This Week at the Library (25/3)

Posted on March 25, 2010 by smellincoffee

This week at the library…

Letter from the Birmingham Jail, written by Martin Luther King Jr, is a response to King’s critics in which King explains the necessity and appropriateness of civil disobedience in the Civil Rights movement. The letter also allows King to voice his disappointment with moderates and the Christian church for opposing the Civil Rights movement more than they assist it.

Conspirata by Robert Harris is the second book in his biographical trilogy of Cicero. Taking place during Cicero’s year as a consul, the book sees Cicero tackle the Cataline Conspiracy and earn for himself the title “Father of the Nation”, a title seldom given before the rise of the emperors. Unfortunately for Cicero, Cataline was only the beginning of both his and the Republic’s difficulties. Conspirata may one of Harris’ better works.

The Road to Wigan Pier  documents lives and working conditions of coal miners in northern England,  the consequences of class consciousness, and sees Orwell promote democratic socialism while explaining why socialism has been so unpopular up until that point (1937).  Wigan will be useful to the social historian of the period.

Lost Discoveries by Nick Teresi is a history of global science, or at least a history of humanity’s investigation and explanation of the natural world that draws from the accounts of  nearly every civilized culture on Earth. Seperate chapters focus on mathematics, astronomy, cosmology, physics, geology, chemistry, and technology, and show clearly that curiousity about the natural world and unique approaches to satiating that curiosity are part of the human heritage. Although the book had its weaknesses, I enjoyed it immensely.

Pick of the week? Oh, dear — this week’s reading was too strong to play favorites.

Quotation of the Week: “Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with.”  (King, Letter from the Birmingham Jail)

Upcoming Reads:

  • The Infernova, S. A. Alenthony’s witty retelling of Danta’s classic Inferno.  Mark Twain replaces Virgil as the narrator’s guide into the abyss of Hell….a hell populated not by the impious, but the unreasonable.
  • Strength to Love, Martin Luther King Jr. This is a collection of sermons and essays I am very much looking to: I read Letter from the Birmingham Jail in part to whet my appetite. 
  • Bhagavad Gita, Stephen Mitchell
  • 1421: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles Mann.
  • And of course, there’s always The Human Zoo by Desmond Morris, which I accidentally forgot about.
  • In addition, I’m still hiking through a classic of contemporary literature.
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Lost Discoveries

Posted on March 24, 2010 by smellincoffee

Lost Discoveries: the Ancient Roots of Modern Science — from the Babylonians to the Maya
© 2002 Dick Teresi
453

I spotted this while collecting books for a paper on the emergence of Renaissance science, and it looked so interesting that I knew I’d be reading it properly instead of scanning and making notes. I’m glad I did, for it’s as enjoyable a book about human history and science as I’ve ever read.

Author Dick Teresi establishes from the start that while the traditional western-centric narrative of scientific progress is simplistic, chauvinistic, and incorrect, previous attempts at a multicultural view of scientific history have repeated those mistakes while being patronizing to boot. The traditional narrative, which Teresi believes began only 150 years ago, holds that science was born in Greece, where it defined the classical world until that era’s demise. While the ideas of the Greeks were kept safe by the Arabs,  scientific progress did not resume until the Renaissance, and science has remained the province of the Western world ever since — only becoming global after colonialism exported it. Attempts to overturn this narrative have gone so far as to reduce the Greeks to nothing more than unoriginal borrowers, and given rise to wild speculative theories like ancient Egypt having gliders and using the Pyramids as air-control towers.

Teresi hopes — and I think, succeeds — with this book to project a broader and fairer view. Chapters on mathematics, astronomy, cosmology, physics, geology, chemistry, and technology show that cultures across the globe have all explored the natural world in their ways, and that further, many systems of thought are the result of interplay between these cultures. The combination of Greek and Indian ideas in math, for instance, supplemented the Arab world’s own knowledge in the same. Cultures have had different approaches, often ignoring parts of science while promoting others as their cultural values suggest, but no culture has failed to investigate the world in which they live. The book thus appealed to me in the same way history as a whole does: it reminds me that so many people have lived and asked questions, just as I do, and they have tried to answer those questions in a delightful variety of ways.

There is, however, a difference between explaining the natural world and doing so scientifically. Teresi’s use of science in this book is limited to the popular use of it — information relating to the world we live in. Lost Discoveries records a range of empirical and speculative approaches on the part of people to find the truth. Only one chapter suffers in content, that of cosmology. After explaining the modern view — theories based on the big bang — Teresi then repeats every mythological story that references an eternal universe that begins with massive expansion and that might tend to be cyclical in having a growth, death, and rebirth cycle. This is reaching: those stories are supernatural accounts, not investigations of the natural world. Contemporary science remains based on Greek, Indian, and Islamic math, or uses Babylonian calendars, or used Chinese technology. How are these account of cosmic birth a root or base of modern science? They have their place, but I don’t think it is in this book.

Despite this weakness, the book as a whole is strong. I enjoyed it immensely and recommend it to anyone interested in the global history of our attempts to explain the natural world.  Teresi presents a varied, rich, and fair account that has increased my appreciate for the human heritage as a whole.

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Teaser Tuesday (23-3)

Posted on March 23, 2010 by smellincoffee

Give us this day our Tuesday Tease — from Should Be Reading.

In this world there are two main paths:
the yoga of understanding,
for contemplative men; and for men 
who are active, the yoga of action.
Not by avoiding actions
does a man gain freedom from action
and not by renunciation
alone, can he reach the goal

– pg. 62 of Stephen Mitchell’s The Bhagavad Gita: chapter 3, verses three and four. It makes me think of the old struggle between the active and contemplative lives, as well as Buddha’s “middle way”.

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The Road to Wigan Pier

Posted on March 21, 2010 by smellincoffee

The Road to Wigan Pier
© 1937 George Orwell
191 pages, including forward for members of the Left Book Club. 

(My own copy: I adore tattered old paperbacks.)

       I read this primarily for a European history class taught by a professor who typically assigns novels, journals, or other supplemental literature alongside of or instead of a standard textbook. I like this approach: it’s given me a fair bit of interesting reading over the years, introducing me to books I would have otherwise never heard of.

Originally published in 1937 — written, in fact, during the Fascist attack on Madrid — George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier covers two related topics in the same breath. The book’s opening chapters concern the living and working conditions of the working class, their plight amidst England’s then-current economic woes (chronic unemployment and housing shortages), and their difficulty in being received by the middle-class world.  Orwell then moves on to the question of socialism. In his view,  socialism is such an obvious idea that it should seem to appeal to everyone. Since it does not,  he aims to sort out why exactly this is. He believes the problem lies with socialists’ approach, in being insincere, orthodox, or tied to utopian (specifically, Wellsian) dreams of the future. His ideal socialist is kin to the ideal Christian: one who does not spend his time talking about doctrine, but simply living and advocating for principles of justice and human decency. He finishes the book with a promotion of democratic socialism.

Although not written as such, Wigan  is now valuable as a historical resource. The first part of the book serves as a documentary about the working class, whose living and working conditions were dismal indeed: they seemed scarcely better than those of the Gilded Age.  The book is also now a work of intellectual and cultural history: Orwell spends a great deal of time comparing the attitudes and values of the working class and the middle class.  Given that Orwell also discusses  how socialism is received by people — and why they react against it — I can understand why my professor would assign it, given that we are discussing the rise of reactionary and fascist parties in Europe’s 1930s. The book is easily readable and tends toward the informal: Orwell talks to the reader with passion, communicating effectively despite a slight tendency to be absent-minded. This is definitely of interest for those interested in the life of the 1930s.

Wigan Pier made for an interesting read. I think I shall be reading more of Orwell’s nonfiction in the future, specifically his Homage to Catalonia.

Related:

  • Technopoly and Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. Orwell’s stance on increasing mechanization and cultural shallowness made me think of Postman.
  • The Gangs of New York, Herbert Ashbury, in documenting living conditions. 
  • The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx, for economic criticism. While Orwell sees Marx’s criticisms valid, he thinks intellectual Marxists make for poor socialists indeed, just as theologians fixated on quandaries make for poor Christians. 

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Conspirata

Posted on March 18, 2010 by smellincoffee

Conspirata
© 2009/2010 Robert Harris
340 pages

“Until this moment, gentlemen, I did not realize the extent to which there were two conspiracies I had to fight. There was the conspiracy which I destroyed, and then there was the conspiracy behind that conspiracy — and that inner one prospers still. Look around you, Romans, and you can see how well it prospers!”

Imperium and Pompeii sold me on Robert Harris as an author, and I anticipated with eagerness Imperium’s sequel, the second part of his biographical trilogy of Marcus Tullius Cicero. The sequel (Lustrum‘s) release in America was delayed for three months, after which time it arrived as Conspirata. Imperium ended with Cicero’s rise to the consulship (63 BC), the highest office in Rome. He earns the office not through family ties or money, but through sheer political prowess and oratorical might. He will need both to survive in late Republican Rome — in a time  of political crisis and turmoil. The dispossessed, hungry, and desperate masses view the violent would-be revolutionary Catalina as their savior.  Cicero and Catalina are bitter rivals, and their machinations against the other dominate the initial two-thirds of the book. Catalina’s desire to overthrow the Republic is personal for Cicero, and not just because of the latter’s adoration for tradition and Roman virtue:  Catalina has sworn to murder Cicero, and inspires his supporters to hate our subject. In spite of popular hatred, Cicero is determined to maintain the rule of law against the threat of violence.

Although Catalina is the most direct and obvious threat, Cicero will find that he is not the only threat. The revolutionary is flanked by the young and ambitious Julius Caesar, whose own adeptness at the game of politicians is startling. Supporting the both of them is Crassus, the robber-baron and king-maker of his day:  Crassus, whose vast wealth can buy him everything but the glory he seeks, is willing to do whatever it takes to make a public name for himself. Looming in the distance is Pompey, whose opinion of himself after the destruction of Rome’s foreign enemies is so great that he refers to himself as “the Great”.  The legendary general commands the respect of all: his own ambition to rule the world is thwarted only by the equal ambition of Caesar and Crassus. What unites these men is their lust for glory and power — and standing against them are men like the pragmatic Cicero and the puritanically idealistic Cato. In this novel’s  five year span (known as a lustrum), Cicero’s star will rise to glory despite the odds — but against such powerfully arrayed forces, it may not long shine.

Conspirata is a first-rate political thriller, one that invokes the tension between idealism and pragmatism as well as the on-going fight between the haves and the have nots. Cicero emerges as a sympathetic character even as he is partially corrupted by his own success, largely because those he stands against are such scoundrels. The very nature of politics emerges through the various political fights here, as they both its idealism and its tendency toward corruption for both noble and ignoble purposes. The struggle between the optimates and populares intrigues me, largely because it continues today, giving Rome’s political dramas steadfast relevance. Harris has triumphed here.

Related:

  • Steven Saylor’s Catalina’s Riddle, which has the main character give shelter to Cataline during the power struggle. 
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Letter from the Birmingham Jail

Posted on March 17, 2010 by smellincoffee

Letter from the Birmingham Jail
© 1963 Martin Luther King Jr.
35 pages

Don’t say it can’t be done:
The battle’s just begun
Take it from Doctor King,
You too can learn to sing,
So — drop the gun!
(Pete Seeger, “Take It From Doctor King“)

Despite his impact on my own local and national history, until recent years Martin Luther King Jr. has been but another of history’s many characters. Somewhere between reading Henry David Thoreau and Howard Zinn, however, he lept from the pages of books and became a personality for me to reckon with. Dr. King penned the letter from his Birmingham jail cell after being arrested for civil disobedience, part of an extended campaign on the part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other groups to force tradition-bound states like Alabama and Georgia to confront the illegal and inhumane practice of segregation. The letter is a response to his critics, who question the appropriateness and usefulness of his campaign.

Although maintaining that ordinarily he would never respond at length to his critics — for there were many, — the monotony of his life in prison affords him the opportunity and makes the process seem much more appealing, giving him something to keep his mind busy. After responding to claims that the nonviolent movement is too extreme or provocative, King expresses his own concerns — lamenting the apathy and impotence of the church, which has turned away from what he sees as Jesus’ mandate for social justice in favor of worshiping tradition. He addresses the spirit of conservative moderation in general, criticizing its impotence while affirming that justice must take precedence before legalism.

Letter is a marvel, masterfully written. It contains much, despite the few pages. Although written in response to particular social circumstances, King’s passion and opinions are still applicable today.Additionally, the letter is a valuable piece of history, explaining the need for and the application of nonviolent activism.  Although I do not share Dr. King’s religious beliefs, I admire the ends which they serve. His endearing humility and passion for both humanity and our most noble aspirations make him one of the titans of progressive Christianity and a champion of the human spirit.

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This Week at the Library (17/3)

Posted on March 17, 2010 by smellincoffee

This week at the library:

It’s Raining Frogs and Fishes! proved a breezy but interesting read, containing some forty essays on the world above — the sky and both the celestial and earth-bound bodies that inhabit it. The essays cover not only weather, but biology and astronomy as well.

The Ethics of Star Trek first illustrates and examines the scope of Western ethical philosophy through Star Trek episodes that are directly or indirectly influenced by them. Author Judith Barad then attempts to sort out which ideas most predominate the series. As both a Trekkie and an aspiring student of practiced philosophy, I found the book interesting if not wholly fulfilling.

Lastly, I enjoyed Frances’ Gies biography of Joan of Arc, a thorough and entertaining read that lives up to the high expectations I have for Gies’ work.

Quotation of the Week:
“[P]ope Pius II thought that the French were superstitious, which suggests that superstition, like venereal disease and sexual deviation, is always the attribute of another nationality.” – 145, Joan of Arc: the Legend and the Reality


I laughed well at this. It’s easy to accuse and even write people off as being superstitious, ignoring our own beliefs and assumptions. For instance, my brain is under the impression that if I hit the “Shift” key repeatedly while playing a certain video game, things will go my way. I always feel like one of Skinner’s pigeons when my finger itches to start tapping the key.


Upcoming Reads:

  • Letters from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr.
  • The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell. This I’m reading for class: I bought a copy used off of Amazon that was originally sold as a 75 cent paperback back when the US still had a socialist labor movement, so it’s endearing already.(I like old books, especially the dainty ones that demand I take care of them.)
  • The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Stephen Miller. My religious/cultural literacy effort has not yet touched Hinduism: the subject is so vast I’ve been inclined to tread more familiar territory. Still, it’s so influential that I can’t avoid it forever. I figure it’s fitting to begin with the most well-known Hindu text. 
  • I also have a small mound of books about medieval and Renaissance science, since I’m going to be writing a paper on Renaissance science in the coming weeks. Some I may read properly, although I suspect I’ll mostly be scanning them for notes. 
  • There are other books in the air, particularly one novel I devoutly want to read but know I should ignore in favor of school-related books. 
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Joan of Arc: the Legend and the Reality

Posted on March 16, 2010 by smellincoffee

Joan of Arc: the Legend and the Reality
© 1959 Frances Gies
306 pages

Few historical characters, and no women, are more famous than Joan of Arc. Her name and story are known throughout the world. In the Middle Ages there were women to led armies, female mystics who prophesied and gave advice, and men and women alike whose beliefs led them to the stake. Joan’s story has a unique quality, a fairy tale with a tragic ending, invested with her own personality — her common sense, her trenchant speech, her indomitable courage, before the judges of Rouen as in the moat at Orleans. (259)

Joan of Arc has long fascinated me, beginning when I read about her in my seventh-grade world history book. A girl of fourteen, leading the French army to victory and ending a century-long war? She remains of interest to me, and so when in the course of hunting my next Gies read I saw Joan of Arc,  of course I wanted to read it. Frances and her husband Joseph Gies are both medieval historians who collaborated on a series of “Daily Life in the Medieval Ages” books,  but each have their pet interests. As is characteristic of the Gies, Joan of Arc is both readable and thorough.  Details abound, but Gies sets those details within the larger context . She explains the course of the war to that point — now dominated more by the civil war betweens the houses of Orleans and Burgundy than by English territorial ambitions — and smartly gives the reader background on aspects of French medieval culture  that are pertinent to the biography.

Gies draws on many primary and secondary sources, which she identifies and analyzes at the book’s outset.  These sources sometimes conflict, especially when judging Joan’s character and integrity. Some of the sources are biased to the point of being farcical, providing a laugh here and there.  Although Gies is sometimes protective of her subject, she makes a strong effort to portray a less romanticized Joan — a human hero.  The book does not end with Joan’s death or even the Rehabilitation trial that followed it twenty years later, overturning the English sentence that she was a heretical witch who deserved her fate at the stake:  instead, Gies examines the ways Joan has been received as history has progressed. This historiography of Joan does not extend far past the late 19th century, though: no mention is given of Joan’s use in the propaganda war between the Vichy government of occupied France and the Resistance.

All told, Joan of Arc is certainly a worthy read for those interested in her life, although I would recommend reading it alongside a history of the Hundred Years War. (I would recommend Desmond Seward’s  treatment of the war, having used it for several term papers.)

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The Ethics of Star Trek

Posted on March 16, 2010 by smellincoffee

The Ethics of Star Trek
© 2000 Judith Barad with Ed Robertson
368 pages

Captain Picard: There is perhaps no greater challenge than the study of philosophy.
Wesley Crusher: William James won’t be on my Starfleet exams.
Picard: The important things will never be. (“Samaritan Snare”)

Star Trek is perhaps the most philosophically edifying series of television shows that I’ve ever watched. Without question it’s shaped my own world-view, and I’m no stranger to trying to explain philosophy through examples from the show. Thus, The Ethics of Star Trek immediately appealed to me. Essentially, author Judith Barad takes the reader through the long history of Western ethical philosophy, beginning with Socrates and ending with the Existentialists, illustrating competing ideas through Star Trek episodes, examining them for their worth. This philosophical journey occupies the majority of the book and served as an introduction to men like Kant, whom I’m not familiar with.

Each topical chapter draws from at least two Star Trek episodes, using them as case-studies. A few episodes do double-duty. Some Trek episodes explicitly addressed philosophical ideas, especially in the original series: in later shows, the ideas must be gleaned out. The human and Vulcan Starfleet crews are not the only subject of Barad’s interest: she also explores the Klingons, Ferengi, Malon, Borg, and more. Bajorans in particular enjoy a lengthy period in the spot-light, having the only explicitly religious culture seen on a regular basis.

In part five, Barath attempts to arrive at come conclusion in figuring out what philosophy of ethics most amply covers Star Trek‘s then-four television shows and movies. Her conclusion is that with the exception of Voyager, each series pays homage to a particular philosophy, but that all of the series can be unified under a coherent ethical tapestry.

Although the topic is endlessly fascinating for me and I enjoyed the book in a general manner, I must confess to being a bit disappointed. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but parts of the Star Trek legacy seem ignored. Gene Roddenberry’s Humanism, for instance, is conspicuously absent. The author gives a passing mention in the introduction, promising to look for it, but never does. Star Trek may have grown less active in its championing of those ideals as it aged, but that idealism can’t be ignored in the first two shows*. Overall, I suspect I may remember this book more for reminding me of some of Star Trek’s most interesting shows and the introduction to various philosophies than for its ending conclusion.

*It seems to me that the more Star Trek ages, the more it is robbed of its idealism. I saw little of it in Enterprise, for instance, and not a trace of it in the newest movie.This is a shame, given that the franchise’s core fanbase is composed of the idealists. It is they who have keep the flame alive. People can get science fiction anywhere, but Trek’s stubborn idealism is hard to come by.

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Teaser Tuesday (16-3)

Posted on March 16, 2010 by smellincoffee
‘Tis Tuesday. Let us be Teased, from Should Be Reading. 
According to a story told by the priest who became Joan’s confessor, as she crossed the bridge, a mounted soldier among the crowd called out, “Isn’t that the Maid?” and with an oath declared that if he had her for a night she would no longer be a maid. Joan replied, “Ah, you take God’s name in vain, and you are so close to death.” Within the hour, the man fell into the moat and drowned. 

Joan of Arc: the Legend and the Reality, from page 46. Author is Frances Gies.

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