Philip Spires commonplace book

I have kept a commonplace book for many years. It's a place where scraps of impressions are filed for future reflection. It's not a diary, it's just a mental scrapbook, concentrating on book reviews, concert reviews, visual arts and some occasional pieces on travel. It is also a place where I occasionally reflect on what I write. Details of my books can be found at http://www.philipspires.co.uk

Showing posts with label rome. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

SPQR by Mary Beard

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I have just finished Mary Beard’s SPQR. I have just started Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretation. The connection? Susan Sontag’s essay de...

Saturday, January 30, 2021

SPQR by Mary Beard

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I have just finished Mary Beard’s SPQR. I have just started Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretation. The connection? Susan Sontag’s essay deal...

Monday, October 19, 2020

Theodoric the Goth: Barbarian Champion of Civilization by Thomas Hodgkin (1897)

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The fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era are often listed as part of what we dismissively label as the “Dark Ages”. These times sa...

Thursday, October 8, 2020

Thought on The Golden Ass by Apuleius

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In her book Pompeii, Mary Beard counsels wisely, saying that no one can read confident, unequivocal significance into anything dug up in an ...

Saturday, October 3, 2020

Mary Beard’s Pompeii

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Mary Beard’s Pompeii succeeds in several quite different and sometimes surprising ways. This is a guidebook, a history, a survey of social...

Friday, January 29, 2016

A Reflection On The Annals Of Imperial Rome by Publius Cornelius Tacitus

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History changes when it is re-read. The casual reader, as opposed to the historian, always reads history w ith o ne eye on the present: the...

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Julian by Gore Vidal

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When you are born into greatness, you may be forgiven for exhibiting a sense of destiny or an assumption of purpose. When you also find your...

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About Me

philipspires: I was born in Wakefield and was brought up in Sharslton, a mining Village. I went to London University and then became a maths teacher, working initially as a volunteer teacher in Kenya. I spent sixteen years in London, in Balham and Islington. In 1992, I left Britain for Brunei and then Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. I currently live in La Nucia, near Benidorm in Spain. I am interested in the relationship between nature and nurture, birthright and experience. Themes of culture and identity and their relation to economic and social roles underpin my writing. What we are born into relates to what we become, but we are rarely in control. What others do, our interests and intellects and the way we choose to earn a living, all of these shape us into what we become. It may be that culture is the sum of all assumptions that others make on our behalf, whereas identity represents our reactions to them. I did a PhD on the effects of education in economic development in the Philippines. I was President of Alfas del Pi Music Society for twelve years.

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