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Loading... Stamps as Witnesses of History: A Guide to Political Philately (edition 2018)by Ruth Lea (Author)
Work InformationStamps as Witnesses of History: A Guide to Political Philately by Ruth Lea
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'Stamps as Witnesses of History' is not a book about the history of stamps as such. It is a book about how stamp issues since Rowland Hill invented the first adhesive postage stamp in 1840 have 'witnessed' the seismic global political developments over the years. It is a guide to political philately, which aims to show how stamp issues have reflected and have related to key political events. Thus stamps of the North German Confederation marked a major stepping stone to German unification, a truly momentous political even, whilst selected African stamps of the 1960s celebrated the independence of many emerging African states from European colonial empires. The book is arranged geographically, covering the whole world. For each country entry, the major political developments are listed chronologically on the left hand side with contemporaneous stamps, supported in some instances by relevant commemoratives, on the right hand side. -- back cover. No library descriptions found. |
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Ruth Lea is a busy, highly intelligent women, well versed in economics, banking and the City of London, I have attended various functions over the years where she has been one of the speakers. While I thought we had little in common, just goes to prove how wrong you can be. Like her I am a stamp collector and have been most of my life, yes, I have just outed myself, as a philatelist, an anorak, and I do not care!
Ruth Lea has written what has to be one of the best reference books for collectors that I have seen in years. I stopped collecting British stamps back in the 1980s when I was a teenager, and British stamps were too expensive for my pocket. But I started collecting German Stamps, first from the nineteenth century to the allied occupation after the War. In the 80s these stamps were cheap, generally ignored by some due to the nature of the subject matter. This has spurned other collecting interests in the countries occupied during the War as well as Feldpost material.
What, I have forgotten is how many countries around the world have been subject to wars, whether of independence, with other powers, or even neighbours. What Ruth Lea has done is break them down into geographical areas, such as Central and South America, and she has broken the countries down, into the various political governments since the onset of postage stamp. Alongside these explanations are representations of each period of the political government, for example, colour pictures of the stamps of Spain, from Kingdom, to republic, to kingdom, second republic, the junta, Franco’s National Government back to Kingdom.
This is an excellent reference book for collectors of all levels, from the experienced to those who may want to go in different directions. I first became away by reading my weekly email update from Sandafayre Stamps, and they certainly were not wrong to recommend this book. I personally cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Besides the excellent research that has gone into writing this book, it is illustrated with full colour photography, which will be an excellent addition to my small but important to me, philatelic library. ( )