Interrogating the past
A wry satisfaction to be enjoyed in reading histories of events of your youth is that it uncovers your prejudices at that time. It reassures you that you have grown wiser but also makes you wonder whether your present attitudes will need revisiting. The retelling of a complex past can be illuminating, too, as you reflect on similar situations today.
, Carolyn Collins’ detailed and even-handed study of women’s campaign against conscription during the Vietnam War, offered such pleasures. It recalled dimly remembered events and characters, entered their own experience and perception of the events, and brought back my own immediate response and the wider view of the world on which it was based. It also reminded me how far my attitudes have changed.