![]() ![]() ![]() This strategy backfired, creating new economic and social divisions. Attempting to protect the Roman Empire from the German barbarians, for example, he gave land to these foreign tribes. , letters with his tutor and other ancient sources of disputed authenticity, McLynn ploddingly narrates Aurelius' rise to emperor in 161 C.E.-a role to which he was, McLynn acknowledges, temperamentally unsuited-and the challenges he faced, mostly unsuccessfully, during his 19-year reign. But McLynn fails to make his case in a book that veers between biography and a defense of an emperor more famous for his words than for his actions. McLynn, author of biographies of figures from Napoleon to Jung, argues that the emperor and Stoic philosopher satisfies a thirst for guidance that modern philosophers have largely abandoned. ![]() Bush was no Marcus Aurelius, while Bill Clinton claimed that he read and reread Aurelius' MeditationsĪs president. ![]()
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