Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

Diane S snd John, I love both poems … it’s a great way to start my day by reading these poems.

Kay wrote: "Carol wrote: "You are clearly right that we haven't abandoned the tendency to bend facts to suit our purposes... "

A week or so ago I had to stop reading [book:The Dawn of Everything: A New Histor..."

I bought that one and have been putting it off ... it got a lot of pretty good reviews, but it just seem so incredibly speculative to me.

Oleksandr wrote: "Carol wrote: "Why is the city called Roma and not Romulum, as it is called after Romulus? "
I'm curious about the founding myth that "The central claim of the story of Aeneas is one that echoes, or rather exaggerates, the underlying theme of Romulus’ asylum. Where Romulus welcomed all comers to his new city, the story of Aeneas goes further, to claim that the ‘Romans’ really were originally ‘foreigners’. ...These people were, in other words, he writes, ‘vagabonds of no fixed abode’."..."

Acorn,

Sometimes the myths and folk tales contain some versions of the truth. There was an article about two weeks ago about the East African coastal populations and how recent genetic research confirmed the stories that they told about their establishment.

I was checking different science journals to see when the Indo-Europeans pushed down into the Italian peninsula, and it seems fairly well confirmed that the first ones settled in the Po Valley around 1800 BCE, with successive waves following and pushing some of the earlier settlers southward. The Aeneas story was a great story, but I don;t think that there is any evidence for Trojans being founders in any way ... and I know that you weren't suggesting that.

Eileen wrote: "I think there are several measures in assessing whether historians have improved over time. .." Exactly my own feelings.

On the matter of history over time and how it is improving or not ...

https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/03/...

"Many excellent historians, however, hold the opposite view. It’s very common to see historians implicitly or explicitly assert that knowledge in their field increases over time. For example, in his 1962 masterpiece Medieval Technology and Social Change, Lynn White Jr. assumes greater clarity from archaeological discoveries are yet to come: “Despite prodigious labours by Hungarian archaeologists, the stratification of Avar materials is not yet clear…[Avars] may well have been the first people of Europe to use the stirrup, but the time of its arrival is still uncertain.”..

"For example, consider Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in 1776. It is probably the most influential work of history written in English so far, and throughout most of the nineteenth century it was part of the intellectual bedrock of historical analysis. Any educated historian was expected to be familiar with its arguments about how civilizations fall. Today, Gibbon’s masterpiece is of only niche interest. A scholar of Roman history will certainly have heard of the work, and a large minority have even read parts of it, but its arguments have mostly passed out of the historical discourse. By the year 2200, Gibbon’s footprint will be smaller still."

I think that Gibbon's work is still worth reading but mainly for his use of language. He wrote beautifully.

Christine wrote: "Starting Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson , narrated by Alfred Molina"

Christine, I got about 25 percent into that book and got pulled away. I really need to get back to the book. What I read was great.

Kay wrote: "Chapter 3:

I am more sensitive than I ever imagined I could be, living in this modern world of ours, to how peaceful transfer of power is the hallmark of democracy. Can we hold onto that norm? ...It is worth noting that more than half a millennium later, the first dynasty of new autocrats, the emperors from Augustus to Nero, had a similar, or even worse, record of brutal death, largely murder, or alleged murder, from within the family."

The brutality of the Roman, under both the Republic and the Empire, was well established. It could be casual but often it was calculated and effective. It may be worth mentioning since today is Easter that we don;t know much about Pontius Pilate and how he came to be governor of Judea. But we do know what happened to him after the crucifixion of Jesus ... at least according the histories of Josephus. Josephus reports that he Pilate was so brutal in suppressing the Samaritans that his superior the governor of Syria, had him sent back to Rome. I think that without a direct explanation, this meant that his brutality was seen as counterproductive to maintaining order. If the brutality had been effective, there would have been no objection. This was certainly true in how the Romans handled many others that they met. It was often the carrot or the stick ... and if the stick didn't work, then there was the sword.

Barbara wrote: "Oh my goodness, Larry, you are adding to my already towering TBR list. Is Hanson's book as readable as Beard's? .."

Barbara, It isn't. It's extremely important because it revealed the importance of the Greeks living in the countryside and not just in Athens. But it's overly long. Hanson is so problematic. He explains so well how the Greeks actually fought in warfare. But once he leaves what he knows best, I think he becomes not very valuable.

I don't recommend much of what he has written if the subject is past 1 A.D.

He is actually interesting in what he writes about modern American agrarianism but he gets a lot of things wrong there. He is so angry that his anger gets in the way of getting things right.

Ron wrote: "Aside from the two books I'm already reading, I'm also reading:

New Moon

I told myself that I would annotate the Twilight books last year, but I did not live up to that goal. I'm de..."

Ron, there's never a time that I don't have some fiction going on! I'm reading an interesting graphic novel now. I don't know how much of it is autobiographical and how much may be fiction. (I think it's almost all true.) But it's hard hitting. About a young girl, 22 years old, who works for a year in the tar sands camps in Alberta and then leaves for Victoria, BC. It's Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands. I'm a bit more than halfway through ... and I think she is going to return to the tar sands camps ... because the money is so good.

Ioana wrote: "How is a seriously sick person supposed to deal with the deluge of bills? On hop of his/her sickness? I can't even imagine how a hospital stay is billed these days...I hope I don't have to find out..."

Maybe my own experience with hospital billing should be encouraging ... or maybe we were just very lucky. But my wife's diagnosis with stage four cancer in August 2020 led to six surgical procedures, with one of them being major surgery. There was that, six cycles of chemo, monthly blood work, monthly visits with her oncologists (she actually has two oncologists) or the advanced practitioner nurse of one of those oncologists, and a daily cancer drug (a PARP inhibitor) whose cost would truly scare you. And through all of that, no obvious errors on any of the bills. We are so lucky to have great health insurance , and great cancer center, and a really good hospital. But again, I also think we have been lucky.

She says this about archaeological excavations:

"Part of the problem is the conditions of excavation in the city itself. The site of Rome has been so intensively built on for centuries that we find these traces of early occupation only in spots that happen not to have been disturbed. The foundations dug in the first and second centuries CE for the vast marble temples in the Forum obliterated much of what then lay beneath the surface; the cellars of Renaissance palazzi cut through even more in other parts of Rome. So we have only tiny snapshots, never the big picture. This is archaeology at its most difficult, and – although new fragments of evidence emerge all the time – its interpretation, and reinterpretation, is almost always contested and often controversial."

Beard, Mary. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome . Liveright. Kindle Edition.

On one trip to Rome, I stayed about half a mile form the Colosseum. One of the officials from the American Embassy had picked me up at the airport and was talking me to that hotel. As we got close, he pointed out new excavation of what was a gladiatorial training school. After I had rested in my room for a few gours I walked a few hundred yards to the Basilica of San Clemente, which is built on to of a early Christian household church, which itself was built on top of a Mithraic temple. The parts of Rome that have been excavated turn up amazing parts of the past. But so much of Rome has remained in continuous use that even more amazing things probably remain waiting to be excavated some time in the future.

Here's a great guide to the Basilica of San Clemente and what lies beneath:

https://www.thegeographicalcure.com/p...

I think it was in Chapter 2 that she says that Emperor Caracalla made citizens of all the inhabitants in the various Roman provinces. And I do think it was one of the reasons that the empire lasted.

Barbara wrote: "I’m also pretty fascinated by the seeming tradition of welcoming outsiders as Kay pointed out above. Even slaves who were infrequently freed or bought their freedom had full Roman citizenship rights if their owner was Roman. I wonder if that diversity could be one of the reasons that the empire was so long lasting. The contrast with Greece is interesting...."

Greek slavery was complicated also. I don't think she is wrong in any real sense about the comparison, but there is a fascinating look at Greek rural slavery in Victor Davis Hanson's The Other Greeks: The Family Farm & the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization. He makes the point that on the small farms around Athens the small farmers worked alongside their slaves and that it was the kind of work that they did that gave them the endurance to be hoplite warriors in the phalanxes. Their slaves would carry their masters' weapons and kit to the battlefield but rarely participate in the warfare.

Ioana wrote: "Thanks, Larry. The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care is on my list to read, as well as a couple others recommended by GR on this topic:
The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care--and How to Fix It ..."

Ioana, I read that one when it first was published. It is great. It is scary how much an air ambulance (heliocopter) may charge you. And it is scary how little the doctors in a hospital know about billing. They sometimes find out a lot more when they are sued by their own hospital for a bill.

Marty Makary headed up a six (?) person unit at Johns Hopkins when he compiled the information used in this book. Earlier he worked in the ER at our local hospital: INOVA Fairfax in Northern Virginia. I was in that ER about 15 years ago for three emergency surgeries in the space of a week. You know you're in bad shape when you're on the table lying in a pool of your own blood and a nurse exclaims, "I've never seen anything like this." She then asked the doctor, "Should she leave?" pointing to my wife. The doctor said to the nurse, "I think she's okay ... I'm not so sure about you." I can't remember whether I laughed or not. It's a good hospital and I don't think that Makary had any criticisms of it, but there are some other hospitals and practices that he takes to pieces ... for good reasons. Oh ... and my niece is a manager in billing for INOVA Fairfax ... I almost forgot that.

Ioana wrote: "It is truly an eye-opening read, and I need to get the paper book, to keep it for future reference (I listened to the audiobook). There are a few others, not many, and I plan to read more on this topic. Another good one that I've read in the past: Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans..."

Thanks, Ioana, I haven't read i myself, but one of my friends told me that Steven Brill's America's Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System is a brilliant book that reports the politics behind reforms and failed reforms of our health system.

I also like the dated (2009) work by the WaPo reporter T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, in which he looks at the health care system of Canada, the UK, Switzerland, Japan, and Taiwan. There is one key point that he makes that is worth mentioning and that as different as each system is, each has evolved fairly radically from what it was like in the beginning.

Barbara and Oleksandr, it's great to see you in this discussion. there is no established schedule for reading this book, so feel free to make remarks about any part of the book as you read it.

Carol wrote: "Dipped into the book this morning however and discovered I didn't know the Etruscans came from Italy, although I knew that they were from the Mediterranean. ..."

Carol, the Etruscan origins may have been settled with recent DNA research. See the following story that reports that research: https://www.sciencealert.com/dna-has-....

For a lot of details on the Etruscans and Italy overall before Rome became ascendant on the peninsula, the following book by T.J. Cornell is great: The Beginnings of Rome: Italy from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (The book is expensive if you buy it new or even a Kindle copy ... it's pretty reasonable as a used book, however.) It's really good in its discussion of the archaeological and linguistic evidence about the earliest days. What is says about the Roman ancestors is that they inhabited hilltops in some fairly large settlements, some with a few thousand people before they moved to where Rome is. I think that the book is accepted as a standard today, but it was published in 1995 and new work is coming out each year.

Into Chapter 2, and the story of Romulus and Remus. One interesting tidbit was the possibility--based on the similarity/confusion between the words for wolf and prostitute-- that the mother who adopted the twins was actually a prostitute and not a wolf.

There is really important information about citizenship/immigration/slavery that pertains to who might be a Roman. Put simply, Rome expanded by opening up citizenship to many who were not originally Roman and even those who were not originally free individuals. The comparison with Athens was eye-opening for me.

Ioana wrote: "Not a recent one, but I find it very informative and depressing at the same time. An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back. This book is eye-opening and I think everybody in US should read it...."

I don't think the fact that the book is six years old diminishes its value at all. Elisabeth Rosenthal is both a doctor and an award-winning journalist and brings to bear her expertise on her subject matter and also has suggestions on what might be done to improve things. What I don't understand is why there are so few excellent books examining the problems of the U.S. healthcare system.

Christine wrote: "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance"

Christine, I thought it was a good book also.