Review of Elon Musk favorite book ‘Twelve Against the Gods’

I found an old copy of the book in 2016 through my
local library.
Áine
Cain

• William Bolitho’s “Twelve Against the Gods” was
  a bestseller when it was published in 1929.
• The book gained a second wave of
  attention in 2016, after Elon Musk gave it a shout-out.
• The non-fiction work tells the stories of 12 historical
  risk-takers.
• Back in 2016, it took me a month to get my hands on an old
  copy. It’s since been reprinted.

In July 2016, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk revealed that he was
reading a
largely forgotten 1929 bestseller: William Bolitho’s
“Twelve
Against the Gods.” 

The 89-year-old book delves into the lives of 12 famous — and
infamous — historical adventurers, malcontents, and
non-conformists.

Musk’s endorsement sparked a bit of a frenzied search for
copies of the out-of-print
non-fiction book. At one point, the work was listed on
Amazon for a not-at-all intimidating price of $575.

Well, just recently, “Twelve Against the Gods” was
re-released. History buffs can now purchase it on Amazon for $12.78.

“Twelve Against the Gods”
was my beach read.
Áine Cain/Business
Insider

But back in 2016, I didn’t have that option. I volunteered to
find and read “Twelve Against the Gods” because I like
history and old books. The epic title didn’t hurt either — to
me, “Twelve Against the Gods” sounds kind of like a Hellenistic
blockbuster.

I had to do quite a bit of digging before I could get my hands on
the rare text. Everywhere I looked online, “Twelve Against
the Gods” was either astronomically expensive or
unavailable. 

Just when I was beginning to suspect that the book itself might
not actually exist, it turned up in my local library system.

I was put on the waitlist and, about a month later, finally
obtained Bolitho’s account of the lives of 12 “wanderers.”

The copy I read was old, with a scuffed, dark red cover and
yellowing pages. (It’s got that sweet “old book” smell, too.) I
was careful to keep it away from the sand when I began to read it
on the beach one cold, windy weekend.

The book profiles the lives of unconventional historical figures

Each chapter paints a portrait of a historical figure that
smacked convention in the face through war, exploration,
political intrigue, romance, or all of the above. Subjects
include big names like Alexander the Great, Christopher Columbus,
Giacomo Casanova, the Prophet Muhammad,
Napoleon I, Isadora Duncan, and Woodrow Wilson, as well as
slightly less famous characters like Lola Montez, Alessandro
Cagliostro and Lorenza Seraphina Feliciani, Charles XII of
Sweden, Lucius Sergius Catilina (also known as Catiline), and
Napoleon III.

Beginning with Bolitho’s proto-adventurer Alexander the Great and
his destructive sweep eastward, each of “the twelve” follows a
similar, often tragic, arc. They display promise and make their
mark on history in a spectacular fashion, only to eventually
succumb to hubris or circumstances.

Bolitho considers
Alexander the Great to be one of the original
adventurers.
Áine Cain/Business
Insider

The biographies must have been considered pretty edgy at the
time. Bolitho shines the spotlight on his subjects’ often unusual
life choices and colorful antics, noting that true adventure is
“rarely chaste, or merciful, or even law abiding at all, and any
moral peptonizing, or sugaring, takes out the interest, with the
truth, of their lives.”

I especially enjoyed the chapters focusing on the less famous
figures. I had never even heard of Lola Montez, the mistress of a
Bavarian king who pushed for liberal reforms until she was forced
to flee Europe altogether; Cagliostro and Seraphina, a couple
known for everything from occult rituals to an infamous scandal
involving Marie Antoinette’s diamond necklace; or Charles XII of
Sweden, a “saint” of adventure who emulated Alexander the Great
and led an initially successful, but ultimately fatal, march on
Moscow.

Keep in mind, the book is often super dated, historically and
culturally problematic, and riddled with offensive and
cringeworthy nuggets (“with the woman-adventurer all is love or
hate … her adventure his man; her type is not the prospector,
but the courtesan” — yikes), but given its publication
date, none of that is exactly surprising.

Ultimately, one of the book’s most intriguing characters is
not one of the twelve.

Just like Musk, the book’s author had roots in South Africa.
Charles William Ryall — who went by “Bill” and later adopted the
pen name William Bolitho to avoid confusion with the sportswriter
George Ryall — was born in England. His father was a Baptist
minister who moved the family to Cape Town, South Africa when
Bolitho was young.

The author led an unconventional life himself

Fascinated by Bolitho, I called up China Ryall, Bolitho’s
daughter. He died when she was just two years old, but she has
spent years digging into her father’s legacy. 

He led a wild life, not unlike his adventuring subjects.

Ryall found that Bolitho originally wanted to follow in his
father’s pastoral footsteps, entering a seminary and becoming an
Anglican deacon as a young man. But history intervened, and
Bolitho enlisted to serve in WWI. The experience changed his
life.

“The legend is he went off to war and then sort of lost his
interest in God,” Ryall told Business Insider. “He saw all the
mayhem in the trenches.”

Bolitho was badly wounded and buried alive in the 1916
Battle of the Somme. He was taken to a hospital in Scotland to
recover where, according to Ryall, a group of poets befriended
him and encouraged him to become a writer. 

Like many of his 12, Bolitho didn’t have much time to savor his
success. Just a year after achieving enormous recognition with
“Twelve Against the Gods,” Bolitho died of appendicitis while in
France. He was only 39.

There’s still space in the world for adventurers to break new
ground

Ryall has a good idea of some of the present-day adventurers fit
to be added to a modern update of the book. Her first pick was
the man who kicked off the resurgence of interest in “Twelve
Against the Gods”: Elon Musk.

“All that he does with the rocketry and the tunnels under LA —
he’s always thinking about inventing things,” Ryall said. “And he
gets in trouble, as lately we know. He doesn’t lead quite a pure
life.”

Ryall also said that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who
Musk promised to take to the moon, and the late chef and
journalist Anthony Bourdain, would also qualify as adventurers.

All in all, “Twelve Against the Gods” provides an interesting
perspective on what drove and impeded this group of adventurers.
It’s a good read for anyone who’s interested in history or
looking to find some motivation to switch things up and break the
rules. Although, take everything with a grain of salt — don’t get
yourself so hyped up that you declare yourself a god and try to
conquer everything from Greece to India.

As is the case with many histories, the book often reveals more
about the author than its historical subjects. Bolitho was quite
a character himself, and might have become equally as famous as
some of his dozen adventurers had he lived. Taking some time to
read about his thoughts on promise, risk, and success is
definitely worthwhile.

“You have to read the books in the context of the times in which
they were written,” Ryall told Business Insider. “Some of the
perception is rather dated. But I think it’s also very
appropriate for this day and age. We need adventurers, and there
still are a lot of adventurers.”