A review of “Maimonides and Medieval Jewish Philosophy” (audiobook)

Moses ben Maimon (better known as Maimonides) was one of the most important philosophers of the Middle Ages. He was a Jewish philosopher, but he also had a great effect on Christians and Muslims. Nonetheless, he was quite controversial in his own time, even amongst his fellow Jews. He criticized certain aspects of the era’s Jewish religion, and made many enemies by so doing. He was controversial enough that his books were burned by the authorities, sometimes at the request of his fellow Jews. This was ironic, because he lived in the Muslim Almoravid Empire, which was then fairly tolerant of the Jewish religion. Nonetheless, the Muslims would grant some of the requests to have his books burned, and some of those who had requested this burning later saw their own books burned as well. Such is the irony of censorship, then and now.

A review of Boris Fausto’s “A Concise History of Brazil”

Note: The edition that I’m reviewing here was expanded by Boris Fausto’s son Sergio Fausto, to bring it up to date.

The most populous country in Latin America, with even more people than Mexico

Brazil is the most populous country in Latin America, with even more people than Mexico. It is also the only country in Latin America (or anywhere in the Americas) that speaks Portuguese. This often surprises North Americans, because they expect South America to speak Spanish. And in many other South American countries, they do. But in fairness, Spanish and Portuguese are extremely similar languages, so they’re not too far off. Of all of the major Romance languages, Spanish and Portuguese seem to me to be the closest. In the Old World, Spain and Portugal were neighbors on Europe’s Iberian Peninsula. And in the New World, they are the two dominant languages of South America, with a large border between their respective spheres. Famously, Spain and Portugal both had territorial ambitions on this continent, and appealed to the Pope to settle the boundary between their respective territories there. Spain then got everything to the west of that boundary, while Portugal then got everything to the east of it. The boundary may not be as linear as it once was, but you can definitely see its influence in the modern map of South America. This explains why the modern nation of Brazil speaks Portuguese, rather than Spanish. And it explains many other things about Latin American geography.

Original edition of this book

A review of “The Road to War” (BBC)

Why did World War II happen? It’s a complicated (and interesting) topic, involving causes in many different nations. Some of these involve Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, while others involve Imperial Japan – which is quite distant from these European nations. This topic has enormous power to explain the events of the twentieth century. Most importantly, it explains World War II itself, the largest war in history. Thus, the BBC undertook to explore the causes of the war. In four episodes, they cover the events that shattered the peace, in a documentary aptly titled “The Road to War.” Incidentally, this documentary is written (and narrated) by the British journalist Charles Wheeler.

Neville Chamberlain