Non-Fiction

[mabel1015j]

 

TO NONFICTION BOOK TALK

What are you reading?  Autobiographies, biographies, history, politics?

Tell us about the book; the good and the bad of it. 

Let's talk books!

Discussion Leader: HaroldArnold

What interesting, knowledgeable we have come in to chat with us here and on Seniors and Friends and with all kinds of interests and knowledge. That's what keeps me coming back everyday. Thank you all for sharing.

[ginny]

I don't think Julius Caesar ever intended to conquer Germany, and he certainly wasn't turned back. By anything or anybody.   He had no difficulty overcoming (once his army got over their fears, a fascinating read)   the haughty German general Ariovistus, thoroughly routing him and his army  in 58 BC. Their exchanges are hilarious.

 Following his conquest and pacification  of Gaul in 52 BC with the surrender of Vercingetorix, the French hero to this day,  Caesar, long away from home, needed the consular office of 48 BC. From 51-50, Hirtius describes Caesar's activity: "Caesar had one main aim, keeping the tribes friendly, and giving them neither the opportunity nor cause for war...And so, by dealing with the tribes honourably, by granting rich bounties to the chieftains, and by not imposing burdens, he made their state of subjection tolerable, and easily kept the peace in a Gaul weary after so many military defeats..." The summer passed peacefully and he determined to leave Gaul with some of his army in 49.  His  lone remaining partner Pompey (Crassus had died on the battlefield).  passed a law that he might run for consul in absentia.  However since his office of governorship expired in 49 BC , the senate wished to recall him before he could be elected consul under a full army. Marcellus, consul in 49 BC,   proposed he lay down his command by November and Pompey reluctantly agreed. On  January 7 49 AD the senate ordered Caesar, now on the banks of the Rubicon, to  disband. (That's a very short summary of a very complicated series of events).  Caesar crossed the Rubicon, with his army,  and everybody  knows what happened then.  Caesar returned to Rome.

Caesar  was assassinated in 44 BC. The Battle of Teutoburg was in 9 AD. I don't think anybody could have stopped Caesar in war. The definitive biography of Julius  Caesar is considered to be that by Christian Meier, translated from the German, but the Goldsworthy is gaining ascendancy for military history, and both were consulted for this post.

[Frybabe]

Barb, I think the gist of the book was that people used Germania to promote their own agenda whatever that may be. Hitler and his bunch, for instance, were keen on taking the bits that helped them promote the German ideal and ignoring the rest (fidelity, independence, etc.). Taken as a whole, Germania was rather critical of the Germanic people. Tacitus himself never visited Germany. All his knowledge of the area came from the writings of others or in interviews with those who had traveled there. As the author, Krebs, said, Tacitus was a Roman, writing in Rome, for Romans. His writings would have been colored by the attitudes of the day and with a view to please the powers that be at the time. He even managed to survive Domitian's rule.

I didn't finish the book before it was due back at the library and probably will not go back to it. Too much Harvardese and somewhat harder to follow in spots than I cared to bother with. What I was interested in was why Germania was considered one of the 100 most dangerous books. My interests lay more in Roman history. Tacitus is considered one of Rome's greatest historians. However, reading what I did of A Most Dangerous Book reminds me that classical writers are no more unbiased about their subjects as most writers are today. Some just hide it better than others.

[BarbStAubrey]

Been reading tonight - Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 evidently there are many who have an ax to grind about Prussia that was wiped away with Churchill's hand at the end of WWII - he sure saw to it that Britain's old nemesis was removed from the map and tried to wipe out its history except for what can be used to bludgeon  -

Seems this Prussia thing has legs - some are blaming the influence of Prussia's history as the cause of Hitler's horrors??!!?? Hitler was Austrian but some are saying he adapted the ways of Prussia repeating only the worst aspects of Prussia to support their argument - There had been a long hatred against Prussia by Britain, Russia and France - looks like Prussia is being made, by some the fall guy -

The center of Prussia was Berlin and I learned the word we see as part of towns and counties nearby "Mark" simply means marsh land. It was a sandy area where nothing would grow and no minerals to speak of - only as the land to the west was settled by folks from all over Europe were there cereal crops successfully grown that started the wealth machine for Prussia.

Back to the controversy. According to the Preface, Germany is struggling trying to sort out the blame that this Prussia thing is bringing up - the topic hits their guilt button active since the end of WWII - there was a large exposition, I forget the Museum near Berlin, where large collections of papers and artifacts etc. from Prussia were put on display with NO comment - the curators were not making a point but letting those viewing the material to make up their own minds. This controversy and the exposition was a major talking item on German TV for several years in the 1980s and 90s.

This author goes on to say how since WWII many are trying to brush Germany with Prussian history, painting all with a bold black brush - others in defense are too defensive so that a fair viewpoint is not easily found. I guess we call that polarization that is alive and well in this country.

The biggest issue with Prussia is their historical quick response and successful ability to go to war and to win wars - they had a disciplined, military attitude about life. On the other hand, Prussia was the most literate nation state with successful families sending their children off to Europe's universities as early as the seventeenth century and the Prussians were more literate than any other nation in Europe right up to the start of WWII.

Looks like as with most groups and many individuals there is a mixed bag and success can lead to un-comfort for the competition so that there is seldom a fair critique. All to say it appears that according to any author's mentors, reading and study material this issue can easily be written about with a bias slant.

I am anxious to get further into this book - sounds like there are emotional bombs going off still over a group of people that others feared for 400 years. And your search into Roman history -  looks like it may be fun to do some reading into the culture and history of those groups that Rome thought were Barbarians living in Forests with unicorns.  

I started all this in earnest because I had two separate questions and never imagined they would cross - I wondered why Germany was only unifying mid nineteenth century when France had their revolution in the eighteenth century. And I have been curious about how the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire and how the Christians were one minute being eaten by lions and the next thing you know they are running the show - also, I had heard the expression the Germanization of the Christianity and had no clue - now I am seeing how it fits  and want to learn more.

All this is relevant today - during Vatican II all the German and Dutch Bishops and Cardinals represented a liberal block - they were labeled the Alpine group and recently most of the German Bishops have broken with Rome - I want to explore the history of how this is playing out - is it just politics or as I imagine, a difference in viewpoint with many happenings, education, cultural views to support each group - I want to find out what this is all about. Nothing like digging in when there are thousands of years to rifle through rather than a mere couple of hundred.

Sounds like I need to read Germania and see what Tacitus had to say for himself. My German or Latin is no longer that good - hopefully I can find an English Translation.

[Frybabe]

What a coincidence, Barb, that you mentioned the Germanization of the Christianity. I watched an old history of art program last night focusing on Romanesque and Gothic architecture. In it the host mentioned the term near the beginning of the program. It perked my ears because the phrase is new to me, but then the program quickly went on to other things without any real explanation. I wonder if the program was made anywhere around the time that The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation by James C. Russell was published in 1996. (I just did a search on the term and came up with the book title and a Wikipedia article).

[BarbStAubrey]

It is on my to read list - I wonder if you are right - bet so - I am amazed learning this stuff - I knew the popular view of things was skewed but had no idea the story behind all of this - looks like there are others into all this and we all have a tiger by the tail - I was amazed to learn at first about all these groups like the Goths and the Franks and the Vandals and now the names are coming easy to me as today we say Italy and France and Sweden. But following the history of the church is so fascinating - I feel vindicated in that some of this I learned as a child attending 'order' schools versus Diocesan schools but it was just touched on.

Part of this was when we read the book about the Natchi or however it was spelled with the Russian Jewish family that moved to Paris and Japan - I read at least a dozen books after that first bit trying to learn how the Jews got to Odessa and then what was the history of the hatred towards them - fascinating - looks like tracing back for 100s of years it was the middle class competition in trade but earlier it started with the Romans who were destroying Israel left and right  - Then adopted by Christians when they were embraced by Constantine who took the symbol for the Jews off the flag, blamed them for fires in Rome but more, he replaced the Jewish symbol with the Christian cross.

I always thought that blaming the Jews for crucifying Christ was a rallying cry since there were no Christians when Christ Died - the first the word is used in over 100 years later - they were Jews who followed Jesus.

This is when I wish I had nothing on my plate and could spread out on my Kitchen table with books opened as cross references and really immerse myself.

What was the art program - sounds like probably PBS - do you remember the name of it or was it on Nova or another national weekly...?

[Tomereader1]

 realize this is not the "proper" place for it, but since there are many more visitors to this forum, I thought I would put a warning here.

I received an E-Mail from my Discover Card account this morning.  It did go to the Spam folder, but I looked at it there, and even though it had the correct name, and last 4 digits of the acct. number, something about the logo didn't look quite right.  It mention that the Discover "home page" would be changing August 31st, and I could log into it now.  WEll, I am a big spam watcher.  Seemed funny to me, so I called the phone # on the back of my card, and first person I got, did not know anything about it, i.e. whether or not they had sent an email detailing changes.  So they connected me to "Security" and I read it to the lady, and she gave me an email address to "Forward" it to:  emailwatch@discover.com so they could check the validity of it.  Now, it may be real, but my Discover notices do not usually get sent to my Spam folder.  This is just a "heads up" in case any of you have a Discover Card.  BE CAREFUL.

[BarbStAubrey]

thanks - I got one also - thank goodness I did not go into my account to check it out

[Tomereader1]

And, too, it's crazy when the folks who answer the phone don't know anything about it, or Security either.

[Frybabe]

I had a similar email years back. I called the CC company and as you noted, the regular CSR didn't have a clue. I then talked to the Web Tech people since they are the ones working more directly with web pages and would most likely know about pending web design pages. I don't remember the outcome, but I do think I sent the email on to the abuse address the company listed. Like most companies, the left and doesn't often know what the right hand is doing, even in communications type companies. Tome, I've alerted a friend of mine who also uses Discover. Thanks.

[mabel1015j]

I started reading Alice : Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House princess to Washington Power Broker by Stacy A. Cordery,
it sounds like it is going to be very good. For those of you reading the present book for discussion, i was surprised to read that she was an America Firster, her father would certainly have been ready to go to war with the Nazis.

This may be a book that would be a good discussion book. She knew Civil War veterans, lived through two world wars and into the late 20th century. She had everyone to her table, including heads of state, as well as Washington bigwigs and was an astute politician. If she had been born 70 yrs later, she might have been the first woman president.

I've just started it, so i'll let you know if i continue to like it.

[BarbStAubrey]

to be so openly rude to FDR and Eleanor as lesser than among Roosevelts does not endear me to her prejudicial life.

[mabel1015j]

This book is the first to be able to use Alice's papers and letters with others, so i'm curious to see how she comes out in this book.

[mabel1015j]

I'm still enjoying the Alice Roosevelt Longworth book. It's very well written, lots of factual info but very entertaining.

[mabel1015j]

If any of you like to listen to podcasts, or like history, here's an iTunes podcast that will keep you busy for a while, The Podcast History of the World - altho each podcast is about 30 minutes long or less, so you can listen when you wish. You can get there by going to iTunes and search "The podcast history of the world" by Rob Monaco and hope that you get the actual downloads, or you can try this link.

http://podcasthistoryofourworld.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2012-08-30T15:56:00-04:00&max-results=6&start=30&by-date=false

The reason I say that is when I've gone to the podcast site on the pc it gives me the latest podcast - #34 and then you have to scroll DOWN thru many pages to #001. On the ipad - iTunes is obviously a an apple owned product - I can call up just the list which fits on one page and easily click on #001.

This was started by an out of work historian who is really doing a nice, thorough job of telling world history. His voice is very pleasant to listen to and he has some humor to keep us interested. It's an active site, he's still posting every week, or so, and you can comment. In the first post "Let there be History" he voices my theory of history exactly - history is stories of people and events with background and consequences. That's the way I taught it.

In a few months we will be traveling for a week, I'm planning on taking my ipad and listening while my husband is driving.

Jean

[BarbStAubrey]

We are starting up the Poetry Page again - the loss of Seamus Heaney is a big loss that only reminded me again of both Fairanna and Babi - both daily contributers to the Poetry Page. Fairanna started the Poetry discussion way back during the early days of SeniorNet -

Fairanna shared as much of her own poetry as she did the poetry written by others - and for about two years we had only shared the poems of one poet a month so that we learned more about the poet and his or her work. Fairanna had featured poets that where new to some of us and we did a month with Seamus Heaney - but more - she and Babi were partial to his poetry and often shared his work.

It seems fitting to honor all three in September - we will be sharing for a month poems and quotes by Seamus Heaney and any poems written by Fairanna that you may have kept in some file on your computer.

Hope you will join us - there will be links in the heading to some of the poems and quotes written by Seamus Heaney - any of them would be lovely featured in a post that can bring meaning to our day.

[mabel1015j]

I am reading People of the Century, a book about the 20th century published by Time and CBS News, AKA Dan Rather and Walter Isaacson. Rather writes a lovely intro about the century titled "The Reporter's Century" and then there are 100 longish bios (several pages) about each person (not in any obvious order) starting with Sigmund Freud and ending with Unknown Tiananmen Square Rebel. ( it's hard to say Tiananmen without including an extra vowel syllable   It ends with another nice essay "afterword" by Isaacson,  "Our Century and the Next One."

I've just started to read the Freud essay. The essays are written by such writers as Edmund Morris, Lee Iacocca, Bill Gates, Molly Ivans, Gloria Steinem, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr, Susan Cheever, Peggy Noonan, William Buckley, Jr. And Colin Powell.

 My library did not have the book, so i have it on library-loan for 3 weeks, but i see Amazon has the hard copy for $4.00. I think i will just buy it. I can see using it as a basis for a short course at the senior community where i sometimes give lectures in what they call their "university."

It might be an interesting book discussion for us here. The persons highlighted range through inventors, artists, entertainers, the American GI, poets, as well as heads of state. Pictures accompany each person's bio. It might take more than a month. Even people who did not read the book could comment on their memories and experiences and expertise.

It could turn into a mini-mini-mini Story of Civilization!   After all this would be merely one century of civilization.

I'm looking forward to casually reading through the book and searching for more info on each subject.

Jean

[mabel1015j]

The First Ladies" is back on CSPAN2, Edith Roosevelt is spotlighted tonight 9:00? Stacy Cordery, author of "Alice" ARLongworth's biographer that i'm reading is on the show.

Jean

[Frybabe]

An article about the women behind the man, Pickering, who didn't get their fair share of recognition for their contribution to astronomy.

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/history/2013/09/the-women-who-mapped-the-universe-and-still-couldnt-get-any-respect/?utm_source=smithsoniansciandnat&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=201309-science

[Tomereader1]

Just loving that series, have ordered the book, America's First Ladies from C.Span.

[JoanK]

I'm reading a book "Spell it Out" about why English spelling is so difficult. I hoped it would help with my awful spelling. Instead, it makes me feel that I'm doomed.

The basic reasons the spelling is so non-phonetic seem to be: first, there are 44 different sounds in English and only 26 letters to represent them. So in a time when there was no idea that there should be one correct spelling, different writers came up with different conventions to distinguish these sounds. Sometimes one convention took hold, sometimes another. So by the time the need for a "correct" spelling was felt, (codified in Samuel Johnson's dictionary) spelling was all over the place.

Second: words came into English from all over and retained traces of their original spellings.

My question: similar things must be true of all languages. Why is Spanish so phonetic? (the author says there are only two modern phonetic languages: Spanish and Welsh. (He doesn't mention Hebrew, which I thought was phonetic. Perhaps he's not familiar with it.) But he doesn't say how they got that way.

[BarbStAubrey]

JoanK with so much code being used in place of words today and how easy it is to mis-spell even on the computer keyboard much less texting - we are all guessing what the other person is saying so that is is beyond a joke any longer trying to communicate - spelling I think will become like classic music or classic literature - there will be some but very few with an appreciation for how words are spelled.

[JeanneP]

Long as we now have Spell Check I have stopped worrying if I have my spelling is right.  Being from UK were a lot of our words are spelled different, it use to be a problem for me as people thought I couldn't spell here anyway.  The Pres. of one Job I had use to think that until I brought him a Dictionary from England one year just to show him there was a choice and as we spoke it first our way was right.

That is why when people learn English here as a second language they can speak it well but when writing it down it is pretty hard.

[JoanK]

Having taught English as a second language, I know!

[pedln]

JeanneP, I'm with  you on the spell check. There are some words I've never been able to spell (or remember how to spell) like the "dg" words -- prejudice, knowledge, and others.

Today on Morning Joe Mika B interviewed Sheri Fink, author of Five Days at Memorial:Life and Death in a Storm-raveged Hospital, in New Orleans during the time of Katrina.  It sounds very gripping.  I know there were a lot of stories and rumors surrounding that hospital, but I did not really follow any of them. This goes on my TBR list.

[Frybabe]

Unfortunately, spell check doesn't tell you when you use a word incorrectly like wear/where or here/hear. My current spasm, as you all know by now is the misuse of I/me and us/we.

[Tomereader1]

Our local newspaper had a wonderful, full page article yesterday titled "This Essay May Literally Make Your Head Explode", about the use or mis-use of the word "Literally".  It was so funny.  I guess I could be classified as what he calls an "enlightened stickler".  I get so bummed when the lady on the TV commercial says "I literally fell out of my chair".  (then shouldn't we be seeing her in a hospital environment?) LOL!  The essayist is Bill Walsh.  Anyone interested can probably pull the article from the Sunday, Sept. 22 Dallas Morning News!  You will get a tremendous laugh from the article if you are able to access it!

[marcie]

That's a fun and informative article, tomereader. Thanks!
It's at http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/sunday-commentary/20130920-this-essay-may-literally-make-your-head-explode.ece

[Tomereader1]

Thanks Marcie, for posting that link.  I wasn't sure I could do it, and had many irons in the fire this morning.  Always someone here who is knowledgeable and willing to search things out for those of us with limited time and tech skills.   

[PatH]

Tomereader and marcie, thanks for that link.  I definitely chuckled.

It also added a word to my collection of self-antonyms--dust.  A self-antonym (my term) is a word which has two meanings, one the opposite of the other.  My favorite is cleave, which means both to stick together and to split apart.

[marcie]

I love your term, Pat! Self-antonym is perfect!
It is very odd that a word can mean one thing and its opposite.

[maryz]

"Scan" is another one of those words - can mean to look over quickly or to read thoroughly and carefully.   There are others, but of course I can't think of any of them right now. 

[Frybabe]

Egregious is another word that has changed over the years - not in meaning so much as in usage. Originally it meant, extraordinary in a positive light. Now it is mostly used in a negative light, as in extraordinarily bad behavior.

[marjifay]

Currently, a word I am sick of seeing -- it is used over and over -- is iconic. 

Marj

[BarbStAubrey]

That and how nearly everyone under the age of 60 starts their thought with so - not as an conjunction or as an adverb - more like an exclamation because too often it is not a so in relationship to the interviewer's question - I find it maddening and what shocks me is to see professors utilizing this habit.

[mabel1015j]

Interesting conversation.

One of our PBS stations is showing a series titled "The History of Science." it's dated 2010, but i don't know if that is when the BBC - of course, the BBC - produced it, or if was shown in the U.S. before and this is a repeat. In any case, it is very interesting and well done - of course, it is from the BBC. Why doesn't PBS make such wonderful tv series? Or have i just missed some other then the Ken Burns productions?

Jean

[Frybabe]

For what it is worth, I just became aware that the widow of the shooter who killed the Amish schoolgirls seven years ago has written a book about her life in the aftermath. http://www.amazon.com/One-Light-Still-Shines-Schoolhou/0310336759  It was a relatively local event here that went global.

[JeanneP]

Don't think I would want to read that book. Someone is going to make money from it.

Last year when we went to Pa . I was surprised with how the Amish acted. Ours are private people but not like the ones in PA. so I questions some people who were close to the Amish but not that faith. They said that they bacame a lot different after this killing of the Amish Schoolgirls happened. They don't trust any people anymore. Keep more private and want nothing to do with others. Now the ones in Businesses they have to be polite Its their living but other would rather not be near tourist or anyone.
It still is a very hard thing that happened to them.

[BarbStAubrey]

And yet, the Amish in the community embraced her after her husband killed the children including the families of those who lost their children - it was remarkable to hear about at the time and so I am looking forward to reading her book - rather than being ostracized she was included and cared for in the Amish community.

[JeanneP]

We never know how many people did except what happened and how many are still bitter. Papers always like to make things sound for the good. Same with the TV.  One will never see a movie made of it but I bet there were people wanting to make one.. Will see what her book says. But I bet the Amish are not standing behind her writing it.