It is refreshing to read a novel about vampires in which vampires are scary monsters and not romantic sex symbols. This book is a good creepy read, and even though it is only the second novel King wrote, it is clearly one of his finest. The only flaw is that it goes on for a hundred pages after it logically should have ended. But it is a good, suspenseful page turner…and SCARY. Not a book for bienpensants or pollyanna sensibilities.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/03/06/salems-lot-by-stephen-king/
Feb 20 2012
Napoleon by Frank McLynn
This is the best and most balanced biography of Napoleon I have read so far. It contains much excellent scholarship and critical commentary; however, it also contains a lot of amateur Freudian analysis that is pure rubbish. While I am neither a warmonger nor an imperialist, I find it hard to read a biography of Napoleon without rooting for him. For all his faults–and this book discusses them in detail–he remains the outstanding military leader of the gunpowder age.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/02/20/napoleon-by-frank-mclynn/
Feb 15 2012
Christianity and Culture by T.S. Eliot
This collection of essays was written on the eve of World War II, but the question it poses is highly relevant for our time, particularly for people like me: what role, if any, should Christianity play in a modern democracy? In what way is Christianity connected to contemporary culture, and in what ways should it influence that culture? There is far more discussion of culture than Christianity in this book; culture and not Christ is obviously what is dearest to the heart of a poet and literary scholar like Eliot; not once does he ever make reference to Jesus or any of His doctrines. According to Eliot, there are strong cultures and weak cultures. Again, as a poet and scholar, he has rather peculiar notions of what makes a culture strong, as if there is an obvious connection between Shakespeare and nuclear physics. Eliot’s thesis of culture as social capital is basically Matthew Arnold revisited, but it is a thesis worth revisiting, even if history has rather unevenly shown its merit.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/02/15/christianity-and-culture-by-t-s-eliot/
Feb 02 2012
A Brief History of the Cold War by Colonel John Hughes-Wilson
The author argues that the Cold War’s beginning was not in 1945 but in 1917. Some of his other judgments are even more controversial. He reveals that the Cuban missile crisis was not the only time during the Cold War when the United States went on DEFCON 3 alert, he believes Diem’s assassination in Vietnam was a CIA operation fully authorized by Kennedy, and he even believes the JFK assassination was carried out by the Mafia and that Oswald was indeed a patsy. Other judgments are more conventional but equally memorable: Reagan was a brilliant Cold Warrior who deserves to be remembered for that if nothing else, Bush was an incompetent bungler who hummed and hawed indecisively as the Soviet Union unraveled before his eyes, and Gorbachev… “Gorbachev stands as an almost heroic figure, who did more to end the Cold War than any other individual, although perhaps not in the way he had envisaged.” This is the best book to date I have read on the Cold War, and the author is not an American.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/02/02/a-brief-history-of-the-cold-war-by-colonel-john-hughes-wilson/
Jan 09 2012
A History of Warfare by John Keegan
This is Keegan’s best work. In most of his works he analyzes the science of warfare; in this book he also analyzes the psychology and culture of warfare. He takes exception from the beginning with Clausewitz’s dictum that war is politics by other means, and shows with ample evidence from history that war often is destructive of the political orders that it is supposed to preserve. The scope of his survey of warfare is impressive, ranging from prehistoric primitive warfare to the nuclear age. He is clearly an admirer of the warrior class and the warrior ethic, but he is no idealist or romantic when it comes to war, and he ends the book with the hope that man’s warmaking days will soon be over. Alas, I do not share his optimism, but I do share his love of good historical writing, of which this book is a shining example.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/01/09/a-history-of-warfare-by-john-keegan/
Jan 07 2012
The Spanish Inquisition by Joseph Perez
The author is obviously a committed Catholic. In this book he soft-pedals the Spanish Inquisition, arguing that it was bad, but really not as bad as all that. He argues that originally the aim of the Inquisition was not to eliminate Jews but merely to eliminate Judaism…a distinction that Jews will probably not appreciate. He observes that Grand Inquisitor Torquemada was a man of the utmost integrity. He helpfully points out that in the sixteenth century the Inquisition did not burn witches but only Protestants. And he is dismissive of the argument that the Inquisition thwarted scientific and intellectual progress in Spain, although he acknowledges that it discouraged critical scholarship and even reading of any kind altogether. Moreover, throughout the book he seems more interested in the bureaucratic machinery of the Inquisition than in the suffering it inflicted on innocent people. He is not exactly an apologist for the Inquisition…who can be one?…but he comes close.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/01/07/the-spanish-inquisition-by-joseph-perez/
Jan 05 2012
The Reformation by Diarmaid McCulloch
The first time I read this book I didn’t think much of it, but on rereading it I found it a rich source of information, analysis, and commentary. If there is a single theme throughout this history, it is the way in which a passion for God usually leads to a ferocious hatred of anyone who has different ideas about God. The story of the Reformation is not an altogether inspiring story, with Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli all exposed as rather less than saintly men, and it flies in the face of the New Testament doctrine that the church of Christ is supposed to be a unified body. But I believe that the Reformation overall was a positive development in Western civilization, although, as the author notes, its effect on Europe has largely evaporated as European religious faith has increasingly waned. The United States, I would argue, is largely a product of Protestant faith and continues to be so today. But in my opinion the Reformation is not finished and still has a long way to go.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/01/05/the-reformation-by-diarmaid-mcculloch/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/01/04/taking-stock-of-2011/
Nov 03 2011
Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran by Elaine Sciolino
I cannot praise this book too highly. I have read other books on modern Iran, but this book gives a much more detailed, complex, and fascinating look at what life in Iran is actually like. The author paints a picture of a vibrant and spirited people struggling desperately against a hated theocracy, and a theocracy struggling equally desperately to hang on to power. The most fascinating and perplexing aspect of Iranian collective psychology is the ambivalent love-hate attitude toward the United States. There is still very much a “Death to America” chorus in modern Iran, but Iranians also see America as a place of hope and opportunity that is sadly lacking in their own country. And the booming youth of Iran have no use for the Revolution or for theocracy, presenting a tantalizing hint of what Iran might look like ten years from now. This is a wonderful, wonderful book that deserves to be read by more Americans.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/11/03/persian-mirrors-the-elusive-face-of-iran-by-elaine-sciolino/
Oct 25 2011
War and Our World by John Keegan
This is a very thoughtful and rational analysis of a very diabolical subject. Keegan acknowledges that war has evolved into something so terrible that it is to be avoided at all costs, but at the same time argues that war and preparedness for war remain unfortunate necessities in the fallen world in which we live. He also urges us to respect and honor the soldier and the code that enables him to do his duty, and not to let our modern distaste for war undermine our appreciation for the service that the soldier performs. This book is much warmer and more humane in tone than Keegan’s usual cold-blooded military dissertations, and it is one of his most readable works. A good introduction to a subject that defies any definitive rational explanation.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/10/25/war-and-our-world-by-john-keegan/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire