New Book: High Towers and Strong Places by Tim Furnish
While there are many points of interest in High Towers and Strong Places, such as the nature of Orcs or the relationship between Hobbits and Men or the political characteristics of Elven lordships vs. kingdoms, another strength is Furnish’s examination of “the realms of evil”, Angband and Mordor and their satellites and clients. While differentiating between the strategic ambitions of the dark lord Morgoth and his chief disciple and successor Sauron, Furnish characterizes them both as “theocratic tyrants”, albeit Sauron was the more rational and calculating of the two. As incarnated evil, immortal in nature and possessed of immense personal powers, the dark lords were aspiring “god-kings” seeking not merely political rule imposed by military dominance, but “worship” and total domination of the wills of others and – in Morgoth’s case – over the very substance of Arda itself.
This supernatural despotism has no genuine analog in the real world, of course, but their mad striving for “unipolarity” and reaping the consequences of counter-balancing and downfall is a familiar pattern. Furnish does a thorough job with the waxing and waning of power between the “states” of the West (of Elves, Dwarves and Men but especially Numenor and Gondor) and Sauron’s eastern hegemony headquartered in Mordor. The flow and rhythm is one recognizable to anyone who has studied the Cold War or the empires of the ancient world. Furnish intends to build upon this political history with a second volume, a military history of Middle-Earth that will delve deeply into how Tolkien conceived of war and warfare in his legendarium.
High Towers and Strong Places is a must-have tome on the shelf for every dedicated fan of J.R.R. Tolkien.
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Lexington Green:
July 14th, 2016 at 4:03 am
This sounds great. I have to read The Silmarillion.
So many books, so little time …
Charles Cameron:
July 14th, 2016 at 4:17 am
Many thanks Tim for writing such a book, and to Zen for this review. I’m in serious need of a book budget, not to mention a lateral extension of hours each day to allow for copious reading..
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And Lex, yes, The Silmarillion is indeed an amazing work, not least in it’s opening creation myth, The Music of the Ainur.
zen:
July 14th, 2016 at 4:29 pm
Thanks gents!
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One of the thing that connected for me in reading this, though not explicitly argued by Tim, is how the “fading of the Eldar” was connected to the rise of the Numenoreans and the steep decline in their own numbers from losses in the wars against first Morgoth, then Sauron. Most of the Noldorin exiles had been wiped out as a people in Middle-Earth by the Third Age or had gone back to Valinor. Tim does specifically mention that the Eldar, unlike their Silvan cousins in Mirkwood and Lorien, in the Third Age could no longer field armies by the time of the War of the Ring and seemed to have no standing military forces at all. Cirdan possibly had some guarding the Grey Havens but apparently had none to spare to, say, reinforce Rivendell. Quite a change and reminiscient of the demographic exhaustion/collapse of the French and British after WWI
Timothy Furnish:
July 14th, 2016 at 5:08 pm
Zen/Mark,
Thanks much for your kind words!
Nice of you to get the big picture–as others have not.
I’m clearly a HUGE fan of Numenor and Gondor-Arnor–the Elves are secondary for me (certainly by the Third, and even the Second, Age).
What about my Kondtratieff wave speculation, good sir?!
Tim
Timothy Furnish:
July 14th, 2016 at 5:10 pm
Oh, also, re the “fading of the Eldar”–one thing I probably needed to mention more explicitly was falling Elven populations due to demographic decline caused by small(er) families (if any children at all), which was quite the opposite of Men (and, alas, Orcs). Plus, the Elves knew the “Dominion of Men” was coming, and so looked back more than forward.