Cullen Murphy's Are We Rome?

Cullen Murphy's Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America is definitely worth reading, particularly if your knowledge of Roman history is lacking (click here to view all my posts about this book).

I don't know enough about Roman history to properly evaluate the points Murphy makes but I still found it interesting. Murphy writes for the average person and not the highly educated scholar.

Murphy is clearly well-read and appears to have done substantial research for this book. I was surprised by how often he mentioned other books. Some of the books he mentioned are:

• Colossus by Niall Ferguson - "I believe the world needs an effective liberal empire and that the United States is the best candidate for the job" and America's best and brightest "aspire not to govern Mesopotamia but to manage MTV; not to rule the Hejaz but to run a hedge fund."
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs - "The collapse of one sustaining cultural institution enfeebles others . . . . With each collapse, still further ruin becomes more likely."
• City of God by Augustine
• Satyricon by Petronius
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
• The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
• Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
• Cato: A Tragedy in Five Acts by Joseph Addison
• The Crucible by Arthur Miller
• Life of Washington by Parson Weems
• Democracy: An American Novel by Henry Adams
• Caesar & Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw
• Political Arithmetick by William Petty
• Roman History by Ammianus Marcellinus
• The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire by Edward Luttwak
• The Soldier and the State by Samuel Huntington
• This Kind of War by Colonel T. R. Fehrenbach - "You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life -- but if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men into the mud."
• Corruption and the Decline of Rome by Ramsay MacMullen - "the privatization of power" or "the deflection of public purpose by private interests."
• Daily Life in Ancient Rome by Jerome Carcopino
  
• The Shadow Government by Daniel Guttman and Barry Willner
• Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling
• Blow the House Down by Robert Baer
• The Annals of Imperial Rome by Tacitus
• The Quiet American by Graham Greene
• The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman
• My Year in Iraq by L. Paul Bremer - I'd really like to read this
• The Old Social Classes & The Revolutionary Movement of Iraq by Hanna Batatu
• Roman History by Cassius Dio
• Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling
• Mexifornia by Victor Davis Hanson
• Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee
• Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron
• Why Most Things Fail by Paul Ormerod

The breadth of Murphy's sources is astonishing. He even quoted video games such as Rome: Total War and several movies -- including Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Gladiator, and Spartacus.

I found that I enjoyed this book immensely at the start but found my interest wavering as I got further into the book. But Murphy concludes this book rather succinctly with what he calls the "Titus Livius 100-year Workout Plan":

1. Instill an appreciation of the wider world, including creation of immigration-friendly policies and an increase in the number of Americans who are fluent in another language.
2. Stop treating government as a necessary evil and instead rely on it proudly for the big things it can do well.  Examples include nurturing business, reducing poverty, Social Security, and guaranteed student loans.
3. Fortify the institutions that promote assimilation (public services for illegal immigrants).
4. Take some weight off the military and national service.

I wonder what Murphy thinks of the current financial crisis....hmm....

Click here to read an excerpt from Are We Rome? or click here to view the table of contents.

The Secret Life of Words by Henry Hitchings

I just read about The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English by Henry Hitchings in this article from The Economist and I've got to get a copy!

Hitchings is also the author of Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr Johnson's Dictionary, which I also want to read after I first heard about it in Charles McGrath's New York Times Book Review "A Man of Many Words" published December 4, 2005. William Grimes also reviewed it in the New York Times here; click here to read the first chapter of Defining the World.

Though I don't know much about it, I've always been fascinated by the history of language -- one thing I liked about Cullen Murphy’s Are We Rome? was learning how we use words derived from words the Romans used).

And as the review from The Economist mentions, the history of words is the history of culture:

All this is another way of writing history. The Arab etymologies of “saffron”, “crimson” and “sugar” speak of England’s medieval trade with the Arab world. We have “cheque” and “tariff” from this source too, plus “arithmetic” and “algorithm”—just as we have “etch” and “sketch” from the Dutch, musical terms from the Italians and philosophical ones from the Germans. French nuance and finesse are everywhere. At every stage, the book is about people and ideas on the move, about invasion, refugees, immigrants, traders, colonists and explorers.

I hope my local library has a copy!

Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America by Cullen Murphy

With the upheaval in the financial markets these past few weeks, it's been especially interesting to read Cullen Murphy's Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America (click here to view all my posts about this book). I had high expectations for this book and I have not been disappointed.

Murphy begins by telling readers how the Roman emperor Diocletian and his imperial entourage can be easily compared to President George W. Bush and his entourage:

• mensores: advance men who requisition supplies and arrange for security
• protectores: imperial bodyguards / secret service
• comitatus: caravan / all people in the Executive Office of the President
• pragustatores: food-tasters / undercover agents who purchase food supplies anonymously at American supermarkets
• nomenklatura: name-callers of emperor's visitors
• haurs pices: oracles who interpret entrails of sheep
• augurs: oracles who interpret the flight of birds

He also explained that the thumbs-down sign originated from the gladiatorial turned thumb sign "pollice verso" before eventually summarizing the six parallels between Rome and America that Murphy focuses his book on:

1. How Americans see America, particularly how those in Washington view Washington itself.
2. Military power: the shortage of manpower and the widening cultural and social divide between military social and civilian society.
3. "Privatization" (and "corruption") and the fading distinction between public and private responsibilities and resources.
4. How Americans view the world.
5. Borders.
6. The inevitable complexity that comes with being a large empire/country.

I'll write more after I get further along, but in the meantime thought I would share this typical George W. Bush quote that Murphy used to illustrate the consolidation of power in the executive branch that has happened in the past 8 years:

I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain  . . . . I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation.

Click here to read an excerpt or click here to view the table of contents.

More Library Books

I went to the library today with the intention of return a few books and leaving empty handed. As usual, I proved incapable of resisting the lure of more books and I left with seven more (seems to be about what I can justify borrowing on a whim without feeling like I've gone completely overboard).

I'm sure I did overdo it but since I need to read one for a book club and I've already written about my interest in all the others, I don't feel too silly.

I checked out:

• The Moviegoer by Walker Percy (National Book Award for Fiction winner 1962)
• Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America by Cullen Murphy (click here to view all my posts about this book)
• In Defense of Food: an Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan (click here to view all my posts about this book)
• Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics by Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (click here to view all my posts about this book)
• The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker by Steven Greenhouse (click here to view all my posts about this book)
• The Uncertain Art: Thoughts on a Life in Medicine by Sherwin B. Nuland (click here to view all my posts about this book)
• White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters by Robert Schlesinger (click here to view all my posts about this book)

I first heard about Cullen Murphy's Are We Rome? about a year ago at the Harvard Bookstore in Harvard Square and my interest in this book was renewed when someone in I.O.U.S.A. compared the United States to Rome. As a loyal reader of The Atlantic, I have great respect for Murphy who was their managing editor for two decades. I have high expectations for this book and hope I will not be disappointed. Click here to read an excerpt.

And I suppose the Democratic and Republican National Conventions have once again piqued my interest in speechwriters, so naturally White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters by Robert Schlesinger caught my eye.

With all the talk of tough times, economically, for the average American and the outrage over the recently released GAO data that most U.S. Corporations pay no income tax, I just couldn't resist picking up Steven Greenhouse's The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker. I hope it provides new information and doesn't overlap too much with David Cay Johnston's Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill) and Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else.

And like most Americans, all I know about Joe Biden I've learned from reading the news (in my case the New York Times) these past few weeks. It hasn't added up to much. I hope to get a better sense of the Democratic Nominee for Vice President from his 2007 memoir Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics.

I tried to keep myself to just five books but when I saw Nuland's The Uncertain Art sitting on the shelf, I had to borrow it -- it's been a few months since I've read any books related to medicine or the human body and as a scientist I am compelled to reading science books. And all the talk about our nation's broken health care system makes this book about medicine from a doctor's perspective all the more irresistible.



And as I was about to leave, I saw Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto which I've wanted to read since January when I read Janet Maslin's review titled "Obsessed With Nutrition? That’s an Eating Disorder" and published January 3, 2008 in the NYTimes Book Review). I suppose my new gardening hobby (influenced by reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life and Bill McKibben's Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future) has made me even more interested in learning about food and nutrition. Click here to read the introduction of In Defense of Food on the author’s website or here to read the first chapter on the NYTimes Book Review website.

Alright, I think I've spent enough time trying to justify my borrowing way too many books -- I've got to get to reading now! My book club's discussion of Walker Percy's The Moviegoer is scheduled to start in three days!

NYTimes.com - A Book Club Courts Liberals

I've just heard about the new Progressive Book Club in Motoko Rich's "A Book Club Courts Liberals" published June 16, 2008 in the New York Times.

Members can join and buy three books at $1 apiece in exchange for the obligation to buy four books over the next two years.

Members of the Progressive Book Club will be offered a slate of books each month, reviewed and chosen by a panel that includes the novelists Michael Chabon, Erica Jong and Barbara Kingsolver; John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress; Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation magazine; and Todd Gitlin, the author and a journalism and sociology professor at Columbia University.

The offerings for June include:

• The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker by Steven Greenhouse (click here for my entries on this book)
• Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It by Elizabeth Royte (click here for my entry on this book)
• Outright Barbarous: How the Violent Language of the Right Poisons American Democracy by Jeffrey Feldman
• Mudbound, a novel by Hillary Jordan
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (click here for my entries on this book)
• Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv
• Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America by Cullen Murphy
• Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America by Steven Waldman (click here for my entry on this book)

The club will also offer about 200 older titles such as:

• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Common Sense by Thomas Paine
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
• Oil! by Upton Sinclair
• The End of Nature by Bill McKibben

I doubt I'll join -- I've been trying to limit my book purchases by borrowing books from my local library -- but it seems like it'll be a good place to check for new books.