The Shores of Wisdom: The Story of the Ancient Library of Alexandria (Paperback)

~ (Author), Mohsen Zahran (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Much of Flower's book consists of brief biographies of the brilliant men attracted to Alexandria by the library..." -- Monacle, UK, Russell Chamberlin, June 1999,

Derek Flower tells the tale in rollicking style, with many entertaining anecdotes -- Literary Review, U.K. Michael Borrie, June 1999

Flower gives a delightful story of the rise and fall of the ancient library...indeed an enjoyable piece to read. -- Prof. Ahmed H. Zewail, 1998 Nobel Prize for Chemistry-Egypt. January 2001 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

Two thousand three hundred years ago the world’s first great Library and international Culture Centre was created by the Pharaoh Ptolemy I Soter.

The Shores of Wisdom tells the story of this ancient Library and Mouseion of Alexandria and how it influenced Western thought as much as, if not more than, Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum at Athens.

It sketches the portraits of the men and women responsible for the Library’s fame, such as Euclid and Archimedes, the astronomers Aristarchus and Claude Ptolemy, the polymath Eratosthenes, the philosopher Philo, not forgetting the early Christian Fathers, Clement and Origen, but also of those involved in its calamities and final destruction.

The Shores of Wisdom describes, too, the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina and how it has developed from an ambitious dream into a brilliant reality which will be a worthy successor to the Ancient Library during the coming millennium. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Xlibris Corporation (December 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738850233
• ISBN-13: 978-0738850238
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,046,812 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable read, begs a full treatment for the subject, January 17, 2003

By	Mark Mills (Glen Rose, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Highly enjoyable, but a bit too light. I described it to my wife as the 'People Magazine history of Alexandria.' The focus is on celebrities, money, murders and sensations. Not an entirely bad place to spark an interest in this subject.

The 196 pages are divided up into 33 chapters. Each chapter covers 2 or 3 celebrities of Alexandrian history. That allows the author only about a page per luminary, so it has to move pretty quickly. The first hundred years (330 to 230 BC) get 90 pages. The next 200 get only 40 (230 BC to 30 AD). After that, there is little on the library itself, only the Alexandrian fin-de-siecle told as soap opera.

Of course, Flower's 'decline' story (30 to 642 AD) is the subject of some debate. Flower's write that the Caliph Umar used the following logic to justify burning the library's books: "If what is written in them agrees with the Book of God, they are not required; if it disagrees, they are not desired. Destroy them therefore,". The modern 'Bibliotheca Alexandrina' website asserts the Christians destroyed the library 200 years before the Muslims got there.

For a deeper look, see
The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World, Canfora
Pappus of Alexandria and the Mathematics of Late Antiquity, Cuomo
The Library of Alexandria: Centre of Learning in the Ancient World, Macleod

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Just O.K., January 4, 2003

By	Jorg H. Lueke (Oakdale, MN United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The book certainly covers a fascinating subject but really does not do it much justice. The new library project is interjected in a rather annoying way. The history of the timeline is summarized fairly well but many of the details are not footnoted and more than once of dubious scholarly merit. It's a decent read to get familiar with the subject but not as entertaining nor as accurate as it could be.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ancient History Lite, September 16, 2002

By	Paul Vitols (North Vancouver, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Pretty good scholarship and a breezy style mix uneasily in this treatment of a subject on which almost no reliable information exists.

33 chapters, foreword, and a preface by Mohsen Zahran, project manager for Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

Alexandria's library, founded early in the 3rd century B.C. by Ptolemy II, was almost as famous as its lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the World), but its appearance, size, and even location are unknown. This book, inspired by the current project to create a huge modern library in Alexandria, traces what little is known of the ancient library, and follows with about 30 short chapters describing the careers of various ancient scholars associated in one way or another with it. It reads as a kind of who's who of the late hellenistic and early Christian world.

Flower has a breezy, offhand style--reminiscent of James Burke in his "Connections" column for Scientific American (but without the connections). This can obscure the quality of his research, which seems to be, over all, quite good, if at times cut short as he speeds through the material. I say "seems" because it's not easy to be sure of Flower's authority, for, although there are many footnotes, they are generally used to make parenthetical comments rather than to note sources. There are certainly some errors. For example, in Caesar's Alexandrian war, Flower describes the eunuch Pothinus as "the Egyptian Prime Minister Ponthius".

For the short, light work it is, there is a lot of information, and some good nuggets. For example, despite a lifelong study of astrology, I didn't know that it was a geometer named Hypsicle and his book "On Ascensions" that provided the means for calculating time and degree of a zodiacal sign's rise on the ecliptic. There are quite a few of these tidbits strewn through the text.

This book provides some choice bits of information in a loose, cataloglike structure whose authority is not clear--rather like, say, a tourist brochure. I wouldn't want to rely on it as a source. However, if you're really interested in the library of Alexandria, then you should probably read it--there aren't a lot of other sources out there.

The book appears to be published through Xlibris, a self-publication "strategic partner" of Random House.