Ferdinand Mount BIG CAESARS AND LITTLE CAESARS: How they rise and how they fall – from Julius Caesar to Boris Johnson
Bloomsbury 2023 ISBN: HB: 978-1-3994-071-1; eBook: 978-1-3994-0973-5

This is an easy read of 304 pages including Notes and Index. Highly recommended.
In the PROLOGUE, Mount explains how he has structured the book and his thesis.
PART 1 THE IDEA OF A CAESAR
PART II THE MAKING OF CAESARS
PART III THE UNMAKING OF CAESARS
PART IV THE SACREDEST PLACE
Many of his Caesars appear more than once and you will have some knowledge of most. You may, like me, having read the section on Indira Gandhi, get an entirely different picture of a Caesar. Others who figure prominently are, Oliver Cromwell, Charles I, Augustus, Napoleons I and III, Adolph Hitler, Charles de Gaulle and Donald Trump.
Plots that failed are the Cataline Conspiracy, Gunpowder Plot, Cato Street Conspiracy and The Beer Hall Putsch.
Chapter 8 The Art of Noble Lying is my favourite. They all lied.
Paul Etheredge

Robert D. Kaplan THE LOOM OF TIME: Between Empire and Anarchy from the Mediterranean to China
Random House New York 2023 HB ISBN 9780593242797

Reviews of this book in the New York journal of books and TLS Times Literary Supplement are of value for critique and coverage of content.
I recommend the book for its analysis of the geographical and cultural history of the area, the present condition of the states and the impact of European and USA imperialism. That helps explain why stable peaceable solutions to the current problems are unlikely or impossible. I reject Kaplan’s suggested solutions as unrealistic but can’t offer feasible alternatives.
Paul Etheredge