February global nonfiction: Six books chronicling history from the Renaissance to the ‘Mortecene’

All information sourced from publishers.

Opera Wars: Inside the World of Opera and the Battles for Its Future, Caitlin Vincent

Drawing on interviews with dozens of opera insiders – as well as her own experience as a librettist, trained vocalist, opera company director, and arts commentator – Caitlin Vincent deftly unravels clichés and presumptions, exposing such debates as how much fidelity is owed to long-dead opera composers whose plots often stir racial and gender sensitivities, whether there’s any cure for typecasting that leaves talented performers out of work and other performers chained to the same roles, and what explains the bizarre kowtowing of opera companies to the demands of traditionalist patrons.

Vincent never shrinks from depicting the industry’s top-to-bottom messiness and its stubborn resistance to change. Yet, like a lover who can’t quite break away, she always comes back to her veneration for the art form and, in these pages, evokes those moments on stage that can be counted on to make ardent fans of the most sceptical.

The Killing Age: How Violence Made the Modern World, Clifton Crais

Clifton Crais argues that the era between 1750 and the early 1900s – seen by many as the birth of the Anthropocene – should instead be known as the Mortecene: the Age...

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