Beauty And The Beasties: How Cliftonian Artists Saved Humanity Through The Ages (Without Upsetting The Cliftonians Of Those Ages)
By National Icon and Hope Nazir Jr
A Random Penguin in a House Publishing
69pp

Reviewed by Cliftonia Ali

"Large nations do what they wish, while small nations accept what they must.” This is Thucydides, as quoted by Noam Chomsky in ‘Dominance and Its Dilemmas’, Boston Review, November 19, 2003. Adam Smith observed that “the government of an exclusive company of merchants is, perhaps, the worst of all governments for any country whatever.”

According to Plato, “Ruin comes when the trader, his heart uplifted by wealth, becomes ruler.” And lastly (but, certainly, not leastly), “You’ve got to fight for your right to party,” asserted the Beastie Boys.

It is easy to see the link between what these giants have said. Thucydides reminds us that, despite the passage of millennia, nothing has changed: size still matters. Chomsky shows us that Thucydides matters. For the Boston Review, Chomsky matters. For Adam Smith, the exclusive company of merchants in government matters, while Plato warns us against a wealthy trader as ruler.

It is only the Beastie Boys, however, who meld the gist of all these........

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