From Work to Ancient Warfare

Well, I didn't quite finish Working, but I needed to move on so I could get to more of my books. I've chosen one of my "M" books this time: Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World, by Adrienne Mayor, a research scholar in the Classics Department at Stanford University. Here is her website: Adrienne Mayor. And here is her picture, which I copied from that website:

Adrienne Mayor

The book was published in 2003, but has been since updated with a new introduction by the author. It is quite fascinating so far. I had a notion that chemical and biological weapons were deployed in ancient times, but really didn't know the vast extent. This area of history is Ms. Mayor's life's work, apparently, and you can feel her enthusiasm on every page.

People are capable of quite diabolical means of terrorizing and destroying one another, a reality we continue to face. Not much has changed over the millennia, except that our methods have become ever more lethal. I'll have more to say about particulars as I read further. Later . . .

Working Winding Down at Last

Well, I've been away for a while, but I've been continuing to read Working and enjoying it. The book is so big that it's taking a long time to finish.

Some of the things I found worth noting about this book:

1.  There are a great many different jobs out there, some of them still in existence despite the passage of forty years.

2.  Almost every person interviewed liked something about his or her job.  A few people liked everything about their jobs.

3.  A few people were not very likable and were in fact despicable. A couple of people were downright frightening. But most of the people seemed to be ordinary people with some flaws and some virtues. I wonder if they weeded out all the really bad people before putting the book together. 

4.  There were a number of people who were prescient concerning the way things were going with respect to work.  For instance, some people thought that automation was slowly taking away jobs. Other people feared that unions were fading out of importance.  Some people could see the demise of mom and pop stores and independent businesses.

5.  The interviewees were steeped in their time--the early 70s, with all its hippies and counter culture and racial strife and war worries and women's lib. It was fun to get that reminder of what things were like back then for ordinary people.

6.  There are a wide variety of people interviewed, each different from the other. I appreciated that.  I think the compilers did a very good job of making it an interesting book.

I'll be glad to be finished with it, however, because I'm finally going to get done with the T's (except for one more Terkel book which I am saving for later).

I don't know what I'm reading next, but I'll keep you posted!


Studs Terkel