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<\/a>(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I recently read The Shortest History of Germany: From Julius Caesar to Angela Merkel\u2015A Retelling for Our Times<\/em><\/a>, by James Hawes, who is a lecturer at the University of Oxford (though not, I think on history but rather on creative writing, even though he earned a doctorate in German literature [with a focus on Friedrich Nietzsche] from University College, London).\u00a0 I thoroughly enjoyed it, and not only because it is very well and brightly written.\u00a0 In an odd way, the book reminds me a bit of Graham Fuller\u2019s A World Without Islam<\/em>, which reads nothing like it and which is, of course, about a quite distinct subject and at least slightly academic.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because, like A World Without Islam<\/em>, The Shortest History of Germany<\/em> makes a case for the persisting importance of ancient geographical divisions notwithstanding the ideological and personnel changes that have occurred over the past many centuries.\u00a0 You\u2019ll have to read the book yourself if you want to get it\u2019s full flavor, but I\u2019ll offer one spoiler:\u00a0 He isn\u2019t a big fan of the Prussians.\u00a0 Nor of their ancestors nor their progeny.\u00a0 And that\u2019s putting it very mildly.\u00a0 Hawes is very forthrightly opinionated, which is rarer than one might think in history books, but that surely makes The Shortest History of Germany<\/em> entertaining.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here are a couple of passages that I marked early on in my reading:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The first one reminded of Mormon 2:1-2, which I\u2019ve sometimes heard derided by critics of the Book of Mormon because they find the idea of an army headed by a teenager ridiculously improbable:\u00a0 \u201cAnd it came to pass in that same year there began to be a war again between the Nephites and the Lamanites. And notwithstanding I being young, was large in stature; therefore the people of Nephi appointed me that I should be their leader, or the leader of their armies.\u00a0 Therefore it came to pass that in my sixteenth year I did go forth at the head of an army of the Nephites, against the Lamanites.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the tribes, under the leadership of Battarius, a boy twelve years old, promised an alliance; these received gifts of money.\u201d <\/strong>(quoted from Cassius Dio, Roman History<\/em>, LXXII)<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And then there was this one:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n From now on, Rome was purely on the defensive, and a purely defensive war only ever ends one way.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Hawes is speaking here about the late third century after Christ.\u00a0 But this is the same point that I often make about the need for what I often call \u201cpositive apologetics\u201d as well as \u201cnegative apologetics.\u201d\u00a0 Advocates of the faith need to do more than merely defend against criticisms and attacks.\u00a0 They also need to develop and present affirmative reasons for belief.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And here\u2019s a third one, from the last portion of the book.\u00a0 In a way, it encapsulates the basic thesis of The Shortest History of Germany<\/em>.\u00a0 In it, Dr. Hawes is referring to the Elbe River:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n For that river, as ever, is the great fault line in German history.\u00a0 Things are different east of it, as they have been for a thousand years.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We spent yesterday in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.\u00a0 We took a hop-on hop-off bus around the city and then visited the summer palace of the former Portuguese royal family in Queluz, as well as that palace\u2019s gardens, and then strolled through the Belem Palace Gardens, back in Lisbon itself.\u00a0 We\u2019ve never been to Portugal before, so this was both fun and interesting to us.\u00a0 Like Rome and Constantinople or Istanbul, Lisbon is built on seven hills, and the views from various parts of the city can be striking.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the city is marred by lots and lots of spray-painted graffiti, some of it located so high up and in seemingly inaccessible places that even I had to admire the daring of the \u201cartists\u201d who had created it.\u00a0 One of the most remarkable features of many of the city\u2019s buildings is their use of colorful tiles.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We had hoped to catch a glimpse of the Lisbon Portugal Temple, which is still relatively new and which is located not far from the water.\u00a0 In fact, I thought that our boat had docked fairly near it, until I realized that I was looking at the wrong bridge in the overhead photographs of the temple.\u00a0 It was actually located just a bit further than our ship went, near the Vasco da Gama Bridge rather than the Ponte 25 de Abril.\u00a0 Oh well.\u00a0 Next time.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Today, we visited Porto \u2014 or, as outsiders (including Spaniards!) generally call it, Oporto.\u00a0 We drove on a bus tour through much of the city, rode in a 94-year-old electric tram car through some of the rest, and strolled in the old Ribeira district (Pra\u00e7a da Ribeira) along the Rio Douro.\u00a0 We had lunch there, too, and, at a shop called Prometeu Artesanato, at Rua de S\u00e3o Jo\u00e3o 19, we bought a couple of beautiful tiles and a small clay figure of the Holy Family that we both really liked.\u00a0 We\u2019re not particularly enthusiastic shoppers, but these caught our eyes.\u00a0 There was a full nativity set in the shop\u2019s window that we absolutely loved, but the price was nearly $3500.\u00a0 That\u2019s too much even for my budget as a Latter-day Saint apologist who is paid in a massive combination of gold bars, cut and uncut diamonds, and untraceable cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t agree more strongly than I do with this article in the Deseret News<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPerspective: Latter-day Saints need to tell their own stories: We\u2019ve barely scratched the surface of the narrative potential in our history, doctrine, culture and lore\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s why I committed myself to the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s film project on the Witnesses to the Book of Mormon \u2014 including the theatrical movie Witnesses<\/em><\/a>, the docudrama Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon<\/em><\/a>, and the short-video \u201creels\u201d<\/a> that we\u2019re posting each week.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why I\u2019m committed to our next project, Six Days in August<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 Candidly, I hope that you\u2019ll join with us, too.\u00a0 At a very minimum, I hope that you\u2019ll view what we\u2019ve put out and what we\u2019re now putting out.\u00a0 And I hope that you\u2019ll share it with others.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n These film projects represent one of the ways in which some of us have teamed up together to do positive apologetics.\u00a0 As James Hawes observes, \u201ca purely defensive war only ever ends one way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Posted from the Atlantic Ocean, en route from Porto, Portugal, to La Coru\u00f1a, Spain<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 *** \u00a0 I recently read The Shortest History of Germany: From Julius Caesar to Angela Merkel\u2015A Retelling for Our Times, by James Hawes, who is a lecturer at the University of Oxford (though not, I think on history but rather on creative writing, even though he earned a doctorate in German literature [with 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