Lisbon by Neil Lochery

From The Week of January 02, 2012

Though every great war begins with clear grievances, slights that, at the time, seem worthy of instigating conflict, they all evolve beyond their origins and into a fight to decide winners and losers. After all, each faction fighting the war has had to invest immense resources into its prosecution, sacrifices for which they will want compensation. And no one compensates losers. This is why morality is an inevitable casualty of war. Eventually, winning is all that matters. And this can have as devastating an impact on the countries outside a conflict as on those within it.

Great wars have no honorable neutrals. If you are not for one side then you are against it, a slight that will be remembered when it comes time to divvy up the spoils and to execute grievances. Neutrals must then choose the right side, but how? And on what terms? As a neutral, Portugal was forced to make such choices during the Second World War. This is Mr. Lochery's reconstruction of that tense and troubled time.

During World War II (1939-1945), Portugal was, politically, a dictatorship. Its ruler, Antonio Salazar, was a ruthless intellectual whose legendary discipline and work ethic helped to steer his country through the war's turbulent waters. Initially sympathetic to the Axis powers, Mr. Lochery describes how Salazar, a hater of Communism, eventually saw the Allies as the only force capable of repelling it from Europe, an understanding which helped sway his sympathies away from the fascist forces ravaging continental Europe. But as much as the pendulum of Salazar's allegiance swung back and forth,over those six, chaotic years, his desire to keep tiny but militarily vital Portugal out of the war never wavered. And in this, despite Lisbon being a neutral city frequented by enemy agents from both sides, despite the immense pressures from the Allies and the Axis powers alike, he succeeded, keeping the terrible cost of conflict from his sundrenched shores.

As much as this is a biography of Antonio Salazar, the man who was essentially the government of Portugal before, during and after the war, it is also the history of a neutral country attempting to sail through the storm of a global war. Mr. Lochery devotes as much time to the economic and social pressures troubling Portugal during this period as he does portraying the dictator who tried to manage them. Lisbon, a city of light, is described as a spy-laden, prostitute-filled tumult, a neutral marketplace for allies and Axis agents alike to comingle, to scheme and to agitate for the betterment of their side. In this, the author reveals war's impact on the innocent, its temptations for the avaricious, and its tendency to constrict the freedoms of the masses.

Lisbon is gripping work. Most histories of war center on its antagonists, not those who stand on its sidelines. rightfully so; for the action, and thus the events that shape war's outcome, are generally with war's prosecutors, not its onlookers. Neutral nations are scorned by both sides as weak and nervous, countries lacking conviction and courage. Mr. Lochery counters that view by pointing out the economic costs that befall small countries when they back the wrong side and are punished for their sins by the victors. For his courage and strength of will, to defy the greatest men of his era, Antonio Salazar should be complimented.

However, the sins of a dictator cannot be swept so cleanly under the poverbial rug. Mr. Lochery soft-sells Salazar's crimes, downplaying their importance in the context of the war. And perhaps he's right. Perhaps Salazar's personal crimes are nothing next to the ravages of war that would have tormented Portugal had he allowed it to enter WWII. But crimes are still crimes. Diminishing them in ones narrative gives the reader the impression that they've been overblown, or that they do not matter. Truth is truth.

To the extent that Mr. Lochery captures the unique pressures applied to neutrals in war, this is outstanding work. The author goes a long way to rightfully redeeming their honor. Neutrality is not, as many would suggest, synonymous with cowardice. But for all that, Lisbon reads like a Salazar apologia which is hard to swallow considering his crimes. Fascinating work... (4/5 Stars)

The Great A&P by Mark Levinson

From The Week of January 02, 2012

Though economics and the practical application of its theories have always been important to the health of our societies, the fiscal tempests unleashed by both the 2008 Financial Crisis and the forces that triggered it have refocused our collective consciousness on the roles they play in capitalist societies. Is it wise to have such enormous influence concentrated in the hands of the few who run the financial sectors of our economies? Should our governments be involved in regulating private businesses? Just what kind of business, big or small, a large or an efficient employer, is most beneficial to our communities?

These are all valid questions, questions yet without answers. And so we shouldn't expect Mr. Levinson's history of the A&P grocery chain to reveal all. And yet, he goes a long way to elucidating complex and controversial issues that have plagued us since the inception of capitalism.

In the midst of the American Civil War, what became the A&P grocery chain, a supermarket behemoth that heralded the age of Walmart, began modestly as an unremarkable wholesaler of tea in New York City. With a single store and no advantages over its competition, it bore no outward appearances of becoming the grocery powerhouse that would still be minting fortunes for its stockholders nearly a century later. And yet, over time, helmed by three remarkable men, each of whom possessed disparate but complementary talents, A&P survived and evolved, creating new kinds of advertising and a whole new way of distributing goods on its way to market domination.

From the cramped economy stores to the spacious supermarkets, from its marketing geniuses to the steady hands of the Hartford clan who lead it into the 20th century, Mr. Levinson describes, vividly, the cultural, economic, and social forces that allowed the A&P to flourish into the Walmart before Walmart. But as much as this is a biography of both the genteel Hartfords and their phenomenally successful business, it is also a treatise on the nature of commerce. For in fashioning their business into an enormously successful enterprise, the Hartfords not only changed the manner in which American shopped for and consumed food, they not only drove thousands of businesses out of work through the inevitable forces of Creative Destruction, they not only managed to to reduce through the consolidation of goods the cost of food to the consumer, they set into motion a political fight over big business that, as both a political and a practical issue, lingers to this day. A powerful legacy indeed for a company that began, 150 years ago, as one of a thousand distributers of tea.

The Great A&P is captivating work. Mr. Levinson juggles the Hartfords, their company, the reconfiguration of American food distribution, and a number of complex political issues and legal cases that engulfed the A&P, managing, throughout, to find an admirable balance between all these intertwined but competing narratives. Though he does a wonderful job explicating the private Hartfords, he is unquestionably at his best in laying out the various business models that brought them so much success. The author is so effective that, as the attentive reader attempts, inevitably, to decide which is better for society, a big, impersonal business that reduces costs to the consumer, or a small, local business that is expensive but supports and actively participates in the community, he finds himself torn in two; for Mr. Levinson has expertly made the case for both sides, leaving the reader as frustrated and indecisive as the US government was when, out of fear of big business, it attacked and contributed to the fall of the A&P.

An excellent biography, economic treatise and political primer. Good enough that I will hed any subsequent project Mr. Levinson applies himself to. This is no less than the distillation of a profound, contentious, cultural argument we've been having for 60 years. And though the work can offer no conclusive solutions, it furnishes the reader with enough data to draw his own educated conclusions about the nature of good business. Fantastic... (4/5 Stars)

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

From The Week of December 26, 2011

Though our identities are made up of many disparate qualities, few are as treasured as our names and the places of our birth. From the former, we draw our familial pride, a heritage that impels us to do honor to those from whom we come. The latter we invest with almost mystical significance, allowing it to be a source of our dignity, a justification for our dispositions, and a means by which we can connect ourselves, in an unbroken lineage of shared culture, to our venerated ancestors. Both are powerful forces that shape our lives in ways that we would find difficult to thwart, even if we wished to.

If these characteristics are so vital to who we are, who would we be if they were taken from us? Would we mourn our dislocation and fight to reclaim what we lost, or would we take comfort in the realization that humans are, everywhere, fundamentally similar and that names and birthplaces are only impulses to distinguish ourselves from the masses? Mr. Kay asks this question and more in this majisterial work. And though he veers off course from time to time, he leaves us with a fascinating and nuanced answer.

On a distant world, shadowed by two moons, a great peninsula is divided into nine, contentious, monarchical states which have all been, at one point, at war with one another. Attempts to cohere the nine into a more unified whole met with stiff resistance until, 20 years prior to the main sequence of events, the son of king Brandin of Ygrath, was slain in open war by royals from Tigana. Vengeful in his grief, Brandin, the known world's mightiest sorcerer, lashed out at Tigana, banishing its name, its culture and its history from the minds of its sons and daughters. He ordered its libraries burned, its institutions crushed and its leading lights extinguished in an unmatched display of power and fury that culminated in both Tigana's destruction and the reorganization of the Palm into two superstates, the west controlled by Brandin and those who fear and love him, and the east commanded by Alberico, a warlord and a powerful sorcerer in his own right.

Twenty years on, Tigana is, for all but a few, known as Lower Corte, a troublesome and difficult state where dreams go to die. But amidst its broken palaces, a rebellion grows. Spearheaded by a prince of Tigana, one of the few men alive who still remembers his country's past glory, it recruits members sympathetic to its insurgent cause, exposes them to the truths Brandin's magic has hidden from them, and shapes them into arrows meant for Brandin's heart. For there can be no other response to a crime so heinous, so dark, as the one which Brandin visited upon them. Revenge must be had.

Though Tigana has moments of brilliance, it is an inescapably flawed work of fantasy fiction. Mr. Kay should be commended for his ambition; for he set out to tell a tangled tale of war and revenge while making potent, philosophical points about the power of memory and identity and the extent to which they underpin who we are and what we care about. This is no easy feat. And so, given that he largely succeeds in this, I applaud him for penning a work that manages to be both entertainment and intellectual fodder, twin virtues lacking in all but a small minority of fantasy tomes. Unfortunately, it is Mr. Kay's characters who doom him here.

Though he has committed an unimaginably heinous crime, Brandin is largely depicted as a sympathetic character, trying to forge order from chaos. How can such a creature be sympathetic, especially when he never appears to express any great remorse for the extremity of his crimes? Worse yet, though, is Brandin's lover, a woman secretly from Tigana who spent years worming her way into Brandin's affections in hopes of assassinating him. Her skeins of the narrative are almost entirely consumed with lovesick claptrap, for she has inexplicably fallen in love with the object of her hatred and now finds it difficult to justify her own existence. Yes, there are others here who serve the story far better; the members of Mr. Kay's rebel band each take turns at captivating the reader, but even these ruthless and ambitious souls struggle at times to justify their bizarre actions. The Men in Tigana seem to be as preoccupied by rage and schemes as the women are consumed by hapless love.

Tigana certainly has its powerful moments. Mr. Kay tells an unusual story quite well, but the irrationality of his actors cause the plot too often to falter, allowing the reader too many glimpses behind the proverbial curtain. Far too much deus ex machina for my tastes. Lovers of good, romantic fantasy, though, will not be disappointed. (3/5 Stars)

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

From The Week of December 26, 2011

In life, there are choices that cannot be taken back, roads that, once traveled, disappear behind us, leaving ahead our only option. Worse yet, often, when we make these choices, we are too young, arrogant, or foolish to understand the full measure of their consequences. And so we choose, in haste, partners, children, religions, and find ourselves locked into lives we wish we could take back. Though this piece from Mr. Udall is principally about a man and his struggles to provide for a large and unconventional family, it is this irrevocable sorrow that throbs at its heart and gives it all of its melancholic power.

By even the strictures of his fundamentalist faith, Golden Richards, as he approaches middle age, has much to be thankful for. He is an honest businessman and a prolific father. With his four wives, he has sired more than two dozen children, all of whom expand his priesthood, increasing his godliness. More over, he is a giant of a man whose massive shoulders, at least according to his fellow church-goers, are wide enough to bear not only his familial responsibilities but the hopes and dreams of the church's congregants, all of whom pray often for a great man to reveal himself to them and lead them out of obscurity and into righteousness. But for as much as Golden has done what was required of him, as much as he adheres to the rules as best he can, as much as he strives tirelessly to give his family what they need, he is, in body, mind and spirit, exhausted. The demands of his large, diverse family, the stresses of his sputtering business, and the twin sorrows of the two beloved children he lost too early have combined to beat him down until there is left in him nothing but routine and the knowledge that to halt, even for a moment, will finish him.

But in this darkest hour, there is a glimmer of hope, hope and temptation. She takes the form of a young Guatemalan woman who, forced by circumstance into marrying the same pimp who has hired Golden to do construction on a brothel, falls in love with Golden and, in doing so, becomes, for this lonely polygamist, a reprieve from his troubles. In their quiet, forbidden passion, he finds both an escape from his burdens and a means by which to examine his life and how he arrived at his present misery. But nothing can happen with the young woman, can it? He cannot abandon his 32 dependents and flee with his mistress, can he? To do so would be to follow in his father's dishonorable footsteps, to confirm every moment of disappointment his fellow congregants have felt towards him, and to consign his family to dissolution and beggary. Duty or temptation, honor or freedom... Which shall Golden choose?

The Lonely Polygamist is a sprawling novel of rich landscapes, familial burdens and difficult choices which ensnare the reader as effectively as they do its extensive cast of characters. From the sexual frustrations of Golden's youngest wife, to the Byzantine schemes of his eldest, Mr. Udall draws a compelling and frightening portrait of plural marriage, both the joys it conveys by its solidarity and the miseries it imposes with its isolationism. For the extent to which Mormon fundamentalism is a cult cuts off the practitioners of plural marriage from the rest of the world, forcing them to depend upon each other for social, mental and physical sustenance that is not always forthcoming. The care with which the author handles this contentious issue is evident in the fact that the reader comes away not burdened by the biases of those for or against plural marriage. Rather, he is furnished with its pros and its cons, its celebrations and its sorrows, all of which are depicted with an authenticity that must come from first hand experience.

But regardless of how fair Mr. Udall is to plural marriage, his tale leaves little doubt of its costs. For humans were never designed to enter into relationships such as these, where the excessive burdens of the supersized family fall upon one man's shoulders, where his mates are locked into subservient relationships that cannot be dissolved, and where children are so plentiful that their names and their troubles are both too easily forgotten. We were designed to bond in pairs, to produce few enough children that we could physically protect and emotionally nourish all of them until they are equipped to face the responsibilities of adulthood on their own. To go against that evolutionary programming is to invite in problems we are ill-equipped to handle, a depressing reality with which Golden is all too familiar.

Mr. Udall takes a long while to arrive at his destination, but his journey, here, is characterized by fascinating emotions, complex entanglements and broken hearts. No, he does not make every word count, but he does ensure that the wellspring of his reader's emotions has been sucked dry by the time his conclusion hits home. Funny, moving and introspective work. (4/5 Stars)

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

From The Week of December 19, 2011

Revolution is an uncontrollable beast. We needn't look any further than the recent Arab Spring to divine this much. Once the will of the people to be free, of tyrants and tormenters, of oppression and corruption, has been ignited, no one can say where it will end. For no one can steer a revolution. It has a life of its own, as the gripes of the masses are vividly expressed and must needs run their course. Some revolutions, like the one executed by colonial Americans against the British empire, end in peace, in this case the construction of a mighty nation that would go on to rule the 20th century. But others, like the French Revolution which descended into the mass-slaughter of Frenchmen by other Frenchmen, are not so tidily concluded. In fact, these go on to create lasting wounds that take generations to heal, assuming they heal at all. It is this latter type Mr. Dickens chose to explore in this, his most memorable and difficult work.

In the latter decades of the 18th century, France underwent a sociopolitical convulsion the likes of which the modern world had never seen. Beset by disastrous economic conditions which, at one point, necessitated that french workers devote most of their wages to purchasing staples as basic as bread, the country finally erupted in a revolution that tore down the French monarchy and established, in its stead, notionally democratic rule. However, through arrogance, ignorance, mismanagement and the petty settling of scores, the French democracy, instead of accreting towards stability as the United States had done less than a decade earlier, devolved into nihilistic chaos known today as the Terror which took the lives of 40,000 French citizens and launched the age of politically motivated mass-killing.

Against the backdrop of this national nightmare stands Charles Darnay. The nephew of a French marquis assassinated for his abject cruelty, Darnay somehow grew up a man of virtue in a world of unregulated privilege. Rejecting both the teachings and the savagery of his uncle, Darnay falls in love with Lucie Manette, the Anglicized daughter of a French doctor who, after spending 18 years in the Bastille as a victim of the crimes of the nobility, is an eccentric, neurotic mess. Despite this trauma, Dr. Manette, who now lives in England as well, blesses Darnay's marriage to his daughter which lasts only a handful of happy years before Darnay is drawn, by his conscience, back to France- where he is identified as a former nobleman, arrested for presumed crimes and thrown headlong into a show trial that will surely see him executed.

Ensnared in the insanity of the Terror, Darnay nonetheless has powerful advocates fighting for him, advocates who believe in his goodness. But the French bloodlust is a vicious and demanding mistress. And nothing short of a death will satisfy her.

Though A Tale of Two Cities concerns, in the main, the French Revolution and the extent to which its indiscriminate violence entrapped countless innocence in its murderous wake, it is, at its heart, two tragic love stories. The one Mr. Dickens lavishes the most attention upon is Darnay and Lucie whose innocent happiness is sundered by the savagery of French patriots who, having killed so often and so mercilessly, have lost their way and their sanity. Here, though the author is none-too-subtle with his foreshadowing, Mr. Dickens successfully portrays the divisiveness of discord and the extent to which it encourages its most violent, human practitioners to arrogantly presume the guilt of those who only appear to be guilty. But though the novel spends far less time with it, it is the second love story that drives both the plot and serves as the harshest critique of authoritarian rule.

It concerns the decimation and the eventual destruction of an entire family at the hands of a vicious nobleman so transfixed by his own pleasure, and so secure in his own superiority, that he gives not a second thought to crimes as profound as rape and murder. These injustices light a vengeful fire in the hearts of peasants who are so determined to gain their revenge, to right abominable wrongs, that they overcompensate for their loss and fuel the very nihilism that destroys the democratic state the French Revolution promised to deliver.

These intertwined tragedies allow Mr. Dickens to make potent points about human nature. Firstly, people are not cruel in a vacuum. They are either made cruel by a system that allows them to be so, or they are driven to it by cruelty done to them. Secondly, and more importantly, once that cruelty is done, how can it be redeemed? How can a sin, or a lifetime of sins, be rectified? Absolved? Or can they be taken back?

A Tale of Two Cities is a difficult novel shackled by dated prose. It cannot be said to be an enjoyable experience. But the extent to which it is a rumination on revolution, its social, political and economic causes, and the myriad ways in which humans react to these, it is wonderfully poignant. A slog, but there are diamonds to be mined here, mined and treasured. (3/5 Stars)

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

From The Week of December 19, 2011

Though the Christmas season is far from perfect, it presents those of us in the West with an annual opportunity to make merry with, and feel grateful for, our loved ones. Yes, the commercialization of the season has drained away some of Christmas' simple joys, and certainly we all have relatives we'd rather avoid during this yearly celebration, but the fact remains that there is no other time of year in which, for a matter of weeks, we all, collectively and simultaneously, are in the mood to smile, to express our affection for those dearest to us, and to revisit memories of years past in which merriment was had, traditions laid down and bonds forged in a common desire to be happy. This universal joy has value; life is, after all, hard. Without the calendar's reminder to slow down and to appreciate what we have, it's doubtful we ever would. Beyond the social criticism, this is the message of universality encoded in Mr. Dickens' Christmas classic. It should never be forgotten.

Having inspired countless films and stories, A Christmas Carol, originally published in 1843, is the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a pugnacious and miserly businessman who, in spite of his many successes, is determined to be a crass and cheerless man. Despite having a family to delight in and a prosperous business to take pride in, Scrooge cannot shake his pettiness which drives him to shun the poor, to overlook the worthy and to revel, even celebrate, the selfishness that has made him a cold-hearted loner. Not content with holding these corrosive opinions, Scrooge willingly voices them to everyone he encounters, doing his best to infect them with his dour cynicism.

However, for all of Scrooge's efforts at darkness, this Christmas, the seventh since the unmourned death of his business partner, Jacob Morely, is going to be unlike any he has experienced before. For this year, Scrooge is plagued by restless ghosts who entrap him and force him to revisit his misspent life. Pulling him into his own past, the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future show him those he failed to love, those his cruelty harmed, and, most importantly, those who will not mourn his passing. Chastened and frightened by the prospect of dying alone, Scrooge endeavors to mend his ways before it is too late.

Though Mr. Dickens was a talented author and an effective humorist, his best works are those in which his social criticism is sharpest. In this, A Christmas Carol is as subtle as a sledgehammer. With Scrooge, Mr. Dickens makes no bones about his contempt for the tight-fisted and unsympathetic upperclasses, their superiority, their smugness and their unwillingness to take responsibility for both their own actions and the suffering of the masses it is within their power to sooth. Instead, the wealthy tend to credit themselves with their successes and to devalue the contributions of others so that they might proudly stand alone, sneering down upon the struggling masses.

We all are entitled to live as we choose, to be as miserly and as cruel as we wish, but actions have consequences. At the end of life, when a poor, happy man and a rich, miserly man are dying, when they are about to leave behind all the pleasures and the pains of this world, they must know that none of their life's possessions can go with them, none of their baubles, none of their fortunes. If nothing materialistic can journey with the soul to face whatever is to come, then all that matters, in life, is the legacy we leave behind: the deeds we do, the lives we change, the promises we keep or break. At the extremity of life, this is how the dying are remembered by the living, the relationships, not the stuff. And this is what makes Christmas and Mr. Dickens' fable so powerful. They both force us to see what is important and what is materialistic, what is sacred and what is profane. They make us see that the celebration of our loved ones is far more valuable and lasting than the life of a scrooge.

Lovely work. As pointed as it is delightful. (4/5 Stars)

Rubican by Tom Holland

From The Week of December 19, 2011

Of the thousands of nations that have risen and fallen in human history, only a special few have shaken off the yoke of mediocrity to expand into superpowers, states of unrivaled might capable of engendering fear and envy in all those who must consort and compete with them. These superpowers, past and present, have left legacies of culture and science, industry and technology, that have nourished their descendants. However, they have left behind warnings as well, stories of economic, political and personal excess that helped to ignite their downfalls.

Perhaps each superpower is unique unto itself, a singular entity enlivened by a singular people and plagued by singular problems, in which case autopsying the corpses of past superpowers is pointless. But what if all superpowers are fundamentally the same? They are, after all, populated and driven by humans, animals with the same genes, the same evolutionary histories, the same weaknesses. If they are all fundamentally the same, then history is endowed with powers to predict the future. In which case, current superpowers should take note of Mr. Holland's Rubicon for it has encapsulated the fall of freedom.

Though Rome managed to remain a republic for more than five centuries before collapsing into empire, its ultimate and destructive fate, argues Mr. Holland, a British author, was written into its very nature. Rome was founded on the notion that no one man is worthy of divine or monarchical exultation, that, while talent may be found to run deeper in some than in others, the most that man may aspire to be is first among his fellows. To reach any higher is to invite both tyranny and the wrath of the gods. This idea sustained Rome for centuries, working well enough to keep the republic alive. But when a succession of foreign enemies troubled Rome, causing its leading lights to adopt increasingly desperate measures to counter what they considered to be existential threats, this noble idea was first tested and then shattered by the desire among Romans for a hero to arise and save the republic in its darkest hours.

In the last 200 years of the Roman republic, many men vied for the honor of being Rome's savior. First came the Gracchi, brothers who attempted to reform Rome from within its existing institutions. But when the system stifled them, it fell to Rome's military heros to bring change. Marius and Sulla fought for and over Rome, causing a bloody civil war that laid down an example of dictatorial rule that Pompey Magnus and Julius Caesar happily followed. Sixty years of bloody, internal conflict, of plots and counter plots, of dictators and disbanded senates that finally culminated in the assassination of Julius Caesar, the end of the republic and the rise of a new Rome under Augustus, its last savior. These events leave us with one unavoidable conclusion; those who fought to save the Republic ended up destroying it.

Rubicon is a vivid history of the final century and a half of the Roman Republic told through the deeds of its prime movers. Mr. Holland's lively prose keeps the reader thoroughly engaged while he conveys a wealth of information on Rome's culture and customs, its religions and institutions, its seductions and its sins. He pleasingly balances the portraits of his Roman actors against the kings and rebels who threatened them from every side. But perhaps his greatest achievement, here, is in conveying the extent to which Romans eventually lost faith in their government and their constitution.

We hold our most treasured laws to be sacred and inviolate because to break them is to end their power forever. If the rule of law is suspended even once, the people will never be the same. For even when the rule of law is restored, they will not believe in it for they know that whenever the next crisis strikes, the rule of law will be suspended once more and they will suffer the consequences. There are certain truths and ideals that cannot be trampled without being broken. Unfortunately for Rome, powerful aristocrats, glory-seeking military heroes, and the corrupted politicians who enabled them both, succeeded in trampling all of Rome's sacred ideals. In doing so, they fractured their republic into warring factions while simultaneously draining away the people's faith in her institutions. War, death, decay, dissolution... Societies cannot exist without the faith of its citizens.

Though this is history at its grimmest, it is lively and superbly told. Mr. Holland does breeze over some of the more earth shattering events in Rome's final decades, but an excellent primer for anyone seeking to understand why Rome is so often compared to the United States. Similarities abound... Well-done. (4/5 Stars)