September 2008 archive

Daily Life in Ancient Rome by Florence Dupont

The author is obviously enamored of the ancient Romans, and I suspect that she projects her own preferences and prejudices onto them. But this is a fascinating book that takes a look at what kind of people the Romans were, apart from the endless wars of conquest and political intrigues that historians typically dwell. Dupont …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2008/09/21/daily-life-in-ancient-rome-by-florence-dupont/

In the Days of the Comet by H.G. Wells

Wells was not a religious man, yet somehow this strikes me as a deeply religious book. He seems to have had a profound conviction that the world we live in is a fallen world that has gone horribly wrong, and he seems to have been equally certain that nothing short of a deus ex machina …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2008/09/17/in-the-days-of-the-comet-by-h-g-wells/

Caesar: Politician and Statesman by Matthias Gelzer

An excellent study of the crisis of the late Roman Republic, the Gallic and Civil Wars, and Julius Caesar’s personal genius. To put it as mildly as possible, Caesar was a man of remarkable ability, not the least of which was his extraordinary knack for never missing an opportunity, and he was born at the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2008/09/06/caesar-politician-and-statesman-by-matthias-gelzer/