{"id":54474,"date":"2017-03-28T18:28:02","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T18:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=54474"},"modified":"2017-03-28T18:28:02","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T18:28:02","slug":"a-backlog-of-books-for-the-antilibrary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=54474","title":{"rendered":"A Backlog of Books for the Antilibrary"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Mark Safranski<\/strong> \/ “zen<\/strong>“]<\/p>\n

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I have an intimidating\u00a0backlog of new and newish books to review here. I have an even longer queue of not so new books for my Antilibrary<\/strong><\/a>. I’m not sure when I will get to some of these, given my schedule, but they are nice to have on hand for research purposes.<\/p>\n

Here’s why I picked these up:<\/p>\n

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind<\/strong><\/a> by Yuval<\/a> Noah<\/a> Harari<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Buzz mainly. Saw a few<\/a> reviews<\/a> and some chatter on Twitter. I also like evolutionary and cultural evolutionary themes, “Big History” and the like. OTOH I have also read folks bashing\u00a0 Harari for a poor grasp of economics, so we shall just have to see.<\/p>\n

Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0by John Garth<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

This is a natural follow-up to The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0which I reviewed the other day<\/a>, but in truth I’ve been looking for a copy of this book for a while in used bookstores. I didn’t buy the hardback when it was new and regretted it. This one I will start reading now.<\/p>\n

Soldiers & Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity<\/strong> by J. E. Lendon<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The ancient world is a topical\u00a0area where I have been trying to build my Antilibrary for some years now and this book\u00a0is a twofer being also military history. I am also, in some ways, hoping to make up for the subpar education of my youth by reading the classics and ancient histories.<\/p>\n

The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire<\/strong><\/a> by Edward Luttwak<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Edward Luttwak is one of our more creative – some might say weird – strategic thinkers who is known for putting forth provocative positions embedded\u00a0with offbeat tangents.\u00a0Luttwak is also, after a fashion, not an “operator<\/a>” , or so it is bruited about – and not just an armchair theorist. I liked his The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire<\/strong> <\/a>even though\u00a0he gave Byzantine purists fits.<\/p>\n

Intellectuals and Society<\/strong><\/a> by Thomas Sowell<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Sowell was in the news that day\u00a0for retiring as a columnist and I was in a bookstore.<\/p>\n

Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar<\/strong><\/a> by Tom Holland<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

I have read\u00a0some of Holland’s other books, most notably Rubicon<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0He’s an engaging writer and popular historian with a knack for keeping the narrative moving.<\/p>\n

The Psychology of Military Incompetence<\/strong><\/a> by Norman Dixon<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

While I’m sure a book like this could write itself, Dixon did it and I’m interested in his systemic conclusions, if any, off organizational incompetence.<\/p>\n

Xenophon’s Retreat<\/strong><\/a> by Robin Waterfield<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Xenophon<\/strong><\/a>, the student of Socrate<\/strong>s, historian\u00a0and mercenary always struck me as interesting, which probably led me to organize the Xenophon Roundtable<\/strong> <\/a>years ago on the Wayne Ambler<\/strong><\/a> edition of The Anabasis of Cyrus<\/strong><\/a>. I also need to pick up Leo Strauss’<\/a> On Tyranny<\/a><\/strong> again; so little time. So many books.<\/p>\n

The Young Hitler I Knew<\/strong><\/a> by August Kubizek<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

A source in almost every major bio or history of Adolf Hitler\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>ever written other than Konrad Heiden’s <\/a>Der Fuhrer<\/strong> and Trevor-Roper’s<\/a>\u00a0 The Last Days of Hitler<\/a><\/strong>. Most likely, you have already seen the most reliable or noteworthy parts of Kubizek’s memoir reproduced elsewhere more than once in print and documentaries. This is another topical area for Antilibrary building.<\/p>\n

You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future<\/strong><\/a> by Jonathan Keats<\/strong><\/p>\n

Buckeyballs<\/a>. That’s why.<\/p>\n

Assholes: A Theory<\/strong><\/a> by Aaron James<\/strong><\/p>\n

Partially finished with this one. It is a reasonable argument\u00a0\u00a0built upon\u00a0recognizable observations\u00a0but being a philosopher, Dr. James is a bit of a pedant and circles back frequently in the text to reiterate his line of reasoning. This may be standard philo practice\u00a0 but it makes\u00a0the book\u00a0slower going than it might have been for a popular format.<\/p>\n

Hitler’s Private Library: The Books that Shaped his Life<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0by Timothy Ryback<\/strong><\/p>\n

A side of Hitler that neither the German public during the Reich nor the generations of students of history after WWII have normally seen. A useful source for research.<\/p>\n

That’s it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Mark Safranski \/ “zen“] \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have an intimidating\u00a0backlog of new and newish books to review here. I have an even longer queue of not so new books for my Antilibrary. I’m not sure when I will get to some of these, given my schedule, but they are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[420,133,445],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-book","category-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54474"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54480,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54474\/revisions\/54480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}