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Grand unified books thread

Started by Syt, March 16, 2009, 01:52:42 AM

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Agelastus

Quote from: FunkMonk on February 16, 2010, 06:34:21 PM
Goldsworthy's Caesar: Life of a Colossus. Just started it a few days ago, but great so far. I should have been born two thousand years ago. :patton:

Good book. Good historian.

I'm expecting his latest work, on the fall of the Roman Empire, any day now.
"Come grow old with me
The Best is yet to be
The last of life for which the first was made."

Savonarola

Quote from: Savonarola on February 16, 2010, 04:31:46 PM

Next up: Nennius's "History of the Britons" and "The Welsh Annales."

History of the Britons doesn't really seem like a complete work; just a random collection of stories, personal anecdotes and family trees; like an unfocused Herodotus.  I learned that nearly all of the rulers of the individual Anglo-Saxon kingdoms claimed Woden as an ancestor.  Both Nennius and the Annales mention King Arthur as a historical person.

Next up:  The Book of the Thousand and One Nights
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

Malthus

Quote from: Savonarola on February 17, 2010, 05:52:27 PM
Quote from: Savonarola on February 16, 2010, 04:31:46 PM

Next up: Nennius's "History of the Britons" and "The Welsh Annales."

History of the Britons doesn't really seem like a complete work; just a random collection of stories, personal anecdotes and family trees; like an unfocused Herodotus.  I learned that nearly all of the rulers of the individual Anglo-Saxon kingdoms claimed Woden as an ancestor.  Both Nennius and the Annales mention King Arthur as a historical person.

Next up:  The Book of the Thousand and One Nights

According to the geneological chart I saw at the Tower of London, the current royal family of Britian still to this day claims Woden as its first ancestor.

Not sure how claiming descent from a pagan diety can be squared with being the head of a Christian denomination ... maybe they are covering all the bases just to make sure?  :D
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

garbon

Re-reading 1984 and The Bell Jar.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."

I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Savonarola

Quote from: Malthus on February 17, 2010, 06:07:37 PM

According to the geneological chart I saw at the Tower of London, the current royal family of Britian still to this day claims Woden as its first ancestor.

Not sure how claiming descent from a pagan diety can be squared with being the head of a Christian denomination ... maybe they are covering all the bases just to make sure?  :D

I've seen that too.  I believe the current royal family traces its ancestry back through the kings of Wessex so they probably use the same early geneology that Nennius uses.

It's surprising to see Nennius (who was a Christian monk) use that geneology since the common opinion of the time was that the pagan deities were actually devils.  Bede (who wrote at about the same time as Nennius) doesn't even bother calling them "Pagan gods" or anything similar; he simply calls them "Devils."
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

Malthus

Quote from: Savonarola on February 18, 2010, 08:54:45 AM
Quote from: Malthus on February 17, 2010, 06:07:37 PM

According to the geneological chart I saw at the Tower of London, the current royal family of Britian still to this day claims Woden as its first ancestor.

Not sure how claiming descent from a pagan diety can be squared with being the head of a Christian denomination ... maybe they are covering all the bases just to make sure?  :D

I've seen that too.  I believe the current royal family traces its ancestry back through the kings of Wessex so they probably use the same early geneology that Nennius uses.

It's surprising to see Nennius (who was a Christian monk) use that geneology since the common opinion of the time was that the pagan deities were actually devils.  Bede (who wrote at about the same time as Nennius) doesn't even bother calling them "Pagan gods" or anything similar; he simply calls them "Devils."

I believe what is at work is this: in modern-day anthropology, the transition from a 'chieftianship' to an 'early state' is charactaristically marked by the creation of an elevated chiefly caste which claims descent from the gods, and thus is made of finer stuff than ordinary humans. In Saxon culture, this would be the "Woden-born". In many societies, this sentiment is so useful to the ruling class that it lingers long, long after the transition is made and  even after the religion has evolved to reject the very gods that gave rise to it.

Echoes of this cas be seen in the Bible, where the "children of god" mate with mortal women to produce "heroes, mighty men of old".

Genesis 6:4:

QuoteThe Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

The notion of God having children mating with mortals to make heroes is odd and alien to Judaism as it evolved, and has given rise to all sorts of tortured theological explainations, but from an anthropological POV it is really no different from the oddity of the head of the Anglican Church claiming ultimate descent from  Woden.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

grumbler

Just finished Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, about the Battle off Samar during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.  I was disappointed; the first book to focus on the surface actions off Samar had to be written by a guy who didn't know what he was talking about (and had annoying "favorite words" that he used whenever he could crowbar them into the text).  The book wasn't badly written, mind; it was just disappointingly written.  Not academic at all, the author accepts the claims of the survivors as to the hits and damage they inflicted without ever attempting to reconcile those claims with the Japanese after-action reports.  The author also has a love affair with the Samuel B Roberts (a DE that actually inflicted little damage) and downplays the efforts of the Johnston (which, to be fair, has probably been over-emphasized in previous works, because its skipper got The Medal, was A Character, and was full-blooded Cherokee to boot).

While most of the author's blunders (not caught be the unskilled editor) probably wouldn't bother the typical readers (things like Hornfischer's constant confusion between "round" and "shell" or his claim that the Gambier Bay was the first carrier ever sunk by surface gunfire), probably even the neophytes know that one doesn't weigh anchor when one arrives in port, and that the constant references to "Ziggy Sprague" (rather than just "Sprague" or maybe "Admiral Sprague") looks awful.  Probably some could guess that there is something wrong with the constant reference to the rating of "boilermaker!"

The book is good for the stories of the sailors involved (which is, to be sure, the focus and largest part of the book).  Only the painfully bad poetry of one of the officers mars that element of the book, and the author does a pretty good job of jumping from ship to ship and person to person while keeping it all straight in the reader's mind.  If yu take it as a compilation of personal recollections without an attempt to be historically accurate, it is a decent book.  Just don't finish the book and think you have reliably learned anything about the battle or the Navy per se, because Hornfischer himself doesn't understand either particularly well.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

Sheilbh

Age of Innocence.  Never read any Wharton before, I'd always thought she was dour.  This book was actually rather funny.  But didn't really whet my appetite for more of her.

Back to Trollope - Phineas Finn HO!
Let's bomb Russia!

BuddhaRhubarb

Started "The Winter King" not far into it yet, but I like the setup and the very different less cliched versions of characters so far.
:p

garbon

I just bought books by Hollinghurst and Edmund White. It shall be a gay weekend.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."

I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Savonarola

Quote from: Sheilbh on February 26, 2010, 10:55:50 PM
Age of Innocence.  Never read any Wharton before, I'd always thought she was dour.  This book was actually rather funny.  But didn't really whet my appetite for more of her.

The House of Mirth is also worthwhile.  It covers the largely the same theme (desire versus society) and is set in the same place and period.  The ending of the novel is a cheat and it features a Jewish caricature; but I think Wharton has a much better character in Lily Bart than she does in Newland Archer.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

Ed Anger

I'm re-reading the Dread Empire books.  :)

I've got a stack of about 70 or so non-fiction history books I want to read, but have no energy to.  :(
Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

HisMajestyBOB

I read through Hitler's Prisoners in a week. It's an autobiographical tale about a man who served in the Wehrmacht during WWII and was then imprisoned for speaking negatively about the conditions at the front and about Goering. In prison, he and his cell mates relate their stories, telling about themselves and how they ended up in prison, making this book 7 biographies, really. It gives a good look at the lives of people in Germany during the 1920s-30s, and at how the Nazi government's policies and persectution affected the lives of ordinary Germans.

One of the biggest drawbacks to the book is that, unlike in a fictional novel, not everything is resolved at the end. He never learned the fates of 3 of his cellmates (though one was almost certainly executed), nor do you really learn much about one of the cellmates, beyond just a few hints at a very interesting story.

It's an excellent book, highly recommended.
Three lovely Prada points for HoI2 help

Alatriste

I'm reading "The Most Dangerous Enemy" Stephen Bungay's book on the Battle of Britain, translated into Spanish. I generally avoid translations, but I couldn't resist buying a book I was already interested in at just 9,95 euros.

Big Mistake.

The translator can't tell oil (lubricant) from fuel, thinks General Staff was a man, changes unit designations randomly (for example Fighter Command becomes 'Unidad de Cazas', i.e. Fighter Unit), doesn't know what a dispersal is... and that's just in the first 80 pages. The poor guy obviously hadn't got a clue about aircraft, engines and/or military matters.

Razgovory

Quote from: Alatriste on March 02, 2010, 01:58:05 AM
I'm reading "The Most Dangerous Enemy" Stephen Bungay's book on the Battle of Britain, translated into Spanish. I generally avoid translations, but I couldn't resist buying a book I was already interested in at just 9,95 euros.

Big Mistake.

The translator can't tell oil (lubricant) from fuel, thinks General Staff was a man, changes unit designations randomly (for example Fighter Command becomes 'Unidad de Cazas', i.e. Fighter Unit), doesn't know what a dispersal is... and that's just in the first 80 pages. The poor guy obviously hadn't got a clue about aircraft, engines and/or military matters.

:lol:
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017