Dalby, Andrew K. 1947-

views updated

Dalby, Andrew K. 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born 1947. Education: Cambridge University, M.A.; Birbeck College, University of London, Ph.D. Hobbies and other interests: Growing fruit, making cider.

ADDRESSES:

Home—France. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Linguist, historian, and author. Has worked as librarian, Cambridge University Library, London Goodenough Trust for Overseas Graduates. Honorary fellow, Institute of Linguists, and Chartered Institute of Linguists.

WRITINGS:

Medical Abstracts and Indexes, 1975: A Bibliography of Abstracting, Indexing, and Current Awareness of Services in Medicine and Related Subjects, Cambridge University Library (Cambridge, England), 1975.

South East Asia: A Guide to Reference Material, Hans Zell Publishers (New York, NY), 1993.

(With Sally Grainger) The Classical Cookbook, British Museum Press (London, England), 1996, J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, CA), 2002.

Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece, Routledge (New York, NY), 1997.

(Translator and author of commentary) Marcus Porcius Cato, On Farming: De Agricultura, Prospect Books (Blackawton, England), 1998.

A Guide to World Language Dictionaries, Library Association (London, England), 1998.

Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More Than 400 Languages, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1998.

Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2000.

Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World, Routledge (New York, NY), 2000.

Language in Danger: The Loss of Linguistic Diversity and the Threat to Our Future, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 2002, published as Language in Danger: How Language Loss Threatens Our Future, Allen Lane (London, England), 2002.

Food in the Ancient World, A-Z, Routledge (New York, NY), 2003.

Flavours of Byzantium: Cuisine of a Legendary Empire, Prospect, 2003.

Bacchus: A Biography, J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, CA), 2004.

Venus: A Biography, Getty Publications (Los Angeles, CA), 2005.

Rediscovering Homer: Inside the Origins of the Epic, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2006.

Author of column "Notes in the Margin," for the Linguist.

SIDELIGHTS:

Most of Andrew K. Dalby's books fall into two categories: food and food preparation in Classical Greece and Rome, and studies of the history of spoken languages around the world. Enterprising readers can use Dalby's works such as The Classical Cookbook and Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices to prepare dishes with ingredients that were popular— indeed, sometimes craved—in the ancient empires of Greece and Rome. In order to create these books, Dalby drew upon his scholarly knowledge of classical languages and his wide reading of the preserved texts of the period. In her Times Literary Supplement review of The Classical Cookbook, Emily Wilson credited Dalby and his coauthor, Sally Grainger, with an "imaginative use of their sources" adding: "As this book shows, ancient literature can … sail into modern kitchens bearing … sybaritic cargo." Roger Just, also writing in the Times Literary Supplement, praised Siren Feasts as "a quite monumental (and sometimes daunting) work of scholarship." Just added: "It will surely remain for some time the definitive work on Greek food and gastronomy, and as a standard reference work, it will be regularly plundered via its quite excellent indexes every time anyone wants to know, as Dalby himself once did, how the Greeks ate." In a review of Dangerous Tastes on the Foodreference.com Web site, a contributor wrote: "Dalby has assembled a wealth of absorbing information into a fertile human history that spreads outward with the expansion of human knowledge of spices worldwide."

Dalby's other interest, the history of spoken languages, has produced several reference books and a theoretical work on the rapid loss of linguistic diversity in an increasingly global economy. A Guide to World Language Dictionaries and Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More Than 400 Languages reflect the author's wide knowledge of tongues both common and extinct. James McShane, writing in Reference & User Services Quarterly, called the former "a research tool that will be of value to anyone involved in learning or researching a language." Another Reference & Users Services Quarterly contributor, Gregory A. Crawford, noted that, compared to similar books, Dictionary of Languages "covers more languages in more depth."

Dalby's reflections on language loss and its implications for the complexity and diversity of linguistics inform Language in Danger: The Loss of Linguistic Diversity and the Threat to Our Future. According to Michael Dirda in the Washington Post Book World, this work "provides an engrossing account of both how languages evolve and interact with one another, and of how much is lost—culturally and epistemologically— when the last speaker of, say, Cornish or Chamorro or Occitan or Powhatan dies." Language in Danger offers a compelling case that the number of world languages is dwindling at the rate of two each week, but Dalby does not see any easy solution to the hegemony of English in a computerized era when American and European interests dominate. Many reviewers nevertheless felt that the book is important as a cautionary treatise that might encourage readers to consider solutions to the problem. In Newsweek International, Tara Pepper maintained that Language in Danger proves that "we are losing a testament to human creativity that rivals great works of art." Pepper also praised Dalby for his "intelligent perspec- tives." A critic for the Contemporary Review remarked that Dalby "argues his case well and shows the poverty from which we shall all suffer if the present trend is not reversed." Calling the work "a passionate and lucid book," Spectator contributor Robert Macfarlane particularly praised Dalby's "magnificent final chapter, in which he argues superbly on three fronts for the importance of maintaining linguistic diversity."

Among Dalby's many other works is South East Asia: A Guide to Reference Material, which emphasizes books in English but also includes references to international language publications. Jonathan Rigg, writing in the Geographical Journal, called the book "a fine historical guide which will prove a useful source." Rigg added: "It is scholarly and written with flair." Dalby examines the extravagant aspects of ancient Roman life in Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World. Noting that once the Roman empire was safe and secure, the Roman elite turned their attention to the more indulgent aspects of life, the author goes on to explore such pleasures as their food and eating habits and travel agendas. The book also includes an ancient sources index and an index listing the pleasures and places associated with them. A contributor to M2 Best Books called Empire of Pleasures "a book of facts that creates a surprisingly vivid image of the Roman empire." The reviewer added: "The subject remains specialised but the book is easy to read and the text flows well." Along similar lines is Flavours of Byzantium: Cuisine of a Legendary Empire, which focuses on the eating habits of the Eastern Roman Empire in the Middle Ages. The author includes extracts from numerous ancient texts and a phrase books on Byzantine food. He discusses foods and markets of Constantinople, how visitors to the land viewed the region's eating habits and food, and how the people themselves viewed the physical benefits of the food they ate. Recipes are also included. A Medium Aevum contributor appreciated that book covers "a subject on which little has been written."

Dalby takes a look at mythology in Bacchus: A Biography. As the title suggests, Dalby tells the story of the god of wine in a biographical format based on numerous stories from literature and myth. Dalby also references all his sources as he tells his story, noting, for example, if a particular myth was first found in the writings of Ovid. Dalby goes on to explain how the ancient myths were eventually civilized into more modern tales. A Contemporary Review contributor reported that the author provides "insight into the bizarre world of Greek mythology." Jonathan Keates, writing in the Spectator, commented: "Andrew Dalby's narrative is a skilful combination of various biographical styles. Some of it is purely factual, some told as biographie romancee, other sections are once-upon-a-time stories in the manner of Nathaniel Hawthorne. The writer, without pedantry or obfuscation, continuously evaluates and compares his Greek and Roman sources."

In his sequel to Bacchus, Venus: A Biography, Dalby takes a similar approach by assembling various stories into a biography. Dunstan Lowe wrote in Biography that the author "exhibits the same relish for the details of ancient culture that colours all of this author's works." Writing in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, Lowe called the book "a very individual slant on classical mythology, which does nothing to extricate itself from the strategies of objectification imposed on women in antiquity."

In Rediscovering Homer: Inside the Origins of the Epic, Dalby sets forth his unique thesis that Homer was actually a woman. In the process, he discusses such issues as the move from traditional oral poetry to written poetry, the historical context for the Trojan War, and the theory that one writer wrote both the Iliad and the Odyssey. In a review of Rediscovering Homer in Publishers Weekly, a contributor wrote that the book "serves as a useful introduction to the detective work these poems have inspired." Library Journal critic T.L. Cooksey praised the way in which the author has "compiled, summarized, and synthesized a complex variety of materials," adding that Dalby "explains [them] with grace and clarity."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Biography, winter, 2006, Dunstan Lowe, review of Venus: A Biography, p. 257.

Booklist, May 15, 1999, Mary Ellen Quinn, review of Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More Than 400 Languages, p. 1718.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review, April 29, 1996, Gwen Compton-Engle, review of Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece; October, 2005, Dunstan Lowe, review of Venus.

Contemporary Review, August, 2002, "New and Noteworthy," p. 119; August, 2002, review of Language in Danger: How Language Loss Threatens Our Future, p. 119; May, 2004, review of Bacchus: A Biography, p. 318.

ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, April, 2005, Martin H. Levinson, review of Dictionary of Languages, p. 218.

Geographical, January 1999, Melanie Train, review of Dictionary of Languages, p. 69.

Geographical Journal, March, 1996, Jonathan Rigg, review of South East Asia: A Guide to Reference Material, p. 87.

Geographical Magazine, January, 1999, Melanie Train, review of Dictionary of Languages, p. 69.

History Today, April, 1996, Karen Pagett, "Spring Books," p. 49.

Library Journal, March 15, 1999, Stanley P. Hodge, review of A Guide to World Language Dictionaries, p. 68; May 1, 1999, Stanley P. Hodge, review of Dictionary of Languages, p. 68; April 15, 2000, Brian E. Coutts and John B. Richard, review of Dictionary of Languages, p. 55; April 1, 2003, Marianne Orme, review of Language in Danger, p. 96; June 1, 2006, T.L. Cooksey, review of Rediscovering Homer: Inside the Origins of the Epic, p. 116.

Library Quarterly, April, 2000, G. Benoit, review of Dictionary of Languages, p. 265.

M2 Best Books, January 14, 2002, review of Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World.

Medium Aevum, spring, 2005, review of Flavours of Byzantium: Cuisine of a Legendary Empire, p. 179.

New Statesman, April 15, 2002, Kathryn Hughes, "Speaking in Tongues," review of Language in Danger, p. 54.

Newsweek International, August 12, 2002, Tara Pepper, "The Fall of Babel," review of Language in Danger, p. 46.

New Yorker, July 15, 2002, Leo Carey, "Cutting Off the Tongue," includes review of Dictionary of Languages.

Publishers Weekly, March 24, 2003, review of Language in Danger, p. 66; May 15, 2006, review of Rediscovering Homer, p. 61.

Reference & User Services Quarterly, summer, 1999, James McShane, review of A Guide to World Language Dictionaries, p. 416; fall, 1999, Gregory A. Crawford, review of Dictionary of Languages, p. 88.

Science News, November 2, 2002, review of Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices, p. 287.

Spectator, May 25, 2002, Robert Macfarlane, "A Crossroads with Two Signposts: Diversity and Uniformity," review of Language in Danger, p. 46; October 25, 2003, Jonathan Keates, review of Bacchus, p. 63.

Times Higher Education Supplement, June 14, 2002, David Crystal, "… And the Earth Had One Tongue," p. 27.

Times Literary Supplement, February 23, 1996, Roger Just, "First Inflate Your Thrush," review of Siren Feasts p. 8; August 9, 1996, Emily Wilson, "Real Heroes Don't Eat Fish," review of The Classical Cookbook, p. 11.

Washington Post Book World, May 25, 2003, Michael Dirda, review of Language in Danger, p. 15.