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For a New Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard. I gave this book another read-through about a month ago. Both “readings” have been an audiobook (acquired for free!) that I listened to while driving the daily commute. I think this might be the perfect book to recommend to friends who are mostly convinced of many libertarian ideas, but for whatever reason feel uncomfortable saying things like “the free market would provide a far more effective and moral legal system,” or “the national road system suffers greatly in the hands of our government; making the roads private would benefit the common good like no other highway reform.” Rothbard, as usual, is relentless in his logic, clarity, and persuasiveness in this classic text.

Some Desperate Glory by Edwin Campion Vaughan. This gem of a diary, written by a young (not yet 20 years old) British officer during his front-line experience in the Great War, was discovered in a family cupboard only three decades ago. Though not as polished as other WWI literature in this genre, Vaughan’s account details both the monotonous boredom and the sheer horror of war. Vaughan witnesses and survives one of the worst battles in the war at Ypres: he sees a cat eating the face of a German corpse, he bears the sound of his own wounded men screaming and moaning in pain while they drown in the mucky shell-holes of no-man’s-land, he watches in horror as a soldier cowering on the ground is motivated by Vaughan’s screaming and gathers the courage to run into battle — only to be shot dead 3 paces later, and he recoils in shock when a solider being prodded by Vaughan replies “I’m blind, sir” and turns to reveal half of a face ripped off by shrapnel. These moments are weighty but come interspersed between long periods of boredom, frustration, and the discomfort that Vaughan experiences when he lives in the French mud for 7 straight months.

St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox by G. K. Chesterton. I picked up this book based on its reputation, and I wasn’t disappointed. Chesterton, who also wrote a much-acclaimed volume on St. Francis, tackles here one of the most monstrously-large figures in all of philosophy, and does so while keeping his project at about a couple hundred pages. Chesterton’s touch is poetic and delicate as he urges the reader to understand the fundamental love Aquinas had for reality, liberty, practical life, and everything that the scholastics are accused of dismissing. Chesterton, a firm Catholic, also makes a (persuasive) argument that, in many ways, Aquinas and Francis — an odd pair indeed — were very much the reformation before the Reformation. Compared to these thinkers, he writes, Calvin and Luther were reacitonaries. Not the typical line of reasoning about the relationship between the church and the reformers.

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Open Secrets by Richard Lischer. The basic plot sounds a little cliché: A young, energetic, and politically liberal Lutheran pastor fresh out of grad school and from the city finds himself assigned to a tiny, conservative, Midwestern farming community. Both parties have difficulty adjusting to the change, but in time they grow to understand each other and a bond of unity and love is created. Despite the quaint, Hollywood premise, Lischer downplays the ideological and superficial cultural differences enough to focus on what really presents a challenge to building relationships: pride, envy, and resent. He shows us the many ways in which God is seen powerfully in the farming village, working in and through the stiffling and awkward Germanic-Midwestern social culture.

Lischer is rather hard on his younger self throughout most of the book, emphasizing his mistakes so as to contrast these hurdles with the grace of God working in his relationships. In fact, pastoral errors drive the narrative through most of the work. He expands on the symbolism of ordinary objects a little too much for my taste and can sound awkward at times when describing what these ordinary things mean to his congregation (his account of sacramental gossip, for example, wasn’t terribly compelling). You get the feeling that he sees himself as a kind of poet and muse for the blue-collar farmer, expressing in lyrical prose the deep meaning behind a dissatisfied grunt, or dirty pair of overalls.

Lischer also relies heavily on his reader to make abstract connections that I felt he could have made more clear without sacrificing the quality of his writing. There are times when his stories shift or end without apparent connections, and I wasn’t always able to tell if I had access to the moral of the story or if I needed to meditate further on what it could be.

Poetics by Aristotle. A near-contemporary critique on Athenian poets and play-writes, Poetics struck me as being several things at once. The text is often (a) corrupted beyond the translator’s ability to work with it, (b) obscure in meaning, even for experts, and (c) referencing unknown people or works. I’m sure to read this again, but the section that most impacted me was Aristotle’s definition (and description) of metaphor. One note of interest is that Aristotle’s definitions of tragedy fit quite well with the typical contemporary romantic comedy! (E.g. Better than average people who happen to have a characteristic flaw; reversals of fortune for the better, which usually happen right before the worst result possible (losing a relationship); reversals are often inflicted by a close friend or family member and happen unintentionally; plots generally follow a unified theme — think of a typical title to these films: ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days’; ‘Sweet Home Alabama’; etc).

Claudius the God by Robert Graves. See my previous post that discusses Graves’ first book: I, Claudius. This sequel seemed to me about as beautiful, well-written, and powerful as the former, and it even did so while treating a far different subject matter. The first book is Claudius’ account of how he became an Emperor despite being an idiot, professional historian uninterested in political games, a fool and stammerer, and despite the crazed killing sprees of his predecessors. Clausius the God is Claudius’ defense of every act, edict, and murder that he comitted as an Emperor. The two novels together are a wonderful historical-fictional embodiment of Lord Acton’s famous proverb: “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I highly recommend both of these novels.

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I, Claudius by Robert Graves. A marvelous work of historical fiction woven together from the early days of the Roman emperors. Graves uses Claudius as a pair of sane eyes in an increasingly mad Roman world, and all of Rome’s great achievements and flaws are on display. At the beginning of the story, Claudius reflects on a prophecy given to him from the Oracle at Delphi, and its themes are carefully developed by Graves as the stuttering Cl – Cl – Claudius goes from family idiot and obscure historian to Roman Emperor (and eventually god). (I hope to read its sequel, Claudius the God, soon). A wholly satsifying and beautiful work.

On Memory and Recollection by Aristotle. A short tract (~8 pages) in which Aristotle further develops the faculties of the human soul (picking up where De Anima left off). It contains a key passage on abstraction and several helpful perspectives in understanding how it is that one recalls and remembers. As usual, his biology is a bit wanting; nevertheless the work has its moments of fascinating insight (e.g. Why is it that all animals have some kind of memory, yet only humans seem to be able to recollect?)

What Has the Government Done to Our Money? / The Case for a 100% Gold Dollar by Murray N Rothbard. Rothbard’s essays on money, collected in this volume, have been hailed as the greatest introduction to the subject of money ever written (this assessment is made by Austrians, of course!). The work embodies everything that is great about Rotbhard’s style: clear, concise, uncompromising, and well informed. I am now confident that I did not really know what money was until I read this work — shame on our educational system! For a short primer on money, banking, inflation, and (let’s not forget) government intervention in our money, there is probably no better work.