Monday, August 20, 2012

“Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds”, by Natalie Zemon Davis


448 pages, Hill and Wang, ISBN-13: 978-0809094349

Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds by Natalie Zemon Davis does its best to wipe the cobwebs off the figure al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi (known in the West as Joannes Leo Africanus), a man raised in Fez by a family displaced from Muslim Spain during the Christian conquest who traveled widely as a diplomat throughout Africa before being brought to Rome as a captive where he authors a number of fascinating books, including a book on Africa and his African travels. This is a meticulously researched book, replete with voluminous footnotes full of both detail and insightful asides. However, Trickster Travels is doomed to fail in its central project from the outset, for even after Davis' diligent research and careful writing, Leo Africanus remains stubbornly hidden, for the underlying documentation of his life is simply too sparse.

Too much of Trickster Travels is speculative; too little of the book relies on quotations of the subject's own words; too many threads are started but then reluctantly abandoned by Davis because of unavailable or incomplete sources. Most of what survives today of Leo Africanus is simply his work (that is, his books written in Rome), and getting beyond the work to the man himself may simply be beyond the ability of any historian. With all that said, Davis is crystal clear throughout the book as to where she is speculating or supposing and where she has evidence, and what her evidence is, and she does incorporate a number of useful quotations. Every sentence of this book is the work of a truly diligent professional historian.

While failing in its central project, the book succeeds in helping us to visualize and understand key elements of the age, and Davis does a great job (particularly in all those footnotes) of bringing to life both the life of an Andalusia family in Fez and the life of intellectual circles in 16th Century Rome. Reading the book, I was struck on page after page with interesting thoughts and questions; the book truly sparked my curiosity. What of all those differing translations of Leo Africanus' work? What might they say about the societies in which they were written? What of all that poetry referenced by Leo Africanus? How did that Arabic poetic sensibility influence the Christian regions it touched? And what of those African civilizations he visited?

I am left wondering if this very good book Davis has written might have been a truly great book if its focus shifted just slightly from this fascinating but inscrutable man, perhaps acknowledging and acceding to the limitations of the existing research material. Her title refers to "a sixteenth-century Muslim between worlds", but it is the two worlds more than the subject himself that she best elucidates.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

“Africa: A Biography of the Continent”, by John Reader


801 pages, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., ISBN-13: 978-0679409793

In Africa: A Biography of the Continent John Reader does a wonderful job in keeping you amused and surprised, mixing such diverse topics such as linguistics, weather, religion, colonialism, economics, geography and a thousand more into a single narrative with such vitality and coherence that you wonder how come there are such a few mainstream works on such a fascinating epic history. If you know nothing about, or just a few details of, African History, then after finish reading this book you will feel like an expert, but more important than that, the writer most probably will sow in you a feeling of love for that continent and a thirst to know more.

Considering the magnitude of his undertaking, Reader does a superb job of covering his subject in nearly every aspect possible. Almost anyone with an interest in geology, geography, anthropology, ancient and recent history, political science or ethnography will find this book of interest in some aspect. Personally, I enjoyed the first half of the volume more than the last half, as the later chapters are a depressing compendium of the inhumanity of mankind to its brethren. The unfortunate effects of foreign involvement in African affairs have a long history, and Reader deals with the subject fully and fairly, as he doesn't entirely absolve native African involvement in the downfall of some of its own cultures. Reader really has a feel for the complexity of the events that occurred through time and of the repercussions – a kind of domino effect – of actions and decisions made, often times outside of Continental Africa itself (a case of 20-20 hindsight, perhaps).

This is a huge book, but I was sorry to see it end; this is because Reader's intelligent and clear writing style. He conveys an enormous amount of information in chapters which are usually no more than 10 pages long. Be warned, though, for those looking for a conventional history will be a bit puzzled at first; Reader spends more time talking about the prehistory of Africa and the development of Homo Sapiens in general than he does about 20th Century African events. Nevertheless, the episodes he chooses to focus on are memorable, with his description of the slave trade and its effect on the African continent being notable both for its horror and for the unbiased eye he casts on both the Europeans and Africans involved in perpetuating it. Reader draws upon a huge number of sources for the book (the bibliography is HUGE) and synthesizes them into a lucid narrative, despite the gaps and omissions (nothing much on North Africa, for example). He is especially opinionated about the West's stereotypical image of Africa as a verdant, unspoiled land. Still, he presents a wide variety of information drawn from his voluminous reading, and he always identifies speculation as speculation.

It is impossible in such a short space to do justice to a book that basically defies description. While it focuses on Africa, Reader's book deals with so many subjects, and does it so well, that it will leave you almost breathless.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

“Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World”, by Colin Wells


368 pages, Delacorte Press, ISBN-13: 978-0553803815

Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World by Colin Wells is an excellent popular history about the impact of Byzantine culture on Renaissance Italy, the Arabs during their Baghdad apogee and the Slavic world as it was differentiating into nationalities. While it is best to have a good grasp of these four periods of history, in particular Byzantium's, the Wells offers good skeletal explanations of vast swaths of time.

Firstly, Byzantine scholars preserved most of what texts we know today as ancient Greek. They represented a crucial step in the evolution of the Renaissance as they contributed to the development of a secular understanding, a sense of history and philosophy not springing exclusively from Christian faith (while very interesting to me, but I am not sure if it would interest most readers). This is the stuff of Plato vs Aristotle, mathematics, poetry and the Greek historians. Interestingly, it was a mystic religious movement – the Hesychasm, which flourished as a reality-denying reaction to the decline of the Empire – that started pushing scholars out, well before the Turks conquered the city.

Secondly, we learn of the Byzantine roots of the practical scientific and medical texts that were translated by Nestorian Christians in Syria. This fostered a rationalistic branch of Islam, which an Abbasid Caliph attempted to force onto an unwilling populace, leading directly to the establishment of the conservative, anti-rationalist philosophy that later would underpin the Wahhabis. Their translations of Aristotle, transmitted via Moorish Spain, were the source that the Scholastic's first used as they attempted to logically reconcile every Biblical reference, also a precursor of modern science. But it is also a portrait of Islam during a period where it was at the cutting-edge, an eclectic and dynamic civilization that surpassed anything happening in the West during the dark ages.

Thirdly, over nearly 600 years, Byzantine monks decisively influenced the development of the Slavic world as it evolved from a loose coalition of pagan tribes into the nations we know today. From the Byzantines they gained their Cyrillic alphabet, the first texts in their then undifferentiated languages, political-administrative organizational ideas and, lastly, their Orthodox (and in some cases Catholic) faith, based on the mystical Hesychasm. Unlike the Arabs and Italians with their intellectual pursuits, this is about the evolution of religious faith and doctrine. As I knew very little about this, it was the most fascinating part of the book. It also gave me a renewed sense of wonder at the sweep of human ambition, how civilizations collide, absorb, and borrow from each other.

Sailing from Byzantium, then, is a wonderful and wonderfully accessible history of this long-forgotten empire that still, somehow, influences the world today.

Friday, August 10, 2012

“V for Vendetta”, by Alan Moore (Author) & David Lloyd (Illustrator)


296 pages, Vertigo, ISBN-13: 978-1401208417

Maybe my expectations were too high after reading Watchmen, but I was rather underwhelmed by V for Vendetta. Mind you, its not like the concept wasn't intriguing: Moore once again creates a clever political dystopia with V being set in an alternative 1990s United Kingdom which is under the rule of Norsefire, right-wing fascist party (ah, yes; they are always right-wing, aren't they?) that came to power after a nuclear war which decimated the world and drastically changed climate which, in turn, caused various natural disasters, hunger and chaos across the country. The character V is a vigilante in a Guy Fawkes mask whose goal is to overthrow the totalitarian government and to bring the country into a state of anarchy which, in his opinion, will help people of England to establish a new fair and honest regime (it is from V for Vendetta that all of those damn Guy Fawkes masks come from - which is weird 'cause Guy Fawkes and his cohort wanted to blow up Parliament and establish a Catholic dictatorship; how this makes him a symbol of freedom is beyond me).

While concept is alright, the execution leaves much to be desired. First, I would have liked more background on both characters and events. For instance, the UK is ruled by a totalitarian regime, but it was not really shown what exactly was bad about it, aside from constant surveillance and the arrests of minorities, which occurred decades prior; what I mean is, the everyday struggles of people under this supposedly oppressive regime were never described, and therefore I didn't really come to care if this regime was ever overthrown. In regards to characters, I would really want to know more about them if just to be able to distinguish numerous men in suits from one another; seriously, there were so many of them and they all play significant roles, but I was always lost as to who was who (if I'm to be completely honest, I was only able to completely understand the book only after reading the plot summary on Wikipedia; until I did that I was a little confused who did what and why). This brings me to my next concern, as the story itself wasn't structured very well, being choppy with storylines that end abruptly and countless questions left unanswered in the end. Finally, my probably biggest disappointment had to do with the fact that identity of V was never revealed; he had such a great background story, but I felt I never knew him enough (I want my mysteries solved, damnit).

Overall, a while a fine idea V for Vendetta was poorly executed. I'll try other graphic novels in future, I guess, but hopefully Watchmen is not the only one which is worth reading.

Monday, August 6, 2012

“Le Morte d'Arthur. King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table: A Rendition in Modern Idiom”, by Thomas Malory, rendered by Keith Baines


512 pages, Bramhall House, ISBN-13: 978-0517020609

Contained within the pages of this book is, perhaps, the most notorious of all stories to emerge from the depths of the Dark Ages of European history. Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table: A Rendition in Modern Idiom rendered by Keith Baines is one of the greatest works of English literature and the source of the Arthurian legends as we know them today. This legendary tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is an exquisite story of adventure, love, honor and betrayal, and throughout the whole of Malory's story there is the underlying theme that a thing's making is ultimately it's undoing, be it kingdom, man or quest. Not only is this theme evident in this story, but in Malory's own life as well. Le Morte d'Arthur is a truly legendary work of art, given new life in this splendid rendition by Keith Baines.

Baines' re-issue of this classic entirely transforms the reading of these epic tales from nearly unbearable and painful (due to the old English words and spelling) into an easy to read and, yeah, awesome telling of the legend of King Arthur. I found Baines' rendition not only made the reading more understandable but so much more enjoyable, as well. And not only that, the amount of reading is very noticeably reduced in length because all the “ye's” and “thy's” were cut out entirely. You can get all the information in 20 pages in this book that would've taken you 30+ pages in the original old-English version (one thing I did notice about Baines' version compared to the older text is that in Book 4, Chapter 25 of the original text, there are FOUR sons that Sir Marhaus fights, but in Baines' rendition there are SIX sons; but that is the only detail that I have noticed that is different). Everyone who loves and admires the tales of King Arthur owe Keith Baines a dept of gratitude for his hard work.

Friday, August 3, 2012

“The Punic Wars”, by Adrian Goldsworthy


352 pages, Cassell & Co., ISBN-13: 978-0304352845

DELENDA EST CARTHAGO – Carthage Must be Destroyed. Those most famous words were spoken by Marcus Porcius Cato in the 2nd Century BC. In this book, The Punic War, Adrian Goldsworthy takes the reader back into this most fascinating period of history. We follow in the steps of Hannibal, Hasdrubal, Hamilcar, Scipio Africanus and many more famous (and infamous) commanders and leaders as the Roman Legions and the soldiers and sailors of Carthage clash in this gigantic struggle of the Ancient World.

The Romans fought three Punic Wars with Carthage between 265-146 BCE. The best historical sources about this series of wars include Polybius, a Greek attached to the legions of Scipio Africanus, the Roman hero of the second Punic War, and Titus Livius (Livy), a Roman historian who wrote in the late 1st Century CE. Sources depicting the Carthaginian perspective disappeared long ago, and so Goldsworthy is forced to rely on the writings of aforementioned Polybius and Livy, Roman Senate records, other extant material (such as Cato's writing on agriculture), as well as archeological findings from various excavations to describe this hundred years' war that ended with the destruction of Carthage.

The first war between Rome and Carthage was fought over and about Sicily and ended with a Roman victory and possession of Sicily. The second Punic War was dominated by the Carthaginian Hannibal, who conquered Italy with elephants and dominated the peninsula for a very long time. Unfortunately for Carthage, the Romans never acknowledged Hannibal's conquests; as Goldsworthy puts it, comparing the Romans to the Brits in WWII, "He who conquers is not the victor unless the loser considers himself beaten". Although Hannibal beat the Romans to a standstill, they regrouped and counterattacked - not Hannibal directly, but Spain, before Scipio Africanus conquered large areas in Africa. Finally, when his home town was threatened, Hannibal left Italy, went home to Carthage, engaged the Romans in battle and lost. The third Punic war was a disgrace; after Rome had defeated Carthage in the second Punic War it appeared not to have posed a real threat to Rome. However, day after day Cato harangued on the Senate floor that the Carthaginians were building weapons of mass destruction and should be invaded and destroyed. Finally, he persuaded his fellow Senators to declare war, whence Rome attacked Carthage and, finally, destroyed it. In the end, the civilization founded by the Phoenicians was in ruins and Rome had become an Imperial tyrant.

The legacy of the Punic wars may have been the end of the Roman Republic. In the beginning, the Roman military was composed of yeomen farmers who volunteered for service along with members of the other classes, while the upper classes taxed themselves to support the first and second Punic wars. By the third Punic war, yeomen farmers had been replaced with large agricultural farms held by wealthy men like Cato, Roman citizenry from the upper classes disdained military service and the army was largely composed of mercenary forces made up of the dispossessed. This professional army eventually dominated the country though Gaius Marius, Sula and, finally, the Caesars. The Roman Republic was at an end.