3 ms·

This article is a book review, so it seems what you are saying is you disagree with the author of the book, Cohen. As for your comments about Gibbon, I don't r

This article is a book review, so it seems what you are saying is you disagree with the author of the book, Cohen. As for your comments about Gibbon, I don't recall this review mentioning his sex life, unless you mean him getting reject for marriage? The main idea was that he was short, fat, and unappealing, what with his enlarged scrotum and such. As for why this might impact his history, it is said in this review: "And what about the poor fellow’s body and its sad infirmities? Cohen thinks (as Woolf did) that his unattractiveness provided Gibbon with an impenetrable cloak of irony. He learned to keep his emotional expectations in check, and this made him a cool analyst of religious zeal."

aestetix 4y ago
In my opinion the article seemed to agree with the book. So while I obviously disagree with the book, I also disagree with the book reviewer. And regarding the comment about how he kept emotions in check, are there other reasons he might have done so? David Hume also wrote a famous history book, how did the author compare Gibbon to Hume? And did Hume have similar sex issues? I don't want to know the answers to those questions, I am simply saying that I think the author of the book is allowing personal opinion to get in the way. Which is rather ironic, considering the topic at hand.