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About the Book

Pantheon: Adventures In History, Biography, And The Mind was released on March 30, 2015.

What is Pantheon about?

It is a collection of penetrating essays on the universal themes of life.  We use historical, biographical, philosophical, and literary subjects as vehicles for these lessons.  Here is the book’s table of contents:

To The Reader

Extracts

Prologue

1. Must The Right Thing Be Done For The Right Reason?

2. On Cultivating Certainty

3. The Ordeal Of Captain Bligh

4. Ice Odyssey: Douglas Mawson’s Race Against Death

5. The Ghost of Christopher Hitchens

6. The Need For Submission

7. The Cycle of Societal Wealth

8. A Civilized Frenchman

9. William Harvey Explains The Circulatory System

10. Some Effective Horror Films

11. Is Fiction In Decline?

12. Luiz Vaz de Camões: An Epic Life

13. Revolt: Genesis of the Tunisian Revolution

14. Cervantes And The Grandeur Of Spain

15. On The Wisdom Of Marriage

16. External Goods, Virtue, And Amphoras Of Wine

17. Churchill’s Command Decision

18. Leadership Lessons From Das Boot

19. Raid On Japan

20. The Special Operations of Hans Tofte

21. Turning The Tables

22. On Love And Fate

23. Palatines And Borderers: The Shirkers And The Workers

24. The Wisdom Of Louis IX

25. The Dilemma Of Perspective

26. A Man Apart: Pliny The Elder’s Search For Meaning

27. Forms Of Government

28. The Limits Of Power

29. The Fortress Of The Mind

30. On Detractors

31. Into Desolate Sands: The Arabian Travels Of Wilfred
Thesiger

32. On Conflict

33. Hatred Is A Poison

34. Smashing The Paradigm

35. The Heart Of Plotinus: A Source-Book Of Neoplatonism

36. Ammianus’s Warning

37. On Grief

38. The Consolation Of The Natural World

Afterword

Each essay girds the unifying themes of the book:  the struggle against adversity, the meaning of character and Fate, the moral problems of life, and the search for life’s higher meanings.

As I stated in the “To The Reader” section at the beginning of the book:

An author’s foreword often takes the form of an apologia. So it is with this one. We find ourselves compelled to renew our study of the nature of man, and of the many dimensions of masculine virtue, which we first began with the publication of Thirty-Seven in 2014. The favorable reception of Thirty-Seven made it clear that new approaches to man’s ancient problems were desperately needed, and would be gratefully welcomed.

The unchanging themes of the life of man had cried out for a new voice, and a new technique, that might give them a contemporary resonance.

For too long, the study of masculine virtues had been cloaked in feeble apologetics that neither dignified, nor elevated, man’s struggles. What was needed was a return to the basic sources in history, biography, and philosophy. The nature of adversity, the struggle for personal mastery, the vagaries of Fortune, the triumph of visionary effort, and the moral dimensions of character: these were subjects that demanded a refurbishment, and a modern perspective, that nevertheless paid homage to ancient models.

It is a journey that has had a beginning, but will have no end. And it is right that this is so.

We span the globe, and range across the centuries, to bring timeless lessons to life that deal with adventure, adversity, philosophy, struggle, love, death, and destiny:  from the dusty tombs of Egypt’s Valley of the Kings; to the frozen, wind-swept wastes of the South Pole; to the rumbling volcano of Mount Vesuvius; to the mortal trials of men in combat; to the patient labors of the poet, scientist, and scholar; and much, much more.

One chapter of Pantheon also contains a very detailed and uniquely readable summary of the philosophical system of Neoplatonism as espoused by Plotinus, along with an extended commentary. This is the only such summary available in English.  Pantheon is not a sequel to Thirty-Seven, and can be read without any knowledge of Thirty-Seven.

The book is available in both paperback and Kindle formats.  Click on the icon at the top of this article for details.  

Any questions about the book may be directed to:  qcurtius@gmail.com

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