November 2008 archive

Africa: A Biography of the Continent by John Reader

This book was an extraordinary combination of history, prehistory, geography, geology, and anthropology that greatly illuminated my understanding of this vast continent and its people. But precisely why Africa has failed to develop in pace with the rest of the world is left a mystery.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2008/11/22/africa-a-biography-of-the-continent-by-john-reader/

The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare

When I took Shakespeare in college the professor dismissed this play as silly, but he can’t have been reading the same play. The love story is touching, not just the romantic courtship between the gentlemen and the ladies, but also the friendship between the two gentlemen, and the play is only saved from being a …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2008/11/14/the-two-gentlemen-of-verona-by-william-shakespeare/

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

This is a wonderful work of imagination on Wells’ part, but it is interesting to me for two reasons that are tangential to the story. The first is that it was written before the close of the nineteenth century, when Britain was thought of as the most powerful nation on earth, so it made sense …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2008/11/12/the-war-of-the-worlds-by-h-g-wells/