The 2021 Nonfiction Challenge Part IV: The Ancient World

My personal resolution is to be more present for these threads for the rest of the year...Very glad March is over (in spite of the comfort reading theme) and now it's time to move on to fresh pastures. Or rather, very old pastures, as I've selected reading about the ancient world for April.

So, there are the three classics here -- Greece, Rome and Egypt. But I'd urge you to venture further afield -- China? early Byzantium? Latin America? Cut-off dates can be a bit tricky, but I'm suggesting that when it comes to Europe or the near East, I'll set this as the year of Rome's sacking by the Ostrogoths in 546 A.D. Elsewhere, I'm tempted to opt for pre-first contact: so, any pre-Colombian civilization in the Americas, from the Incas to the Iroquois (in the historical context, not looking at their lives today...) In India or China -- well, I'm open for ideas? Before 1000 CE? The idea is NOT to read books about explorers and "discovery" but to delve into what those societies and worlds were like before the days when the West reached them and began filtering their history through Western eyes. Africa, for instance, would be before the first Portuguese voyages down the western coast. India would have to finish at about the time the Moghul empire was created. (Yes, I know there were indirect relationships, via long trading routes like the Silk Road with many intermediary stages, but the idea is to steer away from those globalization narratives and look at the cultures in their own right.) Feel free to seek out interesting and lesser known ancient civilizations -- eg, Nabatea, with its principal city of Petra, in today's Jordan.

You can read biographies, history, sweeping looks at civilizations and so on.

Happy reading!

What we're reading this month:

(Covers TK -- I promise!!)

On the horizon: what's coming up for the rest of 2021.

MAY: ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MINERAL

A repeat category. Your choice of reading material has to fall into one of these categories. You can read a book by Gerald Durrell about his animal collecting adventures (animal) or a book about the energy industry (mineral). You can read that book about the history of the tomato (vegetable).

JUNE: DISCOVERIES
New for 2021. People make all kinds of discoveries all the time. Some are scientific. Some are philosophical. Others (the most contested kind, historically speaking) are geographic. Did Europeans "discover" the Americas? The continent was new to them but obviously not to its prior inhabitants. You can read a book about what geographic discoveries shouldn't carry that label, or about Captain Cook's voyages of exploration. Because discoveries can be personal journeys, as well.

JULY: CITIES
Another new category. Read a book about any specific city, large or small (eg Maximum City, about Mumbai) by Suketu Mehta, or read a book about a group of cities or about city life in general, in history or in the present. There's a new book by James and Deborah Fallows called Our Towns, for instance.

AUGUST: TRANSPORTATION
Yet another new entrant! As suggested by Benita. Planes, trains, automobiles, boats, on foot. How do we get from point A to point B and why? You can read a book by someone walking the length of Scotland and England, or a book about flying planes (like Beryl Markham's tome) or something about how self-driving cars will change the world. Or about shipping routes and trade.

SEPTEMBER: CREATIVITY
Coming back in 2021... Focus on anything that involves creativity or creators. Read about Shakespeare's plays and how they have been performed worldwide. Read about how novelists get their ideas or musicians are inspired.

OCTOBER: HEROES & VILLAINS
Another comeback category, and it's really a closeted biography category. Instead of just reading any bio, though, read a bio or memoir about someone who inspires you (RBG?) or someone you loathe (Hitler? Stalin?) Or someone you think you know about but want to be sure they qualify for your pantheon of heroes or your list of villains.

NOVEMBER: BUSINESS, THE ECONOMY AND BIG POLICY QUESTIONS
Kind of a catch-all category. By this point in 2021, we should have some idea of what the post-pandemic economy will look like. So, read any book about economic or business issues, and the policy questions that they create for politicians and citizens. From data security to minimum living wages, to the stock market.

DECEMBER: GO ANYWHERE!
A perennial. And a great place for that quirky, one-of-a-kind nonfiction book that simply doesn't fit anywhere else.

Since I'm trying to read off my own shelves as much as possible, I don't have many choices for this month. I may go with The Appian Way, which I think has enough ancient history content to qualify, or The Jesus I Never Knew. If I'm in the right mood, I may pull out my guidebook from the Pergamon Museum.

I think I'll read The Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday. This runs from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius, so also can re-read the latter's meditations if I want.

I'm reading (started a couple of days ago) SPQR - enjoying it so far.

SUMER: THE DAWN OF ART will be my choice.

Written many years ago by Andre' Parrot, the huge book includes early excavation photographs
and a wonderful 20 page introduction by Andre' Malraux.

I pulled Blood of the Celts: The New Ancestral Story off the shelves for this one. It says that it "offers a new approach, bringing together evidence from genetics, archaeology, history and linguistics" to bring us the story of the Celts.

After reading the introduction for this month I feel sort of like a slacker. I am going to add to the Ancient Roman readings this month. I selected Route 66 AD: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists by Tony Perrottet. It was published in 2002 under the title Route 66 A. D. and then in 2003 under the title Pagan Holiday: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists. However, I am not sure if this will work for this category. It is a travel book in which Perrottet and his girlfriend reconstruct a trip that was taken by Ancient Roman tourists. However, it is a trip that Perrottet is doing in the present day based on Agrippa's map that was given to the Emperor Augustus in 5 B.C. E. It is a fairly lengthy book, 391 pages and it has an index and source list at the end.

The book starts out with this quote:
"Don't' you swelter all day in the sun? Aren't you all jammed in with the crowds? Isn't it hard to get a bath? Aren't you soaked to the bone whenever it rains? Don't the din and the shouting and the other petty annoyances drive you completely mad? But of course you put up with it all because it's an unforgettable spectacle." - Epictetus, Stoic philosopher (c. A. D. 55-135), querying the pleasure of a journey to Olympia for the Games.

Let me know if this title will work.

If my first selection won't work, I will read Priest, the Prince, and the Pasha: The Life and Afterlife of an Ancient Egyptian Sculpture by Lawrence Berman. This book is one that I was going to read for a previous Nonfiction challenge; the one about theives and famous thefts. (it was several years ago.) This title is about ancient Egypt - so I am still staying in the very western world of the Big Three ancient civilizations. Here is the Amazon blurb about this book.

Sometime in the early fourth century BC, an unknown Egyptian master carved an exquisite portrait in dark-green stone. The statue that included this head of a priest, likely a citizen of ancient Memphis, may have been damaged when the Persians conquered Egypt in 343 BC, before it was buried in a temple complex. Its adventures were not over: after almost two millennia, the head was excavated by Auguste Mariette, a founding figure in French archaeology. Sent to France as part of a collection assembled for the inimitable Bonaparte prince known as Plon-Plon, it found a home in his faux Pompeian palace. After disappearing again, it resurfaced in the collection of American aesthete Edward Perry Warren, who donated it to the MFA, Boston. Along the way, this compelling, mysterious sculpture has reflected the evolving understanding of Egyptian art.

Let me know which of these two books fits. Or perhaps neither does so. If that is the case I will have to go back to the drawing board and find something else.

>8 Familyhistorian:
I saw that title listed in a list of further readings late last year (Blood of the Celts), and added it to my wishlist. Our library doesn't have it and so I would have to put in an ILL request for it. As slow as ILL has been in the last year, it will be May before I would get it, so I will look forward to hearing what you have to say about the book.

>9 benitastrnad: I actually think the Perrotet book might work better than the one about the Egyptian sculpture (which follows it into the 19th century and the collection of "plon plon".) There are a lot of books out there that combine both "modern" and historical looks at something -- for instance, there's a new book out about Egyptology and its golden age, which has a lot about Amarna, Tutankhamun, and all the others whose tombs and monuments were uncovered, but it's also about those who did the digging, so I'm not including it.

>9 benitastrnad:
Thanks. I will read the first book Route 66 A.D. I wanted to try to read two books this month and thought about reading Theater of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today by Bryan Doerries. This is a book that I ran across when I read Silence of the Girls earlier this year. Would Theater of War work for the topic this month?

I have been scouring my book lists for the last hour trying to find something that interests me that isn't Greece or Rome and nothing is popping up - except for Mark Kurlansky's book Basque History of the World. That one takes the Basques all the way from their first encounter with the Romans to the present and I think that isn't what this theme is about. Besides that I have plenty of Greek and Roman books that I have wanted to read, and am trying to read what I have in the house or can get from my library.

>13 benitastrnad: That would work, I think. There's a decent book about ancient European female rulers? By Kara Cooney, I think. Also Norman Cantor's book, Antiquity, which includes the Sumerians and onwards.

I might also read Four Lost Cities, which includes Pompeii and a Turkish city, but also Angkor and a place on the Mississippi, I think.

For those who want to go beyond Greece and Rome: there are books about Carthage out there (think, the Punic Wars and Hannibal); books about the Amazons, about Persia, and other spots in the ancient near east, like Babylon by Paul Kriwacek, and also a book about Central Africa that is supposed to be good, African Dominion. You could look for something about the Celts, including Boudica and her battle to repel the Romans.

>14 Chatterbox:
I looked at Four Lost Cities and our library doesn't have it. That means I would have to do an ILL and right now ILL is so darn slow because the mail is so darn slow. So I was trying to stick with what I have at home. That's why I am sort of stuck with Rome and Greece. So I am going to go with Route 66 A.D. and the book about the Greek Tragedies. If I have a good reading month I will be able to complete both of them.

Psst, similar challenge here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/330659#

I'm also planning to read SPQR. And maybe Cleopatra: A Life

>17 fuzzi: So there is! I hadn't realized, as I don't follow the category challenges...

>18 AnneDC: Is that the Stacey Schiff bio? I thought it was quite good, and very interesting.

>19 Chatterbox: Yes, the Stacey Schiff bio--I've had it around for quite a while. This seems like a good reason to read it finally. I'm glad you enjoyed it--another nudge.

OK, I'm going to add two other books to my April wish list. One is a book about Ravenna, which squeezes into the timeline since it's about the 3rd/4th century CE. The other is Anthony Everitt's book about the rise of ancient Athens. I've consumed some of this history in bits and pieces, but would like a solid overview, and having read Everitt's bio of Augustus, I suspect he'll do a decent job of it!

I am slowly making progress on Route 66 A.D. and am enjoying it. It is a travelogue that flips back and forth between the modern world and the ancient. For instance it started in Rome with the author standing at milepost 1 on the Appian Way and compares what was then to the highways leading out of Rome today. I am now with the author and his wife in Naples and he is writing about ancient descriptions of hotels and hostelries and contrasting that with his experiences in the modern world. This part was funny as the author quotes from ancient texts complaining about the willingness of the proprietors of hotels in Ancient Rome acting as procurers and pimps. This is contrasted with the astonishment of the night desk clerk at the hotel in modern Naples because they wanted to rent the room for the entire night.

I finished reading Four Lost Cities. The book takes the reader through 4 different lost cities that are lost to the civilization. The author did a very good job going over the time periods when these cities existed, describing lives in the cities, and providing possible reasons on why people left them. This was a very pleasant audiobook that kept me engaged and taught me quite a few interesting bits of history.

>23 annushka: Sounds intriguing - which are the Four Lost Cities? (maybe list as a Spoiler?)

That would make a great quiz! So far I'm offering the Anasazi canyons, an ancient city (?) in Persia, Atlantis,
and the city (yet another name I can't remember) in Africa that was a trading crossroads.

>24 m.belljackson: The four cities are Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, Pompeii, Angkor in Cambodia, and Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today. I visited Pompeii many years ago and learned a lot from the book about it. The other 3 cities are very interesting and intriguing. Each is unique in its own way.

I'm adding Blood of the Celts to my DNF list. Ancient history is a tough category for me. I may not complete this month's challenge.

>25 annushka: Timbuktu was the impressive African city and Catalhoyuk is one remembered from Art History.

The Mound Builders from Cahokia also moved up to Wisconsin and built Aztalan, once visited with my 4th grade class.
It is way smaller than Cahokia and located near Lake Mills.

>27 m.belljackson: Catalhoyuk is a very intriguing city due to the unusual architecture. I have never heard of a city with a similar one.

>25 annushka: Thank you for suggesting this book. I'm reading it on my Kindle and am finding it very interesting.

>29 LoisB: You are welcome! Glad to hear you are enjoying it.

I am about 100 pages from finishing Route 66 A.D. and have really had fun reading this travelogue. The author has just now gotten to Egypt and he is explaining how different the modern city of Alexandra is from the ancient, mostly due to the drastically changed coastline. Most of the ancient city is now drowned due to silting and earthquake subsidence.

He has just left the Greek cities of Asia Minor and spent a week trying to find a boat to take him to Egypt. There was a section in the book about the difficulties the Romans had with sea transportation. He explained about the weather patterns and said that moving by sea in the Mediterranean during Roman times was largely a spring and summer activity. I had no idea that the season played that large of a part in shipping and travel at that time. I knew that weather affected shipping but did not think that for 6 -7 months of the year that ships didn't even get out of the ports. It made me stop to think about what a big difference good weather reports make in our modern lives.

I finished Mary Beard's SPQR and enjoyed it very much. Aside from the history of Roman emperors and empire (the first millennium of it anyway), she also looks at what is known about more regular citizens, subjects and society in the Empire. What I particularly appreciated was her extensive discussion throughout the book of what evidence is actually available, the strength of the conclusions that can be drawn from them, and thus what can be known with certainty and what is more speculative. I wish more history books did that.

I read The Appian Way: Ghost Road, Queen of Roads. The author is a Princeton classics professor (I think he's since retired), and the book describes a trip he took with his wife to trace the route of the Appian Way. They started from Rome and traveled outward to mile 9, then went to Brindisi and traveled from there back to Rome. He mostly sticks to the ancient history of the road, although he sometimes mentions people and events from the Middle Ages or later. The history is interesting, but the book wasn't descriptive enough to make me want to see it in person.

In Route 66 A.D. by Tom Perrottet I have left Turkey where the author visited Troy, Ephesus, and Pergamum. He is now in Alexandria, Egypt and is telling the reader why the modern Alexandria doesn't look like the ancient one. Earthquakes, silt, and subsidence have drastically changed the coastline. The ancient city of Alexandria is now underwater. Almost all of the cities he has visited that were tourist sites in Ancient Rome are drastically altered. Most of them due to earthquakes and subsidence. It makes me wonder when the next huge earthquake is going to hit the Mediterranean and what damage it will do.

I have less than a hundred pages left in the book and Perrottet is headed down the Nile. He is now talking about the kinds of boats that Roman travelers would have used to see the Nile.

I finished reading Route 66 A.D.: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists by Tony Perrottet. This turned out to be a combination of modern and ancient travelogue. Perrottet stumbled across and account of Marcus Aggrippa's huge map of the ancient world on which all the great tourist sites of the ancients were laid out and he was fascinated. He started looking at the ancient accounts of travelers from the Roman world, in particular the travel account written by Pausanias. It is the only ancient guidebook that has survived to the present day.

At first the author and his wife intended to follow Pausanias's route through Greece and end their trip with that. They started out in Rome and then traveled to all the major tourist sites in Greece that were mentioned in Pausanias. Of course, that led them to Turkey and the Greek cities of Ephesus, Pergamum, and Symrna. Once there it was on to Troy and from there the trail led to the greatest of all Roman holiday trips - Egypt. The last third of the book was about the Roman fascination with Egypt and how wrong the Romans got the history and religion of Egypt. It turns out that the Romans were fascinated by the funerary customs of Egypt along with their mummification rites. They were also enthralled with the worship of Sobek - the crocodile god. The Egyptians had created an entire city devoted to this cult in the Faiyum Oasis. The city was named Crocodilopolis and was one of the must see's on the Roman tourist list for Egypt. The author says that the Egyptian priests had developed tourist spectacle to rival those found in Las Vegas hotels. His description of the place made it seem to be an impossibility - but it wasn't.

The author states clearly at the end of the book that this work was not intended to be a scholarly account. Nevertheless he takes great pains to quote from Roman and Greek authors from the Pax Romana and his has an extensive timeline and source list. He also has a glossary of Who's Who at the end of the book.

This was not the more scholarly type of travel book that I was expecting. It is a rather light hearted take on ancient tourism and what is left of those sites for the modern traveler. Some of the places are changed beyond recognition and some are simply not there anymore due to the active geology of the Mediterranean and the desertification of parts of Egypt.

I finished a slim volume Yorkshire: Regional Archaeologies by Ian Longworth from 1965. This was a used book store find from a series of books that give an overview of archaeological sites throughout Britain. This volume focused on Yorkshire, from the Paleolithic to Roman eras. Each era highlights a main site in Yorkshire, with information about the articles found and who may have lived there. The end of the book provides a list of many sites throughout Yorkshire, as well as museums.

Certainly a bit out of date (from 1965), but for a novice like me it gave a nice overview of the eras and sites.

I've finished Four Lost Cities, which has been hanging around on my TBR list for a while! Sent me off to read more about Cambodian history (Angkor), so I went down that rabbit hole instead of forging ahead with plans to read about the Stoics. I'm still expecting to finish The Lives of the Stoics this week, though!

I have started Theater of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us by Bryan Doerries but have only read a couple of pages in it. I doubt I finish it this week, but it is a much more reasonable length than my first selection for this month. It comes in at 300 pages and so there is a possibility that I will get it finished.

>11 benitastrnad: I have been MIA for most of the month so didn't see your post about Blood of the Celts until now. I really liked it. I also enjoyed Ancestral Journeys: The Peopling of Europe from the First Venturers to the Vikings also by Jean Manco. I find investigation into the ancient past with current tools fascinating.

The Celts were part of the ancient world and much of their history has come down to us from others who wrote about them. These histories are now subject to further investigation with new tools such as the study of languages and ancient DNA. This new interpretation of an ancient people was explored in The Blood of the Celts.

The May challenge is up... https://www.librarything.com/topic/331846