My second book, Pantheon, is on schedule to be released this week.  It is the culmination of a great deal of effort on my part.

I have forged the sword.  It is now for you to grasp the pommel.

Pantheon is a longer (35% longer, to be precise), more complex, and more textured work than my first book.  We continue our exploration of history, biography, and philosophical problems, with a continuing emphasis on character and Fate.

Compared with Thirty-Seven, there is a much greater emphasis here on the perfectibility of man’s soul, the resolution of moral problems, and the union with the Divine.

Many of the essays in Pantheon are greatly extended and reworked pieces that have appeared at Return of Kings.  I consider these to be the definitive versions of these essays.  But there are also many new essays, including:

Prologue (A historical fiction narrative)

The Ghost Of Christopher Hitchens (A philosophical dialogue)

The Fortress Of The Mind

On Detractors

On Conflict

On Grief

Smashing The Paradigm

The Source-Book Of Plotinus (a treatise on Neoplatonism)

The Consolation Of The Natural World

Afterword

The essays are extensively documented.  As before, I have made a point of reading sources in their original languages, whether it be Latin, Arabic, or Portuguese.  The footnotes form an integral part of the text.

Platonism also makes a strong appearance here.  One chapter constitutes nearly a book-within-a-book, and proposes to instruct the reader, in a step-by-step way, in the basic tenets of Neoplatonist philosophy.  I consider this subject to be an important one for the creative and probing mind.

I can say with confidence that there cannot be found another book quite like this one in the contemporary literary scene.

A further announcement will follow when the book actually makes its appearance.

It is hoped that readers will now not begrudge this exhausted writer some rest.  I will shortly turn, bleary-eyed, to a much-deserved trip to a favorite foreign destination.  Life is short, and the advance of time must never dull our appreciation of the rewards of an active and fruitful regimen.