Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History
We are the children of the days—that is, of time, earth, and the way we transform life into stories. Uruguayan writer Galeano, whose numerous international prizes include the Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom, takes measure of our collective history, as he did in Mirrors (2009). But here he creates a universal calendar of commemoration that circles the globe, spans centuries, and encompasses war, earthquakes, dictatorships, crimes, heroism, and discoveries. Issac Newton, a man “fearful” of intimacy, nonetheless discerns “the earth’s irresistible force of attraction”; in a later era, a German hairdresser invents the permanent wave. Geronimo took charge of the Apache resistance in the nineteenth century; in the twenty-first century, the U.S. government killed Osama bin Laden in Operation Geronimo. This date-anchored human chronicle succinctly reflects our species’ vast diversity of temperaments, gifts, failings, and afflictions. As profound as Galeano’s concerns are, as penetrating as is his knowledge, he is mischievous and agile in each of the vivid 365 sketches, which distill to provocative effect vast reaches of experience and consequence, irony and tragedy, suffering and transcendence. --Donna Seaman