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Class of 1957 Book Review Site. ©2007. To add a Book Review, or to comment on a book already in this listing, send your material or review to Sam Coulbourn at Persnav@shore.net. Photo at top of each page shows VADM C. Turner Joy (1895-1956). Joy was Commander Naval Forces Far East for most of the Korean War, presided over Armistice Talks with the North Koreans, and then came to Annapolis to serve as Superintendent. He was our Supe during our plebe year. Revised 3 August 2008. |
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TRAVEL TRAVEL Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown
.By Paul Theroux, 2003. New York: Houghton-Mifflin. 496 pp.
This is a fascinating account of Theroux’s journey on every dirtball pickup truck, ratty train, tramp steamer on Lake Victoria, broken down taxi cab and atop various animals, all the way through deserts of Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, through jungles, beautiful green of Ethiopia, Uganda, amidst the signs of pillage and destruction of Zimbabwe. He visits his old Peace Corps stomping grounds in Uganda and Malawi, and delivers a colorful, albeit somewhat somber, picture of life in Africa today. The trend—from rape and pillage by the white man to succession by black men, who now rape and pillage their own nations and people—is not one that gives cause for optimism.
Review by Sam Coulbourn, April 2006.
TRAVEL The Kingdom By The Sea: A Journey Around Great Britain
By Paul Theroux, 2003, Penguin
Paul Theroux took a train from London to the Thames estuary on May Day, 1982 and began a two-month journey around the whole of Britain, walking, riding trains and buses, and walking some more. Theroux writes about ordinary Brits he encounters, from Skinheads looking for a fight, to Cockney couples bundled up in lounge chairs at a bleak, windswept beach “shally”. He seems to find more than his share of depressed, dirty, desolate former industrial towns, with demoralized people passing the hours aimlessly during a time of Britain’s recession. You can smell the beer and the fried fish and chips. Britain is engaged with a war with Argentina in the Falklands, and as he walks and rides through south shore ports he absorbs the British spirit of support for their servicemen. He stays at dowdy bed-and-breakfast homes and drops in on sprawling seaside holiday camps for working class Brits, who are now largely on the dole. He walks around Cornwall, and up through Wales, and then across to Northern Ireland, then back to Scotland, up to Cape Wrath and around to Aberdeen. Belfast is dark and dismal, Scotland is robust, with much less of the recession climate of the rest of the country, but always Theroux manages to chat up local people and capture the local color. Theroux, a native of Medford, MA, had lived in London for several years when he wrote this book, and he paints a fascinating picture of the Kingdom by the Sea.
Review by Sam Coulbourn, March, 2007.
TRAVEL A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
By Henry David Thoreau. Edited by Carl F. Hovde, William L. Howarth, and Elizabeth Hall Witherell, with a new introduction by John McPhee; 2004, paper, Princeton University Press, 440 pp..
Thoreau writes about a two-week trip he and his brother John took from home in Concord, MA, up the Concord river and then onto the Merrimack river in August 1839. John died in 1842, and Thoreau went to work on this book as a memorial to his brother. He published it in 1849. McPhee sets the stage for the trip his introduction, writing of his modern-day voyage over the same rivers, comparing what he experienced with Thoreau’s observations. Thoreau spends little space writing about the trip, however. This book is Thoreau’s chance to comment on nature, and philosophy, his own brand of religion, and literature. His breadth and depth of classical learning, botany, and biology is remarkable.
Review by Sam Coulbourn, March, 2007.
THE GREAT BOOKS Why Read Great Books? by Mortimer Adler, Ph.D.
GREAT BOOKS OF THE WESTERN WORLD
A Collection of the Greatest Writings in Western History
VOLUMES 1 and 2 The Syntopicon This unique guide enables you to investigate a particular idea, such as courage or democracy, and compare the perspectives of different authors.
VOLUME 3 Homer The Iliad The Odyssey
VOLUME 4 Aeschylus (C. 525-456 BC) The Suppliant Maidens; The Persians; Seven Against Thebes; Prometheus Bound; Agamemnon; The Libation Bearers; The Eumenides Sophocles (C. 495-406 BC) Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone; Ajax; Electra; The Women of Trachis; Philoctetes Euripides (C. 480-406 BC): Rhesus; The Medea; Hippolytus; Alcestis; The Heracleidae; The Suppliant Women; The Trojan Women; Ion; Helen; Andromache; Electra; The Bacchae; Hecuba; Heracles; The Phoenician Women; Orestes; Iphigenia in Tauris; Iphigenia in Aulis; The Cyclops Aristophanes (C. 455-380 BC): The Acharnians; The Knights; The Clouds; The Wasps; Peace; The Birds; The Frogs; Lysistrata; The Poet and the Women; The Assemblywomen; Wealth
VOLUME 5 Herodotus (C. 484-425 BC): The History Thucydides (C. 460-400 BC): The History of the Peloponnesian War
VOLUME 6 Plato (C. 428-348 BC): Charmides; Lysis; Laches Protagoras Euthydemus Cratylus Phaedrus Ion Symposium Meno Euthyphro Apology Crito Phaedo Gorgias The Republic Timaeus Critias Parmenides Theaetetus Sophist Statesman Philebus Laws The Seventh Letter
VOLUME 7 Aristotle I (C. 384-322 BC) Categories On Interpretation Prior Analytics Posterior Analytics Topics On Sophistical Refutations Physics On the Heavens On Generation and Corruption Meteorology On Sense and the Reminiscence On Sleep and Sleeplessness On Dreams On Prophesying On Longevity and Shortness of Life On Youth and Old Age, On Life and Death, On Breathing
VOLUME 8 Aristotle II (C. 384-322 BC) History of Animals On the Parts of Animals; On the Motion of Animals; On the Gait of Animals; On the Generation of Animals; Nicomachean Ethics; Politics; The Athenian Constitution; Rhetoric; On Poetics
VOLUME 9 Hippocrates (FL. 400 BC) The Oath; On Ancient Medicine; On Airs, Waters, and Places; The Book of Prognostics; On Regimen in Acute Diseases; Of the Epidemics; On Injuries of the Head; On the Surgery; On Fractures; On the Articulations; Instruments of Reduction; Aphorisms; The Law; On Ulcers; On Fistulae; On Hemorrhoids; On the Sacred Disease; On Flatulence. Galen (C. AD 130-200) On the Natural Faculties
VOLUME 10 Euclid (FL. C. 300 BC) The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements Archimedes (C. 287-212 BC) On the Sphere and Cylinder; Measurement of a Circle; On Conoids and Spheroids; On Spirals; On the Equilibrium of Planes; The Sand-Reckoner; Quadrature of the Parabola; On Floating Bodies; Book of Lemmas; The Method Treating of Mechanical Problems
VOLUME 11 Lucretius (C. 98-C. 55 BC) The Way Things Are Epictetus (C. 60-C. 138 AD) The Discourses Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) The Meditations Plotinus (205-270 AD) The Six Enneads
VOLUME 12 Virgil (70-19 BC) The Eclogues (Bucolicon) The Georgics The Aeneid From Bucolicon: Me. Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi Silvestrem tenuis Musam medtaris avena: Nos patriae fines et dulcia linquimus arva; Nos patriam fugimus: tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas.
Meliboeus: You, Tityrus, 'neath a broad beech-canopy Reclining, on the slender oat rehearse Your silvan ditties: I from my sweet fields, And home's familiar bounds, even now depart. Exiled from home am I; while, Tityrus, you Sit careless in the shade, and, at your call, "Fair Amaryllis" bid the woods resound.
VOLUME 13 Plutarch (C. 46-C. 120) Life of Theseus; Life of Romulus; Romulus and Theseus Compared; Life of Lycurgus; Numas Pompilius; Lycurgus and Numa Compared; Solon; Poplicola; Poplicola and Solon Compared; Themistocles; Camillus; Pericles; Fabius; Fabius and Pericles Compared; Alcibiades; Coriolanus; Alcibiades and Coriolanus Compared; Timoleon; Aemilius Paulus; Aemilius Paulus and Timoleon Compared; Pelopidas; Marcellus; Marcellus and Pelopidas Compared; Aristides; Marcus Cato; Aristide and Marcus Cato Compared Philopoeman; Flamininus; Flamininus and Philopoeman Compared; Pyrrhus; Caius Marius; Lysander; Sulla Lysander and Sulla Compared; Cimon; Lucullus; Cimon and Lucullus Compared; Nicias; Crassus; Crassus and Nicias Compared; Sertorius; Eumenus; Eumenus and Sertorius Compared; Agesilaus; Pompey; Agesilaus and Pompey Compared Plutarch (C. 46-C. 120) Alexander; Caesar; Phocion; Cato the Younger; Agis; Cleomenes; Tiberius Gracchus; Caius Gracchus; Caius and Tiberius Gracchus and Agis and Cleomenes Compared; Demosthenes; Cicero; Cicero and Demosthenes Compared; Demetrius; Antony; Antony and Demetrius Compared; Dion; Marcus Brutus Brutus and Dion Compared; Aratus; Artaxerxes; Galba; Otho
VOLUME 14 Tacitus (C. 55-C. 117) The Annals; The Histories
VOLUME 15 Ptolemy (C. 100-C. 178) The Almagest Copernicus (1473–1543) On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres Kepler (1571-1630) Epitome of Copernican Astronomy: IV – V; The Harmonies of the World: V
VOLUME 16 Augustine (354-430) The Confessions; The City of God; On Christian Doctrine;
VOLUME 17 Aquinas I (c. 1225 – 1724) Treatise on God; Treatise on the Trinity; Treatise on the Creation; Treatise on the Angels; Treatise of the Work of the Six Days; Treatise on Man; Treatise on the Divine Government; Treatise on the Last End; Treatise on Human Acts
VOLUME 18 Aquinas II Treatise on Habits; Treatise on Law; Treatise on Grace; Treatise on Faith, Hope and Charity; Treatise on Active and Contemplative; Treatise on the States of Life; Treatise on the Incarnation; Treatise on the Sacraments; Treatise on the Resurrection; Treatise on the Last Things
VOLUME 19 Dante (1265 – 1321) The Divine Comedy; Chaucer (C. 1340 – 1400) Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales
VOLUME 20 Calvin (1509 – 1564) Institutes of the Christian Religion
VOLUME 21 Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) The Prince Hobbes (1588 – 1679)Leviathan, or, Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil
VOLUME 22 François Rabelais (C.1495 – 1553) Gargantua and Pantagruel
VOLUME 23 Desiderius Erasmus (C.1467 – C. 1536) Praise of Folly Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592) The Essays
VOLUME 24 William Shakespeare I (1564 – 1616) King Henry the Sixth; The Tragedy of King Richard the Third; The Comedy of Errors; Titus Andronicus; The Taming on the Shrew; The Two Gentlemen of Verona; Love’s Labour’s Lost; Romeo and Juliet; The Tragedy of King Richard the Second; A Midsummer-Night’s Dream; The Life and Death of King John; The Merchant of Venice; The First Part of King Henry the Fourth; The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth; Much Ado About Nothing; The Life of King Henry the Fifth; Julius Caesar; As You Like It
VOLUME 25 Shakespeare II Twelfth Night; or, What You Will; Hamlet, Prince of Denmark; The Merry Wives of Windsor; Troilus and Cressida; All’s Well that Ends Well; Measure for Measure; Othello, the Moor of Venice; King Lear; Macbeth; Antony and Cleopatra; Coroilanus; Timon of Athens; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Cymbeline; The Winter’s Tale; The Tempest; The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth; Sonnets
VOLUME 26 William Gilbert (1540 – 1603): On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies Galleleo Galilei (1564 – 1642): Concerning the Two New Sciences William Harvey (1578 – 1657): On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals
VOLUME 27 Miguel de Cervantes (1547 – 1616): The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha
VOLUME 28 Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626): Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum; New Atlantis Descartes (1596 – 1650): Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason; Meditations on First Philosophy; Objections Against the Meditations, and Replies; The Geometry Spinoza (1632 – 1677): Ethics
VOLUME 29 John Milton (1608 – 1674): English Minor Poems; Paradise Lost; Samson Agonistes; Areopagitica
VOLUME 30 Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662): The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises
VOLUME 31 Jean Baptiste Poquelin Molière (1622 – 1673): The School for Wives; The Critique of the School for Wives; Tartuffe; Don Juan; The Miser; The Would-Be Gentleman; The Would-Be Invalid Racine (1639 – 1699): Berenice; Phaedra
VOLUME 32 Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727) Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics Christiaan Huygens (1629 – 1695): Treatise on Light
VOLUME 33 Locke (1632 – 1704): A Letter Concerning Toleration Concerning Civil Government, Second Essay; An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Berkeley (1685 – 1763): The Principles of Human Knowledge Hume (1711 – 1776): An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
VOLUME 34 Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745): Gulliver’s Travels Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) (1694 – 1778): Candide Denis Diderot (1713 – 1784): Rameau’s Nephew
VOLUME 35 Montesquieu (1689 – 1755): The Spirit of Laws Rousseau (1712 – 1778): On the Origin of Inequality; On Political Economy; The Social Contract
VOLUME 36 Adam Smith (1723 – 1790): An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
VOLUME 37 Edward Gibbon I (1737 – 1794) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. I
VOLUME 38 Gibbon II: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. II
VOLUME 39 Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804): The Critique of Pure Reason; The Critique of Practical Reason; The Critique of Judgment
VOLUME 40 American State Papers: The Declaration of Independence; Articles of Confederation; The Constitution of the United States of America Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804), James Madison (1751-1836), John Jay (1745-1829): The Federalist John Stuart Mill (1806-1873): On Liberty; Representative Government; Utilitarianism
VOLUME 41 James Boswell (1740-1795): The Life of Samuel Johnson, LLD
VOLUME 42 Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794): Elements in Chemistry Michael Faraday (1791-1867): Experimental Researches in Electricity
VOLUME 43 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831): The Philosophy of Right; The Philosophy of History Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855): Fear and Trembling Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900): Beyond Good and Evil
VOLUME 44 Alexis De Tocqueville (1805-1859): Democracy in America
VOLUME 45 Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832): Faust Honoré De Balzac (1799-1850): Cousin Bette
VOLUME 46 Austen, Jane (1775-1817): Emma Eliot, George (1819-1880): Middlemarch
VOLUME 47 Charles Dickens (1812-1870): Little Dorrit
VOLUME 48 Herman Melville (1819-1891): Moby Dick Mark Twain (1835-1910): Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
VOLUME 49 Charles Darwin (1809-1882) The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection; The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex
VOLUME 50 Karl Marx (1818-1883) Das Kapital Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) Manifesto of the Communist Party
VOLUME 51 Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) War and Peace
VOLUME 52 Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) The Brothers Karamazov Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) A Doll’s House; The Wild Duck; Hedda Gabler; The Master Builder
VOLUME 53 William James (1842-1910) The Principles of Psychology
VOLUME 54 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939): The Origin and Development of Psycho-Analysis; Selected Papers on Hysteria (Chapters 1-10); The Sexual Enlightenment of Children; The Future Prospects of Psycho-Analytic Therapy; Observations on “Wild” Psycho-Analysis; The Interpretations of Dreams; On Narcissism; Instincts and Their Vicissitudes; Repression; The Unconscious; A General Introduction to Psycho-Analysis; Beyond the Pleasure Principle; Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego; The Ego and the Id; Inhibitions, Symptons, and Anxiety Thoughts for the Times on War and Death; Civilization and Its Discontents; New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis
VOLUME 55—20th Century Philosophy and Religion William James (1842-1910): Pragmatism Henri Bergson (1859-1941): Introduction to Metaphysics John Dewey (1859-1952): Experience and Education Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947): Science and the Modern World Bertrand Russell (1872-1970): The Problems of Philosophy Martin Heidegger (1889-1976): “What is Metaphysics?” Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951): Philosophical Investigations Karl Barth (1886-1968): The Word of God and the Word of Man
VOLUME 56 —20th Century Science Henri Poincaré (1858-1912): Science and Hypothesis Max Planck (1858-1947): Scientific Autobiography Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947): Introduction to Mathematics Albert Einstein (1879-1955): Relativity: The Special and the General Theory Sir Arthur Eddington (1882-1944): The Expanding Universe Niels Bohr (1885-1962): Atomic Theory: The Descriptions of Nature (selections) Discussion with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics” G.H. Hardy (1887-1947): A Mathematician’s Apology Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976): Physics and Philosophy Erwin Schrodinger (1887-1961): What Is Life? Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900-1975): Genetics and the Origin of Species C.H. Waddington (1905-1975): The Nature of Life
VOLUME 57 20th Century Social Science I Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929): The Theory of the Leisure Class R.H. Tawney (1880-1962): The Acquisitive Society John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946): General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
VOLUME 58 20th Century Social Science II Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941): Selections from the Golden Bough: chapters I-IV, LXVI-LXIX. Max Weber (1864-1920): Selections from Essays in Sociology: Part I: Science and Politics; Part II: Power; Part III: Religion Johan Huizinga (1872-1945): The Waning of the Middle Ages Claude Levi-Strauss (1908- ): Selections from Structural Anthropology: Chapters I-VI, IX-XII, XV, XVII
VOLUME 59 20th Century Imaginative Literature I Henry James (1843-1916): “The Beast in the Jungle” Bernard Shaw (1856-1950): Saint Joan Joseph Conrad (1857-1924): Heart of Darkness Anton Chekhov (1860-1904): Uncle Vanya Luigi Pirandello (1867-1922): Six Characters in Search of an Author Marcel Proust (1871-1922): Swann in Love from Remembrance of Things Past Willa Cather (1873-1947): A Lost Lady Thomas Mann (1875-1955): Death in Venice James Joyce (1882-1941): Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
VOLUME 60 20th Century Imaginative Literature II Virginia Woolf (1883-1941): To the Lighthouse Franz Kafka (1883-1924): “The Metamorphosis” D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930): “The Prussian Officer” T.S. Eliot (1888-1965): “The Waste Land” Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953): Mourning Becomes Electra William Faulkner (1897-1962): “A Rose for Emily” Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956): “Mother Courage and Her Children” Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961): “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” Samuel Beckett (1906-1989): “Waiting for Godot”
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Class of 1957, Plebe Summer, 1953 |