A Farewell to Reason

The last half century of the Western Roman Empire is retold through the eyes of its Empress, Galla Placida. The reader experiences her evolution from debutante to barbarian hostage, Goth Queen, Empress, exiled Augusta, regent and dowager. The story opens with the sacking of Rome by the Goths in 410 A.D. The morphology of Rome is detailed from the time of Hannibal through Romulus Augustulus' deposition marking the conclusive end of the Western Roman Empire in 476. Galla refuses to succumb to the proclivities of fate as she wrestles with moral conventions and the natural human urge to accumulate power. The lessons the protagonist learned from the precedent Republic and Empire become a thought-provoking process for the reader. Plato's denial of self-evident truths, as reinforced by the likes of Cicero, reminds us with stark clarity of the dangers we face today. Further, that insanity rules groups and is the stimulation that feeds the perils that threaten our present world. A Farewell to Reason compels us to ponder, ""What might we learn?"" Rome was unable to reverse its last downward spiral because reason was cast aside. Can we allow this to happen today?

About the Author :
Robert E. Englekirk was sired by a prominent scholar. Possessed by an inherited nomadic obsession, much of his childhood and youth were spent abroad. At Tulane University, an engineering curriculum was only allowed upon completion of a lettered background centered on literature and linguistics. Mathematics and history, however, soon dominated. Three years in Europe with the Air Force allowed a maturation that led to a Master's degree in Engineering and a PhD at UCLA. Determined to chart his own course, Bob founded an engineering firm dedicated to the creative design of structures. Fifty years later, this firm is a recognized expert in the rational design of earthquake-resistant structures. Produced structures include the Getty Center in Brentwood, the theater and complex that houses the Academy Awards, Horton Plaza in San Diego, and the tallest precast concrete-braced structure located in a region of high seismicity. Obsessed with the import of reason, Bob taught structural design as an Adjunct Professor at UCLA and UCSD for more than forty years. During that period, he produced four books advocating a reasoned approach to the design of structures. Yielding to the predilections of his father, Bob, along with his progeny annually regenerate themselves exploring every corner of the planet. Entranced by the history and cultural cycles experienced in Italy, he celebrated them in a book entitled Appreciating Italy. Also fascinated by the lessons that escaped the Western World, the application of reason to the lessons of history were explored and summarized in Dawn or Dusk, a novel that explores the proclivities of mankind. Bob and his wife, Natalie, live in the Pacific Palisades, where she works on her art, and he writes and pursues the application of reason.