Non-Fiction

When discussing Confucianism, the first book people think of is The Analects of Confucius, which is understandably the most famous Confucian work by a wide margin. This book is, Scripture aside, the most important book I’ve ever read in forming my own political and social ideas, and my opinion of Confucius is largely the same as his student Tsze-kung:

Were our Master in the position of the ruler of a State or the chief of a Family, we should find verified the description which has been given of a sage’s rule: he would plant the people, and forthwith they would be established; he would lead them on, and forthwith they would follow him; he would make them happy, and forthwith multitudes would resort to his dominions; he would stimulate them, and forthwith they would be harmonious. While he lived, he would be glorious. When he died, he would be bitterly lamented. How is it possible for him to be attained to?

When one begins a study of Western philosophy, especially with a focus on the history of philosophy, Plato is the most common starting-point. That’s reasonable enough, since he was, as far as I know, the first major philosopher from whom we have a lot of material, and so influential that Alfred North Whitehead famously commented that the rest of Western philosophy is “footnotes to Plato.”

However, there were several philosophers who do predate Plato. The problem, though, is that we don’t have complete works from these men, just fragments and testimonia. Fortunately, The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists, translated and edited by Robin Waterfield, collects many of these fragments in an accessible way for a general audience. Waterfield also translated the edition of The Histories that I read and reviewed recently, and his translation is just as good here as it was for Herodotus (in style, of course, since I can’t vouch for accuracy), and his introduction and annotations are consistently helpful. Now, the nature of this material presents a couple significant problems. One is that because we only have the testimonia of other writers and mere fragments of the philosophers’ own work it can be difficult to piece together exactly what their ideas were in some cases. Furthermore, it can be difficult to follow many of these sections. In any other book, but especially philosophy, I’m used to reading through extended arguments point-by-point. Here, though, we often only have bits-and-pieces of arguments, or summaries by later writers. Sometimes, I found Waterfield’s introductions to each section was clearer and more instructive than the source material he translates.

Next to Aristotle’s Topics, The Histories may be the most vaguely titled book ever written. I suppose you can get away with that when you’re the Father of History, as Herodotus is called, and as the author of the first narrative history it’s not like there was much room for confusion at the time. Besides, while Herodotus makes the Greco-Persian Wars his ostensible subject, he’s so far-ranging that the broad title describes the work well enough.

Last year, I asked my twitter followers for good books on the War Between the States, and I was promptly informed that I would (not just “might”) enjoy Memoirs of a Service Afloat During the War Between the States, written by Raphael Semmes, captain of the CSS Sumter and, later, the Alabama. Once I got my hands on a copy, I could tell right away it would be a good one because opposite the title page the publisher, Alacrity Press, had a note saying, “This book is a product of its time. Some of the terms and views expressed by the author may reflect common values and usage of his day that are contrary to modern values. They should be viewed in that context.” A trigger warning like that is something I take as a strong endorsement.

A while back, over at Throne and Altar, Bonald pointed out that leaving the Enlightenment framework is only the beginning of thought. Once one rejects Liberalism root, tree, and branch, and embraces the Right, the rubric for judging historical figures and events is totally different, and it’s no longer clear without further investigation who the “good guys” in a given conflict were. Progressives occasionally mock the “gotta hear both sides” attitude, but once one is on the Right it becomes necessary, even in situations where the “correct” side always seemed obvious before.

So, in the midst of all the excitement over the imminent Thousand Year Trumpenreich, I thought now would be a good time to read Donald Trump’s popular 1987 book The Art of the Deal. I don’t typically read books written by famous living people, partly because I prefer things that have passed the test of time, and partly because they’re often ghostwritten anyway. Now, Trump did have a coauthor, Tony Schwarz. In these situations, having a coauthor on a memoir often means that the coauthor did most of the actual work while the celebrity uses his name to sell copies. I’ll assume that this is still substantially Trump’s work just because he seems to take a hands-on approach to anything affecting his business, but it’s probably wise to keep this in mind. Also worth pointing out is that in any memoir the author is going to be selective about what he chooses to say about himself. Klemens von Metternich, for example, wasn’t self-revealing at all in his memoirs. Trump doesn’t give one a sense of hiding anything, and this is primarily a business book, not a confession, but again it’s best to be aware that any author will, consciously or sub-consciously, portray himself in the best light.

This is another book that I wasn’t aware of until I stumbled on it in a used bookstore. I was surprised that memoirs by Klemens von Metternich wouldn’t be more talked-about since he’s such a respected figure among the Right, and I went into the book with high expectations, thinking it would be something like a more focused version of Henry Kissinger’s Diplomacy.

Now, the book is titled The Autobiography: 1773-1815, but it’s not really an autobiography, since Metternich says very little about his personal life, especially once he begins his diplomatic career. It’s not a history, either, as he says explicitly a few times. I called it a memoir above because it’s mostly a collection of anecdotes, conversations, and commentary on events Metternich was involved in. It’s a bit odd stylistically, but perhaps that’s to be expected; Metternich didn’t publish this himself, and doesn’t seem to have intended for all of it to be published. Rather, it’s a collection of three works edited together by his son, Prince Richard Metternich. Two of them blend together seamlessly, but the third, On the History of the Alliances, does stick out noticeably, and is a more traditional historical narrative of the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1813-15, though still focusing on the events Metternich personally took part in and avoiding well-known explanations of the battles and broader history.

Education at the Crossroads is a revised version of a series of lectures Jacques Maritain gave at Yale University in 1943 in which the author discusses, in four parts, “The Aims of Education,” “The Dynamics of Education,” “The Humanities and Liberal Education,” and “The Trials of Present-Day Education.” In other words, what education is, where it is now, and where it will, or at least ideally should, go.

Maritain’s idea of and approach to education is one that was probably moderate or Conservative by the standards of 1943, though by today’s standards I suppose one would call him a Paleoconservative. In any case, he’s a believer in a Liberal education (not a Progressive one, in today’s confusing terminology), and he defines the aim of education early on:

Alright, one more foray into the world of fitness blogs with another short book by P.D. Mangan, Best Supplements for Men’s Health, Strength, and Virility. It comes as-advertised, first explaining why one should consider taking supplements, then devoting a chapter each to discussing why, creatine, zinc and magnesium, vitamin D, testosterone and aromatose inhibitors, omega-3 fats, resveratrol, vitamin C, and N-acetylcysteine. He then closes the book with a chapter on diet, fasting, and exercise.

I recently started working out again, so I picked up the recently released e-book Muscle Up!, written by P.D. Mangan, who runs the blog Rogue Health and Fitness. The book primarily covers the benefits of strength training in itself and in comparison to aerobic exercises like running, and includes some tips on how to go about setting up a workout routine and answering some common beginner’s questions.

Mangan begins with some observations on how people often go about exercise, i.e. most don’t seem to take it as seriously as they should. “If you’re not grunting and groaning,” he writes, “or at least actively stifling your desire to do so – you’re not training hard enough.” He then spends the next several chapters on why one should work harder, and the specific benefits of weightlifting - it decreases one’s risk of getting cancer, improves cardiovascular and metabolic health, fights aging, and increases testosterone in men.