The Pervert’s Guide to Philosophy

Doctoral dissertations usually don’t make for interesting reading. They tend to be narrowly focused, tailored to appeal to a committee of three or four people, and often include mistakes that render them irredeemable—I should know; I defended one last summer. But Costin Alamariu, in acknowledgment of being “outed” as the pseudonymous Internet personality known as Bronze Age Pervert, has self-published his doctoral dissertation, and to a wide readership. When I first drafted this review, it was the fourth best-selling book on Amazon in the categories of political philosophy and ancient Greek history, in both cases right behind Plato’s Republic. Submitted nearly a decade ago to Yale’s political science department, Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy mystified Alamariu’s advisors and failed to secure him long-term employment in a university. Now it is being consumed voraciously by his legions of online followers and critics.