 Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future
By Friedrich Nietzsche Published in 1886 240 Pages Thibault’s Score: 3/5 Nietzsche was undoubtedly insane. Most of Beyond Good and Evil is complete garbage. The book mostly consists of pointless rants denouncing contemporary and past philosophers. However, in between the disorganized rants, there are predictions. It is for these predictions that Nietzsche is famous. Nietzsche predicts all of the problems that will arise when religion disappears in the 20th century. In his day, all morality stemmed from religion. Nietzsche - correctly - predicted that the disappearance of religion would be replaced by a secular religion based on empathy and compassion which he described as socialism. This prediction is remarkable, because in his own day, communism was a tiny fringe movement. However, three decades after his death, the communist revolution would succeed in Russia. Another strain of socialism - national socialism - would take over Nietzsche’s homeland. Even the victorious allies slowly began replacing religion with ideas of “democratic socialism” and “liberalism” which, today, have evolved into communism. Nietzsche believed that progress came from conflict. Attempting to eliminate conflict would inevitably backfire. In the short term, it would lead to the proliferation of “degenerates” - people who are unfit to survive in nature. The degenerates would then cause far greater future conflicts, while simultaneously slowing down all progress. Nietzsche attributes this to the dichotomy between “master” and “slave” morality. Populations who were historically masters have nobody to blame but themselves for their failures. They develop ethical systems based on the ideas of individualism, hard work, and honor. On the other hand, the slaves lack free will. They choose to externalize all of their decisions, so that they can instead blame the masters. Although in Nietzsche’s own day, slavery had been eliminated from Europe, he argued that these two moral forces continued. He saw that Christianity had traditionally represented slave morality, while nationalism represented master morality. In the post-religious world, he predicted that socialism would take on the role that Christianity had previously played. He makes many predictions about the implications of socialism, many of which are plainly apparent today. One stood out to me. He cautions that in the future, authors who have accepted slave morality or socialism will defend criminals and condemn the innocent. The reason for this is because criminality is often caused by external circumstances over which people do not control (such as childhood poverty). By contrast, non-criminals have less harsh circumstances. Therefore, the socialist solution to crime is to be lenient on criminals but strict on the innocent. I’m not sure if I recommend Beyond Good and Evil or not. This is a very, very weird book. Today, I am sure that modern psychologist would label Nietzsche as being “mentally ill.” He likely had Aspergers. This book is very poorly written. His rants about other philosophers are boring and substance free. On the other hand, the passages about master and slave morality or his predictions about socialism are fascinating. My recommendation would be for most people to pass on this book; and for those who choose to read it to skip over all of the chapters about the history of philosophy.
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 Wisdomkeepers of Stonehenge: The Living Libraries and Healers of Megalithic Culture
By Graham Philips Published in June 2019 288 Pages Thibault’s Score: 3/5 After Philips’s book on Doggerland, I had high hopes. However, this book just rehashed most of the same content as his last book, but less concisely. A mysterious group of people built megalithic monuments over Britain. They were then replaced or merged with various waves of immigrants. Incredibly, despite massive changes in terms of culture and archeology, they continued maintaining, and upgrading the megaliths. This continued well into the days of the Celts. These people were demographically replaced by Indo-European invaders or immigrants. However, a small remnant of megalithic builders survived. Over time, the original megalithic builders became their own social class - sometimes compared to the Indian Brahmin - called the druids. Genetics seems to suggest that the druids were ethnically different from the rest of the population. They may have come from the remnants of the pre Indo-European megalithic population. They often had ginger hair, and other recessive traits that separated them from the rest of the population. The druids seem to have maintained an oral tradition, passing on and preserving an echo of the knowledge of the megalithic people. This oral tradition made the druids into “living libraries” which survived in Ireland until the 5th century AD, and in England until the 7th century AD. This book was neither good nor bad. The writing style was acceptable. I would maybe recommend it to a novice who is first getting interested in this historical period, but wouldn’t to anyone doing a deeper dive. It would definitely not be my first choice for a book on European prehistory.  The Byzantine Economy
By Angeliki E. Laiou and Cécile Morrisson Published in 2007 280 Pages Thibault’s Score: 3/5 I cannot recommend The Byzantine Economy. It makes for an exceptionally dry read. The writing style isn’t bad. It isn’t good, either. Reading this book feels like a chore. I had a physical copy, and it took me about six months to finish. I would read a few pages, then my brain would hurt. I would stop for a few days, take notes, and read a few more pages. Progress was slow. But yesterday, while babysitting, I was finally able to finish it. Usually, I just skip books that I do not enjoy. However, I made it to the bitter end, and even read the footnotes and endnotes. The information contained within is fascinating. I really like something about this book. Many academic books try to “prove a point.” These books are unbearable, because they are arguing for something. As a result, they do not feel objective. Rather than learn about the topic of the book, you participate in a nitpicky academic debate. This book doesn’t try to prove anything. It just does its best at giving a factual and objective account of events. My trained eyes detect a slight Marxist bias coloring some of the analysis. However, because the book is very well researched, it never feels deceptive and the presentation of the facts drowns out the analysis. This book would be completely unreadable to a lay person who doesn’t have extensive prior knowledge about Byzantine history. Unless you already have a good knowledge of which emperors did what, and when, then this book will be hard to read. The Byzantine Economy is a fascinating early case study for a completely centrally planned economic system. Most economic activity was directly driven by the state. Non-state economic activity was subject to endless regulation, intervention, and taxation. Although the authors would likely disagree with me, I really got the impression that the Byzantine state was exceptionally parasitic. Most other medieval governments that I have read about have been fairly pro-free market. From the very beginning, the Byzantine Empire was a welfare state. Around 650 AD, the government distributed 80,000 “political breads” to keep families in Constantinople passive. Additionally, the export of grain was forbidden. The government explicitly regulated the economy to prevent the accumulation of wealth. Preachers preached an ideology of state economic control. Over time, the Byzantines were forced to deregulate the economy. The loss of Egypt, Syria, Italy, and later the Balkans reduced the tax base. As a result, the government grudgingly gave up economic control. Protectionism made the Greeks lazy. Instead of traveling the world to look for opportunities, they passively sat around and waited for Armenian, Arab, and Italian merchants to come to them. Over time, this slowly made them less and less competitive. Eventually, by the time of the crusades, the entire mercantile class came to be dominated by foreign Italian merchants. Byzantine manufacturing was just as decadent. Initially, the Byzantines were major exporters of manufactured goods. However, protectionism meant that Byzantine manufacturers did not have to adapt to changes in demand. The state also created monopolies. As a result, over the centuries, Byzantine manufacturing became synonymous with low quality garbage. After the Italians began dominating trade, they also started dominating manufacturing. By the end of the empire, all high end goods were produced in Italy, and imported into Greece and Anatolia. The decline and fall of manufacturing can be best illustrated by Byzantine silk production. Around 600 AD, the Byzantines somehow acquired silkworms from China. They started producing low quality silk. This production continued, even through the turbulent “Byzantine Dark Ages” in the 700s and 800s. Quality continuously improved, despite the fact that silk production was controlled by various regional state owned monopolies. However, over time, more foreigners in places such as Iran began acquiring the knowledge of silk production. This new competition proved disastrous. Instead of deregulating to create an incentive to adapt, the protected Byzantine monopolies were slow to change. Over time, Byzantine silk manufacturers lost out to cheaper and higher quality foreign competition. This started a death spiral. The monopolized silk manufacturers responded by cranking out lower quality silk to compete on price. The foreigners competed by producing the same lower quality silk at an even lower price. Then, the Mongols came, opening up the silk roads. By the end of the empire, the Byzantines lost knowledge of silk manufacturing, and could only produce extremely poor quality silk that could not be exported. Agriculture also deteriorated. At first, the agricultural system was dominated by small peasant landlords, as was tradition throughout the Roman Empire. Over time, the landlords slowly consolidated power. Taxation was proof of ownership, and many landlords used sketchy means to expropriate their neighbors. Landlords who could contribute soldiers were exempted from taxes, further increasing the burdens on small farmers. The price of grain was set by the government. Because the price of grain was artificially low, growing grain was not profitable. Instead of growing grain, farmers opted to grow cash crops such as olives and grapes. This created shortages, and led to famines. The government responded by banning the export of grain. Growing grain for export was one of the only ways grain farmers could remain profitable, because foreign states did not have the same price controls. As a result, banning the export of grain made grain farming even less profitable, further reducing the supply. Reading through the pages, I cannot help but cynically suspect that the Byzantine economic system was covertly designed to trap the common people in poverty. This would have prevented the accumulation of power in the hands of nobles who could challenge imperial authorities. Although this book doesn’t discuss the Islamic economy, I have read about it elsewhere. Early Islam had a dynamic free market economic system. Knowing what was going on in the Byzantine Empire does much to explain why so many peasants willingly converted to Islam, where they had a much better chance of competing against corrupt elites. I took very heavy notes. Nearly every page in my copy has been annotated. This will make it easy to sift through the many boring parts to find the interesting facts.  The Mystery of Doggerland: Atlantis in the North Sea
By Graham Phillips Published in July 2023 225 Pages Thibault’s Score: 4/5 The cover and title of the book made me expect some weird new age book. Instead, it turned out to be a very well written and mainstream scientific account of Doggerland. In the 1930s, Flemish fishing boats known as “Doggers” started deep sea trawling. To the surprise of the sailors, they started fishing up mesolithic artifacts such as statues, harpoons, and spearheads. Historians then began theorizing that a landmass, where humans had lived, had once existed under the North Sea, which they called Doggerland. For decades, the existence of Doggerland was controversial. However, the science was overturned in the 1990s due to improvements in sediment studies and underwater archeology. Now both the existence of Doggerland and the human presence on Doggerland have been conclusively proven. Note - for historical facts, I use BC in this book review (Before Christ / Before Common Era) and for geological facts I use BP (before present). The book does this too. Around 17,000 BP, during the height of the ice age, the world looked very different. Large amounts of water were trapped in the polar ice caps, which extended far lower than they do today. As a result, the sea levels were much lower. A large landmass, located in what is today the North Sea, connected Britain, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway by land. Doggerland started sinking around 17,000 BP due to rising sea levels. Every year, Doggerland lost between one and two meters. By around 10,000 BP Doggerland had transformed into an island to the East of Britain roughly the size of Ireland. Archaeologists and geologists refer to this island as “Dogger Bank” to distinguish it from the larger landmass that was connected by land to the European continent. The island of Dogger Bank developed a thriving human civilization. Many artifacts from this civilization have been found as a result of offshore drilling in the early 2000s and the construction of offshore wind farms in the early 2020s. These artifacts reveal that the civilization was far more advanced than what existed in Europe at the time. Although it is controversial, some archeologists even think that the Doggerlanders had started experimenting with early metallurgy. Direct evidence for human civilization on Dogger Bank is limited. In addition to artifacts, there have also been underwater radar surveys. These have revealed that there are underwater megaliths similar to stonehenge. There are also signs of clearcutting and deforestation, which are often accompanied by agriculture. There is also fascinating indirect evidence. Around 8000 BP, a devastating tsunami submerged almost the entirety of Dogger Bank for several days. The tsunami was caused by melting sea ice in Norway. Evidence of this tsunami can be found along the entire coast of the North Sea from Scandinavia to Scotland to Germany. Although the island of Dogger Bank was only submerged for several days, and the interior was likely spared, the tsunami would have devastated the population. In the decades following the tsunami, Dogger Bank started sinking extremely rapidly, at a rate of 3-5 meters per year. The island also was subject to regular smaller tsunamis that would have repeatedly destroyed the coastline. In the 50 years following the tsunami, there is evidence of mass migration to Britain. The new migrants brought megalith technology with them - and quickly replaced the hunter gatherers. Archeological evidence from Britain suggests that these newcomers had access to advanced tools which the Britons didn’t possess, medicine, and could build much larger stone monuments. Archeologists theorize that the tsunami triggered a wave of refugees from Dogger Bank. Over the years, these refugees wiped out and replaced the natives. There is also some limited genetic evidence for this. Around 6000 BC, most of the native Britons were wiped out. New Y DNA appears in the British genetic admixture. However, traces of the new Y chromosomes cannot be found in present coastal European populations. This further supports the idea of immigration from Doggerland to Britain. If this theory is validated, it would mean that the civilization which built Stonehenge originated from Doggerland, rather than continental Europe. By around 5000 BP (3000 BC), Dogger Bank still existed. However, it had been reduced to a small collection of small disconnected islands. It is unclear if any humans remained at this time. Just a thousand years later, the last bits of Dogger Bank would recede into the Ocean. Today all that is left of Doggerland are some sandy shoals. The shoals are very shallow, and are a well known cause of trouble for sailors which have caused many shipwrecks. Depending on weather conditions, the shoals can sometimes lie slightly above water today. There is one thing that I didn’t like about this book. Although discussion of Doggerland is fascinating, the book goes into several “side quests,” discussing various Indo-European myths about Atlantis, Lemuria, Mu, and other submerged landmasses. It explains how this phenomenon is not unique to the North Sea and can be found in many other areas that lost land at the end of the Ice Age. The book also discusses, at length, the evolution of various theories of Doggerland. The part about 18th and 19th century naturalists is fascinating, as they deduced the existence of Doggerland long before any physical evidence was found based off of the fossil record. However, the part about all of the hippie quack people was somewhat tedious. These digressions are interesting, but the way they are inserted is very distracting. I recommend this book. It is a fascinating account of a real life Atlantis. The writing is great, the length is short. Just keep in mind that, at times, the “side quests” can be a bit distracting. |
Thibault SerletMost of my articles are book reviews, but I also write about many other topics. Archives
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