“The Fourth Part of the World: An Astonishing Epic of Global Discovery, Imperial Ambition, and the Birth of America”, by Toby Lester

 

480 pages, Free Press, ISBN-13: 978-1416535348

Toby Lester’s The Fourth Part of the World: An Astonishing Epic of Global Discovery, Imperial Ambition, and the Birth of America is much more than the tale of how a groundbreaking map of the world got drawn, published and circulated (though it tells that tale well); it also provides a portal into the opening decades of the discovery of the transatlantic world and how, even though the the ancient lore from Herodotus to Ptolemy got transformed, the old myths managed to endure. The map in question is the Waldseemüller Map, or the Universalis Cosmographia – the Universal Cosmography – by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, originally published in April 1507, and is known as the first map to use the name “America” on what is now called South America on the main map, bestowed in honor of the Italian, Amerigo Vespucci. As for that “Fourth Part of the World”, it refers to the somewhat mythical-yet-actual undiscovered lands (after Asia, Europe and Africa) described by the ancients which we know now as America, North and South.

In the world we live in today, where there are no significant undiscovered lands and few major geographical puzzles left to solve, this book is particularly enticing as it put me squarely back in the minds of all those Medieval and Renaissance travelers, scholars and mapmakers as they struggled to put together a jigsaw puzzle to which half the pieces were still missing and produce an accurate view of the world they were still discovering. Following in their footsteps was exhilarating, thanks both to the facts themselves and to Lester’s extremely knowledgeable but always lively writing. While Lester does great work in making the process of map-making itself understandable, he doesn’t shun the livelier bits and pieces of the story, such as the way “Mongol Chic” spread through western Europe the late 13^th and early 14^th Centuries (Italian parents even named their sons after Mongol khans!) This book was sheer delight to read, as it combined intellectual history (the story of the transmission of knowledge and of how new discoveries were incorporated into and transformed the way people viewed their world), science (the art of navigation and marine map-making, for instance) and the stories of the explorers, both those whose curiosity could be pursued only from the Medieval version of an armchair as well as those like Columbus and Vespucci who took the helm of their ships and sailed off into the unknown (I confess I particularly enjoyed the attention given to some of the more obscure figures, from the mapmakers who finally produced the map bearing the label “America” to early 14^th Century Papal scholar Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini).

The Fourth Part of the World is an historical adventure story about a 1507 map that had been lost for centuries and about how America got its name, but more importantly it is about human progress and the unending quest to discover who we are, how we got here and where we fit into the grand scheme of things. Lester gives the reader great insight into the minds of educated people during the middle ages and the Renaissance as we learn of their fears, ignorance, superstitions, hopes and ambitions, and of mankind’s slow but steady progress through the centuries in learning about ourselves, our environment and our limitations.

“Revolution”, by Martin Anderson

 

486 pages, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN-13: 978-0151770878

Martin Anderson was an economist, policy analyst, author and one of President Reagan’s leading advisors, where he served as the chief domestic policy advisor from 1981 to 1982 and then as a member of the President’s Economic Policy Advisory Board from 1982 to 1989. His book, Revolution, is basically an Operator’s Manual for the Presidency, written by one who was present at the creation of the Reagan administration. Lest one forget – and most people have – when Reagan took office after a series of very supposedly very bright Presidents who obviously were not up to the job, the prevailing opinion was that the job of POTUS had become simply too big for any one man to handle competently.

But, since Reagan, nobody thinks that any more, and Anderson was one of the many advisors who helped to implement that thing called “Reaganomics” (are you old enough to remember when that term began as a pejorative and became a compliment, only after it began to work? I am). Anderson was one of the people who helped show how tax cuts work and why doing them is good for all, being one of the leading prophets who helped Reagan persuade others within government of the benefits associated with his program. But this is a book about much more than economics, as Anderson also dissects the advantages and disadvantages inherent in Reagan’s management style by shedding light into the personalities that inhabited the West Wing and all of the fights that went on behind closed doors.

As such, Revolution is not just a memoir in which the author explains only that which made him someone to be looked up to, rather it is a sober work in which one recounts the mistakes and good decisions he made; Martin Anderson shows us how he did it.

“Knights of Jerusalem: The Crusading Order of Hospitallers, 1100-1565”, by David Nicolle

 

224 pages, Osprey Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1846030802

To some they were the Chosen Knights of Christ, while to others, they were simply pirates bearing crosses, but the Knights Hospitaller – or the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem – was in fact a Christian organization that began as an Amalfitan hospital founded in Jerusalem in 1018 to provide care for poor, sick or injured pilgrims to the Holy Land, and in Knights of Jerusalem: The Crusading Order of Hospitallers, 1100-1565, David Nicolle details the history of this misunderstood organization (it should be noted that this is basically a reprint of Osprey’s twin warrior titles on the Knights Hospitaller, unfortunately lacking in the color plates.).

After the Western Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade, it became a religious/military order under its own charter, and was charged with the care and defense of the Holy Land. The Hospitallers thence evolved into one of the great military forces of the Crusades, fighting the Islamic enemy alongside their brothers and rivals, the Templers. After the fall of the Holy Land, the Order moved to Rhodes and pursued a naval crusade, regarded by the Ottomans and Venetians as simple high-seas pirates. Eventually they wound up on Malta, where they remained for more than 250 years, surviving the famous great siege of 1565, until finally ousted by Napoleon in 1798. When the Knights ceased to be associated with any one place, it gave rise to successors in existence until the present including the Sovereign Order of Malta.

Knights of Jerusalem details the origins, equipment, battle tactics and daily life of these Knights, from their origins as an order of charitable, hospital-running monks in Jerusalem to their days as a band of seaborne crusaders harassing the Ottoman Empire throughout the Mediterranean. It is not without its issues, however: there are far too many “it suggests” or “it indicates” and “or perhaps it shows” that it is hard to get the author to give definitive answers. Maybe he is an overly-cautious researcher, but in the end it leaves a rather empty feeling. The book is also kinda boring, with no personalities shining through, which is a damn shame, as this sovereign order of badasses attracted quite the cast of characters. But perhaps one shouldn’t expect all of that from an Osprey book, seeing as their works really focus on the military-side of their subjects. So for that, if for no other reason, Knights of Jerusalem is just fine.

“Overlord: The D-Day Landings”, by Ken Ford and Steven Zaloga

 

368 pages, Osprey Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1846034244

ANOTHER Osprey military-themed book, this time from WWII: Overlord: The D-Day Landings by Ken Ford and Steven Zaloga is basically a reissuing of several Osprey books packaged together: D-Day 1944 (1): Omaha Beach; D-Day 1944 (2): Utah Beach & the US Airborne Landings; D-Day 1944 (3): Sword Beach & the British Airborne Landings and D-Day 1944 (4): Gold & Juno Beaches. As one should expect from Osprey, this is a no-nonsense campaign book that deals with tactics, strategy and armaments, with little (if any) discussion about the men who fought and died. The individual campaign books themselves each provided an aggregate overview of both side’s armies, leaders and plans from the perspective of the individual campaigns themselves. In addition, there is an excellent analysis, again on the aggregate basis as opposed to from the perspective of the individual battles, on why the allies were victorious. A number of factors are examined, with the failure of the Axis command and control structure being the most important reason for their failure to hurl the Allies into the sea. Full of maps and photographs from the actual landing, Overlord really breaks down and describes just what, how and why what happened on June 6, 1944, for any layman to understand.

“A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World”, by Tony Horwitz

 

464 pages, Henry Holt and Co., ISBN-13: 978-0805076035

I found that perhaps the best thing about A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World is the fact that Horwitz actually took the quest himself and got to experience and see what it was like the best he could which, I believe, made him seem more credible and relatable to his readers. But this is more than just a travelogue, as Horwitz divides his time between an historical narrative of the Americas and a discussion of the current state of the localities that historical events and characters passed through, and his own experiences in those areas – which turns out being not so great.

Thus, we often find Horwitz in the middle of no-where but, because some famous figure camped there back in the 17^th Century or there was a huge Indian settlement there in the 16^th, he feels compelled to go stand there and tell you how boring it is and how bad the food was and how the motel had bedbugs. The reason that nobody goes there anymore is because there really is no reason to go there and most of the people he is following around didn’t want to be there either; add to that a lot of the time he can’t even be sure if that is the site he is supposed to be at in the first place, but Horwitz goes on and on about Podunk and BFE and doesn’t even bother to try to romanticize it…which, come to think of it, I actually rather appreciated, but it doesn’t make the book any more fun to read (really, you may think that L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, would make a great place to visit, until you read Horwitz’s description of his own travels there).

If you are someone who has a limited exposure to the history of the Americas, then this book is actually a pretty good primer. It will expose you to some interesting characters and some fascinating things about your own backyard that you never knew, which is always fun…but, if you are the sort of person who has a love for history (and you know who you are) then you will probably find this book as dull as I did.

“Martin Luther: His Life and Work”, by Hartmann Grisar

609 pages, AMS Press, ISBN-13: 978-0404029357 

Hartmann Grisar originally published Martin Luther: His Life and Work in 1926 (the edition I inherited from my Dad was published in 1971). Grisar was a German-Austrian Jesuit and church historian who studied at the Royal Theological and Philosophical Academy of Münster from 1862 to 1863 and at the Theological Faculty of the University of Innsbruck from 1863 to 1868, when he was ordained a priest and entered Rome in the Jesuit order…hmmmmm, a biography of Luther written by a Jesuit; what could possibly go wrong?

Overall this book is a bland as bland could be, just the sort of biography a 19^th Century German Jesuit would write. Perhaps Grisar’s biggest gripe is that Luther and his movement failed to respect the authority of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, which he judges as the opening of the floodgates of subjectivism in which everyone determines for him or herself the message and implications of the Gospel. Not really a novel or noteworthy complaint that, as Luther himself insisted that a higher, earthly authority shouldn’t and couldn’t control the interpretation of the gospel; everyone can and, indeed, must interpret and understand the scripture for themselves (this is not to say that Luther or any other Christians weren’t going to take issue with those who interpreted scripture wrongly – or, perhaps, “wrongly”).

What is interesting – and, don’t forget, this is a book published in 1927 when Freudian psychobabble was still all the rage – is that Grisar identifies Luther’s desperate search for a gracious God as symptomatic of Luther’s own spiritual angst. Grisar faults Luther’s question and his Pauline conclusion – the sola fide, “faith alone”, that asserts God’s pardon for guilty sinners is granted to and received through faith alone, excluding all works or good deeds –  as a false foundation for doctrine and faith (well he would, wouldn’t he?). Grisar views this concern for the centrality of justification as peculiarly Lutheran and peculiar to Luther, not something universal for one and all. For Grisar, Luther’s breakthrough to a “new gospel”, and what Grisar regards as the founding of a “new religion”, should have remained Luther’s private struggle and not the Reformation of the whole Church. Although Grisar, at times, shows objective admiration for this historic foe of orthodox Catholicism, he also suggests that Luther’s issues were not the result of a searing intense pursuit of Christian faith, but merely the result of mental illness. A low blow, even from a Jesuit.

“Sense and Sensibility”, by Jane Austen

 

299 pages, The Folio Society 

Sense and Sensibility, the first of Jane Austen’s novels, appears to be as straightforward a Regency romance as there is: Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters Elinor, Marianne and Margaret are forced from their home, Norland Park, a large country estate in Sussex, after the late Mr. Dashwood leaves the property to his only son, born to a previous wife. The women eventually find loggings at Barton Cottage courtesy of a distant relative, but this change in location separates Elinor from a close and (potentially) loving friendship with her brother-in-law, Edward Ferrars; it also introduces many new characters into their lives, including John Willoughby, the man that Marianne falls instantly in love with, and Colonel Brandon, who falls instantly in love with the flighty Marianne in his turn.

The crux of this tale is the differences between Elinor and Marianne and, especially, the differing ways in which the sisters navigate their romantic predicaments, which boils down to the “sense” of Elinor and the “sensibility” of Marianne. Elinor’s reserve vs. Marianne’s no-holds-barred approach to romance may seem wildly different, but their relationships share significant parallels and both young women must accept that they could learn something from the other. I mean, it’s all there: men and women of contrasting and complimenting characters thrown together with the chances of love thwarted by the social conventions of the period which prevent honesty and openness and instead breed duplicity and secrecy – but, upon further reflection, the discerning reader can see that Sense and Sensibility is also a carefully crafted critique of social ethics that leaves the reader with much to think over, then and now.

“I wish as well as everybody else to be perfectly happy, but like everybody else, it must be in my own way”. One cannot but smile when reading Jane, with her distinctive style and proper mannerisms, so in keeping with the Regency era in which she lived and yet so different from the same – such as the way in which she uses her characters’ personalities and foibles to convey truths, both acknowledged and unspoken, of early 19^th Century British society, what with the way in which she sets her scenes with this family of this social standing, living on which estate in which county, and with how many pounds a year (well, of course). Her style is such that she can disclose all of this to the reader through description and innuendo, allowing her readers an appreciation of her characters and their strengths and struggles.

One favorite tactic is her pairing of opposites, leaving one to wonder just how in the hell this couple or that pairing came about (opposites attract?). In regards to Sense and Sensibility, the prime couple in question are the sisters Elinor (sense) and Marianne (sensibility), so different one can’t help but wonder how these siblings  ever find common ground, but by bringing such disparate personalities agreeably together, Jane proves her point that there really is an idealized middle-ground, that happy mediums do exist between seemingly disparate ideals. At times the traits and aspects of her characters are spelled out for the reader quite explicitly, although there are many occasions in which the reader can find themselves tested when such things are not spelled out and in which one must read the dialog with a fine tooth comb, as it were, adding, I think, something to the enjoyment of Jane.

There are other parallels besides those between Elinor and Marianne or, for that matter, between Brandon and Willoughby. Austen was not writing in a vacuum, and there are several political connotations to the “sensibility” of Sense and Sensibility that compares and contrasts between this and other novels of the period that Austen was known to have read before and during the writing of her first novel. With everyone’s subtle (and not-so-subtle) intentions and motivations put on display for the reader, what with all of the conforming with and breaking of social norms and manners (along with the hints and suggestions of inner-turmoil and conflicts between private and public selves and all of those telling silences), Sense and Sensibility requires the one to read between the lines, and is as much a part of the story as the events of the plot.

One would think that this would be enough to drive the novel forward at a brisk pace but, alas, one would be wrong, for momentum, despite the parallel love stories introduced very early on, is rather lacking, and while the novel is full of heartbreak and lost love, the heroic couples of the tale see little actual page time together, which limits even the angst of unrequited love and is noticeable for its lack of Austen’s signature brand of romance (Elinor goes to such lengths to convince everyone that she’s not in love that it begins to ring true, while Marianne’s relationship with her husband-to-be is nonexistent until the book’s final chapter). There are times when the characters appear to be having conversations unrelated to the main story and I failed to question those instances and figure out what Austen is trying to say there; also, it is possible to miss the many parallels and contrasts between the characters, the sisters especially.

Another aspect of the book is that it is the younger, more passionate sister, Marianne, who drives the story along. For much of Sense and Sensibility we see Elinor and her “sense” reacting to the whims and whiles of Marianne’s “sensibility”, and all of the accompanying trials and tribulations of the Sisters Dashwood follow from the little scatterbrain who doesn’t know what she is about. So we must, then, ask the question: is Elinor’s “sense” all it’s cracked up to be, seeing as she is, for much of the book, flowing along in the emotional wake of her sister and conforming to the same? The peculiar (I think) twist at the center of the novel is that Elinor’s “sense” only makes sense by contrasting with sensibility; indeed, one could argue that she only reaches her right decisions or, at least, rationalizes their value by keeping quiet and assessing Marianne’s (many) wrong ones.

And this is the issue at the heart of Sense and Sensibility, the conflict between the need to express oneself against the social pressure to comport oneself accordingly, and the paradox of living in a society that requires you to be both sociable and private (there was, after all, a high prevalence of nervous-breakdown-type sickness in the late 18^th Century). Compare this with our own psychotic society in which women are evidently being conditioned to treat all men as potential rapists at best, and it positively makes one pine for unspoken desire and and sentimental stares.