How the Irish Saved Civilization

Posted on February 10, 2009 by smellincoffee

How the Irish Saved Civilization: the Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe
© 1995 Thomas Cahill
230 pages plus bibliography, chronology, and index.

Last week I began the “Hinges of History” by Thomas Cahill. Cahill writes that his interest lies in the transition points of history, and indeed what I’ve read of him so far does focus on change-inducing elements of society. This week I read How the Irish Saved Civilization, a book I have passed countless times in my home library but have never read until this week. Be begins by acknowledging the apparent strangeness of associating the Irish with civilization, and asks “How real is history?” He points out that western history has until recently paid no notice to the role of non-Europeans and women: it has been until the last century the story of white men. With that in mind, he asks us to acknowledge that the positive role played by ignored people like the Irish and by scorned people like the Catholic Church might be similarly overlooked.

Well, I’ll grant him that, and easily — although claims of belittlement made by “The Church” are hard to take seriously. Given that his content focuses on Ireland’s role after the fall of Rome, Cahill logically begins with the fall of Rome. Rome and the classical tradition actually merit two chapters, and Cahill writes pretty well. I now understand a little more of how Rome’s economic prosperity began to rot away and consequence, understand how Frankish governments were able to rise. The very beginning is a little slow, as Cahill tries to show the decay of active culture by dissecting a late-Roman poet’s works. He tries to convey to the reader of what Europe is like in those years after the western Empire had receded into Italy before vanishing altogether: dangerous, wrought with petty conflicts and touring barbarians who gleefully put to the torch the Roman libraries. He also examines the role of the Church in attempting to hold society together.

Next he moves to “Unholy Ireland” and establishes a background: who are these people who he’s devoted a book to? Here he makes some leaps in logic I’m not comfortable with. You may have heard of Lindow Man: he is one of the “bog bodies”, or mummies occupying various bogs of the British isles and one of our main sources of information on what the pre-Roman Britons were like. Cahill wrote that Lindow Man and his brethren were willing sacrifices, that their serene composure is proof of this. I am not convinced. Even if the bog bodies do have “serene looks” on their faces, that doesn’t mean they were willing victims: they could’ve been intoxicated or drugged.

Next Cahill tells the story of Ireland’s conversion to Christianity and writes on what the Irish church was like. In his view, the Irish church were more in touch with mysticism and pagan traditions, less concerned with authority and overall more relaxed and less pretentious. This meshes fairly well with what I learned in English History I, although we didn’t really discussion Irish mysticism. (It was, after all, “English History”.) Cahill tells the story of the development of the Irish faith, centered around monasteries and guided by local priests. He actually makes me interested in monastery life. Given that the Irish were not so scornful of all things “pagan”, they willingly copied copies of manuscripts they received — even if they did were heretical texts or pagan philosophies. Then, as Europe begins to find some stability (just in time for the Vikings), Cahill tells of us about the “White Martyrdom”, of Irish monks leaving their pleasant little island for Christ’s sake, to reestablish the classical tradition in Europe.

The book ends with the arrival of the Vikings, who are Chaotic Evil and delight in putting quaint Irish monasteries to the torch. We read of the Irish monks burying manuscripts and metalwork or sending them to save havens inland, only to see Vikings settle in various parts of the British isles (where Irish monasteries had expanded). Here Celtic Britain transitions into Anglo-Saxon Britain, and at the Council of Whitby Irish-style religion is replaced by more Roman-style religion, thus ending the Irish influence on western civilization.

The book is well written and rarely boring. Cahill does concentrate on the Irish role while ignoring whatever classical activity lingered around the Mediterranean through wealthy Italian merchant-families and Islamic scholars. This is understandable for a book that is expressly written about the Irish, but it may lead casual readers to thinking that only the Irish were involved. While he did make some leaps in logic, generally the book matched with what I know, and I would recommend the read to anyone interested in the subject. I will be continuing in the series.

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This Week at the Library (9/2)

Posted on February 6, 2009 by smellincoffee

Books this Update:

  • Homeward Bound, Harry Turtledove
  • Mysteries of the Middle Ages, Thomas Cahill
  • The Book of Ecclesiastes, Tremper Longman III

I started with Harry Turtledove’s conclusion to the Worldwar-Colonization series, Homeward Bound. While being the final book in this setting, it is set apart from the two series that came before it. A few principle viewpoint characters from the two series journey to the capital world of the Empire. While some of them take in the sights and experience Lizard culture, Ambassador Sam Yeager dickers with the Emperor and his staff over Earth’s face. Sam wants the United States and humanity to be taken seriously. Humorously, the Lizards do take humanity seriously — but not in the way Yeager wants them to. They see humanity as arrogant upstarts who are nevertheless very dangerous. The Lizards wrestle with the question of whether or not to extinguish humanity and Earth before they grow so powerful that they can completely destroy the Empire. It is a credit to Turtledove’s characterization that the reader can sympathize with the Lizards even as they contemplate genocide. I found the book enjoyable, although the diplomatic scenes did grow a bit tiresome.

Next I read a gorgeous piece of work by Thomas Cahill, titled Mysteries of the Middle Ages. Cahill is using an archaic sense of “mystery” in that he uses it to refer to religious rites. He attempts to establish the Church and its traditions as a source of distinctly western art, feminism, and science. The value of this book isn’t that he proves this (at least in regard to feminism and science) but that he does give the medieval era more depth than it usually is seen as having. Sourcing feminism from the cult of the virgin Mary is…something of a stretch, at least for me, as is positing that scientific questions were born of the mystery of the Eucharist. (Alchemy and attempts to understand the “Great Chain of Being” are far more likely sources for me.) You don’t need to be convinced of Cahill’s point to enjoy this book, though. Reading it introduces the reader to a wealth of interesting characters of history. Some are more interesting than others, but they existed. They were real people, not two-dimensional archetypes on a deck of playing cards. The narrative flows well, and adding to the readers’ enjoyment is the fact that this is a beautiful book: the font, the way pictures and foot notes are set directly into the text and somehow not breaking the flow of everything, and margin art all add enormously to the value of the book. It’s not just fun to read: it’s fun to look at. The book itself is artwork. I enjoyed the book immensely.

Lastly, I read a commentary on the Hebrew text Ecclesiastes. I’m interested in philosophy, including religious philosophy, and came interested in learning more about Ecclesiastes after I read Asimov’s Guide to the Bible. The book of Ecclesiastes is highly interesting, given that its author’s entire theme runs opposed to the themes of the Christian New Testament. The author of Ecclesiastes writes (repeatedly) that life is pointless and arbitrary. Wealth, romance, the pursuit of knowledge — none of these things saves you from death, or even being mistreated in lif. God seems to wreak havoc on the lives of the just and grant to the wicked favors: there seems, to the author of the original text, no rhyme or reason to life. He concludes that we might as well as just enjoyed ourselves as best we can while obeying the king and God.

I wanted to fit this into a broader context, which is why I checked out The Book of Ecclesiastes by Tremper Longman III. His commentary accomplished this somewhat, but as I learned from the inside cover, his point is to fit this into the general Christian scheme of things. How do you reconcile the original author’s resigned attitude toward life and the unknown quality of the “afterlife” with the promise of eternal life in the New Testament? For most of the book, Longman examines the original Hebrew phrases and shows how particular translations have tried to bring about the same meaning. He explains allusions and so on. He keeps his personal opinions largely to himself, and does not try to reinterpret anything until the last paragraph, where he concludes that Jesus is the answer to meaningless.

I never got that particular memo, but I enjoyed the book — for the most part.Ecclesiastes isn’t as depressing as my description of it here might have led an unfamiliar reader to think it is: the author concedes the value of wisdom, and he promotes a simple life free from trying to live up to other people’s arbitrary expectations. That’s what attracts me, I think.

Pick of the Week: Mysteries of the Middle Ages, Thomas Cahill
Quotation of the Week: “Take that, bitch.” – Abbess Hildegard’s response to an unknown fellow abbess who chided Hildegard for allowing her nuns to wear their hair and clothes in comfortable ways and after Hildegard issued a theological and poetic defense — as rendered by Thomas Cahill, who seemed to delight in joking with his readers.

Next Week:
  • Shatterpoint, Matthew Stover
  • How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill
  • A World Waiting to Be Born: Civility Rediscovered, M. Scott Peck
  • Deer Hunting with Jesus, Joe Bageant
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Mysteries of the Middle Ages

Posted on February 6, 2009 by smellincoffee

Mysteries of the Middle Ages and the Beginnings of the Modern World
© 2006 Thomas Cahill
317 pages, plus notes and index

A couple of weeks ago I met a friend for breakfast, and he brought with him an interesting-looking book. He explained that he received the book for Christmas and thought I would enjoy reading, and so I have. The book is a beautiful piece of work about the intellectual life of the medieval era. At the end, Cahill explains that his purpose was to explain the story of the “often belittled” Catholic contribution to the Renaissance. He deliberately addresses the arguments made by historians like William Manchester, who painted the medieval era as one of intellectual stagnation, where the Christian church suppressed all dissent and progress. The Church certainly did suppress progress in some areas, but what I’ve noticed from the medieval reading I’ve been doing since I read Manchester’s A World Lit Only By Fire is that the medieval era was not as intellectually dead as I once thought. From our perspective they spent their time “counting how many angels could dance on the head of a pin”, but civilization did continue to evolve, even after the superstructure of western civilization that had been the Roman Empire decayed and withdrew.

Cahill labors to establish the beginnings of feminism, western art, and science in the context of the Catholic Church. There is no other context for them that I am aware of in this era. Intellectual life — odd as it seems now — was centered around monasteries and the cathedral schools that became medieval universities. This much I know from taking courses in the subject and reading on my own. (Medieval history is not actually my primary interest: it just allows me to (1) study social history and (2) gain knowledge that supports a hobby of mine, which is writing a fantasy novel where late-Roman and medieval culture influence the culture I am creating.) His style is rabidly informal. This changes as the book wears on, but in the opening chapters Cahill is so astonishingly informal that I would stop reading, amazing that he was being so familiar with the reader. For instance: he writes on the exchange of letters between one nun and another, one Hildegard, in which the first nun tsk-tsks at the way Hildegard allows her nuns to dress. Hildegard defends herself eloquently, and Cahill quotes this. At the end of Hildegard’s exchange, he tacks on: “Take that, bitch.” The opening chapters are full of little comments like that — “or to (God help us) Syria”, and “By Zeus, how’s that?” in reference to one Christian theologian stating his intention is to not feel carnal emotions at all.

The author begins by introducing us to the world of Alexandria and of Greek philosophy in general. Something I found immensely interesting was the idea that one Judeo-Greek philosopher divided the Platonic god — Aristotle’s unmoved mover — into three parts:

All the same, Philo adopts (and adapts) man Greek philosophical categories. God is indeed the One of which nothing may be known for said — except that he is, which is why he gave his name to Moses as ho on (He Who Is). By his Word (Logos, in Greek), as Genesis tells us, God created the world. Philo even calls the Logos a “second god” and God’s firstborn. And Philo perceives even a third level in God, the Powers by which he acts in the world. Philo’s Logos and Powers, therefore, play the role of mediators between the unknowable One and mankind.

Well, hello, Christian theology. Bit early for you, isn’t it? In succeeding chapters, Cahill addresses the intellectual development of Rome through Greek schools of thought, the cult of virginity, the pursuit of love and its consequences, the beginnings of Reason, alchemy, western art, poetry, and politics. We meet many characters in these chapters. Some are more exciting than others, at least for me. This is a very readable narrative, and I recommend it. Beyond the narrative, though, this is a beautiful book. Even if the words were written in Arabic, this would be a beautiful book: the physical object itself is exquisite. Beautiful pictures are set right into the text, not consigned to plate-pages in the middle of the book. When quoting from primary sources, Cahill sets the text with margin art, like you might see in a monastical copy. The physical book is like a piece of art. It conveys the idea of a medieval manuscript, which is apt given its subject.

I was delighted with this book, and I will read more of the author. This is part of a series called The Hinges of History. I actually remember reading one of his books long ago, called Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea. I should return to it. This was an immensely satisfying book: both to read and to look at.

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The Book of Ecclesiastes

Posted on February 6, 2009 by smellincoffee

The Book of Ecclesiastes.
© 1998 Tremper Longman III
284 pages, plus indices


Man’s fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?

A few years ago, I read a quotation that astonished me. My astonishment rose not from the quotation itself, but from its source. The above is from the Judeo-Christian bible, believe it or not. Intrigued, I picked up my old Bible and turned to the Hebrew scriptures and read the the entire book. It was only twelve chapters or so, but my mind was boggled by the fact that such a book was in the Bible. The author purports to be Solomon and claims that he wants to share his wisdom: life is pretty meaningless. He describes his efforts to find meaning in life: he accrues wisdom, chases skirts (well, robes), builds lavish palaces, collects gold, pursues fame in war — but everything seems to be fairly pointless. The author of Ecclesiastes — let’s call him the Teacher for the sake of convenience — notes that regardless of what you do, you’re still going to die. He notes that evil is visited upon the good and good is visited upon the evil, apparently without any purpose whatsoever. What came up in my reading was that although everything was ultimately meaningless, small pleasures could be achieved on Earth. What I disliked about the book was the Teacher’s admonition that people should just obey God and the king, because there’s no point in resisting them.

Despite that, the rest of the book strikes me as interesting. As someone with a disregard for money, fame, fortune, chasing skirts, and pedantry, I find much to be sympathetic with here. When I read the first volume of Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, I wondered if there were books written on Ecclesiastes that were similar in tone. The closest I found was this book by Temper Longman III. I requested the book online through my library’s network website, and so I missed the distasteful intention of the author to reconcile the book with Christian theology. Fortunately, however, this intention is not really made manifest until the last paragraph of the book.

The commentary is fairly straightforward. Longman devotes the introductory chapters to examining the book’s author, background, style, genre, and canonicity. The author’s view is that the book should be not be considered canon, but should instead be viewed as the collection of proverbs. In taking this approach, the author avoids having to address some of the book’s internal inconsistencies. It also saves those of us who do not subscribe to Christian theology the potential annoyance of the author attempting to cram Jesus into every crack in the book. After the introductory chapters, the author moves verse by verse through the book. Longman always precedes each chapter with an introduction, then inserts the verses to be commented on, and then comments on each one individually. He then ends each chapter with a summary. To my surprise and delight, the author doesn’t seem to impose outside meaning on anything: he explains what various Hebrew words might mean, shows the different interpretations by different commentators, and introduces his own. Generally there’s not a lot of disagreement. When Longman does speculate, he makes it public, which I find admirable. In the last paragraph of the book, though, he posits that Jesus is the answer to the meaningless of life that the Teacher observed. He says that the book in final analysis “must be understood in the light of the canon”.

In general, I found the book agreeable. I don’t agree with his final assertion, but it’s really a moot point. If he feels the need to ret-con his philosophy, that’s his business. The appeal of the book is limited to those who are interested in Ecclesiastes, though.

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Homeward Bound

Posted on February 2, 2009 by smellincoffee

Homeward Bound
© 2005 Harry Turtledove
597 pages


This week I concluded Harry Turtledove’s Worldwar-Colonization metaseries on a high note. Homeward Bound picks up at the conclusion of Aftershocks (1970) but quickly moves to 2030. In the opening pages, Turtledove moves the plot forward those six decades: the United States builds a starship (Admiral Peary) and some of the series’ major viewpoint characters are put into cold sleep for their journey to Tau Ceti 3 — otherwise known as the homeworld of the Race, “Home”. Almost the entire book takes place on Home. Sam Yeager — a major character since the In the Balance — becomes the United States’ ambassador after a character known only as “The Doctor” dies in the cold sleep process. While he fights for the United States’ right to be taken seriously by the Race, other humans go sight-seeing. There’s really not much to see on Home: neither the weather nor architecture vary much.

The theme of the book is almost adjustment: the Race and Humanity’s relations to one another have changed. Humanity is now surpassing the Race in technology. The Admiral Peary is inferior to the Lizards’ own starships, but it is clear from communications they receive from Earth that humanity’s technological prowess is snowballing. We read hints that human physicists have stumbled into something so extraordinary that it turns Einstein on his head. The Race is faced with a dilemma: it is obvious that humanity will soon surpass them, creating the possibility that one day soon Nazi and Soviet warships will threaten Home. This being so, would it not be more wise for the Race to attempt to extinguish humanity — and thus save itself from the wrath of a once-bullied foe? They know that even the United States may change its peaceful attitude toward the Race in the future as it becomes more powerful. Indeed, as we meet Americans from the 2030s, we find that they are a power-confident lot who treat the Race and the Americans of the 20th century — those who had been in cold sleep for sixty+ years — with a certain amount of disdain.

Turtledove weaves a thoroughly interesting story. His characters in this series have been particularly strong. We’ve seen characters like Sam Yeager evolve from a young baseball player who spends his offtime reading Astounding Stories into a distinguished exopsychologist and ambassador — as well as a purported traitor whose name is remembered in infamy by some. Such is Turtledove’s approach that the reader can sypathize with a character like Atvar, who is forced to entertain the proposition of turning Earth into a radioactive no-man’s-land in order to save his empire from extinction. Turtledove also concludes some storylines while leaving others, giving the reader something to ponder. I for one do not like the idea of a disunited Earth settling space, considering that the major powers of Earth are the United States, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union. Turtledove’s area is alternate history, but I can see someone penning a science fiction series on the basis that the Soviets, Nazis, Japanese, and Americans are fighting for space territory.

Homeward Bound is a suitable and very readable conclusion to the Worldwar/Colonization series. I can say I will miss reading this series, which is more than I can say for the How Few Remain/Timeline-191/Southern Victory series.

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This Week At the Library (2/2)

Posted on February 2, 2009 by smellincoffee

Books this Update:

  • Colonization: Aftershocks, Harry Turtledove
  • The Battle of the Labyrinth, Rick Riordian
  • Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman
  • Jedi Trial, David Sherman and Dan Cragg

After nearly a two-month break, I returned to Harry Turtledove’s Colonization series. Colonization is a sequel series to Worldwar, which (in four books) depicts the interruption of World War 2 by lizard-like aliens who see Earth as an attractive bit of real estate. The aliens, while technologically more advanced than the Earthers, badly underestimated the technological prowess of their supposed victims. They came anticipating feudal societies and kaniggits but found instead industrialized societies with war-centered economies. (Timing — it’s everything). The Lizards found that subjugating Earth completely was impossible, but they could not be removed, either. At Worldwar’s end, humanity and the Lizards arranged a truce and divided Earth between themselves. All of Earth below the equator became a Lizard colony. The Colonization series is set twenty years later and depicts the growing changes in human and Lizard society. Humanity, being what it is, has “borrowed” bits of Lizard technology and has already become more advanced than we 21st century schmucks in the real world. Nazi Germany, for instance, has already landed on Mars. Mars, the war-god, is an appropriate avenue for the aggressive Nazis: in the last book, their aggressive stance toward the Lizards (read war) led to a short-lived nuclear exchange between the Vaterland and the Race. Aftershocks is set afterwards. Nazi Germany has been humanity’s strongest and most brutal defender, but it has been eviscerated by both the Race’s nuclear weapons and the terms of the peace. Aftershocks sees the United States take a stronger stance, and I found the read enjoyable.

Continuing in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series this week, I read Battle of the Labyrinth, the last book that Riordian has published.The book begins, characteristically, with Percy arriving at a new school, encountering a monster, and then making a dramatic escape that lessens the school’s structural integrity. When Percy arrives at Camp Half-Blood, he learns that the camp may be in more danger than he and his fellow Olympians feared: the Labyrinth, the ancient structure that once held the Minotaur, may offer the armies of the Titans a direct path to the camp. Annabeth — the series’ Hermione — is tasked with finding Daedalus, the architect of the maze, and convincing him to deny use of the Labyrinth. At the same time, Percy is continually visited by dark dreams. In the book, the adventurers attempt to make their way through the Labyrinth, which now spans most of the United States at least, all the while encountering monsters, other demi-gods, gods, and plot twists. This book seems to be longer than the previous books and is more engaging than the others. Riordian also shows that in this series, the conflict does not completely revolve around the main character: other major characters are off doing major things between books.

Next I read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, in which he examines the way television has warped our culture. In Technopoly: the Surrender of Technology to Culture, he takes a stronger stand — as you might imagine. He begins by explaining the idea that technology impacts culture (an idea shared by Isaac Asimov, who wrote in Quasar Quasar that the history of civilization cannot be rendered without examining the impact of technology), and then examines how print-culture shaped America. He then begins to write on television’s impact on our culture, dedicating specific chapters to religion, politics, sports, education, and so on. Postman writes well, organizes his book in a way that makes sense, and provokes thought on his subject. Postman’s opinion on television is not necessarily neutral: he and I both view it as trivializing culture. I wrote an essay back in the early fall about television and politics, and found much to agree with Postman in his chapter on politics. I recommend the read.

Lastly, I read Jedi Trial, a novel placed during the first half of the Clone Wars, shortly become Anakin Skywalker is knighted. It’s essentially a combat book, with some character development. I think the Darth Bane books and Dark Rendezvous spoiled me. Perhaps if I read this without having the memory of those books fresh in my mind, I might have enjoyed it more. I find military plots to be uninteresting: Harry Turtledove’s Worldwar series bored me for the most part, but Colonization has been stimulating throughout. On the other hand, I seem to enjoy Michael and Jeff Shaara’s military works.

Pick of the Week: Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman

Quotation of the Week: “The television commercial is about products only in the sense that the story of Jonah is about the anatomy of whales, which is to say it isn’t. Which is to say further , it is about how one ought to live one’s life.“ – Amusing Ourselves to Death, similar to the viewpoint of one of my sociology professors, who says that “Advertising sells the idea of normalcy.”

Next Week:

  • Homeward Bound, Harry Turtledove
  • Mysteries of the Middle Ages, Thomas Cahill
  • The Book of Ecclesiastes, Tremper Longman
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Jedi Trial

Posted on January 30, 2009 by smellincoffee

Jedi Trial: A Clone Wars Novel
© 2004 David Sherman and Dan Cragg
345

Continuing in my Star Wars kick this week, I read Jedi Trial. As you might guess from the title, it’s set during the Clone Wars. Anakin Skywalker is still the Padawan of Obi-Wan Kenobi and is anxious about the Jedi Council’s lack of interest in knighting him. His anxiety increases when Master Obi-Wan is sent off on a private mission, leaving Anakin to sit on his hands. Advised to put the time to good use in the library, he spends his time there studying and sparring with a disgraced Jedi knight, Master Halcyon. A Seperatist attack on a vital communications hub provides both Halcyon and Skywalker a chance to prove themselves — hence the title Jedi Trial.

The book is essentially after that point a combat book detailing the battle surrounding this communications up, with a few minor subplots surrounding somewhat interesting characters thrown in. It’s readable, but military plots don’t interest me much. Anakin’s character does develop in this book: it is here that he begins to become the military commander we see in Revenge of the Sith, the Clone Wars animated cartoon, and the Clone Wars movie. It’s probably worth reading for Star Wars fans.

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Amusing Ourselves to Death

Posted on January 29, 2009 by smellincoffee

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Television
© 1985 Neil Postman
176 pages, plus index, bibliography, and notes.

I read a couple of books by Postman during the summer, and both were mind-broadening. Postman is particularly concerned about the technological impact on our culture: in Technopoly he puts forth the idea that culture has become completely subjugated to technology, and to television in particular. This book is particularly concerned with the impact of television on our culture. This is a particularly interesting book for me, because I was raised outside of television culture: the Christian sect that my parents belong to discourages its members from owning televisions, so television was alien to me. Even though I have a television (and enjoy watching it), I don’t spend a lot of time watching it and am prone to forgetting to watch it for weeks on end. Thus my perspective is more of an outsider’s.

Postman begins the book with a forward that expresses his view that Brave New World — which, according to him, depicts a world where the truth has become irrelevant and human culture has become completely trivial — may be coming true. He begins the book proper by writing that through the United States’ history, various cities have represented its cultural identity: 18th century Boston symbolizing its intellectual livelihood, late 19th century New York symbolizing the United States’ growth as a melting-pot, and early 20th century Chicago representing the United States’ industrial might. He then speculate that perhaps Las Vegas symbolized America today: a nation obsessed with amusement. (Interestingly, fellow social critic James Kunstler said the same thing in his lecture at my university back in the fall.) I include this because I thought the comparison apt.

Postman’s introductory chapters concern his central idea that technology always shapes culture and that particularly pervasive technologies contain within them programs for changing culture in big ways. This is an idea he’s written on in other books under the theme “the medium is the message”. The first chapters here are “Medium as Metaphor” and “Medium as Epistemology“, where he expands on this idea. Then he applies this idea to an understanding of 18th and early 19th-century America (“Typographic America”, ruled by print culture). Postman characterizes print culture and uses examples from this era to back those characterizations up. One memorable example was the Lincoln-Douglas debates, in which crowds gathered for hours on end to listen to the two parties discuss their ideas in very (by our standards) formal ways. Postman then asks (and I paraphrase) “Can you imagine a modern audience standing for this?”

In “The Peek-A-Boo” world, Postman describes the impact of telegraphy and photography, which both give people information and impressions about situations far removed from them. This is where the triviality begins, in Postman’s view: people are beginning to be barraged by information about people who they don’t even know. He applies this to the modern world, addressing people who are hooked on political talk shows, and makes the powerful point that for most people, the political ideas being discussed are utterly irrelevant to their lives. After developing this idea for a bit more, he (in individual chapters) looks at television’s treatment of religion, government, sports, art, and education. Education is particularly important for him (being an educator) and he’s apparently written several books on the subject.

Postman is as ever engaging and provocative. The book is well-organized and well-developed, and I recommend it if you want your intellectual nose tweaked.

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The Battle of the Labyrinth

Posted on January 28, 2009 by smellincoffee

The Battle of the Labyrinth
© 2008 Rick Riordian
361 pages

Continuing in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series this week, I read the last book that Riordian has published. The next book will not be released until May. The book begins, characteristically, with Percy arriving at a new school, encountering a monster, and then making a dramatic escape that lessens the school’s structural integrity. When Percy arrives at Camp Half-Blood, he learns that the camp may be in more danger than he and his fellow Olympians feared: the Labyrinth, the ancient structure that once held the Minotaur, may offer the armies of the Titans a direct path to the camp. Annabeth — the series’ Hermione — is tasked with finding Daedalus, the architect of the maze, and convincing him to deny use of the Labyrinth. At the same time, Percy is continually visited by dark dreams. In the book, the adventurers attempt to make their way through the Labyrinth, which now spans most of the United States at least, all the while encountering monsters, other demi-gods, gods, and plot twists. This book seems to be longer than the previous books and is more engaging than the others.

Unlike other series I’ve read, the events in this book don’t completely revolve around the central character. Other characters are off doing things between books that add to the plot. On a side note, the author explains how Athena — a virgin god — has kids. As it turns out, they sprout off of her head, which is what I suspected. That’s the way Athena was born. This book is definitely a step up from the others, at least from my view. I enjoyed reading it and look forward to The Last Olympian.

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Colonization: Aftershocks

Posted on January 26, 2009 by smellincoffee

Colonization: Aftershocks
© Harry Turtledove 2001
488 pages

And so after a lengthy break, I return to Harry Turtledove’s Colonization series. The series is a sequel series to Worldwar, in which an invasion by reptilian aliens interrupted World War II. The aliens — who term themselves the Race, and who are called by humanity “Lizards” came anticipating a medieval world, finding instead — to their immense displeasure — an industrial one with economies centered around war. Despite their technological prowess, the Lizards lacked the resources to fully annex Earth — and humanity lacked the technological resources to completely thwart their plans. The result was a divided Earth. The Colonization series, set in the 1960s, concerns the way human cultures and Lizard culture have and are shaping the other. Political strife between human countries and between those countries and the race is growing. In the last book, relations between Nazi Germany and the Race fell completely apart, leading to a short-lived nuclear war that left Germany and parts of the Greater German Reich devestated by fallout.

Aftershocks picks up at that point. Nazi Germany has been humanity’s strongest defender against the Lizards, for various reasons: the Reich’s economy was strong and war-centered, and its militarisitic state lend it to playing a large role in humanity’s defense, in both series. The ideology of the Nazis, however, leads it to making rash choices and squandering its opportunities, leading to its ruin. What happens to Earth after the downfall of the Nazis? In this book, Turtledove continues several themes: cross-cultural effects, exosociological efforts by Sam Yeager and Tstomalas, the ecological impact of the flora and fauna that the Race have introduced to Earth, and so on. We also see the results of a thread that was woven throughout the first two books, Sam Yeager’s discovery that the United States is being naughty.

There’s a lot to this book: it’s very cohesive. Storylines and characters begin coming together. An example of that is the Warren Commission, a comission the Lizards set up to investigate the motives of President Warren in a particular matter that I can’t reveal. (The title of that comission is one of Turtledove’s hat-tips to real life.) This is a big story, but it works well. My interest never lapsed, which is more than I can say for the Worldwar series. That is to be expected, though: I like social history and sociology, not military history. This series has been quite enjoyable, and I look forward to Aftershocks.

An aside: whenever I read about the Race, I have one of three images in my mind: either this, this, or this.

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