Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History by Robert D. Kaplan

Eye-opening political history of Southeastern Europe

Robert D. Kaplan is an American journalist who writes on foreign affairs. In his book Balkan Ghosts, first published in 1993, Kaplan relates his experiences working and traveling in Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece, and the former Yugoslavia. Kaplan wrote Balkan Ghosts after the fall of the Berlin Wall and before the Bosnian War. The 2005 ebook contains some supplemental material that Kaplan wrote more recently, but the book is largely about the state of the Balkans circa 1990.

To fully understand the state of affairs in the 1990s, however, Kaplan looks much farther back in history, sometimes as far as the Middle Ages, and provides a quite comprehensive overview of the 19th and 20th century history of the region. This historical background goes far in explaining how the Balkans ended up at the end of the 20th century. This region didn’t just become an explosive powder keg in the 1990s. The fire of sectarian hatred and violence has been simmering for centuries. It is common knowledge that World War I started with the Balkans (a Serbian assassin). Kaplan also makes the case that the Balkans influenced the origins of Nazism and World War II. His examination of recent dictators in Serbia, Romania, Greece, and elsewhere should serve as a cautionary tale of where America might be headed if we continue to dispense with our constitutional system of checks and balances.

Though Balkan Ghosts is advertised as a travel memoir, the bulk of the book is really history rather than travel writing. A travel writer would try to convince you to visit these places. As a journalist, Kaplan seems set on convincing you to stay away from them. He does want you to understand them, however, and does a very good job of helping you do so. Kaplan is a journalist and a war correspondent with the knowledge base of a geographer in Balkan Studies. His look at these Balkan nations is deeper than what you’d get in say, National Geographic, which would give you an inkling of the political climate, war trauma, and societal woes interspersed with scenes of hopeful resilience like a wedding ceremony or a newly opened museum. Kaplan, on the other hand, takes a more journalistic “if it bleeds, it leads” view that writing about anything other than politics and war would be frivolous. With the exception of visits to a few medieval monasteries, the text focuses almost entirely on ethnic violence, fascism, anti-Semitism, genocide, torture, and other atrocities. His perspective on the Balkans is more real and visceral than what you’d get in any popular media venue. Kaplan has almost nothing good to say about Romania, which from his account sounds like a horror show. He expresses a bit more warmth for Bulgaria and Greece.

In addition to his own observations and research, Kaplan gives the reader a literature review into the Western writers who traveled the region before him. In particular, he frequently makes reference to John Reed’s The War in Eastern Europe (1916) and Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), and even delves as far back as Byzantine historians Procopius (AD 500-565) and Michael Psellus (c. 1018-c. 1096). While you feel like you’re getting a pretty thorough study of the Balkans from Kaplan, he also makes you want to seek out some of these earlier writings on the region.

This region of the world is not covered much in the American news media or our modern history books. Understanding the Balkans, however, is necessary to forming a compete picture of European history in recent centuries. Those looking for a travel memoir of the region might be disappointed in Kaplan’s approach to the subject, but those looking for an education in world history and politics will find Balkan Ghosts to be an eye-opening and rewarding read.  

The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

Insightful reflections on the ancient philosophy of life

The philosophical school of Stoicism may have been born in the 3rd century BC, but it has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years. In modern times, Stoicism served as the basis for cognitive behavioral therapy, a psychotherapeutic technique used to treat depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, and other mental maladies. Many contemporary would-be Stoics, however, prefer to bypass CBT entirely and go straight to the source for their life-coaching by using the writings of the Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome as the basis for a guide to living. With all the Stoic self-help books published in recent years, it was only a matter of time before one utilized the “daily affirmations” format. Such is the strategy of The Daily Stoic, published in 2016. The book was written by Ryan Holiday, a former PR man and marketing director, and Stephen Hanselman, a publisher and literary agent with a master’s degree in philosophy.

As the title of the book indicates, The Daily Stoic delivers 366 mini-lessons in Stoicism, dated January 1st through December 31st. These daily entries are divided into months, each revolving around a different theme, such as “Passions and Emotions,” “Duty,” “Fortitude and Resilience,” and “Virtue and Kindness.” Each daily lesson begins with a quotation from an ancient Stoic—most commonly Epictetus, Seneca, or Marcus Aurelius, but the authors also include selections from less familiar Stoics like Musonius Rufus, Cleanthes, and Zeno (the latter quoted from Diogenes Laertius’s Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers). Holiday and Hanselman then provide a page or two of elaboration on the quote and how it applies to the problems of modern life.

Overall these daily Stoic meditations are really quite well-written. The authors are adept at taking ancient Stoic concepts and translating them into plain English without dumbing-down the philosophical content. Holiday and Hanselman certainly know their stuff and write about Stoicism knowledgably and intelligently. They often use examples from history or current events to illustrate the points made in the ancient quotes, which keeps the text interesting and relevant to 21st century readers. If you have already looked into Stoicism, chances are you’ve probably already read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius or the Discourses of Epictetus, but this book will help you see those texts in a new way. Occasionally, the lectures sometimes veer into what one might call “self-help shaming,” implying that if you’re not living your life to the fullest, then your life is a waste. Such instances read more like a 21st-century conceit than what the Stoics had in mind when they promised a life of tranquility. Overall, however, I found the book quite insightful and useful.

Though I believe in Stoicism and its benefits for mental and emotional health, I did not diligently stick to the lesson-a-day schedule the book prescribes. Sometimes I got bored with The Daily Stoic and let several days go by without picking it up; sometimes I would enthusiastically devour half a month’s worth of entries in one sitting. This is not the best book I’ve read on Stoicism (William B. Irvine’s A Guide to the Good Life is hard to beat), but it is better than most. If you are serious about Stoicism, these daily contemplations on Stoic thought can be a useful tool to augment your studies. Having just finished the book with the end of the calendar year, I’ll probably just go back to the beginning and read it all over again.
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The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks by Hugo Blümner

From cradle to grave in Athens and Sparta

Hugo Blümner was a German archaeologist who wrote several books on ancient Greece and Rome. His book The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks was published in English in 1895. It was first published in German in 1887 as Leben und Sitten der Griechen. The book is a synthesis of what was known in the late nineteenth century about the daily lives of ancient Greeks, not just the kings and warriors of renown but also the common folk and even slaves. Much of the book’s conclusions are drawn from extant texts and works of art left behind by the Greeks rather than from archaeological digs in which remains and artifacts are found in situ. For example, Blümner frequently refers to Homer’s descriptions of the archaic Greek world, as well as vase paintings and statues pictured in over 200 illustrations

The book opens with a very extensive chapter on clothing that really challenges the reader’s attention span with its charting of every fold, stitch, and pleat in the ancient Greek wardrobe. Next is a discussion of childbirth and childhood that covers not only how children were cared for but also how they amused themselves. After describing the kind of education Greek children of different classes would have received, Blümner then delves into marriage customs. This is followed by a dawn-to-bedtime study of daily life in a Greek household, paying close attention to the different activities practiced by men and women. A chapter on sickness and death explains the birth of the medical profession in Greece as well as burial customs. Succeeding chapters deliver copious details of the athletic, musical, and religious activities of the Greeks. A section on public festivals provides a vivid look at the Olympics and the Festival of Dionysus, among other events. Blümner’s very interesting chapter on Greek theatre does not go into the literary history of drama but rather describes how the plays were performed and the experience of the theatergoers. The book then delves into the lives of soldiers, farmers, and artisans before closing with a chapter on slaves, who greatly outnumbered the free population of ancient Greece.

Blümner admits that most of his book applies specifically to Athens and its vicinity, for that was the area of Greece on which most archaeological knowledge had been accumulated. On many subjects, however, he also provides specific information on Spartan life and customs, and on rarer occasions he discusses some of the outlying regions of Greece. Blümner also makes a distinction between the “heroic age” (the time of Homer’s works) and the “classic” period of Greek history, from about the sixth to the third century BC. He often discusses both eras, pointing out differences between the two.

A lot of archaeological digs have taken place over the past century, which no doubt have expanded upon our knowledge of ancient Greece, so there are bound to be some errors in accuracy and omissions of detail in Blümner’s work. For the non-archaeologist like myself, however, Blümner draws a sufficiently clear picture of the ancient Greek world to satisfy the curious general reader. Blümner’s writing, and its translation, were aimed at a nineteenth-century audience, so his prose often comes across as stilted and dry by today’s standards. For a more up-to-date, detailed, and user-friendly synthesis on the subject, I would recommend the Handbook to Life in Ancient Greece by Lesley and Roy Adkins, from Oxford University Press’s exceptional Handbook to Life series. Though it wasn’t always the most engaging text, I did learn much from The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks and found it a rewarding read.
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The Decipherment of Linear B by John Chadwick

Cracking the ancient Mycenaean code

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, archaeologists working in Greece discovered a number of clay tablets inscribed with a previously undiscovered system of writing. Caches of these tablets were found primarily at two sites: the Minoan palace of Knossos on the island of Crete, and the Mycenaean city of Pylos on the Greek mainland. Eventually linguists and archaeologists established that the writing dates to around 1450 BC. The script was dubbed Linear B (as opposed to Linear A, an even earlier script). From the 1930s to the 1950s, many philologists tried unsuccessfully to decipher this writing, until British architect Michael Ventris discovered the key to cracking the code. Tragically, Ventris died soon after, in his mid-thirties. In his book The Decipherment of Linear B, first published in 1958, classical linguist John Chadwick, who collaborated with Ventris on the decipherment, tells the story of how this ancient writing system was discovered and decrypted. I am reviewing the Second Edition published in 1967.

When first encountered, any unknown script presents two main problems: First, is it a pictographic, alphabetic, or syllabic script, or a combination of the above? Second, all scripts are meant to represent a spoken language, but to which particular language does this script correspond? In the case of Linear B, it might very well be a language that no longer exists. Egyptian hieroglyphics were deciphered with the help of a bilingual text, the Rosetta Stone, but for Linear B there exists no such bilingual text, so the investigators basically had to start with nothing. Ventris and others began this daunting task by looking for familiar syntactical patterns in the texts and comparing them to languages from roughly the same time period, such as Etruscan, Cypriot, and Hittite. Ventris finally cracked the code when he proved that the characters corresponded to an early form of Greek.

Though Chadwick, along with Ventris, published several articles and books intended for specialists in the field, he states in the introduction to The Decipherment of Linear B that this book is intended for a general reading audience. While this is certainly an authoritatively informative book on its subject, Chadwick is not entirely successful at making this topic accessible to the lay reader. To tackle this book, one not only needs to have an avid interest in the ancient Greek world but also a fairly firm knowledge of linguistics. In explaining the decryption process, Chadwick goes into a level of detail that often surpasses the layman’s comprehension. One editorial choice that really makes this book user-unfriendly is that, due to difficulties in typesetting, the bulk of the text does not reproduce the Mycenaean words in the Linear B script in which they were actually written. Instead, Chadwick uses a system of numerals assigned to each character. Thus, the notation 08-60-02-15-04-13-06 may signify the word for “chariots.” Page after page of these numbers is enough to drive the reader nuts. The volume does, however, include 17 figures that illustrate the actual Linear B characters, including a comprehensive numbered syllabic chart (see below).

The tablets found at Knossos and Pylos were not literature, but rather lists of commodities. Still, as Chadwick interprets them, these tablets reveal a surprising amount of information on ancient Mycenaean life, including governmental administration, taxation and tribute, religious practices, the organization of military units, and ancient armaments. This window into the past is the most fascinating aspect of Chadwick’s book. The process of decipherment itself does not make as captivating a story as the decipherment of the Mayan language, as related by Michael Coe in Breaking the Maya Code, but anyone interested in ancient languages, particularly of Greece, will certainly find much intellectual stimulation in Chadwick’s insider account.
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Handbook to Life in Ancient Greece by Lesley Adkins and Roy A. Adkins

Encyclopedic book of lists

The Handbook to Life series is a set of comprehensive books on ancient civilizations (and has recently expanded into medieval and Renaissance times as well). The Handbooks seem intended as undergraduate textbooks but are suitable and satisfying reading for any armchair archaeologist interested in the ancient world. I believe the Handbook to Life in Ancient Greece, compiled by British archaeological power couple Lesley Adkins and Roy A. Adkins, was the first volume published in the series, and it set a high standard of quality for the books that followed. It was originally published in 1997 by the publisher Facts on File, but the series has since been acquired by Oxford University Press, who have published the series in paperback editions.

I have read three other volumes in the Handbook to Life series, those on Prehistoric Europe, the Ancient Maya World, and the Aztec World. The Aztec and Maya volumes are excellent at examining all aspects of a civilization and providing a vivid look at what life was like in those periods, not just for royalty but for the common people as well. The Handbook to Life in Ancient Greece is less successful on the latter score. Like all of the Handbooks, the text is arranged in thematic chapters highlighting various aspects of the culture in question. In this Greek volume, only one brief chapter covers common aspects of everyday life such as food, clothing, and funerals, though an extensive chapter on economy and trade also helps to illuminate the lives of common working stiffs. The authors devote their heaviest coverage to religion, warfare, and historical events.

The problem, of course, is that so much is known about ancient Greece, what do you cram in between the covers of a one-volume synthesis? The Adkins’s strategy for solving the problem is to devote the bulk of the volume to a series of comprehensive lists, with each alphabetical entry elaborated by a paragraph or two of text. Thus, in addition to an extensive historical chronology (12 pages), the reader is treated to a smorgasbord of historical personages (42 pages), regions and alliances (24 pages), place names (11 pages), authors (17 pages), gods and mythological beings (49 pages), artists and architects (5 pages), and philosophers and scientists (9 pages). This makes the Handbook to Life in Ancient Greece a very good reference for looking up individual facts, but for those readers seeking a general overview of Greek civilization, this is not the most satisfying text for linear reading. Amid the morass of detail, it is often hard to see the forest for the trees.

Like other books in the series, this volume is heavily illustrated. Most of the illustrations are photographs of architectural ruins or artifacts such as sculptures, pottery, and coins. There are also some helpful labeled diagrams, though one wishes there would have been more of those, particularly in the architecture and art sections. The maps of Greek regions and city-states are very detailed. They are not the easiest to read but are more than informative enough for all but professional archaeologists.

New discoveries are constantly being made, so the information in this book can’t help but become dated with time. I’m sure professional archaeologists could find details to quibble about, but the layman or student will find this an abundant source of knowledge on the complex history and culture of the ancient Greek civilization. The Adkinses also wrote Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome, which I look forward to reading next.
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The First Six Books of The Elements with Coloured Diagrams and Symbols by Oliver Byrne

Ancient math meets modern graphic design

Home page of the Byrne’s Euclid website

Written around 300 BC by the Greek mathematician Euclid, The Elements has remained the primary textbook for the teaching of geometry for over 2000 years. Nevertheless, the Irish mathematician Oliver Byrne felt that this landmark work could be improved to make it more user-friendly. In 1847, Byrne published his own edition of The Elements, replacing the black-and-white figures that usually accompanied Euclid’s text with color diagrams illustrating each mathematical proposition or theorem. The resulting volume, entitled The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid, in Which Coloured Diagrams and Symbols are Used Instead of Letters for the Greater Ease of Learners, marks a milestone in the history of book design and infographics. You can view Byrne’s Elements for free at the Internet Archive, but there is now an even better way to experience this clever merging of ancient learning and modern graphic design. American web designer Nicholas Rougeux has recreated Byrne’s Euclid as a website, free for all to read, that adds a dimension of interactivity to the learning process.

Euclid’s original The Elements consisted of thirteen books, but Byrne chose to include only the first six of those books in his 1847 edition. Perhaps he planned to continue in a further volume, or perhaps he felt the first six books would benefit the most form his color treatment. Five of these first six books deal with plane geometry—angles, circles, and polygons. Book V, which deals with proportions, is the anomaly in this set and perhaps gives some indication of things to come in Euclid’s Books VII through X, which are concerned with such topics as number theory, geometric sequences of integers, and prime numbers. Books XI, XII, and XIII deal with the geometry of three-dimensional solids and would have no doubt yielded some impressive illustrations had Byrne chosen to tackle them.

The Elements may be one of the foundational books in the history of mathematics, but as a tool for education it is a bit too cumbersome and perplexing. Thankfully, over the past century Euclid’s knowledge has been distilled into more accessible geometry textbooks. I pity our college-bound great-grandparents who no doubt had to learn directly from Euclid’s cryptic text and perhaps even memorize his axioms and theorems. Book V, on ratios and proportions, is particularly difficult to understand. Euclid’s text is almost unintelligible, and Byrne’s illustrations do little to clarify. The other five books on plane geometry, however, are more interesting, and if nothing else Byrne’s illustrations, like mini works of modern art, are certainly attractive. (In fact, you can purchase Rougeux’s versions in the form of a poster.) Whether Byrne’s colored diagrams significantly enhance the teachability of Euclid is arguable, but they sure are a pleasure to behold.

The Elements is valuable not only for its treatise on geometry but also for its unique structure. In this work Euclid establishes the fundamental framework of logical argument. The method by which he builds upon basic definitions and undeniable axioms to progressively develop and prove more complicated propositions is seen as the gold standard in applied logic and has been used by other scientists and philosophers to construct logical arguments in their own fields, most notably by Baruch Spinoza in his Ethics. This broadens the influence of The Elements far beyond mathematics, making it one of the most important books in Western thought. Even if geometry is not your cup of tea, some exploration of Rougeux’s ingenious website will give you a deep appreciation for Euclid’s impressive achievement, as well Byrne’s ambitious take on it.

A page from Oliver Byrne’s 1847 edition of Euclid’s The Elements

A Short History of Greek Philosophy by John Marshall

A good concise overview from Thales to Chrysippus
A Short History of Greek Philosophy was written by John Marshall, a classicist and educator who translated classic Greek texts and also worked as rector of the Royal High School in Edinburgh, Scotland. Though published in 1891, the text is still very accessible to 21st-century readers. Marshall provides a very good concise overview of Greek philosophy from Thales—the first philosopher of the Western world—through the various pre-Socratics schools, the triumvirate of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and the Epicureans and Stoics who followed them.

Throughout the book, Marshall discusses the thought of these ancient philosophers in clear and intelligent prose. The amount of detail he provides is enough for the reader to get a general understanding of each philosopher’s major tenets without getting bogged down in every twist and turn of their philosophical arguments. The text is not in any way dumbed-down, though it is much easier to get through than more extensive studies of Greek philosophy, such as a book like Frederick Copleston’s History of Philosophy, Volume 1, which probably delivers more information than the average non-philosophy major needs to know. In his Short History, Marshall really does a fine job of showing the continuous threads of thought weaving from one philosopher to the next through the course of history as each influenced his successors. Marshall also pauses periodically throughout the text to compare and contrast the important concepts of different philosophers.

Marshall gives ample coverage to the pre-Socratic schools, including the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, and the Atomists, and satisfactorily distinguishes the differences and similarities between each thinker’s underlying conception of the cosmos. The bulk of the book, not surprisingly, is devoted to the teachings of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Marshall gives the best simplified explanation of Plato’s ideas that I’ve ever read, and he provides a brief summary guide to Plato’s dialogues so that the reader can intelligently choose which texts to pursue for further reading. Plato is clearly Marshall’s favorite in the Greek philosophical pantheon, though he covers Aristotle with almost the same level of detail and regard. Marshall makes no secret of the fact that he feels the glory days of Greek philosophy ended with Aristotle. He gives the Sceptics and Epicureans cursory treatment and even expresses some disdain towards them. He ends the book with the Stoics, for whom he likewise gives short shrift. To be fair, however, all the best Stoics—Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca—were Romans, not Greeks, so Marshall only mentions them briefly if at all.

One point that repeatedly shines forth in Marshall’s book is how so much of the philosophical output of these ancient Greek thinkers ended up being subsumed into Christian dogma. Marshall overtly makes that connection in a few brief passages, acknowledging the intellectual debt that Christianity owes to these early philosophers. It is easy for us today to dismiss the ancient Greeks as being too remote in antiquity to affect our daily lives, but in reality their influence is all around us. By reinforcing that relevance, A Short History of Greek Philosophy makes for a far more interesting read than I expected from a 19th-century philosophical history. Anyone looking for an introduction or a refresher course to the main ideas of ancient Greek thought will be well served by this commendable book.
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Greek Mythology: Greek Gods, Goddesses, Heroes, Heroines, Monsters, and Classic Greek Myths of All Time by Lance Hightower

An adequate overview, but poorly written

When I saw Lance Hightower’s 2015 book Greek Mythology: Greek Gods, Goddesses, Heroes, Heroines, Monsters, and Classic Greek Myths of All Time offered as an inexpensive Kindle Daily Deal, I figured I could use a refresher course on the subject. A cursory glance at the contents satisfied me that it would be worth the low price at which it was being offered. Once I actually started reading the book, however, I found it disappointing for the most part. It adequately covers the topics it promises, but it fails to inspire much enthusiasm in its subject matter.

Hightower seems knowledgeable on the subject of Greek Mythology, but the way in which that knowledge is delivered to the reader is frustratingly amateurish. It is obvious this book was neither edited nor proofread, because the text is littered with typographical and grammatical errors that are not only annoying but at times also hinder the reader’s understanding of what’s being said. One god is described as having three parents, until you figure out that one of the “and”s is supposed to be an “an”. A distraught mother “began to cream with grief.” A heroic prince returns to his homeland to reclaim his “thrown.” Alexander the Great (around 300 BC) was apparently at the Trojan War (about 1200 BC). Hightower also doesn’t seem to know the difference between who and whom. It seems as if every screen of this ebook contains two or three such errors. Much of the text is printed between quotation marks, in a stilted syntax that indicates Hightower is translating from some ancient text. Rarely, however, does Hightower actually tell you what work he’s quoting from, so the book is full of these free-floating unattributed quotations. Even when Hightower is writing in his own voice, the prose is clunky and difficult to follow. In an effort to be brief, he often dispatches the myths hastily, resulting in paragraphs loaded with proper nouns that may or may not have been discussed previously in the text, under the assumption that the reader will just figure it out.

The book is at its best when Hightower is simply relating the information in list form, classifying the gods into various categories and ascribing to each his or her defining characteristics and spheres of influence. What Hightower really does well is establish a genealogy of the gods, beginning with the elemental beings present at the creation of the universe and tracing their lineage through the titans and gods down to mortal man. One concept I had never encountered before is the stratification of the mythological characters into “Classes of Immortals,” forming seven or eight different levels like steps of a pyramid. I’m not sure if this is an established convention in classical studies, or if this is Hightower’s own creation, but it is a helpful way to think about the hierarchy of beings in Greek mythology. The book is structured quite well overall; it is a shame that the storytelling used to flesh out that structure is less than successful. Given Hightower’s writing style, if the book had been arranged as a series of charts it probably would have been more effective.

For those seeking an overview of Greek mythology, I would suggest looking into the writings of Bernard Evslin. I remember his book Gods, Demigods, and Demons as being a really helpful reference on the subject. Though it is arranged alphabetically like an encyclopedia, the tales and descriptions in each entry are more complete, vivid, and clear than what Hightower delivers here.
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Timaeus by Plato

Plato’s theory of everything
This review pertains to the public domain version of Timaeus that is given away as a free ebook by Amazon and Project Gutenberg. The English translation of this edition was done by Benjamin Jowett in the late 19th century. The very first sentence of the introduction states, “Of all the writings of Plato the Timaeus is the most obscure and repulsive to the modern reader.” How’s that for an inauspicious beginning? Jowett then goes onto explain that the reason this dialogue gets little attention and respect is because it is concerned not so much with philosophical discourse as it is with the natural sciences. Not surprisingly, since Plato wrote the work around 360 BC, few if any of his scientific speculations have stood the test of time. Nevertheless, the Timaeus has value for its detailed illumination of Plato’s physical and metaphysical views on the nature of the universe and his admirably ambitious attempt at constructing a unified theory of everything.

Participants in the dialogue include Socrates, Critias, and Hermocrates, but the title character does 90% of the talking. After Critias offers up a brief discussion of the lost continent of Atlantis, Timaeus jumps right into the creation of the universe and then goes on to cover the nature of matter and soul, the structure of the heavens, and the workings of human anatomy and the senses. Plato describes the universe as an intelligent “world-animal” that encompasses all of matter, energy, and space. Building upon the atomism of Leucippus and the mathematical mysticism of Pythagoras, Plato asserts that all matter is made up of triangles which combine to form different geometrical forms for each of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. For a brief moment, this sounds remarkably like a pantheistic system, and the assertion that all matter is created from one universal “mother substance” hints at a materialistic monism. Of course, Plato, the godfather of dualism, soon dispels that notion. He speaks of God as a guiding creator entity clearly outside of this world-animal, and he constantly refers to the soul—in fact, there are three kinds of soul—as an essence not confined by the geometrical structure of matter. God (sometimes plural) is the primary mover who created the universe by bringing order from chaos. Plato finishes the dialogue by imagining the thought process of “the creators” as they constructed the human body.

In the Jowett edition, the Introduction and Analysis takes up more space than the dialogue itself. The analysis includes a nearly unabridged restatement of the entire dialogue, rendered in slightly more accessible vocabulary. So if you read the entire Kindle file, you’re basically reading two different translations of the dialogue. Though the analysis gets quite repetitive, it does offer some fascinating insight into the state of the sciences in the time of ancient Greece.

Perhaps because I’m of a predominantly Aristotelian mindset, I see few lessons of wisdom to take away from Timaeus that might be relevant to modern life. At times there is an underlying message that resembles Stoicism, with Plato suggesting that he who seeks the divine nature in God’s system and lives in accordance with nature will enjoy the healthiest, most pleasurable life. Though philosophically this is not regarded as one of Plato’s stronger dialogues, it does provide a fascinating glimpse into the world of ancient science. Despite the contradictions in his reasoning, Plato’s unified theory of nature is quite ingenious. Even those with a more materialistic mindset, though unlikely to agree with his idealistic vision, can admire his intellectual achievement.
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Stoicism Today: Selected Writings, Volume One. Edited by Patrick Ussher

Applying ancient philosophy to modern life
Stoicism is an ancient school of philosophy founded in Athens in the 3rd century BC. It is a practical philosophy, intended as a guide for how to live one’s life. The Stoics stressed that we have no control over what happens in our lives, only control over our perceptions. They advocated living one’s life in accordance with nature (not “nature” as in grass and trees, but “nature” as in the order of the universe). By concentrating one’s thoughts and choices on what is good and virtuous, and disregarding the “indifferent” distractions of everyday life, one can avoid negative emotions like fear, anger, grief, and frustration, and live a life of happiness and tranquility.

In recent years, there has been a burgeoning resurgence in Stoicism, with modern writers producing manuals on how to apply Stoic principles to life in today’s world, such as William B. Irvine’s A Guide to the Good Life. Along similar lines, Stoicism Today is a blog published out of the University of Exeter in England, edited and largely written by a team of British philosophers. This 2014 book, edited by Patrick Ussher, is the first volume of writings reprinted from the blog. 36 articles are included in the collection, covering a mixed bag of Stoic-related topics.

The collection starts out strong with essays summarizing and explaining the core concepts of Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca. These ancient Roman writers are the most prominent Stoics whose teachings survive today. The 21st-century writers clarify the ancient Stoic precepts and discuss their applicability to modern life. Though the bloggers hold PhDs in philosophy and command a thorough understanding of their subject, they do a great job of expressing these complex concepts in language that is accessible to the general reader, without dumbing down the subject matter.

While the first half of the book provides a good, broad education on Stoicism, the second half covers a diverse assortment of topics and perspectives. A section called “Life Stories” consists of accounts by people of various walks of life on how they use Stoicism in their daily lives and work, including a lawyer, a doctor, and a woman who suffered a traumatic brain injury. The most fascinating and inspiring story is that of Sam Sullivan, a quadriplegic who became mayor of Vancouver. Next is a section on how Stoicism can be applied to parenthood and the education of children. This is followed by a section on Stoicism and psychotherapy which will mostly appeal to psychiatric professionals, as it will likely be over the head of most general readers. Three articles deal with the concept of Stoic “mindfulness” and its relation or lack of relation to Buddhism. Finally, the book falls apart somewhat with its final section on Stoicism in popular culture. It includes an excerpt from a Stoicism-infused novel about prison inmates which is OK, but also a sample chapter from a horrible science fiction novel. The book’s final selection is a pretty good examination of the portrayal of Stoicism in the Star Trek television series.

This collection by its very nature is a hodgepodge, and the selections vary greatly in quality as well as subject matter. The core team of philosophers are good writers for the most part, but the ensemble cast of guest bloggers is hit and miss. Nevertheless, if you’ve read all the Stoic classics and are looking for further advice on how to put Stoicism into practice, you’re bound to find something here that will interest you.
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Stories by Foreign Authors

A series overview

In 1898, the publisher Charles Scribner’s Sons put out a ten-volume series entitled Stories by Foreign Authors. Each book in the series is a collection of four to six works of European short fiction in English translation, focusing on a different country or region. The breakdown of the ten volumes is as follows. All ten books have been reviewed individually at Old Books by Dead Guys. Click on the links below to read the full reviews.

1. Stories by Foreign Authors: French I
2. Stories by Foreign Authors: French II
3. Stories by Foreign Authors: French III
4. Stories by Foreign Authors: German I
5. Stories by Foreign Authors: German II
6. Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish
7. Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian
8. Stories by Foreign Authors: Scandinavian
9. Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian
10. Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian

Altogether the ten volumes contain 51 stories by 48 authors, providing a broad and varied overview of European literature in the 19th century. The selections are a pleasant mix of household names (e.g. Zola, Balzac, Tolstoy), Nobel laureates (Bjørnson, France, Heyse, Maeterlinck, Sienkiewicz), lesser-known luminaries, and a few writers who have since faded into obscurity. The best books in the series are the French and Scandinavian volumes. The worst volume, by far, is the Russian volume. Though it features four literary superstars, the editors may well have chosen the most boring stories from each. Despite this one disappointment, the other nine volumes each have their own hidden treasures. If you are interested in classic literature—Romanticism, Naturalism, early Realism—this series is a great way to sample and discover new authors you may not have encountered before.

These books are in the public domain and can be read online and downloaded for free at various sources. For some unexplained reason, Project Gutenberg and Amazon do not have the three French volumes, though they do have the other seven. Wikisource has several volumes, including the French:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Stories_by_Foreign_Authors

If you’re intimidated by the thought of reading ten volumes, you don’t have to, because Old Books by Dead Guys has already done it for you! Below is a list of the ten best stories in the series. These are the ones you just can’t miss.

“Christian Gellert’s Last Christmas” by Berthold Auerbach
from Stories by Foreign Authors: German II
When a peasant is touched by a passage of verse, he makes a pilgrimage to a local university to thank the author in person.

“The Massacre of the Innocents” by Maurice Maeterlinck (Belgian)
from Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian
After a farmer is robbed and his wife and daughters killed, the enraged inhabitants of a Belgian village attack the Spanish soldiers responsible for the act.

“San Pantaleone” by Gabriele D’Annunzio
from Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian
When the sky inexplicably turns blood red, a mob of fanatically religious folk seek solace in their priest, their relics, and their superstitions.

“The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant
from Stories by Foreign Authors: French I
A poor woman longs for the luxury and status of a high-class life. When her husband is invited to a ball by his employers, she sees the chance to live her dream, if but for one night.

“Laurette or the Red Seal” by Alfred de Vigny
from Stories by Foreign Authors: French III
An old soldier recalls a story from his naval days when he captained a ship transporting prisoners to the penal colony of Cayenne, Guiana.

“When Father Brought Home the Lamp” by Juhani Aho (Finnish)
from Stories by Foreign Authors: Scandinavian
When a poor family becomes the first in their town to purchase an oil lamp, it becomes an immediate status symbol, elevating them in the eyes of their neighbors.

“The Philosopher’s Pendulum” by Rudolph Lindau
from Stories by Foreign Authors: German I
After having lived a life of disappointment and heartbreak, a man adopts a personal philosophy by which he expects nothing and therefore feels nothing.

“The Substitute” by François Coppée

from Stories by Foreign Authors: French II

A petty criminal, raised in reform schools and prisons, decides to turn his life around, gets a real job, and forms a close bond with a new friend.

“Moors and Christians” by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón
from Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish
The owner of a historic estate finds an old parchment on his property. He suspects it to be a treasure map, but, unable to read Arabic, he must first have it translated.

“The Railroad and the Churchyard” by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (Norwegian)
from Stories by Foreign Authors: Scandinavian
Two close friends suddenly find themselves at odds in a power struggle over local politics. Matters reach a boiling point with the proposal of a new railroad through town.

I have recently learned that this series was a follow up to two previous series published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, Stories by American Authors and Stories by English Authors. Together they add up to twenty more volumes of 19th-century literature, all available for free download from Amazon or Project Gutenberg. Look for them in upcoming posts at Old Books by Dead Guys.

Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian by Henryk Sienkiewicz, et al.

The underdogs of European literature

Maurice Maeterlinck

This book is part of the Stories by Foreign Authors series, a ten-volume collection of European short fiction in English translation published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1898. While previous volumes in the series were devoted to French, German, Spanish, Russian, Scandinavian, and Italian authors, this book is a mixed bag of stories from the “leftover” nations of Europe. While the countries represented here may not be as renowned for their literature as some of the aforementioned nationalities, these writers prove that they certainly deserve to be regarded alongside their A-list counterparts.

Poland’s Henryk Sienkiewicz is the first of two Nobel laureates featured in the book. His story “The Light-House Keeper of Aspinwall” takes place in a coastal locale near the Panama Canal. When the local light-house keeper dies, a fitting replacement is found in the form of an aged Pole who has adventured far and wide in the world and now longs for a place of repose. The main character is intriguing and appealing, and Sienkiewicz’s prose has rarely been more elegant. The story is very good, though it does fall prey to over-sentimentality towards the end.

Next up is Greek author Demetrios Bikélas with “The Plain Sister.” Out of gratitude for a friend, a bachelor professor considers marrying the eldest daughter of a merchant, thereby clearing the way for his friend to marry her younger sister. This is a light-hearted story that’s pretty predictable from beginning to end, but the reader will be charmed by the likeable characters and touching moments of humor.

Belgium is represented by two authors, the first of which is Nobel Prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck. Nicknamed “the Belgian Shakespeare,” Maeterlinck is known as a poet and dramatist, but here he proves to be an excellent fiction writer as well. His story “The Massacre of the Innocents” is by far the most powerful in the book. In the Flemish village of Nazareth, a cycle of violence and retaliation escalates between the Belgian villagers and their Spanish conquerors. It’s a brutally realistic and heartbreakingly tragic tale of terrorism in the age of sword, pike, and torch. In the second Belgian entry, “Saint Nicholas Eve” by Camille Lemonnier, a poor Flemish boatman and his family celebrate the titular holiday. The scene is so blissful and picturesque the reader can’t help but suspect that an unexpected tragedy will darken the mood. This has the makings of a good story, but something seems to have been lost in the translation, as scenes that should feel emotionally charged end up coming across as awkward and clumsy.

The book concludes with “In Love with the Czarina,” by Hungarian author Maurice Jokai (or Mór Jókai, in his native tongue). It is based on the true story of Jemeljan Pugasceff (a.k.a. Yemelyan Pugachev), a Cossack who falls in love with Catherine the Great. After her husband Czar Peter III dies, Pugasceff ignites a rebellion in an attempt to capture the crown of Russia and take her for his bride. This story is reminiscent of the military epics of Sienkiewicz, such as With Fire and Sword. Though it starts and ends well, in between it grows a bit tedious with the minutiae of troop movements.

Stories by Foreign Authors is a great series that brings to light quite a few authors of a century ago that are largely forgotten today. While the classic fiction of France and Russia still enjoys a large English-language audience, this volume reminds us that there are treasures of European literature to be discovered off the beaten path as well.

Stories in this collection

The Light-House Keeper of Aspinwall by Henryk Sienkiewicz 

The Plain Sister by Demetrios Bikélas 

The Massacre of the Innocents by Maurice Maeterlinck 

Saint Nicholas Eve by Camille Lemonnier 

In Love with the Czarina by Maurice Jokai 

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