Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought: From Antiquity to the Reformation

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The Sea! The Sea!: The Shout of the Ten Thousand in the Modern Imagination
Tim Rood
Manufacturer: Overlook Hardcover
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Early Civilization | Ancient | History | Subjects | Books
Greece | Ancient | History | Subjects | Books
General | World | History | Subjects | Books
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The Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand

The Expedition of Cyrus (Oxford World's Classics)

Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation (Oxford Classical Monographs)

Xenophon's Retreat: Greece, Persia, and the End of the Golden Age

Xenophon's March: Into the Lair of the Persian Lion

ASIN: 1585676640

Book Description

The Sea! The Sea! tells the story of "Thalatta! Thalatta!" the shout that first echoed through the mountains of Eastern Turkey when it sprang from the mouths of the famous Ten Thousand, the army of Greek mercenaries whose adventures in what are now Turkey, Syria, and Iraq were described by the Athenian historian and philosopher Xenophon, who was himself a participant in the long march to the coast. The shout itself had an incredible afterlife, playing a persistent part in European and American culture traditions over the last two hundred years.

The Sea! The Sea! : The Shout of the Ten Thousand in the Modern Imagination

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The Sea! The Sea! : The Shout of the Ten Thousand in the Modern Imagination
Tim Rood
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MUFE0O

Thalatta! Thalatta!(The Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand)("The Sea! The Sea!": The Shout of the Ten Thousand in the Modern Imagination)(Book Review): An article from: New Criterion

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Thalatta! Thalatta!(The Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand)("The Sea! The Sea!": The Shout of the Ten Thousand in the Modern Imagination)(Book Review): An article from: New Criterion
Victor Davis Hanson
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from New Criterion, published by Thomson Gale on October 1, 2005. The length of the article is 1974 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Thalatta! Thalatta!(The Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand)("The Sea! The Sea!": The Shout of the Ten Thousand in the Modern Imagination)(Book Review)
Author: Victor Davis Hanson
Publication: New Criterion (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 24 Issue: 2 Page: 66(4)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Amazon.com

Readers unfamiliar with James D. Watson's previous memoir, The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, may be surprised that his new one pays as much attention to his pursuit of the perfect woman as to the pursuit of knowledge. But Watson's 1968 book wasn't a bestseller because of its scientific material (though it was lucidly written for the general public); it was his candid portrait of professional rivalries, consuming ambition, and personal eccentricities that made it both popular and controversial. Even today, Watson's lively prose and decidedly frank opinions are still far from the norm. Oh sure, Girls, Genes, and Gamow contains plenty of information about his efforts (with colleagues ranging from bongo-playing Richard Feynman to the free-spirited George Gamow) to unravel the complexities of the RNA molecule from 1953 to '56. But Watson--still in his 20s at the time--also devotes pages to hard drinking, bitter marital breakups, and unwanted pregnancies among his not-so-high-minded peers, and his own anguished affair with a Swarthmore undergrad who left him for a German engineering student. It's not every Nobel Prize-winning biologist who would admit he was thrilled to have his photo in Vogue because it would "make 'with it' American girls more eager to know me," but that boyish openness gives Watson's book its charm. --Wendy Smith

Book Description

In the years following his and Francis Crick’s towering discovery of DNA, James Watson was obsessed with finding two things: RNA and a wife. Genes, Girls, and Gamow is the marvelous chronicle of those pursuits. Watson effortlessly glides between his heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious debacles in the field of love and his heady inquiries in the field of science. He also reflects with touching candor on some of science’s other titans, from fellow Nobelists Linus Pauling and the incorrigible Richard Feynman to Russian physicist George Gamow, who loved whiskey, limericks, and card tricks as much as he did molecules and genes. What emerges is a refreshingly human portrait of a group of geniuses and a candid, often surprising account of how science is done.

Customer Reviews:

More than you want to know.......2006-05-21

Normally I wouldn't take the time to add to a chorus of negative reviews, but this book was a doozy. The contrast between the author's reputation and what he reveals about himself is breathtaking.

The best part of this book: seeing how so many brilliant people wandered into so many dead ends while trying to figure out the structure of RNA and the genetic code in the 1950s. This is much more interesting than the usual presentation of scientific discoveries as faits accomplis.

Many physicists were drawn into this quest, including Richard Feynman. But it was the intuitions of (ex-physicist) Francis Crick that were right on the money, including his predictions of "RNA adaptors" much like transfer RNA, and of a triplet code with multiple reading frames (with S. Brenner). And unlike Watson and many others, he hadn't even been working on the problem full-time.

You do need to know at least a little about virology and molecular biology to enjoy this aspect of the book, because the text leaves a lot unexplained. So one wonders whom Watson intended as an audience - if he was thinking about his audience at all.

Watson certainly does think a great deal about, and of, himself. In his prologue he describes a 1986 visit to his old Cambridge office, where he found a grad student "who had no idea who I was ... The manners that Cambridge so long ago instilled in me did not let me reveal my identity." Later, describing a 1956 trip to Israel, he mentions his "relief" at "finding hosts who knew who I was."

His self-infatuation informs the "girls" aspect of the book too. Watson doesn't only kiss and tell, he holds hands and tells, hugs and tells, exchanges long meaningful glances with wives of friends and tells, and guides "once-ripe" mothers of friends on the dance floor and tells. He freights the slightest incidents with unspoken meaning -- but ultimately comes across like the virginal Eric Idle character in the "Nudge, nudge" Monty Python routine. Thankfully, we never hear if he ever made it to second base or beyond.

How could he recall all this 50 years later? According to the introduction, his former heartthrob, Christa Mayr Menzel, gave him access to 60 letters he'd sent her during this period. (He started pursuing her when she was a 17-year-old high school senior, and he was a Ph.D. of 25 or so.) But if his letters really detailed every time he walked on the beach with some other girl after a drunken party before a chaste good-night, it's no wonder Ms. Mayr grew cold to him. Watson thinks it appropriate to include reproductions of two banal postcards from her (one of which is signed "love, Christa", as if he has something to prove to us), plus the text of the whining letter he wrote to her father after she dumped him.

By the book's epilogue it becomes clear that even after his Nobel Prize, Watson pursued only women who worked in his lab or were undergraduates. The water pistol comment quoted by a reviewer below leads one to suspect that they were nonetheless more mature than he.

The "happy ending" is his marriage to a Radcliffe sophomore less than half his age, a few days before his 40th birthday. His celebratory postcard to a Harvard colleague, "19 year old now mine," is creepy and chilling. Watson claims this has been a happy and durable union, and there's no grudging him that. But one wishes he'd kept some aspects of his life known only to his intimate circle, instead of sharing them with the unsuspecting reader.

Somewhat Interesting but Not a Must Read.......2006-01-04

This book is perhaps more interesting in giving a little window into the lives of a small community of wealthy elite scholars in that era of Cambridge, with their summers climbing mountains and their academic reputations sometimes secured more by lineage than personal accomplishment.

I was disappointed with this book mainly because there is a dearth of science in it, and the many characters in the book lack personality. In some ways it reads like a laundry list: So and so met so and so here and they did so and so.

Frank but somewhat mundane account of the quest for RNA.......2005-02-03

Having read the truly exciting and insightful account of the discovery of the double helical structure in Watson's `The Double Helix', I was looking forward to more insights on science, the process of discovery if not insights into how great minds collaborated. I found none of this in the book.

The book is an honest account of Watson's experiences, thoughts and feelings during 1950-1970. Much of the book relates to his being enamoured and his insecurities in relation to Christa, who turns out to be a love lost.

More interesting are the descriptions with Gamov - a giant both figuratively and literally - who impacted Watson deeply. Gamov made lasting contributions to both biology as well as physics.

Other interesting aspects of the book include the formation of the `RNA Tie Club' of 20 members aiming to solve the structure of RNA, various travels, accounts of lively parties (with copious consumption of alcohol) and practical jokes everyone seemed to enjoy / revel in. At times one can't help but feel that this was a concerted attempt to shake lose the nerdy image.

In parts, the book reads like a journal, in other instances the discussions of specifics requires a deeper understanding of Chemistry. I was hoping for a insightful and cogent description of efforts, how science works, how the best minds pool ideas to extend knowledge and how significant was the contribution by key players outlined in the book. In these areas, the book left more than a little to be desired.

From someone who co-discovered `the secret of life' readers should be forgiven to expect more than is delivered by Watson in Girls, Genes and Gamov.

How silly and vacous can a grown man be?.......2004-01-17

I bought this book hoping to understand more about the circle of people who relates to the DNA problem; I found an author who thinks and talks like a l3 year old and has nothing to say..well yes a name is dropped here and there 2 sentences later he is off talking about something else, usually girls. What a waste of money this is unless you want to have nothing but contempt for scientists, but this is a very unrepresentive book and person to appreciate science..a silly 300 pages of drival. Those who wonder what his relationship with Franklin was might find interesting that initially in California he dreaded seeing her again, found her pleasant, pretended to do this and that to help her, but in reality skips off looking for girls! What a jerk! What a vacuous book, worse than one could ever imagine.

A light-hearted reminiscense.......2003-09-08

Anyone expecting a stoic recollection of the works of a great scientist will find many such books available.This is not one of them. It is, however, a very real self-portait of a man in his latter years who, while being a great scientist, admits to not being a great 'everything'. It makes the legend human, just as the anecdotes about his peers makes them less stone gods of science, and more multi-dimensional people. 'Genes, Girls, and Gamow' is the kind of book you might hear orally from the author in his den in a comfortable leather chair.It is definitly not lab coat and sterile conditions reading. If you want a genetics text, BUY a genetics text. If you want a good example of how great insight in an art or science does not make one immune from the human condition, then give this book a read.

Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix

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Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix
James D. Watson
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OXHSTE

Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix (AUTOGRAPHED Limited Collector's Edition of 1,175 copies)

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Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix (AUTOGRAPHED Limited Collector's Edition of 1,175 copies)

Manufacturer: Easton Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Leather Bound
ASIN: B000DZEUI0

Product Description

Norwalk, Connecticut: Easton Press, 2002 Stated First Edition - Limited Edition of 1,175 copies hand numbered and AUTOGRAPHED by the Nobel Prize winning biologist James Watson, laureate 1962 (Physiology or Medicine) for the discovery of the structure of DNA. - Custom bound in deep blue premium leather with moiré fabric endsheets and a sewn in satin page marker. Gold stamped titles with pages edged in 22 carat gold. The cover features a striking inlaid design comprised of a stylized helix latticework beautifully framing a double helix. - Quickly sold out at the publisher, this finely crafted book that bears the signature of one of the finest scientific minds of the 20th century. - Complete with all original Easton Press documentation. A number of select Easton titles by outstanding figures of the 20th century continue in high demand among collectors. This is one of the most highly sought.

Book Description

Throughout the ages man has struggled with his perceived place in the natural world. The idea of humans cultivating the Earth to suit specific needs is one of the greatest points of contention in this struggle. For how would have civilization progressed, if not by the clearance of the forests, the cultivation of the soil, and the conservation of wild landscape into human settlement? Yet what of the healing powers of unexploited nature, its long-term importance in the perpetuation of human civilization, and the inherent beauty of wild scenery? At no time were these questions addressed as pointedly and with such great consequence as in England between the sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries. "Between 1500 and 1800 there occurred a whole cluster of changes in the way in which men and women, at all social levels, perceived and classified the natural world around them," explains Keith Thomas. "New sensibilities arose toward animals, plants, and landscape. The relationship of man to other species was redefined; and his right to exploit those species for his own advantage was sharply challenged." Man and the Natural World aims not just to explain present interest in preserving the environment and protecting the rights of animals, but to reconstruct an earlier mental world. Thomas seeks to expose the assumptions beneath the perceptions, reasonings, and feelings of the inhabitants of early modern England toward the animals, birds, vegetation, and physical landscape among which they spent their lives, often in conditions of proximity which are now difficult for us to appreciate. It was a time when a conviction of man's ascendancy over the natural world gave way to a new concern for the environment and sense of kinship with other species. Here, for example, Thomas illustrates the changing attitudes toward the woodlands. John Morton observed in 1712, "In a country full of civilized inhabitants" timber could not be "suffered to grow. It must give way to fields and pastures, which are of more immediate use and concern to life." Shortly thereafter, in 1763, Edwin Lascelles pronounced the "The beauty of a country consists chiefly in the wood." People's relationships with animals were also in the process of dramatic change as seen in their growing obsession with pet keeping. The use of human names for animals, the fact that pets were rarely eaten, though not for gastronomic reasons, and pets being included in family portraits and often fed better than the servants all demonstrated a major shift in man's position on human uniqueness. The issues raised in this fascinating work are even more alive today than they were just ten years ago. Preserving the environment, saving the rain forests, and preventing the extinction of species may seem like fairly recent concerns, however, Man and the Natural World explores how these ideas took root long ago. These issues have much to offer not only environmental activists, but historians as well, for it is impossible to disentangle what the people of the past thought about plants and animals from what they thought about themselves.

Customer Reviews:

An Interesting Study of Our Relationship Towards Nature.......2004-12-11

Keith Thomas's _Man and the Natural World_ is a nice text for anyone interested in the history of England's changing attitudes towards animals and the environment. Thomas notices an interesting shift. At one time, the language of Genesis dominated England's relationship to the natural world. The earth was put here, by God, for our cultivation and for us to rule over like kings. Yet, in the modern world, we take a much different approach, choosing to value natural resources and understand ourselves as a mere part of the natural order and not nature's master. (Of course, certain sects of society, and administration's, seem to cling onto a biblical understanding of humankind's place in the natural world, but no one can doubt the general shift in thinking). Naturally the question arises: how on earth did we move, as a society, from one viewpoint to the other?

It is this question that occupies the rest of Thomas's work, as he examines it from various angles. Thomas carefully shows how our modern views towards nature are not as modern as we might imagine, but rather start taking form in the sixteenth century and start steamrolling up to the present. As noted in his own introduction and other reviews, Thomas delves into the history of England by examining literary sources, often regarded as problematic sources for historical studies, in order to try and reconstruct the attitudes of England during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth centuries.

I enjoyed Thomas's style. It is easy to read and quite accessible to a general audience. One does not need to know anything about the topic in order to digest this work. Yet Thomas also manages to pack it with a wide variety of quotes and secondary sources, providing a springboard for further study. Thus, _Man and the Natural World_ is both an ideal text for interested students and a nice read for anyone with a casual interest in Western civilization's relationship with the natural world.

Unique Study, but no Masterpiece.......2004-04-29

Sir Keith Thomas is one of the giants of English history. He was a pioneer in the use of anthropology in historical research and has produced important work on the double standard, literary, numeracy, witchcraft, and even a short life of James Oglethorpe, founder of Georgia. His Religion and the Decline of Magic remains a great work, despite being over thirty years old and despite the mass of subsequent work on witchcraft and popular religion.

Man and the Natural World has the same feel as his earlier work. Thomas holds his topic in his hand, examines it for a paragraph and then turns it slightly to reveal a new facet. His transitions from one idea to the next are smooth and easy, giving one the impression that they have a full and well-rounded picture of some aspect of the mental world of early modern England. In Religion and the Decline of Magic the reader feels that everything has been explained and that church, superstition, material conditions, public health and popular culture all fit together in a complex but comprehensible whole. Man and the Natural World does not produce the same air of authority. It takes a broad view of the rise of modern conservationism, ranging from the late middle ages well into the nineteenth century, and Thomas' wide variety of sources is dazzling. Yet the reader probably already knows the punchline - the modern love of nature goes hand in hand with its subjugation and destruction.

Book Description

In his foreword to this work, Valery Giscard d'Estaing characterizes the recent changes in Central and Eastern Europe as a great victory for the values of liberal democracy and a testament to the firmness and cohesion of the Atlantic Alliance. But as Karel De Gucht and Stephan Keukeleire go on to point out, these events were neither a necessity nor an accident, as they were the consequence of many small steps and measures whose effects were incalculable at the time as well as of fundamental long-term developments. De Gucht and Keukeleire see these developments as the building blocks for Europe's future and the opportunities for choice that could allow these European nations to once again take control of their history. Giscard d'Estaing's foreword and the authors' preface set the stage for a complete discussion of the myriad elements that have gone into the European upheaval. The work then explores a wide range of events and topics that had and will further have an impact on the formation of the new Europe, including growing doubts about the United States and nuclear deterrence, French independence, the pressure for reform in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, and the growing role of the European Community. Also discussed at length is the nation of Germany, its view of its own identity, the change in the German perception of security, and the German contribution to the European upheaval. The authors conclude their book with a policy-oriented blueprint for a future European security structure. This timely study will be an essential resource for students and scholars of European studies and political science, as well as an important addition to both academic and public libraries.

Earth science issues in the Missouri River Basin man's adaptation to the changing landscape (SuDoc I 19.76:94-195)

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Earth science issues in the Missouri River Basin man's adaptation to the changing landscape (SuDoc I 19.76:94-195)
William H. Langer
Manufacturer: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey Books and Open-File Reports Section, Branch of Distribution
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B00010OSWK

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Man & Changing Landscape
Barnes
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall (a Pearson Education company)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0874742293

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