Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari, c. 2015 --- What A Bunch Of Crap -- October 27, 2024

 

Re-posting from January 2, 2019, just a snippet:

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The Book Page
What a Bunch of Crap

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari, c. 2015. First published in Hebrew in Israel in 2011. A New York Times bestseller. Recommended by everyone, including Bill Gates and Barack Obama. Author: a PhD in history from the University of Oxford.

A few weeks ago our oldest granddaughter was telling me how one of her teachers was talking about the "agricultural revolution" as a fantasy and that, in fact, the "agricultural revolution" left humankind more worse-off than what they had as foragers and hunter-gatherers. I thought the instructor was an idiot, but I didn't say anything negative. I continued to listen to Arianna's theses and arguments.

And then here it, almost verbatim, from Sapiens by Harari, pp. 78+, exactly what Arianna was saying. I am not convinced. But I am thrilled that this suggests to me that her instructor is well-read, and, in fact, has probably read this book and this is where he/she is getting some of his/her ideas.

It also means this is a great resource book for Arianna for this particular class and this particular author. Despite the fact that the book is pathetic; a bunch of crap. This is the author's theme, found on page 415 in the afterword:

Unfortunately, the Sapiens regime on earth has so far produced little that we can be proud of. We have mastered our surroundings, increased food production, built cities, established empires and created far-flung trade networks. But did we decrease the amount of suffering in the world? Time and again, massive increases in human power did not necessarily improve the well-being of individual Sapiens, and usually caused immense misery to other animals.

India: A History, John Keay, c. 2000, 2010

October 26, 2024

I'm currently in my "India" phase -- the subcontinent. The history, the politics, to compare and contrast Indo-American relationships with Sino-American relationships. There's so much personal "background" that led me to this Indian phase. 

I look forward to meeting with my Indian friends and compare notes. 

My two sources:

• India: A History, John Keay, c. 2000, 2010. 
• Vishnu's Crowded Temple: India Since The Great Rebellion, Maria Misra, c. 2007

Absolutely fascinating how many dots connect.  

The first is the better of the two if one wants the entire history of India. The second is really a "poli-sci" book focused on the British colonization and subsequent revolution and independence of India.

Original Post

India: A History, John Keay, c. 2000, 2010.

For the blog: a reader asked his followers what book they planned to read by the end of this year, 2024.

My response: India: A History, John Keay, c. 2000, 2010.

“John Keay’s India: A History earned wide acclaim as the greatest single-volume book about India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh when it was [first] published in 2000. It has now (2010) been fully revised with four new chapters that the reader up to the region’s present day.

“India: A History spans five millennia in a sweeping narrative that tells the story of the peoples of the subcontinent, from their ancient beginnings in the valley of the Indus to current events in the region.

“In charting the evolution of the rich tapestry of cultures, religions, and peoples that comprise the modern nations of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, Keay weaves together insights from a variety of scholarly fields to create a rich historical narrative. Wide-ranging and authoritative, India: A History is a compelling epic portrait of one of the world’s oldest and most richly diverse civilizations.”

I would assume that somewhere along the line Steve Jobs and Tim Cook (metonyms for the entire C-suite of the Apple corporation) were given intense briefings on the history of China and  India.

Of the two, the India briefing would be the most interesting, the most complicated and the most challenging for the presenter to put together.

The US is one country: politically, economically, culturally, socially.

China is one country: politically, economically, culturally, socially.

India is not one country. India is a land mass with 36 Indian countries (28 states and 8 union territories). The 28 states have their own governing body; the eight union territories are administered by the central government (think District of Columbia in the US).

In the US one can move from Boston to Los Angeles to Dallas to Spokane and “fit in” immediately. No new language; no new religion; no new nothing. At most, politically from red to purple to blue or vice versa.

I assume it is quite similar in China. I could be wrong. Probably am.

But India: 36 Indian countries. Moving from one Indian country to another Indian country means a new language, a new culture, a new religion, and  unless it’s a union territory, a new political system.

Do not take this out of context.

Instead of one Chinese country with one party, the Communist Party with one clear-cut leader, or one American country with one president “straddling” two political parties, India has 36 countries gerrymandered based on language.

The Indian subcontinent has 18 official languages. Most Indian states / territories have a single official language. Some have two or a few more. One state has one official language and sixteen additional unofficial languages. Another state has a corresponding two and eleven; and a third state has a corresponding four official languages and eight unofficial languages.

Five states and one territory have English as an official language. English is the only official language in one state and in one territory.

The second bullet for the brief for Tim Cook: there are only two important dates in Indian history —


• 1947: independence of the Indian subcontinent; and,
• 1956: the Indian subcontinent completely reorganized into states and territories based on the language used in that locale.

A third date is, perhaps, also important: separation dates of Bangladesh and Pakistan from “India.”

So, two initial bullets:


• India does not exist as a country (as Americans would define a country),

• the Indian subcontinent has 28 states and eight union territories “organized" by language.
• 
there are only two important dates in the Indian subcontinent for outsiders to know: 1947 and 1956

The third bullet: geographically —

• the Indian subcontinent is the size of Europe with none of the geographic diversity of Europe

• the Indian subcontinent is boring with the same relatively dry, flat land north to south, east to west
• think of the United States from, perhaps, Indiana to Utah, without the rivers and the lushness, or Americans would say, “fly-over country."

The fourth bullet: know the state / union territory in which you plan to do business


• the major urban center(s)
language
• religion
• politics
• economic system
• what that “country” (state or union territory) brings to the table

And that’s it.

Geographically, the map:

Although the size differences are entirely different, overlay a map of the US island of Manhattan over the entire Indian subcontinent.

• mountains separate Manhattan from Canada (Himalayas — northeast; and, Kirthar Range — northwest)
the Hudson River is the Arabian Sea
• the East River is the Bay of Bengal
• there is no counterpart to Long Island 
Delhi / New Delhi is in the Bronx — perhaps close to where the NY Mets call home
• Bombai (Mumbai) is on the Hudson across from New Jersey
• Tamil Nadu is the Manhattan Battery
Sri Lanka would have the Statue of Liberty
• West Bengal (and Bangladesh)  would be Westchester on the way to Connecticut, Yale, and Rhode Island
• Calcutta: West Bengal (the far northeast)
• Bhopal: geographic center of subcontinent India; perhaps Harlem?
• Pakistan: Pennsylvania
Afghanistan: upstate New York
• Nepal: north of the Bronx
• Tibet: north of Nepal

Next: where does Apple plan to place its factories?

The states / union territories of note:


• Delhi: a union territory (need to check) squeezed in between Haryana and Uttar Pradesh
• New Delhi: national capital of India
  
• Calcutta: Indian state of West Bengal

• Bombay (Mumbai): state of Maharashtra; third largest state by area
  
• Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh, second largest Indian state


History:  history as John Keay divides the chapters of his book

• 
“no" history until fairly recently

• Pre-1750; pre-British colonization
• 13th century AD, Islamic conquest but very biased and often unhelpful
• The British Conquest, 1750 - 1820
• US Civil War - War of 1812
• Pax Britannia: 1820 - 1880

• American expansionism
Awake the Nation: 1880 - 1930
American railroads
US Labor Movement
• At the stroke of the Midnight Hour: 1930 - 1948

• WWII
• Ghandi
• Surgical Procedures: 1948 - 1965

• US post-WWII

• US Civil Rights movement

• India: massive reorganization(1956)
• The Spectra of Separatism: 1962 - 1972
• Vietnam, 
Bangladesh, Pakistan
• Demockery (sic): 1972 - 1984

• Bangladesh
• Pakistan
• Midnight’s Grandchildren: 1984 —
• the end of the Cold War
• immense changes in global alliances

 

The New Annotated Frankenstein, Leslie S. Klinger, c. 2017 -- First Notes -- October 18, 2024

The New Annotated Frankenstein, Leslie S. Klinger, c. 2017

Edited with a foreword and notes by Leslie S. Klinger.

Two pages: other annotated books from W. W. Norton and Company; also b Leslie S. Klinger. including annotated books on Sherlock Holmes (seven books). Among the annotated books from W W Norton and Company:
Sherlock Holmes, Volumes I, II, and III. John LeCarré; and Leslie Klinger
Dracula, Neil Gaiman; and Leslie Klinger
H. P. Lovecraft, Alan Moore; and, Leslie Klinger

Introduction by Guillermo del Toro: pp xi - xviii
Foreword: pp. xix - lxxiv
a note on the text: lxxiii

The novel in three parts: pp 1 - 278

Afterword, Anne K. Mellor, pp. 279 - 290: outstanding. Wiki.

Appendix 1: pp. 291 - 300
Appendix 2: pp. 301 - 304
Appendix 3: pp. 305 - 308
Appendix 4: pp. 309 - 328
Appendix 5: pp. 329 - 336
Apprendix 6: pp. 337 - 342
Bibliography: pp. 343 - 350
Acknowledgments: pp. 351

Even the foreword is extensively footnoted.

• introduction
• the life of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
• the genesis of Frankenstein
• contemporary reception
• the legacy of Frankenstein

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The Quakers in America (Columbia Contemporary American Religion Series), Thomas Hamm, c. 2006.

 The Quakers in America (Columbia Contemporary American Religion Series), Thomas Hamm, c. 2006.

Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England's Greatest Warrior King, Dan Jones, c. 2024.

Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England's Greatest Warrior King, Dan Jones, c. 2024.

Wow, wow, wow! I doubt I will read this book -- I don't know -- I'm tempted -- I've read so many books on British history, particularly the period surrounding the Wars of Roses. But, as noted, I'm really tempted. 

We'll see.

From the linked article:

It is surely an exhausting, perhaps bewildering, time for Henry (the future Henry V) and his brothers. Henry is still only thirteen. Thomas is twelve, John ten, and Humphrey has just turned nine. It has been only one year since their father was exiled, their lives upended, and their futures thrown into uncertainty. Now their father (Henry IV) is the king, and they are knights and princes: the nucleus of a new Lancastrian royal family. Nothing like this has happened in England since the Norman Conquest of 1066.

The Greco-Persian Wars: People And Places -- September 30, 2024

Media:was a political entity centered in Ecbatana that existed from the 7th century BCE until the mid-6th century BCE and is believed to have dominated a significant portion of the Iranian plateau, preceding the powerful Achaemenid Empire. 

The frequent interference of the Assyrians in the Zagros region led to the process of unifying the Median tribes. By 612 BCE, the Medes became strong enough to overthrow the declining Assyrian Empire in alliance with the Babylonians. However, contemporary scholarship tends to be skeptical about the existence of a united Median kingdom or state, at least for most of the 7th century BCE.

The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire: 'The Empire' or 'The Kingdom', was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. 

Darius, the founder, traced his genealogy back to Archaemenes, who may have been mythical or real. If real, would have lived in the 7th century BCE.

Based in modern-day Iran, it was the largest empire by that point in history, spanning a total of 2.1 million square miles. The empire spanned from the Balkans and Egypt in the west, West Asia as the base, the majority of Central Asia to the northeast, and the Indus Valley to the southeast.  [Think Alexander the Great some centuries later.]

Around the 7th century BC (about the time of Achaemenes), the region of Persis in the southwestern portion of the Iranian plateau was settled by the Persians. From Persis, Cyrus rose and defeated the Median Empire as well as Lydia (see below, Turkey) and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, marking the formal establishment of a new imperial polity under the Achaemenid dynasty.  

Ionia: was an ancient region on the western coast of Anatolia, to the south of present-day İzmir, Turkey. 

It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionians who had settled in the region before the archaic period.

Ionia proper comprised a narrow coastal strip from Phocaea in the north near the mouth of the river Hermus (now the Gediz), to Miletus in the south near the mouth of the river Maeander, and included the islands of Chios and Samos.

It was bounded by Aeolia to the north, Lydia to the east and Caria to the south.

The cities within the region figured significantly in the strife between the Persian Empire and the Greeks.

Ionian cities were identified by mythic traditions of kinship and by their use of the Ionic dialect, but there was a core group of twelve Ionian cities that formed the Ionian League and had a shared sanctuary and festival at Panionion. These twelve cities were (from south to north): Miletus, Myus, Priene, Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Erythrae, Clazomenae and Phocaea, together with the islands of Samos and Chios. Smyrna, originally an Aeolic colony, was afterwards occupied by Ionians from Colophon, and became an Ionian city.

Miletus (Milet, TU) was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia, near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Ionia.Its ruins are located near the modern village of Balat in Aydın Province, Turkey. 

Before the Persian rule that started in the 6th century BC, Miletus was considered among the greatest and wealthiest of Greek cities.

 

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The Greco-Persian Wars, Peter Green, c. 1996

People and places for the Greco-Persian wars tracked here.

From my personal copy of this book. I was curious how I came across this book. I think it was from this, June 14, 2024: 

I find it amazing (for lack of a better word) that historians are still writing about the Greco-Persian Wars. In the current issue of The Claremont Review of Books, an essay on what Joseph Epstein calls the "war for the west."

Three books are mentioned in the essay:

• The Greco-Persian Wars, by Peter Green;
• The Persian War in Herodotus and Other Ancient Voices, William Shephere; and, 
• Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West, Tom Holland.

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From The Greco-Persian Wars, Peter Green, c. 1996, pp 16 - 17. This took place in 600 years before the birth of Christ, in Athens, Greece. Does this sound familiar?

Cleisthenes had returned from exile under the Spartan military umbrella: to get back into power by constitutional means, once that umbrella had been removed, was a far trickier business. 

The conservative group, led by Isagoras, son of Teisander, fought hard -- and with considerable initial success -- to prevent an Alcmaeonid take-over. 

They began their campaign by scrutinizing the electoral roll, and getting a good many of Cleisthenes' "new immigrants" supporters disenfranchised on technical quibbles. But they were soon saw that it would pay off better, in the long run, to capture the popular vote rather than antagonize it. 

A law was passed abolishing the judicial use of torture against Athenian citizens; other similar measures followed; for two years Isagoras had things very much his own way. The electorate showed no sign whatsoever, at this stage, of welcoming Cleisthenes as a great democratic reformer, for the very good reason that no such idea had yet entered his head. 

In 508 BC, however, Isagoras was elected Chief Archon. 

Cleisthenes had already held this office, and was thereby debarred from standing again. Something had to be done: as a desperate measure Cleisthenes, to borrow Herodotus's ambiguous phrase, "took the people into partnership." 

This probably meant a radical extension of the franchise: to put it bluntly, Cleisthenes bribed the citizen-body to support him by offering them their first real stake in the government, a government that he intended to lead by means of their block (bloc?) vote. The proposal was rushed through the Assembly; and so, by a somewhat singular accouchement (childbirth), Athenian democracy finally struggled to birth. 

The child (early democracy in Greece) proved noisy, healthy and troublesome almost before it  (democracy) could walk; which was lucky, since other its chances of survival would have been slim.

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The Book's Organization

Fascinating book. 

This seems to be a full-year's history course taught by the professor / the author of this book. 

It's a history, of course, but a lot of analysis, much more analysis than I normally see in a "history book."

 

Great introduction.

Short preface and acknowledgments, signed 1969.

Part One: Darius and The West

Part Two: The Legacy of Marathon

Part Three: Waiting for the Barbarian

Part Four: the Corner-Stone of Freedom

Part Five: The Wooden Wall

Part Six: The Doors of the Peloponnese

Part Seven: The Last Enemy

Notes

Bibliography

Supplemental Bibliography

Index

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Notes

Theme: the conflict between Greece and Persia was an ideological struggle -- first of its kind (good exercise: name other wars that were ideological struggles, and not wars for riches spoils). Consider:

• US Civil War, US Revolutionary War: ideological
• French and Indian War; War of 1812: territory

Aeschylus' play: The Persians -- written eight years after the war; the playwright actually fought in the war itself. Obviously a tragedy if written from the perspective of the Persians.

Replica: mutatis mutandis, p. 3.

The play: Darius' widow Atoss.

Comperes Themistocles with Churchill, page 4.

Author: we now benefit from better understanding of Achaemenid Persia.

Top of page 5: the "constitutional state."

"Modern Europe" owes nothing to the Achaemids!!! -- p. 5.

The apadana of Persepolis.

**** Achaemid Persia: produced no great literature or philosophy. Her one lasting contribution: Zoroastrianism.

Fastest expansion of an empire;
Alexander the Great
Islam after the prophet
Persia, 6th century

Mid-6th century: Near East -- several small "empires" --

• Media: capital, Ecbatana; ruler -- Astyages
• Babylonia
• Lydia: Croesus
• inhabitants of Parsa: mere upland tribesmen.

That's where it started -- 25 years later -- FARS --

• centered on modern Shiraz; controlled a greater empire than that of Assyria; at its apogee the single larges administrative complex that had ever existed in the ancient world -- p. 6.

Persia -- part of the Near East, but quite far east -- Cyrus

559 BC: Cyrus -- throne of Anshan -- a Median vassal kingdom NE of Susa (NE of Babylon) -- p. 6. 

And by 539, Cyrus marches into Babylon unopposed and is head of largest Empire ever known!!!

P. 289: "Like the Jews, the Greeks learned to define themselves as a nation in the course of their contacts with the Persians."

FARS:

The last eight years of his life, Cyrus devoted his life to organizing this great and heterogeneous empire he had acquired ... twenty provinces -- each under a viceroy (vice = deputy, as in vice president; roy = king) Viceroy, Persian title, khshathrapavan, Protector of the Kingdom -- from that Persian word transliterated by the Greeks to satrapes. Now, the generic term is "satrap." 

Two satraps were Greek:

• Lydia; governmental seat at Sardis, included the Ionian seaboard;
• Phrygia covered the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara (Propontis), and the southern short of the Black Sea -- these satraps, especially in the vast eastern provinces, wielded enormous power. -- p. 8. -- straddles the waterways that divided western Turkey with eastern Greece.

Cyrus' new capital: Pasargadae -- south-central Iran; about eight-hour south of Tehran; directly across from Kuwait.

Cyrus: first king

Son, Cambyses, ascends throne without incident. (Grandfather was also known as Camybses.)

spent most of his time in Egypt
besides Egypt also obtained the submission of Cyrene and Cyprus and, most important, of the Phoenician states. Persia thus acquired at one stroke what hitherto she had notably lacked; a strong fighting navy.

March 522: Cambyses abroad; revolution broke out in Media, led by a man who claimed to be the King's younger brother. Cambyses hurriedly left Egypt but died under suspicious circumstances.

Rebellion put down by a junta under Darius -- see background -- top of page 10. 

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