Surfeit

Mentionable books

2011-01-03T19:14:00.000-08:00

In the next few posts I am going to go over books I have read recently.

First off is The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire by Edward N. Luttwak. This is a book about military strategy and tactics but, in fact, I learned more about the Byzantine empire from this book than many other attempts at political, sociological or economic versions of Byzantine history. Most of the other books cover the life of Justinian based on "The Secret History" of Procopius. After covering his life, his wife and his genreal, a few extra chapters are often thrown in to cover almost a thousand years of Byzantine history that did not involve Justinian. From these books one would think Belasarius, Justinian's general, was the only military leader that the Byzantine Empire produced.

In fact there were many generals as well as books of strategy and tactics. Luttwak studied these and his book describes the various invaders that the Eastern Roman Empire fought against and what the "Romans" learned while defending against them. It seems many of the invaders rode on horseback, and the Roman armies went from being Centurion Infantry to being mounted archers in imitation as there was no other way to survive. The new methods of fighting required extensive training over a long period of time. The whole society had to be reorganized multiple times throughout its existence in order to provide the taxes to support the professional soldiers.

Likewise, other histories mention the various invaders who later settled on the borders of the Empire. Why they were allowed to do this isn't always clear and in some books this phenomenon is accepted as a matter of fact. Luttwak describes how Byzantium did not fight the invaders in order to exterminate them, something that would be way too costly in terms of men and gold but instead, their strategists used invading tribes as buffers against new invaders and helped forge them into nations either deliberately or accidentally while trying to strengthen them as buffers against the endless stream of invaders coming out of Asia. Slavs, Hungarians, Russians went through this process. At one point the Byzantines tried to use the "Franks" (what they called all Christian Western Europe) as another of these tools and kick started the crusades. The later Crusaders sacked the city and weakened it to the point that it finally collapsed.

I believe this book would be enjoyed by those interested in current military strategy and current geopolitics as well as the ancient history of the Eastern Roman Empire. It also illustrates what the Western Roman Empire failed to do to prevent its collapse (though, apparently, Justinian's attempts to re-conquer the West might have just helped in its further collapse.) As such, it should be of read by those interested in the late stages of the Western Roman Empire.

All in all, an enjoyable book.

New Year's Resolution

2011-01-01T20:40:00.000-08:00

I have made a New Year's Resolution to post on this blog. I was too ambitious before and did not get very far with the whole blog thing. This blogging stuff is hard :) Don't expect too much world shaking insight. I will be just posting uninteresting dribble. Hopefully I can live up to these much lowered expectations. To set the level of low expectations, I will quit now, having said nothing interesting.

Ferns

2007-05-08T17:15:00.000-07:00

It's spring in the Northern hemisphere and the other day I saw these ferns just beginning to uncurl and unfurl themselves. Now their image is here in cyberspace and my blog has gone multimedia. Aren't I innovative? I am sure no one has posted a picture to the their blog before. Soon I will start charging for this innovative and unique experience.

Oh, I will connect this to my previous two posts:

Spring! New life! New beginning!

Nature is the image and reflection of God its creator. The beauty of Nature reveals that God and His creation are indeed good. Ergo: Augustine was full of manure.

Heresy

2007-05-08T16:56:00.000-07:00

So, the other day I was thinking and I said to myself: You know that Augustine of Hippo was a real heretic. He was a originally a Manichean. That was a religion that believed that the universe had two gods or two forces, good and evil, darkness and light equal and opposite. Heresy you ask? Isn't that what Christians believe? Well Catholics, and most Christian sects believe that God is supreme and the Devil is inferior and subordinate (if he exists at all). The Devil only does what God tells him or at most what God lets him get away with. So anyway, Augustine said that he converted and became a good Christian but meanwhile he keeps revealing his contempt for the physical world and mundane concerns. He believes the spiritual is more important. He also talks a lot about human beings being flawed. He is a big believer in Original Sin and predestination.

I ask if God is good and created mankind and the world why would he create either flawed?

Of course if I was posting like I originally intended I would have researched this and included quotes and examples of what I am talking about but that would take too long and get in the way of the whole blogging process.

I will come back to this but throw something out there meanwhile: Augustine wasn't considered a heretic but worked hard to make sure people thought another early Christian writer was considered a heretic: Pelagius.
I will back up my anti-Augustine rant and talk more about Pelagius next.

A New Beggining

2007-05-08T16:52:00.000-07:00

This blog mocks me from the midst of cyberspace. Once I brought it into being I ignored it like a bastard stepchild. It's feeble existence highlights my procrastination and lack of follow through. Well, no more! I say, no more! I will post regularly even if I post random trash.

Obligatory Post

2006-10-30T18:00:00.000-08:00

This is my obligatory daily post. I am bankrupt of ideas and too tired to write anything. During my move I actually broke the suspension of my car because I filled the trunk with too many books. That was after I had already moved most of my things, including more books. It is depressing with all that reading not to be able to post an interesting, original idea.

Well, even though there are no ideas here, whatever I do write will be spelled correctly because I am using Firefox 2 with the built in spell checker.

Maybe by tomorrow I will be able to post something of value.

Revising

2006-10-29T10:44:00.000-08:00

I once heard from a teacher in High School that Horace recommended that once you have written something, put it a drawer. After a period of time, take it out and read it again. This helps you look at your writing with a fresh eye and notice the mistakes in composition, grammar and spelling.

Looking at my previous posts now after many months, I see many errors of all types. I started to make changes, but it is pointless to re-edit the form of what contains so little content. I will focus on putting new material up instead of revising old.

In order to pretend to be educated and show off the supposed knowledge I have I could throw in a reference to Lot's Wife or to be non-fundamentalist, Orpheus. I could have done that but I will not. The Horace reference was bad enough. I had to google Horace to make sure I had it right. When I did, I found out he said to not re-read your writing for NINE years. Everyone would probably be better off if I did not put my writing out there for nine more years but I have to do something.

Rumours of my death...

2006-10-29T10:13:00.000-08:00

My initial attempt at a blog failed quite quickly. Like many blogs, or so I hear, it was started while the author was jobless. Since then I have found have found gainful employment. I have also moved. In the chaos that followed, I could not find the time to post. Neither could I find the books that I had been reviewing.

I am now back on the Internet and settled in enough that I can find time to write. My initial intentions for this blog were very ambitious. I still read intensively and extensively but translating that into something worth reading by others is harder than I thought. I could just write a list of books recently read and give then a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down", but who really cares about that? So, for a while at least, I will be posting something everyday, whether book related or not, just to get in the habit. Some of these mandatory posts will be experiments on a format for extracting something of value from all this compulsive reading I do. I expect to fail miserably, but most blogs do, I think.

I may post about my new location. I may post about politics or the news. I may post about random, non-book related items such as music, movies or TV. We'll see.

Well, this constitutes my first post A.M. (after the move). I hope that they improve.

Two new books

2006-02-11T17:04:00.000-08:00

The philosophy behind blogging seems to be quantity not quality. I've been waiting to have something important to say before posting again but I have realized that if I wait until something I say is worth hearing, I will probably never post again.

I've read some more books. I have not finished the physics book and in fact, seem to have misplaced it.

I read camoflage by Joe Haldeman, author of Forever War and Forever Peace. I found it so enjoyable that I finished it before making any notes about it. It is Science Fiction about an alien visitor to Earth. It starts with the discovery of an alien artifact at the bottom of the ocean. This reminded me of Sphere by Michael Crichton. It also reminded me of World of Ptavvs by Larry Niven and I think the latter is the more probable inspiration. The plot has nothing to do with either of these two books. It focuses on the scientists trying to figure out what the object is. Two different aliens that are attracted by the discovery. The characters, both the scientists and aliens, are interesting. The writing is clear and doesn't get in the way of the story. Overall it is entertaining and satisfying. Nothing earth shaking but I would recommend it.

(The presence of two aliens trapped on earth for so long they have forgotten where they come from also brings to mind the book The Last Dancer by Daniel Keys Moran. I do not think that Mr. Haldeman is influenced by this book as camouflage is both shorter, more succinct and more charming. I would definitely recommend another book by Moran: The Long Run. I would not recommend The Last Dancer unless you had read and enjoyed The Long Run. The Long Run can be read on its own but it is a sequel to Emerald Eyes. Yet another book by Mr. Moran, not really part of the series is The Armageddon Blues. Some people have criticized the structure of this last mentioned book, but I find it suitable considering it deals with time travel, alternative universes and is supposed to have been written by some of the computers that are also characters in the book. I would have to put The Armageddon Blues on my list of favorite books, though I do not know what position it would have.

I am also reading Silverheart by Michael Moorcock and Storm Constantine. This may only be of interest to Moorcock fans and maybe not even then, since it may bear little relation to his other books and I am not sure how much of the book was actually written by him as it is a collaboration with Storm Constantine whose work I have not seen before. I am making some notes as I read the novel and may post them here as I go along in the interest of quantity not quality.

That may be my new title of this blog (Quantity not Quality).

Books I am currently reading

2006-01-17T14:04:00.000-08:00

I have been reading some other blogs to see how this is done and notice that there is not a lot of useful information out there. I would like to believe that this blog will be something different but so far I have not thought of a way to make it stand out.

Just to get into the habit of posting I am going to list some of the books I am currently reading. When I finish them I may get around to reviewing them. A standard format for the review would encourage me to continue with the process and maybe eventually assemble some useful information that others will find interesting.

Currently I am reading the following books:

Non-Fiction:
Short Oxford History of Europe, The Early Middle Ages by Rosamond McKitterick
The title says it all. Europe from 400-1000
The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe by W. Montgomery Watt
A series of lectures on Islamic (mostly Arab) contributuons to the developement of Europe
Warped Passages Unravelling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions by Lisa Randall
A explanation of current thinking in Physics especially cosmology and quantuum physics. I usually breeze through pop-science books like A Brief History of Time. This one is a little tougher than most but goes into modern theories in a deeper way. I will try to struggle through it to the end.

Fiction:
Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer
A story about a shipfull of aliens that come to Earth to investigate what they say is evidence of God's manipulation of Evolution. It is pro science and anti intelligent design but points out the many arguements from a physics point of view that seem to indicate that the Universe was designed to produce living things. It was entertaining, had good clear ideas and well developed characters. Good for an afternoon's reading.

These were not full reviews, just a list of books I haven't quite finished. In the future I will try to write a full review of say, one book a week.

First Post

2006-01-16T10:06:00.000-08:00

This is my initial post of my new blog 'Surfeit'. According to dictionary.com a surfeit is :

1. Overindulgence in food or drink.
2. The result of such overindulgence; satiety or disgust.
An excessive amount.

and this blog is a the result of my compulsive reading in a multitude of topics with a focus on history, science and technology. Reading is one of the few things that I enjoy. My head is full of facts and opinions of others and I have reached the point of overindulgence like someone at a Roman feast. That excess has to go somewhere, and you are looking at it. The result may not come up to the standards of the inputs but the output at such a feast rarely looks as appetizing as the inputs.