Merpeople: A Human History

by Vaughn Scribner

People have been fascinated by merpeople and merfolk since ancient times. From the sirens of Homer’s Odyssey to Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid and the film Splash, myths, stories, and legends of half-human, half-fish creatures abound. In modern times “mermaiding” has gained popularity among cosplayers throughout the world. In Merpeople: A Human History, Vaughn Scribner traces the long history of mermaids and mermen, taking in a wide variety of sources and using 117 striking images. From film to philosophy, church halls to coffee houses, ancient myth to modern science, Scribner shows that mermaids and tritons are—and always have been—everywhere.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Mermaids, Research, Folklore

320 pages, Hardcover

Published September 17, 2020

Reviews

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to come.

[Karl · Rating 3 out of 5]

--- "Christianity's growing acclaim coincided with Church leaders' inclusion of merpeople into their imagery and message." (Scribner: 38)
--- "these artists relied upon beautified representations of merpeople, which helped them to demonstrate their artistic prowess" (Scribner: 83)
--- "with women pushing into new realms of power and publicity, gender roles become more complicated by the day. Mermaids, unsurprisingly, continued as critical symbols of various anxieties surrounding gender, sex and capitalism." (Scribner: 180)
--- "representations of merpeople provide a keen lens through which to understand these brutal and world-changing cultural, religious and imperial transformations." (Scribner: 227)

This book unfolds the fascination Western people have had towards merpeople. It shows how merpeople have been used and why this fascination was there in different historical periods and parts of the world.

In my opinion the book suffers from repetition and more than once the book provides examples of the same idea or restates the same idea. I missed some examples of marmaids decorating tombs in Venice, as the book claims this was the case, and the poor quality of some illustrations in the paperback version made it hard sometimes to appreciate author's comments. The concept in the book of what Romanticism is isn't the one most art historians support but I liked the book anyway.

[Liam Kaylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Merpeople was a fascinating read that discusses the history of mermaids and mermen in human art, architecture, literature, and film. I had anticipated that the book would be a blend of history and mythology, but it turned out to be entirely historical in nature. While that was still intriguing in its own right, it didn't capture me in the way I'd hoped it would. The book did, however, shed an interesting light (through a unique lens) on the hybridity of human nature: good vs evil, light vs dark, male vs female, deceit vs credulity, etc.. True to it's title, "A Human History," the book uses merpeople as a vehicle to explore the human condition and the dichotomous nature of curiosity and morality that can be seen in our history. A fun read overall, but not what I was hoping for, which is maybe a problem of expectation rather than delivery.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

The thing is, this book is absolutely fine (with slightly too much on Christian iconography of mermaids), with some great colour pictures, but (having read the first two chapters), it doesn't add much to the shorter (and better written) Sophia Kingshill Mermaids book, which I can heartily recommend.

Maybe if I hadn't read the Kingshill first, this would seem much more interesting. As it is, it reads like a (slightly less good) version of the same thing (and about two years later).

Though, as I say, great colour pictures.

[Jen Well-Steered · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like how many cultures already have some kind of human-sea creature hybrid or sea god, or other mythical being that lives off its shores, but as soon as they come into contact with our current notions of merpeople, they suddenly get sexy long hair and naked breasts and the men disappear almost entirely.

[Jasmine · Rating 5 out of 5]

suuuuuuuper interesting

[Keita · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was actually quite an interesting study. I loved that not a specific region was looked at but the whole world. Loved to read about the start the most.