A romp through the ages with an academic tracking the origins of the statement about seeing farther by standing on the shoulders of giants; with many A romp through the ages with an academic tracking the origins of the statement about seeing farther by standing on the shoulders of giants; with many asides, plus footnotes taking up about a quarter of the book except they are in small print. Reminiscent of Sterne's Tristram Shandy but better. Maybe add a star if you are a writer or academic....more
The World of the Polis, Volume 2 of this series of five, is a very well done analysis of the thinking and circumstances in Greece from Homer to Plato.The World of the Polis, Volume 2 of this series of five, is a very well done analysis of the thinking and circumstances in Greece from Homer to Plato. Vogelin sees the unfolding of historical process as explorations for better civil order, and he makes the case. I read it mainly for the history. Voegelin does get into the weeds of philosophy for a few dozen pages that interested me not at all, but those are easily skimmed.
You get a taste of Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides (and others), and you may thereby be tempted to try those three if you haven't already. Touched on are the Minoans, Mycenaeans, the Bronze Age collapse, the Trojan War, the Persian War, and the Peloponnesian Wars.
His first volume, Israel and Revelation, also was excellent. The third volume is Plato and Aristotle. Archiv.org has all volumes and much else by Voegelin for free.
From his Wikipedia entry: "According to Ellis Sandoz, Voegelin may well be America's leading philosopher, and is rightly compared with the premier minds of our century and, perhaps, of the millennia. Thomas Altizer has said that Order and History 'may someday be perceived as the most important work of Old Testament scholarship ever written in the United States,' adding that it is noteworthy that it was written by a political scientist and philosopher." ...more
Recommended, especially for Christians or for anyone who has not read up on Muhammad and Islam. This is very readable and entertaining, if not the peaRecommended, especially for Christians or for anyone who has not read up on Muhammad and Islam. This is very readable and entertaining, if not the peak of prose writing.
The book may surprise some readers in that Muhammad had great respect for Christians and Jews and entered into covenants with them. There is an entire book about that with this review:
Ransome's letter to America, written by a Brit, from Russia in 1918, gave some details of developments during the revolution there and urged that our Ransome's letter to America, written by a Brit, from Russia in 1918, gave some details of developments during the revolution there and urged that our military not be sent there to battle the Bolsheviks as their honest intent was to rid the country of the rotten Tsarist aristocracy and give voice to the common laborers. We sent men there to die anyway, stupidly.
Of course the Bolsheviks were intending to urge the workers of the world to unite, which scared the pants off those with the power and money of the world. Powers were more afraid of labor unions forming in their own countries than of the Germans, who started the war, and several European countries also sent men to fight and die against the Bolsheviks, stupidly, helping Germany late in WW1.
All of this before the thugs took over in Russia, a different story altogether. Russia never quite accomplished Lenin's hope of honest communism. It might have been possible for a while had Lenin lived on, but he started having strokes and died in 1924.
Da bears: spectacled bear, Ecuador and Peru sloth bear, India giant panda, China moon bear, Vietnam sun bear, Vietnam black bear, United States brown bear, UDa bears: spectacled bear, Ecuador and Peru sloth bear, India giant panda, China moon bear, Vietnam sun bear, Vietnam black bear, United States brown bear, United States polar bear, Canada (locations from "Contents" section)
I was looking for scientific descriptions of these bears; comparisons, evolution, behavior, etc. And there is some of that for sure, and it is interesting.
But this is mostly about people who study bears and work for their survival, how that is done, bears' interaction with people, and some history of all of that. If that is what you want, then add a star or two. I wanted more about bears themselves.
The giant panda was only determined to be a real bear (it has similarities to racoons) about 1985 based on genetic data. Indeed it was found to be the most basal member of the bear family. [The misnamed red panda is in the racoon family and not closely related to the giant panda.]
Three stars rather than four only since the book was not what I was looking for. Maybe the subtitle bears a clue: "Mythic Past and Imperiled Future." In the end, a sad book, since the futures of these wonderful animals is in serious doubt....more
