MRJB 🇬🇧🇨🇦
@DrMichaelBonner
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Writer | Classicist | Historian of Iran | Arabisant | …
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Here is an EPIC new review of In Defense of Civilization by David Marks Shribman for the Literary Review of Canada (
@reviewcanada
). Huge!
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No. This is the way:
The final resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is to reestablish the Roman empire, with equal rights for all sub-cultures and religions.
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Compare this with the distribution of Sasanian coins and other artefacts.
Source:
A Map of the Distribution of Roman Coins Found in Eurasia and North Africa.
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A claim wholly without empirical support ! Last time a woman was 'running Russia', the Russian empire was expanded by about 200,000 square miles and large parts of Ukraine and elsewhere were annexed. There was warfare on a huge scale in every direction.
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A friend on Facebook says 'economists are today's equivalent of mediaeval theologians'. I say no, since mediaeval theologians were (a) more intelligent, (b) better read, (c) capable of writing intelligible prose, (d) more frequently right.
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When HRH Prince Philip and PM Jean Chrétien met for the first time, they spoke entirely in French.
Chrétien said: 'you speak French very well for an Englishman'.
Prince Philip said: 'I am NOT an Englishman, and I've been speaking French since before you were born!'
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What a time to be alive when maximum engagement comes from sharing a map of the Sasanian Empire.
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I often wonder whether 'Islamic' is the right word. Do we name other architectural styles after religions? There are many buildings found from Iceland to Armenia, and we don't say that they are in a 'Christian' architectural style, do we?
strange how none of the “retvrn to tradition” accounts ever talk about the stunning beauty of islamic architecture
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Our new daughter was born just now. Mother and child are doing well!
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I have become quite disenchanted with this book. The author asserts the paramount importance of the city of Marv to the intellectual florescence of the Abbasid era. This may have *some* truth to it. But the author claims (a) that the future Caliph al-Mansur had a chance meeting
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Our daughter Anastasia was baptised today, thereby eradicating the last vestiges of paganism in the family.
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Friends: please pray for the repose of my mother Lorna Jackson. She died on 4 November after a fight with cancer, but I've not been ready to tell anyone or say anything about it till now. My family and I are still in shock. Many will remember Lorna's nearly 40-year career as a
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Do you know who else was thinking about the Roman Empire!?
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"We're going to build a big, beautiful bridge and get the Romans to pay for it." -- Shapur I.
The
#Sassanid
Old Bridge of Dezful was built in 263 AD by some of the 70,000 Roman troops who were taken prisoner along with Emperor Valerian after his defeat by Shapur I at the Battle of Edessa. Amazingly, the bridge is still in use today!
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Every ducat should go to reparations paid to the Byzantine Empire:
Venice gets 25 million visitors a year. Now, it's going to charge them all to access the city centre
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I owe all my academic success to the squat and the deadlift:
Groundbreaking research shows that neurological health depends as much on signals sent by the body’s large leg muscles to the brain as it does on directives from the brain to the muscles. Published in
@FrontNeurosci
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For flexibility and clarity: Greek;
For precision: a tie between Latin and Arabic;
For sound: a tie between Syriac and Persian;
For rhythm: Arabic;
For intricacy: Sanskrit;
For interesting texts: Greek, Aramaic, Syriac, and Armenian.
For sheer mental exertion: Hieroglyphic!
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I will read this with interest. But, looking through the notes, I don't see any Armenian, Syriac, New Persian, or Arabic sources, and only one Middle Persiam source (the monumental royal inscription of Shapur I in translation). Many red flags!
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By age 30, you should already have reasserted your authority over Thrace and Illyria, you should have conquered Persia, and you should be only about 3 years from death.
By age 30, you should have a group of friends that talk business, money, and fitness, not politics and pop culture.
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There will be no justice until Cleopatra is portrayed by the actual living progeny of Ptolemy I, whose Macedonian heritage is assured by centuries of incest.
'Wonder Woman' director Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot are reuniting for
#Cleopatra
, a historical biopic in the works from Paramount Pictures
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It is easy to rattle off examples, but harder to explain what made them important or influential. Men like Gerbert of Aurillac (d. 1002) and Adelard of Bath (d. 1152) returned to Europe from the Eastern and Western Caliphates (respectively) praising the Arabum studia (Arab
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Love it or hate it, this is the ideal European Union:
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This new religion has the worst devotional music I've ever heard.
Mourners join in a rendition of "Imagine" by John Lennon as they honor the legacy of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the standard bearer for the court's liberal wing and a progressive icon.
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I did not realise until now that one of my new neighbours recently moved here from Iran. We spoke at length in Persian this evening. I was glad that I could understand nearly everything she said in modern Persian, & she was entertained by my 11th-century form of the language.
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This is, of course, completely wrong.
Yuval Noah Harari: we have no idea what to teach young people that will still be relevant in 20 years
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Definitely the face of a man who dictated a grammatical treatise while killing or enslaving millions of Gauls.
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Here's my latest article: 'Islam and the Case against Cultural Amnesia'. Many thanks to
@RashaElass
and
@newlinesmag
for publishing!
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Skin in the game
@nntaleb
He who has given counsel to another about his army should die with it when it is defeated. He who has given counsel about the country or its capital should perish with it when it comes into peril. (BR II 1.2.35)
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Another huge failure for vegetarianism:
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Here is another great interview with
@nntaleb
about his life and work. Watch and learn!
I'm honoured that Taleb mentions my book 'The Last Empire of Iran', which he now keeps on his desk, at the end!
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Happy sixth anniversary to my wife, Alexandra!
...οὐ μὲν γὰρ τοῦ γε κρεῖσσον καὶ ἄρειον,
ἢ ὅθ᾽ ὁμοφρονέοντε νοήμασιν οἶκον ἔχητον
ἀνὴρ ἠδὲ γυνή: πόλλ᾽ ἄλγεα δυσμενέεσσι,
χάρματα δ᾽ εὐμενέτῃσι, μάλιστα δέ τ᾽ ἔκλυον αὐτοί.
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Maintaining stoic composure at the end of another painful Christmas card photography session. Not pictured: our rebellious children.
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I eat at least 28 eggs a week, as well as huge amounts of beef and salmon. My doctor ran some tests, and found me quite healthy despite being generally high-strung. She was surprised, though, that both my cholesterol levels were 'a little low'. The moral? Don't believe the old BS
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Son: 'are we Greek?'
Me: 'you, son, are Greek by descent from your mother, but not me'.
Son: 'no, daddy, you're Greek too, but you're *ancient* Greek'.
Brings a tear to the eye!
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I tried to help!
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If election fatigue's got you down, cast your mind back to when there were no elections at all!
Here's a longish video about my book 'The Last Empire of Iran' in Kenneth Clark mode:
✅Slow pace
✅Pictures
✅Music
Watch and share!
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Elite ignorance is deep and invincible
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My life has also improved since I was 23:
Isaac Newton invented calculus at 23
He spent the rest of his life looking for dragons in the Swiss alps and trying to use the Bible to predict the future
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If you're sick and tired of my incessant rantings about Persia, in a few months you will have something new to complain about. Stay vigilant!
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If you like the Sasanian Empire, my book 'The Last Empire of Iran' is for you!
The third and last pre-Islamic Iranian empire was ruled by the Sasanian dynasty from the 220s to 651 CE, a period that was arguably the heyday of ancient Iran. A new book gives it the attention it deserves.
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I think there is much truth to the claim of Iamblichus that Pythagoras picked up a lot of his mathematical ideas in Syria and Egypt.
Mathematician has discovered the oldest example of applied geometry ever recorded. The Babylonian tablet illustrates the use of Pythagorean triples in dividing land, 1,100 years before the geometric principle was recorded by Pythagoras.
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Publication Day is upon us!
Huge thanks to everyone who helped along the way, especially
@nntaleb
,
@byzantinepower
,
@bmiloy
,
@trilbykent
,
@Ljiljana1972
,
@SalemLola
,
@DorchesterRev
, and
@KenWhyte3
and the team at
@sutherlandbooks
!
Happy Pub Day
@DrMichaelBonner
. His new book details how quests for clarity, order & beauty doesnt necessarily succeed through innovation or futuristic orientation. But by thoughtful examination of the past. Available wherever books are sold.
#Nonfiction
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@Paracelsus1092
Right. Or, in the mid-6th century, the opposite happened. The needs of a militarised, landed aristocracy did not include high-falluting classical learning, so most gave up on it. A few did not. Who won out in the end?
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I began Latin when I was 10 and continued it all through school and university, and still read it. Apart from its own virtues, Latin set me on a course of learning other languages and taking an interest in history. Without Latin, I would never have amounted to anything.
There are all kinds of assumptions about education built into the question, “What will I do with Latin?”
The better question is, “What will Latin do to me?”
- Clarify your thinking
- Make you more detail-oriented
- Make you more observant
What else?
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Today my wife and I observe our ninth anniversary. Huge!
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This man is so free of the past that he thinks he personally discovered such early 20th-century bromides as this one:
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For the Platinum Jubilee, here is a picture of the time I told the Queen all about Sasanian history. She asked me what I was writing my thesis about. I explained it. "Ah," she said, "the 6th century. That's going back a bit, isn't it."
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Who wants an advance reading copy of my new book?
I am making a list. But it won't be a long list, so message me now!
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Enough of this bullshit.
“Christmas” is discriminatory, says
@CdnHumanRights
Commission report. Observance of Jesus’ birth is “an obvious example” of religious bias rooted in colonialism.
#cdnpoli
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It is actually Persian, as everyone knows.
51/The most beautiful spoken language in the world is Spanish, and the most beautiful Spanish accent is Mexican.
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I wish my Yankee friends a happy Fourth of July, but this does not mean that I condone treason and rebellion.
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You can know all the words without knowing the language, and you can know the language without knowing all the words.
The story of Nigel Richards, the man from New Zealand who memorized every French word in the French scrabble dictionary and won the French Scrabble Championship without speaking any French
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A propos of nothing, here's my anecdote about meeting the Queen.
Q: 'so, what are you doing here?'
Me: 'your Majesty, I am writing a history of Persia in the 6th century'.
[Pause]
Q: 'ah, the 6th century. That's going back a bit...'
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Let me explain why this is a problem. The writer describes the episode of Mazdakism -- a putative Zoroastrian heresy which was supposedly influential in the reign of Kavad I and perhaps destroyed in that of Khusro I. Unfortunately Mazdakism is not mentioned in any Roman sources,
I will read this with interest. But, looking through the notes, I don't see any Armenian, Syriac, New Persian, or Arabic sources, and only one Middle Persiam source (the monumental royal inscription of Shapur I in translation). Many red flags!
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Attention! In the middle of the year the House of Bonner will have a new member: a daughter! We just found out!
On a related note, this permanently shelves the debate about the names Boethius, Sennacherib, Xerxes, and Tarquinius...
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Avicenna's Metaphysics (from hjis Kitab al-Shifa') is genuinely original, and made him by far the most influential mediaeval philosopher, especially after it was picked up by Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, inter alios.
Without Googling, name something that was invented, discovered or created by Muslims over the centuries.
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I don't want the teaching of Latin and Greek to be diminished. But we should, I think, include Aramaic, Hebrew, Persian, Armenian, Arabic etc., in our vision of 'classics'.
@andrewsillett
@GeorgyKantor
@DrMichaelBonner
Ah! Ok snark rescinded. I really need to remember that not everyone is manning the "primacy of Greek and Latin" barricades. Apologies extended.
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Once again: Tamerlane lived in the 14th century. No one calls that time the 'Dark Ages'.
During Europe's Dark Ages, Tamerlane's empire was creating architectural wonders that continue to captivate the world.
Let's delve into these timeless masterpieces and a few recent ones. 🧵⤵️
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English and French (native, fluent)
School and university:
Latin, Greek, German, Spanish, Biblical Hebrew,
Egyptian Hieroglyphic,
Imperial Aramaic,
Syriac,
Sanskrit,
Classical Arabic,
Classical Persian,
Coptic,
Classical Armenian.
How many languages have you studied, INCLUDING your native language(s)? (even if you don’t speak fluently, just curious what you all have spent time on)
Which ones?
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For the latest word on Achaemenid and Sasanian boosterism, consider purchasing my book In Defense of Civilization!
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This is crazy. The Zanj Revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate in the late 9th century was the largest uprising of slaves *of all time* in reaction to horrific and treatment. It was bloody and tumultuous, and put down with great savagery. Slavery is a great evil everywhere!
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The High Tory cabal (taken after shooting my Sasanian documentary):
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For a good time, read the ridiculous correspondence between Al-Biruni and Avicenna (who were both in their 20s at the time), arguing about everything from alien life on other planets to whether or not a glass bottle filled with frozen water shatters inward or outward. Al-Biruni
Abu Reyhan Al-Biruni, the 10th century’s most original scholar of the medieval world, wrote some 150 books, abt half of them on astronomy n mathematics. the others explored a wide range of subjects, fr physics to gems to world cultures. he was of Persian descent (Khwarazmian
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@Cherniak
Maybe this is yet another sign that, contrary to elite liberal opinion, it is actually very important to know about the past and to study history.
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Brace yourselves for a discussion of Sasanian history dubbed into Persian!!
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This is horrible. The church is a small model of the Hagia Sophia and is decorated with frescoes and mosaics by the Group of Seven artists. Very sad.
Crews are battling a fire inside a downtown Toronto church that is home to a historic piece of Canadian art.
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QED
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This is deranged.
Behold the Colossus of Constantine: its face a caricature, its eyes disproportionate, the statue itself grotesque... poorly crafted.
Why? Because Christianity rose to the detriment of classical antiquity.
As the empire declined, so too did its once sublime art.
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Nearly every copy of the first printing of my book has been sold. Now is your chance to buy the last few copies of the first edition. Act now!
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All I can say is thank God for those Phoenician guys and their alphabet...
cuneiform script
youtube Sumerian and Hittite Language
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I have the solution!
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The silliest element of this borderline insane discourse is that you could take post-Roman Europe entirely out of the picture and look eastwards, and you would still find the likes of Hunayn ibn Ishaq, his relatives, and colleagues - all Christians - rummaging through
The idea that Christianity has been some custodian of culture seems ludicrous when held up against its history of enthusiastic censorship and erasure of history. Whatever Christianity preserved from the classical world in no way comes close to making up for what it destroyed. /7
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Alexander should be remembered as a barbarian warlord prefiguring Attila and Genghis, from the remote fringe of the civilised world.
On this day in 323 BCE, Alexander the Great dies. Although just 32, he leaves behind one of the ancient world's largest (albeit shortest-lived) empires.
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Breaking up families, & uprooting, disaggregating, atomising people is what got us into this mess to start with!
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My wife hosted a party for us (our birthdays are one day apart), and she erected this huge number to remind everyone of my new age.
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Interesting. In the 90s, I heard that I would amount to nothing because I could not do maths; now I hear this:
Peter Thiel: AI is bad news for people for math skills and society is going to shift in favor of people with strong verbal skills.
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Here is a teaser about my new book 'In Defense of Civilization' which is now available for pre-ordering in North America:
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Wow what a shock. Who could have predicted that eating vegetable pulp held together by soy and chemicals would not be popular?!
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Did Joe Biden put down an insurrection by murdering 30,000 people in a sports stadium?! Did he kidnap the Pope and throw him in jail?! Did he invade Persia and conquer Italy and North Africa?! No? Then he is not Justinian.
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Fond memories of the Holy Sepulchre at Easter where I was (1) forcibly removed by a cabal of Armenian priests and then rescued and brought back in by the Armenian patriarch's personal secretary and (2) punched by a Russian nun for blocking her view of the aedicule. Bah.
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In my recent book, I wrote a lot about the West, a lot about Iran, a chapter on China, but very little about Russia. So here are some of my thoughts on that subject. Consider it a lost chapter of 'In Defense of Civilization'.
"What’s the matter with Russia?"
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