blog: EPUB book preview

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nikos
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blog: EPUB book preview

Post by nikos »

here's the comment area for today's blog post found at
http://zabkat.com/blog/epub-ebook-preview.htm
Kilmatead
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Re: blog: EPUB book preview

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Aristotle, pedantic? Well I never! :wink: That being said, oft times older literature is best enjoyed for the snippets of discovery ones finds in them, rather than for supporting their own historical reputations - such as this from Thomas More's (yes, he of Henry the VIII's fame) Utopia...
In choosing their wives they use a method that would appear to us very absurd and ridiculous, but it is constantly observed among them, and is accounted perfectly consistent with wisdom. Before marriage some grave matron presents the bride naked, whether she is a virgin or a widow, to the bridegroom; and after that some grave man presents the bridegroom naked to the bride. We indeed both laughed at this, and condemned it as very indecent. But they, on the other hand, wondered at the folly of the men of all other nations, who, if they are but to buy a horse of a small value, are so cautious that they will see every part of him, and take off both his saddle and all his other tackle, that there may be no secret ulcer hid under any of them; and that yet in the choice of a wife, on which depends the happiness or unhappiness of the rest of his life, a man should venture upon trust, and only see about a hand's-breadth of the face, all the rest of the body being covered, under which there may lie hid what may be contagious, as well as loathsome. All men are not so wise as to choose a woman only for her good qualities...
Sometimes all you have to do is read the full title of something to know that it's perhaps not going to be made into the next Jurassic Park... does "Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall [sic] and Civil" sound like a catchy title? Maybe not, but to a student of history Hobbes' contentions that a summum malum does exist yet a corresponding summum bonum does not suggests many things about his distance from Plato (who, incidentally, is eminently readable!). :shrug:

Being presented with The Civil War by Julius Caesar one would think it it contained insights into Roman tactics (both physical as well as political) as described by a master, etc... yet most of it is rather really dry stuff about grain requisitions and complaints about how the weather is a greater impediment to an army's footwear than it is predictive of a grand battle's outcome on the day.

I don't know if it's available as an ebook or not (most of the best books that I've ever read are not available, contrary to popular-culture myths in contemporary advertising), but (for a blow-by-blow account of historical military endeavours) one of the most unexpectedly fantastic books I've enjoyed was Legends of the Samurai, which despite its silly title, is an account of the Tokugawa period's turbulent wars as written by the men of the time - and the prose (translated) is truly a joy to behold, whether one has an interest in the subject matter or not. Free from the kind of over-interpreted historical "poly contextualisation" which has become so pervasive in "modern" histories, this is the kind of history that's written for the sake of men-throughout-time, not academics, and is all the better for it.

At other times the reputation of a thing bears no great resemblance to its reality - indoctrinated into every schoolboy's education (whether he's read any of it or not) the name of Cicero is well trudged ground about "Rome's greatest orator" - but if you actually sit down to read it, he often comes across as a bit of an old biddy more concerned with his own political ends than the actual good of the state. And as for oration... well, he's bit light on the St. Crispin's Day moments more beloved of imaginations in our latter centuries. :wink:
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Re: blog: EPUB book preview

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It sounds cruel to Aristotle, the man who wrote about everything, the man whose birthplace (village) I happen to share (live) in Greece, the man who has influenced all science and philosophy for centuries, but the guy is a classification anorak and boring to tears -- and probably held back progress with his authoritative but wrong ideas :)

perhaps all these great authors have a historical value to examine where we came from and how we got here, but such classic works especially those about nature and things, are a waste of time to read. Perhaps more relevant are the works on politics and morality, since in these departments nobody still has a clue what it is all about, so anybody's opinion is as good as the most recent conjectures
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Re: blog: EPUB book preview

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While Aristotle's zoological studies (lots of fun with frogs and lizards and things) are not exactly the high-point of his scholarship "accuracy" - they are rather important for the fact that he was one of the only blokes doing it at the time, much to the future jeers of biology-class-schoolkids everywhere.

In 2000 years' time, see how many of your intellectual diversions stand the test of time! :D Philip the Second of Macedon didn't hire him for his nappy-changing skills - though if he had, he probably would have looked at the Myceanean Fibula and stroked his beard authoritatively (if not ominously) and taken credit for that too.