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readallthenewberys2012-09-04 08:44 am
justice_turtle) wrote in readallthenewberys2012-09-04 08:44 am
Newbery Medal: The Story of Mankind (Hendrik Willem van Loon), Part 1
And now we reach the first-ever Newbery Medal winner: The Story of Mankind, by Hendrik Willem Van Loon! *round of applause* ;-)
* Gutenberg has this one, but without images; the dedication of the book is actually To Jimmie. "What is the use of a book without pictures?" said Alice, so I thought it worthwhile checking out the paper version.
* This is apparently one of very few nonfiction books ever to win a Newbery Medal. I'll have to keep track. ^_^
* The foreword is well worth reading. This first Newbery Medalist was chosen by popular acclaim of 163 librarians (out of 212 nominating), and I can see why. Mr van Loon tells of climbing a church belltower in Leyden, where the bells are six hundred years old and you can see history spread out around you - the dikes that were broken in the Spanish wars and so on. (I love that story: the Spanish were besieging Leyden, iirc, and looked like they were going to win, so the Dutch people BROKE THEIR OWN DIKES in order to flood them out and make them go away. O_O I can't even imagine.) The writing is... beautiful, brilliant, gorgeous, fantabulous, I'm running out of words here. ;-)
* "History is the mighty Tower of Experience, which Time has built amidst the endless fields of bygone ages. It is no easy task to reach the top of this ancient structure and get the benefit of the full view. There is no elevator, but young legs are strong and it can be done. Here I give you the key that will open the door. When you return, you too will understand the reason for my enthusiasm." - I'd vote for this book RIGHT NOW. :D Go read it, on Gutenberg if you can't get a paper copy (though I believe it is still in print in the US). This kind of amazingness is why I keep doing this project. *g*
* Looking at the table of contents: um. He's putting Egypt before Sumer? ...oh, wow. Oh WOW. 1922. King Tut's tomb. Leonard Woolley's excavations in Ur. Roy Chapman Andrews's first expedition to the Gobi Desert. :O Modern archaeology is JUST becoming a thing. Oh... my... word. *chills* This book isn't just a history, it's a time machine in itself. So much has changed since it was written.
* I'm just going to comment on the rest of the chapter heads as I get to them, because they're kind of amazing. Seriously, LOL.
* "Man was the last to come but the first to use his brain for conquering the forces of nature. That is the reason why we are going to study him, rather than cats or dogs or horses or any of the other animals, who, all in their own way, have a very interesting historical development behind them." I rather like you, Mr Hendrik Willem van Loon. Moreover, I think you're establishing right here the tone of the kiddie-scientific books I grew up on; I approve. It's a good readable tone.
* Ooh, he keeps saying "as far as we now know". I like him.
* "The first frog who crosses your path can tell you all about the pleasures of the double existence of the amphibian." OH LOL. No wonder this book's stayed in print and been repeatedly updated with added chapters on the end (my edition has "Updated for the '80s!" in bright yellow letters on its blue cover): it's lolariously awesome.
* Heehee, walking on one's hind legs "is a difficult act, which every child has to learn anew although the human race has been doing it for over a million years." I'm going to quote this whole book if I don't take care.
* Obviously the science here is ninety years old, so I'm not being terribly nitpicky. The PICTURES, though, are properly justifying the dedication. There are timelines and sketches of bones and what-all.
* I am giggling at the dramatically rapid advance of the glaciers in this storyfied account of the Ice Age. (One of the Ice Ages, I should say, forher ladyship has we've had several. *koff* I can totally quote Jane Austen here, this is A Literary Blog...) We now know of at least five major Ice Ages, but in 1922 only four were known; Mr van Loon mentions all four.
* Oh cool. By way of demonstrating how hieroglyphics work he has made up an English rebus, in lovely little woodcut-like symbols. However, he's not making it terribly clear that the ancient Egyptians did not in fact speak English. ;P
* Mr van Loon, do not use the word "strange" too much, I pray you. Twice in one page, especially this page, is pushing it. You're othering the Egyptians for their religious beliefs. I admit they're pretty otherable, but don't. :P
* Heehee, I'd forgotten about the theory (competing with the Rameses II one) that the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt came around the time of the expulsion of the Hyksos. (By Pharaoh Ahmoses, who founded the 18th Dynasty containing the four Pharaohs Thuthmosis and that notorious lady, His Majesty Herself, the one and only Pharaoh Hatshepsut. I used to be able to draw that whole family tree from memory, no kidding. :D New Kingdom Egypt is still rather my candy.) Y'know, I still don't know which is the most commonly accepted theory these days. *pokes Wiki*
* (Well, for crying out loud. If one accepts the time-period for Moses's life that Wiki claims was calculated by Rabbinical Judaism, one winds up with the Pharaoh of the Exodus being, of all people, Horemheb. I never saw that one coming! *is fascinated* St Jerome's date for Moses's birth, otoh, puts the Exodus pretty solidly around the expulsion of the Hyksos, though ISTR the identification of the Hyksos with the Israelites has been disproved by modern archaeology, and Mr van Loon does not make them identical, merely claims they were in Egypt at the same time and cooperated with each other.)
* Seriously, the maps are gorgeous. Go for the illustrated, dead-tree version if you can.
* Oh, you DARLING. "If we were using the Sumerian script today, [steamship] would look like [ADORABLE CUNEIFORM STEAMSHIP :D]." Seriously, what a darling. I'm quite enjoying this book.
* Ziggurats! I'm going to spend forever on this book if I research everything that's changed since then, so I have no idea if the Sumerians really didn't know how to build stairs on their ziggurats, or whether it just wasn't known that they did yet, or whether this is faulty research. Anyway, YAY ARCHAEOLOGY. :D
* "And from that moment, Jehovah was recognized by all the Jews as the Highest Master of their Fate, the only True God"... [snip] "They followed Moses when he bade them continue their journey through the desert. They obeyed him when he told them what to eat and drink and what to avoid that they might keep well in the hot climate." - OH LOL SIR. Way to oversimplify. I was just reading in Lies My Teacher Told Me about the tendency to dumb down textbooks by (among other things) eliding accounts of conflict and portraying squabbling factions as united in Progressing the Great Course of History. This isn't a textbook, but it's still got a lot to fit in, so some of the same awkwardnesses are coming into play. :P
* [The Phoenicians] "bought and sold whatever promised to bring them a good profit. They were not troubled by a conscience. If we are to believe all their neighbours they did not know what the words honesty or integrity meant. They regarded a well-filled treasure chest the highest ideal of all good citizens. Indeed they were very unpleasant people and did not have a single friend." ...what. I just. I can't even. THAT IS A LOT OF HEAVY-HANDED MORALIZING and also really can't be true: if you're going to make your living as a merchant trader, you had better keep on good terms with every one of your customers and suppliers. :P Wow.
* Wait, Zarathustra is Zoroaster? I did not know that. Okay. :-) Here, have a recording of Pete Seeger singing "I'm a Zarathustra booster" because of reasons. ^_^
* This is an extremely compact history. "The three famous wars between Greece and Persia" are treated in two paragraphs as a foregone conclusion. O_O
* Ooh, good account of Schliemann's digging for Troy, though. It's got a properly judgey tone about his technique - "Schliemann, whose enthusiasm was somewhat greater than his knowledge, wasted no time in preliminary explorations. At once he began to dig. And he dug with such zeal and such speed that his trench went straight through the heart of the city for which he was looking and carried him to the ruins of another buried town which was at least a thousand years older". (Heinrich Schliemann was more of a treasure-hunter than a Proper Archaeologist, for those who didn't know. He did do the world a great service by proving that Troy, Mycenae, etc were real and locating them, but he also messed up a lot of irretrievable location data by, well, plowing through stuff.)
* This book ought to be called The Story of White People. :S *tries to title the post The Story ofWhite People Mankind* *discovers that you apparently can't do HTML in a post title* :P
* "The palace [of Cnossos] had been properly drained" - I love how tactful he is about (not) mentioning the first indoor toilets. :D
* Dude, Linear B wasn't yet deciphered when this book was written. (...heehee, maybe in another ninety years somebody will come across this liveblog and go "Wow, Linear A wasn't deciphered yet?" :D That'd be kind of awesome.)
* SNORT. Of cooooourse we know more about the terrible manners of the early Hellenes than Thucydides did. Lookit: "Of these early Hellenes we know nothing. Thucydides... describing his earliest ancestors, said that they 'did not amount to very much', and this was probably true. They were very ill-mannered. They lived like pigs and threw the bodies of their enemies to the wild dogs who guarded their sheep." Quite apart from the dramatic turnaround between "we know nothing" and "very ill-mannered", I just have to point out that that's a lot of animals in that last sentence. Sorry, I mock because I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY. ;-)
* Mood whiplash! The early Greeks feared the metal weaponry of the Aegeans [Myceneans] and did not attack them, instead settling in less desirable areas of Greece. Then when the land was all full of Greeks, suddenly they were "finally driven by curiosity to visit [their] haughty neighbours" and "discovered [they] could learn many useful things from" them. After which they promptly turn around and drive the Aegeans "back to their islands"! O_O
* I much prefer books that are like "We don't know this and this and this. When you grow up you can go discover it." (I can personally vouch for the efficacy of that approach on the young mind. *g*)
* Heehee, such OTT anti-imperialism. "The day the little city-states of old Hellas lost their independence and were forced to become part of a big nation, the old Greek spirit died. And it has been dead ever since." ...you know, I can really tell this guy is originally a Dutchman. *head-tilty*
* "Unfortunately [Draco] was a professional lawyer and very much out of touch with ordinary life." Mr van Loon portrays the Athenians as being disgusted with the Draconian laws and not even putting them into practice - which I'm pretty sure is inaccurate; wasn't Draco immensely popular among the upper class, and was eventually killed by having too many cloaks thrown at him as tokens of appreciation? (Okay, Wiki says that's an unproven but ancient tale. Still and all, it also says that according to Aristotle's Politics Draco merely wrote down what was already the law, so that everybody could know it instead of only a few people who might apply it arbitrarily.) However, as one who has known lawyers, I had to LOL SO HARD over this sentence. ^_^
* I do rather approve of explaining that the slaves, who were (says Mr van Loon) about 5/6 of the Athenian population, "performed those tasks to which we modern people must devote most of our time and energy if we wish to provide for our families and pay the rent on our apartments." This could possibly do with some more careful explanation that slavery really isn't okay even if it does make other people better at philosophy and governing, because children are logical and not so good at drawing the conclusions you thought were self-evident about morals - but it is rather nice to hear someone actually SAY that most modern wage-earners are slaves to their jobs. :-)
* ...yeah, he could be a LOT more judgey over "The Greeks accepted slavery as a necessary institution, without which no city could possibly become the home of a truly civilized people." At least throw in a "They were wrong", sir! :S
* Some of these chapters are awfully short. The one on Greek theatre is barely 3 pages.
* Asia Vs Europe seems to be the theme of the book. Oy. So we get a chapter about how "Asia made ready to destroy the rising power of Europe" with the attacks by Darius and Xerxes of Persia upon Greece.
* ...really? Somehow I think this account of Sparta's behavior around the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis is oversimplified, because it doesn't make any SENSE! I will quote:
"[T]he Athenians... sent their army of ten thousand men to guard the hills that surrounded the Marathonian plain. At the same time they dispatched a fast runner to Sparta to ask for help. But Sparta was envious of the fame of Athens and refused to come to her assistance." Whereas Wiki tells me that the runner, Pheidippides, arrived in the middle of the Spartan peace fest and they said "sorry, we can't send anyone till we finish this up, that'll be ten days". :P Accuracy in tone, sir, you can has it. Don't malign people unnecessarily; it always makes for a less interesting book.
* (Seriously, did you know the ancient Spartans even HAD a peace fest? I didn't! Apparently it was the Carneia, the herdsmen's festival, during which all military operations were suspended.)
* And again later, "In this hour of danger [before Thermopylae and Salamis], Sparta, the great military city of Greece, was elected commander-in-chief. But the Spartans cared little what happened to northern Greece provided their own country was not invaded. They neglected to fortify the passes that led into Greece." Which, WHAT. ON. EARTH, because the next paragraph explains how the 300 Spartan heroes under Leonidas fought at the pass of Thermopylae, between Thessaly and northern-Greece-proper, and only lost because a traitor showed the Persians the back way round! WHAT.
(He doesn't name the 300. He mentions "a small detachment". He says "Leonidas obeyed his orders", not mentioning that - again according to Wiki - Leonidas I was the KING OF SPARTA, who took 300 men from his personal bodyguard and everyone else he could round up who (1) had living sons, because he knew it was a suicide mission, and (2) was willing to profane both the Spartan peace festival and the actual OLYMPICS, and went to fight a force over 10 times the size of the one he led!)
(Seriously, read the whole Wiki article. It's epic, in the best and truest sense of the word.)
* ...and then we have a brief overview of Salamis and of making-Xerxes-go-away-permanently, with... oh, I see. :P "This time the Spartans understood the seriousness of the hour", and everybody Standing Together pwned the Persians hardcore. And then in the chapter conclusion, "If these two cities had been able to come to an agreement, if they had been willing to forget their little jealousies, they might have become the leaders of a strong and united Hellas."
*head. desk.*
Why, sir. Why. I mean, teaching the children moral lessons from history isn't a bad thing in itself, but teach them the lessons that ACTUALLY FOLLOW from what happened, will you?!
(Like, uh, "if bad guys come and attack you at a time when nobody is supposed to fight them, go fight anyway in a sensible and strategic manner; you may well get dead but also save your country and be AWESOMENESS FOREVER". *koff* I don't know! Heroic self-sacrifice and kicking of, uh, tailbones! Sorry. I'm getting kind of excited here. *g*)
I'm just going to stop Section 1 of the liveblog there, because... well, because next we're getting into the Peloponnesian War and the Punic Wars, and they're long. But also because I'm kind of busy flailing a lot about Thermopylae. :D
*has neither the time nor the training to write a better history book* *keeps thinking about it anyway*
* Gutenberg has this one, but without images; the dedication of the book is actually To Jimmie. "What is the use of a book without pictures?" said Alice, so I thought it worthwhile checking out the paper version.
* This is apparently one of very few nonfiction books ever to win a Newbery Medal. I'll have to keep track. ^_^
* The foreword is well worth reading. This first Newbery Medalist was chosen by popular acclaim of 163 librarians (out of 212 nominating), and I can see why. Mr van Loon tells of climbing a church belltower in Leyden, where the bells are six hundred years old and you can see history spread out around you - the dikes that were broken in the Spanish wars and so on. (I love that story: the Spanish were besieging Leyden, iirc, and looked like they were going to win, so the Dutch people BROKE THEIR OWN DIKES in order to flood them out and make them go away. O_O I can't even imagine.) The writing is... beautiful, brilliant, gorgeous, fantabulous, I'm running out of words here. ;-)
* "History is the mighty Tower of Experience, which Time has built amidst the endless fields of bygone ages. It is no easy task to reach the top of this ancient structure and get the benefit of the full view. There is no elevator, but young legs are strong and it can be done. Here I give you the key that will open the door. When you return, you too will understand the reason for my enthusiasm." - I'd vote for this book RIGHT NOW. :D Go read it, on Gutenberg if you can't get a paper copy (though I believe it is still in print in the US). This kind of amazingness is why I keep doing this project. *g*
* Looking at the table of contents: um. He's putting Egypt before Sumer? ...oh, wow. Oh WOW. 1922. King Tut's tomb. Leonard Woolley's excavations in Ur. Roy Chapman Andrews's first expedition to the Gobi Desert. :O Modern archaeology is JUST becoming a thing. Oh... my... word. *chills* This book isn't just a history, it's a time machine in itself. So much has changed since it was written.
* I'm just going to comment on the rest of the chapter heads as I get to them, because they're kind of amazing. Seriously, LOL.
* "Man was the last to come but the first to use his brain for conquering the forces of nature. That is the reason why we are going to study him, rather than cats or dogs or horses or any of the other animals, who, all in their own way, have a very interesting historical development behind them." I rather like you, Mr Hendrik Willem van Loon. Moreover, I think you're establishing right here the tone of the kiddie-scientific books I grew up on; I approve. It's a good readable tone.
* Ooh, he keeps saying "as far as we now know". I like him.
* "The first frog who crosses your path can tell you all about the pleasures of the double existence of the amphibian." OH LOL. No wonder this book's stayed in print and been repeatedly updated with added chapters on the end (my edition has "Updated for the '80s!" in bright yellow letters on its blue cover): it's lolariously awesome.
* Heehee, walking on one's hind legs "is a difficult act, which every child has to learn anew although the human race has been doing it for over a million years." I'm going to quote this whole book if I don't take care.
* Obviously the science here is ninety years old, so I'm not being terribly nitpicky. The PICTURES, though, are properly justifying the dedication. There are timelines and sketches of bones and what-all.
* I am giggling at the dramatically rapid advance of the glaciers in this storyfied account of the Ice Age. (One of the Ice Ages, I should say, for
* Oh cool. By way of demonstrating how hieroglyphics work he has made up an English rebus, in lovely little woodcut-like symbols. However, he's not making it terribly clear that the ancient Egyptians did not in fact speak English. ;P
* Mr van Loon, do not use the word "strange" too much, I pray you. Twice in one page, especially this page, is pushing it. You're othering the Egyptians for their religious beliefs. I admit they're pretty otherable, but don't. :P
* Heehee, I'd forgotten about the theory (competing with the Rameses II one) that the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt came around the time of the expulsion of the Hyksos. (By Pharaoh Ahmoses, who founded the 18th Dynasty containing the four Pharaohs Thuthmosis and that notorious lady, His Majesty Herself, the one and only Pharaoh Hatshepsut. I used to be able to draw that whole family tree from memory, no kidding. :D New Kingdom Egypt is still rather my candy.) Y'know, I still don't know which is the most commonly accepted theory these days. *pokes Wiki*
* (Well, for crying out loud. If one accepts the time-period for Moses's life that Wiki claims was calculated by Rabbinical Judaism, one winds up with the Pharaoh of the Exodus being, of all people, Horemheb. I never saw that one coming! *is fascinated* St Jerome's date for Moses's birth, otoh, puts the Exodus pretty solidly around the expulsion of the Hyksos, though ISTR the identification of the Hyksos with the Israelites has been disproved by modern archaeology, and Mr van Loon does not make them identical, merely claims they were in Egypt at the same time and cooperated with each other.)
* Seriously, the maps are gorgeous. Go for the illustrated, dead-tree version if you can.
* Oh, you DARLING. "If we were using the Sumerian script today, [steamship] would look like [ADORABLE CUNEIFORM STEAMSHIP :D]." Seriously, what a darling. I'm quite enjoying this book.
* Ziggurats! I'm going to spend forever on this book if I research everything that's changed since then, so I have no idea if the Sumerians really didn't know how to build stairs on their ziggurats, or whether it just wasn't known that they did yet, or whether this is faulty research. Anyway, YAY ARCHAEOLOGY. :D
* "And from that moment, Jehovah was recognized by all the Jews as the Highest Master of their Fate, the only True God"... [snip] "They followed Moses when he bade them continue their journey through the desert. They obeyed him when he told them what to eat and drink and what to avoid that they might keep well in the hot climate." - OH LOL SIR. Way to oversimplify. I was just reading in Lies My Teacher Told Me about the tendency to dumb down textbooks by (among other things) eliding accounts of conflict and portraying squabbling factions as united in Progressing the Great Course of History. This isn't a textbook, but it's still got a lot to fit in, so some of the same awkwardnesses are coming into play. :P
* [The Phoenicians] "bought and sold whatever promised to bring them a good profit. They were not troubled by a conscience. If we are to believe all their neighbours they did not know what the words honesty or integrity meant. They regarded a well-filled treasure chest the highest ideal of all good citizens. Indeed they were very unpleasant people and did not have a single friend." ...what. I just. I can't even. THAT IS A LOT OF HEAVY-HANDED MORALIZING and also really can't be true: if you're going to make your living as a merchant trader, you had better keep on good terms with every one of your customers and suppliers. :P Wow.
* Wait, Zarathustra is Zoroaster? I did not know that. Okay. :-) Here, have a recording of Pete Seeger singing "I'm a Zarathustra booster" because of reasons. ^_^
* This is an extremely compact history. "The three famous wars between Greece and Persia" are treated in two paragraphs as a foregone conclusion. O_O
* Ooh, good account of Schliemann's digging for Troy, though. It's got a properly judgey tone about his technique - "Schliemann, whose enthusiasm was somewhat greater than his knowledge, wasted no time in preliminary explorations. At once he began to dig. And he dug with such zeal and such speed that his trench went straight through the heart of the city for which he was looking and carried him to the ruins of another buried town which was at least a thousand years older". (Heinrich Schliemann was more of a treasure-hunter than a Proper Archaeologist, for those who didn't know. He did do the world a great service by proving that Troy, Mycenae, etc were real and locating them, but he also messed up a lot of irretrievable location data by, well, plowing through stuff.)
* This book ought to be called The Story of White People. :S *tries to title the post The Story of
* "The palace [of Cnossos] had been properly drained" - I love how tactful he is about (not) mentioning the first indoor toilets. :D
* Dude, Linear B wasn't yet deciphered when this book was written. (...heehee, maybe in another ninety years somebody will come across this liveblog and go "Wow, Linear A wasn't deciphered yet?" :D That'd be kind of awesome.)
* SNORT. Of cooooourse we know more about the terrible manners of the early Hellenes than Thucydides did. Lookit: "Of these early Hellenes we know nothing. Thucydides... describing his earliest ancestors, said that they 'did not amount to very much', and this was probably true. They were very ill-mannered. They lived like pigs and threw the bodies of their enemies to the wild dogs who guarded their sheep." Quite apart from the dramatic turnaround between "we know nothing" and "very ill-mannered", I just have to point out that that's a lot of animals in that last sentence. Sorry, I mock because I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY. ;-)
* Mood whiplash! The early Greeks feared the metal weaponry of the Aegeans [Myceneans] and did not attack them, instead settling in less desirable areas of Greece. Then when the land was all full of Greeks, suddenly they were "finally driven by curiosity to visit [their] haughty neighbours" and "discovered [they] could learn many useful things from" them. After which they promptly turn around and drive the Aegeans "back to their islands"! O_O
* I much prefer books that are like "We don't know this and this and this. When you grow up you can go discover it." (I can personally vouch for the efficacy of that approach on the young mind. *g*)
* Heehee, such OTT anti-imperialism. "The day the little city-states of old Hellas lost their independence and were forced to become part of a big nation, the old Greek spirit died. And it has been dead ever since." ...you know, I can really tell this guy is originally a Dutchman. *head-tilty*
* "Unfortunately [Draco] was a professional lawyer and very much out of touch with ordinary life." Mr van Loon portrays the Athenians as being disgusted with the Draconian laws and not even putting them into practice - which I'm pretty sure is inaccurate; wasn't Draco immensely popular among the upper class, and was eventually killed by having too many cloaks thrown at him as tokens of appreciation? (Okay, Wiki says that's an unproven but ancient tale. Still and all, it also says that according to Aristotle's Politics Draco merely wrote down what was already the law, so that everybody could know it instead of only a few people who might apply it arbitrarily.) However, as one who has known lawyers, I had to LOL SO HARD over this sentence. ^_^
* I do rather approve of explaining that the slaves, who were (says Mr van Loon) about 5/6 of the Athenian population, "performed those tasks to which we modern people must devote most of our time and energy if we wish to provide for our families and pay the rent on our apartments." This could possibly do with some more careful explanation that slavery really isn't okay even if it does make other people better at philosophy and governing, because children are logical and not so good at drawing the conclusions you thought were self-evident about morals - but it is rather nice to hear someone actually SAY that most modern wage-earners are slaves to their jobs. :-)
* ...yeah, he could be a LOT more judgey over "The Greeks accepted slavery as a necessary institution, without which no city could possibly become the home of a truly civilized people." At least throw in a "They were wrong", sir! :S
* Some of these chapters are awfully short. The one on Greek theatre is barely 3 pages.
* Asia Vs Europe seems to be the theme of the book. Oy. So we get a chapter about how "Asia made ready to destroy the rising power of Europe" with the attacks by Darius and Xerxes of Persia upon Greece.
* ...really? Somehow I think this account of Sparta's behavior around the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis is oversimplified, because it doesn't make any SENSE! I will quote:
"[T]he Athenians... sent their army of ten thousand men to guard the hills that surrounded the Marathonian plain. At the same time they dispatched a fast runner to Sparta to ask for help. But Sparta was envious of the fame of Athens and refused to come to her assistance." Whereas Wiki tells me that the runner, Pheidippides, arrived in the middle of the Spartan peace fest and they said "sorry, we can't send anyone till we finish this up, that'll be ten days". :P Accuracy in tone, sir, you can has it. Don't malign people unnecessarily; it always makes for a less interesting book.
* (Seriously, did you know the ancient Spartans even HAD a peace fest? I didn't! Apparently it was the Carneia, the herdsmen's festival, during which all military operations were suspended.)
* And again later, "In this hour of danger [before Thermopylae and Salamis], Sparta, the great military city of Greece, was elected commander-in-chief. But the Spartans cared little what happened to northern Greece provided their own country was not invaded. They neglected to fortify the passes that led into Greece." Which, WHAT. ON. EARTH, because the next paragraph explains how the 300 Spartan heroes under Leonidas fought at the pass of Thermopylae, between Thessaly and northern-Greece-proper, and only lost because a traitor showed the Persians the back way round! WHAT.
(He doesn't name the 300. He mentions "a small detachment". He says "Leonidas obeyed his orders", not mentioning that - again according to Wiki - Leonidas I was the KING OF SPARTA, who took 300 men from his personal bodyguard and everyone else he could round up who (1) had living sons, because he knew it was a suicide mission, and (2) was willing to profane both the Spartan peace festival and the actual OLYMPICS, and went to fight a force over 10 times the size of the one he led!)
(Seriously, read the whole Wiki article. It's epic, in the best and truest sense of the word.)
* ...and then we have a brief overview of Salamis and of making-Xerxes-go-away-permanently, with... oh, I see. :P "This time the Spartans understood the seriousness of the hour", and everybody Standing Together pwned the Persians hardcore. And then in the chapter conclusion, "If these two cities had been able to come to an agreement, if they had been willing to forget their little jealousies, they might have become the leaders of a strong and united Hellas."
*head. desk.*
Why, sir. Why. I mean, teaching the children moral lessons from history isn't a bad thing in itself, but teach them the lessons that ACTUALLY FOLLOW from what happened, will you?!
(Like, uh, "if bad guys come and attack you at a time when nobody is supposed to fight them, go fight anyway in a sensible and strategic manner; you may well get dead but also save your country and be AWESOMENESS FOREVER". *koff* I don't know! Heroic self-sacrifice and kicking of, uh, tailbones! Sorry. I'm getting kind of excited here. *g*)
I'm just going to stop Section 1 of the liveblog there, because... well, because next we're getting into the Peloponnesian War and the Punic Wars, and they're long. But also because I'm kind of busy flailing a lot about Thermopylae. :D
*has neither the time nor the training to write a better history book* *keeps thinking about it anyway*
no subject
...was Horemheb the guy who possibly killed Tutenkamen?
*has neither the time nor the training to write a better history book* *keeps thinking about it anyway*
SEE SEE this is why I'm a proponent of reading bad books! It almost invariably leads to better books.
no subject
Apparently there is a mystery surrounding Horemheb, Ay, and Tutankhamen! As far as I can figure from Wiki, Horemheb was the official Crown Prince / successor dude in case of death without issue, but when Tutankhamen died, for some reason Ay succeeded him instead. (And then Horemheb succeeded Ay. With extreme prejudice. ;P)
So either Horemheb might have had Tutankhamen killed before he could have any kids, but then not succeeded him right away because of unforeseen reasons - Wiki suggests Tut's widow refused to marry a commoner and picked Ay for her new husband instead, thus making him the new Pharaoh - or Ay might have had Tut killed while Horemheb was away on campaign (there is evidence Horemheb was not present at Tut's burial) and have usurped Horemheb's spot temporarily.
It's all delightfully complicated. ^_^
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