Friday, February 26, 2016

'Machiavelli Goes to the Movies, Understanding 'The Prince' through Television and Film' by Eric T. Kasper and Try A. Kozma

Machiavelli Goes to the Movies, Understanding ‘The Prince’ through Television and Film, Eric T. Kasper and Troy A. Kozma (2.5)

Unfortunately the title of this book turned out to be more intriguing than the book itself. I stumbled into it at the University library and thought ‘what a great idea’. The chapter titles such as: ‘Pick a Side and Stick to Your Decisions in Politics: The Contender, Harry Potter, and House of Cards’ sounded like such a great joining of Machiavellian philosophy with modern films and TV. The book spawned from papers written by the two authors, both professors in Poli-sci and Philosophy at University of Wisconsin campuses. They used the TV show, ‘Breaking Bad’ to illustrate concepts from Machiavelli’s book, ‘The Prince’. They decided to broaden their scope with regards to other TV shows and films. I think the main negative of the book is the dry nature. Anyone who has read ‘The Prince’ knows that while many of its topics are exciting and provoking, it’s told in a chapter-by-chapter ‘how-to’ manner. This book follows that pattern to a fault. I also found some of the comparisons a bit of a stretch. While it was easy to see that ‘Annihilate While Taking Power’ would use Michael Corleone in ‘The Godfather’ as a perfect example (as he killed the Mafioso’s who tried to kill his father and killed all the family heads the day he took over for his father), it is harder to see the connection between ‘Miserliness is Better than Liberality’ and ‘Ghostbusters’. If you are a fan of Machiavelli, maybe you will read this and understand the connection. If not, you can take my word for it.

Thursday, February 11, 2016

'Fire Shut Up in My Bones' by Charles M. Blow

Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Charles M. Blow (3.0)

You may recognize Charles Blow’s name as an Op/ed columnist in the New York Times. He happens to hold the distinction as having written the only op/ed to which I felt compelled to respond. His specialty is using data and graphs to illustrate his various points. In one case, I felt he had picked certain data in order to skew his results. As an engineer, I had to call ‘foul’. Needless to say, my letter to the editor was not published, but when I heard he had written a memoir I was curious to read it. Mr. Blow grew up in rural Louisiana as the last of 4 boys born to a poor and principled mother. His father reigns as the missing ingredient to much of his happiness. In addition to getting kicked out of the house relatively early in Charles’s life, he doesn’t seem capable of showing any love or attention to his children. The author is a relatively young man, so the book mainly covers his childhood and college years, as he explains their context to his ‘formative’ development. His story is clear about what possible causes led to his issues with relationships (of all types) and closeness. While I was disappointed in the quality of writing (a bit stilted given the context), I appreciated the description he brought to the times and people from the perspective of a black youth growing up in rural Louisiana. His ability to overcome hardship and broken relationships of his youth is heartening to read.