A. R. Burns.
The Lyric Age: The Greek World, c. 750 - 510 BC.
London: The Folio Society, 2002.
(Originally published as: The Lyric Age of Greece, Edward Arnold, Ltd., 1960.)

This book considers "archaic" Greece: Greece before we have contemporaneous written histories. The author bases the book on archeological evidence, what few written fragments we have from this period, and a discriminating use of later ancient Greek and Roman historians. There is an account of the peoples who moved into what became the ancient Greek homelands (modern Greece and western Turkey) - the rim of the Aegean Sea - and the culture(s) and language(s) they brought with them. The Greek peninsula has limited amounts of land suitable for agriculture; during this period population pressures led to successful Greek colonization of Sicily, southern Italy, and Black Sea coastal areas. The city of Corinth played a major early role in establishing colonies. The book describes the major provinces of the Greek peninsula and Asia Minor, and the major city-states. During this period the Greeks developed trading networks with their overseas colonies and other states. Some forward-looking cities developed export industries (e.g., Corinth pottery, superceeded by the finer red pottery of Athens, olive oil). City-state governments were dominated by tyrants and aristocratic oligarcharies during this period. Population growth also led to non-city people encroaching on cities, upsetting the political stability of the cities. The book has a separate chapter on the Spartans (lots from Plutarch's biography of Lycurgus/Lykourgos) describing how the Spartan warrior class dominated their slave/serf-like helots; and two chapters on Athens, including discussion of Solon's innovative representative govenment reforms, along with the fall of those reforms and Athens' revsersion to tyranny. There are chapters on Greek mystery religions and literature (strong on Sappho of Lesbos, but nothing on Homer - probably a topic too big for this wide ranging survey). The book ends with several chapters on our most important Greek legacy: the beginnings of the abstract rationalist approach towards understanding the world, due to the pre-Socratic philosophers (e.g., Thales, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Herakleitos).

A very nice review of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue by Thomas Hibbs.

This web page discusses Kieslowski's major films.

Here are Roger Ebert's reviews of Decalogue and the Three Colors trilogy.

Samuel B. Griffith II.
The War for American Independence: From 1760 to the Surrender at Yorktown in 1781.
Urbana & Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 2002.
(Orignially published as: In Defense of the Public Liberty, Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1976.)

Griffith's book is an excellent supplement to the more frequently read book:

Robert Middlekauff.
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789
New York & Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982.
(Series: The Oxford History of the United States)

Griffith uses more direct quotes from primary sources than Middlekauff to tell the story of the War and of the evolution of American Independence from Britain. As I mentioned before, Griffith's book has a more through treatment of the military, diplomatic and political (especially in Britain) sides of the War than Middlekauff's.
However, Griffith's book ends with the formal surrendur of Cornwallis on 19 October 1781 at Yorktown, Virginia. The war continued until at least a preliminary peace treaty of 20 January 1783, and the final peace treaty was signed on 3 September 1783. How did the war wind down militarially? This isn't covered by either Middlekauff or Griffith. What about the diplomatic details from approximately 1780 through the final peace of 1783? You'll have to look elsewhere for that too (Middlekauff refers us to: Samuel Flagg Bemis, The Diplomacy of the American Revolution, 1935; reprint ed., Bloomington, Indiana, 1957; and Richard B. Morris, The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence, New York, 1965). (This is probably a complicated and interesting bit of history since it involved several treaties amongst the United States, Britain, France, and Spain.) My hazy memory of events treated in Middlekauff's book through it's end now leads me to re-read the final 100 pages of his book. From my initial reading of Middlekauff I came away wanting to know more about the development of the Constitution of 1787. To make up for this, I am also Currently Reading:

George McClellan.
Liberty, Order, and Justice: An Introduction to the Constitutional Principles of American Government, Third Edition (called "Revised Second Edition" on the publisher's web page).
Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2000.

I find this an outstanding text on the American constitutionalism. Each narrative / analytical / interpretative chapter is followed by many source documents, from the Magna Charta (1215), to three Federalist papers (1787-8), through the most recent Ammendment (the 27th of 1992) to the Constitution of 1787. This book fills a huge gap in my education (and I doubt that few would not benefit from reading this book).

Past Reading:

A couple weeks ago I finished reading this novel:

John Derbyshire.
Seeing Calivn Coolidge in a Dream.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996.


Future Reading:

Derbyshire has recently published a well received book on the
Riemann Hypothesis (scroll down on that last page for links):

Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics.
Washington, D. C.: Joseph Henry Press (National Academy of Sciences), 2003.
The publisher's web page for Prime Obsession is here.

Prime Obsession reviewed on the on the Mathematical Association of America web site.

Derbyshire also writes essays that have appeared on the web and in print.

Past Reading:

One of my long term goals is to learn more History, starting with Greece and Rome, since these are of course the predecessors of Western European Civilization, which in turn is the source of American Civilization. But in preparation for studying the history of Greece and Rome I wanted to learn more about the Near Eastern Civilizations that preceeded Greece. So over the last 6 months or year I read the following four books collected in the set Empires of the Ancient Near East published by The Folio Society:

H. W. F. Saggs.
The Babylonians: A Survey of the Ancient Civilisation of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley.
London: The Folio Society, 1999.
(Originally published as: The Greatness That Was Babylon by Sidgwick & Jackson, 1962, 1988.)

O. R. Gurney.
The Hittites.
London: The Folio Society, 1999.
(Originally published by Penguin Books, 1952, 1954, 1981, and 1990.)

Sir Alan Gardiner.
The Egyptians: An Introduction.
London: The Folio Society, 1999.
(Originally published as: Egypt of the Pharaohs: An Introduction, Oxford University Press, 1961.)

J. M. Cook.
The Persians.
London: The Folio Society, 1999.
(Originally published as: The Persian Empire, J. M. Dent & Sons, 1983.)

These are all excellent, detailed, and very scholarly books on their respective subjects. On the other hand, they are a bit daunting to the novice and rather dry - a little too much focus on the trees rather than the forest. In hindsight I should have started with a more general survey, such as:

H. W. F. Saggs.
Civilization Before Greece and Rome.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.
I have a copy of this somewhere and, when I eventually find it, plan to read it to gain a better perspective on these pre-Greek civilizations.


Another recommended survey of that period:

Sabatino Moscati.
Face of the Ancient Orient.
Mineola, N. Y.: Dover Publications, 2001.


This web site looks very useful: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook.

Phillip Drummond.
High Noon.
London: British Film Institute, 1997.
(Series: BFI Film Classics)
High Noon at the publisher's web site.

I have mixed thoughts about recommending this book to others. When Mr. Drummond sticks to reporting facts his writing is clear enough and quite informative. However, his interpretative writing descends into turgid academese (the author is an British academic). Consider, for example, the final, concluding paragraph of the book:

"We create a different and lesser film if we reduce the modest intricacies of High Noon to assertions about social and political content and position, but we also take the risk of inventing an altogether newer film if we ignore the humble semiotic boundaries of the period by bestowing on the film too much complexity and grandeur. Its dedicated play with the staple semiotics of the genera produces an inventory of characters and their relationships which is, in turn, both routine and innovatory, but is in any case difficult to reduce to a single textual 'subject'. Sometimes ambiguous and even incoherent, it is the sophisticated simplicity of these dealings with the protocols of fifties cinema - from the general institutional pressures of the cinematic institution to the particular demands of narrative and image - which, in my view, guarantee the cultural longevity and mobility of High Noon."

After several readings of this paragraph, I may understand some of the author's meaning, but surely Mr. Drummond could convey his ideas more clearly. I like the concept of the "BFI Film Classics" series and have already puchased several volumes. This is the first of those volumes I have read and I sincerely hope that Mr. Drummond's writing is the worst in the lot.

In addition to the "BFI Film Classic" series (which BFI describes as "A series of finely written, beautifully illustrated books which honour the great films of world cinema"), BFI has a BFI Modern Classic series, described as "A series of books devoted to notable films of recent years", which also deserves attention.

Find more information about the film "High Noon" (1952) on the Internet at:
(a) IMDB - The Internet Movie Database
(b) Rotten Tomatoes
(c) Amazon.com

Lyrics to the song "Do Not Forsake Me" from the film "High Noon" on the Internet (some of the words are hard to discern in the film):
(1) High Noon (This web page has WAV and MP3 files of the song. Listen to it!)
(2) "Do Not Forsake Me [The Ballad of High Noon]" (In addition to the lyrics, this web page consists of a very nice interpretative essay by Deborah Allison.)


A couple books I have found very useful as guides or introductions to Art and Classic films:

[1] Jay Carr, editor.
The A List: The National Society of Film Critics' 100 Essential Films.
Cambridge, MA: De Capo Press, 2002.
The A List at the publisher's web site.

[Note: It appears that Emanuel Levy, the author of the essay about "High Noon" in this book, does not like the film! To quote the first sentance of his essay: "Context and subtext are far more important than text in Fred Zinnemann's High Noon, a western that over the years has assumed a mythical meaning and overrated status in American film history." I find this appalling. He dismisses the "text" of the film. So it's plot and themes are irrelevant?! It's "overrated"?! Mr. Levy makes much of John Wayne's and others' opposition to the film for various aesthetic and political reasons. Levy makes the statement: "Wayne was particularly offended by the last scene, which shows Cooper putting the marshall's badge under his foot and stepping on it, [emphasis added] an image later borrowed by Don Siegel for the ending of Dirty Harry." However, in the DVD edition of the film I have viewed, Marshall Kane tosses his badge on the ground in repudiation of the townspeople and there is no putting the badge under foot and stepping on it. What accounts for this discrepancy? Whether due to recent revisionist film editing or Mr. Levy's animus towards the film, I cannot say.]

[2] Roger Ebert.
The Great Movies.
New York: Broadway Books, 2002.

This book contains the first 100 essays that Ebert posted on his Great Movies web site: Ebert's Great Movies. Since then he has continued to write more such Great Movie essays, so if you're trying to decide what video to rent this weekend, I recommend you check out his Great Movies site.

[Note: Ebert has not yet included "High Noon" among what he thinks are "Great Movies." Why not?]


The film appears to remain controversial among professional film critics. Why?
Probably because the film's screenwriter Carl Foreman was a member of the Communist Party from 1938 to 1942 and, when he was called to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities in September 1951 (during production of "High Noon"), Mr. Foreman sought refuge in the Fifth Ammendment (i.e., he refused to answer questions). Subsequently the film's producer Stanley Kramer disassociated himself from Mr. Foreman. Obviously, Mr. Foreman's Communist past tainted the film in the eyes of many during the 1950s. Equally, I believe, the well known "anti-anti-communism" of the political left has contributed to the political controversy surrounding the film. I don't think I over-generalize when I assert that most professional film critics have a liberal or leftist political inclincation. (Recall Pauline Kael's notorious comment in response to Richard Nixon's landslide re-election in 1972, for example.)

"High Noon" is a story of Good versus Evil, about Honor, and about what defines a Man (or Virtue). The character Helen Ramirez knowns what defines a Man, and she knows that Marshall Will Kane is a Man. None of the other men in Hadleyville measure up to Will Kane, and none of them stand up to defend their town when it is threatened by Evil, as incarnated in Frank Miller and his gang. (John Wayne, et al., probably expected more Honor in the characters in a "Western" genre film. The parade of cowardice we see as Will Kane looks for deputies indeed discourages. The success of this American republic depends upon the Virtue of its citizens. It seems contrary to what we know about America that Will Kane cannot find even one man of Virtue among Hadleyville's citizens. But this is necessary for the film's plot. In this sense, the 1950s conservative criticism of "High Noon" is justified.)

It seems to me that many film critics would rather persist in wallowing in the political controversies of the 1950s and thereby avoid addressing a timeless story that deals with such ethical concepts as Good vesus Evil, Honor, and Virtue. Emanuel Levy is one of those film critics, as he clearly implies in the sentence quoted above and a full reading of his essay demonstrates.

But should this really suprise anyone? After all, acknowledgement of moral and ethical absolutes (certainly those I've mentioned, and more) does not appear very fashionable among American liberals/leftists. Yes, I am saying that for many American leftists, in the 1950s and continuing through today, matters of morals and ethics are dominated by fashion rather than a recognition of permanent values. The recent example of Clinton, Lying, and Adultry proves this. Ever hear of the Ten Commandments? The response by Democrats to President George Bush's discussion of an "Axis of Evil" also supports my thesis.

Claremont Review of Books, Summer 2003, Volume III, Number 3.

This is a quarterly publication subtitled: A Journal of Political Thought and Statesmanship.

In some ways one may consider it a conservative alternative to The New York Review of Books (to which I have also subscribed). However, the Claremont Review of Books is more focused on issues of political philosophy (plus it's more explicit or honest about it's political orientation, contrary to the disposition of many other well know and more popular publications). I find the book reviews and essays of very high quality written by serious scholars.

The Claremont Review of Books is published by The Claremont Institute. I encourage anyone interested in history, government, or American culture to check it out.

Currently Reading:

Samuel B. Griffith II
The War for American Independence: From 1760 to the Surrender at Yorktown in 1781.
Urbana & Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 2002.
(Orignially published as: In Defense of the Public Liberty, Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1976.)

The last paragraph from the book's Preface describes a distinctive feature of this book:

"The purpose of this book is to attempt to place the American struggle for independence in the context of the period in which it took place. To do this in an appropriately objective and comprehensive manner requires first that one accord developments of policy and strategy in Great Britain and France more attention than these generally receive, and second that one allow the actors to speak, to the greatest degree possible consistent with relevance, to the subject of the historic drama in which they took part. My thesis in this latter respect is that selective use of apposite quotations is to be preferred to a presumptuous indulgance in unfounded speculation as to what the actors may have thought or felt."

The book indeed contains much more detail on (a) British politics, and (b) diplomatic interactions between Britain, France, and America than in, say, Middlekauff's book. I find the coverage of British politics - the policies of George III and his Ministers in Parliment, and how they persued those policies - especially enlightening.

A quote from Barbara Tuchman on the back cover:
"... Griffith has made it, for once, a two-sided war."

This last quote reflects a most distinctive feature of the book: current history, with the benefit of hindsight, makes the success of the American Cause appear a foregone conclusion. However, given the place I'm at in the book right now, in 1776 the Americans look pretty weak, despite the long-term strategic weaknesses of the British in attempting to fight the war.

The years 1775 and 1776 were full of dark days for the Americans:
[a] George Washington spent the winter of 1775-1776 surrounding Boston, occupied by the British, in a standoff. This followed the initial successes of American militias in the Battles of Lexington and Concord (19 April 1775) and the Battle of Bunker Hill (actually Breed's Hill) (17 June 1775) - "Bunker Hill" a success for the Americans in the sense that they inflicted massive casualties on the British, although the Americans withdrew from Breed's Hill in the evening after the fight. Washington was appointed Commander in Chief by the Continental Congress on 19 June 1775 and proceeded to Boston to organize the American resistance; however, Washington had no army. During the Winter 1775-1776 Washington had a very weak & poorly supplied army (the various state militias had no long-term obligations to serve and went home) and he would surely have been defeated had the British ventured out of Boston and attacked.
[b] An American expedition to Canada to attempt to capture Quebec, although started promisingly in the Summer 1775, ended in complete failure in January 1776.
[c] The British abandoned Boston in March 1776 after Washington started artillery bombardment of the city. Where were the British Army & Navy going? The Americans' best guess was New York.
[d] However, some British forces went to Charleston, South Carolina but by great incompetence failed to capture the city (May/June 1776). This British force rejoined the main British force assembling in New York harbor. By now the British had been greatly reinforced.
[f] Now occurred one of the Americans' greatest defeats, the Battle of Long Island (late August 1776), and by mid/late September 1776 the British occupied Manhattan. Washington's armies were on the run in New York.
[g] Also in the Summer 1776 the British started to assemble a large army in Canada which they planned to sweep South and connect with their forces now in Manhattan.
[This is as far as I've gotten in the story as of today.]

British long-term strategic weaknesses:
[a] British policy ignored the British constitutional tradition which the Americans had inherited and now defended.
[b] The communication lag between events in America and the receipt of news by the British government in London - major decisions were made by the King and his politicians in London rather than by the British generals in America.
[c] British government expected to fight a cheap war that would end quickly.
[d] The British lacked the money and manpower to fight a long duration war on a continental scale an ocean away from home.

Some Past Reading

Some Past Reading that has motivated some of my Current Reading:

Robert Middlekauff (b.1929).
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1982; Second, Revised Edition, 2005.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
(Series: The Oxford History of the United States.)

Plutarch (c. 45 - c. 125).
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans ("The Dryden Translation").
Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.
(Series: Great Books of the Western World, volume 14)

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794).
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.
(Series: Great Books of the Western World, volumes 40 & 41)