Book Log 5/2016 - Alison Kinney: Hood
Feb. 8th, 2016 01:07 amI haven't always reviewed the non fiction I've read, quite often because if it'sa book I'm using for research I dip in and out of it and don't always read the whole thing from cover to cover, but those I do I've decided to include in my booklog.
Alison Kinney: Hood
A book that concentrates on the humble hood, its use, symbolism and meaning. The cover has a rather medieval Robin Hood style hood, which put 'history' very firmly in my head. So, in fact this book was not what I expected. That's not to say it's not interesting or well written, but it concentrates very heavily on the American experience. It's mostly the history of the hood in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The first quarter of the book is exclusively the symbolism of the hood in terms of the executioner and the executed with the greater part of these examples drawn from those American states which still have the death penalty. It goes into detail about the quasi-medieval executioner's hood in Florida, and doesn't spare grim details about executions in other states, including the symbolism of the executed being either hooded or masked to spare the feelings of the onlookers and hide the grim reality of lethal injection or electric chair.
Then just when I was feeling pretty depressed there was the second quarter which went into details of the Ku Klux Klan, briefly about the Spanish Inquisition, and then hits hard at the American inhumanities at Abu Ghraib where prisoners were disoriented and dehumanised by hoods as well as being waterboarded. This is not cheery stuff.
The second half of the book examines the results of wearing a hood in a modern context, from the treatment of peaceful hoodie-wearing protesters in Seattle who were attacked by police with tear gas and rubber bullets, to the experience of the middle-aged white woman asked to remove her hood in a shopping mall. It then goes on to examine the experience and the 'crime' of wearing a hood while black, in particular covering the killing of black youth Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, which leads the narrative into the Black Lives Matter campaign.
All in all, not a history of the hood, but a close examination of the hood in a particular context. The history and symbolism through the ages is not completely ignored, but it is largely a contemporary commentary.
I find it hard to allocate a star rating. It's a good book, possibly even an important book. It says a lot that should be said, but I didn't enjoy reading it.

A book that concentrates on the humble hood, its use, symbolism and meaning. The cover has a rather medieval Robin Hood style hood, which put 'history' very firmly in my head. So, in fact this book was not what I expected. That's not to say it's not interesting or well written, but it concentrates very heavily on the American experience. It's mostly the history of the hood in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The first quarter of the book is exclusively the symbolism of the hood in terms of the executioner and the executed with the greater part of these examples drawn from those American states which still have the death penalty. It goes into detail about the quasi-medieval executioner's hood in Florida, and doesn't spare grim details about executions in other states, including the symbolism of the executed being either hooded or masked to spare the feelings of the onlookers and hide the grim reality of lethal injection or electric chair.
Then just when I was feeling pretty depressed there was the second quarter which went into details of the Ku Klux Klan, briefly about the Spanish Inquisition, and then hits hard at the American inhumanities at Abu Ghraib where prisoners were disoriented and dehumanised by hoods as well as being waterboarded. This is not cheery stuff.
The second half of the book examines the results of wearing a hood in a modern context, from the treatment of peaceful hoodie-wearing protesters in Seattle who were attacked by police with tear gas and rubber bullets, to the experience of the middle-aged white woman asked to remove her hood in a shopping mall. It then goes on to examine the experience and the 'crime' of wearing a hood while black, in particular covering the killing of black youth Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, which leads the narrative into the Black Lives Matter campaign.
All in all, not a history of the hood, but a close examination of the hood in a particular context. The history and symbolism through the ages is not completely ignored, but it is largely a contemporary commentary.
I find it hard to allocate a star rating. It's a good book, possibly even an important book. It says a lot that should be said, but I didn't enjoy reading it.