 The Autobiography of Benevuto Cellini
By Benvenuto Cellini Published in 1563 465 Pages Thibault’s Score: 4/5 Benvenuto Cellini is one of the greatest boasters in Italian history. He was a metalsmith and douchebag, born in the year 1500 near Florence. He would work for several prominent figures of the period such as Pope Clement of Medici and King Francis I of France. Two things stood out from this book: Cellini is a raconteur and he is a complete asshole. This doesn’t detract from the experience at all, maybe even adding to it. Just go in expecting an anti-hero and enjoy the ride. Cellini’s account of his life is obviously fanciful. He admits as much in the first chapter. He always recounts events in a way to make himself look as good as possible. Whenever things go wrong, he blames them on others. He justifies all of the many fights he starts as well as his constant unethical behavior. His justifications can be grating, but his exaggerations are often hilarious and exciting. Cellini is a complete asshole. He murders dozens of people throughout his journey (although whether this is just part of the story or really happened seems debatable to me). He doesn’t hesitate to draw his sword at the slightest insult. He resorts to lies and trickery to sleep with as many men and women as possible (he was bisexual). He demands extreme compensation for his artwork, and has a very high opinion of himself. In other words, I would absolutely hate spending any time with him. His adventures are action-packed. He fights bandits, escapes from jail, is a cannoneer during a war, travels across Europe, and faces all sorts of dangers. Whether these feats are real or imagined is irrelevant - it makes for a good story. There are no explicit sex scenes, but quite a few references. It also describes quite a few scenes of torture, rape, and injury. Towards the middle of the book, he also starts worshipping the devil and practices what he calls “necromancy.” This isn’t suitable for children, but might assign it as required reading in a high school history class. I would give it a PG-13 rating. As far as 500 year old books translated into modern English go, the writing style is incredibly clear and comprehensible. If you want to read a single primary source that takes place in the Renaissance, I would probably recommend this one. It gives an account from a middle class person who is blatantly unethical, and this alone makes it worth it.
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 The Mastermind: Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal.
By Evan Ratliff Published in January 2019 480 Pages Thibault’s Score: 4/5 This book is a short account of the life and misadventures of Paul Le Roux. Paul Le Roux was a white Rhodesian (now Zimbabwe) who emigrated to the Philippines. There, he established an online prescription drug pharmacy. He hired Indian doctors to write prescriptions and the website's clients could get the prescription painkillers shipped to their homes. The drug pharmacy was gray market - neither strictly legal or illegal. This online pharmacy made him very wealthy. However, he then started dipping into all sorts of other activity, this time strictly illegal - arms dealing, assassinations, political corruption, drug smuggling, illegal mining, illegal logging, etc… He was a very bad guy, engaging in murderous political feuds, and deranged sexual escapades. Eventually, he was arrested while on a business trip in Liberia and extradited into the custody of the US Drug Enforcement Agency. There, he ratted out all of his minions, and escaped justice. They let Paul Leroux go so that relatively good meaning people could get unjust criminal terms. The main moral of the story is that the government is far more dangerous, unjust, vicious, and evil than even the worst organized crime groups. As an interesting side note, some people think he may have been Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. The book’s writing style is very engaging. It was a real page turner. I listened to the audiobook with my wife Katarina, and we couldn’t stop until the very end. If you are looking for a good crime thriller, albeit one set in the real world, I recommend it highly.  Michelangelo, God's Architect: The Story of His Final Years and Greatest Masterpiece
By William E. Wallace Published in November 2019 328 Pages Thibault’s Score: 4/5 This book covers the twilight years of Michelangelo’s life, when he is the architect of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. Michelangelo was a crotchety old man who left behind dozens of completely unfinished works. He was extremely superstitious, having been part of Girolamo Savonarola’s congregation during his youth. He worried that he would die too early before St. Peter's Basilica would be completed, and that this would curse him to hell. His fears would be proven right - it wouldn’t be completed for another 60 years after his death. William E. Wallace is one of the world’s foremost Michelangelo historians. Often, the more pedigreed a historian is, the more pedantic their writing becomes. Luckily, Wallace is an exception. He has the courage to use his imagination to paint a vivid life-like picture of the daily life of Michelangelo during this period. Writing about a niche topic in the Renaissance can be a little bit hard - there is a constant struggle in between including too much and too little context. I have read dozens of books about the period at this point, and found it very easy to follow. However, I worry that readers who are less familiar with the period might, at times, have difficulty following along. Another added bonus: the audiobook is masterfully produced. I highly recommend Michelangelo, God's Architect to anyone interested in learning more about Renaissance art history. It isn’t for everyone  Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France
By Leonie Frieda March 2006 440 Pages Thibault’s Score: 3/5 Catherine de Medici was a Florentine Medici sent to live in the French court in order to solidify political alliances. She had a rough life - her childhood was spent as a political hostage living in convents; her early reign was marked by rivalry with her husband’s royal concubines; and her time as dowager queen was marked by religious civil unrest. Catherine de Medici is not beautiful; she is actually somewhat ugly. She is not particularly intelligent, but neither is she dull. She is not a great ruler, but she is not a horrible one either. Her reign stands out for its sheer mediocrity - which makes reading this book interesting. Don’t read this expecting to find either a great woman of history or a devil. In many ways, this book can be seen as the profile of a very average 16th century head of state. The writing style of this book is quite good, and enjoyable. It walks the very fine line between being overly descriptive and flat. Frieda avoids academic pedantry. She also does not defend Catherine de Medici’s constant mistakes in judgment and incompetant policies - she simply looks at them for what it is. The book is quite long and detailed - a little bit too much so for me. I only read about 60% because I’m tired of reading about politics and want to move on to art and science. However, had I read it at a different time, I probably would have finished it. This book isn’t for everyone, but there definitely is an audience for it. I don’t recommend it to everyone, but if you are into real life Game of Thrones type of stuff this is the book for you.  The Book of the Courtier
By Baldassare Castiglione Published in 1528 344 Pages Thibault’s Score: 4/5 This is the kind of book that men who stuff their pants with socks read. Literally. The codpiece was in fashion among court men at the time - men would stuff bulges of cloth into their pants to make their wee-wees look big. The author gives instructions on how to maintain appearances, even if dishonestly. The book gives advice such as “know a little about many topics to appear smart”; “pretend to like whatever your lord likes”; or literally “boast about everything that you are good at in a way that will make it look like others are praising you.” Stuffing cloth into one’s pants is an excellent metaphor for this book as a whole. It is worth reading. Its schemes are so over the top and the advice it gives is so hilarious that it will be a fun read. I didn’t finish it; but after about half got the point. I recommend spending a good 30 - 45 minutes doing the same; although read more at your own peril.  Dell'arte Della Guerra
By Niccolò Machiavelli Published in 1521 247 Pages Thibault’s Score: 2/5 The Art of War (often called Dell'arte Della Guerra to distinguish it from the book by Sun Tzu) is a socratic dialog in-between Cosimo de Medici and his mercenary generals. The book discusses how best to apply ancient Roman and Greek tactics to modern (Renaissance) warfare. I only read about 1/3 of the book before I decided to quit. I stopped because I thought that the book was very hyper specific. There are a lot of discussion of the width of ranks necessary to defeat cavalry chargers, how Roman slingers are analogous to guns, and how mercenaries are dangerous and should be replaced by national armies. The hyperspecificity without much good historical context made for a very boring read. There is a reason why this is one of the less well known books by Machiavelli. I don’t think its worth reading for non-historians.  The Prince
By Niccolo Machiavelli Published in 1532 170 Pages Thibault’s Score: 4/5 The Prince is a fascinating pamphlet written by the legendary 16th century Italian political consultant Machiavelli. Its reputation is warranted - its pages seep with evil. Machiavelli is the anti-libertarian. This is not a guidebook for rulers on how they can achieve a peaceful and prosperous state; instead it is a manual on how to retain political power regardless of how prosperous a state is. He famously called for rulers to do whatever it took to maintain power - to cheat, lie, steal, and betray one’s promises. His writing style is very clear and crisp. He is understandable even through the lens of translation and 500 years of history. He backs up every recommendation by numerous examples, both from his own day and from ancient history. I recommend reading this book to understand the mentality of the deep state. Know thy enemy. Machiavelli’s ideas have both directly and indirectly influenced many of today’s politicians. Machiavelli’s ghost cannot be defeated without reading Machiavelli.  Your Next Government? From the Nation State to Stateless Nations
By Tom W. Bell Published in October 2017 286 Pages Thibault’s Score: 3/5 This may be the first time that I review a book where I know the author. I met Tom W. Bell in 2014, nearly 8 years ago, and have known him as a professional colleague and acquaintance since then. I only read the first third before I got bored; but I think that others might get more out of it. To me, almost nothing was new. Tom W. Bell’s discussion of SEZs is pretty good, especially when he covers US FTZs. He also has a neat little segment where he talks about Fordlandia. However, he focuses way too much on highly theoretical projects like Seasteads. This makes his writing seem like an academic fever dream rather than a practicable solution. This is too bad because there are many very real and tangible case studies - the Holy Roman Empire, Delos, Dejima, Shenzhen, Dubai Multi Modal Commodity Center, the Hanseatic League (which he briefly mentions), the Geneva Freeport, etc… So far I haven’t found a single book that covers the very real and very useful examples of charter cities; most tend to naval-gaze. I need to write that book.  The Righteous Mind
By Jonathan Haidt Published in 2012 419 Pages Thibault’s Score: 2/5 This is going to be a short review because I didn’t make it past the fourth chapter. The book covers various evolutionary psychology experiments and attempts to explain why people believe different things. In many ways, it is a more data-heavy and less poetically written version of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. I stopped reading the book because I found it boring and thought that the “science” seemed a tad flimsy. For example, one experiment consists of interviews of people of different social classes and asks them to answer various moral questions. Upper class people tend to differentiate between things that are distasteful but don’t hurt anyone and things that are immoral; while lower class people do not. Haidt offers a wide variety of explanations but ignores the obvious: IQ. To me it seems like people who have lower IQs will tend to be poorer; and people with higher IQs tend to be wealthier. A simple way to verify this would be to test high IQ poor people and low IQ rich people. Ben Carson grew up extremely poor and was the child of a single mom; but he had a very developed and nuanced view of ethics. As a result, he became a successful neurosurgeon. By contrast Paris Hilton grew up wealthy. She uses third grade vocabulary in interviews and seems pretty clueless; I wouldn’t be surprised if her views of ethics weren’t very developed. My point isn’t that IQ destroys the entire book; far from it. He may even address it later. My point is that there are so many variables to consider that I am generally very skeptical of statistically-driven social sciences like psychology and economics. Statistics to add color to anecdotal experience-based accounts are great; but statistical accounts lose the point. There might be some data people who enjoy reading this, but I decided not to finish it.  The Artist, The Philosopher, and the Warrior
By Paul Strathern Published in 2009 496 Pages Thibault’s Score: 3/5 This year, I’ve read four other Renaissance history books by Paul Strathern. I like his writing style because it is clear and simple. Three of the most interesting figures of the Italian Renaissance met and interacted - Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Ceasare Borgia. Leonardo da Vinci is the well known painter, sculptor, inventor, and siege engineer. Machiavelli is an equally well known political consultant and the theorist that would shape the ideology of the George Bushes and Hillary Clintons of the world. Ceasare Borgia is less well known - he is the demon-spawn son of pope Alexander VI, and one of the most evil people all around. Let me list some of his less severe defects: he is a thief, a rapist, a murder, a liar, and a blasphemer. The three all meet in Florence. Borgia was invading the city of Florence with his armies. Machiavelli was a political consultant at the time, and was sent as a diplomat to Borgia. Da Vinci, being a great siege engineer, was sent as tribute to serve Borgia - somewhat enslaved. Machiavelli and Da Vinci serve Borgia for a year or two (the timeline is a bit muddy in my mind), and then are allowed to return. During their time working for Borgia, both get PTSD after seeing the mass slaughter, mass rape, and mass torture inflicted on innocents during the campagin. Da Vinci responds by refusing to do any more military work, and by painting dozens of storms and hurricanes in his notebook. His art becomes noticeably darker. Machiavelli responds by writing the prince, and training himself to be enthralled and captivated by Borgia’s methods. Borgia’s vile deeds eventually catch up to him; he is captured and executed. This book is really excellent for people who already know the history of Da Vinci and the Borgias because it gives a lot of texture. But it can be a bit confusing for people who aren’t already into Renaissance history. I recommend it to intermediate level Renaissance history enthusiasts but not to novices. |
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