Feb 9– Germany by Tacitus (98), translated by Thomas Gordon
Summary: Germans are a bunch of crazy savages, and no one would want to live there.
Commentary: I've said it for most of the historical and history-adjacent choices, but I love how vividly they describe the places, people, etc. It's like Germany is some lost colony in a fantasy novel. A lot of the conversation around T5FSOB and similar program boils down to, "Why don't we make kids read this stuff anymore? Kids are dumb!"
On the one hand, there's a lot to read here (15 minutes a day only gets you through ~15% of the collection, by my estimation), and not all of it is particularly worthwhile (BURNS!). But, I do think that more of it than I was given, of than the average US public high school or university covers, would be warranted. These sections, in particular, are super cool. How much better would history class be if you got to read a couple pages of fantasy-novel-esque descriptions of ancient Germans divining and marching to battle while their wives throw them meat?
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