Status Updates From Love for Sale: A World Hist...

Love love love this book. It's fascinating and good research for the book I'm writing.

Ending this reading session on a sour note with WWII comfort women and Japan's falsification of history until confronted in the 1990s.

I do get the sense that Nils read primary documents (as he describes League of Nations commission notes) but it feels paraphrased in text instead of cited.

Here's an example where I'm not sure if it's sloppy writing, translation, or both: "...replied Curzon, who used every means available to prevent the marriage of the maharajah of Patiala to a British miss, Florry Bryan —all in vain. Shortly afterward, the rajah of Jind celebrated his own nuptials in a more discreet manner. In this case, the bride was Dutch "

Why is the British bride the only one named? What means?

Too stubborn to DNF this, but I'm reminded of a high school level paper that doesn't directly cite sources, and if I do look it up there's some questionable facts (I think the last error I was saw related to the Manet painting "Nana")

But really, while I think it could be interesting to use paintings/plays/operas as evidence of how prostitutes lived/were perceived, how does that match primary records?

Possibly bad translation calling Mary Magdalene "the Old Testament 's second most important woman"

"The late Middle Ages had been called a time without morals." By *whom*?

"China is the only civilization for which one has solid reason to believe that prostitution developed independent of influence from the West. In this light, it is particularly interesting to contemplate how far back in history it was possible to buy and sell sexual services." Citation needed??? This is the main thing that annoys me with this book: info presented face value, no sources.

ehhhhh we'll see if I can finish this before the end of the month. Finished the chapter on prostitution as referenced in the Bible, though I think the next chapter is also looking at a Biblical example as a historical case.

Second book club pick for Feb/March: I'm a tad wary because this is from the 90s but from the intro the author seems like he's sex positive and gay, so maybe not coming from a moralist POV? We'll see