SPQR - A History of Ancient Rome (Mary Beard, 2015)

Author (also a decent Twitter follow) has spent a good chunk of her lifetime researching and writing about ancient Rome.  I like that she seems pretty modest about drawing conclusions for the many portions of the story line where information, or evidence, is scanty; and that she questions many of the stock story lines that have developed based on so many centuries of historians seeking to explain Rome.  I also think her way of dividing up the story line is helpful.

Easy to see why empires, or dominant states, that have risen up after Rome tend to see their own trajectories in terms of Rome's.

As the US now seems to be waking up, belatedly, to the fact that most news is "fake" - and I'm not referring here to the deliberately false clickbait world, but instead the world of reporters-with-agendas - it's pretty fascinating to be reminded of how expert the Romans were at making up narratives that sold the preferred story line.  A sophisticated version of victors writing history.

I hadn't really pieced together how pivotal Augustus (the first one, that is) was to the development of the role of emperors.

Romans were unique in so many ways - very effective at letting their concept of citizenship evolve to meet the needs of the expanding empire.

I definitely will tour through this one from time to time.

Gilead (Marilynne Robinson, 2004)

Book club selection (via NOC; session held December 18, 2016).

Minister based in western Iowa gets married late in life; impending heart trouble prompts him to write letters to his 7-year-old son - stuff the kid will read as an adult.  Great reviews; Pulitzer prize winner; but our group didn't seem to connect all that well to the book.  Including me - and I should have been the perfect audience for this.

The letter-writer's father and grandfather also were ministers; the grandfather was an ardent abolitionist, associated with John Brown and "bloody Kansas".  His brother came back from college professing atheism.

There are elegant passages; some of the story line around young Jack Boughton took some form; but too much meandering.  There were some interesting parallels across the generations - and between the letter-writer and Jack Boughton - not enough to drive my interest.

Fortunes of War - The Balkan Trilogy (Olivia Manning, 1960-1965)

Manning wrote a total of six novels in the collection known as "Fortunes of War" - this book ("The Balkan Trilogy" includes the first three:  The Great Fortune (1960), The Spoilt City (1962) and Friends And Heroes (1965).

Another 900+ page work; another effort to get better acquainted with the Balkans.

Story centers around newlyweds Guy and Harriet Pringle - married after a short courtship while Guy visits London in summer 1939; they settle in Bucharest, where he is involved in teaching.  The story line revolves around two main themes:  (1) developments in the war (German advances create big changes in Romania and eventually force the Pringles (and most of the Brit community in Romania) to Athens (which is as far as the Pringles venture in this trilogy), Cairo, etc.; (2) the Pringles get to know each other better, which isn't always uplifting.  Based on the author's own experiences.

Sometimes this felt a bit like a mere page-turner, but I do think there's quite a bit going on.  Very interesting to read about the experiences of British citizens residing in these places in the run-up to the war - the best perspective I've gotten on what that might have been like.  Also interesting to read about late 1930s Romania.  And the story line about the relationship of the newlyweds was handled well.  So I liked this . . . but not sure it was worth 900 pages of effort . . . except it was ideal gym-reading.

Prince Yakimov; Lord Pinkrose; Sasha; many, many other characters are introduced - primarily Brits with various positions, but also Romanian and Greek characters.

The Evolution of Everything (Matt Ridley, 2015)

Ridley consistently expresses ideas with which I already agree (as for example in this book), so I was a little worried that this latest book of his might not have much value.  The good news:  he knows a lot more than me, can express it far better, and can pull threads together in ways I'd never see - so yes, it was well worthwhile.

Started a bit slowly - the theme is explaining how everything evolves on a bottoms-up basis - yet so much talk at the opening about how a "great man" - in this case, Lucretius - figured out so much and influenced so many.  But then the author found his way.

The core idea:  when reasonably free, humans are creative, innovative, collaborative - and will work out generally effective decentralized solutions based on local needs.  Freedom is limited by forces such as government and religion and incumbents in any field.  This certainly is not a new idea - and history seems to bear out its accuracy repeatedly - yet we live in an era when the intelligentsia (aka the "clerisy" in Deirdre McCloskey's terminology) clamors for centralized control and planning.  Politicians of course feed this relentlessly - their power depends on getting voters to believe that the politician has some sort of grand plan to make everything wonderful (or great again, if that's your taste).  And voters, understandably, wish to believe this - despite all the evidence to the contrary.

How much better if the clerisy just backed off - and just stated something like this:  "our ability to manage from the center is limited, we promise to "do less" and that approach will make us all better off in the long run."  This would be honest, and consistent with what history shows.  It also would be a formula for electoral disaster.  And loss of government-funded jobs-for-experts.  Not going to happen; the best we can hope is that somehow Leviathan is slowed a bit from time to time.

All the chapters are worthwhile, even if Ridley jumps around a bit.  Probably my favorites were (1) the chapter on the evolution of technology - how science follows the tinkerers, and grand government-funded scientific initiatives tend to misallocate resources - and (2) the chapter on education - how bizarre that the clerisy that rightly condemns monopoly in any business setting insists on monopolies in education - it didn't, and doesn't, have to be that way.

Recommended by Paul Jr., I'd share the recommendation.