Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Book Review: Attila The Hun and Funny Japanese Advertisements


Book Review: Attila The Hun

As known from my previous blog posts, I would pick up the occasional historical book about epic heroes and villains to read about how they had shaped the world that we have come to know of.

Recently, I just finished reading Attila The Hun by Marilyn Tower Oliver (published by Lucent Books in 2005). It's about Attila, a very powerful and savage king of the Hunnic tribes believed from Mongolia around 450 AD. Attila, was born in a culture of warfare and brutality and subsequently became a leader of the Hunnic tribes through patience, cunning and proven skill on both the battlefields and the diplomatic negotiations. Finally uniting the loose alliance of Hunnic tribes into a formidable army of highly-skilled Hunnic cavalry and infantry, Attila unleashed hell upon many opponents during his eight years' reign as leader of the Huns.

He was considered a extremely dangerous threat and arch-nemesis of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires because his military exploits often ended with the burning of cities, massive bloodbaths, mutilation of captives' body parts and enslavement of captives. Yet, Attila also kept his opponents confused with alternating threats of wars and peace, demanding huge tributes of gold and silver from both Roman Empires.

Although there were many interpretations of Attila by the ancient Roman and Greek historians as a barbaric and bloodthirsty king (there was no known written Hunnic language), he was also feared by many religious scholars then as The Scourge of God who supposedly cleansed the lands of Christianity of those who were not pious enough, and revered by the Hunnic tribes as a god descended to aid the Hunnic people to greater power and prosperity. The handful few who successfully stood against Attila were subsequently honoured as saviours of civilization and humanity where some even became patron saints.

Attila died a sudden and mysterious death during one of his many weddings when he was found with fatal internal bleeding from his nose, which was attributed to his excessive consumption of alcohol during the previous night's celebrations. He left a huge legacy of fear and respect through plunder and pillage for many Romans, Greeks and barbarian tribes then and was regarded as one of the top five villains in the history of mankind even till today.



Funny Japanese Advertisements:

Here's some humorous advertisements to lighten up my blog and my readers' day. I usually don't surf Youtube for such advertisements but at the recommendations of one of my students, whom I shall henceforth codenamed as The Yearning Tablet, I decided to put up two of what I considered to be really amusing advertisements. Have fun laughing! ^__^






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