Yet another attempt to install IE9 on my machine has failed. For a moment this morning it looked as if my attempt to do so had hopelessly corrupted my windows install. It always fails when restarting on “setting up personalized setting for browser customizations”. I don’t have any browser customisations — not intentional ones anyway — and I don’t want my “personalised settings” at this price. I disabled all the add-ons. But it is telling that attempting to reset IE8 to factory defaults hangs. I did try deinstalling IE8, but that didn’t help. All that … for a browser?
Meanwhile … this site is NOT banned in China! Which is good news.
The bill for photocopying Bar Hebraeus Chronicon Ecclesiasticum vol. 3 arrived this morning, ca. $50. I’ve paid it, but it is sobering to see how much it costs just to upload a couple of books. Vol. 3 is on Archive.org, by the way — but I hope to find the time to rescan the pages, because I think I can do better.
I’m reading a review copy of James Romm’s Ghost on the throne, which Random House sent me yesterday. It’s very readable and seems to be the sort of thing Michael Grant used to do. It’s done very well. A general reader who wants to know what happened after Alexander died will find it very useful. It is source-driven, thankfully. I approve! But I will do a post with a proper review in due course.
I’ve reached the point at which Alexander is dead and the Athenians are about to drive Aristotle out of the city as a friend of Macedon. The tactics used by the demagogues are uncommonly like those I have seen used on Wikipedia!
What I do miss, in the book, is the witty quips of the people under discussion, which appear in volumes like Paley’s Greek Wit. Dr Romm should be given a copy!
Oh, and the book cover is terrible. Worse than it appears on the website.