5 comments about Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare.

1. I have been a Shakespeare scholar since college, and I am 68 Years old. This was the best book about the Bard that I have ever read. The writing is clear, he relates the times to the plays, and his criticisms are cogent.



2. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was the greatest playwright ever to grace the stage and page in the English language; he also remains the most elusive of biographical figures. Biographers who tackle the Bard undertake an exercise in conjecture, for even though by the seventeenth century England was a record-keeping society--the better to busy subsequent scholars--huge gaps remain in even the most basic reconstructions of Shakespeare's life. Greenblatt's subtitle, then, is a misnomer, for we really do not know how Shakespeare became Shakespeare, how a person from a provincial town, a modest family, and no wealth or personal connections, chose his vocation and "wrote the most important body of imaginative literature of the last thousand years" (p. 12).
   
   The exact date of Shakespeare's birth (April 23 or 26?) is debated, and as for his death, we have no surviving account of the details of his last days, final illness and passing. All points in between, too, are matters of hypothesis and speculation. We think we know the name of his Stratford school teacher. The decade or more after he presumably finished school, and before he left Stratford for London, are known as the "lost years" because we know virtually nothing about this period of his life. Was he apprenticed to be a butcher? Did he follow in his father's footsteps as a glove maker? Perhaps he did a stint as a private tutor? Ambiguity qualifies all suggestions. We do know that at age eighteen (November 1582) he married Anne Hathaway, age twenty-six, and by the time he was twenty-one he had three children. Some time after that he left his wife and children and moved to London, although exactly how, when or why we do not know. Similar ignorance clouds our knowledge about his written work. We have, for example, only one manuscript autograph that was written by Shakespeare. Were his 154 sonnets written to a certain gay lover, or to a wider audience of men and women? "There is no way of achieving any certainty," writes Greenblatt, for "no one has been able to offer more than guesses, careful or wild." We have none of his personal letters, none of the books he surely owned, and nothing that is overtly self-revealing in his writings that otherwise revealed more about the complexities of human interiority than any other texts. After roughly twenty years in London, Shakespeare returned to Stratford and the family he had left behind, but even the date of this return is a matter of speculation.
   
   How can we explain the breadth and depth of obscurity that hides even the basics of Shakespeare's life? It might simply be the result of historical accident and chance. Four hundred years is a long time. Perhaps more practical considerations, like avoiding trouble with political and ecclesial authorities, caused him to keep a low profile; to the former playwrights were subversive and to the latter immoral. Still, Greenblatt suggests that in Shakespeare's life and writings there is a deliberate "act of erasure" (p. 255) that prevents us from knowing him.
   
   What Greenblatt does in his book is "to tread the shadowy paths that lead from the life Shakespeare lived into the literature he created" (p. 12). His views on anti-semitism, for example, emerge from consideration of his relationship with Christopher Marlow (who wrote The Jew of Malta) and his own play The Merchant of Venice. The death of his son Hamnet at age eleven and his father elucidate Hamlet and Shakespeare's genius at portraying human interiority and especially "tormented inwardness." King Lear connects with his return to Stratford from London's limelight and the last five years or so when he returned to Stratford and embraced the inevitability of old age, loss of power and identity, and family tensions. Greenblatt also shines in explaining the socio-cultural essentials of the day, such as the emergence of sixteenth century theater in London, the horrible violence that engulfed England as it alternated between Catholic and Protestant royalty, the literary nature of a sonnet to both hide and reveal, and so on. As the founder and leader of the New Historicist movement in literary studies, some have criticized Greenblatt for the notion that literature and art emerge mainly as a construct from society and less from a single individual's effort, the result being that readers learn more about Shakespeare's context than about the writer himself.
   
   Greenblatt, professor of humanities at Harvard and one of the leading Shakespeare scholars today, has written an elegant book about a fascinating figure. Twenty or so color and black and white plates compliment the text.



3. Not much is known about the life of William Shakespeare. Even though by the seventeenth century England was a record keeping nation, gaps remain in even the most basic reconstructions of Shakespeare's life. The surviving traces of his life are abundant but thin. The decade or more after he presumably finished school, and before he left Stratford for London, are known as the "lost years" because we know virtually nothing about this period of his life. We have no surviving account of the details of his last days, final illness and passing. All points in between, too, are matters of hypothesis and speculation. We have none of his personal letters, none of the books he surely owned. The author, Stephen Greenblatt, a Harvard professor and Shakespeare historian, thus asks us to imagine certain aspects of Shakespeare's life. The book is thus more assumptions about Shakespeare's life than a true biography.
   
   The author succeeds in taking the reader back into the Elizabethan world in which Shakespeare lived. One needed to obtain a coat of arms from inheritance or university education (Oxford or Cambridge) to become a gentleman, which was almost impossible without money. It was a world where the Queen was ex-communicated by the roman Pope, where the Jews were unjustly kicked out of England (by the end of the 13th Century all Jews had been deported from England), where Catholics were publicly and brutally executed, where people died of the bubonic plague, and where women were burnt for the crime of witchcraft and magic. It is a great introduction to that era for those not familiar with it.
   
   There were some amusing parts I really enjoyed. For example, I found myself laughing at the playwright's relationship with Robert Greene (discussed as a chief source for the character of Falstaff). Those passages were really entertaining.
   
   For a man who succeeded in writing such beautiful love prose, it seemed that his life was lacking of love. Shakespeare (1564-1616) was 18 and his wife, Anne Hathaway, 26 when they got married in November of 1582. By the time he was twenty-one he had three children. He married her because she was pregnant. For the times, he was considered to be underage. In most likelihood Shakespeare did not love his wife. He bequeathed her only his "second best bed" in his will, after more than thirty years of marriage!
   
   Were his sonnets written to a male lover? Homosexuality was accepted at the time. Since man was considered superior to women it was not surprising to anyone if men fell in love with each other. It was also the custom at the time that no writer ever wrote love sonnets to his wife. Most writers wrote of the hellish enterprise of marriage. Some, like Francis Bacon, refused to marry.
   
   We learn much about his father. The author analyzes Shakespeare's father's rise and fall as a public figure in Stratford. At one point his father went bankrupt, and his dreams of ever getting the `coat of arms' vanished. However, with Shakespeare's success and fortune, the `coat of arms' was bought.
   
   We learn about Christopher Marlowe, the most prominent playwright of the time, who died in a bar fight at age 30. Some say he might have been a spy. Shakespeare was inspired by his play Tamberlane, and wanted to equal or surpass him. Marlowe was thus an inspiration to Shakespeare.
   
   Surprisingly, actors were seen as whores and vagabonds. Shakespeare wanted to be a gentleman. He paid later for the coat of arms with money earned from his theatre in order to gain the status of gentleman. Costumes were very important and very expensive, and the playwright's most important assets. Actors were allowed to wear them only on stage else be arrested for impersonating gentlemen.
   
   After roughly twenty years in London, Shakespeare finally returned to Stratford and the family he had left behind. His wish was to live with his daughter and her husband, and his grandchild.
   
   Shakespeare was a master at the ability to use words to question power, authority and evil. He had a rich vocabulary and had invented many words. He borrowed a lot from real life and other sources, but his words were unique. He went to court and witnessed executions, held a skull in his hand in a cemetery and wondered who this man could have been and what clothes he wore.
   
   Some suspect that all the works attributed to Shakespeare weren't really by him. However this was not addressed by the author. Greenblatts seems confident of the authenticity of Shakespeare's authorship. (Shakespeare wrote 39 plays that scholars know of between 1590 and 1613 including a play that was lost and 154 sonnets.)
   
   Until his death at the age of 52, Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, All's Well That Ends Well, Othello, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Winter's Tale. Some of the plays were actually co-authored by other writers.
   
   One reviewer writes the following very enlightening comment I thought I must include: "In the jungles of Yucatan, our mystical guide, Pepe, opined that most, if not all, very successful individuals were visitors from outer space who rose above the strivings of ordinary earthlings because of their extraterrestrial powers. Pepe's explanation is most tempting when one seeks to comprehend how an Elizabethan playwright and poet, Will Shakespeare, so far eclipsed every mere earthling before or since the time he visited our planet. But if one isn't satisfied with Pepe's facile philosophy of greatness, read Stephen Greenblatt's masterful biography, Will in the World. He comes closer than the thousands of previous biographers and commentators to a recreation of Shakespeare in the Elizabethan setting, and his outstanding accomplishment may lead some of us to believe that he, too, is an extraterrestrial."
   
   For Shakespeare, all the world did become a stage!



4. This is one of the most interesting books that I read last year.
   
   While it is highly speculative it can be entertaining and even in portions insightful. Even though that there is no specific evidence that the Bard was a secret Catholic the events that unfolded around the area where he grew up could indicate this at least circumstantially. Where the book does take liberates I don't think Stephen Greenblatt is being deliberately sloppy he just knows that in terms of subject mater old Will has been done to death and no one is really going to add anything. So why not write something a little more speculative?
   
   Overall-It probably didn't happen but it MIGHT have happened "all the world's a stage and men in their time play many parts"



5. I think a lot of Shakespeare fans are grateful when a new bio comes out. It seems to revive the strength of the usual authorship assumption. The book gives evidence that the Shakespeares might have been covertly Catholic and on that basis mainly to suggest that William may have got his deep and spectacularly undocumented formal education in Greek, the classics, and other subjects in a clandestine Catholic stronghold where drama was performed. It sounds exciting to suggest that there was something special and secretive going on along these lines in Shakespeare's parental home family; but a lot of English still leaned Catholic back then, naturally enough, since even the previous queen, Elizabeth's sister, was "bloodily" Catholic Mary. I was given Greenblatt's book as a birthday present and did read it carefully, but didn't feel further enlightened by it or even convinced it contained any additional information about his life that bore very certainly or tellingly on Shakespeare as author. The best Shakespeare biographies are the short ones, I think. Three or four pages. Of course, beyond that there's lots to read interestedly about the times and Elizabethan/Jacobean theater. Like other Shakespeare book-length bios, this one isn't likely to much increase your understanding of or appreciation for the brilliant Shakespeare plays.

5 comments about Saints Behaving Badly: The Cutthroats, Crooks, Trollops, Con Men, and Devil-Worshippers Who Became Saints.

1. If Saints can behave badly, there is hope for all of us!
   
   Like many people, I have always found the lives of the Catholic saints fascinating. If you succumb to this fascination as I do, this is the book for you.
   
   Saints from every walk of life abound - thieves, liars, an extortionist, even a former prostitute. What I really loved, was that as bad and as really human as some of these saints were..at the end they found redemption.
   
   Hope for us all!



2. I was disappointed in this book in that it covers virtually unknown and/or extremely obscure Saints of which little is known. Put this book next to your night stand - you'll be asleep before the second page.



3. This is wonderfully small, concise book about human beings who stumbled in life then redeemed themselves. Few of us will ever accomplish or achieve such a feat. I like the back stories and the interesting way in which the author kept interesting yet short.



4. Oh my!! Maybe there is hope for all of us. Some of the lives of these saints before they "saw the light" are horrible. Easy read with fun information.



5. Wow this is a book that was hard to put down. Enjoyed learning a bit of history and the lives of the saints. I truely believe now that there is hope for us all. Great read!

5 comments about Sealed With a Kiss.

1. As a DOD Contractor working the last few years in Iraq, I've found birthdays over here can be mediocre. But the birthday I had yesterday was the best ever! A few months ago an AMAZING friend I have here, Dotty, found out I've loved KISS since I was a kid. She asked me how I got into them and I told her my Mom always supported my music habit by buying any albums I wanted...especially KISS. A week or so later, Dotty asked me my Mom's name. I told her "Patsy", thinking nothing of it. Well I turned 44 yesterday, and Dotty handed my present to me. An autographed AND PERSONALIZED copy of Lydia Criss' book, "Sealed With A KISS". Dotty had emailed Lydia and asked her to personalize it. On the inside page Lydia wrote "To Richard: You were lucky to have a Mom like Patsy. Wish there were more out there like HER! Love, Kisses, and BETH Wishes! ~Lydia Criss" I was FLOORED! This book is incredible and personal. It gives insight into the band and their personal lives like no other book has before!! The pictures are rare and have never appeared in other publications. Thank you so much Lydia, and even more...THANK YOU DOTTY!!
   ~Richard



2. O.k. This is the best, honest book that will EVER be written by anyone associated with Kiss. THIS IS BETH, Folks. Lydia was there from the very beginning. Her insight on the boys is honest and funny. Every girl who thought it would be cool to marry a musician should read this. She saw the hard work that created Kiss in the 70's was there for ups and downs with Peter.
   
   The pictures are GREAT and the way everything is set up makes for an easy read. I have the Hardback so it just looks great.
   
   There are about 4 books on Kiss that are worth it to fans: This one, Gene's first book about himself(go figure), the book by a girl who use to hang out with Ace and one by a manager (I think Kiss and Sell or Kiss and Tell) from the 70's. The Manager's book and Lydia's book give a good record of life with Kiss in the 70's.
   
   Again, forget what Kiss has become and enjoy it's past.



3. I thought the book was great. It was fabulous to see the other side of the Peter Criss not just about the drummer but about just him.



4. Awesome book, especially for the old time KISS fans. Lots & great pictures & background info.



5. Right up front this book is well worth the purchase price. It is loaded with numerous photos that have never been seen before by KISS fans consisting of concerts, 'behind-the-scenes' and the like. Peter Criss and the whole 'KISSworld' are presented in an interesting light. This is quite literally the best book on KISS I've ever read (and I've read almost all of them) since becoming a fan back in 1976! Lydia is quite open about a lot of things that fans may be surprised to read. Truly a "must-have" for any KISS fan's collection.

5 comments about Birds, Beasts, and Relatives.

1. I eagerly read this after "My Family and Other Animals" (which I had enjoyed immensely). It contains stories which were omitted from "My Family" and while the offerings were still magical and wonderfully well-written and sometimes hilarious (especially the story about the turtle), it lacked the memorability of its predecessor. There was also no real structure in the order of the stories, this is more of a miscellaneous collection.



2. Gerald Durrell is the younger brother of Lawrence Durrell. The island of Corfu lies off of the Albanian and Greek coastlines. The family settled there to escape the deary English weather.
   
   Gerald's mother fought a losing battle with the Greek language. The family members became familiar with all of the peasants in the region. Gerald had a tutor named George who was an adept of fencing and an adult scientist friend named Theodore.

   Gerald visited the rock pools while his sister swam. Margo's sun bathing bothered a church functionary, a monk. Gerald sought permission to follow a fisherman, to accompany him in his boat when he fished at night. The fisherman used a trident to catch scorpios.

   There was a myrtle forest near the family's house. Gerald received a rich dark brown donkey for his birthday. The donkey was used by Gerald to transport things. Larry brought home friends, artists and writers, and brought home an artist who could play the accordian, Sven.

   Theordore had told a countess that Gerald, who was a fairly young boy at the time, was a naturalist and had a number of pets. The countess offered to give him a white owl who had an injured wing. Gerald went to fetch it and to meet her on his donkey.

   He wanted to add baby hedgehogs to his menagerie. When he went away for a weekend his sister overfed them and they died. The book is joyous and colorful. The snippets above are used to give the reader a sense of what to expect.




3. The books arrived in perfect condition and in very good time. I am completely satisfied.



4. This is another wonderful books of Gerald Durrell's memories of his time on the island of Corfu prior to the Second World War. He takes us back to another time and place before the world changed for good.
   
   Each chapter is a separate story and rememberence of those days when as a young man he marvels at not only the natural world around him, but also the various people he encounters and learns to appreciate. It is easy to get lost in one of these stories and feel like you are there with him on a hot summer day with his faithful dogs tagging along beside him.
   
   I recommend this book to anyone who not only loves nature, but also can appreciate a time gone by when people were different and even strangers were looked as guests. This book is one that I intend to read again and again in the coming years and will appreciate the stories just much each time as the first time.



5. I have been a huge fan of Gerald Durrell's books since childhood, especially the ones that his family features in, predominantly. This is the follow up to My Family and Other Animals and it is just as much fun!
   Highly recommended.

4 comments about Mortician Diaries: The Dead-Honest Truth from a Life Spent with Death.

1. You might not expect a memoir by an eighty-year-old woman to deal with topics such as gang warfare, AIDS, racism, unplanned pregnancies, and feminism, but this one does. You also might not expect a book called Mortician Diaries to be anything but morbid, but Nadle possesses the gift of bringing her over 50-year-long career as a mortician and her lust for life to the page. She's the kind of woman who visits cemeteries when she travels, to see how different cultures treat the dead. She uses phrases like "death care industry" and urges readers to create a "dialogue on death," but never lapses into a cold, analytical account. Every page is bursting with humanity, with people who are learning how to grieve in their own way. This book is as much about psychology as it is about death.
   
   June Nadle's Mortician's Diaries offer a rare, heartfelt, and wonderfully honest insight into the "highlights" of the career of a lifelong mortician, capturing some of the most emotionally intense and interesting stories from her years working with death. The grandmotherly Nadle doesn't shy away from the subject, and encourages her readers to openly confront and discuss death, not in an obsessive, morbid way, but to gain closure and be as prepared as possible when the time comes, even though sometimes death catches us anawares. She offers case studies, such as an elderly woman who planned every detail of her own funeral to the story of a mother clinging to her newly-dead baby, unable to accept his death despite the blood soaking his tiny body, until Nadle speaks to her mother to mother and allows her to see that her older children also need her to be present for them. Nadle does not judge her clients, but offers psychological insights into why denial rears its head and how natural it is. In "The Mother Who Risked Her Life to Grieve," Nadle tells of one service, after a gang-related drive-by shooting, that's interrupted by bullets, and the following day the trip to the ceremony is made along with patrol cars flanking the mourners.
   
   Her case studies are fascinating, and showcase a wide swath of humanity, across cultures and relationships. Friends, lovers, husbands, wives, parents, and children mourn for those they've lost as well as grapple with their sometimes conflicted relationships with the deceased. Nadle allows each of them to work their way toward mourning rather than pushing a socially-approved agenda or timeline onto them. She handles each one with dignity and compassion, and clearly attempts to understand the often-painful mix of emotions the bereaved feel.
   
   As someone who's always tried to escape talking about death, especially when it comes to my most loved ones, I welcomed Nadle's approach. She has seen deaths of humans and animals, often under horrific, or simply human, circumstances, and offers a brief glimpse into her wisdom and, most of all, her heart. By reading of the many who did not appreciate their loved ones during life, whether the parents who shunned their gay sons who later died of AIDS, or the father who berated his little girl for, well, not being a boy, only regretting this when she was killed by a passing car at age four, to the father who sent his 17-year-old pregnant daughter away and made her feel ashamed, one gains an appreciation for one's own family. Nadle reminds us that it's not just life versus death, but about the quality of one's life that matters. She writes: "As humans, we have the unique ability to pause, to reflect, to acknowledge life, and to be reminded of our own mortal natures. In addition to our grief, death brings us the opportunity to reassess our own lives as well as our relationships so we can vow (maybe again) to make changes we see are needed." She offers various examples of how funerals can be conducted and the value they provided to the surviving family and friends.
   
   Though this book will most likely bring tears to your eyes, it's not solemn or overly sad, but instead is about, as she would have it, a celebration of life and all that's in it.



2. Excellently written book. Written with love, compassion, and a deep understanding of love, life, and death. A must read for anyone and everyone!



3. June has a wonderful way of presenting the intriguing stories then briefly discussing the significance of the experience. Through her stories she discusses teaching children about death, forgiving the dead, forgiving yourself after a loved one has died, stages of grief, and looking at death realisticly rather than with fear. Some stories are comical, some are heart-wrenching, and others are eye-opening. My husband and I read this book together and really enjoyed it! Thanks June!



4. I really enjoyed reading this quick read biographical book as I am currently working on my own book (fiction) about the life of a woman who is a funeral director. The author shows her intelligence, sensitivity and humor in the stories she relates about her career as a mortician.

1 comments about The Raven King: Matthias Corvinus and the Fate of His Lost Library.

1. THE BOOK WAS NOT WHAT I EXPECTED. WHEREAS I DO USUALLY LIKE SCHOLARLY BIOGRAPHIES, I FOUND THIS ONE TO BE OVERLY SCHOLARLY AND NOT AT ALL ENTERTAINING. I HAVE RETURNED THE BOOK FOR A REFUND.

5 comments about Black Ice.

1. The author of Black Ice is Lorene Cary. This book is mostly about racism, and a young girl named Lorene being highly educated] and working with whites in a restaurant. I think anybody older than twelve and up will enjoy this text; Black Ice was mostly talking about Lorene's childhood.
   This book was quiet interesting. In order to see if a book is going to be good, read the reference page. If its interesting then read the first page. If you not, ask for assistance.
   This novel will be a good book for fifth graders. It will help them know more about the past between blacks, and whites. It will help increase your vocabulary, and give you more history out of the story. By a chance, you will probably enjoy reading Lorene Cary's autobiography of her childhood life.



2. Dear peer,
   The first thing that you need to know about Black Ice is the author which is Lorene Gary. I liked this book because I learned that you can make mistakes of doing drugs, but you can quit just in time to have a better future.
   This book is about a girl named Libby; she went to a boarding school at St. Paul's High
   School. She once went to a forest to smoke weed and pot with a group of friends. Also in this text Libby was forced to have relationship with this boy. He gave Libby a necklace of engagement, because he really liked her a lot. But Libby did not like him, so she threw the necklace away and Libby's mom picked it up and she wore it on her neck.
   This story is short in length, but difficult to read. It was difficult because, a lot of event happens in every chapter and you have to read it carefully so that you could know what is happening.
   My opinion about this text is that it is very interesting and it kept me entertained while I was reading the story. That is my opinion and the reason I think this book is very interesting because, I like reading Auto-Biographies. I really enjoyed reading this publication about Libby life.
   Thank you peer for taking your time and reading this essay. I hope you make your decision and read this book. So that you could know everything that happens in this master pieace.



3. 
   This review is for the students. The title of the book is Black Ice and the author of the book is Lorene Cary. To me I say this book was very interesting. The reason why was interesting, because it talked about how blacks and whites used to be segregated. They were both segregated and both races were treated differently. For example, the whites had better facilities then the blacks. That is why I thought the novel was interesting, but others who might have read this book over the summer maybe they did not think this book was as interesting. Therefore, I say this book is not made for everyone to read the masterpiece, just because one person may like the book does not mean that everyone likes the story. If someone who has not yet read the novel but would like to it would be better if they asked someone who has already read the book if the text would be a good novel for them to read or not to read. The student who has not yet read the publication would need to know what the text is about so they can determine if they would like to read the novel or not read it.
   The students who may like to read about how people different races are treated differently. They might like to read this novel to learn more about all of their backgrounds.



4. This book is horrible. The writing is badly done, and it is so drawn out and boring. It felt like one hour to read one chapter it was so bad.



5. This book is interesting, and the author actually spoke at my school (Temple University) which was awesome. She goes into detail within the book and leaves you guessing.

5 comments about Alexander of Macedon 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography.

1. Green gives the reader a well-written and detailed biography of Alexander the Great. Green is adept in his descriptions of Alexander's military strategies, with explict visual illustrations of each battle. Further, he explores the psychology of Alexander, without beating the "Oedipal Complex" to death. Of note, is his sympathetic portrayal of Olympias and Philip the II.



2. It's obvious Mr. Green knows his stuff but I feel this was written for a few of his peers and not the average reader. He tends to explain why he thinks what he thinks, and why others might be wrong or right, or whether new research challenges long held beliefs, etc. which is fine when chatting with your pals who are also well versed in the subject but better left to an appendix in a book as it stems the narrative flow. Please just tell me what happened, tell me why you think so later. I trust you. More than once I found myself at the bottom of the page having to reread it because my mind began to wonder.
   The author assumes the reader is an academic like himself and peppers the book with phrases like, "The truth of the matter can never be known for certain. If we apply the cui bono principle, then Alexander undoubtedly had everything to gain..." and "De l'audace, toujours de l'audace, encore de l'audace: all through his life this was to be Alexander's guiding star, ..." and so on.
   This in not a friendly book for commuters or people who like to read before bed. The chapters range from 30-60 pages a piece so every time you pick it up you're making a commitment. One personal annoyance is that, when referring to something he has already touched upon, the author has the bad habit of saying (see above pg. 47) or (see above pg 123) It paints a picture of him editing it on his computer, why not just say see pg. 47 or pg. 123 why the "above"?
   Academics and those already familiar with the subject may enjoy the book, History Channel historians who saw a cool special on Alexander and want to learn more may want to look elsewhere.



3. I'm very disappointed with this book.
   I was looking for some objective and critic biography but this book have an obvious agenda from page one: put down Alexander by any possible means.
   For Mr Green every good or great thing Alexander is credited to had done is just propaganda or flattery.
   He can even doubt the result of a great battle like Granicus because our sources are few and unreliable. For him it was a defeat hidden by propaganda, a theory he make up with nearly zero backup from the ancient sources.
   But instead, he don't hesitate to follow without doubt every nasty detail some of this sources could give us about the bad acts of Alexander (the chapter about Cleitus assassination for example is pure gossipy).
   For me, thats not an historian...
   A shame...



4. Peter Green is one of the foremost scholars of Alexander the Great. His biography of the Macedonian King is based upon the evidence of the ancient sources, which are themselves only secondary sources, since the eye-witnesses to Alexander's exploits are unfortunately no longer extant. Green does not have "an agenda" as some reviewers have suggested; he is merely evaluating the evidence of Arrian, Plutarch, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, etc., etc. as it they read it in Callisthenes, Ptolemy, Aristobulus, Onesicritus, etc., etc. All of the non-extant primary sources had their own agendas. Callisthenes was Alexander's press agent and image maker; Ptolemy, who highjacked the king's body, wrote his subsequent history of the expediton in such a way that his own exploits were highlighted.
   
   All of what Green writes is in the ancient sources. He has not made up the facts that Alexander could be very unpleasant at times (Consider his treatment of Thebes, Tyre, and Gaza; not to mention his reported murders of Philip's general, Parmenio; Parmenio's son, Philotas; Alexander's old family retainer Cleitus; Alexander's cousin, Alexander of Lyncestis, and the king's own spin-doctor Callisthenes [Alexander ordered the last two to be carried around in cages, Lyncestis for three years and Callisthenes for several months until he died of obesity and lice in India, according to Plutarch.]).
   
   If Green's Alexander does not live up to the "idealized" Alexander of those who have not read the ancient accounts, it is because we are dealing with a man who, with the aid of Callisthenes, had carefully crafted his own image. That image, which was always grandiose, became even larger than life after Alexander's death, when his successors got busy rendering the Macedonian king's image into their own images.
   
   Alexander was not Alexander the Saint; Alexander the British Public Schoolboy; Alexander the Guy-I'd-Like-to-Have-a-Drink-With (Heavens forfend!); Alexander the Ideal Husband; or even Alexander the Nice, he was actually Alexander the Imperialist! And yes, he was Great! Anyone who can march an entire army--indeed a mobile state--around for ten years, traveling 22,000 miles through snow-blasted mountains and sand-driven deserts deserves the term Great, no matter how many men and women he kills in the process (and Alexander's collateral damage was not to be sneezed at!). The fact that we are even arguing about him today demonstrates that he achieved his dream in renouncing his father Philip and becoming, first the Son of Zeus-Ammon; and next the New Triumphant Dionysus. Alexander has indeed achieved immortality.
   
   Peter Green has demonstrated Alexander's Greatness in a manner that is both exciting and eminently readable. If he has knocked the Macedonian off his gold-plated pedestal of propriety, Green has done readers a singular service, and, in the process, he has brought Alexander to life as the complex, deeply disturbing--and infinitely interesting--character that, according to the ancient sources, he certainly must have been.



5. Alexander, usually known as the Great, was truly great if we are speaking of military prowess. Perhaps the greatest general the world has ever known, Alexander had an insatiable desire to conquer. His motivation did not seem to lie in wealth but in the desire for power, the lust of battle, and the march toward deification. No army could stand against him, all other men were diminished in his presence, he was the ultimate conqueror. He conquered everything except himself, and this proved to be his undoing.
   
   Today we all but idolize men such as Alexander, however it is worth noting that at his death he was universally hated. He most likely died of poisoning, possibly at the hand of his tutor Aristotle, and the entire world rejoiced. As soon as he died his empire fractured. Green writes, "He spent his life, with legendary success, in the pursuit of personal glory, ... and until very recent times this was regarded as a wholly laudable aim. The empire he built collapsed the moment he was gone" (p.488). Perhaps this is a lesson for us all.
   
   This is surely one of the best biographies on the life of Alexander the Great. I recommend it for all that have interest in such subjects.

No comments about Prophetess of Health: Ellen G. White and the Origins of the Seventh-day Adventist Hearl Reform, 30th Anniversary Edition (Library of Religious Biography).

5 comments about Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time.

1. Read the Koran. It is a short book. There is no need to rely on Karen Armstrong to tell you what it says. Her omission of the parts of the Koran which call for violence and intolerance makes her book a truly one-sided affair. To her credit, she warns you of her agenda right up front. She wants to convince you that a particular point of view is correct. What she does not say is that she omits passages from the Koran, Muhammad's utterances, and other facts inconsistent with that point of view.
   
   She says nothing of the passages in the Koran which tell Muslims not to help unbelievers and not to be their friends. She ignores the parts of the Koran which mandate violence against unbelievers (Suras 8 and 9, for example). She does not mention the Hadith relating Muhammad's statement that, before the Final Day, the Muslims will kill the Jews (If you think such things have no relevance to Muslim's today, you will find reference to this Hadith in Article 7 of the Charter of Hamas, the present ruling party in Palestine). To read Armstrong's book, you would not guess that most Muslim scholars teach - based on Muhammad's statements - that unbelievers should not be allowed to set foot on the Arabian peninsula.
   
   Armstrong also fails to take into account the principle of Koranic interpretation which requires that later suras be given more weight than earlier ones. Muhammad's earlier suras tend to sound more tolerant and peaceful - he was part of a small minority in Mecca when he uttered them. The later suras are more intolerant and violent because they are from the time when Muhammad was in power in Medina, raiding Meccan caravans for a living. "Raiding" means killing people (Armstrong says killing people was not really the point), taking their property, and enslaving survivors. Armstrong says Muhammad did these things to get the Meccans' "attention." No doubt. These later suras are given more weight by Muslim scholars.
   
   Armstrong does relate some facts which reflect badly on Muhammad. That is unavoidable in even the most pro-Muhammad account. When she does so, however, she consistently makes excuses or tries to explain them away. She does a truly remarkable job of telling the story of the Muslims' execution (by beheading) of 700 male captives in one day, the selling into slavery of their families, and Muhammad's approval in advance of these actions. It is clear these executions could not have happened if he had opposed them. Muhammad is a "prophet for our time" anyway.
   
   Armstrong also blurs the distinctions between Islam and other religions. For example, she says that Muslims believe in Jesus, but does not point out that the Koran clearly denies the Christian belief that Jesus was the son of God and also denies he was crucified. While it may be fair to point out that Muhammad believed in Jesus, it seems misleading not to add this information.
   
   Because you must read several other books - including at least the Koran - to disabuse yourself of the silly notions Armstrong states as fact, her book seems a waste of time.



2. "Islamic Sex Laws Are Easy to Break, Impossible to Enforce"
   Los Angeles Daily Journal
   
   August 5, 1999
   
   By Khaled Abou El Fadl
   
   Laws endeavor to resolve conflicts and regulate human behavior. However, often the real force of law is in making moral points, educating and indoctrinating. Some legal systems moralize explicitly, while other legal systems indulge in the fiction of moral neutrality. But all legal systems say something about the morality of right and wrong.
   
   For example, in Islamic law, one of the world's oldest and perhaps most significant legal systems, sometimes morality is the only point - which is hardly surprising considering that Islamic law is also a religious system. But what is fascinating about Islamic law is the way it balances competing moralities at the expense of the possibility of enforcement.
   
   For instance, Islamic law is reputed to be a rather strict, puritan legal system. This is both true and false. Consider the way Islamic law punishes illicit sexual relations. The punishment for fornication or adultery in Islam is rather harsh. A fornicator is flogged 100 lashes, and an adulterer is stoned to death. However, adultery or fornication can only be proven in two ways.
   
   First, it can be proven by a free, uncoerced confession that is repeated three times on three separate occasions. If the alleged perpetrator confesses twice but recants on the third time, he or she cannot be punished.
   
   The second way fornication or adultery can be proven is by the testimony of four adult males who witness the actual act of penetration. It is not sufficient for the witnesses to catch the couple naked in bed. Likewise, if the witnesses see an act of oral copulation, that is not sufficient. A videotape or pregnancy is also inadequate to prove fornication or adultery. Furthermore, the evidence is excluded if the witnesses violate the defendant's privacy. In other words, spying will not do.
   
   A false accusation of adultery or fornication will result in punishment for sexual slander, which is 60 hard lashes. For example, if three witnesses say they saw the act of penetration while the fourth witness changes his mind at the last minute saying, "I am not sure I saw the penetration," then the first three witnesses are punished for slander.
   
   Obviously, in Islamic law the crime of fornication or adultery is hard, if not impossible, to prove. So why have the punishment at all? There are two competing values here.
   
   Illicit sexual relations must be condemned. At the same time, people should mind their own business, and spying or slandering cannot be tolerated. The solution was to make the moral point that fornication and adultery are terrible crimes, and only if they could be proven would they be punished severely. Nevertheless, the issue is generally between a person and God. Societal interests are implicated when these crimes are committed openly and publicly.
   
   At the same time, an accusatory culture in which people spy and slander is reprehensible, and that will be punished as well. Unlike our legal system, making the moral point is a sufficient justification for the law, even with practically no chance of enforcement.



3. Karen Armstrong's Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time directly addresses the central conflict of our times, "Some Muslim thinkers regard the jihad against Mecca as the climax of Muhammad's career and fail to note that he eventually abjured warfare and adopted a nonviolent policy. Western critics also persist in seeing the Prophet of Islam as a man of war, and fail to see that from the very first he was opposed to the jahili arrogance and egotism that not only fueled the aggression of his time but is much in evidence in some leaders, Western and Muslim alike, today."
   
   Karen goes out of her way to present a balanced and fair perspective on the life of Muhammad. She does this by basing her biography on the Prophet's response to al-Jahiliyah: commonly translated as "an Islamic concept of 'ignorance of divine guidance.'" Karen examinees more than Jahiliyah's theological significance, going into its practical impact on the culture of the Arabian peninsula. The dominant jahili spirit of the time was arrogant, quick to take a offense, warlike and vengeful. Islam, as practiced and taught by the Prophet, Karen makes clear, was a rejection of all of these traits - usually to the great consternation of his followers:
   
   "And the servants of Allah, Most Gracious are those who walk on the earth in humility, and when the ignorant (jahilun) address them, they say, `Peace!' " (Sura The Criterion 25:63 - translation from The Qur'an: Text, Translation & Commentary.)
   
   The revelations that form the Qur'an came to Muhammad not always in dreams or trances, but were sometimes aggressive even terrifying experiences. Muhammad describes the nature of revelation as gently falling like rain" and, at other times, traumatically, where he feels his "soul ripped away."
   
   After revelation, even the Prophet needed to take time to understand what had been revealed. Karen writes, "[Allah] instructed Muhammad to listen to intently to each revelation as it emerged; he must be careful not to impose a meaning on a verse prematurely, before it's full significance had become entirely clear."
   
   "High above all is Allah, the King, the Truth! Be not in haste with the Qur'an before its revelation to thee is completed, but say, "O my Lord! advance me in knowledge." (Sura Ta-ha, 20:114)
   
   Karen, like others, notes that the Qur'an itself has been structured as high-level Arabic poetry, a concept central to the impact of the Qur'an on its Arabic audiences. This is a point entirely missed by Western audiences. You can get some sense of it by listening to a good chanter reciting the verses, but it's a shallow appreciation at best. Karen describes how listening to "the rich, allusive language and rhythms of the Qur'an helped [the Muslims] to slow down their mental processes and enter a different mode of consciousness."
   
   Karen portrays, through the biography, the Qur'an's shared vision of the "people of the book" - the Islamic concept of a shared heritage of monotheism between Muslim, Christian and Jew:
   
   "Say: `We believe in Allah, and in what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Isma'il, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and in (the Books) given to Moses, Jesus, and the prophets, from their Lord: We make no distinction between one and another among them, and to Allah do we bow our will [lahu muslimun].' " (Sura The Family Of 'Imran 3:84)
   
   In addition to the creed that there's "no God but God" these three great religions believe in a similar destiny and consequently all deserve both tolerance and freedom to practice their faith:
   
   "Those who believe (in the Qur'an), those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Sabians and the Christians,- any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness,- on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve." (Sura The Table 5:69)
   
   "To thee We sent the Scripture in truth, confirming the scripture that came before it, and guarding it in safety: so judge between them by what Allah hath revealed, and follow not their vain desires, diverging from the Truth that hath come to thee. To each among you have we prescribed a law and an open way. If Allah had so willed, He would have made you a single people, but (His plan is) to test you in what He hath given you: so strive as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to Allah. It is He that will show you the truth of the matters in which ye dispute[.]" (Sura The Table, 5:48)
   
   I have a couple of minor complaints. I wish that Karen had used the Qur'anic names for the characters that both the Holy Bible and the Holy Qur'an have in common. For example, Jibrl for Gabriel; Ibrahim for Abraham; Isa for Jesus; Musa for Moses, and so on. After all, Karen is telling the story of Muhammad and quotes extensively from the Qur'an. It just would have seemed more natural and less distracting to me.
   
   Another problem is that the book is edited sloppily in a couple of places: for example on page 43 (of my paper bound edition) a footnote starts out explaining that "Arabs customarily take an honorary title known as the kunya [...] Muhammad was known as"
   
   And the footnote ends right there. Whatever Muhammad was known as, was lost somewhere between Karen's word-processor and the printing press.
   
   Karen's biography of Muhammad reveals a very human prophet; a man who struggled with his faith, culture, peers and enemies. She strikes a balance between the "easy" teachings of Islam (tolerance, generosity, etc.) and the "hard" teachings, contrasting "jihad" to Augustine's "just war" is a comparison most Christian minds would prefer to avoid.
   
   Karen ends the book with some good advice, "If we are to avoid catastrophe, the Muslim and Western worlds must learn not merely to tolerate but to appreciate one another. A good place to start is with the figure of Muhammad [...]"
   
   All in all, this was an interesting read, only occasionally "preachy" and a good introduction for those who may want to pursue deeper studies in Islam or the Islamic culture that has so dramatically shaped the Middle East. I wish I'd read it before tackling In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad. It would have made that book a lot clearer.



4. Karen Armstrong, noted religious historian, writes here her second biography of the prophet Muhammad, this time with the explicit intention of combating the rampant Islamophobia of the West.
   
   I knew almost nothing of the prophet before reading this book, and so Armstrong's is a welcome (if not scintillating - she can be a bit dry) introduction. I appreciated the historical and cultural context she placed him in, the stories from his life, and her non-condescension towards the spiritual. That said, her bias seems clear by the end: This is a favorable portrayal. Muhammad eschews luxury ("not simply a waste of money, but ingratitude, a thankless squandering of Allah's precious bounty"), he champions religious tolerance, non-violence, and women's rights (the veil was only for his wives, to protect them from his enemies). Armstrong seeks to put his repeated marrying and his sometimes brutal actions (beheading several hundred Jews, for example) into an - again, sympathetic - cultural context. Of course, with books like The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion on the market, a sympathetic portrayal from a learned outsider is perhaps welcome. Yet I would have appreciated a more balanced-feeling book. And Armstrong gives no clues to the gap between the Muhammad she portrays and the perceptions of Islam by the West today (oppression of women, religious intolerance and violence among certain subpopulations). That said, as Laurie Goodstein writes, this may be a good way "to glimpse how the vast majority of the world's Muslims understand their prophet and their faith" [1].
   
   With those caveats: I would recommend this to a novice desiring to learn of the prophet; but of course, since I haven't read any others, perhaps I'm not the one to ask. (Once I tried Introducing Muhammad but drifted on to other books.)
   
   I located three professional reviews easily available on-line. One is positive: "Ms. Armstrong argues that he [Muhammad] prevailed by compassion, wisdom and steadfast submission to God. This is the power of his story and the reason that more parents around the world name their children Muhammad than any other name" [1]. The other two are negative, one on content (the book "is a thinly veiled hagiography" [2]) and the other on style ("Readers will find her style stilted" [3]).
   
   [1] Laurie Goodstein, "Seeing Muhammad as Both a Prophet and a Politician," New York Times, 20 Dec 2006. [Also published in the International Herald Tribune.]
   [2] Efraim Karsh, "The Perfect Surrender," The New York Sun, 25 Sep 2006.
   [3] Ilan Stavans, "The path of the prophet," Boston Globe, 29 Oct 2006.
   
   * I listened to the unabridged audiobook, narrated by the author. It was only six discs but took me a while, as this isn't exactly a page-turner (or track-turner, if you will).
   
   ** One aspect I found particularly interesting was that some stories paralleled stories from my own faith tradition, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For example, when one antagonist went to attach Muhammad and was instead converted, followed by another; this is evocative of a story about early Mormon apostle Wilford Woodruff. And when an army of Muslims is slaughtered but their bravery leads to the conversion of many of the attackers, the story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehis in the Book of Mormon comes to mind.



5. It would be too much to expect that the founder of any of the world's major religions could be understood from one book, even at the introductory level (not counting sacred scripture, direct exposure to which may be essential). Consider Christianity, consider Buddhism. In the U.S., especialy after 9/11, it may be especially difficult to understand the life of Muhammad. Even before 9/11, even from the early times of Islam, Christian sources were critical of Islam and Muhammad. It is difficult to get a balanced read from any single source: if such a source exists, how to know which it is?
   
   I had read the Qu'ran years ago but recently have read criticisms of Muhammad from conservative Christians. I had been impressed from my own reading of the Qu'ran and by my Muslim friends so was more than skeptical of the criticisms I read of both Islam and Muhammad. Not expecting to get to an answer easily but not wanting to spend too much time to get some perspective, I opted for this portrait which, by intent, set out to present Muhammad in a "balanced way". I had not read Karen Armstrong before. I knew she did not have a scholarly background in Islam ( excepting self-made), but that she seemed respected in the area of comparative religions, although not without critics. So I chose this book expecting it to have introductory value and to offset or put into perspective some criticisms of Muhammad I had heard from conservative Christians.
   
   This is an exceptionally well-written book and it does not seem to dodge some of those aspects of Muhammad's life that others were critical of. It does, as Armstrong intended, appear to attest well to his contributions. I expect it will serve me well as I learn more about Muhammad and the formative history of Islam, which I mean to do.
   
   Armstrong does bring alive the conditions under which Muhammad responded to challenges and made key decisions. The success of early Islam was far from a "done deal". On the other hand, it by no means seems that Islam was nearing any final form when Muhammad died [of course, think how far from any final form that was of Christianity or Buddhism when Jesus and the Buddha died].
   
   Any impressions of Muhammad I have at this point are tentative but having read this book I feel better equipped to consider the impact of Muhammad on how women were treated in Islam, of the expectations on Muslims to care for one another, of how Muslims should treat others (Armstrong emphasizes the pluralism of early Islam), of how the fight for survival was mingled in to the efforts to reveal the sacred. Armstrong presents a complex and dynamic Muhammad, who changed and developed, leading his people while at the same time experience the revelations of the Qu'ran]. There is a lot to take in here and, for me, re-reading the Qu'ran seems on inevitable step.
   
   It does seem most remarkable, as Armstrong makes quite clear, that Muhammad so strongly discouraged that he himself be regarded as divine. Armstrong writes, echoing Abu Bakr, who was close to Muhammad about a warning from Muhammad: "He was a mere mortal, no different from anybody else." Armstrong quotes Abu Bakr: "O people, if anyone worships Muhammad, Muhammad is dead. If anyone worships God, God is alive, immortal." [ Ibn Ishaaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, 1012 in Guillaume, Life of Muhammad]. How different Christianity would have been with such an understanding: the nearest Christian teaching have been as that of Arius and rejected by 4th century Christian orthodoxy.
   
   There is plenty of information about historical events, revelations from the Qu'ran as they occurred, historical context that helped give me at the least a side of the picture of Muhammad's life. Is Armstrong's depiction too sympathetic? I can't decide yet. It will undoubtedly take time. There seems to be a struggle to control how we view Muhammad and early Islam: it would be surprising if I were otherwise but makes it difficult to expose biases and factor them out to the extent they can be.
   
   As for the current situation, I plan to read Carl Ernst's Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World (Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks) soon. I recently read Alaa Al Aswany's Chicago: A Novel, an outstanding novel about Egyptian Muslims adjusting to life in the post 9/11 U.S. It provided me at least some sense of how Muhammad and Islam guide the day to day life of U.S. Muslims, fictional characters but perhaps seeming all too real.