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Book Review
TAMIL
Stories from history
P. SUNDARESAN
ASAREERI: Subramaniam Chandran; Shanti Pathippagam, 27, Anna Salai, Chennai-600002. Rs. 75.
THESE 24 SHORT stories spring from history. The title story revolves round the pronouncement on Socrates by the oracle of Apollo in the sacred shrine of Delphi. Charged of being disrespectful to the gods and corrupting the young, Socrates was sentenced to death and condemned to drink a cup of poison, which he did, spurning offers to help him escape into exile. What follows is a series of other storylines: Guerilla war, portrait of a German nuclear scientist, cunning fox, Buddha’s renunciation, Plato and Aristotle, the moral values advocated by Confucius, Mahavira’s exhortation to his disciples, and the origin of the theory of evolution, a vivid picture of Hiroshima, the target of the first atom bomb which was dropped by the United States on 6th August 1945 taking a heavy toll of human life; the scene of the Nuremberg war trials and the miserable failure of Napolean Bonaparte’s attack on Russia in 1812; Peter the Great’s introduction of extensive government and administration reforms instrumental in transforming Russia into a significant European power; Shogunate in feudal Japan, Franklin Roosevelt’s achievement, the Gutenberg Bible, the Boxer Rebellion in China, Nirvana, Ku Klux Khan, Vietnam war, and a heart-rending story of the Russian revolutionary Trotsky.
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