A review of “Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel” (audiobook)

“What is rational is real; And what is real is rational.”

– Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s “Elements of the Philosophy of Right” (1821)

In his youth, Karl Marx described himself as a “Young Hegelian” (or follower of Hegel). He liked a number of things about Hegel – such as his “dialectic,” which influenced Marx’s theory of the evolution of societies, leading gradually towards communism. (This Marxist theory is sometimes known as “historical materialism,” an application of Marx’s version of the dialectic.) Marx would later break with Hegel on a number of issues, but Hegel’s influence upon him was nonetheless quite profound. More than any other thinker, Hegel helped to shape the thought of the young Karl Marx, who would in turn shape the future of socialism and communism.

A review of Michael Wood’s “In Search of the Dark Ages”

During the Dark Ages, there were a number of invasions of what is today “England.” Some of them were before the state of England was created, while others of them happened long after its formation. But if you want a good television overview of these invasions, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better one than Michael Wood’s “In Search of the Dark Ages,” made for the BBC in the late seventies and early eighties.

A review of “The Germanic Tribes”

Warning: This blog post contains a picture of an actual human skull from centuries ago.

What is this film about, and why should I care about it?

In the fifth century AD, three Germanic tribes invaded the British Isles. They were called the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. Two of them are sometimes lumped together into the term “Anglo-Saxons,” a major group for British history. It is from the word “Angles” that the word “England” itself comes – and, by extension, “English,” the name for the language in which I’m writing this. But this documentary doesn’t just cover the Early Middle Ages – it also covers the earlier “classical antiquity” period, focusing especially on the time of the Roman Empire. The first three episodes focus on the antagonistic relationship between the Romans and the Germanic tribes. Later on, they talk about the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and Europe’s resulting transition into its “Dark Ages” period. Thus, they talk about the bridge between the classical period and the medieval period in this film.

Latest reconstruction of the Sutton Hoo helmet, a famous Anglo-Saxon helmet

Why I am learning Biblical Hebrew

“And he [Jonah] said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.”

- The Hebrew Bible, “Jonah,” Chapter 1, Verse 9 (as translated by the King James Version of the Bible)

I’ve posted a lot on Facebook about how I’ve been learning Ancient Greek. There’s been a lot of good reaction to this over the years, and some of my posts about it have been surprisingly popular (at least by my standards). I plan to continue learning Ancient Greek, but I have recently decided to undertake the study of Biblical Hebrew as well. Why would I want to do this, you might ask? Why do I not content myself with the languages that I already know? This is what I address in this post. It’s easy to assume that I’m just doing this because this was the language of the “Old Testament” - or the “Hebrew Bible,” if you prefer. And in truth, that is indeed a big part of my motivation. But there are a few other reasons as well, which are also motivations for me to learn Biblical Hebrew. Thus, I thought that I’d write this post to explain.

A review of Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” (book)

“Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions. I readily discovered the prodigious influence which this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society … I speedily perceived that the influence of this fact extends far beyond the political character and the laws of the country, and that it has no less empire over civil society than over the Government; it creates opinions, engenders sentiments, suggests the ordinary practices of life, and modifies whatever it does not produce. The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which all my observations constantly terminated.”

– Opening lines of Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” (1835), Book 1, Introductory Chapter

I recently finished reading this work in its original French …

I recently finished reading Alexis de Tocqueville’s “De la démocratie en Amérique” (“Democracy in America”) in the original French. The work took me over three years to finish. Specifically, I read the work from March 2019 to July 2022. I would first read a paragraph out loud in French, then out loud in English, and then out loud in French again before moving on to the next paragraph. In this way, I got through the entire work one paragraph at a time. After doing so, I have much to say about it – some of it positive, and some of it negative. But first, let me give some comments on how (and why) the book was written, and how it was informed by Tocqueville’s travels to the United States.

Alexis de Tocqueville

A review of PBS’s “The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela”

“No one in my family had ever attended school ... On the first day of school my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education. That day, Miss Mdingane told me that my new name was Nelson. Why this particular name, I have no idea.”

– Nelson Mandela’s “Long Walk to Freedom, Volume I: 1918-1962” (published 1994)

This is the second program that PBS’s “Frontline” made about Nelson Mandela

“The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela” is PBS’s longest program about Mandela’s life. At two hours long, this episode of “Frontline” is as in-depth as any treatment of his life that you’re likely to find for television. But there was another “Frontline” episode made about him in 1994, on the eve of the elections that first propelled him into power. This earlier program was only one hour long, and was simply titled “Mandela.” At that time, Mandela’s groundbreaking presidency had not yet happened, and he was just a candidate for the presidency. But “The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela” was made in 1999, when Mandela was about to leave office. He was scheduled to leave the presidency just one month after this program was released. Most of his presidency had already transpired, and so they were able to have slightly more hindsight about his pre-presidency life. But more importantly, this program is two hours long, and was thus able to go into slightly more depth than the one-hour program. This is the greatest strength of this documentary.

Nelson Mandela

A review of Cecil Jenkins’ “A Brief History of France” (book)

“The French people solemnly proclaim their attachment to the Rights of Man and the principles of national sovereignty as defined by the Declaration of 1789, confirmed and complemented by the Preamble to the Constitution of 1946, and to the rights and duties as defined in the Charter for the Environment of 2004 [then a future year] … By virtue of these principles and that of the self-determination of peoples, the Republic offers to the overseas territories which have expressed the will to adhere to them new institutions founded on the common ideal of liberty, equality and fraternity and conceived for the purpose of their democratic development.”

– Preamble to the current Constitution of France (adopted 4 October 1958)

This book is skewed towards modern history (but is still good)

I’ve been trying to learn the French language since 2002. When I started learning the language, I was still in my sophomore year of high school. Thus, I’ve been interested in France for at least that long. My interest in the French language had something to do with Canada as well, but it’s hard to understand French Canada (or any other Francophone country) without some understanding of where the language has come from. This is part of what motivated me to get a copy of this book – I wanted to understand the culture of the French language. In this, I was not disappointed, and learned much about the history and culture of France – including the political history. (Although there is much art history in this book as well, for people who are interested in this.)