Tag Archives: “classic”

War and Peace

Posted on December 11, 2019 by

War and Peace pub. 1869 Leo Tolstoy trans.  1957 Rosemary Edmunds 1444 pages My word, what a book!   In the beginning, dear readers, I’ll confess that I anticipated failure. Tolstoy’s epic addressing the nature of history and war,  and the … Continue reading →

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The Histories of Herodotus

Posted on October 10, 2019 by

One doesn’t study history for very long, at least in the West,  before running into Herodotus.  I’ve meant to read him for years,  given his reputation as one of the earliest, if not the earliest,  historian —  that is, someone … Continue reading →

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The Jungle

Posted on October 8, 2019 by

The Jungle © 1906 Upton Sinclair 475 pages Welcome to The Jungle, but we don’t have fun and games. We have despair, ruin, and death.    The Jungle begins as the story of the Rudkus-Lukoszaite family, who have arrived in America … Continue reading →

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The Federalist Papers

Posted on September 24, 2019 by

  “It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing … Continue reading →

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Of Romans, manly saints, and the beginning of the end

Posted on September 4, 2019 by

I spent much of August crawling through the first volume of Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  I was very careful, in making my list, that I specified “Volume I”: I  had little interest in trying … Continue reading →

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The Education of Henry Adams

Posted on August 23, 2019 by

The Education of Henry Adams © 1918 Henry Adams 324 pages   Who is Henry Adams, and why would anyone read about his education?    Personally, I discovered this book through a personal interest in his family; Henry’s great-grandfather was John … Continue reading →

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More short rounds: hackers and silly vicars

Posted on July 28, 2019 by

Needing a quick break from all the classics,  I read The Hacker Crackdown, a bit of cybersecurity history.  Sterling first delivers the background of the telecommunications system in the United States, specifically the expansive growth of AT&T and its recent … Continue reading →

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