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B01BAZXZQY
| 3.86
| 217
| Oct 18, 2016
| Jan 24, 2017
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liked it
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"Amazing Stories of the Space Age is about the most mysterious and intriguing episodes of the history of space exploration—its undercover projects, gr
"Amazing Stories of the Space Age is about the most mysterious and intriguing episodes of the history of space exploration—its undercover projects, grandiose dreams, odd spinoffs, and muffled dramas..." I enjoyed Amazing Stories of the Space Age; for the most part. It was a decent look into the topic. Author Rod Pyle is an American writer, journalist, public speaker, and former television producer and educator who concentrates on subjects regarding spaceflight. Rod Pyle : [image] Pyle has a good writing style that I found to be fairly engaging. He covers the material here in a straightforward, no-frills manner that I felt worked. As the book's title hints at, the writing here examines many different episodes - some classified, others not - from the space race. Both Russian and American technologies are discussed. The contents of the book proper covers: • Nazis in Space: Project Silverbird • Red Moon: Countering the Communist Threat on Earth and in Space • Das Marsprojekt: Red Planet Armada • Project Orion: We Come in Peace (With Nuclear Bombs!) • LUNEX: Earth in the Crosshairs • The Wheel: An Inflatable Space Station • Venusian Empire: NASA's Mars/Venus Flyby Adventure • Blue Gemini: Weaponizing Orbit • Flirting with Death: The Terrifying Flight of Gemini 8 • Manned Orbiting Laboratory: How to Design, Test, and Never Fly a Space Program • Apollo 11: Danger on the Moon • The First Space Shuttle: Project Dyna-Soar • Beyond the Edge of Space: The X-15B • The Sad, Strange Tale of Soyuz 1 • The Turtlenauts • Falling to Earth: The Dangerous Science of Reentry • Funeral for a Viking: The End of Viking 1 • Saving Skylab: Cowboys in Space • Near Misses: Danger Stalks the Space Shuttle • Showdown in Space: Firearms on the Moon • Buran: The Soviet Union's One-Flight Wonder • Major Matt Mason: A Man for the New Space Age ****************** While this was a very well-researched book, it was not really the gripping page-turner I hoped for... I am very picky about how readable my books are, so I have to take a few stars off. Your mileage may vary, however, so don't let my review dissuade you from reading this one. 3 stars. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Aug 23, 2024
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Aug 27, 2024
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Aug 22, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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1648210864
| 9781648210860
| B0CX9BTG1S
| 4.21
| 242
| unknown
| Jul 09, 2024
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really liked it
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"This is not a book about communist ideology. You’ve read those. This is a book about the communist reality—and how to tell when it’s coming to a soci
"This is not a book about communist ideology. You’ve read those. This is a book about the communist reality—and how to tell when it’s coming to a society near you..." Unhumans was a good book, but the formatting was a bit jumbled at times, and I felt that the overall message here could have been conveyed without so much editorializing. More below. Author Jack Posobiec is a graduate of Temple University and a former Naval Intelligence Officer. He was deployed to Guantanamo Naval Base for ten months in 2012 and is fluent in Mandarin. Joshua Lisec is a writer with over eighty books to his credit. Together, Jack and Joshua unwrap a dazzling yet dire history of Communism’s impact on humanity across the globe. From the Russian Revolution to the true story of the Spanish Civil War, they describe and explain the 1950s emergence of Cultural Marxism in the United States, and its current resurgence. Jack Posobiec: [image] As the book's frank title indicates, the writing style here is very pointed and opinionated. While the prose is definitely very engaging and readable, I felt that a lot of the commentary was redundant. The book opens with a decent foreword by Steve Bannon. The quote from the start of this review continues: "...History does not repeat, but it rhymes. For as long as there have been beauty and truth, love and life, there have also been the ugly liars who hate and kill. This is the way of things in all things. There is light and there is dark. Always has been. Always will be. Civilization is the superstructure built on law and order that keeps the petty, the resentful, and the cruel away from the rest of us. Some societies have been better at this than others. Those who fail at repelling the repulsive fall to unhumanity—to a state of affairs in which human thriving is impossible and surviving improbable." The book's title is a reference to the barbaric - inhuman - nature of Socialism/Communism. Consuming roughly 100 million lives in ~100 years, this disastrous ~200-year social experiment is the worst man-made catastrophe in history. But still, somehow, you will find many useful idiots in academia, the media class, authors, commentators, and assorted pundits who advocate for it. I've always found it paradoxical that anyone in these arenas calling themselves a fascist would be run out of town by mobs of angry people, but being a socialist is considered interesting and "cool..." The authors drop this quote; speaking to the nature of the leftist threat, and its long history: "The authors argue that it is humanity itself currently under threat. They unwrap the history of Communism, a dehumanizing philosophy of oppression, of denial of human rights and nihilism. In this short bit of writing, they tell the reader what the book will cover: "While academic and reference titles explore the motives and agenda of household-name leaders during each left-wing upheaval, this book will give you on-the-ground descriptions of what it’s really like to witness (and fight) communist forces of change. We have recast the story of communism as individuals against individuals, as real people, to reveal how and why neighbors turn against neighbors. Why even yours might, against you. Along the way, we will reintroduce you to the household names of history, but in a way you’ve never seen before—we will tell their true stories. Unfortunately, and as touched on above; their tone here was not really measured. Although I, too have a great personal disdain for the ideology of communism, I feel that the book should have stuck more to just telling its story. There are many passages of commentary tossed in here, and I didn't feel like they added to the book. For example, the authors say "THIS is what they do." about 200x in the book. It got irritating. I'm sure that the average reader is able to draw patterns out of the writing here and come to that conclusion themselves... I also was not particularly fond of the formatting of the book. I felt that it jumped around way too much, losing narrative continuity and frustrating the reader (well, this reader, anyhow...) On a positive note; many of the most important socialist uprisings are briefly covered here, along with some other tangentially-related topics. Among them: • The death of George Floyd • The death of Michael Brown • The media persecution of Nicholas Sandmann • Historical case studies: France, Haiti, Russia, Spain, China • The Civil Rights movements of the 1960s • Cultural Marxism • Joseph MacCarthy; his name turned into a pejorative • Marxist propaganda infiltrating Hollywood • The Cuban Revolution (1953–1959) • Marxist Chile (1970–1973) • A Long Red Night in Nicaragua (1978–1990) • The Afghan-Soviet War (1979–1989) • Rhodesia House Blues • “Kill the Boer”: New Apartheid in South Africa • Three Ways to Crush the Revolution, Revisited ****************** Unhumans was a still a decent look into the history of socialist revolutions and their tactics. It is also a sobering look into the far-left's creeping power into all aspects of Western life. I would recommend it to anyone interested. 3.5 stars. ...more |
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Jul 18, 2024
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Jul 23, 2024
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Jul 17, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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B0CV653D5R
| 3.65
| 74
| unknown
| Feb 29, 2024
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really liked it
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Deputy Mayor Putin was a well-done short presentation. It is an audiobook, so I won't include any quotes from the book, as my reviews usually have. The Deputy Mayor Putin was a well-done short presentation. It is an audiobook, so I won't include any quotes from the book, as my reviews usually have. The book follows the unlikely rise of Vladimir Putin, from relative obscurity in the ranks of the KGB, to becoming the most powerful man in Russia. The author mentions that Putin contemplated driving a taxi in the 90s after the KGB wasn't paying him. In Soviet times, the workers pretended to work, and the government pretended to pay them. I felt that the audio presentation worked here. The narration was nicely done, and the book includes quotes from many authors, pundits, and commentators. There was lots of content from Putin: His Life and Times author Philip Short. The formatting of the book is broken into 8 parts, following a chronological trajectory. Fortunately, its short length means that a lot of the filler that typically accompanies longer books was left out. Somewhat counterintuitively - I typically find that I get more from shorter books than I do from longer ones. Often longer books tend to drown the reader in a sea of minutia; effectively losing the forest for the trees... ****************** I enjoyed this short audiobook. I would recommend it to anyone interested. 4 stars. ...more |
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1
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Jul 12, 2024
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Jul 16, 2024
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Jul 12, 2024
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Audible Audio
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9798786512886
| B09NR9NTMJ
| 4.38
| 8
| unknown
| Dec 17, 2021
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it was amazing
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“What if the enemy should get the atomic bomb before we did! We could not run the mortal risk of being outstripped in this awful sphere.” – Winston Ch
“What if the enemy should get the atomic bomb before we did! We could not run the mortal risk of being outstripped in this awful sphere.” – Winston Churchill The Race for Nuclear Weapons during World War II was a decent look into the topic. I have read a few books from Charles River Editors, and have generally enjoyed the content they produce. The quote from the start of this review continues: "Before the Second World War, military conflicts were fought under orthodox conditions, usually termed “conventional warfare,” but several innovations had significantly changed combat, leading inextricably to the race for a nuclear weapon in the 1930s and 1940s. Conflicts had been fought by armies on horseback with guns of varying sophistication since the 16th century, but mechanized warfare and machine guns changed this calculus and set the stage for future combat by the end of World War I. Other sinister changes entered the fray during this conflict, such as chemical weapons like chlorine and mustard gas. The total warfare brought about by World War I and ensuing wars like the Spanish Civil War made the quest for the most powerful weapons somewhat necessary." The overall presentation of this one was well done. As the title implies, the authors cover the global efforts toward achieving a nuclear bomb. The successful American efforts, as well as the unsuccessful efforts of both Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. Although the writing here was well done, the narrator of the audiobook that I have mispronounced many commonplace words. Off the top of my head, he says: "W, W 2" instead of "World War 2," and unbelievably says "rap-ing," instead of "rape-ing," Has the narrator never heard of rape?? (Minor gripes, for sure, but a bit odd.) ****************** The Race for Nuclear Weapons during World War II was still a very decent short read. I would recommend it to anyone interested. 5 stars. ...more |
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1
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Jul 09, 2024
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Jul 10, 2024
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Jul 05, 2024
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Paperback
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1541605047
| 9781541605046
| 1541605047
| 4.01
| 122
| unknown
| May 14, 2024
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did not like it
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"In another time, Washington and Beijing would have been able to dial the tension down. But June 2023 belongs to a different age..." The Struggle for T "In another time, Washington and Beijing would have been able to dial the tension down. But June 2023 belongs to a different age..." The Struggle for Taiwan is a timely and important book, but the writing here bored me to tears... Author Sulmaan Wasif Khan is Assistant Professor of International History and Chinese Foreign Relations at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He also directs the Water and Oceans program at the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy (CIERP). Sulmaan Wasif Khan: [image] As mentioned above; the geopolitical struggle for Taiwan is a pressing matter. Tensions between the United States and China over the small island have gradually been escalating since the Communists won the Chinese Civil War in 1949.. Unfortunately, the telling of this interesting history fell far short for me here. Broadly speaking - history books break into two distinct categories. Some find the most exciting and memorable episodes and characters, and unfold the story around a cohesive plot, ensuring the reader stays engaged. Others rattle off a virtual non-stop torrent of names, dates, and places. Over and over again. Rinse and repeat - until the reader becomes frustrated. Sadly, this book was an example of the former, and not the latter. My reviews are always very heavily weighted towards how readable I find the book, and sadly that will see this one penalized fairly harshly... The author drops this quote, outlining the aim of the book: "This book, therefore, seeks to provide a comprehensive account of that relationship over the last eight decades. The story begins in 1943, when the Cairo Declaration first held forth the idea that Taiwan would be part of a Chinese state; it ends with the elections in a democratic, practically independent Taiwan in 2024. I could not have attempted such a survey without the excellent work that others have done on various aspects of those relations, though I have also benefited from primary sources from all three sides.7 There are, to be sure, inevitable gaps in the record. But there is enough material around to guide us along the paths that brought the three countries to their present moment—and thereby, perhaps, to show where they might go in the future..." ****************** Although the book presents a factual telling of this important topic, the writing here was way too long-winded and tedious for my picky tastes. I put the book down midway, which is something I rarely do. I would not recommend it. 1 star. ...more |
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1
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Jul 02, 2024
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Jul 05, 2024
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Jul 02, 2024
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Hardcover
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0520253337
| 9780520253339
| 0520253337
| 3.91
| 1,248
| unknown
| Mar 25, 2008
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it was amazing
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"My first thought, I remember clearly, was: “This can’t be happening.” Once I registered that it was indeed happening, my second thought was simple: “
"My first thought, I remember clearly, was: “This can’t be happening.” Once I registered that it was indeed happening, my second thought was simple: “I’m toast.” The Reluctant Communist was a great telling of an incredible real-life saga. The author drops the quote above early on. Author Charles Robert Jenkins (18 February 1940 – 11 December 2017) was a United States Army deserter, North Korean prisoner, and voice for Japanese abductees in North Korea. Charles Robert Jenkins: [image] The book's introduction was written by Jim Frederick. Fredrick describes the process of meeting and interviewing Jenkins for the material in the book. The writing in the book proper is told in a style akin to how Jenkins speaks; says Fredrick. I felt that this formatting worked here. Fredrick says this about Jenkins: "Charles Robert Jenkins is, quite simply, a figure of lasting historical importance. He has lived a life that’s unique in twentiethcentury history. No other Westerner has survived so long in the world’s least known, least visited, and least understood country on the planet and been able to return to tell the tale. And what he has to say is vitally important: Is there any country in the world harder to get a handle on than North Korea? And while there are certainly rivals when it comes to the intensity of American diplomatic bungling, has any country been a U.S. foreign relations debacle so consistently for so many years? While native North Korean defectors and escapees from its gulags have made some horrors of that nation known to the world, Jenkins is the first Westerner able to provide a long-term, detailed view of this secretive and brutal society from the perspective of an outsider who became intimately familiar with its inner workings. I do not profess to know much about North Korea, but I’m confident Charles Robert Jenkins knows more about it than just about any foreigner on the planet." And this of the strange Hermit Kingdom: "The curtain Robert draws back on the mundane, relentless, dehumanizing operation of the North Korean state—its wastes of money and labor on domestic spying rather than economic output, its language-debasing doublespeak, its interference in the most intimate details of its residents’ lives—helps demonstrate how insidious and debilitating, bizarre and oppressive the country is. The story of Robert’s life was more difficult to tell since it did not reach either extreme of the sensationalism spectrum. He is neither a villain nor a hero, just a man trying to cope with the guilt of a horrible mistake while eking out an existence in a country unimaginably strange and hostile. But I hope that this attention to the quotidian, this focus on the struggle of everyday life, has produced a more nuanced and valuable contribution to our understanding of North Korea." I will keep any plot details out of this review, to avoid giving away any spoilers, but the story told here was pretty incredible. As the book's title tells you, he would spend 40 years imprisoned in North Korea. For anyone interested, this article sums up the events of the book well. ****************** I really enjoyed The Reluctant Communist. It was a fascinating glimpse into some of the workings of the world's most secretive country. I would recommend it to anyone interested. 5 stars. ...more |
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1
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Jun 14, 2024
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Jun 17, 2024
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Jun 12, 2024
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Hardcover
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1541742486
| 9781541742482
| 1541742486
| 4.12
| 5,234
| Jun 11, 2019
| Jun 11, 2019
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really liked it
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"...As we took off, Andersen told me he was curious to see what North Korea was really like, to get past the clichés of the American media. I didn’t h
"...As we took off, Andersen told me he was curious to see what North Korea was really like, to get past the clichés of the American media. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was flying into a charade crafted over decades specifically to make sure no visitor could see what North Korea was really like, that he would not have one unplanned encounter or one ordinary meal." The Great Successor was an interesting look into the most secretive country in the world. Officially named "The Democratic People's Republic of North Korea" (or "DPRK" from here on), you couldn't cram more irony into a single sentence if you tried... Author Anna Fifield is the Asia-Pacific editor at The Washington Post. Previously she was the editor of The Dominion Post based in Wellington, New Zealand and the Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post where she focused her attention on news and issues of Japan, North Korea, and South Korea. She has been to North Korea a dozen times. Anna Fifield: [image] The author writes with a fairly decent style here that shouldn't struggle to hold the finicky reader's attention. She also narrated the audiobook version I have, and she did a great job. The formatting was also well done. As mentioned above, the author has traveled to North Korea a dozen times. She draws on these visits for the writing in the book. She also met with many people close to Kim Jun Un to compile the material here. In this short bit of writing, she talks about the transformative period after the death of Kim Jong-il, and the ascension of Kim Jong Un: "From nearby Seoul to faraway Washington, DC, many government officials and analysts boldly predicted—sometime in whispers, sometimes in shouts—widespread instability, a mass exodus into China, a military coup, imminent collapse. Behind all the doom mongering was one shared thought: surely this regime couldn’t survive the transition to a third totalitarian leader called Kim, much less to a twentysomething who’d been educated at fancy European schools and had an obsession about the Chicago Bulls—a young man with no known military or government background..." Some more of what the author covers here includes: • The execution of Jang Song-thaek • Friendship with Dennis Rodman • The 2014 malware attack on Sony • Otto Warmbier; his trial, imprisonment, and death • Kim Jong-nam; his assassination in Kuala Lumpur • Forged American currency; "Superdollars" • Kim Jong Chol, the leader’s older, full brother • The DPRK's acquisition of a hydrogen bomb • The relationship between Kim Jung Un and Donald Trump; Twitter war • Kim Yo Jong; Kim Jong Un's younger sister ****************** I enjoyed The Great Successor. The author did a great job in the research and overall presentation of the book. I would recommend it to anyone interested. 4 stars. ...more |
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1
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Jun 17, 2024
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Jun 21, 2024
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Jun 11, 2024
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Hardcover
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1419727613
| 9781419727610
| 1419727613
| 4.31
| 5,916
| Sep 13, 2016
| Oct 17, 2017
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it was amazing
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"North Korea is indeed a Hermit Kingdom: a true-to-life dystopian nation. It’s against this backdrop that my story takes place..." Wow, what a story! It "North Korea is indeed a Hermit Kingdom: a true-to-life dystopian nation. It’s against this backdrop that my story takes place..." Wow, what a story! It's not often for me that a book absolutely knocks my socks off, and leaves me wanting more, but Every Falling Star did just that. It is an incredible story of a wild real-life saga. Author Sungju Lee speaks across Europe, Asia, and North America about his experiences and about North Korean political social issues. He lives in South Korea. Sungju Lee: [image] The author has a great writing style, and the tone and pace of the book are akin to a Hollywood thriller. Born in the ironically named "Democratic People's Republic of Korea," or "DPRK," the author lived a relatively good childhood in the capital city of Pyongyang. After Kim Il-Sung's death in 1994, their family was forced out of Pyongyang to live in the north-western town of Gyeong-Seong, where they moved into a tiny, unheated house. To cover too much more of the story would be giving away the plot, so I'll keep it tight to avoid spoiling the book. The writing here drives home the unfathomable harsh reality of everyday life in the Communist Utopian social experiment that is the DPRK. Long known as "The Hermit Kingdom" for its secrecy, the government of the DPRK has committed (and still commits) human rights violations on a wholesale level. Every young, mindless useful idiot who simps for socialism should be made to live for a year in the DPRK, to see what life in a communist country looks like in practice. Sungju Lee talks about the local markets he frequented, and how commonplace death was: "Death was all around us. We’d enter the market in the mornings to find women wailing and rocking in their arms children who had died during the night. As we plunged deep into the merchants’ stalls, we found the corpses of old men and women, mouths still agape as if, in their final moments, they wanted to say something, their eyes staring out, pleading with us to hear them. I always thought the place after death was peaceful. It was how my eomeoni had described it. But what I saw on the faces of the dead was anything but. It was as if they had got stuck looking at and feeling all their grief and pain..." I am going to include a brief summary of the incredible events of this book here, mostly for my own future reference. I'll cover it with a spoiler to avoid giving anything away. This article from The BBC also gives a decent summary: (view spoiler)[ * The family did not receive food rations in Gyeong-Seong, so the father left for China. He doesn't return. * Shortly after, his mother leaves to visit his aunt in search for food. He is left on his own when his mother doesn't return. * Starving, he goes to visit his schoolmate, Young-bum, who is living with a sick and dying grandmother. Young-bum's grandmother dies of starvation and tuberculosis. * He becomes a "kotjebi," and forms a gang with 6 other young boys. * They travel around to many different markets and have to fight other kotjebi for the right to steal from the market. * After a vicious fight, one of their gang is killed. * They travel to the collective farms to steal food. Young-bum is caught by the guards and beaten to death. * They decide to travel back to Gyeong-Seong to see if their families had returned. * He finds his grandfather at the train station selling medicines. * He lives with his grandfather and grandmother tending to their crops and livestock. * One day a man comes with a note from his father from China, asking him to go see his father. * The man is a human smuggler, who takes him by plane, with a forged passport to South Korea. (hide spoiler)] ****************** Every Falling Star was an incredibly well-done book. The entire presentation was top-tier. I would definitely recommend this one to anyone interested. 5 stars, and a spot on my "favorites" shelf. ...more |
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1
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Jun 10, 2024
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Jun 13, 2024
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Jun 10, 2024
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B00CKXEAB0
| 3.82
| 280
| 1998
| Jan 12, 2012
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it was ok
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"Since 1970, when it was plunged into the Indochina War, which had begun with the Vietnamese rising against French colonial rule and lasted until the
"Since 1970, when it was plunged into the Indochina War, which had begun with the Vietnamese rising against French colonial rule and lasted until the Communist victories in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in 1975, Cambodia has suffered the worst that this callous century has devised..." Despite Cambodia fielding some important historical material, I did not enjoy the overall presentation. More below. Author Henry Kamm was a German-born American correspondent for The New York Times. He reported for the Times from Southeast Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Henry Kamm: [image] The book opens with a preface that was a bit flat and slow. This proved to be a harbinger of the writing to follow. I am very particular about how readable my books are, and this one missed the mark for me here. The quote from the start of this review continues: "...It struggled through five years of bloody civil conflict with the destructive intervention of bellicose foreign powers, four years of a genocidal revolutionary regime, then liberation through invasion and a decade of military occupation by Vietnam, a hated and feared big neighbor, and throughout these years unceasing internecine warfare on its soil, continuing to this day." The author lays out the scope of the book in this quote: "What follows is an attempt to retrace the events of nearly three decades as seen by a reporter who was granted the privilege of being taken into the confidence of many Cambodians, men and women whom I admired and whose hopes for their country I shared, as well as others. I recall with infinite sadness those among them who paid with their lives for staying when they could have fled, before total darkness enveloped Cambodia for four years that have known no equal in history." In one of the worst genocidal regimes in modern history, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge killed 1.5 to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979; some ~20-25% of Cambodia's population at the time. The country and its Socialist revolution became another addition to a long list of failed Communist shit holes, and another terrifying case study of how to fuck up your society in the worst way possible. That so many of its citizens took place in the rampant and widespread persecution, arrests, and even murders of their fellow countrymen is a sobering look into the depths of the human condition... Unfortunately, and further to what I wrote above, the telling of this terrible story was just not up to snuff. I did not like much of the author's writing style here. I found large parts of the book long-winded and dry. I found my finicky attention wandering numerous times. If the book were any longer, I would have put it down. A shame, as the writing here is no doubt of important historical record... ****************** I did not particularly enjoy Cambodia. The writing was just too lackluster to hold my attention. 2 stars. ...more |
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1
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May 10, 2024
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May 13, 2024
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May 09, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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1542769760
| 9781542769761
| 1542769760
| 2.73
| 15
| unknown
| Feb 08, 2017
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really liked it
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"Unlike many aspects of other conspiracy theories, Area 51 is a frequently documented fact. UFO seekers can theorize to their heart’s content about wh
"Unlike many aspects of other conspiracy theories, Area 51 is a frequently documented fact. UFO seekers can theorize to their heart’s content about what might have gone on there or whether Area 51 even exists, but Area 51 is quite real..." Roswell & Area 51 was a decent short read. I have read a few books by the people over at Charles River Editors, and have generally enjoyed them. Long shrouded in secrecy, the area known as "Area 51" has been fodder for countless conspiracy theories. In this book, the authors seek to pull back the curtain of secrecy, and tell the reader what really goes on there. [image] It may come as a disappointment to many of the above-mentioned conspiracy-minded folks, but the area has been secretive not because alien crafts are stored there, but rather; the site has long been a testing ground for some of the Air Force and CIA's most top-secret and experimental aircraft. The authors present a chronological look at the area, and give the reader some historical context. During the start of the Cold War, the US was eager to keep tabs on what the Russians were doing. To do this, they needed to have aircraft capable of penetrating Russian air space and taking reconnaissance photos. Around 1939-1943 (depending on who you ask), the military aircraft designers at Lockheed Martin formed a secretive group under Kelly Johnson of special aircraft engineers to work on top-secret projects for the US government. This group became known as "Skunk Works." The Skunk Works name was taken from the "Skonk Oil" factory in the comic strip Li'l Abner. Derived from Lockheed's use of the term, the designation "skunk works" or "skunkworks" is now widely used in business, engineering, and technical fields to describe a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, with the task of working on advanced or secret projects. The book also mentions a second motivation for the obscure name: "...As with so many things military, there was a secondary reason. The name “Skunk Works” had no direct or sensible translation into Russian. The workers at the Skunk Works were convinced that Russian trawlers off the California coast housed KGB spies who monitored the Skunk Works, more formerly known as Lockheed’s Advanced Development Projects." [image] The authors mention that this was where the legendary U-2 Spyplane was tested. Unbelievably; it was designed, built, and flying in just 8 months! [image] The site would also later become a testing ground for the revolutionary SR-71 spyplane. The SR-71 would become the fastest manned aircraft in history, and still holds that record. [image] The famous "downed UFO" incident in Roswell is also talked about in the book, and (SPOILER) the authors say that it was completely unfeasible that this was anything other than a weather balloon. Following a general rule of conspiracies, they say that there were just too many people involved for anything to remain covered up for so long. The more people who are "in" on a secret, the bigger the chance that it will not remain a secret for long... ****************** Roswell & Area 51 was a fun short read. I would recommend it to anyone interested. 4 stars. ...more |
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1
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May 30, 2024
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May 31, 2024
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May 02, 2024
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Paperback
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0593476093
| 9780593476093
| 0593476093
| 4.47
| 13,348
| Mar 28, 2024
| Mar 26, 2024
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liked it
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"A nuclear strike on the Pentagon is just the beginning of a scenario the finality of which will be the end of civilization as we know it..." Nuclea "A nuclear strike on the Pentagon is just the beginning of a scenario the finality of which will be the end of civilization as we know it..." Nuclear War was an interesting look into a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario. Mankind has come close to nuclear disaster a few times in the past, and these civilizational-ending weapons are still one of the greatest existential threats that humanity faces. The author drops quote above at the start of the book. Author Annie Jacobsen is an American investigative journalist, writer, and a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist. She writes for and produces television programs, including Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan for Amazon Studios, and Clarice for CBS. She was a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times Magazine from 2009 until 2012. Annie Jacobsen: [image] Jacobsen gets the writing going here with a lively and energetic intro. She writes with a decently engaging style here, for the most part, but I felt that the book was a bit too long; overall. The version I have clocked in at ~11.5 hours. The audio version I have of this book is read by the author, which was a nice touch. The quote from the start of this review continues: "...This is the reality of the world in which we all live. The nuclear war scenario proposed in this book could happen tomorrow. Or later today. As the book's title implies, it is a long-form examination of what a real-life nuclear war would look like. The book proceeds in a blow-by-blow fashion, counting down the minutes after a hostile nation launches a nuclear-tipped missile towards the US. Unfortunately, I felt that this format style may be more suited to documentaries, and/or the film/visual medium. There is quite a lot of superfluous writing here. She includes many extensive descriptions of hypothetical settings, such as workers eating lunch outside a power plant while a pelican eats fish nearby, mentioning that seaweed covers the rocks. There are description of trees, local weather, and other assorted minutia that detracted from the overall story. I can see that some people may be a fan of this style of presentation, but I was not among them... She makes this note on the source material, and the nature of the threat: AUTHOR’S NOTE: The mass proliferation of nuclear arms following the end of the Second World War has raised alarm about the possibility of global nuclear armageddon. In this bit of writing, she talks about just how many bombs the US had built in the post-war period: "The race to build even more atomic bombs now accelerated dramatically. By 1950, the U.S. added 129 atomic weapons to its stockpile, bringing the total from 170 to 299. At the time, the Soviet Union had five. [image] Some more of what she covers here includes: • A brief history of the Atomic bomb • The creation of the hydrogen bomb; dubbed "The Super" • Nuclear bomb buildup • Nuclear submarines • South Korea and the nuclear threat from North Korea • Russia's "Dead Hand" system • Possible detonation of a high-altitude EMP weapon that would destroy the entire power grid • The landscape after 1000 nuclear bombs explode • The world immediately post-war • The world thousands of years later ******************** Nuclear War was a well-researched book. The author did a decent job of the presentation and narration, too. Unfortunately, I think that it could have benefited from a more rigorous editing if a gripping story was the desired aim of the book. 3 stars. ...more |
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Apr 2024
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Mar 27, 2024
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1786724286
| 9781786724281
| B07MV4NLCF
| 4.07
| 372
| 2018
| Sep 06, 2018
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liked it
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"The belief that 1914–18 had been the ‘War to End War’ melted away, of course, in September 1939, when it turned out to have been rather emphatically
"The belief that 1914–18 had been the ‘War to End War’ melted away, of course, in September 1939, when it turned out to have been rather emphatically ‘The War that Did Not End War’. Indeed, it could equally have been called ‘The War that Led Directly to Another War’. In its place, there has grown a new belief in the ‘Good War’ of 1939 to 1945... ...This war, we believe, was so good that men constantly seek to fight it again, so that they can bathe in its virtue..." The Phoney Victory was an interesting contrarian work. The Second World War has become part of Western Civilization's creation myth, and this book runs afoul of many things we've been told about it. Author Peter Jonathan Hitchens is an English conservative writer, broadcaster, journalist, and commentator. He writes for The Mail on Sunday and was a foreign correspondent reporting from both Moscow and Washington, D.C. Peter Hitchens: [image] Sadly, Hitchens writes with a style here that could be described as somewhat stereotypical British prose; tending to be long-winded and flat more often than not. While I did follow the plot, I found the lackluster presentation style losing my attention numerous times... As touched on above, the topic of the book is a contentious one. Hitchens argues that much of what has come to pass as common knowledge about the war deserves further scrutiny. I'll say right up front that I'm not personally qualified to pick apart the veracity of any of the claims here. So for the scope of this review, I will only comment on the book's presentation, and will not be making claims for or against the case laid out here. The quote from the start of this review continues: "...Its passion and parables, and its characters, are nowadays better known than those of the Bible. Instead of the triumphal ride into Jerusalem, the Last Supper and the betrayal at Gethsemane, the Crucifixion and Resurrection, the Supper at Emmaus and the coming of the Holy Ghost in tongues of fire, we have a modern substitute: Winston the outcast prophet in the wilderness, living on cigars and champagne rather than locusts and wild honey, but slighted, exiled and prophetic all the same. We have the betrayal at Munich, the miraculous survival of virtue amid defeat at Dunkirk and in the Battle of Britain, and the resurrection of freedom and democracy on D-Day." He says this of the thesis of the book: "...One day, this dangerous fable of the glorious anti-fascist war against evil may destroy us all simply because we have a government too vain and inexperienced to restrain itself. That is why it is so important to dispel it." The meat and potatoes of the book centers around the following points (among others); each of which could (and have) been examined in volumes all on their own: • He believes that Britain's entry into World War II led to its rapid decline after the war. This was because, among other things, it could not finance the war and was not prepared. As a result, it had to surrender much of its wealth and power to avoid bankruptcy. • Hitchens asserts that the Americans did not help Britain with lend-lease programs out of charitable motives. He says that Britain paid dearly for this aid, namely in the form of liquidating many of its assets and turning over ~£26 billion (adjusted to 2018) of gold bullion that would ultimately end up in Fort Knox. This had the effect of completely financially devastating the nation, and it has never recovered its Empire since. • He argues that the Allies committed war crimes against the German people, namely; their carpet bombing of German civilians. Arthur Harris is singled out for his bombing of civilians; notably in the firebombing of Dresden, although Hitchens mentions many other cities turned into literal fire tornadoes. Part of this was done to appease an ever-increasingly upset Stalin, who was waiting for the Aliies to launch a second front to the war for years: "There is little doubt that much of the bombing of Germany was done to please and appease Josef Stalin. Stalin jeered at Churchill for his failure to open a Second Front and to fight Hitler’s armies in Europe, and ceaselessly pressed him to open such a front – something Churchill was politically and militarily reluctant to do. Bombing Germany, though it did not satisfy Stalin’s demands for an invasion, at least reassured him that we were doing something, and so lessened his pressure on us to open a second front.Curtis LeMay and the firebombing of Tokyo could also be implicated. LeMay himself said: "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." "March 1945. Tokyo hit by Operation Meetinghouse, the single most destructive bombing raid of this or any war. 16 square miles of central Tokyo annihilated, over 1 million made homeless, with an estimated 100,000 civilian deaths. (To put these figures into context, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima some months later killed 70,000, and the one dropped on Nagasaki killed 35,000.)" • He also rejects the retroactive claim that Britain went to war in 1939 to save the Jewish population of Europe. On the contrary, the beginning and intensification of war made it easier for Germany to begin the policy of mass murder in secret as well as closing most escape routes. He also asserts that anti-sematism was running rampant in most of Europe and North America at the time, and that the Allied nations did little to help the Jewish refugees. In a bit of controversial writing that I have read elsewhere, he says that the Allies made no efforts to stop the Holocaust. All they had to do was destroy the train tracks. He writes: "It is true that nobody could have known at the time that the National Socialist persecution of Jews would end in the extermination camps. Even Hitler had not yet conceived of them. Yet when undoubted evidence of these camps later reached the USA and Britain, these countries took no direct action to prevent the murder, to destroy railway tracks leading to the murder camps or to rescue those who remained trapped in Europe. The Bermuda Conference of April 1943 likewise rejected any plans to relax immigration quotas, either in the USA or in Palestine, or to take special measures to allow Europe’s remaining Jews to escape Hitler. Yet by then many credible reports strongly suggesting large-scale murder had reached the outside world." • Hitchens also points the finger at the end result of this global conflict: England entered the war ostensibly to protect Poland from invasion. However, after the hostilities seized, the Allies handed over most of Eastern Europe (ironically including Poland) over to Stalin, where it would remain under an Iron Curtain for the next ~50 years: "And what can we say about World War II’s final settlement, at Yalta? Viewed coldly, this cynical action, a sort of large-scale protection racket in which Stalin played the racketeer and the Western Allies his cowed victims, was a far more disgraceful episode of appeasement than anything even contemplated at Munich in 1938. This unheroic pact meant the handing over of millions of innocent and defenceless people to a cruel foreign conqueror. Some of them – such as the Cossacks – were disgracefully sent in locked railway cars into the custody of Stalin’s NKVD execution squads. They had good reason to fear for their lives, but their frantic pleas to remain in the West were ignored. No doubt the penetration of our establishment by sympathisers of the Communist empire prevented us for many years from admitting the revolting nature of the Soviet state. But perhaps our embarrassment about having had such people as valued allies also played its part in that reticence." Stopping short of a full condemnation of British policy circa WW2, he makes this disclaimer: "I am not saying that Britain should have remained neutral throughout the European War that began in 1939. I am saying that we might have done better to follow the wise example of the USA, and wait until we and our allies were militarily and diplomatically ready before entering that conflict. I am suggesting that our diplomacy, especially after March 1939, allowed others to dictate and hasten the timing of that war in ways that did not suit us or our main ally, France. ******************** Unfortunately, my biggest criticism of the book was the overall style it was presented in. It was just too dry and tedious for my finicky tastes. To roughly paraphrase Freddie Mercury: Write whatever you want, just don't make it boring... I place a high premium on how readable my books are, and sadly, this one missed the mark here... The Phoney Victory was still a thought-provoking read. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested. 3.5 stars. ...more |
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Mar 21, 2024
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Mar 25, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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1459612574
| 9781459612570
| 1459612574
| 4.34
| 1,279
| Aug 31, 2002
| Jan 01, 2012
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it was amazing
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"There are Americans alive at this moment who may experience the national equivalent of “a perfect storm,” either domestically or internationally, or
"There are Americans alive at this moment who may experience the national equivalent of “a perfect storm,” either domestically or internationally, or both. To have what is called “a perfect storm,” many dangerous forces must come together at the same time. Those dangerous forces have been building in the United States of America for at least half a century..." Dismantling America was another excellent book from Thomas Sowell. IMHO, he is one of -if not the sharpest contrarian thinker in the public sphere. He drops the above quote in the book's intro, setting the pace for the writing to follow. Author Thomas Sowell is an American economist, social theorist, and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Sowell has served on the faculties of several universities, including Cornell University and the University of California, Los Angeles. He has also worked at think tanks such as the Urban Institute. Since 1980, he has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he served as the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy. Sowell writes from a libertarian–conservative perspective. Sowell has written more than thirty books, and his work has been widely anthologized. He is a National Humanities Medal recipient for innovative scholarship which incorporated history, economics and political science. Thomas Sowell: [image] Dismantling America is my 7th book from Sowell. He is one of my favorite authors/pundits/social commentators. Sowell's writing here was exceptional, as usual. His analysis is super-nuanced and insightful, in line with other titles of his that I've read. Sowell writes with a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact style here, as he does in his other books. As the title implies, this book is a compilation of short essays on the current state of American politics and economics. The quote from the start of this review continues below: "...By 2010, increasing numbers of Americans were beginning to express fears that they were losing the country they grew up in, and that they had hoped—or perhaps too complacently assumed—that they would be passing on to their children and grandchildren. Sowell lays out the aim of the book in this quote: "When we look back at the decades-long erosions and distortions of our educational system, our legal system and our political system, we must acknowledge the chilling fact that the kinds of dangers we face now were always inherent in these degenerating trends. The essays that follow deal with these trends individually, but it may help to keep in mind that they were all going on at the same time, and that these are the dangers whose coming together can create a perfect storm." I'll include one of the better short essays here, both for my own future reference, as well as for anyone else interested. I'll cover it with a spoiler, for the sake of the brevity of this review: (view spoiler)["Taking America for Granted: When my research assistant and her husband took my wife and me to dinner at a Chinese restaurant, I was impressed when I heard her for the first time speak Chinese as she ordered food. My assistant was born and raised in China, so I should have been impressed that she spoke English. But I took that for granted because she always spoke English to me. We all have a tendency to take for granted what we are used to, and to regard it as somehow natural or automatic—and to be unduly impressed by what is unusual. Too many Americans take the United States for granted and are too easily impressed by what people in other countries say and do. That is especially true of the intelligentsia, and dangerously true of those Supreme Court justices who cite foreign laws when making decisions about American law. There is nothing automatic about the way of life achieved in this country. It is very unusual among the nations of the world today and rarer than fourleaf clovers in the long view of history. It didn’t just happen. People made it happen—and they and those who came after them paid a price in blood and treasure to create and preserve this nation that we now take for granted. More important, this country’s survival is not automatic. What we do will determine that. Too many Americans today are not only unconcerned about what it will take to preserve this country but are busy dismantling the things that make it America. Our national motto, “E Pluribus Unum”—from many, one—has been turned upside down as educators, activists and politicians strive to fragment the American population into separate racial, social, linguistic and ideological blocs. Some are gung ho for generic “change”—without the slightest concern that the change might be for the worse, even in a world where most nations that are different are also worse off. Most are worse off economically and many are much worse off in terms of despotism, corruption, and bloodshed. History is full of nations and even whole civilizations that have fallen from the heights to destitution and disintegration. The Roman Empire is a classic example, but the great ancient Chinese dynasties, the Ottoman Empire and many others have met the same fate. These were not just political “changes.” They were historic catastrophes from which whole peoples did not recover for centuries. It has been estimated that it was a thousand years before Europeans again achieved as high a standard of living as they had in Roman times. The Dark Ages were called dark for a reason. Today, whole classes of people get their jollies and puff themselves up by denigrating and denouncing American society. Such people are a major influence in our media, in our educational system and among all sorts of vocal activists. Nothing illustrates their power to distort reality like the way they seize upon slavery to denounce American society. Slavery was cancerous but does anybody regard cancer in the United States as an evil peculiar to American society? It is a worldwide affliction and so was slavery. Both the enslavers and the enslaved have included people on every inhabited continent—people of every race, color, and creed. More Europeans were enslaved and taken to North Africa by Barbary Coast pirates alone than there were African slaves taken to the United States and to the colonies from which it was formed. Yet throughout our educational system, our media, and in politics, slavery is incessantly presented as if it were something peculiar to black and white Americans. What was peculiar about the United States was that it was the first country in which slavery was under attack from the moment the country was created. What was peculiar about Western civilization was that it was the first civilization to destroy slavery, not only within its own countries but in other countries around the world as well. Reality has been stood on its head so that a relative handful of people can feel puffed up or gain notoriety and power. Whatever they gain, the rest of us have everything to lose." (hide spoiler)] ******************** Dismantling America was another great read from a super-sharp mind. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone reading this review. 5 stars, and a spot on my favorites shelf. ...more |
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B0C23HDD3S
| 4.23
| 2,335
| Apr 06, 2023
| Apr 10, 2023
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it was ok
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"Consensual reunification does not mean that life in East Germany deserves to be forgotten or filed away as irrelevant history..." Beyond the Wall was "Consensual reunification does not mean that life in East Germany deserves to be forgotten or filed away as irrelevant history..." Beyond the Wall was a fairly well-put-together book, but not without a pretty sizeable and glaring flaw. More below. As the title implies, it covers the Communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) from the end of WW2, up until its demise in 1990. I have read a few other books on post-WW2 East Germany, and this one dovetailed into that material. Author Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian, journalist and writer. Katja Hoyer: [image] Hoyer writes with a decent style that shouldn't have trouble holding the finicky reader's attention. Historical books are always hit or miss in terms of how readable they are, and my reviews are always heavily weighted towards how engaging the author's prose is. This was a very long book, however; the PDF I have is 699 pages. The audio: 16 hr, 20 mins. I found the writing to be decently engaging at the start of the book, but then gradually losing energy as the book progressed. The formatting of the book was also fairly well done. The book covers many individual case studies from history while tying them into the broader historical context. I like books formatted in this fashion and felt that it worked here, too. As anyone who's read a bit about WW2 knows, April 25, 1945, is the day Soviet and American troops met at the Elbe Rive, as the Allies pushed eastwards, and Stalin's Red Army pushed to the West. Germany would eventually become separated under two very different political and economic systems. It remained this way until the eventual fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. I've always found it fascinating that people who were avowed Fascist Nazis could effectively turn a full 180 on a dime, and become Communists virtually overnight. That people who fought and risked their lives fighting the existential threat to them that Communism was could change course and embrace this ideology is an interesting case study in social psychology. Ideology is a hell of a drug... The preface talks about Angela Merkl's East German upbringing and life. She drops the quote at the start of this review in the books' preface, and it continues below: "...The ups and downs of the GDR as a political, social and economic experiment have left a mark on its former citizens, who have brought these experiences with them – and not as mere ‘ballast’. Millions of Germans alive today neither can nor want to deny that they once lived in the GDR. While the world that had shaped them fell with the Berlin Wall in 1989, their lives, experiences and memories were not razed with it. Yet the way much of the Western world saw it, the GDR had well and truly lost the Cold War on German soil, morally invalidating everything in it. When the German Democratic Republic vanished literally overnight on 3 October 1990, it lost the right to write its own history. Instead it had become history. And history is written by victors – East Germany’s is no exception." She lays out the aim of the book in this bit of writing: "This book traces the roots of the German Democratic Republic beyond its foundation to provide context for the circumstances out of which the country was born in 1949. I outline the developments that followed through all four decades rather than treating them as a static whole. In the 1950s, the infant republic was almost entirely preoccupied with stabilizing its foundations politically and economically. It did so both with and over the heads of its citizens, resulting in a decade that was marked by a can-do spirit as well as violent outbreaks of discontent." As the book gets going, she writes of the tragic fate of thousands of Russian WW2 POWs that the Germans sent back to Russia after the war: "...In a bitter twist of fate, those who had been incarcerated by the Nazis in early concentration camps in 1933 made it to the top of the list of suspicious individuals. In the eyes of Stalin and his henchmen, anyone who had escaped Hitler’s clutches must have given the Nazis something in return. Perhaps a promise to infiltrate the Soviet Union, get a job in a munitions factory and begin to organize systematic sabotage to prepare a German invasion." In the previous books I have read about the GDR, life sounded unbearably miserable. We've all heard of the Stasi, The Wall, and the thousands of people who tried to defect. She drops this bit of writing, speaking to this: "Now, it is time to dare to take a new look at the GDR. Those who do so with open eyes will find a world full of colour, not one of black and white. There was oppression and brutality, yes, and there was opportunity and belonging. Most East German communities experienced all of this. There were tears and anger, and there was laughter and pride. The citizens of the GDR lived, loved, worked and grew old. They went on holidays, made jokes about their politicians and raised their children. Their story deserves a place in the German narrative. It’s time to take a serious look at the other Germany, beyond the Wall..." ...Which brings me around to my biggest criticism of this book: That a 700-page book about life in East Germany somehow managed to not cover the absolutely dystopian totalitarian juggernaut that The Ministry for State Security (aka The Stasi) became. An all-encompassing agency that placed a jackboot on the collective throats of all East Germans, the Stasi were legendary for the depth that their espionage, surveillance, and social control repressed their citizenship with. Why was this not written about here?? Over 1,300 people were killed by them. Some 250,000 people were held and interrogated on political grounds. Everyone in East German society lived under complete state surveillance, in the largest information-gathering machine assembled up until that time. I would highly recommend Anna Funder's 2003 book Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, for a further look into the wholesale horror that unfolded under the Communist regime. For a summary, check out my review here, which contains many statistical quotes from the book. Although the Stasi are briefly mentioned here and there throughout the book, the full story of how oppressive they became was not covered here. This would be like writing a 700-page book about the Third Reich, and not covering the Holocaust. A very questionable and glaring omission... There is lots of other information presented here, and the writing is quite in-depth, minus a much-needed chapter on the Stasi. Some more of the material covered includes: • German communists exiled to Russia. • Mass rape by the advancing Red Army in WW2. • The Berlin Wall; attempts to cross to West Berlin. • Toy production and car ownership in GDR. • Berlin's TV tower, The Fernsehturm Berlin. • The GDR's Olympic athletes; AAS usage. • Levis jeans in GDR. • Politics in the GDR. • Food shortages; coffee shortages. • GDR's relationships with other Communist regimes: Cuba, Algeria, Mozambique, Vietnam, Mongolia, China, and North Korea. • The heavily fortified East/West border. • Purchasing foreign goods with Western German money. • The fall of the Berlin Wall. • Reunification. ******************** Beyond the Wall had its moments, but I am left questioning why a discussion of the Stasi was omitted from this book. A book on East Germany cannot be complete without detailing the all-encompassing horrors they inflicted upon their own citizens. Perhaps the author is a tankie, or has sympathies for the far-left? I'm not sure, although there were a few passages in here that seemed to hint as much. She's got a blurb in here that paints American Marxist revolutionary Angela Davis in a flattering light. The book was fairly well done, for the most part, but, I'm taking off a few stars for this very suspicious omission. 2 stars. ...more |
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Dec 13, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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1628726601
| 9781628726602
| 1628726601
| 3.61
| 574
| Apr 29, 2014
| Jun 06, 2017
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liked it
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"As a dictator, you have the opportunity to accumulate enormous wealth, write bestselling novels, build monuments, palaces, and cities in your honor,
"As a dictator, you have the opportunity to accumulate enormous wealth, write bestselling novels, build monuments, palaces, and cities in your honor, enjoy unlimited access to attractive sexual partners, and wallow in luxury.." Despite being excited to start How to Be a Dictator, I didn't really enjoy the writing as much as I'd hoped. I think it boils down to a foundational problem with the formatting. More below. Author Mikal Hem has worked as journalist and political commentator for the newspapers Bergens Tidende, Dagblade, and Verdens Gang as well as the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. He researched media censorship in authoritarian regimes at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and has traveled extensively as a reporter, spending periods in Africa and the countries of the former Soviet Union. Mikal Hem: [image] Hem writes with a decent style here, and the book is peppered with many mildly humorous asides and interjections. Plus, there's some incredibly rich source material to work with. The quote from the start of this review continues: "...Yet how best to exploit these possibilities? The following chapters offer a guide on how to become and act like a dictator, based on examples taken from some of the best in the business. If you follow the advice contained in this book, you will be well on the road to becoming a notable authoritarian." Unfortunately, and despite the author's best efforts, I just didn't like the way this one was put together. In short; I felt it had bad formatting. Instead of covering each of the case study dictators in turn, the formatting is broken up into different assorted chapters, and the chapters, into even more abstract blurbs of writing that could have been chapters on their own. The writing was all over the place. It jumps from one country and dictator to the next without skipping a beat. And the entire book is written this way. Completely ineffectual communication, IMHO. A more effective formatting would have gone country by country, and broken down each one. With a bit of thought, I'm fairly convinced that the author wrote it this way bc there are so many common themes in these dictatorships that covering it this way would have resulted in a lot of overlapping material. However, this format didn't really work, either... ******************** I didn't enjoy How to Be a Dictator as much as I'd hoped. But it wasn't a badly written book, per se, and there's a lot of interesting material covered in these pages. The formatting just did not gel with me too well... 2.5 stars. ...more |
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Sep 21, 2023
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Sep 21, 2023
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Sep 20, 2023
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Hardcover
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0593538218
| 9780593538210
| 0593538218
| 3.58
| 1,586
| unknown
| Oct 04, 2022
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did not like it
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"You remind me of someone who is looking through a closed window and cannot explain to himself the strange movements of a passerby. He doesn’t know wh
"You remind me of someone who is looking through a closed window and cannot explain to himself the strange movements of a passerby. He doesn’t know what storm is raging out there or that this person might only with difficulty be keeping himself on his feet." ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein I was in the mood to do some reading about mindset, so I bumped this one up in my "to-read" queue. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy the writing here... It started off fairly innocuously, and then turned into an absolute shitshow as the book progressed. More below. This will be a long one, so get comfortable. The book opens with the quote above. Author Kieran Setiya is a Professor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was born in Hull, UK. He is known for his work in ethics, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind. Kieran Setiya: [image] The book opens with a decent intro. Unfortunately, this was probably the high water mark of the book. I am admittedly very particular about how engaging I find a book's prose, and this one missed the mark for me here. I was just not a fan of the author's writing style. I have found that, broadly speaking; books on philosophy break into two disticnt categories. The first is where the author goes off on long-winded esoteric tangents, and manages to effectively lose the forest for the trees. The second is where the author tells the reader an interesting story, and accompanies this story with the relevant philosophical underpinnings. Sadly, this book was a good example of the former and not the latter. Setiya drops this bit of writing, outlining what the book will cover: "Philosophy cannot promise happiness or an ideal life, but it can help to lift the weight of human suffering. We’ll begin with the frailties of the body, make our way through love and loss to the structure of society, and end with “the whole residual cosmos.” Spoiler alert: if you want to know the meaning of life, the answer’s in Chapter 6." Unfortunately, as mentioned above, I was just not a fan of the presentation style of this one. The author tends to drone on in a somewhat monotonous fashion; which thoroughly bored me to tears. I found my attention wandering numerous times... Sadly, the lackluster prose proved to be the least of this book's problems... Alarm bells went off for me early on, as the author mentions climate change 4 times in the introduction alone. A search of the PDF version I have reveals that it appears in the book an incredible 29 times. Now, call me old-fashioned if you will, but I didn't pick up a book on philosophy to read moronic screechings about how the Earth is doomed and the sky is falling. But, just like an evangelical Christian who never shuts up about Jesus, these climate alarmists just can't help themselves. There was also the inclusion of quite a lot of partisan jargon that liberally peppers the writing here. The author trots out the terms "equity," "disproportionate impact," "marginalized people," and other assorted mindless jargon typically employed by the ideologically possessed too many times to count. SIGH This was downright ridiculous at times, no more so than when the author casually drops in the line that there is a "revival of fascism" taking place. Say what?? Where is fascism being revived? Who is reviving it? Are they in the room with you now?? Nonsense like this makes me wonder if these people even understand what fascism actually is/was. SPOILER: It's not stuff you don't like, or even the dreaded Evil Orange Man™ ... I just about laughed out loud when Setiya quotes Karl Marx numerous times, as well as race-grifter Ta-Nehisi Coates. There is also a bit of writing waxing poetic on The Frankfurt School's Neo-Marxist "Critical Theory." And although he never comes right out and says it here, I would bet that the author is actually a communist. It's becoming very fashionable for those in the academic and media class to align themselves as "fellow travelers." "Useful idiots" might be a better term... That this person can cite Karl Marx, Angela Davis, The Frankfurt School, BLM and other openly Marxist prescriptions while warning the reader about fascism reemerging has got to be at the peak of irony. The commie propaganda keeps coming as the book proceeds, seemingly accelerating towards the end. He tells the reader how terrible white people are; going off on many NPC-level victimology diatribes. There's an entire chapter about how climate change will doom us all, and how capitalism is an evil system. He drops this bit of low-resolution writing about how America is a racist country: "...Americans benefit from a history of colonial expropriation and slavery that in part explains the huge disparity in median wealth between White families (a median of roughly $188,000) and Black ones (around $24,000)." ~ Conspicuously missing from this comparison is the fact that Asian men somehow manage to outperform native European whites in income earned, in this supposedly rigged "white supremacist" society. FWIW; white Americans are nowhere near the top of the high-income earners by race: [image] Given that I had to listen to the short-sighted ramblings and prescriptions of this moron for the duration of the book, I feel like I should offer my own advice to him; in kind. Perhaps he should go and live in one of the socialist paradises that he waxes so nostalgically about here. Or, failing that - maybe he should pick up a few books on recent history and see that, despite being implemented in dozens of countries across many different cultures and times, socialism has never worked anywhere. Ever. Everyone becomes equal, alright. Equally poor and miserable. And I'm sorry if I went off on my own little rant here, but it strikes me as the absolute pinnacle of irony that privileged people like the author can paradoxically enjoy all the fruits that a market economy provides to their lives, while simultaneously advocating for the most destructive political ideology that the world has ever known. 100 million dead in 100 years is a rough figure that is likely underestimated. Death is a preferable alternative to Communism. This idiocy needs to be pushed back against wherever it pops up, to ensure people learn from the mistakes of the past. And if killing 100 million of your own people in the pursuit of an impossible utopia is not a mistake, then I don't know what is... Which comes around to the central point here: Why tf this partisan preaching was even added to a book of this nature in the first place? I have read literally dozens of books in this genre, and don't remember any of the authors of those books going off on ranty emotional tears full of political jargon and rhetoric. That kind of shit has no business in a book like this. ******************** I did not like Life Is Hard. Most of the writing here is not much more than the ramblings of a garden-variety ideologically-possessed evangelical partisan. All the fancy words and pontification presented here; pure sophistry. That the author is helping shape young impressionable minds at a highly accredited institution of higher learning honestly scares the shit out of me... Remind me to take a hard pass on anything else he produces. 1 star, and off to the return bin. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 06, 2023
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Sep 07, 2023
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Aug 21, 2023
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Hardcover
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1842751654
| 9781842751657
| 1842751654
| 3.97
| 196
| 2006
| Aug 07, 2006
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really liked it
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"...These four men stood at the head of the 20th century’s dominant ideologies as they collided in the Second World War: totalitarianism of right and
"...These four men stood at the head of the 20th century’s dominant ideologies as they collided in the Second World War: totalitarianism of right and left, liberal democracy, social democracy, European colonialism and economic imperialism. In the war between these ideologies tens of millions of people fought and died. This book is about the heart of that conflict: the ever-changing relationships of the four warlords and their war of the mind..." Warlords was an interesting book that looks at WW2 through a different lens. I enjoy reading about WW2, and this one sounded like it could be a bit of an unorthodox take. The author drops the quote above in the book's intro. Author Simon Berthon is a novelist, historian and BAFTA-winning documentary producer. His latest thriller, A Time to Lie, was published in paperback in June 2021. He has written two previous thrillers and three works of non-fiction, as well as screenplays commissioned by Granada TV and the BBC. Simon Berthon: [image] As it's subtitle implies, the book is a broad-bassed examination of the major events of the war as seen through the eyes of its most influential leaders; Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin. The author writes in a very straightforward, matter-of-fact manner that shouldn't have trouble holding the reader's attention. The plot is also told here in a no-frills fashion. Unlike many other history books I've read, the writing here is mostly story, and very little filler. The narrative flows in a chronological manner; and bounces between each of the 4 leaders. Each chapter is broken up to cover a different period of the war. The book is heavily notated, with source material taken from speeches, diaries, and other public records. This could have been hit or miss, but fortunately, I felt that this narrative style worked here. The book covers all the major events of the war, but pays a premium on the relationship between the 3 Allied leaders, and their adversarial relationship with Hilter and his Third Reich. Hitler's talks with Joseph Goebbels are also talked about often here. Of course, the incredibly complicated and vast nature of the ~5-year-long World War makes writing about it effectively no easy task. The war would engulf dozens of the world's countries, hundreds of millions of people; both civilian and military, and spanned through multiple theaters of combat. Fortunately, Berthon did a decent job of summarizing many of the pivotal events of the war, and relating them back to the 4 leaders. ******************** Warlords was a decent read that should be on the shelf of every armchair WW2 historian. I would recommend it to anyone interested. 4 stars. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 31, 2024
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Feb 2024
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Aug 14, 2023
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Paperback
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3.89
| 769
| Mar 07, 2023
| Mar 07, 2023
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liked it
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The Dirty Tricks Department was a somewhat decent read that had its moments, although I have to admit that I was expecting a bit more from the book go
The Dirty Tricks Department was a somewhat decent read that had its moments, although I have to admit that I was expecting a bit more from the book going in... Despite the incredibly rich subject material, the writing here just did not reach its full potential. Author John Lisle is a historian from Azle, Texas. He earned a Ph.D. in history from the University of Texas, where he currently teaches courses on the history of science. He has received research and writing awards from the National Academy of Sciences, the American Institute of Physics, the California Institute of Technology, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and others. His writing has appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, Scientific American, Skeptic, Journal of Intelligence History, and Physics in Perspective. John Lisle: [image] I came across this book from the author's recent appearance on Michael Shermer's podcast, which I enjoyed. The story here centers around the progenitor of the modern-day CIA, which was called the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Many interesting experimental anecdotes from the OSS are covered here; included "cat bombs," "rat bombs," and many other fantastical unorthodox weapons and unconventional methods of warfare. Strangely enough, the book opens with no intro, which is a shame and a missed opportunity, as I think subject matter like this would warrant one. It also closes with no epilogue or afterword. TBH; I was not a fan of the formatting of the book in general. I feel that it lacked continuity and cohesion. It didn't have a good flow. ******************** The Dirty Tricks Department was a decent book at times, but unfortunately the overall presentation left much to be desired for me... 2.5 stars. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 15, 2023
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Aug 16, 2023
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Aug 09, 2023
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Hardcover
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1399063596
| 9781399063593
| B0BXSYDV25
| 3.00
| 9
| unknown
| Apr 06, 2023
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it was amazing
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"It is impossible to quantify the total number of deaths attributable to the policies of Stalin, but the ‘Excess Mortality’ (i.e., deaths over and abo
"It is impossible to quantify the total number of deaths attributable to the policies of Stalin, but the ‘Excess Mortality’ (i.e., deaths over and abovewhat would normally have been expected during the period in question) gives an approximate figure in excess of 40 million. They were murdered by the state, or died in purges in the Gulag prison system, or in famines as a direct result of agricultural collectivisation..." In the Mind of Stalin was an excellent presentation. Trying to write accurately and well about Stalin is no easy task... In other history books that I've read, I remember that unlike many other prominent figures - Stalin has no official biography. He was famously very secretive and distrustful. There is little original source material, either. He didn't keep a journal, and under the shroud of Communist opacity, a lot of the much-needed context that public record could bring to bear is notably absent. So much information covered here comes from Stalin's daughter, Svetlana. The other sources are compiled from various public historical records. Google Books says this of the author: "As an author who is fascinated by the workings of the human mind, James Greensmith attempts in his narratives to unravel the enigmas of Soviet and Russian leaders." [image] Greensmith opens the book with a good intro; setting the pace for the rest of the writing to follow. He writes with a very effective and engaging style here that I really liked. The book is delivered in a matter-of-fact, straight-to-the-point manner, with no long-winded tedium to distract the reader from the bigger picture. I also really liked how the book was formatted. The writing unwinds in a chronological fashion; from Stalin's childhood, to rise, to rule, to his death in 1953 and its aftermath. It is broken into many short and succinct chapters; each covering a different topic. I honestly don't know why more books are not written this way. It's super-effective communication! IMHO; this type of formatting is an excellent recipe for the reader to effectively retain the information presented. It covers a lot of ground while still managing to make sure the reader can follow the plot. The quote from the start of this review continues: "..However, this is only part of the story of the amount of misery inflicted by the Stalin regime through torture, deliberate starvation, neglect, separation from loved ones, cold and hypothermia (e.g. in the prisons of Siberia) being unquantifiable and unimaginable." The author tells the reader early on that a young Stalin was abused by his drunken father. It is hypothesized that Stalin may have been illegitimate, and not the blood child of his mother's husband, and that his father knew this and resented Stalin; often flying into fits of violent rage. And although a young Stalin was said to have been a somewhat "normal" person without psychopathic tendencies, somewhere along the line that changed. A pivotal turning point was the suicide of his second wife, Svetlana's mother Nadezhda Alliluyeva. Greensmith says: "Instead of making Stalin more understanding and more compassionate, the death of his wife had the opposite effect. When he ‘realised at last the full extent of her independence, her protest, her challenge,’ said Svetlana, ‘it only served to harden him. He wanted no equals. Equals argued, got in the way, objected, while he wanted blind devotion and absolute submission to his will.4 He could not tolerate a personal opinion in others.’"[image] Stalin was famously extremely paranoid and suspicious. He would often say very little, but kept a sharp eye on everyone around him. The head of the NKVD, Lavrentiy Beria is also discussed at length here, with the author noting how he and Stalin conspired together to bring about the false arrests, torture, imprisonment, and execution of countless Russian people. Svetlana says this of her father's pathological mistrust of people: "‘Once he accepted the premise that X was his enemy, the premise became axiomatic, and no matter what the facts might be, they had to be made to fit. At this point – and this is where his cruel, implacable nature showed itself – the past ceased to exist for him.[image] The author spends a bit of time here trying to examine Stalin's psyche. He introduces Paranoid Personality Disorder (PPD), noting some correlations. I have read elsewhere that Stalin had what is called The Dark Triad, or even The Dark Tetrad personality. The Dark Triad is Psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and Narcissism. The Dark Tetrad is those three traits combined with Sadism. To the above point, the author mentions that one of Stalin's sons died in a POW camp in Germany, and Stalin reacted extremely callously: "‘To my father the fact that Jacob [Yakov] had become a prisoner of war was nothing but a “disgrace” before the whole world. In the USSR the news was kept under cover, both during the war and after, although the press in the rest of the world was writing about it. And when a foreign correspondent officially asked for information on the subject, my father said that “in Hitler’s camps there are no Russian prisoners of war, only Russian traitors, and we shall do away with them when the war is over.” About Jacob he said, “I have no son called Jacob.”’16 Unfortunately, just as the book was wrapping up, the author dropped in a bit of commentary not germane to the book. He goes off on a long diatribe against Vladimir Putin, decrying Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. He chooses to focus on the proximate cause of the invasion - Russia's aggression, and completely ignores the ultimate cause - American and NATO meddling in the Russian sphere of influence. For some reason, Greensmith also sings the praises of Volodymyr Zelensky, and dismisses his authoritarian actions and connections to neo-Nazi groups. It seems like he has fallen for the black-or-white fallacy of thinking. Putin can be a horrible dictator, and America should not be meddling in the region. The invasion can be terrible, and Zelensky can also be an authoritarian. These things are not mutually-exclusive... To be honest, he should have just left all this commentary out of the book, as it is largely irrelevant to the rest of the book's contents. [image] ******************** In the Mind of Stalin was still a great examination into the topic. I would definitely recommend this one to anyone interested. 5 stars. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 10, 2023
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Aug 11, 2023
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Aug 01, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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1862076553
| 9781862076556
| 1862076553
| 4.20
| 19,502
| Jun 05, 2003
| Jan 15, 2004
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it was amazing
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"The Stasi was the internal army by which the government kept control. Its job was to know everything about everyone, using any means it chose. It kne
"The Stasi was the internal army by which the government kept control. Its job was to know everything about everyone, using any means it chose. It knew who your visitors were, it knew whom you telephoned, and it knew if your wife slept around..." Stasiland paints a picture of the absolutely hellish dystopian social experiment that Communist East Germany (aka The German Democratic Republic "GDR") was. The book is a terrifying historical case study of how groupthink can become pathological, and how it can turn a society against itself; with neighbours snitching on each other; all living under the heavy jackboot of the state. The author drops the above quote near the start of the book. Author Anna Funder was born in Melbourne in 1966. She has worked as an international lawyer and a radio and television producer. This book won the 2004 Samuel Johnson Prize. Anna Funder: [image] The author has an excellent writing style . This one won't have any trouble holding the finicky reader's attention. I am extremely particular about how engaging the books I read are, and my reviews are always very heavily weighted to reflect that criterion. I realize that this can be an elusive thing that's hard to nail down... Fortunately, this book passed muster here. It has a great flow. It also had great formatting. It's part travel account, and part historical record. This kind of formatting can be difficult to pull off effectively, and fortunately, the author really made it work here. Funder travels to Germany to see the situation firsthand. She visits the old Stasi headquarters, which has now been transformed into a museum. The quote from the start of this review continues: "...It was a bureaucracy metastasised through East German society: overt or covert, there was someone reporting to the Stasi on their fellows and friends in every school, every factory, every apartment block, every pub. Obsessed with detail, the Stasi entirely failed to predict the end of Communism, and with it the end of the country. Between 1989 and 1990 it was turned inside out: Stalinist spy unit one day, museum the next. In its forty years, ‘the Firm’ generated the equivalent of all records in German history since the middle ages. Laid out upright and end to end, the files the Stasi kept on their countrymen and women would form a line 180 kilometres long..." [image] [image] She tells the reader what a monstrous juggernaut the German intelligence agency was: "...After the Wall fell the German media called East Germany ‘the most perfected surveillance state of all time’. At the end, the Stasi had 97,000 employees—more than enough to oversee a country of seventeen million people. But it also had over 173,000 informers among the population. In Hitler’s Third Reich it is estimated that there was one Gestapo agent for every 2000 citizens, and in Stalin’s USSR there was one KGB agent for every 5830 people. In the GDR, there was one Stasi officer or informant for every sixty-three people. If part-time informers are included, some estimates have the ratio as high as one informer for every 6.5 citizens." The author also drops this quote, which speaks to the absolutely insane lengths the agency went to in its efforts to control the population. When she toured the museum, she noticed many glass jars, and asked what they were: "Frau Hollitzer explained to me that the jars in front of us were ‘smell samples’. The Stasi had developed a quasi-scientific method, ‘smell sampling’, as a way to find criminals. The theory was that we all have our own identifying odour, which we leave on everything we touch. These smells can be captured and, with the help of trained sniffer dogs, compared to find a match. The Stasi would take its dogs and jars to a location where they suspected an illegal meeting had occurred, and see if the dogs could pick up the scents of the people whose essences were captured in the jars. Mostly, smell samples were collected surreptitiously. The Stasi might break into someone’s apartment and take a piece of clothing worn close to the skin, often underwear. Alternatively, a ‘suspect’ would be brought in under some pretext for questioning, and the vinyl seat he or she had sat on would be wiped afterward with a cloth. The pieces of stolen clothing, or the cloth, would then be placed in a sealed jar. The containers looked like jam bottling jars. A label read: ‘Name: Herr [Name]. Time: 1 Hour. Object: Worker’s Underpants.’" Perhaps the most incredible part of the story of The German Democratic Republic, is how its millions of inhabitants seemingly turned a full 180 degrees on a dime. They went from being ardent Fascists one day, to Communists; the next. Funder drops this quote: "Whatever their personal histories and private allegiances, the people living in this zone had to switch from being (rhetorically, at the very least) Nazis one day to being Communists and brothers with their former enemies the next. Finally, in another piece of incredibly interesting writing, the author tells the reader of modern-day German "puzzle women." They are a group of women whose job it is to reconstruct the thousands of partially destroyed files left behind when the Stasi fled their headquarters. She includes this astounding stat: "Stasi File Authority—Project Group Reconstruction Some more of what is covered here includes: • Former head of the Stasi, Erich Mielke; his crimes. • The Stasi preventing dissidents from getting jobs, renting apartments, and other social controls. • Interviews with former Stasi agents. Their unflinching worldviews. • Klaus Renft, the bad boy of East German rock’n’roll. • The Stasi using radiation to mark people and objects it wanted to track. • The recruitment of Informers • The GDR importing North Vietnamese ‘socialist brothers’ as workers. • A tunnel connecting East and West Germany at 45 Brunnen Street • The famous Berlin Wall. • German "puzzle women." *********************** Stasiland was an extremely well-done work. It is also an important historical record. It should serve to remind people of how far from liberal principles their societies can drift, if their apathetic population lets it... I would highly recommend this one to anyone interested. 5 stars. ...more |
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Jul 25, 2023
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Jul 27, 2023
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3.86
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liked it
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Aug 27, 2024
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Aug 22, 2024
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4.21
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really liked it
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Jul 23, 2024
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Jul 17, 2024
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3.65
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really liked it
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Jul 16, 2024
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Jul 12, 2024
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4.38
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it was amazing
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Jul 10, 2024
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Jul 05, 2024
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4.01
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did not like it
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Jul 05, 2024
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Jul 02, 2024
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3.91
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it was amazing
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Jun 17, 2024
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Jun 12, 2024
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4.12
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really liked it
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Jun 21, 2024
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Jun 11, 2024
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4.31
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it was amazing
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Jun 13, 2024
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Jun 10, 2024
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3.82
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it was ok
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May 13, 2024
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May 09, 2024
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2.73
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really liked it
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May 31, 2024
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May 02, 2024
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4.47
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liked it
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Apr 2024
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Mar 27, 2024
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4.07
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liked it
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Mar 25, 2024
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Mar 20, 2024
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4.34
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it was amazing
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Jan 12, 2024
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Jan 04, 2024
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4.23
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it was ok
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Jan 19, 2024
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Dec 13, 2023
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3.61
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liked it
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Sep 21, 2023
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Sep 20, 2023
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3.58
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did not like it
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Sep 07, 2023
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Aug 21, 2023
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3.97
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really liked it
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Feb 2024
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Aug 14, 2023
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3.89
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liked it
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Aug 16, 2023
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Aug 09, 2023
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3.00
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it was amazing
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Aug 11, 2023
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Aug 01, 2023
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4.20
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it was amazing
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Jul 27, 2023
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Jul 25, 2023
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