• Welcome
    • Curriculum Vitae
    • About Me
  • Publications
    • Work in Progress
  • Blog
  • Provocations

Doctorow’s Brave Contrarians

1/22/2014

1 Comment

 


When the New York Times interviewed E.L. Doctorow  recently  they asked

What’s the best book you’ve read recently?  He had a long list. At the top, though, was your friend and mine, the father of history:

“Well, it could be Herodotus’ “The Histories” in the Landmark edition published by Pantheon. Herodotus is spectacular — part historian, part investigative reporter and inveterate storyteller. “

He went on to praise Tom Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos  as “ an intense philosophical takedown of Neo-Darwinism and scientific materialism. It’s a brave contrarian book.”

Doctorow seems to like brave, contrarian books; I’d love to hear him apply those terms to Herodotus, who in addition to being the investigative reporter and inveterate story teller, may also be a contrarian or  morew of a revisionist than we give him credit for.

1 Comment
Jim O'Hara
4/9/2014 07:49:39 am

Iggy Pop is apparently a big fan of the Landmark Herodotus too, though he doesn't specifically mention it:
"there’s a killer translation of Herodotus out now. I enjoy reading about the Assyrians and the Medians and the Egyptians. I get off on that s***".

http://nymag.com/arts/popmusic/features/57435/
http://rogueclassicism.com/2009/07/03/classical-pop/

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013

    RSS Feed

    Picture