Just the thing to slip into your carry-on.
In which the ancients tell us to pack our bags and see the world.
Travel can cure prejudice and xenophobia, expand horizons, and teach us that the rest of the world doesn’t always see things as we do. In the case of Herodotus, the lead author of this lively anthology, a few local unpleasantries teach us that “custom is king.” The Persian shah Darius, Herodotus writes in his Histories, asked a group of Greeks how much money it would take for them to eat their dead parents, “and they replied that they wouldn’t do it at any price,” while a group of Indians, asked how much it would cost for them to refrain from doing so, “begged Darius not to blaspheme.” Today, presumably, feasting on one’s kinfolks is too rare to make the guidebooks, but some of the verities assembled here are truly eternal. Writes the Roman philosopher Seneca, in a passage that classicist Usher gamely titles “Wherever You Go, There You Are,” the heaviest baggage a traveler carries is mental. “You must lay down the mind’s burden,” Seneca counsels. “Until you do, nowhere will satisfy you.” Usher’s authors travel the known world over, and farther still. One, Hanno, sails beyond the Pillars of Hercules and heads down the west coast of Africa, while another, the Syrian Greek novelist Lucian, heads to the Moon, discovering there “men who ride on huge vultures, making use of the birds as horses.” Closer to home, Pausanias, a traveler who wandered around Greece on the back of a donkey, visits the sacred shrine of Delphi, which “marks the center of the whole earth” and thus obviously warrants a visit. One of numerous Princeton University Press titles in which ancient writers and thinkers offer advice to moderns, this volume celebrates curiosity—and, on that note, even has a few words about dead cats.
Just the thing to slip into your carry-on.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780691259062
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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