**spoiler alert** This is the go to book for understanding the slave trade.
It describes literally every issue regarding the slave trade with the cente**spoiler alert** This is the go to book for understanding the slave trade.
It describes literally every issue regarding the slave trade with the center position being the slave ship. The book describes how slave ships were being built in UK and USA , how they were fitted and retrofitted to stow , carry , comtain , feed , discipline , kill both slaves and sailors. We meet the actors : the slaves , the sailors , the captains ,and the ones that made everything possible , the merchants. It describes the africans , their socieites , relations and even testimonies on how they got kidnapped and forced to walk even 1000 miles from inside the continent to the sea. Getting on a slave ship for a black was "The point of no return" as none (besides some notable exceptions) would ever get back to their homeland.
How a voyage would go :
Basically you have one merchant that pays up to 300k usd (today money) builds a ship , finds a captain. The captain goes to the docks and fools some sailors or gets them out of jail in return for manning the ship.
The ship then is loaded with food , wine, rum, weapons and trade manufacuturing items to be traded for slaves in Africa.
The ship sails from UK to one of the 7 regions of Africa at the Atlantic (Senegambia, Windeard and Gold coast - Ghana today , Bight of Benin , Bight of Biafra - East Nigeria , Congo , Angola) . This is known as the Outward Passage
It stays on the coast for several months to gather slaves. (Waiting for black merchants/milititas to bring "war prisoners" as they would call them when in reality the people broughht were mostly kidnapped from their villages).
Slaves are mostly villagers that are kidnapped by other tribes and sold to european ships for rum and weapons.
When the ship is full it heads to Caraibbean or US colonies in the hardest part of the voyage known as the Middle Passage.
Upon reaching "the New World" slaves are sold and unloaded. The ship goes back to the UK in what was known as the Homeward Passage. The captain and the mates collects his pay and also stake, the remaining sailors drink their money in the next 3 weeks.
You basically get a triangular global trade. UK merchants and US ones fund the voyages. The ships bring the workforce from Africa to the plantations of cotton and sugar in US and Carraibbean. Many times the money from these pkantations goes into building new ships and nee voyages and you get a self-reinforcing circle.
During the voyage somewhere around 11% of the "cargo" perishes. A ship carries 1 slave per ton usually, and a medium sized ship has 200-300 tons.
Its needless to talk about the horrific lives of the negroes kidnapped in Africa.
What amazed me was how wretched the life of the common sailor was , many times worse than that of the slaves.
Sailors would be beaten to death and malnourshied and many times left to die on the Middle Passage just for the captaim to get their money.
This book is an enciclopedia of the slave trade in its heyday during the 18 century i would've given it 5 stars if the author didn't put so many stories and a little politically corectness here and there.
The fact is , the white man was not the only one that should be put to blame for this trsgedy. Blacks would enslave blacks and kidnap them for weapons , rum and manufacturing items, also arabs....its a collective fault....more
First 40% of this book is literally the history of the microchip, starting with the first transistor in late 50's designed by Shockley, tOutstanding !
First 40% of this book is literally the history of the microchip, starting with the first transistor in late 50's designed by Shockley, then mass produced in emerging companies like Texas Instruments and Fairchild initially for the Pentagon's guided missles used in Vietnam war then for general use.
We then hit the 60-70's when America outsources its production to Japan and loses its grip on memory chip DRAM technology. 3 engineers leave Fairchild and create Intel. In the 80's Intel loses market share to Japan which learned to integrate chips in consumer electronics (radios , walkman) via companies like Sony and Sharp.
Late 80's Intel gambles and leaves DRAM market and together with IBM and Bill Gates MSFT devise an alliance around IBM computers , running Windows OS , powered by Intel's x86 microchip architecture. This will dominate the next 30 years.
We also get to see how the smartphone arena changed the balance of pwoer from USA to Taiwan and how Intel refused to produce custom chips for the emerging Apple , thus throwing away a huge opportunity for divestment.
We get to understand the different types of chips (memory , logic and analog) and who specializes in what as well as the complex procedures required to.build a chip (design, production and assembly) and learn why everything now is centered around Taiwan's TSMC behemoth.
The transistor lessons are above par , as well as the complex machinery needed to build it nowadays via the process of litography , and why only Netherlands's ASML can do it (using no less then 460k parts ) including high precision lasers from Germany's Trumpf which in turn uses Carl Zeiss optics.
There are so many things explained regarding transistors , cpu's , memory , supply chains , the companies that design ,produce and consume (Intel, AMD, Nvidia, ARM, Micron , Huawei , Samsung , Apple) , world gonverments, USA trade war with China and the banning of Huawei....
This book is literally a compact enciclopedia involving topics such as history , electronics , science , politics , warfare and everything that has to do with microchips which is the new world's gold standard. Besides developers , and electronic nerds, people into tech and not only will find this book mind blowing !...more
**spoiler alert** There is no book i have read more penetrating both in depth and breadth on the internal workings of diplomacy, geopolitics and inter**spoiler alert** There is no book i have read more penetrating both in depth and breadth on the internal workings of diplomacy, geopolitics and international relations of the last 200 years like this one.
I knew Kissinger was a genius on foreign policy during Nixon's administration, but i didn't know he was such a world caliber historian.
The book starts explaining the difference between personal interest and the national interest and invokes the case of cardinal Richelieu during the 30 years war, who, despite being a staunch catholic, he departed from his beliefs and did whatever was necessary for his country's security , adopting a strategy known as "Raison d'etat" or national interest , playing his enemies between themselves.
The book covers most of the 19 century after Napoleon's defeat with all its crises , the perennial players : Austro Hungary , Ottomans, Germany (Prussia) , Russia , UK , Italy and the intricate web of relationships and reasoning behind their leaders. Special attention is given to the buildup of events which have led to world war I , buildup which started with the Crimean War dismantling Metternich's "concert of Europe", continuing with Italy reunification and the fatal year of 1870 when France was defeated at Sedan becoming a mortal enemy of the reunified Germany, seeking from then on to envelop the latter through an Alliance with Russia.
The book then moves to the 20 century covering the interesting parts of the pre WW1 dynamics of Europe , Germany's reemergence in the interwar period and then continues for the rest of the book with USA and USSR struggle during the cold war and the crises that have shaped american way of throught and as well as foreign relations. ( Berlin Blockade , Korea War , Vietnam , NATO and EU formation). Very thorough analysis of Teddy Roosevelt , Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan presidencies, the rise of China to world power , and the triangle Washington-Beijing-Moscow during the Brezhnev era , the fall of USSR during Gorbachev and Reagan's tenures.
Nowadays many people see Americans as stupid and naive in their decisons , but they just didn't have experience in foreign policy, and thus lacked flexibility during the last century. They learned like all great powers that any advantage evaporates in time and there can only be so much to be done until overextension and erosion .
Americans are witnessing now in the 2020's the same thing France had after Napoleon , Britain at the end of the XIX century and USSR in the late 80s , which is exhaustion and decay, something that for me looks irreversible....That is, the juice , the energy of a nation can't flow forever and it will be interesting to see how american idealism will have to shift to national interest, to stop caring about democracy worldwide and focus on domestic issues, how USA from a superpower will become one of the many nations of the world.
I would have loved an updated version on this book covering at least the 2010 and i would definetly wanted to know what Kissinger thinks of this multipolar world that is emerging, about new blocks like BRICS and the rise of African nations.
It is funny how France has been the arch enemy of a united Germany after the Franco-Prussian war and fought 2 world wars and even after to keep it in check, to in the end decide that its power projection and significance in the world stage would depend on its relationship with her eastern neighbour in the second part of the XX century and pursuing a policy of unification and consolidation of Europe (EU).
Its also interesting to think that North Korea might have not existed if America would press forward during the Korean war to the chinese border and would have incorporated Pyongyang. We would have no Kim Jong Un now. America stopped right before xomplete victory due to fear of a Soviet intervention (which was the last thing Stalin wanted).
Same thing happened in Vietnam war, America having a phase of idealism and global interventionalism followed by its own doubts and stalemating and crumbling on itself.
Super, collosal, hollistic undertaking. A must read for anyone interested in why countries act in ways that look unreasonable and how foreign policy is dictated....more
**spoiler alert** Steinbeck ne poarta dintr-un capat al Americii (New York) pana la Pacific (California) intr-o calatorie cu dubita impreuna cu cainel**spoiler alert** Steinbeck ne poarta dintr-un capat al Americii (New York) pana la Pacific (California) intr-o calatorie cu dubita impreuna cu cainele sau batran. E ca si cum as fi citit un roman al lui Tolkien in care Pamantul de Mijloc este SUA anilor 1960 iar orcii , elfii , si diferitele semintii de oameni sunt tacutii din Maine, pasnicii din Nebraska , ardentii Texani , rasistii din Louisiana.
Cartea are deosebit de multe momente de contemplare asupra vietii, a modului de trai american , a existentei si foarte multe dialoguri amuzante dar pline de povete cu cainele insotitor Charlie.
Cel mai mult m-au impresionat momentele de oprire la marginea drumului si contemplare asupra unui naturii si a vietii , asupra directiei in care se indreapta lumea.
Steinbeck asta chiar a reusit sa prevada in anii 1960 crizele si chestiunile ce provoaca tensiuni din zilele noastre.
Am apreciat ca in roman a intrat si drumul inapoi catre New York , drum identic dar in sens invers, parcurs de eroii din romanul sau Fructele Maniei in goana lor catre bogatiile Californiei mergand din Oklahoma prin coada de castron a Texasului , New Mexico , Arizona.
Am apreciat si faptul ca a aruncat lumina asupra inceputurilor tensiunilor rasiale , din statele sudiste din anii 60 atunci cand miscarea lui MLK era inca in pruncie.
As fi dat 4 stele dar au fost momente cand m-am plictisit , cum ar fi descrierea copacilor de tip Sequoia.
Per total o lectura foarte buna de aventura si viata , ce ar fi putut fi si mai buna daca ar fi fost oleaca mai scurta....more
**spoiler alert** Brilliant and definetly unique ! This is the first time in my life i read a book of this kind , where the main character is actually**spoiler alert** Brilliant and definetly unique ! This is the first time in my life i read a book of this kind , where the main character is actually an entire regiment of soldiers , The US Ranger Task Force along with elements of Delta Force (D-boys as they are known) , while the narrative moves from one member to another ,100 souls , as they battle their way throughout Mogadishu against thousands of Somali militias ,literally, with the whole city trying to destroy them. I felt like i was playing a First Person Shooting game , jumping from character to character in a 3d battlefied as RPG's , grenades , people were getting blasted , wounded , killed , helicopters crashed , convoy's ambushed and crowds of bystandera shredded.
Probably the thing of most value and the most dramatic is that the narrator is totally objective , all the dialogues , the scenes , the events presented as they unfold during a 24 hour fight are taken from soldiers recollections and more inportantly radio tapes and video tapes attached to the choppers. The author during a multi year tenure has assembled all available recorded material, fact checked it and delivered it in such a deliberate clear and clean manner !
A totally original view on war, gore , death, weaponry , strategy , private lives of soldiers , their hobbies , families and even more importantly their relationship with each other and the regiment but without all that romantic tv bullshit , literal effects or beautfying attempts.Its the story exactly as it happened !
Mark Bowden does not interfere in this story , he tells it as it was captured !
Definetly a book that deserves reading ! I warn you though , once started , pages will fly !...more
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