Thucydides, you blow!
Let me tell you a story. A long time ago, in the early 90s, when Jenn was in college the first time, she took a class called "Ancient History" because it fulfilled a Humanities credit for her. Though Jenn likes history a great deal, this class turned out to be not what she was expecting. The lectures skipped lightly over anything Jenn actually considered ancient in favor of an intensive study of the Greeks and Romans, both of which Jenn really did not care much about. And it was here that she met one of her ultimate nemeses - a wholly evil tome known as The History of the Peloponnesian War. So horribly hideously dull, so unspeakably boring, that even its own author - Thucydides - admits that he's spawned an unholy creature ("My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last forever."). But, in spite of such creeping terrors, Jenn managed to bullshit her way through the long essay tests and got an A.
Flash forward to many years later and Jenn is back in school, where she discovers that her "Ancient History" class no longer exists, and therefore no longer fulfills a Humanities credit for her. Bummer. Her intrepid department counciler even petitions the university to allow it, since it did count when she originally took the damn class, but their response was akin to "Screw you! We want your tuition, so you still need that credit, whether you like it or not!" And so Jenn is forced to seek another class that will fulfill her requirements. Wanting to get it over with and out of the way, Jenn picks "History of Western Civilization 1" as a month-long accelerated summer course.
Bearing in mind that this is - once again - a month long summer course, Jenn goes merrily to the campus bookstore to buy her text. Only to be shocked when she has to buy not one book, not even two or three, but SEVEN. And what lurks insidiously like passed gas amidst those seven tomes, ready to strike when the moment is right?
Yes.
The History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides.
*headdesk*
---
Yeah so, WTF? Seven books for a month long class?! Okay, admittedly a number of them are very thin little things, but a couple are not. Here's the list:
Civilization in the West, Volume 1 to 1715 - 6th Edition. This is the big textbook, but it actually came bundled with another book, so it could be honestly said that there's actually EIGHT books for this class. The other book is Sources of the West, Readings in Western Civilization from the Beginning to 1715. I already call foul on the use of the words "the beginning".
Medea, by Euripides
The Republic, by Plato. Not thin.
Antigone, by Sophocles
The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli
Plagues and Peoples, by William H. McNeill. Also not thin, but this one actually looks pretty interesting and I've already started reading it.
And, of course, The History of the (@#$%ing) Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides. And doesn't it just figure that it was the most expensive of the smaller books? Oh, and it's not thin by any definition of the word.
*picks up evil book and screams "SPARTAAAAAA!" at it*
Flash forward to many years later and Jenn is back in school, where she discovers that her "Ancient History" class no longer exists, and therefore no longer fulfills a Humanities credit for her. Bummer. Her intrepid department counciler even petitions the university to allow it, since it did count when she originally took the damn class, but their response was akin to "Screw you! We want your tuition, so you still need that credit, whether you like it or not!" And so Jenn is forced to seek another class that will fulfill her requirements. Wanting to get it over with and out of the way, Jenn picks "History of Western Civilization 1" as a month-long accelerated summer course.
Bearing in mind that this is - once again - a month long summer course, Jenn goes merrily to the campus bookstore to buy her text. Only to be shocked when she has to buy not one book, not even two or three, but SEVEN. And what lurks insidiously like passed gas amidst those seven tomes, ready to strike when the moment is right?
Yes.
The History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides.
*headdesk*
---
Yeah so, WTF? Seven books for a month long class?! Okay, admittedly a number of them are very thin little things, but a couple are not. Here's the list:
Civilization in the West, Volume 1 to 1715 - 6th Edition. This is the big textbook, but it actually came bundled with another book, so it could be honestly said that there's actually EIGHT books for this class. The other book is Sources of the West, Readings in Western Civilization from the Beginning to 1715. I already call foul on the use of the words "the beginning".
Medea, by Euripides
The Republic, by Plato. Not thin.
Antigone, by Sophocles
The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli
Plagues and Peoples, by William H. McNeill. Also not thin, but this one actually looks pretty interesting and I've already started reading it.
And, of course, The History of the (@#$%ing) Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides. And doesn't it just figure that it was the most expensive of the smaller books? Oh, and it's not thin by any definition of the word.
*picks up evil book and screams "SPARTAAAAAA!" at it*