Montaigne was neither master of Science or Art, nor was he accomplished in Religeon or Politics in such a way as to be renowned through the ages. Though hardly a commoner by class, and well educated, he was essentially Joe Blow 16th century, writing not for Academic applause or controversy, but because it gave him pleasure and release (his works were, however, well received by many all over Europe). He was a philosopher as Schopenhauer defined it: examining the world around him as he saw it and defining it in relation to himself and how he acts within it, not preaching unattainable fancies that he does not live himself. Unwittingly (perhaps) Existential, this book shows that human nature is not what changes throughout the centuries - Montaignes observations of the world not being as alien as one would think 400 years ago plus would be. This book is an insight to the mind and world of a man in the renaissance, not a renaissance man. Well worth the read.

Galeras is a Colombian volcano within hiking distance of the Colombian town of Pasto. When it showed increased activity, several scientists were killed in a minor eruption that made headlines, and provoked controversy: mainly about whether or not the scientists' deaths could have been prevented.
Williams book is a well written personal account of the disaster and of William's life afterward, including his struggle with his injuries and his guilt over whether he could have better predicted and prevented the deaths.
For those interested in vulcanology, it would be a good introduction on what scientists do to monitor dangerous volcanos, and the very real risk that many of them take with little publicity to protect hundreds of thousands of lives of those people living within the shadow of these dangers.

I would always like to be near craters, drunk with fire, gas, my face burned by the heat. It's not that I flirt with my death, but at this point I don't care about it, because there is the pleasure of approaching the beast and not knowing what is going to catch you. -Katia Krafft, volcanologist

The main body of the pyroclastic flow hugged the Mizunashi, but a glowing ash cloud--reaching 840 degrees F--engulfed Maurice, Katia, Harry and the nearby journalists and drivers. The Kraffts, Glicken, and many of the journalists were killed in seconds, their lungs scorched and robbed of air by plugs of ash and mucous, their bodies flash-burned by the heat. -Stanley Williams and Fen Montaigne, Surviving Galeras

It's easy enough to see why this book set off a bidding war among publishers anxious to print what seems sure to be a bestseller. Stanley Williams is a volcanologist who in 1993 was nearly killed in an eruption on the slopes of the active volcano Galeras in Colombia, an event which did kill several of his fellow geologists and a few local sightseers. As Williams lay on the ground, one leg nearly severed and his skull fractured after being pelted by flying rubble, two female colleagues led the effort to rescue him. In addition to telling the story of his near death and rehabilitation, offers a fairly thorough look at the natural history of volcanoes, the history of volcanology, and the state of the science. Williams also warns of the potentially devastating impact that a major eruption might have, particularly because population pressures have moved large numbers of people into ever closer proximity to active volcanoes. It's a blend of rousing adventure and popular science that has become familiar in such books as The Perfect Storm, Longitude, Into Thin Air, Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea, The Last River, and many other recent books.

Surviving Galeras is at least as good as most of these rivals, in fact, the volcanology is interesting enough to make it worthwhile reading even without the obligatory "tragedy." I'm of the opinion that by now these self inflicted tragedies have worn themselves fairly thin. Stanley Williams estimates that there about 300 serious volcanologists in the world and in the past twenty one years (1979 to 2000) twenty three have been killed by volcanic activity. I've nothing like the background necessary to criticize the methods used by Williams and others, but of this I am certain, you could get most of the measurements that they are getting by walking around these craters if you used passive instrumentation or some kind of remote controlled devices. This is after all the approach used on the Moon and Mars and elsewhere. From what I gather, all they are really doing up there is measuring seismic activity, gravitational and magnetic forces, and the chemical composition of gas releases. It simply doesn't seem imperative that a geologist be squatting there with a vapor hood capturing fumes when a remote control car (obviously you'd have to do some reengineering on it; I'm aware that you couldn't just use one you picked up in the toy section at K-Mart) could do the job equally well and much more safely.

Instead, the strong suggestion given off by this book is that it is a matter of machismo and lifestyle for volcanologists to do their work on site. Thus, Williams says :

There are geologists, and then there are volcanologists. Only a few hundred scientists work on active volcanoes worldwide, and we share a strong esprit de corps. Within this community there are those who study dead volcanoes and those who climb on living volcanoes. My colleagues who've never set foot on an active volcano have made great contributions, but the best work, I believe, comes from those of us who walk into the crater.

Well, I suppose that could be true, but I bet there are perfectly competent geologists, who never leave the lab, who could just look at the measurements that are gathered from these sites and produce equally useful theories about what's going on. The real point of being a volcanologist seems to be entangled as much with the great field trips and the bravado of the work as with the underlying science. And that's fine, but it does take some of the edge off of the tragedy to realize that in a genuine sense it need not have happened, absent the scientists search for thrills.

This is a book to be enjoyed much more for the quite fascinating science and scientific history it contains than for the by now routine adventure tale, which is sure to be its major selling point on the book promotion circuit. As these stories pile on top of each other, and on top of us poor readers, I find myself losing patience with the folks who take these risks. Stanley Williams has a really interesting story to tell--and with the help of coauthor Fen Montaigne he tells it very well--but it's the story of volcanoes themselves, much more than it is the story of how he nearly got himself killed on the side of one.

GRADE : B-

A well written suspenseful account of the 1993 Galeras volcano eruption. A story that serves to remind us of the beauty & brevity of life. As a professor & geologist Stanley Williams is able to transport us from the lecture hall to the site of the events which would alter the lives of many. All of the people in this very honest rememberance are vividly portrayed and we are afforded the opportunity to see the passionate, driven individuals behind the label "scientist". Volconolgy is not for someone of weak character and everyone on Galeras that fateful day was there because of their desire for answers. Male, female, novice & expert were all in search of the secrets that volcanoes keep.

Williams has been to hell and lived to share his experience with us. Some would say that his trials have been of his own making. I contend that in the short time we have here it is better to live in the active pursuit of knowledge rather than being content with uninformed speculation.

A personal note to the "reviewer" that felt that women wouldn't like this book. I would like to remind you that the two heroes of this story...are woman. What's not to like?

Do not be misled. This is NOT Montaigne's autobiography. Montaigne did not write an autobiography. (Who did, before Rousseau, 200 years later? Besides St. Agustuine.) This book (originally published in 1935) is a cut-and-paste collection of passages from the "Essays," and from M's letters and diaries, notes, and journals, arranged AS IF constituting a deliberately composed autobiography. ("Aided by scissors, paste, and patience, I have let him retell his life story," the editor says.) Useful, I suppose, in getting some sense of the order of events in M's life. On the other hand, the book is not annotated, so you have no idea where any particular passage might have come from. Consequently, irritating, if you care anything about the original form and literary purpose of what Montaigne actually wrote.

This is an excellent book, so long as you understand what you are dealing with. While it is true that Montaigne did not write an autobiography (indeed this would have been unusual to say the least) he was most careful about his writing--for example he would not erase any passages or writings. Therefore, Montaigne's writings are a wealth of information about a man, and when put together carefully provide a good portrait of the man. Perhaps not technically an autobiography, nevertheless I think that Montaigne would have appreciated Lowenthal's effort.

The Apology which Montaigne wrote for the work of Raymond Sebond arose from his understanding of a book, Theologia Naturalis, written in an obscure form of Spanish, which Montaigne's father ("in the `last days' of his life") requested that Montaigne translate into French for the benefit of those who were engaged in the struggles of the Reformation, "a period of intellectual ferment and of religious and political disarray." (p. ix). Montaigne finished and dedicated his translation on the day of his father's death, 18 June 1568, when Montaigne was 35, married, and engaged in a legal position. The Apology does not identify which of its ideas were original with Sebond. There is no index, so I am unsure of how often the name Sebond appears in the text The Introduction on pages ix to xxxiii explains the circumstances and theology of the book philosophically, as understood at All Souls College, Oxford, on Easter 1986. The dedication and "Montaigne's translation and adaptation of the Prologus of Raymond Sebond" appear on pages xl to xliv. Those who have a complete edition of the ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE should be able to find the material in this book at II:12, though this book is clear in which portions appeared in 1580, 1582, 1588, or from the "text of the manuscript edition being prepared by Montaigne when he died, interpreted in the light of the posthumous editions." (p. xxxv).

On the doom or dumber question, we can find, "Philosophy in general agrees that there is an ultimate remedy to be prescribed for every kind of trouble: namely, ending our life if we find it intolerable." (p. 62). This is associated with, "As the Greeks said at their banquets: `Let him drink or be off! (Aut bibat, aut abeat!')~That is particularly apt if your pronounce Cicero's language like a Gascon, changing your `B's to `V's: Aut vivat ~ Let him live . . ." (p. 62). The long latin poems are provided with English translations in brackets, so it is possible to understand that a poem by Cicero ends with him worrying "lest you start to drink too much and find that pretty girls laugh at you and push you away." (pp. 62-3). This might be typical of philosophy, but Montaigne is capable of grasping more difficult situations. On learning, this work declares, "even our system of Law, they say, bases the truth of its justice upon legal fictions. Learning pays us in the coin of suppositions which she confesses she has invented herself." (p. 111). Civilization might be based on a belief that law is a better solution than suicide for every kind of trouble, but a lot of news is about people who have opted for some form of suicide or something worse. Our appreciation of knowledge about these things might be so small that this book will only appeal to those who might find it entertaining. People who can look back on life and realize that some of the best jokes that they ever heard were in latin ought to try reading this book, too.

If you haven't read Montaigne, you have to read him. Hell, he invented the essay. That's not at issue here. Which edition you choose, though, is. In general, I'm a big fan of the Dover Thrift Editions. They cover many classics of the canon, with competent if mildly antiquated translations, and--best of all--they're dirt cheap.

This short edition, a tiny selection of the essays of Michel de Montaigne, has many virtues, not the least of which is editor Philip Smith's excellent contribution in footnotes at the bottom of each page. Smith points to problems in the translation, updating it where necessary and remedying Montaigne's penchant for sprinkling Latin quotes here and there; all the Latin passages are translated and traced to their origins.

In addition, this volume does contain a couple of Montaigne's most durable essays, especially "Of Friendship" and "Of Repentance." Some choice ones are noticeably absent, though, and in particular Montaigne's hard look at the practice of colonizing the then-New World. Essays like "Of Cannibals" and "Of Coaches," which use an examination of native American cultures in order to critique the culture of Montaigne's own France, are far more popular (if not indispensible) today than they were in 1877, when the essays in this selection were originally chosen and translated. Those omissions, more than anything else, leave this Dover Edition feeling substantially dated and disappointingly incomplete.

Dover Editions are usually the best buy around, but for Montaigne's Essays, it's worth your while to spring for a more complete selection.