Un comentario sobre el descubrimiento de América por Cristóbal Colón, del libro "De animales a dioses", de Yuval Noah Harari (ed. Debate, 2013):

La mentalidad moderna de "explora y conquista" se halla perfectamente ilustrada en el desarrollo de los mapas del mundo o mapamundis. Numerosas culturas dibujaron mapas del mundo mucho antes de la época moderna. Evidentemente, ninguna de ellas conocía en realidad la totalidad del mundo. Ninguna cultura afroasiática sabía de América, y ninguna cultura americana sabía de Afroasia. Pero las regiones desconocidas se omitían simplemente, o bien se llenaban de monstruos y maravillas imaginarios. Tales mapas no tenían espacios vacíos y daban la impresión de que había una gran familiaridad con el mundo entero.

[Un mapamundi europeo de 1459. Europa se halla arriba a la izquierda, el Mediterráneo y África debajo, y Asia a la derecha. El mapa está lleno de detalles, incluso cuando ilustra áreas del mundo que eran completamente desconocidas para los europeos, como el África austral.]

Durante los siglos XV y XVI, los europeos empezaron a dibujar mapas del mundo con gran cantidad de espacios vacíos: una indicación del desarrollo de la forma de pensar científica, así como del impulso imperial europeo. Los mapas vacíos eran una novedad psicológica e ideológica, una admisión clara de que los europeos ignoraban lo que había en grandes zonas del mundo.

El punto de inflexión crucial llegó en 1492, cuando Cristóbal Colón se hizo a la mar hacia el oeste desde España en busca de una nueva ruta a Asia oriental. Colón creía todavía en los antiguos y "completos" mapamundis. Utilizándolos, Colón calculó que Japón debía de hallarse a unos 7.000 kilómetros al oeste de España. Pero en realidad, más de 20.000 kilómetros y un continente entero y desconocido separaban Asia oriental de España. El 12 de octubre de 1492, hacia las dos de la madrugada, la expedición de Colón dio con el continente desconocido. Juan Rodríguez Bermejo, que actuaba de vigía desde el mástil de la nao Pinta, divisó una isla que ahora llamamos las Bahamas, y gritó "¡Tierra, tierra!".

Colón creía haber llegado a una pequeña isla en aguas de la costa de Asia oriental. Llamó "indios" a las gentes que allí encontró, porque pensaba que había desembarcado en las Indias, lo que ahora llamamos las Indias Orientales, o el archipiélago indonesio. Colón se mantuvo en este error durante el resto de su vida. La idea de que había descubierto un continente desconocido era inconcebible para él y para muchos de su generación. Durante miles de años, no sólo los grandes pensadores y sabios, sino también las infalibles Escrituras, habían conocido solo Europa, África y Asia. ¿Podían haber estado equivocados todos? ¿Podía la Biblia haber pasado por alto la mitad del mundo? Sería algo así como si en 1969, en su camino hacia la Luna el Apolo 11 se hubiera estrellado en una luna hasta entonces desconocida que orbitara la Tierra, y que todas las observaciones previas no hubieran conseguido detectar. En su negativa a admitir ignorancia, Colón era todavía un hombre medieval. Estaba persuadido de que conocía todo el mundo, e incluso su trascendental descubrimiento no consiguió convencerlo de lo contrario.

Visual clues influence perception

This excerpt is from Harry Beckwith's "Selling the Invisible" (pp. 189-190), a book on marketing. As a wine lover, I've noticed the same effect that Mr. Beckwith describes here, can be applied to the appreciation of wine.

"Our Eyes Have It: The Lessons of Chicago's Restaurants.

Richard Melman is the wizard behind Scoozi's, Ed Debevic's, and several of Chicago's other most popular restaurants.
Many connoisseurs take Melman's success as another sign that image is everything, that in restaurants, looking good is better than cooking good.
The critics miss the point. They assume that restaurants are in the food business. Not so; restaurants are in the entertainment business. People go to restaurants for the experience. They even go to famous restaurants with great cuisine -like the Mansion at Turtle Creek or 510 Groveland- so see what all the fuss is about, to experience what others have, to see who might be there, and to dress up.
Melmann's success, then, illustrates the wisdom of knowing what business you really are in, and selling what people are buying.
Bue Melman's critics also ignore another factor in Melman's success that is important to any marketer. Few people have discriminating tastes like the late James Beard, who could discern the entire recipe for a complex sauce from one sip. Instead, our perceptions of the quality of almost everything -from professional advice to veal scallopini- are often unsophisticated. Because of this, our perceptions are very vulnerable to influence. When we try the roast duck at the Mansion at Turtle Creek, for example, it tastes good in part because of the glowing reviews, the gorgeous atmosphere, and the stratospheric prices. Can most of us really taste the difference in the Mansion's roast duck? Not at all."

Woodrow Wilson - on declaring war against Germany (1917)

Barbara Tuchman
"The Zimmerman Telegram"

After World War I broke out (1914), President Wilson saw the role of the U.S. as a mediator rather than a belligerent power, and strove to keep the U.S. out of the war in Europe while communicating to the warring countries his desire for a peace settlement. "Peace without victory", he called it.

"The facts would have forced themselves upon anyone but Wilson, but the armor of fixed purpose he wore was impenetrable. He chose two main principles -neutrality for America, negotiated peace for Europe- as the fixed points of his policy and would allow no realities to interfere with them. ... Intent upon saving Europe, he ignored the mood of the Europeans. Just as he was determined to confer democracy upon Mexicans, ready or not, he was determined to confer peace upon Europeans, willing or not. He had no idea how like condescension his attitude appeared to them. He listened to himself rather than to them. He seemed unaware that two and a half years of fighting a war that was taking the best lives of nations had welded the combatants into a frame of mind in which compromise was impossible. He refused to recognize that each side now wanted tangible gains to show that the pain and cost had been worth while, and each had aims -Alsace-Lorraine was only one, but it would have been enough- that were permanently irreconcilable." (pp. 122-123)

"He felt obliged to be, or at least to act, impartial if he was to have any chace of getting both sides to listen to him. He was convinced that only a negotiated peace could endure, that a dictated peace forced upon the loser 'would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which the terms of peace would rest, not permamently, but only as upon quicksand.'" (pp. 123-124)

Wilson's resolve for peace was so strong that even the German announcement of irrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic against enemies and neutrals alike (to begin on February 1, 1917), was not enough to push the U.S. into the war. However, after the publication of the Zimmerman Telegram (february to march 1917), in which Germany "invited" Mexico to declare war against the U.S. in an alliance with Japan and Germany -with the promise of help to recover her lost territories in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona-, in view of Germany's open hostility toward the U.S.,  Wilson had no alternative but to ask Congress for a declaration of war (April 2, 1917).  

"The night before he spoke the public words that were to mark a chasm in our history, he spoke other words to a friend, Frank Cobb, the liberal editor of the New York World, whom he asked to visit him at the White House. They have the quality of last words, like Sir Walter Raleigh's poem before his execution. He could see no alternative, Wilson said, although he had tried every way he knew to avoid war. He said that once the American people entered the war, freedom and tolerance and level-headedness would be forgotten. Moreover, a declaration of war would mean 'that Germany would be beaten and so badly beaten that there would be a dictated peace, a victorious peace... At the end of the war there will be no bystanders with sufficient power to influence the terms. There won't be any peace standards left to work with.' And even at this moment a cry broke from him, 'If there is any alternative, for God's sake, let's take it!'" (pp. 196-197).

On Writing Fiction

"20 Master Plots (And How To Build Them)"
Ronald B. Tobias

pp. 31-21
"There's a method for each of us. The writer must know how he works and thinks in order to discover which method works best. Somebody like Vladimir Nabokov, who was meticulous and structured, laid out his work on index cards from beginning to end before writing the first word. Other writers, such as Toni Morrison and Katherine Anne Porter, began at the end. 'If I didn't know the ending of a story, I wouldn't begin," wrote Porter. "I always write my last line, my last paragraphs, my last page first.'

"Other writers think that's a terrible idea. But then Anthony Burgess, the author of A Clockwork Orange, probably said it best when he described his method: 'I start at the beginning, go on to the end, and then stop.'

"... But remember what Somerset Maugham said the next time you come across something some great writer said: "There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.'"

Significado de los nombres griegos

Grecia: el país y el pueblo de los antiguos helenos; Emil Nack – Wilhelm Wägner

p. 174-175

Nombres de personas

La mayoría de los nombres griegos de personas son palabras compuestas. Los helenos tenían un solo nombre. Sólo para identificar particularmente al individuo mismo, se le añadía el de su padre en genitivo, por ejemplo: Sócrates, (hijo de) Sofrónico.

En los nombres propios se refleja muchas veces la idiosincrasia y la ocupación de un pueblo. Los nombres griegos indican generalmente cualidades nobles y actividades. Tal vemos en la gran cantidad de nombres terminados en klēs: Pericles = afamado, Sófocles = famoso por su sabiduría, Temístocles = famoso por su justicia, Dámocles = famoso en el pueblo, Cleófanes = de fama radiante. Muchos nombres denotan un espíritu lleno de aspiraciones, de vigor, de inteligencia y nobleza: Trasíbulo = audaz en el consejo, Demóstenes = poderoso en el pueblo. La afición a los caballos aparece en nombres tales como Philippos = amigo de los caballos, Hipparchos = jefe de caballería, Hippókrates = domador de corceles, Hippólytos = desenganchador de caballos, Xanthippos = caballo amarillo.

Alejandro es el que protege a los hombres, Andreas = varonil, Dédalos = artífice, Diógenes = hijo de Zeus, Eugenio = de noble linaje, Heródoto = regalo de Hera, Nikolaos = vencedor del pueblo, Orestes = morador de las montañas, Platón = de amplia frente, Teodoro = regalo de Dios, Theóphilos = amado de Dios. Nombres como Aristágoras = el mejor en la asamblea del pueblo, Protágoras = el primero en la asamblea del pueblo, prueban lo muy temprano que se impuso la democracia entre los helenos.

 
También los nombres femeninos aluden a méritos y perfecciones. Ágata = la buena, Agnes = la santa, Aspasia = la amable, Dorotea = don de Dios, Electra = la resplandeciente, Eudoxia = famosa, Helena = brillante, Ifigenia = engendrada con fuerza, Irene = pacífica, Catharina = pura, Medea = experta, Sofía = la sabiduría, Tecla = la de divina fama, Theresia = cazadora.

Some facts about the battle of Salamis (480 BC)

From "The Battle of Salamis", by Barry Strauss:

pp. 141-142:

“… in 472 B.C., Aeschylus would again win first prize at the festival, this time for a tragic trilogy that included The Persians, his play about Salamis. He wrote from experience, because he had served at Salamis himself. So says Ion of Chios (ca. 480s–before 421 B.C.), a poet who came to Athens, knew Aeschylus personally, and published memoirs with a well-deserved reputation for accuracy. But after Aeschylus died in 456 B.C., his gravestone mentioned only Marathon and not Salamis. Perhaps the poet had ordered that, in order not to look as if he was trying to outdo his brother Cynegirus.

But what might really have moved Aeschylus was snobbery. The better people in Greece, as the upper classes called themselves, loved Marathon but turned up their noses at Salamis. Marathon was won by good, solid, middle-class farmer-soldiers, but Salamis was a people’s battle, fought by poor men who sat on the rower’s bench. And Aeschylus, who grew ever more conservative with age, might have had ever less use for those people. So, the poet might have preferred to forget Salamis. “

p. 145:

“The Spartans provided the commanding general, so they were assigned the traditional position of honor at the extreme right of the line, at the southern end of Ambelaki Bay. The Greeks considered the extreme right to be the position of honor, because in an infantry battle, each hoplite held his shield in his left hand, which left his right flank exposed. Every man was able to protect his right by taking advantage of the overlapping shield of the man in line to his right, except for the man on the extreme right. He stood in the most dangerous and therefore the most honorable place.

Tradition also assigned a spot to the city that claimed the next position in importance: the left wing. At Salamis, that honor went to Athens, whose ships were presumably moored in Paloukia Bay. Aegina held the spot to Athens’s right, to judge from the close communication between an Athenian and an Aeginetan commander during the battle.

According to this arrangement, the Spartans stood opposite the Ionians and perhaps other Greeks, while the Athenians and perhaps the Aeginetans faced the Phoenicians. In other words, the best Greek triremes were matched against the best Persian triremes. …

With full complements, 368 ships would have been filled with about sixty-two thousand rowers. As they took their seats, the rowers turned to one another and shook hands. These men were the backbone of the battle, and yet we do not know the name of a single one. Only a few captains and commanders are known by name. In fact, the ancient literary sources –histories, dramas, lyric poetry, philosophy– never mention a single rower by name, except for mythical heroes like the Argonauts. Their silence reflects both an age-old tendency in naval warfare to focus on boats instead of individuals and the upper-class bias of ancient literature. But in spite of the literary writers, the names of several hundred rowers in the Athenian fleet around 400 B.C. do survive, preserved in a public document, that is, in a lengthy inscription on stone. There we learn, for instance, of one Demochares of the deme of Thoricus, an Athenian citizen; of Telesippus of Piraeus, a resident alien; of Assyrios the property of Alexippos, a slave; and of Simos, a mercenary from the island of Thasos. These names, of course, mean almost nothing today, but perhaps that is the point. At Salamis, the freedom of Greece depended on ordinary men with undistinguished names. It was indeed democracy’s battle.”

p. 193:

“But why did the Persian triremes continue to come forward after their best squadrons had been thrashed? Surely, somehow the message of defeat was spread from ship to ship. The problem was not communications; on the contrary, the more news of defeat, the greater the ambition of the rear ranks to get to the fore. Persian captains jockeyed for a place in the front lines in order to ram an enemy ship while Xerxes was watching and thus to be recorded in his list of men to reward afterward. While the Greek contingents at Salamis managed to put aside their rivalries and each fight for the common good, the Persian contingents each thought about its separate relationship with the Great King.

By the same token, the Persian ships had little interest in continuing the struggle past the point where they might collect their reward. Compare the Spartan willingness to fight to the last man at Thermopylae with the Phoenicians’ decision to turn and leave the line at Salamis after they realized that they could not defeat the Athenians. The Spartan king Leonidas served a transcendent cause, while the Phoenician king Tetramnestus merely calculated the odds. Freedom was worth dying for, but there was no percentage in giving one’s life in exchange for power from the Great King that one would never enjoy.”

A view on evolution (from the 1950s)

This is from "The Tree of Culture", by Ralph Linton, published in 1955. I wonder what Dr. Linton would think of the Creationist (or anti-evolutionist) movement of today.

"The primary purpose of this book is to set down what we know about the origins and growth of what the anthropologist calls culture: the mass of behavior that human beings in any society learn from their elders and pass on to the younger generation. However, before going into this, it is worthwile to say a little about the origins and qualities of the animal responsible for this curious behavior. This is the more necessary because there is, as always, a lag between what the scientist knows and what the non-scientist believes. The battle between the anthropologists and the anti-evolutionists, which in any case was mainly shadow-boxing on the part of the anti-evolutionists, has long since been fought and won. Outside of a few geographical or intellectual back districts, no one questions today that we are descended from some sort of animal. The main problems are what sort of animal, and what line human evolution has followed. We can dispose of one popular misunderstanding immediately. It is certain that man is not descended from any anthropoid ape now extant. These apes are not our ancestors but our cousins whose line of descent branched off from our own at least a million years ago."