Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond

    2003; 440 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Full Title: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.  Genres : Ancient History; Human Geography; Non-Fiction.  Laurels: 1998 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction; 1997 Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science.  Overall Rating: 9½*/10.

 

    Outnumbered armies of Western European countries pulled off a pair of amazing victories in the 16^th century.  Cortez and a couple hundred conquistadors vanquished the powerful Aztec Empire in Mexico.  A few years later, Pizarro duplicated that feat against the Inca Empire in Peru.

 

    But both Spanish armies had some huge advantages.  Their soldiers had guns and horses, the Aztecs and Incas had none.  The Spanish also carried germs that decimated the Aztec and Incan populations with deadly plagues.  The Spaniards had steel swords, the Aztecs and Incas fought with stone hatchets.

 

    Those were all decisive edges for the European invaders.  But why hadn’t Mesoamerican civilizations developed similar weapons technologies?  And why weren’t the Aztec and Incan populace infested with their own sets of germs to which Europeans invaders would have no resistance?

 

    Jared Diamond examines the possible root causes of these technological and bacteriological factors of Guns, Germs, and Steel.  He comes to some surprising conclusions.

 

What’s To Like...

    After a brief Prologue wherein Jared Diamond recounts the incident that caused him to research this subject, Guns, Germs, and Steel is divided into five sections, namely:

    Part 1: From Eden to Cajamarca.  Notable conquests.

    Part 2: The Rise and Spread of Food Production.  Farming and animal domestication.

    Part 3: From Food to Guns, Germs, and Steel.  The evolution of armies.

    Part 4: Around the World in Five Chapters.  How each global landmass was populated.

    Epilogue: The Future of Human History as a Science.  Conclusions and Critiques.

 

    I was impressed by the author's meticulous research into the history of global conquests.  Regardless of geographic location, human civilization begins with the formation of hunter-gatherer bands, which still exist in a few, isolated areas of the world.  With some exceptions, those bands grow into tribes, which grow into chiefdoms, which grow into states.  The greater the population of the state, the more likely it will develop centralized government and armies.

 

    There are many factors that can hinder such a natural progression though, which are detailed in the text.  Not all crops are rich enough in proteins to feed sizable quantities of people.  Geographic boundaries, such as deserts, mountains, and oceans can also deter progress.  So does the absence of any sizable animals that are amenable to domestication.  There’s no use in inventing the wheel and chariots if you don’t have any beasts to pull them.

 

    I loved the way Jared Diamond presented the details of the evolution of Civilization.  How do you go about “inventing” writing?  Why did the Norsemen fail to found a permanent settlement in Canada after they discovered it?  And perhaps most curious of all, why did the clunky QWERTY keyboard become the worldwide standard for typing communications?

 

    There are at least three editions of Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997, 2003, 2007).  I happened to be reading the 2003 edition, which closes with the author responding to the various feedback—both positive and negative—that arose from people after reading the 1997 version.  Guns, Germs, and Steel won a Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction in 1998, which means it garnered a wide and diverse leadership.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 14,611 ratings and 3,190 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.04*/5, based on 469,675 ratings and 16,336 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Inventing a writing system from scratch must have been incomparably more difficult than borrowing and adapting one.  The first scribes had to settle on basic principles that we now take for granted.  For example, they had to figure out how to decompose a continuous utterance into speech units, regardless of whether those units were taken as words, syllables, or phonemes.  They had to learn to recognize the same sound or speech unit through all our normal variations in speech volume, pitch, speed, emphasis, phrase grouping, and individual idiosyncrasies of pronunciation.  They had to decide that a writing system should ignore all of that variation.  They then had to devise ways to represent sounds by symbols.  (pg. 217)

 

    The striking differences between long-term histories of peoples of the different continents have been due not to innate differences in the peoples themselves but to differences in their environments.  I expect that if the populations of Aboriginal Australia and Eurasia could have been interchanged during the Late Pleistocene, the original Aboriginal Australians would now be the ones occupying most of the Americas and Australia, as well as Eurasia, while the Aboriginal Eurasians would be the ones now reduced to downtrodden fragments in Australia.  (pg. 405)

 

What caveman or cavewoman ever got the idea of “domesticating” a plant, and how was it accomplished?  (pg. 114)

    As would be expected in a work of scholarly non-fiction, there is almost no profanity in Guns, Germs, and Steel.  I noted just three instances, all of which involved the use of the word damn.  I didn’t catch a single typo, but perhaps these were caught and corrected in between the first and second editions.

 

    About the only quibble I can come up with is that the section on Agriculture was how many pages dealt with the way Food Production arose in various areas of the world.  Different crops work well or not-so-well in different climates.  Some were better at being hybridized than others; some contained oodles more protein than others.  Spending pages comparing corn to, say, sorghum got a bit tedious for me.

 

    But overall, Guns, Germs, and Steel thoroughly resonated with me.  I learned a lot from reading it, and since I muchly enjoy reading about Ancient History, this book was tailor-made for me.  It’s actually the first book in a trilogy; with the other two books titled Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed and Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis.  I think I need to go looking for these.

 

    9½ Stars.  One last thing.  Chapter 19, How Africa Became Black, deals with the history of the various empires, conquests, and peoples of that continent, particularly in the sub-Saharan and tropical areas.  I don’t recall ever reading such a detailed, informative account of this.  It was freakin’ awesome!

Justinian's Empire - Nick Holmes

    2024; 367 pages.  Book 4 (out of 4, but eventually 6) in “The Fall of the Roman Empire” series.  Full Title: Justinian’s Empire – Triumph and Tragedy.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Ancient History; Rome; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    I learned the date in my World History class: The Roman Empire collapsed in 476 CE when the Goths sacked Rome.

 

    Except, at the risk of splitting hairs, that wasn’t its total end.  Yes, the Western Roman Empire was no more.  But the Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital of Constantinople, was doing relatively well, at least as long as it was happy to simply maintain its present borders.

 

    True, those pesky Persians kept raiding along its eastern borders; buying-&-selling was throttled by the smallest currency one could use in a solid gold coin; and worst of all, the populace was bitterly divided over whether Jesus was both human-&-divine, or just plain old divine.  But those issues are nothing that a dynamic Emperor can’t fix.

 

    Unfortunately, the present one, Anastasius, is a bit underqualified.  I sure hope the next Emperor is better.

 

What’s To Like...

    Nick Holmes divides Justinian’s Empire into four parts, namely:

    Part 1. New Rome, New Romans:  pg. 26, 12 sections.

    Part 2. The Peasant and the Prostitute: pg. 86, 12 sections.

    Part 3. The Age of Conquest: pg. 147, 15 sections.

    Part 4. Apocalypse Now:  pg. 254, 20 sections.

Those 59 sections cover 367 pages of text, which averages out to about 6 pages per chapter, and means there's always a good place to stop reading for the night.

 

    The book covers the years from 468 CE, the year that Vandal-controlled Carthage destroyed a Roman armada trying to retake the city, to 565 CE, the year the (Eastern) Roman Emperor Justinian died.  The bulk of Justinian’s Empire is devoted to Justinian and his “can-do-anything” military leader, Belisarius.  They’re both introduced around page 100 (+/- 10 pages) and are the main focus throughout the rest of the book.

 

    I loved the degree of detail that author Nick Holmes imparts to this critical time in World History.  The “gold coin” dilemma was solved by the introduction of low-value copper coins called “follis” which were so important to the daily paying of workers’ wages.  I was surprised to learn of the “Late Antique Little Ice Age” in 536 CE, and the devastating Plague in 541 CE, both of which killed millions of people worldwide, with civilizations having no way to defend against their effect.  And I smirked when about the “Nika riots” which prove that athletic games provoking hooligans to urban violence is nothing new.

 

    Justinian is generally hailed as a hero by modern historians.  Nick Holmes assesses this over the last couple of chapters, giving reasons whether the Emperor's various military and economic campaigns were worth it in the end.  In any event, Justinian’s reign was arguably the high-water mark of the Eastern Roman Empire.  The next book reportedly focuses on the efforts of subsequent emperors to maintain that level of glory.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Slanging Match (n.) : a heated argument or quarrel where people insult each other.

Others: Monophysites (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 88 ratings and 5 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.45/5 based on 31 ratings and 3 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Basilicus was a man who, over the last 1,500 years, has received not one kind word from any chronicler or historian.  He was universally detested in the sixth century and he still is.  Indeed, it was truly remarkable that he attained the position of emperor at all, and once he did, he did everything possible to lose it.  His first foolish action was to promote the lover of his beautiful wife, Zenonis.  Unknown to him, but known to everyone else, she was having a passionate affair with a senator called Armatus.  (pg. 44)

 

    Chosroes marched fast into the Roman interior.  None of our sources say whether Antioch was his aim right from the beginning.  But he was certainly going in the right direction to reach the empire’s second most important city.  He avoided the city of Callinicum, where Belisarius had suffered his only defeat, and stopped instead at the town of Sura.  Procopius says he chose Sura because as he passed it, his horse neighed and stamped the ground, which the magi (Persian priests) thought showed it would easily fall.  But the magi made a mistake.  The first Persian assault was beaten back with heavy losses.  (pg. 258)

 

Kindle Details…

   Justinian’s Empire presently sells for $5.99 at Amazon.  Book One in the series, The Roman Revolution is on sale for just $0.99 right now, and Books 2 and 3 cost  $5.99 apiece.  An earlier work of the author, The Byzantine World War is available for $2.99.

 

“The rich Goth wants to be Roman but only the poor Roman wants to be a Goth.”  (pg. 204)

    As was true in the previous book, there is zero profanity and/or adult situations in Justinian’s Empire.  One of the Empresses is mentioned as previously being a prostitute, but I count that as a historical fact.  Heck, similar situations exist in present-day politics, and for the most part elicit yawns.

 

    I only caught one typo.  On page 106, Theodora’s “premature death” is given as occurring in 448 CE, which is certainly premature since that was before she was born.  As the Timeline section in the back of the book notes, the correct year is 548 CE.

 

    The direct links to Footnotes work very smoothly, but when Maps and Illustrations are referenced in the text, they are not set up with active links.  That was also true in the previous book.

 

    Enough nitpicking.  I found Justinian’s Empire to be another great entry in Nick Holmes’ “The Fall of the Roman Empire” series.  It isn’t easy chronicling the events in a world that almost no one, including me, knows much about, and do it in a coherent manner.  Justinian’s Empire succeeds wonderfully in that regard.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  Finding any historical records of the events covered in Justinian’s Empire apparently is quite the challenge.  Nick Holmes’ favorite source is a Greek historian named Procopius, whose “official” account, titled History of the Wars, is filled with oodles of praise for Justinian, Belisarius, and their spouses, all of whom presumably loved this adulation.

    But Procopius wrote a second chronicle of the same events, titled it Secret History, which presented these four characters in a much less favorable light, and which was not made public until they had all died, presumably to avoid retaliation.

    Discretion truly is the better part of valor.

The Invention of Yesterday - Tamim Ansary

   2019; 407 pages.  Full Title: The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000 Year History of Human Culture, Connection.  New Author?  : Yes.  Genres : Ancient History; World History;  Non-Fiction; Anthropology.  Overall Rating: 9½*/10.

 

    Okay, I admit it.  I’m a history nerd.  I’ve been one ever since 7^th grade when Mrs. Stoudt taught “World History 1”, introducing us to ancient empires and closing with the fall of the Roman Empire.  She made a profound impact on me, but I have noticed, however, that there’s a subtle bias in history classes, even if it’s a college history course.

 

    For instance, in the “Greeks vs. Persians” chapters (Alexander the Great, Thermopylae, Socrates, etc.) the Greeks are always portrayed as the heroic defenders of democracy; the Persians are always the evil bullies.  The Crusaders are invariably cast as the defenders of the Faith, even though they were invading the Near East.  And in 476 CE, after Rome was sacked, we entered the Dark Ages where evidently nothing notable happened anywhere in the world for the next 400 years.

 

    But how did those Persians view their wars with Greece?  What went through the minds of Palestinian Muslims (besides swords and arrows) when the Crusaders fought into the streets of Jerusalem?  And surely the empires in China, India, and the Middle East were doing something while Europe was enduring four centuries of the Dark Ages, right?

 

    Tamim Ansary examines all those questions, and a whole lot more, in his book, The Invention of Yesterday.

 

What’s To Like...

    As the subtitle indicates, Tamim Ansary places the dawn of human civilization at 50,000 BCE (after a brief review of terrestrial life dating back to 15 million BCE), when homo sapiens separated themselves from the rest of animal world via three innovations: tools, environment adaptation, and most importantly, language.  He divides The Invention of Yesterday into 31 chapters, covering world history from way back then up until now, with the last three chapters even giving his musings about where we’re headed.

 

    Squeezing 50 millennia of history into 400 pages is amazing, but what impressed me even more was the breadth of the realms that Ansary focuses on.  Events in China, India, Mesopotamia, and Egypt get just as much attention as European happenings.  The Americas and Africa also get some ink, albeit not as lengthy due to a lack of annals in those areas.

 

    The main point of the book is that there inevitably were a lot more interactions between all the various empires (aka “social constellations”; more on that in a bit.), not only via wars, but also through trading, traveling, technological advancements, and even plagues.  The author even goes so far as to suggest that “the policies of China’s Qing government did contribute to the birth of the United States.  Thank you for asking.”

 

    There are lots of maps, all of them easily expandable.  There are lots of footnotes, a majority of which are the author’s asides, and worth your time reading.  The text is crammed full of fascinating historical tidbits, including Mithraism (I once knew a devotee of it!); the “People of the Sea” (one of the great historical mysteries); Daevas (who?!); and the etymology of the word “Lombards”.

 

    So if you’re looking for a comprehensive history book that’s both enlightening and interesting, which goes beyond just “Western Civilization” and is filled with lots of facts and trivia, The Invention of Yesterday might be a perfect fit.  You’ll even get to see those invading Persians, the Crusaders, and the Dark Ages in an entirely different light.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 307 ratings and 61 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.27*/5, based on 1,022 ratings and 151 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Concatenation (n.) : a series of interconnected things or events.

Others : Reifying (v.).

 

Excerpts...

    In many cases, the paintings in a given cave were made over the course of thousands of years; people were coming there to paint, generation after generation.  But the oldest of them were made about forty thousand years ago, and the odd thing is, those earliest paintings were already quite sophisticated.  What hasn’t turned up are transitional products.  It’s not like Stone Age painters spent a few hundred generations learning to doodle and then a few hundred making blotches vaguely suggestive of animal shapes and then finally figuring out how to make recognizable horses and hunters.  Instead, it seems that around thirty-five to forty-five millennia ago, people rather suddenly started making sophisticated art.  (pg. 13)

 

    The Americas had grasslands too, but the hunter-gatherers who lived there never developed into pastoral nomadic civilizations capable of taking on the big urban powers.  Instead, they continued to refine their hunting-and-gathering way of life.  The reason is simple: North America had no animals that could be domesticated.  It had no sheep, no goats, no cows, nothing that could be herded.  It’s true that millions of bison roamed the great plains, but for some reason, these ill-tempered animals can’t be tamed, and when you can’t domesticate a grouchy two-ton animal with horns, you’d better not try to milk it.  (pg. 170)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Invention of Yesterday sells for $17.99 right now at Amazon.  Tamim Ansary has eight other e-books for your Kindle, ranging in price from $2.99 to $17.99.

 

In 1290, after populist rumors arose that Jews were eating Christian babies for Passover, all Jews of England were expelled.  (pg. 220)

    As one would expect, there’s very little cussing in The Invention of Yesterday; just 4 instances in the entire book: two “damns”, one “hell”, plus one “for Christ’s sake”.  The typos were few and far between, but more than I expected.  Examples: Atilla/Attila; lamas/llamas; unleased/unleashed; Columbia/Colombia; identity/identify; honey bees/honeybees.

 

    The author likes to coin phrases such as social constellations, social organisms, trialectic (a modification of “dialectic”), progress narrative, belief systems, and my favorite: bleshing (a portmanteau of ‘blending’ and ‘meshing’, referring to what happens when cultures, religions, and/or nations collide).  These are quite innovative, but sometimes I struggled to remember exactly what they meant.

 

    That’s all I can gripe about.  For me, The Invention of Yesterday was a great read, giving me new insights into all sorts of historical interactions and an opportunity to learn about various ancient empires that existed in places outside of Europe.  I’m looking forward to reading more books by this author.

 

    9½ Stars.  One last thing.  There’s a small town here in Arizona called Bisbee.  It’s not well known, and mostly exists for artists and tourists who want to experience that “Old West” feeling.  Incredibly, it gets mentioned in The Invention of Yesterday (pg. 75).  Wowza.

Rome and Attila - Nick Holmes

    2024; 281 pages.  Book 3 (out of 3, but eventually 6) in “The Fall of the Roman Empire” series.  Full Title: Rome and Attila: Rome’s Greatest Enemy.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Ancient History; Rome; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Quick, what person and/or barbarian tribe were most responsible for the collapse of the western Roman empire?

 

    Well, I remember from my college history class a Germanic leader named Alaric, and he and his Visigoths did a brutal sack of Rome.  But that was in 410 CE, and I was taught that Rome fell in 476 C, long after Alaric was dead.  So something doesn’t quite add up.

 

    The guy who deposed the last emperor of Rome in 476 was named Odoacer.  He declared himself king of Italy, and he was a barbarian.  But he was the leader of the pitiful remains of the Roman army when he took over, which is misleading since those Roman legions were mostly made up of Germanic mercenaries.

 

    A case could be made for the Vandals under the leadership of Gaiseric.  They conquered Carthage in 439 CE, cutting off vital grain shipments and tax revenues to Rome.  That was a devastating blow, but Gaiseric never set foot in Rome.

 

    Nick Holmes proposes a different candidate: Attila the Hun, even though he also never set foot in Rome, died in 453 CE, and never claimed the throne.  Let’s see what kind of case can be made for Attila and his Huns.

 

What’s To Like...

    Rome and Attila, Book 3 in a projected 6-volume series, focuses on the short-but-critical historical time period 410-476 CE, although it also recaps the events of 360-410 CE, which were spotlighted in Book 2.  This book is divided into four parts, namely:

    Part 1. The Origin of Our Destruction:  pg. 23, 8 sections

    Part 2. The False Dawn: pg. 68, 8 sections

    Part 3. The Scourge of God: pg. 111, 11 sections

    Part 4. The Last Days of the Empire:  pg. 205, 8 sections

 

    I enjoyed learning about all sorts of movers and shakers in the decline of the Roman Empire.  Attila receives the primary focus; all of Part 3 is devoted to his life and its impact on both halves of the Roman Empire.  A lot of other players are also introduced, including Ataulf, Valentinian III, Aetius, Theodoric, Ricimer, Marjorian, and the already-mentioned trio Alaric, Gaiseric, and Odoacer. A number of influential women are also introduced to the reader, including Galla Placidia, Hypatia, Honoria (see below), Kreka, Aelia Pulcheria, and Aelia Eudocia.  Galla Placidia is a particularly memorable.

 

    I was impressed with the way Nick Holmes juggles the various kingdoms and tribes and their activities and migrations.  The reader has to keep track of Western Roman Emperors, Eastern Roman Emperors, Persians, Huns, White Huns, Visigoths, usurpers, Vandals, and all sorts of Germanic tribes, each carrying out their own agenda.  Yet somehow it never became confusing.

 

    I also liked the way other influences are presented in explaining the Rome’s collapse.  Climate change caused the Huns to pull up stakes and move en masse eastward.  The Huns used mercenaries as well, and therefore were dependent on Roman tribute to keep their position of power.  The Persian Empire was being beset by other Hunnic hordes, so they became keen on maintaining friendly relations with Constantinople.

 

    The occasional “aside” sections were also great.  When Rome fell, what happened to the legionnaires stationed in the hinterlands?  Who were the Huns, where did they come from, and why did they disappear so quickly upon Attila’s death?  How did the lives of ordinary citizens change after law and order collapsed throughout the western Empire?  The interludes addressing these questions were both fascinating and informative.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 23 ratings and 0 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.53/5 based on 17 ratings and 2 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    [Constantine] and his son, Julian, were taken prisoner and beheaded.  Their heads were then sent to Ravenna where they were put on spears and displayed amid a growing collection of such trophies, including the head of the unfortunate Stilicho.

    With Constantine III and his son, Constans, eliminated, the imperial roll call reduced to four emperors, with the remaining usurpers Maximus in Hispania and Priscus Attalus with Ataulf’s Goths.  But almost immediately there was yet another rebellion in Gaul, this time led by a Gallo-Roman called Jovinus.  In these dark years, usurpers appeared and disappeared a bit like moles in a game of whack-a-mole.  (loc. 833)

 

    Women continued to dominate Roman politics that year for Valentinians III’s sister, Honoria, booked her place in history in a most spectacular and bizarre fashion by appealing to Attila to save her from a marriage arranged by her brother.  He wanted her to marry a Roman senator called Herculanus, whose key attributes were inherited money and a lack of ambition.  Honoria’s response was that he might be called Herculanus, but he did not exactly look like Hercules.  (loc. 1912)

 

Kindle Details…

    Rome and Attila is free for a limited time right now, but normally sells for $3.99, which is the same price as the first two books in the series, The Roman Revolution and The Fall of Rome.  An earlier work of the author, The Byzantine World War is available for just $0.99.

 

He was just as scheming and back-stabbing as any good Roman.  (loc. 1151)

    There are a couple things to quibble about in Rome and Attila, but cussing isn’t one of them.  There is none, nor is there any other R-rated stuff.

 

    The footnotes worked superbly.  For the most part they were used to cite the sources for various quotes used.  There were ten very useful maps, but their links in the text didn’t work.  A  number of the 18 photographs included are positively stunning (such as the Theodosian walls built to defend Constantinople), but I don’t recall any links in the text to them.  Not to fear though, working links to all of these can be found in the front of the book, right after the Table of Contents, and all the photos are grouped together immediately after Chapter 21.

 

    As mentioned earlier, Part 1 covers events already covered in the previous book, often using word-for-word repetition.  I anticipate some reviewers criticizing this “double-dipping” (it encompasses 60 pages or so), but I found it a helpful segue.  Certainly if there’s any appreciable time gap between reading the previous book and this one, Part 1 will put your memory “in sync” again.

 

    I’ve read all three “Fall of the Roman Empire” and have thoroughly enjoyed each one.  I was happy to hear that the projected length of the series has increased from four books to six.  I’m particularly intrigued about what the subject matter of Book 4 will be.  The remnants of the Western Roman Empire falling into a prolonged abyss called the Dark Ages?  The Eastern Roman Empire learning to get along without its European sibling?  Or is the focus equally divided between both halves of the kingdom?  I eagerly await finding out.

 

    9 Stars.  One last quibble, this one concerning the book’s cover.  I normally don’t critique such things in a book review, but take another look at the image above.  Doesn’t it seem like “Rome’s Greatest Enemy” is referring to Nick Holmes?   Once it is seen, it cannot be unseen.

The Fall of Rome - Nick Holmes

    2023; 268 pages.  Book 2 (out of 2, so far) in “The Fall of the Roman Empire” series.  Full Title: The Fall of Rome – End of a Superpower.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Ancient History; Rome; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    I read recently a great book titled The Roman Revolution, (reviewed here) which is part of a planned 4-volume series collectively examining and explaining The Fall of the Roman Empire.  That book ended on a relatively optimistic note, despite Rome having endured some empire-threatening crises, thanks to several strong 3^rd- and 4^th-century Roman emperors, including Aurelian, Diocletian, and most notably Constantine.  If they didn't succeed in restoring the Roman empire to its full former glory, then at least they got it on the right track.

 

    Alas, their efforts came to naught, at least for the western half of the empire.  Something unthinkable took place in the early 5^th-century, a disaster such as hadn’t occurred for 800 years.  The capital city of Rome was sacked.

 

    How did this happen?  How did the Roman legions, and the Roman leadership—both the military and the government—collapse so fast and so completely?  Well, the reasons are complex and complicated, and various historians have offered various explanations, including: too many barbarians, too many Christians, and even too many baths.

 

    Nick Holmes makes a detailed and updated examination of these various possible causes (well, not the “too many baths” hypothesis, but that’s okay.), proposes several new ones, and gives a fresh perspective on how everything led to a new world order.  The book is appropriately titled The Fall of Rome.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Fall of Rome covers the history of Rome from 330 CE to 410 CE, a relatively short time span compared to the first book, which covered about a millennium.  But these 80 years are probably the most critical ones of Rome’s existence, and unfortunately do not turn out well.  Ineffectual leaders abound, and those that do show promise are weakened by jealous rivals (both political and religious) and external forces far beyond their control (such as climate and tribal migrations).

 

    The book is divided into 30 chapters covering 268 pages of text.  The first couple chapters overlap the closing section of the first book and focus on the emperor Constantine and his sons and three other heirs.  The internecine fight-to-the-death that follows immediately shatters the unity of the realm.  Nick Holmes then turns the spotlight on several important figures in 4^th-century Roman history, including Julian the Apostate, Theodosius, Stilicho, and Alaric.  I found Julian the Apostate a particularly fascinating “what if” study, since he had strong leadership qualities.  Alas, he was also pro-pagan, and the Roman Empire was becoming increasingly Christianized.

 

    By the dawn of the 5^th-century, it looks like the fate of the western empire will depend on the success of either Stilicho or Alaric, and sadly for the city of Rome, history chooses the latter.  Alaric cares not a whit about the thousand years of Rome dominating the world, as can be seen in the second excerpt, below.

 

    Things build to a historically-exciting climax: Alaric’s sack of Rome in 410 CE.  The city itself is ravaged, yet not destroyed, but it’s role as the capital of an extensive empire is over.  In the final chapters Nick Holmes gives an update about the Eastern Roman Empire, which is somehow doing relatively well; then closes by recounting the various theories about the causes of Rome’s collapse, and his honest evaluation of each one.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.4/5 based on 271 ratings and 19 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.24/5 based on 188 ratings and 12 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    The immediate threat the Huns presented in the fourth century was not a Hunnic invasion of Europe (this would come later in the mid-fifth century, led by Attila) but, like a ripple spreading across a lake, the domino effect they created by pushing the Germanic tribes west into the Roman Empire.  Bishop Ambrose of Milan summed this up with impressive clarity: “The Huns fell upon the Alans, the Alans upon the Goths, the Goths upon the Romans, and this is not yet the end.”  (loc. 1367)

 

    The Romans were holding out, hoping a relief force from Ravenna or the army based at Ticinum would move south.  But no help came.  Honorius and Olympius were too worried about their own precarious position to save Rome.  In desperation, a group of senators sought an audience with Alaric.  When they said the people of Rome would fight just like their ancestors, Alaric laughed.  They asked him what he wanted.  He said all their gold and possessions, as well as freedom of the slaves.  When they asked him what he would give them, he said, “Your lives.”  (loc. 2840)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now, The Fall of Rome sells for $3.99 at Amazon.  Book 1, The Roman Revolution, currently sells for the same amount.  Nick Holmes offers a third e-book at Amazon, also in the History genre, The Byzantine World War; which you can pick up for only $0.99.

 

Valens would go down in history as the man who sent the empire into a death spiral at the Battle of Adrianople in 378.  (loc. 1603)

    It’s really hard to find anything to gripe about in The Fall of Rome.  There were only two cusswords in the whole book, one was utilized by the author, and the other, an f-bomb, was apparently in some graffiti scrawled on the wall of a brothel in Pompeii.  I’m not sure how one determines the Latin word for that bit of profanity, but I bet there’s an interesting anecdote there.

 

    I only spotted one typo: mains/main, so the editing was superb.  And be aware that Nick Holmes is an British author, hence the book is written in English, not American.  For us Yanks, that means you’ll see some strange spellings that are not misspellings, and an odd idiom or two.  The word “rooky” was new to me; I’m still not quite sure if it’s British slang or simply their spelling of our “rookie”.

 

    Finally, if you’re of the “My Deity, right or wrong” persuasion, you’ll probably not like the religious intolerance shown by the Christian leaders here.  Spiritual bigotry towards pagans was a common practice, and if there weren't any unbelievers around to persecute,  Christians of the Nicene sect were more than willing to persecute Christians of the Arian sect.  The net result was a further fragmentation of the Empire.

 

    Overall, I found The Fall of Rome to be a fine follow-up to The Roman Revolution, and I’m eagerly waiting for the next book in the series to be published.  Thus far I’m fascinated by Nick Holmes' presentation of the historical data concerning the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and am impressed by the conclusions he draws therefrom.

 

    9 Stars.  Nick Holmes the author should not be confused with Nick Holmes the lead singer in the British gothic metal band Paradise Lost, whom I had the privilege of seeing in concert many years ago, as an opening act for the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish.  And a freaking great concert it was, too!

Otherlands - Thomas Halliday

    2022; 305 pages.  Full Title: Otherlands – A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Paleontology; Paleobiology; Ancient History; Evolution.  Overall Rating : 9½*/10.

 

    Here's a brief recap of our planet’s existence, as given in the introduction of Otherlands:

 

    The geological history of the Earth stretches back about 4.5 billion years.  Life has existed on this planet for about four billion years, and life larger than single-celled organisms for perhaps two billion years.   (…)  If all 4.5 billion years of Earth’s history were to be condensed into a single day and played out, more than three million years of footage would go by every minute.  (…)  The mass extinction event that extinguished pterosaurs, plesiosaurs and all non-bird dinosaurs would occur 21 minutes before the end.  Written human history would begin in the last tenth of a second.

 

    In short, very little of Earth’s history involves us humans.  Even the dinosaurs are relatively late arrivals.  A great number of plants and animals have appeared, in the seas and on the land masses of our planet.  Most of them have since disappeared.

 

    What happened to them?  What conditions, or changes to their habitat, caused them to become extinct?  It might behoove us homo sapiens to study these past inhabitants of our world, and determine the reasons for their demise, so that we can avoid, or at least delay, our own departure.

 

What’s To Like...

    I liked the way Otherlands was structured.  After an overview introduction, Thomas Halliday works backward through time, dividing the subject matter into 16 chapters.  The first six are the relatively recent epochs (such as the Eocene) going from 12,000 years ago to 66 million.  The next ten are classified as periods (such as the Jurassic), and take the reader back to 635 million years ago.  Things close with an Epilogue which focuses on where our present world might be heading, extinction-wise.

 

    Each chapter generally starts with a description of some portion of the world during that epoch/period, then proceeds to detail some extinction event, which may be gradual or sudden.  My favorite chapters were:

    #02 (Pliocene – first humans),

    #03 (Miocene – filling the Mediterranean Sea),

    #06 (Paleocene - the Chicxulub asteroid),

    #10 (Permian – Pangaea),

    #14 (Ordovician – Gondwana)

 

    Each chapter starts off with a map of the world during that age (important, since landmasses and tectonic plates are constantly shifting) and features an awesome illustration of some animal or plant that lived during that time.  There’s a handy "Table of Eras" chart in the front; bookmark it, you’ll be referring to it a lot.  The title reference is on page xiii of the Introduction, and kudos to whoever set up the links to Notes; they worked great!

 

    I was introduced to a couple of neat acronyms along the way, including LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor) and mya (million years ago).  I also learned some evolutionary tips, such as why chicken legs are dark meat but chicken breasts are white meat; and why zebras developed black and white stripes.  See the end of this review for the answer to that last one.

 

Kewlest New Word…

Regurgitalite (n.) : Fossilized vomit.

Others: Outwith (prep.); Schiltrom (n.); Catawampus (adj.); Jouking (n.); Stramash (n.); Eyot (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 580 ratings and 86 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.14/5 based on 3,495 ratings and 568 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    The hot Pangaean wind is rising, and from the top of the Earth, the Arctic is about to send down a blast unlike any other.  Siberia is about to erupt.  When it does, it will expel 4 million cubic kilometres of lava – enough to fill the modern-day Mediterranean Sea – which will flood an area the size of Australia.  That eruption will tear through recently formed coal beds, turning the Earth into a candle, and drifting coal ash and toxic metals over the land, transforming watercourses into deadly slurries.  Oxygen will boil from the oceans; bacteria will bloom and produce poisonous hydrogen sulphide.  The foul-smelling sulphides will infuse the seas and skies.  Ninety-five per cent of all species of Earth will perish in what will become known as the Great Dying.  (loc. 3071)

 

    Focusing on your hand in front of your face, you will not see in detail the pictures on the wall beyond.  However, the eyes of some trilobites, in existence by the late Cambrian, are bifocal, using a lens made of two materials with different refractive properties.  This allows them to simultaneously focus on small objects floating only a few millimetres away and far objects, theoretically at an infinite distance, without any modification, an ability that few other species have ever evolved.  (loc. 4289)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now, Otherlands is priced at $12.99 at Amazon.  This appears to be the only e-book Thomas Halliday offers, although it is available in several different languages.

 

Even in the early days of bilaterally symmetrical animals, it’s a worm-eat-worm world.  (loc. 4204)

    Finding anything to gripe about in Otherlands is challenging.  As you’d expect from a science book, there is no cussing.  The closest we come to that is the mention of a marine worm aptly named the “penis-worm”.  Anyone who finds that offensive is overreacting.

 

    Some reviewers didn’t like the Epilogue’s message that things like global warming, deforestation, and carbon emissions could lead (or is already leading) our planet into a new Extinction phase.  They’re entitled to their opinions, but Science is on the author’s side on this issue.

 

    The Amazon page for Otherlands will tell you that the Kindle version is 409 pages long.  Don’t let that length deter you from picking up this book; the last one hundred pages are Notes and a Glossary.  The text stops at page 305.

 

    Finally, be aware that the author was born and raised in the highlands of Scotland.  So you get some “un-American” words and spellings such as encyclopaedia, outwith, plough, sough, scarper, faeces, and the indecipherable quango.  The unit of weight for 2,000 pounds is for some reason spelt two ways: tons and tonnes.  But cheer up, at least the “z” words like fertilize are spelt correctly, unlike in that crazy language the English use.

 

    But these are all petty quibbles.  I found Otherlands to be a fascinating and enlightening read.  I could see the progression (albeit, in reverse order) of life as it developed on this planet, struggled to cope with fluctuations in its habitat, and adapted-or-perished as a result.  We’ll close this review with one last bit of wisdom from the book that is applicable to another threat to our existence: overpopulation.

 

“Migration cannot save a population if there is nowhere to go.”

 

    9½ Stars.  Why do zebras have stripes, you ask?  Because the pattern prevents flying insects from being able to easily judge landing distances at close range.  So a striped zebra ends up suffering less insect bites than an unstriped one.