50 Books Challenge | January
11. Moll Flanders: The Fortunes & Misfortunes of Moll Flanders
Author: Daniel DeFoe
Genre: Fiction//Historical
Pages: 305
Rating: 3/5
Daniel DeFoe, best known for Robinson Crusoe, tells the story from the perspective of a woman who lives her life in late seventeenth-century England. Born in Newgate Prison, her life started at rock-bottom. After her childhood and early-adulthood intimate relationship with a well-born family, Moll Flanders (her real name is never revealed) lives her life off and on as a whore and a thief to try and escape poverty. In the course of her life, she has multiple husbands - including her own brother. Moll begins to believe love is only worth monetary value. She continues this sinful life until one event sends her tumbling back down to rock-bottom, where she must either learn righteousness or die. My main problem with this book is that Moll Flanders is an unlikeable character. I sympathize that women in her time did not have many options to live wealthy lives; it's not even her whoring that bothers me. She cares for no one but herself. When she becomes a thief, she does not express any particular grief for the victims - including several young children - or the other thieves that are hanged. And when she's caught, she does not believe she deserves similar fate. Yet, I don't feel sorry for her. It's also too fast-paced; one minute she gets married, and a hundred pages later she's married four more times, has numerous forgotten children (seriously, she only spontaneously cares about one), and finds her mother.
I won't say it's not worth reading, but it's definitely not the best book to come from the eighteenth-century. Also, reader be warned that this book is without chapters.
12. Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century
Author: Neil Postman
Genre: Nonfiction//Social Issues
Pages: 171
Rating: 3/5
Anyone who's read Postman knows he's an unapologetic critic of technology, the best and worst accomplishment that was ever obtained by humans. I loved reading his book Technopoly in school, and so tracked this one down. It's a quick, somewhat enjoyable but ultimately thin message about how we need to have another Age of Enlightenment, and how our dependency of technology is making this impossible. We must return meaning to our education, culture, language, narrative, and childhood, or we will be but slaves as technology expands for the sake of expanding. He presents various eighteenth-century authors to support his thesis, with a particular reliance on either Thomas Paine or Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He never actually dives deeply into eighteenth-century thought, and most of what he finds can be found in a quote book. Simply put, 171 pages was not enough to get his point across, which is a shame because he makes many valid arguments. We really cannot be a people of moral reasoning if we let technology make decisions for us.
13. The Inferno
Author: Dante Alighieri
Genre: Fiction//Classic-Religious
Pages: 176
Rating: 4/5
Ah, one of the staple of many people's school days. It has been years since I've read the first third of The Divine Comedy, and I'd forgotten how entertaining it actually is. This classic tells the story of Dante the pilgrim's journey through hell, with the aid of his favorite poet Virgil. What we know about hell actually came mostly from Dante: the different levels, ironic punishments for specific crimes, etc. Along the spiritual journey, he must learn to stop feeling pity for the souls of people who deserve what came to them. The story is not what you'd expect it to be. While the reader does experience scenes of unbelievable torture, they are seen through the punishments of Dante's personal enemies. In a prime example of self-insert fanfiction, Dante writes a Take That blog to his political adversaries, some dead and some still living. A book like this couldn't be written and taken seriously in today's time. But with centuries past, it's actually quite a comical experience reading the rages of an Italian man listing off people he wished eternal damnation on. My Barnes & Noble edition provided plenty of footnotes to help the reader gain the back stories of all these unfortunate men to appreciate why Dante was as angry - and a bit prideful - as he was. A must-read.
14. The Effective Republic: Administration and Constitution in the Thought of Alexander Hamilton
Author: Harvey Flaumenhaft
Genre: Nonfiction//Political-Science
Pages: 267
Rating: 5/5
If you've ever been curious about Alexander Hamilton's opinion on the Constitution and effective government, and cannot get access to his papers, this is the book to read. Flaumenhaft meticulously researches Hamilton's papers (from The Federalist to his Examination essays) to determine how Hamilton wanted to see the American republic ran. It begins on first principles (the natural rights of mankind), the structure of the current government, and the separation of powers; it then goes into how the branches must have vigor to be efficient, especially in the executive department; Hamilton then concludes by emphasizing the importance of an independent Supreme Court to protect the governments from one another, and the governments from ignoring the supreme word of the Constitution. Flaumenhaft successfully argues against the Jeffersonian notion that Hamilton was a monarchist; monarchy is defined by having all power concentrated in a single individual, while Hamilton in actuality wanted an energetic president who could effectively enforce laws without the inherent lagging that plagues the legislature. Hamilton, above all else, wanted to merge the benefits of monarchy with the advantages of republicanism; at the end of his life, he still stood behind a government he wasn't sure would withstand the test of time - representative democracy (not to be confused with pure democracy, which Hamilton called a "poison"). The real genius of Flaumenhaft is that he uses Hamilton's words far more than his own; unless you're familiar with the latter, you never know when it's Hamilton or the narrator speaking, outside of quotations. All in all, excellent book.
15. Republic
Author: Plato
Genre: Nonfiction//Classic-Philosophy
Pages: 349
Rating: 5/5
This is pretty much where Western thought began. What is justice? Are the unjust better rewarded than the just? These are the questions that takes Plato - through the mouth of Socrates - almost four-hundred pages to answer. In a game of friendly debate, the characters engage in an argument to build a Utopian society; this idea hasn't aged well, since no humane citizen nowadays would advocate the use of infanticide. Once that perfect republic is made, Socrates and his friends slowly tear it apart into a timocracy (ruled by love of honor), oligarchy (ruled by love of money), democracy (ruled by the everyman), and finally tyranny. This is clearly paralleled with an individual's power to become just, defined as the ability to understand absolute truth. All men, according to the author, live in a figurative cave, where they believe what they see to be the truth, even though they're shadow puppets. Of course, only a philosopher can escape the cave and discover the absolute truth and become closer to God. Therefore, only philosophers should be kings. You as the reader may not agree with Plato's ideas or want to live in his republic, but this work's merits rest in it's ability to clearly invoke powering images in the form of a debate. Apart from perhaps some metaphysical discussion (which I will fully admit I'm not familiar with), most of what Plato says should be easily understood by the average reader.
Author: Daniel DeFoe
Genre: Fiction//Historical
Pages: 305
Rating: 3/5
Daniel DeFoe, best known for Robinson Crusoe, tells the story from the perspective of a woman who lives her life in late seventeenth-century England. Born in Newgate Prison, her life started at rock-bottom. After her childhood and early-adulthood intimate relationship with a well-born family, Moll Flanders (her real name is never revealed) lives her life off and on as a whore and a thief to try and escape poverty. In the course of her life, she has multiple husbands - including her own brother. Moll begins to believe love is only worth monetary value. She continues this sinful life until one event sends her tumbling back down to rock-bottom, where she must either learn righteousness or die. My main problem with this book is that Moll Flanders is an unlikeable character. I sympathize that women in her time did not have many options to live wealthy lives; it's not even her whoring that bothers me. She cares for no one but herself. When she becomes a thief, she does not express any particular grief for the victims - including several young children - or the other thieves that are hanged. And when she's caught, she does not believe she deserves similar fate. Yet, I don't feel sorry for her. It's also too fast-paced; one minute she gets married, and a hundred pages later she's married four more times, has numerous forgotten children (seriously, she only spontaneously cares about one), and finds her mother.
I won't say it's not worth reading, but it's definitely not the best book to come from the eighteenth-century. Also, reader be warned that this book is without chapters.
12. Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century
Author: Neil Postman
Genre: Nonfiction//Social Issues
Pages: 171
Rating: 3/5
Anyone who's read Postman knows he's an unapologetic critic of technology, the best and worst accomplishment that was ever obtained by humans. I loved reading his book Technopoly in school, and so tracked this one down. It's a quick, somewhat enjoyable but ultimately thin message about how we need to have another Age of Enlightenment, and how our dependency of technology is making this impossible. We must return meaning to our education, culture, language, narrative, and childhood, or we will be but slaves as technology expands for the sake of expanding. He presents various eighteenth-century authors to support his thesis, with a particular reliance on either Thomas Paine or Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He never actually dives deeply into eighteenth-century thought, and most of what he finds can be found in a quote book. Simply put, 171 pages was not enough to get his point across, which is a shame because he makes many valid arguments. We really cannot be a people of moral reasoning if we let technology make decisions for us.
13. The Inferno
Author: Dante Alighieri
Genre: Fiction//Classic-Religious
Pages: 176
Rating: 4/5
Ah, one of the staple of many people's school days. It has been years since I've read the first third of The Divine Comedy, and I'd forgotten how entertaining it actually is. This classic tells the story of Dante the pilgrim's journey through hell, with the aid of his favorite poet Virgil. What we know about hell actually came mostly from Dante: the different levels, ironic punishments for specific crimes, etc. Along the spiritual journey, he must learn to stop feeling pity for the souls of people who deserve what came to them. The story is not what you'd expect it to be. While the reader does experience scenes of unbelievable torture, they are seen through the punishments of Dante's personal enemies. In a prime example of self-insert fanfiction, Dante writes a Take That blog to his political adversaries, some dead and some still living. A book like this couldn't be written and taken seriously in today's time. But with centuries past, it's actually quite a comical experience reading the rages of an Italian man listing off people he wished eternal damnation on. My Barnes & Noble edition provided plenty of footnotes to help the reader gain the back stories of all these unfortunate men to appreciate why Dante was as angry - and a bit prideful - as he was. A must-read.
14. The Effective Republic: Administration and Constitution in the Thought of Alexander Hamilton
Author: Harvey Flaumenhaft
Genre: Nonfiction//Political-Science
Pages: 267
Rating: 5/5
If you've ever been curious about Alexander Hamilton's opinion on the Constitution and effective government, and cannot get access to his papers, this is the book to read. Flaumenhaft meticulously researches Hamilton's papers (from The Federalist to his Examination essays) to determine how Hamilton wanted to see the American republic ran. It begins on first principles (the natural rights of mankind), the structure of the current government, and the separation of powers; it then goes into how the branches must have vigor to be efficient, especially in the executive department; Hamilton then concludes by emphasizing the importance of an independent Supreme Court to protect the governments from one another, and the governments from ignoring the supreme word of the Constitution. Flaumenhaft successfully argues against the Jeffersonian notion that Hamilton was a monarchist; monarchy is defined by having all power concentrated in a single individual, while Hamilton in actuality wanted an energetic president who could effectively enforce laws without the inherent lagging that plagues the legislature. Hamilton, above all else, wanted to merge the benefits of monarchy with the advantages of republicanism; at the end of his life, he still stood behind a government he wasn't sure would withstand the test of time - representative democracy (not to be confused with pure democracy, which Hamilton called a "poison"). The real genius of Flaumenhaft is that he uses Hamilton's words far more than his own; unless you're familiar with the latter, you never know when it's Hamilton or the narrator speaking, outside of quotations. All in all, excellent book.
15. Republic
Author: Plato
Genre: Nonfiction//Classic-Philosophy
Pages: 349
Rating: 5/5
This is pretty much where Western thought began. What is justice? Are the unjust better rewarded than the just? These are the questions that takes Plato - through the mouth of Socrates - almost four-hundred pages to answer. In a game of friendly debate, the characters engage in an argument to build a Utopian society; this idea hasn't aged well, since no humane citizen nowadays would advocate the use of infanticide. Once that perfect republic is made, Socrates and his friends slowly tear it apart into a timocracy (ruled by love of honor), oligarchy (ruled by love of money), democracy (ruled by the everyman), and finally tyranny. This is clearly paralleled with an individual's power to become just, defined as the ability to understand absolute truth. All men, according to the author, live in a figurative cave, where they believe what they see to be the truth, even though they're shadow puppets. Of course, only a philosopher can escape the cave and discover the absolute truth and become closer to God. Therefore, only philosophers should be kings. You as the reader may not agree with Plato's ideas or want to live in his republic, but this work's merits rest in it's ability to clearly invoke powering images in the form of a debate. Apart from perhaps some metaphysical discussion (which I will fully admit I'm not familiar with), most of what Plato says should be easily understood by the average reader.