Gods, Mongrels And Demons [Hardcover]

‘Stimulating and hugely entertaining . . . an ideal bedside or bathside companion’ --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

'Calder's characters and their motivations are quirky, murky and possibly deranged, but these brief lives deserve to flare brightly again for anyone interested in seeing what stokes the fire of human endeavour' Christopher Fowler, Independent on Sunday 'Stimulating and hugely entertaining ... an ideal bedside or bathside companion' Scotland on Sunday 'A book of diversions, in all the meanings of that word: an amusement, a variation, a turning-away from the grand narrative of history to meandering by-ways and cul-de-sacs God, Mongrels and Demons is disarmingly charming for a radical's rallying call' Scotsman 'A carnivalesque read, backed up by the depth of his research and the rigour of his intellect. It's also related with all the beguiling charm and conviction of a snake-oil vendor Calder is a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles that he skilfully transmutes into worthwhile knowledge' Glasgow Herald --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

‘God, Mongrels and Demons is disarmingly charming for a radical’s rallying call’ --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

‘A carnivalesque read, backed up by the depth of his research and the rigour of his intellect’ --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

This book, to quote its author, is based on the twin premises that the 'oddballs, tinks, heidbangers, saints, keelies, nutters, philosophers, freaks and such like deserve to be drawn awhile from the periphery to the centre' of our consciousness and that these apparently marginal lives are not only interesting in their own right, but often tell us more about the mores of a country or a time than the lives of its better known citizens (not that some of these are not included here too). In what other book could such eminent figures as the Japanese poet Basho, the modernist artist Kurt Schwitters, the baseball star Babe Ruth, the singer Billie Holiday and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein rub shoulders with the likes of Anancy, Ganesh, Johnny Faa, Billie the Kid, Eliza Donnithorne (the true-life model for Dickens' Miss Havisham) or the Swiss air aces with a higher pro rata strike rate than the RAF in the Battle of Britain. Not to mention Henri Cochet - the sublime playboy tennis star who found himself two sets and forty-love down in the fifth game of the third set of the Wimbledon men's final in 1927 and went on to win the championship.

Angus Calder (b.1942) has taught all over the world, and is currently teaching at the University of Edinburgh. He was co-editor of the Journal of Commonwealth Literature (1981-7) and a recent collaborator with Alasdair Gray on a series of articles in the Scotsman. His many books include the seminal social history, The People's War: Britain 1939-45 (1969) and Revolutionary Empire (1981). His hobbies include cooking, shopping for food, music, cricket, curling and swimming in the sea.