Roman politician Marcus Caelius Rufus (82-48 B.C.), whose letters are included in the correspondence of Cicero and who once mounted a revolt against Caesar, now tells his own story. In Jaro's The Key (1988), Caelius narrated the life of the poet Catullus. Caelius begins his ``report'' in a twilit funk in a small town in southern Italy that he's occupied with his men, and where he's cut off from news of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, to whom he is planning to flee; Caesar's troops are marching down the road to the town. (But Pompey is dead in Egypt.) Introduced by moody snatches of landscape, Caelius' narrative touches on his childhood with a stern merchant father (and a pedophilic tutor), schooling with Cicero, and buddying with such as Catullus and Mark Antony. Then there is the early meeting with the cool, ``silvery'' Caesar, which makes a major impact on Caelius: ``He certainly comes from a good family,'' says his father, ``Aeneas of Troy and the Goddess Venus.'' But a wary wise-head says Caesar would ``do anything to get ahead'' and all say he's ``effeminate.'' Eventually, an agog Caelius will become an aide, running little errands for Caesar as he bullies the Senate and undercuts Pompey, the hero general (he made Pompey's magnificence look ``overdone''). Caelius will follow Caesar—who's left no stone in Gaul unturned— and is there with him at the banks of the Rubicon. But the mighty Caesar makes a mighty pass. What to do? It's expedient to murmur ``yes'' to the powerful and ruthless, but Caelius is atremble with rage and, er, something else. Finally Caelius crosses his particular Rubicon, with disillusionment and doom in the cards. There's little resemblance between this Caesar and McCullough's sophisticated political genius (Fortune's Favorites, p. 958); this flustered Senate and McCullough's beady-eyed manipulators; or, for that matter, this Caelius and history's. In the Renault popular manner: an unlikely tale of ancient Rome.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1994
ISBN: 1-877946-39-7
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Permanent Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1993
Vintage Wills—a strong interpretive framework, vigorous prose and big, provocative arguments.
In this learned, impassioned jeremiad, Pulitzer Prize–winning Wills (What Jesus Meant, 2006, etc.) traces two styles of Protestantism throughout American history and sounds the alarm about evangelicalism.
During the Revolutionary era, the Enlightenment religious culture, which made possible the disestablishment of churches and gave birth to Transcendentalism, valued reason and tolerance. Evangelical emotionalism, on the other hand, which came to prominence in the religious revivals of the early 19th century, emphasizes feeling and teaches people to know God with their hearts rather than to scrutinize religion with their brains. The history of American Christianity, suggests Wills, can be viewed as a tug of war between those two impulses. Some of the freshest material here is the author’s discussion of the mid-20th-century “great truce between the religious communities,” in which different religious groups adopted an ecumenical friendliness and the nation seemed to settle into a comfortable state of being politely “Judeo-Christian.” By contrast, Wills’ treatment of post-1960s evangelicalism is thin, and ignores the political diversity within theologically conservative churches. The great truce was short-lived, however, and the present moment illustrates the dangers of unchecked evangelicalism. President Bush has allowed religion to shape his administration’s approach to social services, health, science and, of course, war—he has, says Wills, betrayed and endangered Enlightenment Christianity. Despite his pessimism about the current administration, the author concludes on a hopeful note. Evangelical passion and Enlightenment intellectual rigor are not mutually exclusive, he says. Indeed, they are often present in the same church. Although it is “hard to strike the right balance between the two religious tendencies,” that “precarious but persisting balance” of piety and reason is precisely what Americans ought to cultivate.
Vintage Wills—a strong interpretive framework, vigorous prose and big, provocative arguments.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-59420-146-2
Page Count: 552
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Harris still has plenty to learn, but he provides an informative study of why the millennial generation faces more struggles...
A millennial writer talks about the coming crises his generation will face.
Millennials—defined by the author as those born between 1980 and 2000—have been sold on the idea that if they work hard in school, forfeiting play and creative time for work and sports, and go on to a four-year college, where they continue to work hard, then a solid, well-paying job awaits them once they graduate. But as Harris (b. 1988), an editor at New Inquiry, points out, many in that age group have discovered there is no pot of gold at the end of that particular rainbow. In today’s competitive economy, he writes, “young households trail further behind in wealth than ever before, and while a small number of hotshot finance pros and app developers rake in big bucks…wages have stagnated and unemployment increased for the rest.” Those who manage to attend college are often burdened by high student-loan debts, forcing them to work any job they can to pay the bills. Athletes who attend college on a sports scholarship pay with the physical wear and tear on their bodies and the stress of high-stakes games alongside a full academic schedule. Harris also evaluates how millennials interact with social media (a topic that could warrant an entire book on its own), which creates a never-ending link to nearly everything every day, never giving anyone a chance to unwind. Professional musicians, actors, and other performing artists face strong competition in a world where anyone can upload a video to YouTube, so those with genuine talent have to work that much harder for recognition. After his intense analysis of this consumer-based downward spiral, the author provides several possible remedies that might ease the situation—but only if millennials step forward now and begin the process of change.
Harris still has plenty to learn, but he provides an informative study of why the millennial generation faces more struggles than expected, despite the hard work they’ve invested in moving ahead.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-51086-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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