empire, trade, navies, slavery, and print, and these developments shaped and distorted her own progress and the lives of those close to her. Colley brilliantly weaves together the personal and the epic in this compelling story of a woman in world history.
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The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History Reviews
A great book I discovered it from my History Book Club, before the great reviews poured in from the critics. Shows how much certain intrepid souls traveled in days of yore. And a rarity in those daystales written by a woman. For all persons interested in women's history, biography, India, Caribbean. The author has done her research carefully & thoroughly; text is easy to follow, not boring. I think the New York Times had it as one of its ten best at the end of the year. Loved the fact that she was related to Edmund Burke.
thesis - with some sentences being 2 and 3 lines long. It was a Christmas gift to me and I will donate it to our local University - perhaps some student of history or genealogy would be interested. Boring boring boring. I gave up after half of the book was finished. There is nothing said by the heroine - just about her - and in a most tedious descriptive manner, often confusing (since her mother shared her name). It reads like a Ph.D. I am certainly not. This was one of the worst books I have ever read.
Very admirable. Professor Colley has done a lot of research on Britain's 18th century world, and this book has come out of that. But I found the book dry in places. A little more scholarly than I was in the mood for. I like the way she is upfront about her speculation about Elizabeth Marsh. She presents an extraordinary interweaving of naval history, commerce, the status of women, slavery, and the emergence of the USA, among other subjects. As she goes along she makes it clear what is in the record, what she believes would have been typical of the era, and what she is only guessing at.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith Highly recommended to those interested in history through the lives of individuals. Ms Colley has written a book that portrays an unconventional life and the backdrop of the times in which Elizabeth Marsh lived. At twenty, as the sole female passenger aboard a merchant ship bound for Lisbon, she was captured by pirates and taken to Morocco. In order to escape, she pretended to be married to her sailing companion, James Crisp. Between these dates, Elizabeth Marsh travelled extensively lived a full (albeit unconventional) life and saw more of the world than most of her contemporaries. Elizabeth Marsh, daughter of a ship's carpenter, was conceived in Jamaica, was born in England in 1735, and died in Calcutta in 1785.
Being a history buff, I was particularly intrigued by (1) the research that Colley put into this, and (2) the actual description of March's happenings. It is an easy read if you don't mind some extraneous detail. I heartily recommend it to others interested in obscure history.
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