Audiobook Club: The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire...

I figured that subscribing to Audible would give me an opportunity to get back into 'reading' fiction again, but this deosn't seem to be the case. I'm not exactly sure why, but for the past several years I've found myself getting bored very quickly whenever I read something that's not at least somewhat educational1. So, when my audible credit came along I took advantage of a 2-for-1 sale to pick up The Modern Scholar: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which is actually a series of 14 lectures by Prof. Thomas F. Madden of Saint Louis University. 

I was quite pleasantly surprised by the quality and contents of the series - they're like interesting university lectures if your prof took more time to prepare and had all rambling edited out. 

Prof. Madden begins the series with a discussion about what we mean by the 'fall' of Rome. The Roman Republic itself fell during the 1st century BC and became an empire, primarily because total concentration of power into the hands of one clear dictator ended decades of civil war among various Roman generals out to seize said power for themselves. This is only a preamble, as the lectures are more concerned with the decline of the Empire, traditionally dated to have lasted from 27 BC to 476 AD, when the final Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustulus, abdicated the title. The Eastern Roman Empire, referred to as the 'Byzantine Empire', continued for another thousand years until the fall of Constantinople in 1,453 AD.

One aspect of Roman history that the lectures attempt to emphasize is that there wasn't a single 'ultimate cause' that precipitated the fall of Rome. Rather there were a series of issues, each playing varyingly important roles that served to strengthen or weaken Rome's influence in the known world.

One major problem that Prof. Madden identifies is that Rome tended (though not always) to do better when Emperors were chosen from capable military leaders - such as when a seated Emperor would define a clear successor who was popular with the citizenry. Far more problems seemed to be created during periods of dynasty, or when spoiled sons succeeded their fathers and ran the Empire like their own personal playgrounds (check out Elagabalus as an example of a particularly weak, somewhat insane Emperor who was put into power by his grandmother).

When Emperors died without heirs, or were assassinated after weak rule, power vacuums would lead to massive civil wars. In fact the third century AD saw one such war after another. As civil wars and political assassinations became more frequent, leaders realized that the key to holding power was maintaining a very loyal military. Over a period of many consecutive short-lived reigns, Emperors raised taxes in order to increase the pay of their troops and buy their loyalty. The problem was that the military quickly realized that the more often their leaders changed, the faster their pay rose, leading to a period of extreme taxation and terrible political unrest.

In the 'end' (no actual Roman at the time thought that the Empire 'fell' in 476, though the sacking of Rome in 410 AD by the Visigoths did change perceptions considerably) Rome was laid low by the culmination of very poor leadership, population pressures pushing Germanic tribes into Imperial lands, the arrival of the Huns from the far East, and Persian incursion into the Eastern Empire preventing them from aiding the struggling West.

It's almost impossible to overstate the significance of the Roman state on Western thought and culture. Almost every subsequent 'Empire' has billed itself as reclaiming the 'glory of Rome'. The US Congress doesn't have a 'Senate' for nothing, and the relationship between religious power and the state among Christian nations was largely established during the waning years of the Empire.

I've said it before in previous posts, but I feel the need to reemphasize the sophistication with which classical figures acted and wrote. We have a tendency to view people in the past as 'inferior', but they were only so in terms of their understanding of the world, not in their interpretation. Some Roman figure-heads made brilliant decisions and hatched impressive plans given the lack of rapid transportation or communication. Furthermore, Roman law (and even more so subsequent Byzantine law) was surprisingly effective and progressive compared to many contemporary and subsequent tyrannies.

There's always value in revisiting the past in order to understand what we can learn from it in its own context and not in order to interpret it through the lens of current events. As Prof Madden bookends the entire lecture series: Rome is not a metaphor for modern day America, even though some of its successes and failures can help to inform modern politics. 

1Incidentally, I've found myself pretty much only wanting to watch documentaries when it comes to films.

Audiobook Club: Steve Jobs - Part 1...

Realizing that I never watch television anymore, I cancelled my Netflix subscription this week and took advantage of a free 30 day trial of Amazon's Audible.com. Audible is basically a modern version of 'Columbia House'1, where you pay $14.99/month to download 1 audiobook/month and receive 'discount' pricing (at least as compared to retailers) on additional books. As metioned in my last post, I find myself unable to meet my listening needs (jogging, benchwork, commuting, etc.) with podcasts lately so audiobooks seemed like a good idea.

The book I chose for my free trial is the unabridged version of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs (2011; Simon & Schuster), the massive bestseller that came out a few weeks after Jobs' death late last year. I knew that Jobs himself had asked Isaacson to write his biography and that the work wasn't intended as a cash-in from his death; however, I was still quite loathe to read it when it came out. Like any celebrity death, the media's evangelizing of Jobs was so over the top that I felt as though I had to wait until the furor had died down. The audiobook is divided into 3 long (8 hour) parts, and since I can't make notes and mark pages, I've decided to blog about each part individually.

You may have heard about the psychopath theory of corporate CEOs. It's basically pop-psychology that suggests that the qualities typically associated with psychopathy (e.g., lack of empathy, narcissism, solipsism, etc.) are beneficial qualities in the cutthroat world of big business. The aspect of this theory that I find disturbing, is that some people see psychopathic behavior among corporate executives as justifiable when stacked against their accomplishments2.

Steve Jobs is a particularly interesting individual on this count because the first part of the book paints him out to be a man who a) had some very clever, very forward thinking ideas at a young age and b) was a completely intolerable, unforgivable asshole. Specifically relevant to the pop-psychology theory outlined above, Jobs' 'psychopathy' was apparently so bad that it fundamentally harmed his company. While we can marvel at how impressive early Apple computers were, not all of its ideas and intuitions were successful.

Jobs' vision from the beginning and up to his death was that technology should be made available to the masses and that in order to do so, ease of use and elegance should trump some functionality. 70s tech was intimidating to non-specialists, and companies of the era were catering to the hardcore. If nothing else, Jobs realized rather early that presentation and 'messaging' mattered. For instance, he would routinely ask his designers to implement features that, while not necessary, were 'cool' (such as the hovering, rounded windows on the original Mac OS). More often than not Jobs realized that journalists and customers would spend more time talking about the "insanely awesome" superficial features of a product more so than the detailed specs that obsessed tech geeks. Jobs brought the idea of selling a concept or a lifestyle to electronics - a field dominated by tech heads.

The now famous '1984' ad run by Apple to announce the Macintosh computer was a smash success, and was strongly championed by Jobs against the wishes of the other execs. It 'went viral' long before there was a Youtube and drummed up massive interest in the brand.  

The flipside to all of these great ideas is that Jobs had such a strongly abrasive personality that he frequently turned off investors, insulted clients and collaborators, and drove his own staff insane. He publicly insulted fellow employees and underplayed Apple products designed by 'rival' teams. It's sometimes admirable to say that someone is uncompromising in their vision, but Jobs failed to see that his desire to have control over every aspect of his system would make it more expensive and less 'open' than other brands. There were many competing, incompatible brands of PCs in 1984, and ultimately the open standards pioneered by IBM drove down costs and netted more customers even though it was clear for many years that Apple's products were more 'impressive'. Furthermore, Jobs went against the wishes of Apple's execs and forbade them from licensing the Mac OS software to other hardware manufacturers, a decision that would hurt down the road when Microsoft proved that the money was in the software.

In the early days of Apple, Jobs' artistic and forward thinking design achievement were very impressive, but so too were his managerial flaws. Business acumen was not his strength, and he probably had too much control over operations in the company's early days. Surprisingly, there's almost nothing positive said about the man as a person at all in the first third of the book, which makes it a bit of a boorish listen. The people who surround Jobs are so much more interesting as individuals than the man himself - if this is the real picture of Steve Jobs, I'm surprised that he bothered to seek out a biographer.

1I spoke too soon, apparently Columbia House is still in operation in the US. 

2This could be an entire blog post on its own, but I've become acutely aware of how frequently people derive 'ought' from 'is' or alternatively, assume that others do so. Observation of a phenomenon is not equivalent to condoning it (or vice-versa).

Muir Woods...

John Muir (1838 - 1914) was a Scottish-born engineer and naturalist who immigrated to the United States in the mid-19th century and is famous for: a) having successfully petitioned Congress to pass the National Parks Bill (involving the establishment of Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks in 1899), and b) having co-founded the Sierra Club in San Francisco a few years earlier in 1892. When, in 1908, then President Theodore Roosevelt agreed to raise a national monument protecting several hundred acres of old growth redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) rainforest, he agreed with Congressman William Kent that the monument should be named in Muir's honor.

I travelled to Muir Woods National Monument (or simply Muir Woods for short), located in Marin County, a very short drive north of San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge, this past weekend to do a little bit of walking under the world's tallest species of trees1:

Regardless of whether the redwoods found in the Muir Woods are the tallest, there's no denying that they are very impressive, stretching out dozens of meters up into the sky (the tallest on record measures ~115 m or 377 ft):

 Without a 'fish eye' lens, it's difficult to capture both the height and the girth of these trees. I remember thinking that trees were much taller on the west coast as compared to the east when I lived in Vancouver, and yet the trees I saw there have nothing on these2.

As night was falling, a friend snapped a photo of yours truly standing under one the the bigger trees. Many of the trunks formed hollow structures that could conceivably be used by someone as a temporary shelter. Perhaps Native Americans did so?

I can understand why the woods themselves are a major a attraction in the area: In addition to being gorgeous and scenic (as well as a short drive from the city), they also make for a rather leisurely stroll. Unlike many 'parks', Muir Woods is quite a flat path and doesn't require any sort of hiking skill or effort.

A visit to the woods is very much a gorgeous nature-stroll.

For anyone who's interested in seeing some more photos from the park (as well as a scenic overlook of Southern Marin County), I've created a Picasa Web Album of the snapshots I took.

I will leave you with one more photo, however. This one is taken from the winding road leading up the mountain that ultimately brings you to the entrace to the woods. The town in the foreground is Sausalito, of macademia nut cookie fame, while the second town across the water is Belvedere. Furthermore, the Bay Bridge, Treasure and Yerba Buena Islands, and the city of Oakland can be seen of in the distance. Sometimes I do wish that I had a fancier camera...

1The actual tallest redwoods are found in Redwood National Park, which is several hours drive north of the SF Bay Area.

2Nevertheless, there is a species of tree found in British Columbia (as well as Washington State and Oregon) called the Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), which is almost as tall as the Redwood, but not quite. 

Book Club: Classic X-men Vol. 1...

I wasn't really all that into comics as a kid, mostly because I thought they were too expensive (I seem to remember monthly issues costing somewhere in the $3.75 - 4.50 range, which is pretty pricey on an allowance). The only series that I can remember buying regularly for a few year were X-men and Uncanny X-men, which, in addition to the cartoons, I enjoyed a lot.

I pretty much ignored comics entirely until the end of my M.Sc., when I began picking up a few select books. It's really during my Ph.D. that I began reading graphic novels with more gusto, specifically due to the recommendations of some friends as well as some podcasts whose host's opinions I respected. One of the things that I quickly learned was that there's a whole world of graphic novels outside of superhero comics, and that many of these series (e.g., Fables, Preacher, The Walking Dead, Sandman, etc.) are very well respected as works of literature - that is to say, outside of the comic book crowd1. And while I've read many excellent books that I'm sure I'll discuss here at some point - I recently decided to delve back into superhero comics in a unique way by picking up a collection of the very first 24 issues of X-men ever published.

If I understand my comic book lore correctly, X-men, originally published in 1963, came out during the 'Silver Age'. This period of comic history began after the industry self-imposed Comics Code Authority came into play in 1954, ending the long era of horror, crime, and suspense books thereby causing surviving comics publishers to return to superhero titles2. This period is also well-known for its strong undertone of 'bowdlerization' of story themes as the industry operated under an oppressive set of restrictions regarding what could and could not be depicted.

These early X-men comics are notable both for how early many of the most beloved heroes and villains in the series were introduced (for instance, I was surprised to learn that the iconic Sentinels appear by the 14th issue of the series) but also for how strongly they reflect the social norms of the time. While entertaining as a window into a period of America's history, the stories are about on par with the Archie comics I occasionally read as a kid, replete with the same degree of borish story book romance junk. Most of the villains and their schemes are laughable - fear the might of the Vanisher! - and there's very little controversy to any of the material... at least when judged by the standards of the time. The one thing that is quite surprising by today's standards is the shocking degree of misogyny in the books, so much so that certain panels are downright uncomfortable. The few female characters are regularly treated in patronizing tones that just wouldn't play in a modern setting. How times have changed!(?)

The only other thing I wanted to note specifically is how different the style of comic book writing was back then. To begin, every sentence ends with one to three exclamation marks, causing me to hear everything in my head in the voice of the announcer from the old Adam West Batman TV show!!! Also, there's an insane amount of text in every panel of the book: Not only do the characters explicitly describe each action that they're attempting, but every panel is also narrated, leading to an odd 'triple-redundancy'. Consider the following: A panel will show Cyclops destroying a wall using his 'optic blast'... while at the same time he says, "I'll use my optic blast to destroy this wall!!!"... and the box carrying the narration says, "The wall crumbles under the might of Cyclops' awesome optic blast!!!" Really? I wonder if Stan Lee was paid by the word?

I've already purchased the second collection containing the next 24 issues of the series, but I'm not sure if I'll go much further than there. Not only are superhero books 'not my bag', but I have to admit that there's not much here other than historical interest in where this now multi-million dollar franchise came from. I'd never claim that writers of the time were inferior to modern authors, but it's obvious that they were operating in a time where creativity was stifled due to the common perception that comics were harming youth psychologically. There's a spark of genius here in that the first hints of what would become the major theme of the X-men, 'mutants' as an allegory for racism, begin to make an appearance. I wonder how much different it would've been had Stan Lee (the famous creator of X-men, Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, etc.) had full reign to explore any and all of his ideas?

1I should note here that there are actually some very good superhero books as well, such as Watchmen and The Dark Night Returns, but I find them more difficult to find amidst all of the drawings of large men flexing.

2I highly recommend an excellent book called 'The 10 Cent Plague' by David Hadju that chronicles the incredible rise in popularity of comics in America. This ultimately led to a large amount of unfettered experimentation by artists and writers and precipitated a government crackdown in the interest of 'protecting children'.