I've begun Arthur Kahn's book "The Education of Julius Caesar". It is a great book and I got momentarily distracted trying to find out more about the author. He doesn't, apparently, have a Wikipedia entry, but there are snippets of information posted on amazon pages carrying his works.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Education-Julius-Caesar-Reconstruction/dp/product-description/0595089216/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books
Arthur Kahn served as an intelligence officer during WWII, obtained a doctorate degree at the age of 41 and held various teaching positions. He has published four books and numerous articles. Kahn reads nine languages and is a long-time resident of Brooklyn Heights in New York City.
Betrayal: Our Occupation of Germany.
http://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-Occupation-Germany-Arthur-Kahn/dp/B004W8IZSU/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376592035&sr=1-4&keywords=Arthur+Kahn
Experiment in Occupation: Witness to the Turnabout: Anti-Nazi War to Cold War, 1944 1946
http://www.amazon.com/Experiment-Occupation-Witness-Turnabout-Anti-Nazi/dp/0271058528/ref=sr_1_13?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376592064&sr=1-13&keywords=Arthur+Kahn
Arthur Kahn, a former distinguished professor of Classics at universities in the U.S. and Canada, has written seven previous books, including The Education of Julius Caesar (1986), a History Book Club Selection.
The Education of a 20th Century Political Animal IV: Recapitulation And Reconciliation In Gotterdammerung America
http://www.amazon.com/Education-20th-Century-Political-Animal/dp/1438923740/ref=sr_1_16?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376592064&sr=1-16&keywords=Arthur+Kahn
The Many Faces of Gay: Activists Who Are Changing the Nation
http://www.amazon.com/Many-Faces-Gay-Activists-Changing/dp/0595366368/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376592064&sr=1-17&keywords=Arthur+Kahn
Kahn (classics, emeritus, Colgate Univ.) gives a lucid account of "what it means to be gay in late 20th-century America" by examining the private and public lives of some 60 activists he interviewed in the New York City area. A series of short biographies chronicles the coming-out stories of lesbians, gay men, and transgendered persons (regrettably, bisexuals are omitted) of varied racial, religious, and ethnic backgrounds. He also discusses how their experiences have translated into activism in such areas as homophobic violence, law enforcement, the military, and AIDS. Kahn's clear-eyed, scholarly approach allows the subjects and their actions to speak for themselves, with poignant, affirmative, even harrowing results. An invaluable historical and social chronicle, this is also a worthy companion to more psychologically oriented coming-out guides like Michelangelo Signorile's Outing Yourself (LJ 6/15/95) and deserves a wide audience. Recommended for public libraries as well as academic or special libraries with gay studies collections.?Richard Violette, Social Law Lib., Boston
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc
Brownstone: A Novel of New York
http://www.amazon.com/Brownstone-Novel-York-Arthur-Kahn/dp/0595367879/ref=sr_1_18?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376592064&sr=1-18&keywords=Arthur+Kahn
When Arthur Kahn, an octogenarian retired Classics professor and author of twelve books, published his first novel at the age of 34. He had already served as a World War II Office of Strategic Services operative, and as director of nationalities during Henry Wallace’s 1948 presidential campaign, research director for the Peace Information Center chaired by W.E.B. DuBois as well as chairman of an Upper Westside tenants organization. In 1952 he ran for Congress against Franklin Roosevelt, Jr.
Speak Out!: America Wants Peace
http://www.amazon.com/Speak-Out-America-Wants-Peace/dp/0595367895/ref=sr_1_19?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376592064&sr=1-19&keywords=Arthur+Kahn
During a six-month coast-to-coast tour of twenty-five states to mobilize attendance at a peace conference scheduled for Chicago on June 1, 1951, Arthur Kahn kept a diary, which he subsequently published under the title Speak Out! America Wants Peace. Since his sponsoring organization the American Peace Crusade could not afford to pay his expenses, he made his way by selling copies of his recently published book Betrayal: The American Occupation of Germany, a summary of his experiences as a wartime Office of Strategic Services operative and after VE Day as an peripatetic intelligence investigator and then as Chief Editor of Intelligence for the Information Control Division of Military Government. The first part of Speak Out! describes a peace pilgrimage to Washington by some 2,500 people from all over the United States, seeking a negotiated end to the Korean War and actions to alleviate economic hardships in the country. In the remainder of his trip he spoke with Americans of every walk of life—trade unionists, businessmen, clergymen, farmers, intellectuals, teachers and students—people of all ages and of all races and political opinions. To his own surprise he discovered widespread unease among people about the Korean War as well as about the atmosphere of McCarthy-ite repression stifling expression of popular discontent.
The Life and Death of Lord Byron: A new play in two acts
http://www.amazon.com/Life-Death-Lord-Byron-play/dp/1420824643/ref=sr_1_20?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376592064&sr=1-20&keywords=Arthur+Kahn
ON FIRST LOOKING INTO HOMER'S ILIAD: EXPLORING THE BARD'S DRAMATIC ARTISTRY
http://www.amazon.com/FIRST-LOOKING-INTO-HOMERS-ILIAD/dp/142082628X/ref=sr_1_21?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376592064&sr=1-21&keywords=Arthur+Kahn
"I enjoy Homer in his own language. I thank on my knees, him who directed my early education, for having put into my possession this rich source of delight, and I would not exchange it for anything which I could then have acquired, and have not since acquired."
Thomas Jefferson It is an extraordinary phenomenon of Western literary history that European literature originates with two epics that continue to excite admiration after nearly three millennia. Those who must content themselves with reading the epics in translation, of course, cannot hope to share fully the unfailing delight experienced by such a fluent master of ancient Greek as Thomas Jefferson and may be tempted to dismiss as hyperbolic his pronouncement: "Homer the first of poets, as he must ever remain."
Like the plays of Shakespeare and other monuments of Western literature, Homer's Iliad is a work of inexhaustible richness and complexity in which every verse impels the action, deepens the characterizations and contributes to the psychological opulence within a tapestry of recurring images and themes in a masterly interweaving of past, present and future within a skillfully evolved architecture. In the last centuries poets in every generation have sought to recapture the wonderment of the epics by producing new translations.
In On First Looking into Homer's Iliad, the author of the highly praised The Education of Julius Caesar invites readers to explore book by book and often line by line the complex artistry of the epic portrayal of men at war. He is confident that after such an investigation readers will be receptive to Jefferson?s enthusiastic judgment.
Byron's Single Difference with Homer and Virgil: and other essays on the poet's interplay with the literatures of Greece and Rome
http://www.amazon.com/Byrons-Single-Difference-Homer-Virgil/dp/1420829270/ref=sr_1_22?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376592064&sr=1-22&keywords=Arthur+Kahn
With the near disappearance of the study of the Classics, students of literature as well as general readers lack the background to share the pleasure of Byron's contemporaries, steeped like him in the Classical literatures, in the constant interplay in his prose and poetry with the literatures of Greece and Rome. Byron underwent an intense drilling in Latin and Greek and in works of literature in both languages. Throughout his life he continued to study the Classical authors. In this book the author demonstrates how Byron repeatedly looked to Classical authors as models for his own compositions, conning as a twenty-year-old Quintilian's Institutes in preparing his frame-breakers oration in the House of Lords, studying the plays of Seneca while composing his dramatic works, turning to Theocritus and Virgil as models in pastoral poetry and to Horace and Juvenal for verse satire; and, finally, setting Homer and Virgil as foils for his mock epic masterpiece, Don Juan. The author reveals a level of artistry in Byron's works rarely explored and appreciated. In this book the author seeks to demonstrate an entire level of artistry in Byron's poetry and prose rarely recognized by students and readers in the twenty-first century.
Arthur D. Kahn is a retired, distinguished professor of Classics and the author of numerous scholarly articles as well as twelve books, including The Education of Julius Caesar, Writer and Critic, a translation of essays by the Hungarian literary critic and philosopher Gyorgy Lukacs, On First Looking into Homer's Iliad: Exploring the Bard's Dramatic Artistry, and a play, The Life and Death of Lord Byron
The Unrepentant: A Marxist Journalist Confronts the CIA's Greek Junta
http://www.amazon.com/Unrepentant-Marxist-Journalist-Confronts-Greek/dp/1420831666/ref=sr_1_23?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376592064&sr=1-23&keywords=Arthur+Kahn
In The Unrepentant Vassos Georghiou recounts the sufferings of Greek men and women of all walks of life and political persuasions who were deported in 1964 to a desert island following a coup d'¿tat engineered by the CIA that installed a repressive military junta. The prisoners responded variously to the psychological and physical pressures; some yielded and signed loyalty oaths; most, however, like Georghiou, resisted courageously, armed with a sense of their personal dignity and loyal to the ideals of their years of struggle against repression and foreign invasions and interventions.
Until the collapse of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and despite his disillusionment with the domestic and international leadership of the Communist movement and his expulsion from the Communist Party, Vassos Georghiou retained his faith in the Soviet Union as the model for the world of the future. In this book Arthur D. Kahn repeatedly expresses disagreement with Georghiou's views, and discussions between them add a further level of interest.
Born in 1908 of illiterate parents, Vassos Georghiou graduated from Athens University and embarked upon a long career as a journalist and as the author of numerous books and articles. He suffered more than twenty years of imprisonment, deportation and exile for participating as Communist in struggles against repressive regimes and the German occupiers during World War II and in the civil war of 1947.
A retired Classics professor, Arthur D. Kahn is the author of several books, including Experiment in Occupation: Witness to the Turnabout, Anti-Nazi to Cold War, The Education of Julius Caesar, and the autobiographical The Kid Didn't Whimper. A member of the Old Left, he served as a director during Henry Wallace's 1948 Progressive Party presidential campaign and ran for Congress against FDR, Jr. in 1952. He was active in peace organizations and participated in civil rights struggles and in the anti-Vietnam war movement.
And the Kid Didn't Whimper...1920-1946: The Education of a 20th Century Political Animal
http://www.amazon.com/Kid-Didnt-Whimper-1920-1946-Education-Political/dp/1420844768/ref=sr_1_24?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376592064&sr=1-24&keywords=Arthur+Kahn
An account of the childhood and youth during the 1920s and the Great Depression of a psychologically troubled son of impoverished shopkeepers and graduate of a backwater teachers college who survived the emotional stress of a dysfunctional family and overcame obstacles of anti-Semitism to win acceptance at the age of 23 into the elite Army intelligence agency, the Office of Strategic Services, and advanced from post to post of military service in France and Germany to become after VE Day the editor of the leading intelligence publication in the American zone of Germany
Balzac: A Nineteenth-century Novelist with Lessons for America
http://www.amazon.com/Balzac-Nineteenth-century-Novelist-Lessons-America/dp/1453537473/ref=sr_1_30?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376592129&sr=1-30&keywords=Arthur+Kahn
"Called the founder of the modern novel, Balzac received encomiums from numerous critics and writers. Henry James called him “the greatest of all novelists.”
Ideologically, Balzac championed the return in France of the pre-revolutionary rule of Church and Monarch, and in his novels, he assailed ever more aggressively the bankers who were seizing control of the government, the judiciary and the economy. This aspect of Balzac’s investigations in his Human Comedy of the trends in French customs and manners during the half-century following the 1789 Revolution is illuminating for Americans struggling to survive in the profound depression precipitated by the maneuverings and manipulations of multinational banks and investment firms. Providing a clear and monitory lesson to Americans desperately seeking relief in a Depression Balzac demonstrates that profiteering, legal and illegal; and a general atmosphere of greed and materialism are inherent in the free enterprise system and unsuceptible to superficial reforms.
Impressed by Gyorgy LukÜs's essays on the works of Balzac, Arthur Kahn turned to some of the French writer's novels as models for his own 1954 Brownstone, a Novel of New York. He met LukÜs in Budapest in 1960 and again in 1963 and maintained a lively correspondence with him while translating several of LukÜs's literary essays for a volume published in 1970 under the title Writer and Critic. In 2009, an 89 year old retired professor and the author of numerous books, Kahn completed the fifth volume of his autobiography (he had enjoyed a life of variegated experience). Although burdened by age and by a cardiac disorder, he undertook a project of homage both to Balzac and to the Hungarian philosopher and critic and completed the work just before his ninetieth birthday.
AIDS, The Winter War
http://www.amazon.com/AIDS-Winter-War-Arthur-Kahn/dp/1566390184/ref=sr_1_31?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376592129&sr=1-31&keywords=Arthur+Kahn
Arthur Kahn traces the history of the struggle for recognition of and action on behalf of the AIDS epidemic. He describes the heroic struggle for survival by persons with AIDS and their allies for survival. He documents the sophisticated and effective mobilization of AIDS activists in the face of apathy from the Reagan and Bush administrations. Kahn presents a case study of the difficulties involved in bringing new drugs for AIDS to U.S. markets. He outlines the frustrating attempts to promote egg lecithin as the potential medicine for HIV patients after its use showed some signs of success in Israel. Obstruction by the federal bureaucracy, greed and incompetence on the part of the drug industry, stonewalling by scientific mandarins, and impediments to evaluation testing these are shown to be the cruel realities faces by patients and activists. After setting this background, Kahn details the work of President Reagan's commission on AIDS. Although news of the establishment of this committee was met with scorn and cynicism, the results of its study were both effective and humane. Led by Admiral James Watkins, whose sensitivity won the respect of both commissions members and gay activists, the Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Epidemic issued a final report that seriously addressed the ramifications of the epidemic for American society as a whole. Arthur D. Kahn, now retired, was chairman of the Classics Department at Brock University in Ontario. He has taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo, New York University, the College Year at Athens, and has held the O'Connor Chair at Colgate University. He has published several other books, including "The Education of Julius Caesar".
The most complete history of how AIDS treatment activism began--and an appalling look at the government AIDS mismanagement." --John S. James, AIDS Treatment News "In persuasive detail...Kahn demonstrates [that] the struggle against AIDS requires a continuous fight against vested interests that have little regard for alternative ideas and against egotists who put self-aggrandizement above a worldwide crisis... Arthur Kahn's book presents the history of the clinical struggle and identifies heroes, many of whom have died fighting for all of us. Their efforts must be recognized. Their struggle is not over." --William Regelson, M.D., Professor, College of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University (from the Introduction)
All in all, Arthur D. Kahn looks like a very interesting guy who had things to say about many interesting topics. I hope that some of you will get and read his works and report back. I'm planning on it!
