Memoirs Of A Lady Dentist

Eleven obituaries of recently deceased Fellows of the British Academy: Isaiah Berlin; Christopher Hill; Rodney Hilton; Keith Hopkins; Peter Laslett; Geoffrey Marshall; John Roskell; Isaac Schapera; Ben Segal; John Cyril Smith and Richard Wollheim.

Dr. Robert Reiss writes of his life experiences...from growing up in New York to his service as a military dentist in Panama, the Galapagos Islands and beyond.

I believe that almost any very motivated person with a righteous cause––in any sphere of endeavor––can fight censorship by a status-quo-minded bureaucracy––and win, and then by effectively spreading the truth can make a significant difference. . . like the persistent file clerk Erin Brockovitch whose courageous investigating of a giant utility company eventually established that the health of countless people had been been severely compromised by leakage of Chromium 6 into the groundwater.

This vivid memoir recounts the experience of Shudha Mazumdar, a woman born at the turn of the century to Indian parents whose ideas on child rearing differed greatly. Her father, a wealthy Europeanized Zamindar, tried to instill Western values, while Shudha's mother emphasized the traditional, even going as far as arranging a marriage for her daughter when she was thirteen. Although true to Indian traditions, Shudha eventually manifested her father's influence by becoming a published writer, by becoming a member of a number of social service organizations, and by serving as the Indian Delegate to the International Labour Organization.

Despite not speaking a word of French, the intrepid Dr. Evans left his native Philadelphia for Paris. His professional qualifications as a dentist did not seem to indicate that his life be filled with the adventures that he gleefully threw himself into. Within a short period in Paris, he became renowned for his medical skill and enjoyed the confidences of Kings, Princes and no less a person than the Emperor Napoleon III. He acted as a go-between among the crowned heads of Europe with his engaging manner. As the American consul-general William Seward wrote: “IT SOMETIMES HAPPENS when the crowned heads of Europe wish to communicate with one another without any responsibility they send for Evans to fix their teeth. As you are not likely to send so far for a dentist, I need only add that the messages of this sort, which he bears, are always communicated to him by word of mouth and in the presence of no witnesses.” His memoirs of the second Empire read both an engaging personal narrative and a secret view of the life of the court through tumultuous times including the diplomatic problems surrounding the Civil War, attempts at Coups d’état, numerous political plots, and disastrous Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71.