| Book List |
[Dec. 8th, 2009|08:02 am] |
39. Rubicon by Tom Holland
With a name like Rubicon, one would expect a book focused on the second Roman Civil War, where Caesar and Pompey did battle for control of the dying Roman Republic. Instead, the civil wars of Caesar (and later Augustus) make up only the final chapter and epilogue of this history. Holland's goal is more complex than a simple military history: he wants to show you how the Roman Republic worked, and how, by steps small and large over the course of generations, it finally crumbled.
One fact that Holland continually emphasizes that's often overlooked is the sheer age of the Republic. Between the Brutus who overthrew the Tarquin monarchy to start the Republic, and the Brutus who overthrew Caesar at is end, over four centuries passed. To put that in perspective, it lasted longer than English has been spoken on this continent.
Holland spends much time explaining how the demands of administering its conquests (and making new ones) strained the Republic's system of government to the breaking point. The Republic was well set up for running a bronze or iron age city-state. It was slowly adapting to controlling Italy, by allowing more Italian cities to have their people become Roman citizens, and not without war and controversy. What the system couldn't handle was the wealth and military power that came from being a conquering general. The Romans had always encouraged ambition, but the time came when its institutions were no longer capable of containing that ambition.
I enjoyed reading the chapters about Sulla and Lucullus (and not just because I've written a short story about them several years back). Sulla, a Roman general who conquered Rome a generation before Caesar did, and ran a reign of terror against his political enemies, is not as (in)famous as he should be. It's the generation that grew up in his shadow, who knew that the traditions of the Republic were no longer inviolable, who would eventually doom the whole Republic. That Rubicon had already been crossed when Caesar was a boy.
This is definitely written as a popular history, not a scholarly work. There are footnotes to sources, but they're a little sparse and Holland doesn't really evaluate them in the text itself. For example, his two main sources are Plutarch's biographies and Cicero's letters. Plutarch was writing 150 years later; he's important because he's a good writer and had access to books which no longer exist. Holland quotes Plutarch's dialogue as if it were real. Likewise, Cicero's letters are primary sources, but he was an interested participant in the politics of his day (so interested, in fact, that he didn't survive them.)
While anyone wanting to research this subject deeply does need to go back to the classical sources, this is a good overview, and will show you where to look next. |
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| Book List |
[Dec. 7th, 2009|11:26 pm] |
38. The Trouble with Physics by Lee Smolin
For years I've enjoyed books like Greene's The Elegant Universe and Kaku's Hyperspace, which try to put the limits of physics in terms that even a guy like me who lacked the math to major in physics can understand. Both of those books are ardent explanations of string theory for the laymen. In The Trouble with Physics, Smolin covers much of the same material, but with the eye of a skeptic.
He traces the history of physics, from Newton to the present day, showing how string theory became the dominant field of theoretical study. As he does so, however, he points out what he sees as its greatest flaw: because it's so flexible (almost a meta-theory for generating theories), it's virtually impossible to prove wrong, or to make unique predictions. If data differs from what it predicts (as has happened with the recent discovery in astrophysics of dark enery), it can always be fixed.
As with all such books, Smolin isn't really explaining the physics to you. He's explaining metaphors which imply the abstractions behind the physics--sort of the bouquet of the physics. Because of this, I have no real way of evaluating his claims.
Perhaps the most interesting part for me was the end, where he leaves physics behind and details some structural problems with the way peer review and tenure are done in the scientific university departments. His motive is obviously to campaign for a broader approach to theoretical physics, in which many different types of theories are evaluated--an attack on intellectual monoculture. That sounds good, but I have to admit that when he briefly details some of the alternate theories that are being wrongly dismissed, they didn't sound terribly promising.
Still, it was an interesting read, and worth checking out if you enjoy Greene or Hawking. |
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