{"id":14028,"date":"2020-02-26T07:00:47","date_gmt":"2020-02-26T12:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/?p=14028"},"modified":"2020-02-25T13:41:10","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T18:41:10","slug":"review-shapeshifters-a-history-john-kachuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/review-shapeshifters-a-history-john-kachuba\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Shapeshifters: A History by John B. Kachuba"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"14029\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/review-shapeshifters-a-history-john-kachuba\/shapeshifters\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/shapeshifters.jpg?fit=818%2C1280&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"818,1280\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"shapeshifters\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/shapeshifters.jpg?fit=654%2C1024&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-14029\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/shapeshifters-224x350.jpg?resize=224%2C350\" alt=\"\" width=\"224\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/shapeshifters.jpg?resize=224%2C350&amp;ssl=1 224w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/shapeshifters.jpg?resize=654%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 654w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/shapeshifters.jpg?resize=768%2C1202&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/shapeshifters.jpg?w=818&amp;ssl=1 818w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 224px) 85vw, 224px\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Shapeshifters-History-John-B-Kachuba\/dp\/178914079X\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3IJWBJXSJXZQN&amp;keywords=shapeshifters+a+history&amp;qid=1581294172&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=shapeshifters+%2Cstripbooks%2C200&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong><em>Shapeshifters: A History <\/em>by John B. Kachuba<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\n<strong>Reaktion Books (June 2019)<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>208 pages; $15.78 hardcover<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Reviewed by\u00a0Kevin Lucia<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As an English teacher and lover of myths and folklore, nonfiction works on the historical and mythical backgrounds of monsters and such is right up my alley. I love reading how strange beliefs, customs, and folktales serve as the roots of some of our more famous monsters and horror fiction beasties. So, as you can imagine, when <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shapeshifters: A History <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">by John B. Kachuba showed up on my doorstep, I was pretty excited.\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And I wasn&#8217;t disappointed. Kachuba has complied an extensive survey of all sorts of shape-shifting myths, legends, folktales, and fairytales from the ages. He covers everything from the gods and goddesses of the ancient world, to the faerie folk of Europe, to the classics such as the werewolf and the vampire. He also talks quite a bit about how preoccupation with the power to transform oneself ties in deeply with cultural beliefs about race, gender, sex and identity, and how that has played out in the evolution of these shapeshifters not only throughout oral history, but in their portrayals in popular media. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you enjoy reading nonfiction works about the origins our monsters and mythical beings as much as I do, then this is the book for you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shapeshifters: A History by John B. Kachuba Reaktion Books (June 2019) 208 pages; $15.78 hardcover Reviewed by\u00a0Kevin Lucia As an English teacher and lover of myths and folklore, nonfiction works on the historical and mythical backgrounds of monsters and such is right up my alley. I love reading how strange beliefs, customs, and folktales serve &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/review-shapeshifters-a-history-john-kachuba\/\" class=\"more-link button bg-gold white\">Continue Reading!<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Review: Shapeshifters: A History by John B. Kachuba&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80],"tags":[1965,783,79,1964],"class_list":["post-14028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-john-b-kachuba","tag-kevin-lucia","tag-reviews","tag-shapeshifters-a-history"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Review: Shapeshifters: A History by John B. 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