Nerd book review humor (Cotrugli, 1458, "Book of the Art of Trade," New Edition

The prolific nonfiction author Niall Ferguson wrote a new book, TOWER AND THE SQUARE, about networks vs hierarchies in business and politics over 2000 years.  Therein, he cites a 1450s Italian book on business theory, newly translated into English, "The Book of the Art of Trade," Benedetto Cogtrugli.  Ferguson was aware of the Italian author because he wrote the forward.  See the Amazon page here.

I put up an Amazon review:

https://www.amazon.com/review/R1OAZ1NBPPEWA0/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

Customer Review: THE ART OF TRADE (Cotrugli, 1458).

5.0 out of 5 stars

Very interesting look into the 1400's mind; a 1450 "MBA 101" handbook

Bruce_in_LAon March 24, 2018

Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase

This previously obscure 1450s Italian book, now first translated in English, is cited in Niall Ferguson's best seller THE TOWER AND THE SQUARE. It's a fascinating view into the mind of a very smart Italian merchant of the 1450s. Cotrugli felt that the fields of law, philosophy, and theology were far advanced, but that business training was a slipshod mess. It's like MBA 101 for the 1450s. Several modern essays accompany the original.

Much is made of the new translation to English. Hmmm. 

Let me say, it must be the type of translation, that stays very close, we can observe, to the syntax of the original, because many sentences are a paragraph long, with innumerable commas, which is not normal English, but more like 1800s German, and any speaker of English could, one might say, with the least effort, have broken up these run-on Latinate sentences, into three or four sentences, of normal English length, with much ease, rendering the original much easier to read, for the relief of the modern English reader, of today (and might have, for a bit more effort, decluttered the syntax of its verbose and wordy style with much detail and ornamentation and reduplication), although I will note here, that I have given the book a review of five stars, to its high praise, nonetheless.

It's an interesting issue for translation. 

• If the original is:    
• "Here, I draw the attention of the reader of this work, and ask him to bear me the indulgence, and beseech him to note that, of great importance, and of high value, indeed, of quite high value..." 
• Then the best idiomatic modern translation would be three words:   
•  "Importantly, note that..."     
• The original sounds like a sermon of Cotton Mather and preserves the original thought pattern for us; the latter sounds like a Harvard Business Press book today.
• Here, Cotrugli is only going to be translated once, and primarily for academics who read English and not medieval Italian or Latin.   So we have a phrase by phrase translation that preserves everything in the original, picked up and set down stone by stone into English, so that the modern scholar can understand what Cotrugli said in his language and how, 600 years ago, he said it.

Berlin 1937 at the Stadtmuseum Berlin

A woman in Berlin - Beata Gontarczyk-Krampe - keeps an amazingly prolific website + twitter feed in English on history and happenings in Berlin.  https://kreuzberged.com/  as a blog and @kreuzberged on Twitter.

MUSEUM EXHIBIT
She recently remarked on the closure of a major exhibit at the Stadtmuseum (aka Maerkisches Museum) on "Berlin 1937."

    https://www.stadtmuseum.de/ausstellungen/berlin-1937

COFFEE TABLE BOOK
A coffee table book on the exhibit is on Amazon.de

    https://www.amazon.de/Berlin-1937-Schatten-von-morgen/dp/3939254436/

I got the book and have been progressing a few pages at a time.   

In 1933 Hitler said "Give me 4 years" and so 1937 was four years.  So the exhibit holds up 1937 for us.  The economy was doing far better, big department stores were opening (although butter was rationed by tickets).   Kristalnacht was still a year in the future (although store-by-store vandalism was occuring).   The exhibition's point is that 1937 was both the high point of what worked under National Socialism politics and the tipping point into heavy rearmament, war, and genocide.   So the "Janus" view from 1937 is a major turning point.  (The book using the term; Janus-view is something like "Januskopfige".)

The work's subtitle "Berlin 1937: Im Schatten vom morgen," is from a then-contemporary book by a Dutch author that Europe was going to hell rapidly.   (That 1937 book in available in English from LA Central Library; Huizinga, In the shadow of tomorrow.).   We like to think today is heading toward a brighter tomorrow; Huizinga felt that "today," 1937, was in the "shadow" of a nightmare tomorrow.   Nice turn of phrase to remember;

   "Als ob all das noch nicht genuegte...."   As if all that wasn't enough....

Book Chain

* Berlin 1937 (exhibit book)

* Im Schatten von Morgen / In the Shadow of Tomorrow / 1937 / Dutch, Huisiinga

* The Frustration of Science, Hall et al., 1935, British.

The museum website leads to a coffee table book "Berlin 1937: Im Schatten vom Morgen," from Amazon.de.    Huisinga's book "Shadow of Tomorrow" may only be cited briefly in the coffee table book, but it is more important than that, as it lends the subtitle to the whole exhibition.   From the English version of Huisinga's book, I ran across a reference to a 1935 book, "The Frustration of Science," which was also available from the LA Public Library.

The Frustration of Science contains a forward by Frederick Soddy, 1877-1956, 1921 Nobel laureate for work on radioactive decay and transmutation of isotopes.   Chapter authors include 7 scientists of diverse types.   See selected PDF pages here.   

Generally, they feel that society is very badly run, inequality is rampant, and several mention the rise of fascism and nationalism.  Most strongly favor a communist government aka Soviet Union to rationally run society for the betterment of all.   This points are captured in a New York Times book review from May 1935 (copied in the back pages of my online pdf.)   These being the serious points, I capture below a few quotes that are itnteresting after 88 years.

In an essay on medical education we read that med school education is not relevant to much of real world practice, that the student is overexposed to rare diseases and venereal diseases, and when he enters practice, he won't be able to keep up with the wealth of new information and Lancet's will pile unread in his busy office.   CME resources are faulty.

In an essay on birth control and birth rates, we read that industrialization has lowered birth rates (to no good) and this is especially true in the upper classes.   Agricultural societies prized high birth rates.

In an essay on bacterial warfare, hysteria about anthrax is mocked because it is not very transmissable.  One of the only things that has protected society so far is the "small commercial return" that armaments manufacturers see for germ warfare, so they haven't done much R&D yet.  Epidemic, rather than acute, germ warfare is the real fear.  

In the closing essay, we read the most striking point about modern society is the contrast between enormous potential prosperity (large factories, etc) and the terrible unemployment and underproduction of the present and the very low economic status of much of society.   This is a point Roosevelt made as well.  There is a discussion of whether scientists ought be involved in the direction of society and politics, a discussion of fascism being truly driven mostly by poor economic conditions for broad belts of society in modern states.   There is a discussion that answers to the current crisis are offered by democracy, fascism, and socialism, and while fascism is ascendant, much can be said for rational and enlightened communism as being practiced by Soviets in planned societies.   "The structure of free trade and liberalism is collapsing all over the world like a house of cards."  "There were only two openly fascist countries...not I am losing count."  Fascism claims to support small business, but this is mostly hype not action.  (All you need is hype to get and hold power).   Countries try massively to export (to keep up production) while simultaneously raising tariff barriers on all sides (to avoid importation).   The folly is evident.    "The main support for fascism in every country is in the lower middle classes and peasantry, and these classes have also been anti scientific."  

There is a discussion that manufacturing has been studied to the penny, but not the means of marketing and distribution, which is highly inefficient.  The author would be intrigued to investigate Amazon 75 years later.