Category Archives: History

Adrian Goldsworthy – Caesar: Life of a Colossus

Julius Caesar’s story has been told a thousand times. What Goldsworthy brings to his telling is an attention to detail. For the larger-picture, go elsewhere; Christian Meier’s Caesar: A Biography is generally considered the definitive Caesar biography. But for hard-to-find details about Caesar’s personality, insights about what made him tick, and mostly-forgotten life events from flings to the demands he made of his captors while being held for ransom by pirates, Goldsworthy excels.

Barbara Tuchman – The Guns of August

A history of the first month of World War I, and the events leading up to it. Tuchman writes well and tells a good story, but more than anything this book re-taught me why I’m not much on military history.

War is what happens when something goes seriously wrong; it is the breakdown of society. Soldiers and generals are a bit like doctors in that they are trying to fix what’s wrong. But they’re more the type of doctor that treats a tuberculosis patient’s cough while leaving the root disease untouched. There is value in having some people study symptomatic relief, but treating the root problem does more good.

This is why I am more interested in culture and institutions than in pincer movements, multiple fronts, and the quarreling opinions of various generals. Why is often a much more useful and interesting question than what.

Simon Schama – Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution

An utterly conventional chronological narrative, focusing on major personalities more than larger cultural and economic forces. Schama writes well and vividly portrays the Revolution’s most famous moments, from the storming of the Bastille to Marat’s assassination. But overall this is a milquetoast history, lacking any major thesis or attempt at interpretation, or much personality of its own.

Some of this is for the better; Schama’s understanding of economics and public policy is clearly limited. Citizens is a good introductory text for learning the major names, dates, and factions of the Revolution. And he tells a good story. But to find out what the French Revolution means and why it deserves careful study, look elsewhere.

Thomas Paine, Edmund Burke, the Marquis de Condorcet, and Benjamin Constant all wrote very good, and very different contemporary contributions. For a modern narrative with a broader historical and philosophical perspective, Will and Ariel Durant’s Rousseau and Revolution is much better.

Plutarch – Parallel Lives

A Roman who wrote in the first century A.D., Plutarch wrote history through biography—an approach many contemporary historians could learn from. His purpose had more to do with moral instruction rather than to tell a chronicle narrative history.

Plutarch tells his biographies mostly in pairs, typically with one Greek and one Roman, with a short comparison afterwards. For example, he compares the Greek rhetorician Demosthenes with the Roman Cicero, Alexander the Great with Julius Caesar, and the mythical Athenian founder Theseus with Romulus.

He writes of each man’s accomplishments, but also tells of their personal lives and their personal character. This makes for livelier reading, and better serves Plutarch’s intended moral purpose. He was also a proficient storyteller, with Shakespeare drawing directly from Plutarch for many of his historical plays.