Gaslighting

Good books are full of gemstones native to the major storyline, but sometimes the gemstone appears almost peripherally and as a complete surprise. It is adjacent to the main narrative. Such is the case with Laura Beers’ “Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-first Century.” Beers is a Professor of British History at American University, and the book is about the life of one of Britain’s most formidable authors, George Orwell. He is best known for his classic dystopian novels “Animal Farm” and “Nineteen Eighty-four.” For Orwell followers, Beers’ title of forewarning about the contemporary political scene based on Orwell’s writings is no surprise, but it is not the subject of today’s essay. Rather, the surprise gemstone is the telling of the origin of the word “gaslight…