History Repeats Itself. Or At Least Echoes Loudly.

Writing about World War I, before America entered the war:

Americans were horrified by the slaughter in the trenches in France. Not only had the Germans initiated submarine warfare against passenger ships, but they were the first to introduce poison gas. Hundreds of miles of the beautiful French and Belgian countryside were reduced to a hellish moonscape, a "no mans land" where rats fattened on corpses. The Germans used their powerful artillery to batter quaint towns and villages into rubble. "Big Bertha" was a forty-three-ton monster howitzer produced by the Krupp company and incongruously named for Gustav Krupp's wife. It fired a 2,200-pound shell more than nine miles.

The Germans also rained death from the air. Their hydrogen-filled dirigibles—called zeppelins after Count Zeppelin—dropped bombs on civilians in London. In all this, the kaiser's High Command consciously pursued a policy of schrecklichkeit ("frightfulness") to terrify their enemies.

[President] Wilson addressed the war in Europe in another controversial speech in 1916 in which he called for a "peace without victory" and offered to mediate. Germany spurned the offer. Once again Republicans and other supporters of the Allies were deeply affronted.

William J. Bennett, America: the Last Best Hope, vol. II

Sound familiar at all?

I was reading about Woodrow Wilson's presidency last night and kept having the a vague feeling that it somehow sounded familiar. It took specific examples during times of conflict to bring it into focus.

Here I thought that President Obama had taken neutrality and peace-seeking to new levels. Nope. He follows directly in the footsteps of a president from 100 years ago. Also, it was a time when the populace was sharply divided in their opinions about social and economic issues and about what to do about the armed conflict that did not yet directly attack America but threatened to do so.

Well, well. And here we are again.

As with the first volume, Bennett's history is even-handed and thorough, clearly written and engaging. One of the things that drew me to embarking on these books is reviews from people with widely diverse political views called these books fair and impartial. These days that ain't easy to earn.

Book Review: Jerusalem: A Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore

A guest review by Scott Danielson. After I received the review book and realized it was not my sort of book, he filled the gap as someone who could appreciate and evaluate the book for me. Many thanks, Scott!

Prophets and patriarchs, Abraham, David, Jesus and Muhammad are said to have trodden these stones. The Abrahamic religions were born there and the world will also end there on the Day of Judgement. Jerusalem, sacred to the Peoples of the Book, is the city of the Book: the Bible is, in many ways, Jerusalem’s own chronicle and its readers, from the Jews and early Christians via the Muslim conquerors and the Crusaders to today’s American evangelists, have repeatedly altered her history to fulfil biblical prophecy.

A person could read the above paragraph and be inspired to consider how wonderful and sacred a place Jerusalem must be.  Another person would be forced to think about the bloodshed that has occurred in the names of those religions in Jerusalem.  I have never been there, but this book makes me understand that it's both of those things.  The history of Jerusalem contains examples of the best and the worst that humans have wrought on each other.

Simon Sebag Montefiore called his book Jerusalem: A Biography for two reasons.  First, the city has a personality of its own.  In that paragraph above, he refers to Jerusalem as "her".  The Talmud also refers to Jerusalem as a woman.  The second reason is that the book is about "the people that made Jerusalem, and how they built it, and how it developed.  It's people and families that build cities."

The book presents the history of Jerusalem from Abraham to the Six Day War.  It is separated into chapters that usually focus on a single historical figure.  Some example chapter titles: "The Fall of Antigonos: Last of the Maccabeans", "Duke Godfrey: The Siege", and "The Emperor and the Caliph: Charlemagne and Haroud al-Rashid".  The chapters are short and can be read as self-contained stories within the story.  It's extremely well-organized, very readable, and will be an excellent resource for years to come.

I never felt that the author (who is Jewish) was agenda driven.  In fact, I would have to say that the book had a distinct secular feel to it.  Referring to the paragraph at the beginning of this review, he states that people "have repeatedly altered her history to fulfill biblical prophecy", implying that any prophecy that may have been fulfilled was purposeful and deliberate.  This includes Jesus.  Of the Resurrection, Montefiore says: "Archaeologists tend to believe that the body was simply removed and buried by friends and family in another rock-cut tomb somewhere around Jerusalem."  The book is not "about" the religions of Jerusalem, but the subject is impossible to escape.  Overall, I feel he did a remarkable even-handed job, treating all religions with a bit of detachment.

I learned a great deal from this book, and I look forward to visiting Jerusalem someday.  I've stated before that I'm waiting for the dust to settle before I do, but it hasn't settled for 3000 years.  I don't expect it will any time soon.

Walk This [Roman] Way

I did make one hypothesis while I was there. Just one. I wish I could share with you more than that. It was something I noticed. As I stood close to the location to the Temple of the Vestal Virgins I could see the collossium. In fact it is in walking distance. It was not that far from the Senate building where the laws were made, and the emperors sat, and I could imagine that when the wind was good, and the conditions right, 50, 000 voices shouting in their blood lust could be heard through the windows.

I wonder what laws were passed based on that sound.

I've been thoroughly enjoying the Ancient Rome Refocused podcast. It has the informality and "outside the envelope" thinking that puts one in mind of Hardcore History (I have a feeling that Rob Cain is going to get very tired of that comparison). Now I see that his blog is just as entertaining, informative, and thought provoking. Check it out.