I love Canticle. I always listen to it for comfort when Im mourning some end. "The buzzards laid their eggs in season and lovingly fed their young. The good earth had fed them bountifully and it would feed them still" always feels hopeful if morbid
@@Culexus101 the leibowitz monks library is open to any that doesn't want to burn it they aren't isolationist just isolated to protect it during the simplification
Wonderfully done. I read Canticle For Leibowitz for the first time when I was in high school, and while I found (and still find) it to be a difficult read, I love the way that book illustrates the falling and rising of societies, like the ebb and flow of breathing. It is, to me, not a hopeful story, but rather a human one. There is no hope for the Earth by the end, and one might ask what the point is of continuing. But there are still snatches of the good that humans do; our kindnesses towards each other, our discoveries, our knowledge, and our art either remain with the priest and the woman in the rubble, or they go to the stars with the monks. The main question I was left with when I finished the book is one I have wondered on my own occasionally: what good does humanity do? While the world of Leibowitz followed a bleaker path than our own, there are still all the reseeming facets of humanity. I think the book asks if those good qualities are enough. Personally, I think if we are wise, and cultivate our kindess, our goodness, our knowledge, it will be enough. And I think that stories like Canticle For Leibowitz are valueable to remind us of that, to remind us of what the stakes of our choices are. My apologies if that's rambling. This is a book I don't enjoy reading that I am very glad I have read, and I haven't read it again in a few years, so my memories of some details might be hazy.
Not rambling at all. And it reminds of the maxim I try to live by. "Do more good than harm." We can't always do good for everyone, but at least we can lean into it.
Watching this vid made me remember that just finished Eumeswil by Ernst Junger last week. There he has a quote talking about how an historian needs to see facts and how history needs to be played with the similar importance as being described. I found it as an interesting reflection on time, and i am aware he dedicated a whole essay about it (Zeitmauer). Would be nice if there's a review for Eumeswil in the future
I read Canticle for Leibowitz in the 80s too. It was assigned reading for English class. I thought the teacher's motivation was to assign a book that didn't have Cliff Notes
I first read Canticle in high school in the early Sixties. And several times over the intervening years. Your commentary is excellent. For another take on "psychohistory", may I suggest (if you can find it) a two-part series by a statistician Michael F. Flynn, who published "An Introduction to Psychohistory, parts 1 and 2" in Analog Science Fiction in 1988. He also wrote "Country if the Blind. He introduced me to Kondratieff Cycles and the lesser known ones. Interesting, but - - who knows.
I cannot honestly remember which came first for me because I was devouring Science Fiction at that time (still am). I think JMS was rather more hopeful, but still acknowledged that progress would be agonizing and sometimes seemingly hopeless.
I think the apocalypse in 'longform' is very powerful. Canticle did this well, as did Budrys's 'Some will not Die'. Even Threads, in spinning out the latter part of the film over 13 years(?) to exhibit the medium term consequences of nuclear war, scraped away any notion of 'winning' a nuclear war.
A wonderful summary of the narrative structure of ACfL, with the added bonus of the B5 reference. I only discovered Miller's book some years ago, but was surprised to learn it's never gone out of print. Well done, sir, and thank you!
I listened to this in audiobook format a while back. I see the influence it had on the Fallout series, and of course, its influence on my own views on history in general. Love the work!
Thanks feral, been waiting for this one! 11:53 - There is also a certain optimism for Canticle for Liebowitz "It is a weary and dog-tired hope, maybe, a hope that says: Shake the dust off your sandles and go preach Sodom to Gomorrah."
Re: The Fourth Turning, historical cycles needn't return on mathematically precise schedules. I'm reminded of a Jeremy Irons speech toward the end of Margin Call. "It's just money. It's made up. ... It's not wrong. And it's certainly no different today than it's ever been. 1637. 1797. 1819, 37, 57, 84. 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974. 1987, ... '92, '97, 2000, and whatever we want to call this. It's all just the same thing, over and over. We can't help ourselves. And you and I can't control it, or stop it, or even slow it. Or even ever-so-slightly alter it. We just react."
I always look forward to these. The book so far has been great, I only just got it a month ago, but set it down cause college started up. I need to get back at it.
Love your content, dude. Love the depth, unabashed intellectualism and humor. Keep posting, we're all watching. Also, I've already binged all your videos so I need more lol
When that episode of B5 first aired the first thing that occurred to me was it being inspired by A Canticle for Leibowitz. It's one of my favourite episodes, which isn't a useful thing to say, since I have so many favourite episodes in B5, just as I do in Stargate SG-1.
Great job! Reminds me of all the ancient empires that rose and fell due to soil exhaustion. Those were regular and predictable, and they were a trap we only escaped by luck.
I first read Canticle in 1969 It was given to me by my grandmother of all people I didn't understand a lot of it at that time, but I re-read it a few years later when I was better mentally equipped. I'll be checking out the Fourth Turning. As for cyclical history, I'll probably be beat up for this, but if you go back to the Old Testament, I seem to remember the the nation of Israel only ever manages about 80 to 100 years of prosperity before everything goes to shit. But it always took a lot longer for them to get back on top
i got this book from my high school library and got maybe 30 pages in, and found the rest of the pages glued together.. i guess i'll watch this video if i ever get around to another attempt..
Sounds like an extremely interesting book to read, I'll check it out. Also love the fact that he used footage from the Babylon 5 episode The deconstruction of falling Stars", particularly The segment relating to to "The Great Burning". Another great video from you, keep up the great work!
As a brief mention, there IS a "sequel" , or rather another story sandwiched in between Part 1 and 2 of Canticle, but I only mention it to warn against it. _Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman_ was a work in progress Miller was writing after he lost his religious faith, but publishing it after his death was a mistake of the first order. It's a first draft, and is simply bad writing, in fact, so bad, you might speculate Miller was so seriously ill, he didn't realize how awful it was.
"And on thr pesldistal, these words apear: My name is Ozymendias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and dispair! Nothing beside remains. Round thr decay Of that colosal Wreck, boundles and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away." - Percy Bysshe Shelley
Just found your channel. Binged 5 videos already. Thanks a lot +ss hole, now I've got to watch every single one, as you're now one of my favorite channels. I had plans for the weekend! (Keep it up, I'm hooked 💯)
@@feralhistorian I had no idea what I was about to delve into. I cannot tell you how much I'm enjoying your perspective and how excited I am to read Ninti's Gate.
I've been subscribed to your channel for a few months and one of your older videos came up for me. Your analysis of 'The Sparrow' was amazing, it's a book that i'd never heard of. When I used to read more I used to be part of a book catalogue, I would buy approximately 3 or 4 every quarter. Regardless to what box you ticked on the order form, they would always send you... and charge you for 'Editor's choice' This was an 'Editor's choice' and although the synopsis did remind me of the Babylon 5 episode that you took your clips from, I never read it and sent it back. I think that was also the time I cancelled my subscription and told the banks not to give them any more money.
The Vedas reference a similar cyclic conception of time and human history, which I used to dismiss as proto hippy 'woo-woo'. I've since changed my mind.
Your thoughts, takes, and angles deserves to be expanded and elaborated [more] upon. It's like water in a desert, and one wish there was more of it - even if what's there is enough to sustain one through the midday heat.
As a historian I loath cyclic and deterministic view of our past and future. But that book sure does something good with your brain. Definitely, people should read it.
As a historian, you should know better; then again, you're an academic, and no one is more susceptible to intellectual narratives like "history is progressive and utopia is in store" than intellectuals smugly confident they know better than all who came before. At least the clerics you replaced had a sense of something higher they could be accountable to and a cultural richness...
@@Mr.Ambrose_Dyer_Armitage_Esq. Better than what exactly? I've just shun a narrative. And I have a sense of something higher, truths, drive to do better, not rhyme my mistakes to often and try to make sure others do not also. You clearly mistake academics with History Channel attention hounds. They and said clerics all seemed to smugly knew better than all of us...
@@maciek_k.cichon A combination of *_"I'm not like all the other [insert group members]"_* and unironic belief in academia? You really _do not_ know any better and you _do_ have the faith in the truthfulness of yourself and your colleagues as the clerics you've replace did... You have my pity, son; life is going to be hard and confusing for you...
@@Mr.Ambrose_Dyer_Armitage_Esq. "Son", life is hard and confusing because "history is NOT progressive and utopia is NOT ALWAYS in store". I am just like everyone else, just a guy trying to do a 100%, and if I don't believe then why bother? Maybe talk to someone irl and just try something positive? It's more lively than being edgy.
"They don't seem like the sort that would know too much about thread pitch." Sounds exactly like the people who respond to me anytime I say something even remotely intelligent on the Internet. I get lynch mobs if I say something clever or smart.
OMG. I read James Michener’s “Space” in which this book was referenced and I went out and bought it. I certainly understood the cyclical nature of human history as the major theme of the novel but I always thought of the work as a parable for the adage “Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it.”. I did not think of it in terms of their being predictive value in cyclical history. Interesting thoughts.
A bit nostalgic for me. I read A Canticle back in my teens about 60 years ago. Haven't thought about it since. Guess I'll have to check out a copy from the library and give it another read
The middle section with "Leonardo da Vinci" is what I remember. But "the Great Simplification" of book-burning after the flame deluge is what your retelling reminded me of. There was a great fear of anti-intellectualism among liberals in the Republic in the 1950s, followed by the embrace of "the best and the brightest" in Vietnam. We managed to avoid nuclear war throughout the cold war and wind up in some weird place where many citizens have college degrees, but a lot of mainstream discussion seems more vacuous than in the era when the average voter didn't finish high school. But of course our education system does not include lenten fasts, illuminated manuscripts, and plain dress, and may not endure as long as those which do.
There is a really good 11 hour dramatization of the book on 9 CDs by Blackstone Audio if you can find it.. I first heard it broadcast on North Carolina public radio some years ago.
I really like A Canticle for Leibowitz. Character-wise it's rather thin, but it was a thoughtful, serious science fiction novel from an era where science fiction wasn't yet given a whole lot of literary credence. I believe the author actually wrote the book to kind of expiate his own guilt over taking part in the destruction of a historic monastery in Europe during WWII. It's still one of the best sci-fi novels imo, and one that I think is a good entry point to the genre. Enjoyed the analysis. :)
I read this book long time ago, and i was very impressed. "lucifer has fallen!" was my favorite quote. My view on this book is nature will heal over time, but human nature stay the same and we might repeat the same mistakes.
That's because the average Fallout fan is uncultured swine, more than anything. The average anything as it relates to groups of humans is far from inspiring.
Strong men create good times. Good times create Weak men. Weak men create hard times. Hard times create Strong men. Thus the Great cycle continues... (Suggestion: H. Beam Piper's Space Viking... It has similar themes.)
It's a great quote and idea, but absolutely falsifiable. Many of the "strong/great" men that helped create "good/great" times were historically among the worst people in terms of morals, corruption and vile acts of violence. But it sure makes a great soundbite for all the sigmas out there...
What we know of the bronze age collapse certainly argues for a cyclical history. Not to mention all the anomalies along the way of "the arc of history bends towards justice"
Lucifer's Hammer (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle) - has a more optimistic recovery from a natural disaster. Suggesting that we are beyond the point of returning to being hunter gathers despite the huge set back of the event. I am not sure I want to try A Canticle for Leibowitz but I did appreciate the Babylon 5 cookies. I must admit that it was one of the only 2 (I think) episodes I skipped through. This and the, one where the crew were the subject of a TV Documentary. I didn't like that when they did it with M.A.S.H. and I didn't like it in Babylon 5 either. At least we never got the black and white one, the Musical one and the, actors playing the characters playing fictional/different characters for one episode. Babylon 5 was classy like that.
@@feralhistorian I haven't read Earth Abides in 3 and a half decades, but in many ways it is the proto or Ur-post-apocalyptic novel. And while Lucifer's Hammer is interesting, I don't wonder if Mote in God's Eye might not be more on point for the channel.
I would suggest that the rise and fall of nations and patterns of great social unrest and even precursors to economic instability could be mapped relative to solar cycles. The impact of solar activity on tectonic and volcanic activity is established. Cyclical strength and weakness of solar output impact atmospheric conditions along variances in oceanic current occilation. Impacts on the food chain and the water supply. Knock on social and economic effects. Identifying these impacts retrospectively shouldn't be too tricky. Building a predictive model to isolate the degree, nature and locations of future perturbations would be astoundingly difficult.
And it's not like cyclical views of history are new. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1500s) famously opens by saying "A land long united tends to divide; a land long divided tends to unite. So it has always been." And then describes a cyclical war illustrating the idea. Or, for a more darkly funny take on the idea, there's the Thraddash from the game Star Control II. They're an ultra-aggressive (and rather stupid) alien species who actually built their society around the fact that they periodically nuke themselves to oblivion and spend a millennia rebuilding. When you meet them, they're already up to Culture 19. They're kind of like self-aware Space Orks.
Vatican 2 was extraordinarily disillusioning for Miller. The differences in “Wild Horse Woman” only make sense when you understand the conflicts between the V2 innovations and Traditionalists. Miller didn’t like the Sedevacantists because he saw the contradictions between them and Vatican 1.
That is how we got the phrase "It's greek to me." Monks would make copies of the classics without actually knowing how to read Greek. Much in the same way I could sit down and make a copy of Don Quixote without knowing Spanish.
By the way - have you read Sean McMullen's Greatwinter trilogy? It follows a similar process of rediscovery and rebuilding, only with a human computer because any electronics gets hit from orbit via EMP's due to what happened when the world collapsed. But with a more optimistic ending. Less of a focus on historical processes though. As for cyclic history - China's history shows it can be a thing, but due to the internet and historical study becoming a rich and deep field of knowledge we can also see it's never been a regular pattern across human history. However the rise of democracy gives the possibility of peaceful renewal of governments over time and a greater chance of relatively peaceful revolution, as seen by the histories of multiple nations. Allowing us to escape the failure spirals inherent in more dictatorial systems, not always of course, r.e. Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Russia, Cambodia etc, because all sorts of issues can disrupt democracy. Anyhow, guess I should read A Canticle for Leibowitz already :P However, just started on Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence so it'll be a while...
"The shark swam out to his deepest waters and brooded in the old clean currents. He was very hungry that season."
I always found that very hopeful.
"Sic transit gloria mundi".
It's a terrifying masterpiece of understatement.
I love Canticle. I always listen to it for comfort when Im mourning some end. "The buzzards laid their eggs in season and lovingly fed their young. The good earth had fed them bountifully and it would feed them still" always feels hopeful if morbid
Disappointed that mister feral historian apparently doesn’t own a monk’s robe
I’m willing to bet that he does, but didn’t think it wise to hike a trail while wearing one.
Lol ikr
How warm is it? A cassock can be pretty hot on a sunny day.
I didn't even think of that. I'm with you I am also disappointed that he doesn't have monks robes for a joke.
@@Michaelfatman-xo7gv I was thinking about mountain lions, but heat stroke is also bad.
I've long felt that "A Canticle for Leibwitz" was *the* main influence on the Mechanicus of 40k.
Also Comstar in Battletech
Partially for 40000 Mechanicus. Almost entirely for Battletech Comstar.
And the followers of the apocalypse in fallout
@PALACIO254 They're more open to sharing. I think the BOS is a better fit.
@@Culexus101 the leibowitz monks library is open to any that doesn't want to burn it they aren't isolationist just isolated to protect it during the simplification
This channel should have at least 100k followers
noooo he is too powerful for the plebeians watching such a smart small channel makes me feel intellegent
Within the confines of the algorithm, he isn’t deserving of such a number, but I’d be hard pressed to call that a bad thing
It's not for you to say.
Yet, it does not. What will you do about it?
I had hoped that you would turn your keen mind and acerbic wit towards "A Canticle for Leibowitz". What a wonderful way to start my weekend!
At the end, clapping the dirt off the sandals with a "sic transit mundi" is a great image.
"All of this has happened before... And will happen again..." - Cylon Proverb
One of my favorite series of all time.
So say we all.
@@unncommonsense by your command
Wonderfully done. I read Canticle For Leibowitz for the first time when I was in high school, and while I found (and still find) it to be a difficult read, I love the way that book illustrates the falling and rising of societies, like the ebb and flow of breathing.
It is, to me, not a hopeful story, but rather a human one. There is no hope for the Earth by the end, and one might ask what the point is of continuing. But there are still snatches of the good that humans do; our kindnesses towards each other, our discoveries, our knowledge, and our art either remain with the priest and the woman in the rubble, or they go to the stars with the monks. The main question I was left with when I finished the book is one I have wondered on my own occasionally: what good does humanity do? While the world of Leibowitz followed a bleaker path than our own, there are still all the reseeming facets of humanity. I think the book asks if those good qualities are enough. Personally, I think if we are wise, and cultivate our kindess, our goodness, our knowledge, it will be enough. And I think that stories like Canticle For Leibowitz are valueable to remind us of that, to remind us of what the stakes of our choices are.
My apologies if that's rambling. This is a book I don't enjoy reading that I am very glad I have read, and I haven't read it again in a few years, so my memories of some details might be hazy.
Not rambling at all. And it reminds of the maxim I try to live by. "Do more good than harm." We can't always do good for everyone, but at least we can lean into it.
Well said.
An extremely underrated channel , I'm always looking forward to your videos man keep up the good work!
Watching this vid made me remember that just finished Eumeswil by Ernst Junger last week. There he has a quote talking about how an historian needs to see facts and how history needs to be played with the similar importance as being described. I found it as an interesting reflection on time, and i am aware he dedicated a whole essay about it (Zeitmauer). Would be nice if there's a review for Eumeswil in the future
The pilgrim who appears in the first part provides a thread that connects through the other two. A small role but it adds a quiet fantasy element.
Excellent book I read it when I was in high school back in the 80s. I bought it as a used copy at a little mom and pop bookstore in Austin, Texas
I read Canticle for Leibowitz in the 80s too. It was assigned reading for English class. I thought the teacher's motivation was to assign a book that didn't have Cliff Notes
I read it too and never finished as I couldn't make heads or tails from it and knew no one else who had any interest in reading it.
I first read Canticle in high school in the early Sixties. And several times over the intervening years. Your commentary is excellent.
For another take on "psychohistory", may I suggest (if you can find it) a two-part series by a statistician Michael F. Flynn, who published "An Introduction to Psychohistory, parts 1 and 2" in Analog Science Fiction in 1988. He also wrote "Country if the Blind. He introduced me to Kondratieff Cycles and the lesser known ones. Interesting, but - - who knows.
I just started reading Country of the Blind yesterday. I suspect it's going to come up at some point.
Read this book back around 1984 or so. It was in my colleges library. Inspired me to write a Gamma World campaign.
Gamma World brings back some memories.
B5 is the reason I read A Canticle for Leibowitz.
I read the book later, but on the rewatch I got the episode and it was brilliant.
I cannot honestly remember which came first for me because I was devouring Science Fiction at that time (still am). I think JMS was rather more hopeful, but still acknowledged that progress would be agonizing and sometimes seemingly hopeless.
I love you using the B5 clip! I immediately thought of Leobowitz when I first watched it.
Excellent and insightful as always. I showed up for Leibowitz, but I stayed for Bablyon-5.
I think the apocalypse in 'longform' is very powerful. Canticle did this well, as did Budrys's 'Some will not Die'. Even Threads, in spinning out the latter part of the film over 13 years(?) to exhibit the medium term consequences of nuclear war, scraped away any notion of 'winning' a nuclear war.
I love this book. Read it in college over a day or so and it changed me
I think you would enjoy reading (EDIT) E.M. Forster's short story, The Machine Stops.
E.M. Forster!!!!
@@DavidNash1948 Yes, you are correct, forgive my error.
From my study even when History doesn't repeat itself it rhymes quite tightly.
A wonderful summary of the narrative structure of ACfL, with the added bonus of the B5 reference. I only discovered Miller's book some years ago, but was surprised to learn it's never gone out of print. Well done, sir, and thank you!
I listened to this in audiobook format a while back. I see the influence it had on the Fallout series, and of course, its influence on my own views on history in general.
Love the work!
Thanks feral, been waiting for this one!
11:53 - There is also a certain optimism for Canticle for Liebowitz
"It is a weary and dog-tired hope, maybe, a hope that says: Shake the dust off your sandles and go preach Sodom to Gomorrah."
Seeing the title I was surprised he didn't turn around and crawl into a hole in the rocks
Re: The Fourth Turning, historical cycles needn't return on mathematically precise schedules. I'm reminded of a Jeremy Irons speech toward the end of Margin Call. "It's just money. It's made up. ... It's not wrong. And it's certainly no different today than it's ever been. 1637. 1797. 1819, 37, 57, 84. 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974. 1987, ... '92, '97, 2000, and whatever we want to call this. It's all just the same thing, over and over. We can't help ourselves. And you and I can't control it, or stop it, or even slow it. Or even ever-so-slightly alter it. We just react."
I always look forward to these. The book so far has been great, I only just got it a month ago, but set it down cause college started up. I need to get back at it.
An excellent review, thank you for doing this. The book deserves remembered.
Love your content, dude. Love the depth, unabashed intellectualism and humor. Keep posting, we're all watching. Also, I've already binged all your videos so I need more lol
Also, love how you start with no intro but have a funny post-credit outro comment.
thank you for covering this. I love this book and it's central message.
It's one of the books I read again every few years.
You're one of the few creators I watch at normal speed.
When that episode of B5 first aired the first thing that occurred to me was it being inspired by A Canticle for Leibowitz. It's one of my favourite episodes, which isn't a useful thing to say, since I have so many favourite episodes in B5, just as I do in Stargate SG-1.
Great job! Reminds me of all the ancient empires that rose and fell due to soil exhaustion. Those were regular and predictable, and they were a trap we only escaped by luck.
I first read Canticle in 1969 It was given to me by my grandmother of all people I didn't understand a lot of it at that time, but I re-read it a few years later when I was better mentally equipped. I'll be checking out the Fourth Turning. As for cyclical history, I'll probably be beat up for this, but if you go back to the Old Testament, I seem to remember the the nation of Israel only ever manages about 80 to 100 years of prosperity before everything goes to shit. But it always took a lot longer for them to get back on top
This channel makes me burn through audible credits so fast.
i got this book from my high school library and got maybe 30 pages in, and found the rest of the pages glued together.. i guess i'll watch this video if i ever get around to another attempt..
Forbidden knowledge...or maybe the last guy just REALLY liked the book.
Haven't read this since undergrad. Need to dust off my copy. Thanks for the video.
Sounds like an extremely interesting book to read, I'll check it out. Also love the fact that he used footage from the Babylon 5 episode The deconstruction of falling Stars", particularly The segment relating to to "The Great Burning". Another great video from you, keep up the great work!
One of my all-time favorite books.
OMG thank you for talking about this absurdly underrated book!
Great summary, thanks.
As a brief mention, there IS a "sequel" , or rather another story sandwiched in between Part 1 and 2 of Canticle, but I only mention it to warn against it. _Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman_ was a work in progress Miller was writing after he lost his religious faith, but publishing it after his death was a mistake of the first order. It's a first draft, and is simply bad writing, in fact, so bad, you might speculate Miller was so seriously ill, he didn't realize how awful it was.
I don't miss a single video of yours bro
Listened like 2 minutes of the video and was sold. Good that there is an audiobook version on yt
"And on thr pesldistal, these words apear: My name is Ozymendias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and dispair! Nothing beside remains. Round thr decay
Of that colosal Wreck, boundles and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away." - Percy Bysshe Shelley
Love this bloody channel.
It's amazing.
It's amazing. It's exactly what the Internet was made for. He's too smart and interesting for lowest common denominator mainstream media.
Just found your channel.
Binged 5 videos already.
Thanks a lot +ss hole, now I've got to watch every single one, as you're now one of my favorite channels.
I had plans for the weekend!
(Keep it up, I'm hooked 💯)
They'll keep.
@@feralhistorian I had no idea what I was about to delve into. I cannot tell you how much I'm enjoying your perspective and how excited I am to read Ninti's Gate.
I've been subscribed to your channel for a few months and one of your older videos came up for me. Your analysis of 'The Sparrow' was amazing, it's a book that i'd never heard of. When I used to read more I used to be part of a book catalogue, I would buy approximately 3 or 4 every quarter. Regardless to what box you ticked on the order form, they would always send you... and charge you for 'Editor's choice' This was an 'Editor's choice' and although the synopsis did remind me of the Babylon 5 episode that you took your clips from, I never read it and sent it back. I think that was also the time I cancelled my subscription and told the banks not to give them any more money.
The Vedas reference a similar cyclic conception of time and human history, which I used to dismiss as proto hippy 'woo-woo'. I've since changed my mind.
I've loved "A Canticle For Leibowitz" since I discovered it, about 55 years ago... what a grim, but also warm, book.
I remember reading Canticle as a teenager in the 1960s and was awed.
Excellent. And blame the engineers. Reminds me of blaming the astronomers in Asimov’s Nightfall.
I can't believe I found this video the day after I finished a book I found for the first time
First caught the title. Read a bit and instantly subscribed.
This is an excellent book, and surprisingly humorous. It’s time for me to read it again.
Your thoughts, takes, and angles deserves to be expanded and elaborated [more] upon. It's like water in a desert, and one wish there was more of it - even if what's there is enough to sustain one through the midday heat.
As a historian I loath cyclic and deterministic view of our past and future.
But that book sure does something good with your brain.
Definitely, people should read it.
As a historian, you should know better; then again, you're an academic, and no one is more susceptible to intellectual narratives like "history is progressive and utopia is in store" than intellectuals smugly confident they know better than all who came before. At least the clerics you replaced had a sense of something higher they could be accountable to and a cultural richness...
@@Mr.Ambrose_Dyer_Armitage_Esq. Better than what exactly? I've just shun a narrative. And I have a sense of something higher, truths, drive to do better, not rhyme my mistakes to often and try to make sure others do not also.
You clearly mistake academics with History Channel attention hounds. They and said clerics all seemed to smugly knew better than all of us...
@@maciek_k.cichon
A combination of *_"I'm not like all the other [insert group members]"_* and unironic belief in academia? You really _do not_ know any better and you _do_ have the faith in the truthfulness of yourself and your colleagues as the clerics you've replace did...
You have my pity, son; life is going to be hard and confusing for you...
@@Mr.Ambrose_Dyer_Armitage_Esq. "Son", life is hard and confusing because "history is NOT progressive and utopia is NOT ALWAYS in store". I am just like everyone else, just a guy trying to do a 100%, and if I don't believe then why bother?
Maybe talk to someone irl and just try something positive? It's more lively than being edgy.
@@maciek_k.cichon
Why give me advice you clearly don't follow yourself?
"They don't seem like the sort that would know too much about thread pitch."
Sounds exactly like the people who respond to me anytime I say something even remotely intelligent on the Internet. I get lynch mobs if I say something clever or smart.
Amazing.
OMG. I read James Michener’s “Space” in which this book was referenced and I went out and bought it. I certainly understood the cyclical nature of human history as the major theme of the novel but I always thought of the work as a parable for the adage “Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it.”. I did not think of it in terms of their being predictive value in cyclical history. Interesting thoughts.
A bit nostalgic for me. I read A Canticle back in my teens about 60 years ago. Haven't thought about it since. Guess I'll have to check out a copy from the library and give it another read
Excellent book. Super fascinating.
The cause of the problem is that the struggle for power aka the Game Of Thrones never ends. Advances in tech merely make more destructive weapons.
The Cycle of Regimes never ends but the game is never played in exactly the same way twice. We manage to learn at least a bit each time.
Bro, you have exceptional taste in speculative fiction.
Facts. Outstanding.
The middle section with "Leonardo da Vinci" is what I remember. But "the Great Simplification" of book-burning after the flame deluge is what your retelling reminded me of. There was a great fear of anti-intellectualism among liberals in the Republic in the 1950s, followed by the embrace of "the best and the brightest" in Vietnam. We managed to avoid nuclear war throughout the cold war and wind up in some weird place where many citizens have college degrees, but a lot of mainstream discussion seems more vacuous than in the era when the average voter didn't finish high school. But of course our education system does not include lenten fasts, illuminated manuscripts, and plain dress, and may not endure as long as those which do.
"Eat eat eat" are the three most hopeful words in literature.
The world needs to know your musings on Vonnegut!
That seems likely at some point.
That novel is the Velvet Underground of SF; few read it but they all went on to write.
We are the centuries...
There is a really good 11 hour dramatization of the book on 9 CDs by Blackstone Audio if you can find it.. I first heard it broadcast on North Carolina public radio some years ago.
I really like A Canticle for Leibowitz. Character-wise it's rather thin, but it was a thoughtful, serious science fiction novel from an era where science fiction wasn't yet given a whole lot of literary credence. I believe the author actually wrote the book to kind of expiate his own guilt over taking part in the destruction of a historic monastery in Europe during WWII. It's still one of the best sci-fi novels imo, and one that I think is a good entry point to the genre. Enjoyed the analysis. :)
My absolutely favorite book.
I love this book
This book tends to come up in discussions of what media inspire Fallout
I read this book long time ago, and i was very impressed. "lucifer has fallen!" was my favorite quote. My view on this book is nature will heal over time, but human nature stay the same and we might repeat the same mistakes.
"The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been", Romance of Three Kingdoms
Sadly you mention Canticle to the average fallout fan and they react with "what's a canticle?"
That's because the average Fallout fan is uncultured swine, more than anything. The average anything as it relates to groups of humans is far from inspiring.
@@aerfwefd7334 Better an uncultured swine than an arrogant midwit.
Strong men create good times. Good times create Weak men. Weak men create hard times. Hard times create Strong men. Thus the Great cycle continues...
(Suggestion: H. Beam Piper's Space Viking... It has similar themes.)
It's a great quote and idea, but absolutely falsifiable. Many of the "strong/great" men that helped create "good/great" times were historically among the worst people in terms of morals, corruption and vile acts of violence.
But it sure makes a great soundbite for all the sigmas out there...
I'm always upset that no one remembers the followers of the apocalypse as being influenced by the monks of leibowitz
I bought this book at a used book store based solely on the rad cover art( the version used in this video) .....ended up being a really good read
I love this book, it has something that makes me feel hopefull
What we know of the bronze age collapse certainly argues for a cyclical history. Not to mention all the anomalies along the way of "the arc of history bends towards justice"
Lucifer's Hammer (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle) - has a more optimistic recovery from a natural disaster. Suggesting that we are beyond the point of returning to being hunter gathers despite the huge set back of the event. I am not sure I want to try A Canticle for Leibowitz but I did appreciate the Babylon 5 cookies. I must admit that it was one of the only 2 (I think) episodes I skipped through. This and the, one where the crew were the subject of a TV Documentary. I didn't like that when they did it with M.A.S.H. and I didn't like it in Babylon 5 either. At least we never got the black and white one, the Musical one and the, actors playing the characters playing fictional/different characters for one episode. Babylon 5 was classy like that.
I need to re-read Lucifer's Hammer one of these days, it's been awhile. Earth Abides is another I've been meaning to revisit.
@@feralhistorian I haven't read Earth Abides in 3 and a half decades, but in many ways it is the proto or Ur-post-apocalyptic novel. And while Lucifer's Hammer is interesting, I don't wonder if Mote in God's Eye might not be more on point for the channel.
One of my favorite books.
Wonderful book... and so tragic.
If suffering and death are inevitable then it may as well be memorable, and at least the thermite drone's glow is pretty.
I would suggest that the rise and fall of nations and patterns of great social unrest and even precursors to economic instability could be mapped relative to solar cycles.
The impact of solar activity on tectonic and volcanic activity is established.
Cyclical strength and weakness of solar output impact atmospheric conditions along variances in oceanic current occilation.
Impacts on the food chain and the water supply.
Knock on social and economic effects.
Identifying these impacts retrospectively shouldn't be too tricky. Building a predictive model to isolate the degree, nature and locations of future perturbations would be astoundingly difficult.
Perhaps when we get the chance to learn from past mistakes, we will have the opportunity to make new ones.
No mention of the running thread, throughout the novel, of the legend of the Wandering Jew?
And it's not like cyclical views of history are new. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1500s) famously opens by saying "A land long united tends to divide; a land long divided tends to unite. So it has always been." And then describes a cyclical war illustrating the idea.
Or, for a more darkly funny take on the idea, there's the Thraddash from the game Star Control II. They're an ultra-aggressive (and rather stupid) alien species who actually built their society around the fact that they periodically nuke themselves to oblivion and spend a millennia rebuilding. When you meet them, they're already up to Culture 19. They're kind of like self-aware Space Orks.
My dyslexic ass read that as cynical 😂
Me too
I discovered this book because of the After the End overhaul mod for CK3
Vatican 2 was extraordinarily disillusioning for Miller. The differences in “Wild Horse Woman” only make sense when you understand the conflicts between the V2 innovations and Traditionalists.
Miller didn’t like the Sedevacantists because he saw the contradictions between them and Vatican 1.
Interesting. Now I'm curious to read it.
Those who know history are doomed to watch it repeat. Me.
Read it a hundred times. Brilliant. The author's story is kind of sad and poignant.
That is how we got the phrase "It's greek to me."
Monks would make copies of the classics without actually knowing how to read Greek. Much in the same way I could sit down and make a copy of Don Quixote without knowing Spanish.
Such a fantastic book
By the way - have you read Sean McMullen's Greatwinter trilogy? It follows a similar process of rediscovery and rebuilding, only with a human computer because any electronics gets hit from orbit via EMP's due to what happened when the world collapsed. But with a more optimistic ending.
Less of a focus on historical processes though.
As for cyclic history - China's history shows it can be a thing, but due to the internet and historical study becoming a rich and deep field of knowledge we can also see it's never been a regular pattern across human history. However the rise of democracy gives the possibility of peaceful renewal of governments over time and a greater chance of relatively peaceful revolution, as seen by the histories of multiple nations. Allowing us to escape the failure spirals inherent in more dictatorial systems, not always of course, r.e. Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Russia, Cambodia etc, because all sorts of issues can disrupt democracy.
Anyhow, guess I should read A Canticle for Leibowitz already :P However, just started on Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence so it'll be a while...
A most enjoyable read.
I just finished my third read through of this book yesterday. Maybe it's divine intervention.