A fresh, complex story of how historical perceptions come into being and are used to persuade and rule.
A book with two purposes: to narrate the history of Rome while revealing how the ancient tale of Rome’s repeated decline, fall, and renewal affected history and politics across the world.
History professor Watts accomplishes an impressive feat by effectively compressing the vast history of Rome and its empire into a relatively short book. For nonacademic readers, however, following the massive cast of characters—emperors, generals, religious leaders, crusaders, poets, and historians from all of Europe and the Middle East—may sometimes prove difficult. The author takes us through many “sacks of Rome” and the community’s transformation from city to empire before moving on to the great contest between Christianity and Islam, the church’s conquest of Latin America, and the modern day. In such an abbreviated history of much of the Western World, Watts succeeds admirably in his purpose. But his truly novel contribution is his ability to weave in the ways that the “deeply entrenched narrative” of Roman decline and recovery accompanied Rome’s growth in the second century B.C.E. and on to its commanding position in the western empire as the seat of Catholicism, before the break with Constantinople. The author engagingly shows how, from the start, Roman leaders used that cyclical narrative of deterioration and restoration both to govern and to divide their people. Long before Edward Gibbon’s celebrated work on Rome’s decline and fall, the city had already, in many people’s view, repeatedly “fallen.” This belief continued into the modern era. The American “Founding Fathers” were its legatees; Mussolini employed it to rouse his fascist faithful; and even Ronald Reagan and Phyllis Schlafly invoked it in the 1980s. By our time, Rome’s condition had become a “powerful metaphor to speak about the present and future that was now open to all who wished to evoke it.”
A fresh, complex story of how historical perceptions come into being and are used to persuade and rule.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-19-007671-9
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
HISTORY | ANCIENT | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
BOOK REVIEW
An erudite guide to the biblical world.
Revelations from the Old Testament.
“The Bible has no rivals when it comes to the art of omission, of not saying what everyone would like to know,” observes Calasso (1941-2021), the acclaimed Italian publisher, translator, and explorer of myth, gods, and sacred ritual. In this probing inquiry into biblical mysteries, the author meditates on the complexities and contradictions of key events and figures. He examines the “enigmatic nature” of original sin in Genesis, an anomaly occurring in no other creation myth; God’s mandate of circumcision for all Jewish men; and theomorphism in the form of Adam: a man created in the image of the god who made him. Among the individuals Calasso attends to in an abundantly populated volume are Saul, the first king of Israel; the handsome shepherd David, his successor; David’s son Solomon, whose relatively peaceful reign allowed him “to look at the world and study it”; Moses, steeped in “law and vengeance,” who incited the slaughter of firstborn sons; and powerful women, including the Queen of Sheba (“very beautiful and probably a witch”), Jezebel, and the “prophetess” Miriam, Moses’ sister. Raging throughout is Yahweh, a vengeful God who demands unquestioned obedience to his commandments. “Yahweh was a god who wanted to defeat other gods,” Calasso writes. “I am a jealous God,” Yahweh proclaims, “who punishes the children for the sins of their fathers, as far as the third and fourth generations.” Conflicts seemed endless: During the reigns of Saul and David, “war was constant, war without and war within.” Terse exchanges between David and Yahweh were, above all, “military decisions.” David’s 40-year reign was “harrowing and glorious,” marked by recurring battles with the Philistines. Calasso makes palpable schisms and rivalries, persecutions and retributions, holocausts and sacrifices as tribal groups battled one another to form “a single entity”—the people of Israel.
An erudite guide to the biblical world.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-60189-8
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.
A harrowing expedition to Antarctica, recounted by Departures senior features editor Sancton, who has reported from every continent on the planet.
On Aug. 16, 1897, the steam whaler Belgica set off from Belgium with young Adrien de Gerlache as commandant. Thus begins Sancton’s riveting history of exploration, ingenuity, and survival. The commandant’s inexperienced, often unruly crew, half non-Belgian, included scientists, a rookie engineer, and first mate Roald Amundsen, who would later become a celebrated polar explorer. After loading a half ton of explosive tonite, the ship set sail with 23 crew members and two cats. In Rio de Janeiro, they were joined by Dr. Frederick Cook, a young, shameless huckster who had accompanied Robert Peary as a surgeon and ethnologist on an expedition to northern Greenland. In Punta Arenas, four seamen were removed for insubordination, and rats snuck onboard. In Tierra del Fuego, the ship ran aground for a while. Sancton evokes a calm anxiety as he chronicles the ship’s journey south. On Jan. 19, 1898, near the South Shetland Islands, the crew spotted the first icebergs. Rough waves swept someone overboard. Days later, they saw Antarctica in the distance. Glory was “finally within reach.” The author describes the discovery and naming of new lands and the work of the scientists gathering specimens. The ship continued through a perilous, ice-littered sea, as the commandant was anxious to reach a record-setting latitude. On March 6, the Belgica became icebound. The crew did everything they could to prepare for a dark, below-freezing winter, but they were wracked with despair, suffering headaches, insomnia, dizziness, and later, madness—all vividly capture by Sancton. The sun returned on July 22, and by March 1899, they were able to escape the ice. With a cast of intriguing characters and drama galore, this history reads like fiction and will thrill fans of Endurance and In the Kingdom of Ice.
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984824-33-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
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