★★★★☆ How did Athens gain and lose power in Greece?

Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy

John R Hale

I read Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy 12 years ago (4-Jan-2011). I was of course aware of Athens as one of the first democracies (debatable, of course, but that's what their advertising claimed). And of course it's famous for such philosophers as Plato and Socrates. I knew that at Salamis (the harbor town of Athens) one of the most important sea battles of history was won. I have even read the books of Xenophon and Thucydides. I had thus managed to delude myself into believing I understood something of Athenian history.

I was mistaken! Historian and Archaeologist John R. Hale tells the story of how Athens rose to power because of the strength of its navy. And eventually fell from power. Oared ships underlay the power that supported the Greatest Hits I listed above. The Battle of Salamis is described well here.

Amazon review

Goodreads review

Comments

★★★☆☆ What is it like to be an octopus?

Children of Ruin Adrian Tchaikovsky There is a famous essay called What is it like to be a Bat? / Wie ist es, eine Fledermaus zu sein? by philosopher Thomas Nagel . (Although I am not a philosopher, I am a neuroscientist, and as a neuroscientist it is almost impossible to avoid knowing a little of the nonsense philosophers think about how minds work.) Nagel attempts to make an argument about consciousness. He argues that the consciousness of a bat is an experience a human cannot possibly have or understand, because echolocation is so unhuman. I have a little fantasy about Adrian Tchaikovsky 's Children of Time series . I imagine he read Nagel 's effusion and said to himself, "Utter nonsense! I'm gonna show that I can imagine not only what it's like to be a bat, but even what it's like to be a spider or an octopus!" ( Nagel in fact raises the question of invertebrate experience in his essay, only to make the point that it is an even h...

★★★☆☆ Be wary. Be clever. Be good.

One Dark Window Rachel Gillig I finished One Dark Window with a feeling of dissatisfaction, that I'm having a hard time explaining. When I updated my progress at 57%, I remarked "Too much smolder, too little actual fire." By that I meant that it seemed as if Rachel Gillig spent all her time telling us how to feel, and too little describing actual events. Now, objectively, that is false. One Dark Window is full of event -- there are battles and magic spells and romance. Yet, somehow, I can't shake the impression. If you asked me to summarize the plot of One Dark Window , I would find it difficult. Even though I just finished it last night, I have a hard time remembering the events of the story, or arranging them into any semblance of order -- salient/nonsalient, this happened because of that... The Acknowledgements provide a small hint of the nature of the problem. Gillig writes, "To John, my husband who brags about me, holds and feed...

★★★☆☆ Mostly interesting for the juggling lore

Lord Valentine's Castle Robert Silverberg I remember that I was a grad student in biochemistry when I read Robert Silverberg 's Lord Valentine's Castle . I was a grad student from 1976 - 1983, so I must have read it not long after it came out in 1979. I read it because I am and always have been a science fiction fan, and Silverberg has a BIG reputation -- I had read praise of him from many of my favorite authors. So I got this novel and read it. I never read another book by Silverberg , which probably tells you everything you need to know about my opinion. What's the book about? Well, the publisher's blurb begins thus Valentine, a wanderer who knows nothing except his name, finds himself on the fringes of a great city, and joins a troupe of jugglers and acrobats; gradually, he remembers that he is the Coronal Valentine, executive ruler of the vast world of Majipoor, and all its peoples, human and otherwise... This plot summary reminds me of the following qu...

★★★★☆ Which Thursday?

One of Our Thursdays Is Missing Jasper Fforde This installment of Jasper Fforde 's Thursday Next series features a new main character. Actually, she's not quite new -- we met her in First Among Sequels . She is Thursday Next - 5, the fictional Thursday Next in an unsuccessful fifth Thursday Next book promoted because Thursday, the Real World Thursday, was unhappy with her own portrayal in the series. This introductory scene from First Among Sequels will give you a pretty good idea of her personality But I did bring you some breakfast.’ ‘Well, in that case . . .’ I looked into the bag she handed me and frowned.‘Wait a minute – that doesn’t look like a bacon sandwich.’ ‘It isn’t. It’s a crispy lentil cake made with soya milk and bean curd. It cleanses the bowels. Bacon definitely will give you a heart attack.’ ‘How thoughtful of you,’ I remarked sarcastically. ‘The body is a temple, right?’ ‘Right. And I didn’t get you coffee because it r...

★★★★☆ To dream with a little help from my friends

The Lathe of Heaven Ursula K Le Guin ** spoiler alert ** In 1975 Ursula K. Le Guin won both the Hugo and the Nebula for best novel for The Dispossessed . This was by no means the first time the same book had won both the Hugo and the Nebula. However, Le Guin had accomplished the same feat once before, in 1970 with The Left Hand of Darkness . As far as I knew at the time, she was the only author to have done this twice. ( Arthur C. Clarke also did it, but later.) Therefore I read The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed , and subsequently everything by Le Guin I could get my hands on. Thus I came to read The Lathe of Heaven . It is, I believe the first novel she wrote. It was not the first novel she published -- presumably the success of Left Hand of Darkness relieved the reluctance of some publishers. Le Guin was the apogee of a movement. At the time I read Lathe of Heaven ...

★★★★☆ Matrimonial predators

The Brides of High Hill Nghi Vo We catch up with Chih, who is accompanying the Pham family -- Mr and Mrs Pham and their daughter Pham Nhung to the castle of Lord Guo. The Phams are a family of merchants down on their luck, and Nhung has been proposed in marriage to Lord Guo. She and Chih met cute, and she asked them to accompany her to Lord Guo's castle for the marriage negotiation. Chih appears to have a mini-crush on Nhung, which she appears to encourage. Chih desperately misses their neixin Almost Brilliant, who is mysteriously absent. Nhung is naturally worried about being married. Chih, who knows many stories, true and fictional, about husbands and wives, would like to reassure her, but cannot honestly do so. Stuff happens. You will recognize the story pretty quickly. It's Bluebeard. You probably already figured that out -- the plural "Brides" in the title kind of gives it away. In this one Chih faces serious personal danger, more immediate than in any other S...

★★★★☆ Cliché, manipulative, but still surprisingly entertaining

Silent Scream Angela Marson I have noticed that many Goodreads reviewers are subtractors. What I mean by that is that they appear to evaluate books (or at least review them) by listing all the faults they can find, and then giving a low rating to those works that have lots of faults. In the alternative, adder, strategy, one looks for the good things in a book and gives a high score to a book that has lots of good stuff. I myself am mostly an adder (although I make no claim to absolute strategic purity). I mention this because Angela Marsons 's Silent Scream has serious faults. I'm going to mention a couple of them, but I nevertheless give it a four-star rating. First, you should know (this is not a fault, but just something you should know going in), that Silent Scream is emotionally heavy. It concerns institutionalized children (mostly girls) who are abused in almost every awful way you can imagine. What's more, protagonist Kim Stone is herself a survivor ...

★★★☆☆ I'm still struggling with Easy Rawlins

A Red Death Walter Mosley I began reading Walter Mosley 's Easy Rawlins mysteries because one of them appeared in the Marvel Netflix series Luke Cage . (Sneer if you like, but I have read better books for much worse reasons.) I didn't much enjoy Devil in a Blue Dress -- in my review , I wrote, ...it is not a terrible well-constructed novel. There's just too much going on: too many characters, too many locations, too much event. It held my interest, but I was lost much of the time. But Blue Dress was Mosley 's debut novel, and I thought it could only get better. A Red Death is the second book, and it is not measurably better. It still felt like work to read it. The plot doesn't just meander -- it careens drunkenly from one scene to another. And there are so many minor characters. Every time a name appeared, I found myself asking, "Who is this person, now?" Also, there was one specific thing I disliked. Easy Rawlins is one ...

★★★☆☆ Introducing Rincewind and Twoflower and The Luggage

The Color of Magic Terry Pratchett I have an ambiguous relationship with Terry Pratchett and the Discworld . On the one hand, I have enjoyed everything I've ever read by Pratchett , some more than others. On the other hand, Pratchett is so relentlessly and extravagantly hyped by his supporters that it always put my back up. ( Pratchett himself is innocent of the hype, claiming that "his greatest service to literature was to avoid writing any.") The Discworld is equally daunting in a different way. It consists (according to Amazon) of 41 books. I didn't want to commit to a 41-book series. Pratchett , no fool, understands the reluctance of readers to embark on such a journey, and claims that "The Discworld novels can be read in any order." I will not say that he's lying, because it is certainly physically POSSIBLE to read the series in any order, but he is definitely indulging in some heavy-grade misdirection. I know because I tr...

★★★★★ Tactical Assault Clown

Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass—How I Went 77 Years Without Growing Up Dave Barry There is one living human who can write prose that makes me laugh so hard I can't breathe. That person is Tactical Assault Clown Dave Barry . Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass—How I Went 77 Years Without Growing Up had that effect on me at least twice -- an automatic five-star rating. ("Tactical Assault Clown" is right up there with "Combat Epistemologist" ( The Jennifer Morgue ) on my list of creative military specializations. And if you're one of those people who get their knickers all in a twist when someone uses parens inside of parens, you know what you can do about it.) (Yes, I know I'm not funny.) It's not all ROFL funny. In fact, he tells about his father's alcoholism ( that story has a happy ending ) and his mother's suicide ( that one obviously does not ). Later in the book he tries to convince us that his real li...

Search This Blog