David's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 24 Apr 2025 17:09:33 -0700 60 David's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg On Privacy and Technology 224029674 On Privacy and Technology is an essential primer on how to face the threats to privacy in today's age of digital technologies and AI.

With the rapid rise of new digital technologies and artificial intelligence, is privacy dead? Can anything be done to save us from a dystopian world without privacy?

In this short and accessible book, internationally renowned privacy expert Daniel J. Solove draws from a range of fields, from law to philosophy to the humanities, to illustrate the profound changes technology is wreaking upon our privacy, why they matter, and what can be done about them. Solove provides incisive examinations of key concepts in the digital sphere, including control, manipulation, harm, automation, reputation, consent, prediction, inference, and many others.

Compelling and passionate, On Privacy and Technology teems with powerful insights that will transform the way you think about privacy and technology.]]> 137 Daniel J. Solove 019777170X David 5 law, silicon-valley


Highly recommended. ]]> 4.50 On Privacy and Technology
author: Daniel J. Solove
name: David
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/24
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: law, silicon-valley
review:
Expertly treats the political, legal, cultural, and business issues that prevent us from dealing with the problem of privacy and technology.



Highly recommended.
]]> <![CDATA[Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age]]> 216352417 From the author of The Immortal King Rao, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a personal exploration of how technology companies have both fulfilled and exploited the human desire for understanding and connection

A MOST ANTICIPATED The New York Times, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Foreign Policy, Bustle, Alta, Ms. Magazine, Cultured, Denizen, The Millions, Lit Hub, Book Riot, and Electric Literature

When it was released to the public in November 2022, ChatGPT awakened the world to a secretive teaching AI-powered machines to write. Its creators had a sweeping ambition—to build machines that could not only communicate, but could do all kinds of other activities, better than humans ever could. But was this goal actually achievable? And if reached, would it lead to our liberation or our subjugation?

Vauhini Vara, an award-winning tech journalist and editor, had long been grappling with these questions. In 2021, she asked a predecessor of ChatGPT to write about her sister’s death, resulting in an essay that was both more moving and more disturbing than she could have imagined. It quickly went viral.

The experience, revealing both the power and the danger of corporate-owned technologies, forced Vara to interrogate how these technologies have influenced her understanding of her self and the world around her, from discovering online chat rooms as a preteen, to using social media as the Wall Street Journalâ€�s first Facebook reporter, to asking ChatGPT for writing advice—while compelling her to add to the trove of human-created material exploited for corporationsâ€� financial gain. Interspersed throughout this investigation are her own Google searches, Amazon reviews, and the other raw material of internet life—including the viral AI experiment that started it all. Searches illuminates how technological capitalism is both shaping and exploiting human existence, while proposing that by harnessing the collective creativity that makes humans unique, we might imagine a freer, more empowered relationship with our machines and, ultimately, with one another.]]> 394 Vauhini Vara David 0 3.50 2025 Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age
author: Vauhini Vara
name: David
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/22
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: memoir, culture-and-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Electric State (Tales from the Loop, #3)]]> 36836025
Simon StÄlenhag is the internationally acclaimed author, concept designer, and artist behind Tales from the Loop and Things from the Flood. His highly imaginative images and stories depicting illusive sci-fi phenomena in mundane, hyper-realistic Scandinavian landscapes have made StÄlenhag one of the most sought-after visual storytellers in the world. In The Electric State, StÄlenhag turns his unique vision to America.]]> 143 Simon StÄlenhag 9187222671 David 5 novel 4.40 2017 The Electric State (Tales from the Loop, #3)
author: Simon StÄlenhag
name: David
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: novel
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tales from the Loop (Tales from the Loop, #1)]]> 27404461
Simon StĂ„lenhag’s paintings of Swedish 1980s suburbia, populated by fantastic machines and strange beasts, have spread like wildfire on the Internet. The 2015 Kickstarter for the English version of the book raised over $320,000. StĂ„lenhag’s portrayal of a childhood against a backdrop of old Volvo cars and coveralls, combined with strange and mystical machines, creates a unique atmosphere that is both instantly recognizable and utterly alien.

In this top-quality artbook, Simon StĂ„lenhag’s first set of paintings are collected in book form—together with texts that tell the stories of the youth who lived in the shadows of the machines. In addition, three separate prints (format 260×230 mm) as well as a full-color map (format 520x340mm) of the land of The Loop are included in the book.]]> 128 Simon StĂ„lenhag 9187222213 David 5 novel 4.29 2014 Tales from the Loop (Tales from the Loop, #1)
author: Simon StÄlenhag
name: David
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/15
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: novel
review:
Weird but beautiful... somehow.
]]> <![CDATA[On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization]]> 221096036 In his travels through Israel and Gaza, #1 International Bestselling author Douglas Murray has seen the best and the worst humanity has to offer, and he has no trouble choosing a side.

Murray is not Jewish and before October 7, he had never lived in Israel. However, he objects to being lied to, and Israel has been on the receiving end of the biggest, deepest, longest lies in history.Ìę

Israel's commitment to fundamental Western values—capitalism, individual rights, democracy, and reason—has made it a beacon of progress in a region dominated by authoritarianism and extremism. Israel’s principles vividly contrast with the ideology of Hamas, which openly proclaims its love of death over life. With incisive moral clarity,ÌęOn Democracies and Death CultsÌęexposes how the campus left and international establishment confuse this conflict

Calling onÌęIsrael for restraint and proportionality, while Hamas commits genocide.Slandering Israelis as white colonialists, while only a third of Israelis are Jews of European ancestry.Framing the conflict as oppressor vs. oppressed, when it is really between a thriving multi-ethnic democracy and a death cult bent on its annihilation.ÌęDrawing from intensive on-the-ground reporting in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon, Douglas Murray places the latest violence in its proper historical context. He takes readers on a harrowing journey through the aftermath of the October 7 massacre, piecing together the exclusive accounts from victims, survivors, and even the terrorists responsible for the atrocities. If left unchecked, misplaced sympathy could embolden forces that seek to undermine not only Israel, but all of Western civilization.]]> 232 Douglas Murray 0063437155 David 0 israel, palestine 4.82 2025 On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization
author: Douglas Murray
name: David
average rating: 4.82
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: israel, palestine
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hedged Out: Inequality and Insecurity on Wall Street]]> 60302203 A former hedge fund worker takes an ethnographic approach to Wall Street to expose who wins, who loses, and why inequality endures.
Ìę
Who do you think of when you imagine a hedge fund manager? A greedy fraudster, a visionary entrepreneur, a wolf of Wall Street? These tropes capture the public imagination of a successful hedge fund manager. But behind the designer suits, helicopter commutes, and illicit pursuits are the everyday stories of people who work in the hedge fund industry—many of whom don’t realize they fall within the 1 percent that drives the divide between the richest and the rest. With Hedged Out, sociologist and former hedge fund analyst Megan Tobias Neely gives readers an outsider’s insider perspective on Wall Street and its enduring culture of inequality.
Ìę
Hedged Out dives into the upper echelons of Wall Street, where elite white masculinity is the standard measure for the capacity to manage risk and insecurity. Facing an unpredictable and risky stock market, hedge fund workers protect their interests by working long hours and building tight-knit networks with people who look and behave like them. Using ethnographic vignettes and her own industry experience, Neely showcases the voices of managers and other workers to illustrate how this industry of politically mobilized elites excludes people on the basis of race, class, and gender. Neely shows how this system of elite power and privilege not only sustains itself but builds over time as the beneficiaries concentrate their resources. Hedged Out explains why the hedge fund industry generates extreme wealth, why mostly white men benefit, and why reforming Wall Street will create a more equal society.]]> 337 Megan Tobias Neely David 1 finance 3.00 Hedged Out: Inequality and Insecurity on Wall Street
author: Megan Tobias Neely
name: David
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/07
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: finance
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Ideological Brain: A Radical Science of Susceptible Minds]]> 216320523 Why do some people become radicalized? Who is most susceptible to ideological thinking? Can we unchain our minds from toxic dogmas?

Drawing on her groundbreaking research, Dr Leor Zmigrod uncovers the hidden mechanisms driving our beliefs and behaviours. She uses the powerful tools of neuroscience to show that our political beliefs are not transient thoughts in our minds, divorced from our bodies � ideologies actually change our neural architecture, our cells. For instance, she demonstrates how a simple card sorting game can reveal your entire approach to life. Cognitive rigidity in such tasks � struggling to adapt to new rules � mirrors the rigidity with which you cling to social and political ideologies. While some individuals are more susceptible to dogmatic thinking than others, all of us can strive to be more flexible.

The Ideological Brain is essential reading in today’s polarized and polarizing world. To foster a more informed, resilient and freer society, we need to zoom into the processes happening inside each of us and learn to spot rigid thinking in ourselves and others. We need to learn to avoid black-and-white thinking and embrace ambiguity. We need to recognize our ability to resist irrational rules and authority. Regardless of your political stance, this book will challenge you to reassess your convictions â€� and what they are doing to your brain.]]> 292 Leor Zmigrod 1405974818 David 1
]]> 3.20 2025 The Ideological Brain: A Radical Science of Susceptible Minds
author: Leor Zmigrod
name: David
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2025
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/04
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: psychology, neuroscience, politics
review:
This book can only be considered scientific by those who are accustomed to treating tests and surveys as science. That is the only way you can get people to believe that rigidity or flexibility in thinking (whatever that concept even means) can be mapped from cognitive tests to political beliefs.


]]> Abundance 176530394 Abundance is a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to rethink big, entrenched problems that seem mired in systemic from climate change to housing, education to healthcare.

To trace the global history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of growing unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, the entire country has a national housing crisis. After years of slashing immigration, we don’t have enough workers. After decades of off-shoring manufacturing, we have a shortage of chips for cars and computers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean energy infrastructure we need. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for decades—because we haven’t been building enough.

Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather, one generation’s solutions have become the next generation’s problems. Rules and regulations designed to solve the environmental problems of the 1970s often prevent urban density and green energy projects that would help solve the environmental problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions in matters of education and healthcare have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades, our capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished.

Progress requires the ability to see promise rather than just peril in the creation of new ideas and projects, and an instinct to design systems and institutions that make building possible. In a book exploring how can move from a liberalism that not only protects and preserves but also builds, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and how we can adopt a mindset directed toward abundance, and not scarcity, to overcome them.]]> 297 Ezra Klein 1668023504 David 0 4.45 2025 Abundance
author: Ezra Klein
name: David
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: economics-and-state, politics, climate, environment
review:

]]> <![CDATA[American Bulk: Essays on Excess]]> 207970840 A tender, critical, and curious window into the American ethos of quantity over quality.


To be American is to hoard, to collect. But what if that wasn’t a bad thing? Emily Mester’s American Bulk asks readers to see our national consumer obsession as more than a modern scourge—to consider consumption a complex character in a larger story of capitalism, imperialism, and technology. In sharply witty prose, Mester details how a seasonal stint at Ulta Beauty reveals the insidious performance of retail sales, how Yelp reviews highlight the lengths we go to curate our personal ephemera, and why we can’t help but find joy at Costco. In a stark reexamination of diet culture and fatness, Mester recounts her teenage summer at fat camp and the liberatory body neutrality that surrounded her. And in Storm Lake, Iowa, Mester excavates her grandmother’s abandoned hoard, among other discoveries about her own family’s history. American Bulk asks us to regard consumption not with guilt but with grace and empathy.]]> 211 Emily Mester 1324035242 David 0 essays 3.99 2024 American Bulk: Essays on Excess
author: Emily Mester
name: David
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: essays
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labor Powering A.I.]]> 211411309 For readers of Naomi Klein and Nicole Perlroth, A myth-dissolving exposĂ© of what “artificial intelligenceâ€� really means, and a resounding argument for an equitable future of A.I.

Silicon Valley has sold us the illusion that artificial intelligence is a frictionless technology that will bring wealth and prosperity to humanity. But hidden beneath this smooth surface lies the grim reality of a precarious global workforce of millions laboring under often appalling conditions to make A.I. possible. This book presents an urgent, riveting investigation of the intricate network that maintains this exploitative system, revealing the untold truth of A.I.

Based on hundreds of interviews and thousands of hours of fieldwork over more than a decade, Feeding the Machine describes the lives of the workers deliberately concealed from view, and the power structures that determine their future. It gives voice to the people whom A.I. exploits, from accomplished writers and artists to the armies of data annotators, content moderators and warehouse workers, revealing how their dangerous, low-paid labor is connected to longer histories of gendered, racialized, and colonial exploitation.

A.I. is an extraction machine that feeds off humanity's collective effort and intelligence, churning through ever-larger datasets to power its algorithms. This book is a call to arms that details what we need to do to fight for a more just digital future.]]> 272 James Muldoon 163973497X David 0 artificial-intelligence 4.08 2024 Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labor Powering A.I.
author: James Muldoon
name: David
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: artificial-intelligence
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Smoke and Ashes: A Writer's Journey through Opium's Hidden Histories]]> 131048198
Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir and an excursion into history, both economic and cultural. Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India and China, as well as on the world at large. Engineered by the British Empire, which exported opium from India to sell in China, the trade and its revenues were essential to the Empire's survival. Upon deeper exploration, Ghosh finds opium at the origins of some of the world's biggest corporations, several of America's most powerful families and institutions, and contemporary globalism itself. In India the long-term consequences were even more profound.

Moving deftly between horticultural histories, the mythologies of capitalism and the social and cultural repercussions of colonialism, Smoke and Ashes reveals the pivotal role one small plant has played in the making of the world as we know it - a world that is now teetering on the edge of catastrophe.

---

'In thinking about the opium poppy's role in history it is hard to ignore the feeling of an intelligence at work. The single most important indication of this is the poppy's ability to create cycles of repetition, which manifest themselves in similar phenomena over time. What the opium poppy does is clearly not random; it builds symmetries that rhyme with each other.

It is important to recognize that these cycles will go on repeating, because the opium poppy is not going away anytime soon. In Mexico, for instance, despite intensive eradication efforts the acreage under poppy cultivation has continued to increase. Indeed, there is more opium being produced in the world today than at any time in the past.

Only by recognizing the power and intelligence of the opium poppy can we even begin to make peace with it.']]> 417 Amitav Ghosh 9356992665 David 0 asia 4.09 2024 Smoke and Ashes: A Writer's Journey through Opium's Hidden Histories
author: Amitav Ghosh
name: David
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: asia
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity]]> 11869272
In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human.

Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees "a fortune beyond counting" in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter - Annawadi's "most-everything girl" - will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call "the full enjoy."

But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi.

With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century's hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.]]> 278 Katherine Boo 1400067553 David 0 novel 3.97 2012 Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
author: Katherine Boo
name: David
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: novel
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Left Behind: A New Economics for Neglected Places]]> 197517110 The world-renowned economist offers a ground-breaking new vision for inclusive prosperity


Left behind places can be found in prosperous countries—from South Yorkshire, integral to the industrial revolution and now England’s poorest county, to Barranquilla, once Colombia’s portal to the Caribbean and now struggling. More alarmingly, the poorest countries in the world are diverging further from the rest of humanity than they were at the start of this century. Why have these places fallen behind? And what can we do about it?

World-renowned development economist Paul Collier has spent his life working in neglected communities. In this book he offers his candid diagnosis of why some regions and countries are failing, and a new vision for how they can catch up. Collier lays the blame for widening inequality on stale economic orthodoxies that prioritize market forces to revive left behind regions, and on the arrogant, hands-off and one-size fits all approach of centralized bureaucracies like the UK Treasury. As a result, Collier argues, the UK has become the most unequal and unfair society in the western world.

Yet the core message of Left Behind is bringing together encouraging case studies of recovery from around the world, Collier shows how renewal is achievable through a combination of collective learning, moral leadership and local agency. With keen insight, he draws lessons from such seemingly disparate fields as behavioural psychology, evolutionary biology and moral philosophy to share a bold, galvanizing vision for a more inclusive, prosperous world.
]]> 288 Paul Collier 0241279178 David 0 economics-and-state 3.79 Left Behind: A New Economics for Neglected Places
author: Paul Collier
name: David
average rating: 3.79
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: economics-and-state
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Communication Matters (The Modern Scholar): "that's not what I meant!" : the sociolinguistics of everyday conversation]]> 5182863 --From the publisher's course description]]> Deborah Tannen 1402547730 David 0 to-read 4.71 1986 Communication Matters (The Modern Scholar): "that's not what I meant!" : the sociolinguistics of everyday conversation
author: Deborah Tannen
name: David
average rating: 4.71
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Debunking FDR: The Man and the Myths]]> 226090526 The myths about Franklin Delano Roosevelt live on.

For the Left, FDR was a champion of the working class and the oppressed, suffering abuse as a “traitor to his class.â€� He gave up the lifestyle of the Hudson River gentry to lead his country out of the Depression and to victory against fascism. For many on the Right, FDR was out of his depth on economics but provided Americans with the optimism and confidence necessary to prevail during the Depression and gain victory in World War II.

Debunking The Man and The Myths exposes the suppressed and distorted facts about FDR’s life and the legends about him (many invented by FDR himself!) promoted by generations of historians. Born into immense wealth and insulated from the struggles of everyday Americans, FDR’s young life was one of vast privilege and mediocre talents. Mary Grabar chronicles FDR’s path to the his second-rate studies at Harvard, his indifference to law school and the legal profession, and his steady, insouciant rise through the government ranks. You will not think of FDR the same way again.

Ìę]]> 436 Mary Grabar David 0 history 0.0 Debunking FDR: The Man and the Myths
author: Mary Grabar
name: David
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why We’re Getting Poorer: A Realist's Guide to the Economy and How We Can Fix it]]> 217459693 An insider's guide to our broken economy and how it fails to serve us.

‘A fascinating examination of the failures of modern economics, and how these failures are harming us all' Grace Blakeley, author of Vulture Capitalism

‘Easily one of the most compelling economics communicators of our generation.' Yuan Yang, FT columnist and MP for Earley and Woodley

Did you know that while we think of money as notes issued by the government, the truth is that the overwhelming majority of money today is credit created by private banks?

Did you know that the reason housing keeps getting less accessible is because we haven’t found a way to separate houses from land in our policies?

And did you know that far from globalisation being a mystical force, certain countries and currencies have dominated the way it has played out � to their own advantage?

Whilst economics is at the heart of the society we live in, governing so many functions from our taxes to where we live to the price of our shopping, few of us have a strong grasp on the subject. This book is here to help.

Why We're Getting Poorer delves into the key topics in economics � money, globalisation, inequality, climate change and growth � showing that what we think we know about these things is wrong, and teaching us what we really need to know. Deciphering the jargon and complexity of economic thinking, with examples ranging from the Simpsons to the German football league to The Inbetweeners, Cahal Moran shows us why our economy set us up to fail, and offers suggestions for how we can make positive changes.

Written by an award-winning economist and the YouTuber responsible for ‘Unlearning Economicsâ€�, Why We're Getting Poorer is a thrilling, iconoclastic guide to how the world really works.]]> 401 Cahal Moran 0008637970 David 1 economics-and-state 4.14 Why We’re Getting Poorer: A Realist's Guide to the Economy and How We Can Fix it
author: Cahal Moran
name: David
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 1
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: economics-and-state
review:

]]> We Have Never Been Modern 134569
What does it mean to be modern? What difference does the scientific method make? The difference, Latour explains, is in our careful distinctions between nature and society, between human and thing, distinctions that our benighted ancestors, in their world of alchemy, astrology, and phrenology, never made. But alongside this purifying practice that defines modernity, there exists another seemingly contrary one: the construction of systems that mix politics, science, technology, and nature. The ozone debate is such a hybrid, in Latour’s analysis, as are global warming, deforestation, even the idea of black holes. As these hybrids proliferate, the prospect of keeping nature and culture in their separate mental chambers becomes overwhelming—and rather than try, Latour suggests, we should rethink our distinctions, rethink the definition and constitution of modernity itself. His book offers a new explanation of science that finally recognizes the connections between nature and culture—and so, between our culture and others, past and present.

Nothing short of a reworking of our mental landscape, We Have Never Been Modern blurs the boundaries among science, the humanities, and the social sciences to enhance understanding on all sides. A summation of the work of one of the most influential and provocative interpreters of science, it aims at saving what is good and valuable in modernity and replacing the rest with a broader, fairer, and finer sense of possibility.]]> 168 Bruno Latour 0674948394 David 0 anthropology, philosophy 3.95 1991 We Have Never Been Modern
author: Bruno Latour
name: David
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: anthropology, philosophy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of Its Traditional Defense]]> 19378958
This edition includes a new introduction by the theologian and Niebuhr scholar Gary Dorrien in which he elucidates the work’s significance and places it firmly into the arc of Niebuhr’s career.]]> 223 Reinhold Niebuhr 0226584011 David 5 political-philosophy 3.95 1950 The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of Its Traditional Defense
author: Reinhold Niebuhr
name: David
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1950
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: political-philosophy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[World Eaters: How Venture Capital is Cannibalizing the Economy]]> 215593332 A Next Big Idea Book Club March 2025 Must-Read

An urgent and illuminating perspective that offers a window into how the most pernicious aspects of the venture capital ethos is reaching all areas of our lives, into everything from healthcare to food to entertainment to the labor market and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

The venture capital playbook is causing unique harms to society. And in World Eaters, Catherine Bracy offers a window into the pernicious aspects of VC and shows us how its bad practices are bleeding into all industries, undermining the labor and housing markets and posing unique dangers to the economy at large. VC’s creates a wide, powerful wake that impacts the average consumer just as much as it does investors and entrepreneurs.

In researching this book, Bracy has interviewed founders, fund managers, contract and temp workers in the gig economy, and Limited Partners across the landscape. She learned that the current VC model is not a good fit for the majority of start-ups, and yet, there are too few options for early stage funding outside of VC dollars. And while there are some alternative paths for sustainable, responsible growth, without the help of regulators, there is not much motivation to drive investors from the roulette table that is venture capital.

World Eaters is an eye-opening account of the ways that the values of contemporary venture capital hurt founders, consumers, and the market. Bracy’s clear-eyed debut is a must-read for fans of Winners Take All, Super Pumped, and Brotopia, an appealing “insider / outsiderâ€� perspective on Silicon Valley, and those who are fascinated to look under the hood and learn why the modern economy is not working for most of us.]]> 272 Catherine Bracy 0593473507 David 4 4.57 World Eaters: How Venture Capital is Cannibalizing the Economy
author: Catherine Bracy
name: David
average rating: 4.57
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: silicon-valley, finance, economics-and-state
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence]]> 29388319 A revolutionary and timely reconsideration of everything we know about power. Celebrated UC Berkeley psychologist Dr. Dacher Keltner argues that compassion and selflessness enable us to have the most influence over others and the result is power as a force for good in the world.Power is ubiquitous—but totally misunderstood. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, Dr. Dacher Keltner presents the very idea of power in a whole new light, demonstrating not just how it is a force for good in the world, but how—via compassion and selflessness—it is attainable for each and every one of us. It is taken for granted that power corrupts. This is reinforced culturally by everything from Machiavelli to contemporary politics. But how do we get power? And how does it change our behavior? So often, in spite of our best intentions, we lose our hard-won power. Enduring power comes from empathy and giving. Above all, power is given to us by other people. This is what we all too often forget, and it is the crux of the power by misunderstanding the behaviors that helped us to gain power in the first place we set ourselves up to fall from power. We abuse and lose our power, at work, in our family life, with our friends, because we've never understood it correctly—until now. Power isn't the capacity to act in cruel and uncaring ways; it is the ability to do good for others, expressed in daily life, and in and of itself a good thing. Dr. Keltner lays out exactly—in twenty original "Power Principles"—how to retain power; why power can be a demonstrably good thing; when we are likely to abuse power; and the terrible consequences of letting those around us languish in powerlessness.]]> 164 Dacher Keltner 0698195590 David 1 I am not sure anyone can finish this book and gain any clear understanding of power. I have many problems with the book but I will just list 3 here:

1. The author insists that power is not grabbed (as we assume), but given.
Whereas the
Machiavellian approach to power assumes that individuals grab it through
coercive force, strategic deception, and the undermining of others, the
science finds that power is not grabbed but is given to individuals by
groups.
I am not sure what kind of science can prove that, but I am more confused about why the author thinks both propositions are mutually exclusive. There are situations where power is taken by manipulation, blackmail, threats, and deception. And there are situations where power is given. It is both.

2. The book is filled with sweeping statements that are true in particular cases but absolutely not true as a general proposition. For instance: PRINCIPLE 5 Groups give power to those who advance the greater good.
Again, this is true in some cases but not true as a general rule. Why? Because many people give power and esteem and status not to people who advance general good (whatever general good means), but to those who benefit them. Sometimes we reward those who benefit us even to the detriment of the general good. I am sure I don't need to mention specific cases where someone has immense status and power for actions that harm people while advancing the interests of a small group of [wealthy] people.
3. The author does not do enough to address all the different types of power. Are we talking about political power, military power, natural power (such as the power of parents over children), power by expertise, violent power, etc.
]]> 3.92 2016 The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence
author: Dacher Keltner
name: David
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2016
rating: 1
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: psychology-and-sociology, philosophy
review:

I am not sure anyone can finish this book and gain any clear understanding of power. I have many problems with the book but I will just list 3 here:

1. The author insists that power is not grabbed (as we assume), but given.
Whereas the
Machiavellian approach to power assumes that individuals grab it through
coercive force, strategic deception, and the undermining of others, the
science finds that power is not grabbed but is given to individuals by
groups.
I am not sure what kind of science can prove that, but I am more confused about why the author thinks both propositions are mutually exclusive. There are situations where power is taken by manipulation, blackmail, threats, and deception. And there are situations where power is given. It is both.

2. The book is filled with sweeping statements that are true in particular cases but absolutely not true as a general proposition. For instance: PRINCIPLE 5 Groups give power to those who advance the greater good.
Again, this is true in some cases but not true as a general rule. Why? Because many people give power and esteem and status not to people who advance general good (whatever general good means), but to those who benefit them. Sometimes we reward those who benefit us even to the detriment of the general good. I am sure I don't need to mention specific cases where someone has immense status and power for actions that harm people while advancing the interests of a small group of [wealthy] people.
3. The author does not do enough to address all the different types of power. Are we talking about political power, military power, natural power (such as the power of parents over children), power by expertise, violent power, etc.

]]> <![CDATA[The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West]]> 213618136
From the Palantir co-founder, one of tech’s boldest thinkers and The Economist’s “best CEO of 2024,â€� and his deputy, a sweeping indictment of the West’s culture of complacency, arguing that timid leadership, intellectual fragility, and an unambitious view of technology’s potential in Silicon Valley have made the U.S. vulnerable in an era of mounting global threats.

“Not since Allan Bloom’s astonishingly successful 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind—more than one million copies sold—has there been a cultural critique as sweeping as Karp’s.”—George F. Will, The Washington Post

Silicon Valley has lost its way.

Our most brilliant engineering minds once collaborated with government to advance world-changing technologies. Their efforts secured the West’s dominant place in the geopolitical order. But that relationship has now eroded, with perilous repercussions.

Today, the market rewards shallow engagement with the potential of technology. Engineers and founders build photo-sharing apps and marketing algorithms, unwittingly becoming vessels for the ambitions of others. This complacency has spread into academia, politics, and the boardroom. The result? An entire generation for whom the narrow-minded pursuit of the demands of a late capitalist economy has become their calling.

In this groundbreaking treatise, Palantir co-founder and CEO Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska offer a searing critique of our collective abandonment of ambition, arguing that in order for the U.S. and its allies to retain their global edge—and preserve the freedoms we take for granted—the software industry must renew its commitment to addressing our most urgent challenges, including the new arms race of artificial intelligence. The government, in turn, must embrace the most effective features of the engineering mindset that has propelled Silicon Valley’s success.

Above all, our leaders must reject intellectual fragility and preserve space for ideological confrontation. A willingness to risk the disapproval of the crowd, Karp and Zamiska contend, has everything to do with technological and economic outperformance.

At once iconoclastic and rigorous, this book will also lift the veil on Palantir and its broader political project from the inside, offering a passionate call for the West to wake up to our new reality.]]> 320 Alexander C. Karp 0593798694 David 0 3.73 The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West
author: Alexander C. Karp
name: David
average rating: 3.73
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/22
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: culture-and-technology, politics, silicon-valley
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America]]> 197127808 How the antitax fringe went mainstream—and now threatens America’s future

The postwar United States enjoyed large, widely distributed economic rewards—and most Americans accepted that taxes were a reasonable price to pay for living in a society of shared prosperity. Then in 1978 California enacted Proposition 13, a property tax cap that Ronald Reagan hailed as a “second American Revolution,â€� setting off an antitax, antigovernment wave that has transformed American politics and economic policy. In The Power to Destroy, Michael Graetz tells the story of the antitax movement and how it holds America hostage—undermining the nation’s ability to meet basic needs and fix critical problems.

In 1819, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that the power to tax entails “the power to destroy.â€� But The Power to Destroy argues that tax opponents now wield this destructive power. Attacking the IRS, protecting tax loopholes, and pushing tax cuts from Reagan to Donald Trump, the antitax movement is threatening the nation’s social safety net, increasing inequality, ballooning the national debt, and sapping America’s financial strength. The book chronicles how the movement originated as a fringe enterprise promoted by zealous outsiders using false economic claims and thinly veiled racist rhetoric, and how—abetted by conservative media and Grover Norquist’s “taxpayer protection pledge"—it evolved into a mainstream political force.

The important story of how the antitax movement came to dominate and distort politics, and how it impedes rational budgeting, equality, and opportunities, The Power to Destroy is essential reading for understanding American life today.]]> 360 Michael J. Graetz 0691225559 David 1 4.29 The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America
author: Michael J. Graetz
name: David
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 1
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: politics, political-philosophy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power]]> 86510702 A moving meditation on recent geopolitical crises, viewed through the lens of ancient and modern tragedy
Ìę
“Classical drama provides crucial lessons for policymakers. . . . A road map for effective, well-considered policy.”â€�Kirkus Reviews
Ìę
Some books emerge from a lifetime of hard-won knowledge. Robert D. Kaplan has learned, from a career spent reporting on wars, revolutions, and international politics in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, that the essence of geopolitics is tragedy. In The Tragic Mind, he employs the works of ancient Greek dramatists, Shakespeare, German philosophers, and the modern classics to explore the central subjects of international order, disorder, rebellion, ambition, loyalty to family and state, violence, and the mistakes of power.
Ìę
The great dilemmas of international politics, he argues, are not posed by good versus evil—a clear and easy choice—but by contests of good versus good, where the choices are often searing, incompatible, and fraught with consequences. A deeply learned and deeply felt meditation on the importance of lived experience in conducting international relations, this is a book for everyone who wants a profound understanding of the tragic politics of our time.]]> 152 Robert D. Kaplan 0300268734 David 3 4.23 2023 The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power
author: Robert D. Kaplan
name: David
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/13
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: politics, political-power, political-philosophy, international-relations, geopolitics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis]]> 212487643 An urgent exploration of a world in constant crisis,Ìęwhere every regional disaster threatens to become a globalÌęconflict,Ìęwith lessons from history that can stop the spiral—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Revenge of Geography
Ìę
We are entering a new era of global cataclysm in which the world faces a deadly mix of war, climate change, great power rivalry, rapid technological advancement, the end of both monarchy and empire, and countless other dangers. In Waste Land, Robert D. Kaplan, geopolitical expert and author of more than twenty books on world affairs, incisively explains how we got here and where we are going. Kaplan makes a novel argument that the current geopolitical landscape must be considered alongside contemporary social phenomena such as urbanization and digital news media, grounding his ideas in foundational modern works of philosophy, politics, and literature, including the poem from which the title is borrowed,Ìęand celebrating a canon ofÌętradistionallyÌęconservative thinkers, including Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and many others.
Ìę
As in many of his books, Kaplan looks to history and literature to inform the present, drawing particular comparisons between today's challenges and the Weimar Republic, the post-World War I democratic German government that fell to Nazism in the 1930s. Just as in Weimar, which faced myriad crises inextricably bound up with global systems, the singular dilemmas of the twenty-first century—pandemic disease, recession, mass migration, the destabilizing effects of large-scale democracy and great power conflicts, and the intimate bonds created by technology—mean that every disaster in one country has the potential to become a global crisis, too. According to Kaplan, the solutions lie inÌęprioritizing order in governing systems, arguing that stability and historic liberalism rather than mass democracy per se will save global populations from an anarchic future.Ìę
Ìę
Waste Land is a bracing glimpse into a future defined by the connections afforded by technology but with remarkable parallels to the past. Just as it did in Weimar, Kaplan fears the situation may be spiraling out of our control—unlessÌęour leadersÌęact first.]]> 212 Robert D. Kaplan 0593730348 David 1 3.94 2025 Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis
author: Robert D. Kaplan
name: David
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2025
rating: 1
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: geopolitics, international-relations
review:
If the US State Department were a book....
]]> <![CDATA[Hubris: The Origins of Russia's War Against Ukraine]]> 208925374
After the fall of communism, politicians, professors and the public thought that democracy would spread to Eastern Europe and that these countries would share European values and beliefs. The EU, NATO and a host of NGOs set about encouraging this glorious future, expanding membership of the great institutions. The failure to achieve this is one of the most ironic aspects of the story of Western ambition since the end of the Cold War. And all concerned underestimated the effect on Russia.

Especially the expansion of NATO. The Russian elite firmly believed that the US and Germany had promised them that NATO would not be extended to include the countries of the former Soviet bloc. Instead, in a stumbling progress witheringly described by Jonathan Haslam, successive American presidents distracted by domestic concerns found themselves going along with the absorption of Poland, the Czech republic and all the rest into the Western military alliance. They did not understand or care enough about the effects on Russia. The fledgling Russian democracy broke down and Vladimir Putin's personal dictatorship flourished, enhanced by the most corrupt form of oligarchic capitalism. This occurred while Russia was painfully isolated, removed from the larger institutions and communities that offered status and security.

Every condescending reminder that Russia was a power of the second rank exacerbated a grievous sense of loss. And the direct heirs of that state - whether in the fighting services, the secret intelligence services or the diplomatic service - suffered humiliation and innumerable slights: constant reminders of the indignity of their country's sudden impoverishment and impotence.

This story, of European pride and pathological Russian resentment, is what lies behind the war in Ukraine. In Hubris, Jonathan Haslam, one of the world's greatest experts on Russian foreign policy and espionage, examines with chilling realism and caustic wit one of the most intractable issues of our time.]]> 400 Jonathan Haslam 1804548227 David 5 geopolitics 3.42 2024 Hubris: The Origins of Russia's War Against Ukraine
author: Jonathan Haslam
name: David
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: geopolitics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart]]> 216022166 One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025



From the author of The Shallows, a bracing exploration of how social media has warped our sense of self and society.


From the telegraph and telephone in the 1800s to the internet and social media in our own day, the public has welcomed new communication systems. Whenever people gain more power to share information, the assumption goes, society prospers. Superbloom tells a startlingly different story. As communication becomes more mechanized and efficient, it breeds confusion more than understanding, strife more than harmony. Media technologies all too often bring out the worst in us.


A celebrated commentator on the human consequences of technology, Nicholas Carr reorients the conversation around modern communication, challenging some of our most cherished beliefs about self-expression, free speech, and media democratization. He reveals how messaging apps strip nuance from conversation, how “digital crowdingâ€� erodes empathy and triggers aggression, how online political debates narrow our minds and distort our perceptions, and how advances in AI are further blurring the already hazy line between fantasy and reality. Even as Carr shows how tech companies and their tools of connection have failed us, he forces us to confront inconvenient truths about our own nature. The human psyche, it turns out, is profoundly ill-suited to the “superbloomâ€� of information that technology has unleashed.


With rich psychological insights and vivid examples drawn from history and science, Superbloom provides both a panoramic view of how media shapes society and an intimate examination of the fate of the self in a time of radical dislocation. It may be too late to change the system, Carr counsels, but it’s not too late to change ourselves.]]> 272 Nicholas Carr 1324064625 David 4 culture-and-technology 4.30 Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart
author: Nicholas Carr
name: David
average rating: 4.30
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: culture-and-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cryptomania: Hype, Hope, and the Fall of FTX's Billion-Dollar Fintech Empire]]> 205042230 For fans of Bad Blood and Too Big to Fail, an explosive, page-turning account of one of the largest financial frauds in US history, chronicling the utopian promises, human collateral, and incineration of billions of dollars in the 2022 crypto crash, by Time magazine’s technology correspondent.

As cryptocurrency rose in popularity during the pandemic, new converts bought into the idea that crypto would not only make them rich, but would usher in imminent revolutions across art, finance, politics, and gaming. Cryptocurrency caught the zeitgeist through figures like FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who only two years later would be convicted of one of the most calamitous acts of financial fraud in US history.

During his meteoric rise, Sam Bankman-Fried outflanked idealists in the movement like Vitalik Buterin, who sought to build fairer, more democratic systems through Ethereum. Bankman-Fried pursued a growth-obsessed, by-any-means approach to crypto, which proved seductive to those who just wanted to get rich. But this Silicon Valley-like approach also drove the creation of a spate of high-risk financial instruments that mirrored those of the 2008 financial crisis. Accused of misleading investors and mishandling funds, Bankman-Fried became a target of prosecutors.

Now, Cryptomania unfolds the tumultuous twenty months inside this male-dominated, overhyped industry that led to its downfall. Drawing on exclusive reporting and an extensive network in the global NFT community, Andrew Chow chronicles the battle for crypto’s soul, and the human toll of its economic meltdown—from the conmen and eccentrics driving the bubble to the victims caught in its burst.]]> 287 Andrew R. Chow 1668038188 David 0 tech, crypto 3.93 Cryptomania: Hype, Hope, and the Fall of FTX's Billion-Dollar Fintech Empire
author: Andrew R. Chow
name: David
average rating: 3.93
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: tech, crypto
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us]]> 199897812 An intimate and expansive look at Judy Blume’s life, work, and cultural impact, focusing on her most iconic—and controversial—young adult novels, from Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret to Blubber.Everyone knows Judy Blume. Her books have garnered her fans of all ages for decades and sold tens of millions of copies. But why were people so drawn to them? And why are we still talking about them now in the 21st century? In The Genius of Judy, her remarkable story is revealed as never before, beginning with her as a mother of two searching for purpose outside of her home in 1960s suburban New Jersey. The books she wrote starred regular children with genuine thoughts and problems. But behind those deceptively simple tales, Blume explored the pillars of the growing women’s rights movement, in which girls and women were entitled to careers, bodily autonomy, fulfilling relationships, and even sexual pleasure. Blume wasn’t trying to be a revolutionary—she just wanted to tell honest stories—but in doing so, she created a cohesive, culture-altering vision of modern adolescence. Blume’s bravery provoked backlash, making her the country’s most-banned author in the mid-1980s. Thankfully, her works withstood those culture wars and it’s no coincidence that Blume has resurfaced as a cultural touchstone now. Young girls are still cat-called, sex education curricula are getting dismissed as pornography, and entire shelves of libraries are being banned. As we face these challenges, it’s only natural we look to Blume, the grand dame of so-called dirty books. This is the story of how a housewife became a groundbreaking artist, and how generations of empowered fans are her legacy, today more than ever.]]> 280 Rachelle Bergstein 1668010925 David 0 profile, culture 3.73 2024 The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us
author: Rachelle Bergstein
name: David
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: profile, culture
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter]]> 30624730
The second edition of Democracy and Political Ignorance fully updates its analysis to include new and vital discussions on the implications of the "Big Sort" for politics, the link between political ignorance and the disproportionate political influence of the wealthy, assessment of proposed new strategies for increasing political knowledge, and up-to-date survey data on political ignorance during recent elections. Ilya Somin mines the depths of the current state of ignorance in America and reveals it as a major problem for democracy. He weighs various options for solving this problem, provocatively arguing that political ignorance is best mitigated and its effects lessened by decentralizing and limiting government. People make better decisions when they have stronger incentives to acquire relevant information-and to use it wisely.]]> 405 Ilya Somin 0804799350 David 4 3.22 2013 Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter
author: Ilya Somin
name: David
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: political-philosophy, sociology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground]]> 211400179 A groundbreaking new perspective on the moral mind that rewrites our understanding of where moral judgments come from, and how we can overcome the feelings of outrage that so often divide us

It’s easy to assume that liberals and conservatives have radically different moral foundations. In Outraged, Kurt Gray showcases the latest science to demonstrate that we all have the same moral mind—that everyone’s moral judgments stem from feeling threatened or vulnerable to harm.

Although we all care about protecting ourselves and the vulnerable, conflict arises when we have different perceptions of harm. We get outraged when we disagree about who the “realâ€� victim is, whether we’re talking about political issues, fights with our in-laws, or arguments on the playground.

In laying out a new vision of our moral minds, Gray tackles three common myths that prevent us from understanding ourselves and those around us. For a long time, it was commonly believed that our ancestors were apex predators. In reality, we were more hunted than hunter. This explains why our minds are hard-wired to perceive threats, and why we’re so preoccupied with danger. Gray also examines new research that finds that our moral judgments are based more on gut feelings of harm than rational thought. We condemn acts that feel harmful. Finally, Gray refutes the idea that facts are the best way to bridge divides. In moral and political arguments, facts often fail to convince others of our point of view, since our moral judgments are based on our subjective beliefs not objective observations. Instead, sharing stories of personal suffering can help to create more common ground.

In this insightful tour of our moral minds, Gray draws on groundbreaking research and fascinating stories to provide a new explanation for our moral outrage, and unpacks how to best bridge divides. If you want to understand the morals of the “other side,â€� ask yourself a simple question—what harms do they see?]]> 497 Kurt Gray 0593317440 David 3 4.15 Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground
author: Kurt Gray
name: David
average rating: 4.15
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: psychology-and-sociology, politics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Return of Resentment: The Rise and Decline and Rise Again of a Political Emotion (The Life of Ideas)]]> 75580153 Charts the long history of resentment, from its emergence to its establishment as the word of the moment.

Ìę

The term “resentment,â€� often casually paired with words like “hatred,â€� “rage,â€� and “fear,â€� has dominated US news analysis since November 2016. Despite its increased use, this word seems to defy easy categorization. Does “resentmentâ€� describe many interlocking sentiments, or is it just another way of saying “angerâ€�? Does it suggest an irrational grievance, as opposed to a legitimate callout of injustice? Does it imply political leanings, or is it nonpartisan by nature?

Ìę

In The Return of Resentment, Robert A. Schneider explores these questions and more, moving from eighteenth-century Britain to the aftermath of the French Revolution to social movements throughout the twentieth century. Drawing on a wide range of writers, thinkers, and historical experiences, Schneider illustrates how resentment has morphed across time, coming to express a collective sentiment felt by people and movements across the political spectrum. In this history, we discover resentment’s modernity and its ambiguity—how it can be used to dismiss legitimate critique and explain away violence, but also convey a moral stance that demands recognition. Schneider anatomizes the many ways resentment has been used to label present-day movements, from followers of Trump and supporters of Brexit to radical Islamicists and proponents of identity politics. Addressing our contemporary political situation in a novel way, The Return of Resentment challenges us to think critically about the roles different emotions play in politics.]]> 311 Robert A. Schneider 022658657X David 2 3.67 The Return of Resentment: The Rise and Decline and Rise Again of a Political Emotion (The Life of Ideas)
author: Robert A. Schneider
name: David
average rating: 3.67
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2023/04/19
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: political-philosophy, politics, sociology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mindmasters: The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior]]> 205905685 A refreshingly relatable exploration of how algorithms penetrate the most intimate aspects of our psychology, and how we can regain mastery over our lives—from the pioneering expert of psychological targeting.

There are more digital pieces of data than stars in the universe. This data helps us monitor our planet, decipher our genetic code, and take a deep dive into our psychology.

As algorithms become increasingly adept at accessing our minds, they also become more and more powerful at controlling it—enticing us to buy a certain product or vote for a certain political candidate. Some of us say this technological trend is no big deal. Others consider it one of the greatest threats to humanity. But what if the truth is more nuanced and mind-bending than that?

In Mindmasters, Columbia Business School professor Sandra Matz offers a fascinating insider perspective on the art and data-driven science of psychological targeting. By relating her own personal story of growing up in a small village—where few aspects of life remain truly private—to her groundbreaking research in computational psychology, Matz reveals how Big Data offers insights into the most intimate aspects of our psyche and how these insights empower external influence over the choices we make.

Filled with Ted-Talk-like explanations and real-life examples from Matz's research and consulting work, Mindmasters paints a nuanced picture of the power of psychological targeting. Like nosy neighbors, it can be creepy, manipulative, and downright harmful—with scandals like Cambridge Analytica being merely the tip of the iceberg. Yet, like any tight-knit, supportive village community, it also holds enormous potential to help us live healthier and happier lives—for example, by improving our mental health, encouraging better financial decisions, or enabling us to break out of our echo chambers.

With passion and clear-eyed precision, Matz shows us how to manage psychological targeting and redesign the data game in a way that empowers us to take back control and ask more of our personal data.

Mindmasters is a riveting look at what our digital footprints reveal about us, how they're being used—for good and for ill—and how we can gain more control and power over the data that define us.]]> 240 Sandra Matz 1647826314 David 4 4.12 Mindmasters: The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior
author: Sandra Matz
name: David
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: psychology-and-sociology, silicon-valley, culture-and-technology
review:
Could have been 5 stars, but the middle of the book is filled with materials that should have been condensed to a fifth of its size without losing the overall point.
]]> <![CDATA[Mississippi Swindle: Brett Favre and the Welfare Scandal that Shocked America]]> 201750704 How America’s youngest state auditor uncovered the largest public corruption scandal in the history of the nation’s poorest state

“A must readâ€� with all the thrills of a John Grisham novel â€� for fans of shocking true crime exposĂ©s like Black Edge and Bad Blood (Peter Schweizer, author of Secret Empires)

This riveting exposé details how a small team of auditors and investigators, led by the youngest State Auditor in the country, uncovered a brazen scheme where the powerful stole millions in welfare funds from the poor in a sprawling conspiracy that stretched from Mississippi to Malibu.

Well-connected donors, highly placed officials, and popular public figures diverted tens of millions of dollars from the federal government's TANF � temporary assistance for needy families � program until a Republican auditor, his small team of dedicated investigators, and a Democratic prosecutor joined forces to hold them accountable in the face of intense obstruction and harassment.

Peopled with unforgettable characters � from the perpetrators; to the impoverished citizens for whom the money was intended; to the investigators, prosecutors, and reporters who held them to account � Mississippi Swindle is a political and true crime drama that highlights larger crises while appealing to a broad nationwide audience.]]> 278 Shad White 1586423878 David 5 investigative 3.87 Mississippi Swindle: Brett Favre and the Welfare Scandal that Shocked America
author: Shad White
name: David
average rating: 3.87
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: investigative
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Corporation in the 21st Century: Why (almost) everything we are told about business is wrong]]> 203173539
But no products and production have dematerialised. The goods and services provided by the leading companies of the twenty-first century appear on your screen, fit in your pocket, or occupy your head. Ownership of the means of production is a redundant concept. Workers are the means of production; increasingly, they take the plant home. Capital is a service bought from a specialist supplier with little influence over customer businesses. The professional managers who run modern corporations do not exert authority because they are wealthy; they are wealthy because they exert authority.

The pharmaceutical industry (or Big Pharma) creates life-saving vaccines and ramps drug prices up to near-unaffordable levels. Amazon gives us next-day delivery on almost everything and has its workers urinate in bottles rather than take breaks. John Kay's incisive overhaul of our ideas about business redefines our understanding of successful commercial activity and the corporation - and describes how we have come to 'love the product' as we 'hate the producer.' This is a brilliant and original work from one of the greatest economists.]]> 448 John Kay 1805221736 David 3 business 3.78 2024 The Corporation in the 21st Century: Why (almost) everything we are told about business is wrong
author: John Kay
name: David
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: business
review:

]]> Wool - Holston (Wool, #1) 12287209
Or you'll get what you wish for.]]> 56 Hugh Howey David 4 fiction, sci-fi 4.14 2012 Wool - Holston (Wool, #1)
author: Hugh Howey
name: David
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2023/05/27
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: fiction, sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosity]]> 200128457 Ìę
Math has a reputation for being inaccessible. People think that it requires a special gift or that comprehension is a matter of genes. Yet the greatest mathematicians throughout history, from RenĂ© Descartes to Alexander Grothendieck, have insisted that this is not the case. Like Albert Einstein, who famously claimed to have “no special talent,â€� they said that they had accomplished what they did using ordinary human doubts, weaknesses, curiosity, and imagination.
Ìę
David Bessis offers an illuminating guide toward deeper mathematical comprehension and reconnects us with the mental plasticity we experienced as children. With simple, concrete examples, Bessis shows how mathematical comprehension is integral to the great learning milestones of life, such as learning to see, to speak, to walk, and to eat with a spoon.
Ìę
Focusing on the deeply human roots of mathematics, Bessis dispels the myths of mathematical genius and offers an engaging initiation into the experience of math not as a series of discouragingly incomprehensible logic problems but as a physical activity akin to yoga, meditation, or a martial art. He opens the door to changing the way you think not only about math but about intelligence, intuition, and everything that goes on inside your head.]]> 344 David Bessis 0300270887 David 4 popular-science, mathematics 4.33 Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosity
author: David Bessis
name: David
average rating: 4.33
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: popular-science, mathematics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Modern Scholar: Liberty and Its Price: Understanding the French Revolution]]> 11373061 Donald M.G. Sutherland David 0 to-read 3.80 2008 The Modern Scholar: Liberty and Its Price: Understanding the French Revolution
author: Donald M.G. Sutherland
name: David
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States]]> 199364794 No Democracy Lasts Forever argues that the Constitution has become a threat to American democracy and must be dramatically changed or replaced if secession is to be avoided.


Deeply troubled by the Constitution’s inherent flaws, Erwin Chemerinsky, the renowned dean of Berkeley law school, came to the sobering conclusion that our nearly 250-year-old founding document is responsible for the crisis now facing American democracy. Pointing out that just fifteen of the 11,848 amendments proposed since 1789 have passed, Chemerinsky contends that the very nature of our polarization results from the Constitution’s “bad bones,â€� which have created a government that no longer works or has the confidence of the public. Yet political armageddon can still be avoided, Chemerinsky writes, if a new constitutional convention is empowered to replace the Constitution of 1787, much as the Founding Fathers replaced the outdated Articles of Confederation. If this isn’t possible, Americans must give serious thought to forms of secession—including a United States structured like the European Union—based on a recognition that what divides us as a country is, in fact, greater than what unites us.]]> 232 Erwin Chemerinsky 1324091592 David 1
I will ignore the issues the author identified as problems (as stated) and dive right into the 3 problems I have with the book.

1. The first is a minor issue. Merely definitional. Is something flawed because it is no longer able to handle a current problem or because it was inadequate to handle a problem that existed at the time of its design? In other words, if there is an issue the constitutional structure is unable to handle efficiently today, does that make the constitution flawed or does that mean the political landscape has changed? The constitution was designed to prevent big states from overpowering smaller states and to make legislative changes slow and deliberate. If this is more of an obstacle today, it simply means the landscape has changed and that corresponding changes might be needed but it does not mean that it was flawed from the beginning.

2. This brings me to the second point which is that the author basis the argument on the assumption (tacit, I must say) that there is a governmental structure which has the inherent ability to solve societal issues. Such a structure doesn't exist.

3. There is no problem existing today that cannot exist within a different political structure. Changing the way the president is elected from electoral college to direct democracy will not make people less polarized. It will not make people more confident in public institutions. The flaws of systems are composed mostly of the incentives and dynamics of the people within the system itself.


To summarize, the problems the author identifies, if they are problems at all as stated, are not caused by the so-called flaws in the constitutions. Neither will they be resolved by the changes he proposes. This is a case where a doctor successfully identifies a disease, but fails to identify both the cause and the cure.]]> 4.36 No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States
author: Erwin Chemerinsky
name: David
average rating: 4.36
book published:
rating: 1
read at: 2024/12/03
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: political-philosophy, political-history
review:
The aim of this book is really simple: to show that American democracy is in danger. In danger from increasing loss of confidence in public officials and institutions, increasing polarization, erosion of democratic norms, racial inequalities, etc. The author suggests that these problems have a cause buried in the foundational flaws of the constitution.

I will ignore the issues the author identified as problems (as stated) and dive right into the 3 problems I have with the book.

1. The first is a minor issue. Merely definitional. Is something flawed because it is no longer able to handle a current problem or because it was inadequate to handle a problem that existed at the time of its design? In other words, if there is an issue the constitutional structure is unable to handle efficiently today, does that make the constitution flawed or does that mean the political landscape has changed? The constitution was designed to prevent big states from overpowering smaller states and to make legislative changes slow and deliberate. If this is more of an obstacle today, it simply means the landscape has changed and that corresponding changes might be needed but it does not mean that it was flawed from the beginning.

2. This brings me to the second point which is that the author basis the argument on the assumption (tacit, I must say) that there is a governmental structure which has the inherent ability to solve societal issues. Such a structure doesn't exist.

3. There is no problem existing today that cannot exist within a different political structure. Changing the way the president is elected from electoral college to direct democracy will not make people less polarized. It will not make people more confident in public institutions. The flaws of systems are composed mostly of the incentives and dynamics of the people within the system itself.


To summarize, the problems the author identifies, if they are problems at all as stated, are not caused by the so-called flaws in the constitutions. Neither will they be resolved by the changes he proposes. This is a case where a doctor successfully identifies a disease, but fails to identify both the cause and the cure.
]]> <![CDATA[Cashing Out: The Flight of Nazi Treasure, 1945â€�1948]]> 136361500 When Nazis looked to flee Europe with stolen art, gems, and gold in tow, certain “neutralâ€� countries were all too willing to assist them.

By the end of January 1945, it was clear to Germany that the war was lost. The Third Reich was in freefall, and its leaders, apart from those clustered around Hitler in his Berlin bunker, sought to abscond before they were besieged. But they wanted to take their wealth with them.
Ìę
Their escape routes were Sweden and Switzerland boasted proximity, banking, and industrial closeness, while Spain and Portugal offeredÌęan inviting Atlantic coastline and shipping routes to South America. And in various ways, each of these so-called neutral nations welcomed the Nazi escapees, along with the clandestine wealth they carried.
Ìę
Cashing Out tells the riveting history of the race to intercept the stolen assets before they disappeared, and before the will to punish Germany was replaced by the political considerations of the fast-approaching Cold War.ÌęBestselling author Neill Lochery here brilliantly recounts the flight of the Nazi-looted riches—the last great escape of World War II—and the Allied quest for justice.]]> 393 Neill Lochery David 0 world-war-two, third-reich 3.38 2023 Cashing Out: The Flight of Nazi Treasure, 1945–1948
author: Neill Lochery
name: David
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/09
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves: world-war-two, third-reich
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming]]> 29249172 A sweeping study of how capitalism first promoted fossil fuels with the rise of steam power—and contributed to the worsening climate crisis The more we know about the catastrophic implications of climate change, the more fossil fuels we burn. How did we end up in this mess?ÌęIn this masterful new history, Andreas Malm claims it all began in Britain with the rise of steam power. But why did manufacturers turn from traditional sources of power, notably water mills, to an engine fired by coal? Contrary to established views, steam offered neither cheaper nor more abundant energy—but rather superior control of subordinate labor. Animated by fossil fuels, capital could concentrate production at the most profitable sites and during the most convenient hours, as it continues to do today. Ìę Sweeping from nineteenth-century Manchester to the emissions explosion in China, from the original triumph of coal to the stalled shift to renewables, this study hones in on the burning heart of capital and demonstrates, in unprecedented depth, that turning down the heat will mean a radical overthrow of the current economic order.“The definitive deep history on how our economic system created the climate crisis. Superb, essential reading from one of the most original thinkers on the subject.â€�—Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine]]> 496 Andreas Malm 1784781304 David 0 4.42 2015 Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming
author: Andreas Malm
name: David
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/02
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves: environment, economics-and-state
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth (LvMI)]]> 10467661 92 Ludwig von Mises David 4 economics-and-state 4.48 1920 Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth (LvMI)
author: Ludwig von Mises
name: David
average rating: 4.48
book published: 1920
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/03
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: economics-and-state
review:

]]> Bureaucracy 42740107 141 Ludwig von Mises 1773232282 David 5 economics-and-state 4.55 1944 Bureaucracy
author: Ludwig von Mises
name: David
average rating: 4.55
book published: 1944
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: economics-and-state
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rinsed: From Cartels to Crypto How the Tech Industry Washes Money for the World's Deadliest Crooks]]> 211199433
There's an old saying- 'a rising tide lifts all boats'. It's normally couched in positive terms; that overall economic improvement will benefit everyone. In the case of hi-tech money laundering, however, it offers a dark vision of the future. The better these launderers become at their work, the more crime of all types will be enabled. It's time to understand where the water is rising, before it washes over us all.

Money laundering has been around for centuries. For as long as people have been willing to steal money, there's been an industry ready to wash it. But recent tech innovations have created vastly complex new systems for laundering that threaten to overwhelm authorities, destabilise economies and disrupt societies.

Rinsed is a relevatory investigation into the new army of innovative criminals using tech to launder money ... and the consequences for all of us.]]> 288 Geoff White 0241624835 David 4 bbsf, crime, cyber 4.03 Rinsed: From Cartels to Crypto How the Tech Industry Washes Money for the World's Deadliest Crooks
author: Geoff White
name: David
average rating: 4.03
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: bbsf, crime, cyber
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years]]> 203644918 A paradigm-shifting global survey of how human history has reshaped the planet, and vice versa

Ever since innovations in agriculture vastly expanded production of the staples of food energy, our remarkable achievements in reshaping nature have brought about an overwhelming expansion in the life chances of billions of people. Yet every technological innovation has also empowered humans to exploit each other and the planet with devastating brutality, twinning the stories of environment and of Empire, genocide and eco-cide, as with Spanish silver mining in Peru and British gold mining in South Africa.

After the age of empire, new nations raced to make up lost ground, expanding human freedom at devastating ecological cost. Amrith’s environmental lens provides an essential new way of understanding as a massive reshaping of the earth through the global mobilization of natural resources, those resources including humans themselves. He also makes clear that migration is often a consequence of environmental harm.

Reinterpreting a history previously seen from a Euro-and-anthropocentric viewpoint, Amrith relates in brilliant prose, and on the largest canvas, a magisterial, mind-altering epic - vibrant with stories, characters, vivid images and rich archival resources.]]> 413 Sunil Amrith 0141993871 David 4 environment, globalization 4.03 The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years
author: Sunil Amrith
name: David
average rating: 4.03
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: environment, globalization
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Panic of 1857 and the Coming of the Civil War]]> 12112860 336 James L. Huston 0807124923 David 4 3.70 1987 The Panic of 1857 and the Coming of the Civil War
author: James L. Huston
name: David
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1987
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2024/11/30
shelves: economics-and-state, finance, financial-crisis
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Other People's Money: How Banking Worked in the Early American Republic]]> 34394484 In Other People’s Money, Sharon Ann Murphy explains how banking and money worked before the federal government, spurred by the chaos of the Civil War, created the national system of US paper currency. Murphy traces the evolution of banking in America from the founding of the nation, when politicians debated the constitutionality of chartering a national bank, to Andrew Jackson’s role in the Bank War of the early 1830s, to the problems of financing a large-scale war. She reveals how, ultimately, the monetary and banking structures that emerged from the Civil War also provided the basis for our modern financial system, from its formation under the Federal Reserve in 1913 to the present.

Touching on the significant role that numerous historical figures played in shaping American banking—including Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Louis Brandeisâ€� Other People’s Money is an engaging guide to the heated political fights that surrounded banking in early America as well as to the economic causes and consequences of the financial system that emerged from the turmoil. By helping readers understand the financial history of this period and the way banking shaped the society in which ordinary Americans lived and worked, this book broadens and deepens our knowledge of the Early American Republic.

]]> 208 Sharon Ann Murphy 1421421763 David 0 4.11 Other People's Money: How Banking Worked in the Early American Republic
author: Sharon Ann Murphy
name: David
average rating: 4.11
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/29
date added: 2024/11/30
shelves: finance, financial-crisis, economics-and-state, american-history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Moral Economies of Money: Politics and the Monetary Constitution of Society (Currencies: New Thinking for Financial Times)]]> 62877252


In this astute new work, Jakob Feinig shows how the relation between money users and money-issuing governments changed from British colonial North America to today's United States, discussing how popular movements reshaped money-creating institutions, and how their opponents attempted to silence them. He also reveals how monetary and political history unfolds in the tension between "moral economies of money" and "monetary silencing." Offering an introduction to money creation practices since the colonial era, the book enables readers to understand why most people are disconnected from knowledge about money creation today. At the same time, the book also allows readers to situate the recent prominence of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) against a broader historical background. Historians of capitalism, economic and political sociologists, social theorists, anthropologists of money, and anyone seeking to understand monetary activism, will find this book helps to clarify present-day possibilities in light of historical processes.]]> 188 Jakob Feinig David 0 economics-and-state 4.30 Moral Economies of Money: Politics and the Monetary Constitution of Society (Currencies: New Thinking for Financial Times)
author: Jakob Feinig
name: David
average rating: 4.30
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/19
date added: 2024/11/29
shelves: economics-and-state
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World]]> 205062721 Borders draw one map of the world; money draws another. A journalist’s riveting account exposes a parallel universe that has become a haven for the rich and powerful.
Ìę
A globe shows the world we think we neatly delineated sovereign nations that grant or restrict their citizens� rights. Beneath, above, and tucked inside their borders, however, another universe has been engineered into existence. It consists of thousands of extraterritorial zones that operate largely autonomously, and increasingly for the benefit of the wealthiest individuals and corporations.

Atossa Abrahamian traces the rise of this hidden globe to thirteenth-century Switzerland, where poor cantons marketed their only bodies, in the form of mercenary fighters. Over time, economists, theorists, statesmen, and consultants evolved ever more sophisticated ways of exporting and exploiting statelessness, in the form of free trade zones, flags of convenience, offshore detention centers, charter cities controlled by foreign corporations, and even into outer space. By mapping this countergeography, which decides who wins and who loses in the new global order—and helping us to see how it might be otherwiseâ€�The Hidden Globe fascinates, enrages, and inspires.]]> 333 Atossa Araxia Abrahamian 0593329872 David 0 bbsf, globalization 3.59 2024 The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World
author: Atossa Araxia Abrahamian
name: David
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/29
shelves: bbsf, globalization
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Jam Tomorrow?: Why time really matters in economics]]> 199648468
In Jam Tomorrow?, Charles Crowson presents a new theory of value at the heart of which lies our ever-changing perception of time. Humans are unique in their degree of self-awareness; particularly the awareness of their existence in time. As the basic economic choice is one of consuming in the present or saving for the future, all such choices are ultimately decisions about time. This means that we alone are the animal that chooses to save, since we alone understand that our actions in the present can affect the future.

Jam Tomorrow? recasts economics as a question of the balance between our needs and desires in the present and those of the future. This makes our changing perception of time a kind of invisible ink that links the micro to the macro, the past to the future, and that offers a new and challenging way of understanding the relationship between value, price, money and credit.]]> 257 Charles Crowson 1915635632 David 5 economics, finance 4.25 Jam Tomorrow?: Why time really matters in economics
author: Charles Crowson
name: David
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/11/29
shelves: economics, finance
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World]]> 62790909 Bestselling journalist Antony Loewenstein uncovers the widespread commercialisation and brutal deployment globally of Israel’s occupation-enforcing technologies.

For more than 50 years, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has given the Israeli state invaluable experience in controlling an ‘enemyâ€� population, the Palestinians. It’s here that they have perfected the architecture of control, using the occupied Palestinian territories as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that they then export around the world.

The Palestine Laboratory shows in depth and for the first time how Israel has become a leader in developing spying technology and defence hardware that fuels some of the globe’s most brutal conflicts â€� from the Pegasus software that hacked Jeff Bezos’s and Jamal Khashoggi’s phones, and the weapons sold to the Myanmar army that has murdered thousands of Rohingyas, to the drones being used by the European Union to monitor refugees in the Mediterranean who are left to drown.

In a global investigation that uncovers secret documents, based on revealing interviews and on-the-ground reporting, Antony Loewenstein shows how, as ethno-nationalism grows in the 21st century, Israel has built the ultimate tools for despots and democracies.]]> 320 Antony Loewenstein 1922310409 David 0 israel, palestine, tech 4.46 2023 The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World
author: Antony Loewenstein
name: David
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/29
date added: 2024/11/29
shelves: israel, palestine, tech
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence]]> 57592440 The hidden costs of artificial intelligence, from natural resources and labor to privacy, equality,Ìęand freedom

“Eloquent, clear and profound—this volume is a classic for our times. It draws our attention away from the bright shiny objects of the new colonialism through elucidating the social, material and political dimensions of Artificial Intelligence.”—Geoffrey C. Bowker, University of California, Irvine

What happens when artificial intelligence saturates political life and depletes the planet? How is AI shaping our understanding of ourselves and our societies? In this book Kate CrawfordÌęreveals how this planetary network is fueling a shift toward undemocratic governance and increased racial, gender, and economic inequality. Drawing on more than a decade of research, award‑winning science, and technology, Crawford reveals how AI is a technology of extraction: from the energy and minerals needed to build and sustain its infrastructure, to the exploited workers behind “automatedâ€� services, to the data AI collects from us.Ìę
Ìę
Rather than taking a narrow focus on code and algorithms, Crawford offers us a political and a material perspective on what it takes to make artificial intelligence and where it goes wrong. While technical systems present a veneer of objectivity, they are always systems of power. This is an urgent account of what is at stake as technology companies use artificial intelligence to reshape the world.]]> 336 Kate Crawford 0300252390 David 5 3.94 2020 Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence
author: Kate Crawford
name: David
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: resources, artificial-intelligence, silicon-valley
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Price They Paid: Slavery, Shipwrecks, and Reparations Before the Civil War]]> 207584574 A prizewinning historian uncovers the first instances of reparations in America—ironically, though perhaps not surprisingly, paid to slaveholders, not former slaves


“A spectacular achievement of historical research. Forret shows for the first time just how far the American government went to secure reparations.â€�
—Robert Elderâ€� author of American Heretic


In 1831, the American ship Comet, carrying 165 enslaved men, women, and children, crashed onto a coral reef near the shore of the Bahamas—then part of the British Empire—where slavery had been outlawed. Shortly afterwards, the Vice Admiralty Court in Nassau, over the outraged objections of the ship’s owners, set the rescued captives free. American slave owners and the companies who insured the liberated human cargoes would spend years lobbying for reparations, not for the emancipated slaves, of course, but for the masters deprived of their human property.


In a work of profoundly relevant research and storytelling, historian and Bancroft Award finalist Jeff Forret uncovers how the Comet—as well as similar episodes that unfolded over the antebellum era—resulted in the first direct slavery reparations payments made by the U.S. government, establishing a precedent that has never been fully explored. The Price They Paid shows how, unlike their former owners and insurers, neither the survivors of the Comet and other vessels, nor their descendants, have ever received reparations for the price they paid in their lives, labor, and suffering during slavery.


Any accounting of reparations today requires a fuller understanding of how the debts of slavery have been paid, and to whom. The Price They Paid represents a major step forward in that effort.


Ìę]]> 381 Jeff Forret 1620978997 David 5 american-history, slavery 4.33 The Price They Paid: Slavery, Shipwrecks, and Reparations Before the Civil War
author: Jeff Forret
name: David
average rating: 4.33
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: american-history, slavery
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Something for Nothing: Arbitrage and Ethics on Wall Street]]> 32783403
In 2001, Goldman Sachs structured a complex financial contract so that its client, the government of Greece, would appear to have far less debt than it actually did. When news of this transaction came out years later, the inevitable question Even though Goldman’s actions were legal, were they ethically wrong? Is modern finance itself inherently unethical?

In Something for Nothing, financial economist Maureen O’Hara explains that one of the key innovations of modern finance is its reliance on arbitrage, the practice of taking advantage of a price difference between two or more markets to generate profits and remove inefficiencies. When done correctly, arbitrage can create value at little or no cost (in effect, getting “something for nothingâ€�); but it can also be an exploitative tool.

In a lucid, insightful discussion of the ethics of arbitrage in modern finance, O’Hara reveals how the rules can often be stretched into still-legal yet highly unethical business practices. Examining key cases in clear and persuasive prose, O’Hara illuminates various aspects of financial ethics, from the Goldman Greek transaction to Lehman Brothersâ€� attempt to cover up its debt, JPMorgan Chase’s maneuvers in California’s energy markets, Bernie Madoff’s trading strategies in the 1980s, high-frequency trading practices, and toxic loans in France.

Ultimately, O’Hara turns to philosophy and religion to argue for a new, humanistic approach to ethics in the financial industry. She makes a strong case for a way fewer rules and more standards to foster a morally responsible outlook. Fearlessly raising the questions at the moral heart of our financial system, Something for Nothing is a masterful treatise on the ethics of modern finance.]]> 224 Maureen O'Hara 0393285529 David 4 finance
An industry that designs complex systems and packages to go as close to the rules as possible can no longer be constrained by downgrading from a rules-based system to a standards-based system. ]]> 3.33 Something for Nothing: Arbitrage and Ethics on Wall Street
author: Maureen O'Hara
name: David
average rating: 3.33
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/27
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: finance
review:
This should have been 5 stars but I believe the suggestions added at the end of the book countered the observations made in the rest of the book.

An industry that designs complex systems and packages to go as close to the rules as possible can no longer be constrained by downgrading from a rules-based system to a standards-based system.
]]> <![CDATA[Money in the Twenty-First Century: Cheap, Mobile, and Digital]]> 123504377 Ìę
Money is increasingly cheap, digital, and mobile. In Money in the Twenty-First Century , economist Richard Holden examines the virtues and risks of low interest rates, mobile money, and cryptocurrencies, and explains how these three elemental forces will continue to play out—in our wallets, on the blockchain, and throughout major economies—in the decades to come.
Ìę
Holden weaves in the stories of three people who have exerted massive influence over the future of modern US treasury secretary Janet Yellen, Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin, and Raghuram Rajan, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. Moving from micro to macro, Holden investigates the infrastructure that permits digital transactions, the currencies that underpin them, the race for control of those currencies, shifts in policy and the international monetary system, and the impact on our politics of money in the digital age. Ultimately, Money in the Twenty-First Century asks if governments can keep these three tectonic powers of low interest rates, mobile money, and decentralized finance under control.]]> 227 Richard Holden 0520395263 David 0 finance, policy, politics 3.22 Money in the Twenty-First Century: Cheap, Mobile, and Digital
author: Richard Holden
name: David
average rating: 3.22
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/27
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: finance, policy, politics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mother Tongue: The Surprising History of Women's Words]]> 125076724 “A fascinating look at how we talk about women. . . . Dense with information and anecdotes, Mother Tongue touches on the hilarious and the devastating, with ample dashes of an ingredient so painfully absent from most discussions of sex and humor.â€� ―Lisa Selin Davis, The Washington Post

“[Nuttall] examines the origins of words used over many centuries to describe women’s bodies, desires, pregnancies, work lives, sexual victimhood, and stages of life. . . . Her research is comprehensive enough that even longtime word enthusiasts will find plenty of new trivia.â€� ―The New Yorker

An enlightening linguistic journey through a thousand years of feminist language—and what we can learn from the vivid vocabulary that English once had for women’s bodies, experiences, and sexuality

So many of the words that we use to chronicle women’s lives feel awkward or alien. Medical terms are scrupulously accurate but antiseptic. Slang and obscenities have shock value, yet they perpetuate taboos. Where are the plain, honest words for women’s daily lives?

Mother Tongue is a historical investigation of feminist language and thought, from the dawn of Old English to the present day. Dr. Jenni Nuttall guides readers through the evolution of words that we have used to describe female bodies, menstruation, women’s sexuality, the consequences of male violence, childbirth, women’s paid and unpaid work, and gender. Along the way, she challenges our modern language’s ability to insightfully articulate women’s shared experiences by examining the long-forgottenÌęwords once used in English for female sexual and reproductive organs. Nuttall also tells the story of words like womb and breast, whose meanings have changed over time, as well as how anatomical words such as hysteria and hysterical came to have such loaded legacies.

Inspired by today’s heated debates about words like womxn and menstruators—and by more personal conversations with her teenage daughter—Nuttall describes the profound transformations of the English language.ÌęIn the process, she unearths some surprisingly progressive thinking that challenges our assumptions about the past—and, in some cases, puts our twenty-first-century society to shame. Mother Tongue is a rich, provocative book for anyone who loves language—and for feminists who want to look to the past in order to move forward.]]> 300 Jenni Nuttall 0593299582 David 1 3.89 2023 Mother Tongue: The Surprising History of Women's Words
author: Jenni Nuttall
name: David
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 1
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: language, linguistics, feminism
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age]]> 210137188
The West has become "disenchanted"--closed to the idea that the universe contains the supernatural, the metaphysical, or the non-material. Christianity is in crisis. People today are leaving the Church because faith has become dry and lifeless. But people aren't leaving faith for atheism. They are still searching for the divine, and it might just be right under their noses.

InÌęLiving in Wonder, thought leader, cultural critic, andÌęNew York TimesÌębestselling author Rod Dreher shows you how to encounter and embrace wonder in the world. In his trademark mixture of analysis, reporting, and personal story, Dreher brings together history, cultural anthropology, neuroscience, and the ancient Church to show you--no matter your religious affiliation--how to reconnect with the natural world and the Great Tradition of Christianity so you can relate to the world with more depth and connection.

He shares stories of miracles, rumors of angels, and outbreaks of awe to offer hope, as well as a guide for discerning and defending the truth in a confusing and spiritually dark culture, full of contemporary spiritual deceptions and tempting counterfeit spiritualities.

The world is not what we think it is. It is far more mysterious, exciting, connected, and adventurous. As you learn practical ways to regain a sense of wonder and awaken your sense of God's presence--through prayer, attention, and living by spiritual disciplines--your eyes will be opened, and you will find the very thing every one of us searches our ultimate meaning.]]> 288 Rod Dreher 0310369126 David 2 christianity-and-culture 3.93 Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age
author: Rod Dreher
name: David
average rating: 3.93
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/25
date added: 2024/11/25
shelves: christianity-and-culture
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Is Reality Optional?: And Other Essays (Hoover Institution Press Publication Book 418)]]> 54163331 Quotes from the book "Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area—crime, education, housing, race relations—the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them." "Some things must be done on faith, but the most dangerous kind of faith is that which masquerades as 'science.' As the pretense of science has replaced commonsense experience, we have abandoned many old-fashioned practices that worked in favor of high-sounding innovations that have led to disaster." "The assumption that spending more of the taxpayers' money will make things better has survived all kinds of evidence that it has made things worse. The black family—which survived slavery, discrimination, poverty, wars, and depressions—began to come apart as the federal government moved in with its well-financed programs to 'help.'" "Worst of all, guilt has so furtively stolen into many hearts and minds that people feel apologetic about being civilized, educated, and productive when others are barbaric, uneducated, and parasitic. When civilization apologizes to barbarism, something has gone very wrong at a very fundamental level."

]]> 204 Thomas Sowell 0817992677 David 4 4.72 1993 Is Reality Optional?: And Other Essays (Hoover Institution Press Publication Book 418)
author: Thomas Sowell
name: David
average rating: 4.72
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: essays, economics-and-state, political-philosophy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Project-State and Its Rivals: A New History of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries]]> 151831062 A new and original history of the forces that shaped the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

We thought we knew the story of the twentieth century. For many in the West, after the two world conflicts and the long cold war, the verdict was democratic values had prevailed over dictatorship. But if the twentieth century meant the triumph of liberalism, as many intellectuals proclaimed, why have the era’s darker impulses—ethnic nationalism, racist violence, and populist authoritarianism—revived?

The Project-State and Its Rivals offers a radical alternative interpretation that takes us from the transforming challenges of the world wars to our own time. Instead of the traditional narrative of domestic politics and international relations, Charles S. Maier looks to the political and economic impulses that propelled societies through a century when territorial states and transnational forces both claimed power, engaging sometimes as rivals and sometimes as allies. Maier focuses on recurring institutional project-states including both democracies and dictatorships that sought not just to retain power but to transform their societies; new forms of imperial domination; global networks of finance; and the international associations, foundations, and NGOs that tried to shape public life through allegedly apolitical appeals to science and ethics.

In this account, which draws on the author’s studies over half a century, Maier invites a rethinking of the long twentieth century. His history of state entanglements with capital, the decline of public projects, and the fragility of governance explains the fraying of our own civic culture—but also allows hope for its recovery.]]> 514 Charles S Maier 0674293185 David 4 4.25 The Project-State and Its Rivals: A New History of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
author: Charles S Maier
name: David
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/23
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: political-philosophy, politics, economics-and-state
review:

]]> The Denial of Death 2761 The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie -- man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.]]> 336 Ernest Becker David 0 4.07 1973 The Denial of Death
author: Ernest Becker
name: David
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: philosophy, psychology-and-sociology, psychology, sociology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)]]> 18579774 Why stable banking systems are so rare

Why are banking systems unstable in so many countries--but not in others? The United States has had twelve systemic banking crises since 1840, while Canada has had none. The banking systems of Mexico and Brazil have not only been crisis prone but have provided miniscule amounts of credit to business enterprises and households.

Analyzing the political and banking history of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil through several centuries, Fragile by Design demonstrates that chronic banking crises and scarce credit are not accidents. Calomiris and Haber combine political history and economics to examine how coalitions of politicians, bankers, and other interest groups form, why they endure, and how they generate policies that determine who gets to be a banker, who has access to credit, and who pays for bank bailouts and rescues.

Fragile by Design is a revealing exploration of the ways that politics inevitably intrudes into bank regulation.]]> 432 Charles W. Calomiris 0691155240 David 5 banking, finance
It's a bit of a slug but once you get past the introduction its an interesting read. Highly recommended for fashioning an important way of seeing banking through the lens of political decisions.]]> 4.19 2014 Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
author: Charles W. Calomiris
name: David
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/23
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: banking, finance
review:
Most books about banking are ... well about banking. This book ties the structure and stability of banking institutions in 5 profiled countries not to financial decisions, but to the structures of political bargains stretching as far back as centuries in the past.

It's a bit of a slug but once you get past the introduction its an interesting read. Highly recommended for fashioning an important way of seeing banking through the lens of political decisions.
]]> <![CDATA[Oceans Rise Empires Fall: Why Geopolitics Hastens Climate Catastrophe]]> 148007936
In the last few years, it has become abundantly clear that the effects of accelerating climate change will be catastrophic, from rising seas to more violent storms to desertification. Yet why do nation-states find it so difficult to implement transnational policies that can reduce carbon output and slow global warming? In Oceans Rise, Empires Fall , Gerard Toal identifies geopolitics as the culprit. States would prefer to reduce emissions in the abstract, but in the great global competition for geopolitical power, states always prioritize access to carbon-based fuels necessary for generating the sort of economic growth that helps them compete with rival states. Despite what we now know about the long-term impacts of climate change, geopolitical contests continue to sideline attempts to halt or slow down the process.

The Ukraine conflict in particular exposes our priorities. To escape reliance on Russia's vast oil and gas reserves, states have expanded fossil fuel production that necessarily increases the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. The territorial control imperatives of great powers preclude collaborative behavior to address common challenges. Competitive territorial, resource, and technological dramas across the geopolitical chessboard currently obscure the deterioration of the planet's life support systems. In the contest between geopolitics and sustainable climate policies, the former takes precedence-especially when competition shifts to outright conflict. In this book, Toal interrogates that relationship and its stakes for the ongoing acceleration of climate change.]]> 280 Gerard Toal 0197693261 David 4 3.42 Oceans Rise Empires Fall: Why Geopolitics Hastens Climate Catastrophe
author: Gerard Toal
name: David
average rating: 3.42
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/11/22
shelves: geopolitics, international-relations
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Myths of Geography: Eight Ways We Get the World Wrong]]> 205616825
Our maps may no longer be stalked by dragons and monsters, but our perceptions of the world are still shaped by geographic myths. Myths like Europe being the centre of the world. Or that border walls are the solution to migration. Or that Russia is predestined to threaten its neighbours.

In his punchy and authoritative new book, Paul Richardson challenges recent popular accounts of geographical determinism and shows that how we see the world represented often isn't how it really is - that the map is not the territory.

Along the way we visit some remarkable Iceland's Thingvellir National Park, where you can swim between two continents; Bir Tawil in North Africa, one of the world's only territories not claimed by any country; and we follow the first train that ran across Eurasia between Yiwu in east China and Barking in east London.

Written with verve and full of quotable facts, Myths of Geography is a book that will turn your world upside down.]]> 338 Paul Richardson 0349136300 David 3 The book is divided into 8 chapters, each addressing a particular myth of geographical determinism. These are the myths of
the nation,
the continent,
borders,
sovereignty,
measuring growth,
Russian expansionism,
the new silk road,
and that Africa is doomed to fail.
In these chapters he challenges recent popular accounts of geographical determinism and argues that the way the world is represented often isn't how it really is—that the map is not the territory.
The writing is clear and easy to follow. It is stretched out beyond what I consider necessary to convey its point but you can’t accuse the author of being obscure. There are books out there that try to explain development on the basis of geography. They dance precariously on the edge of geographical determinism. While such books have something important to say, they sometimes go too far in attributing to geography effects that should be attributed to human decision making. This book serves as a necessary corrective to that type of tendency.

Yet, where it attempts to correct geographical determinism, it over-corrects either by placing the ills of the world at the foot of the so-called geographical myths or by taking too seriously ideas which are significantly less than fringe.

For instance, in the myth of the nation we read
... nations as conceived today are not preordained or predetermined. They are contested and constructed, their borders are often arbitrary, and across which spill communities and identities. The myth of the nation is that their claim to being ancient, natural, and rooted is largely illusionary. As such, the symbols, displays, and performances of national identity need constant repetition and recitation, so that the intangible connections between today’s citizens, and between the distant past and the present, can be made to feel real. The making of the nation relies on the invention of tradition..

Are there people who rigidly believe that their nation is preordained or that they were not contested? If you know anyone then buy this book and give it to them. In fact the vast majority of people in the world know exactly when their nations were constructed through war, negotiation, or bargaining. Even people who have a particularly rooted attachment to their nations know that what we call nations today did not exist centuries in the past.
What of the myth of continents? The myth of the continent is not a real myth. It is a statement of historical and political construction. If I say someone is from Africa I am not naming a tectonic plate but a geopolitical and historical region of the world. Whether Morocco and Spain share the same tectonic plate is irrelevant to me. I know one is in Africa and the other is in Europe. Understanding that they sit on the same plate will not cause Morocco to be admitted to the European Union. Certain things are true not because they are scientifically accurate but because of political construction. And that’s all right. If there is a need to change it in the future it will be changed. Recognizing that political regions do not correspond to geographical reality doesn’t change anything.
Why?
If on a fundamental level we all realize and admit that the ideas we have about the world and geography do not exactly correspond to geographical reality then we ought to approach them from the level of social construction rather than geography. The decision to build a wall along the US-Mexico border cannot be challenged by geographical arguments but by political arguments. Whatever implication you wish to draw from the disadvantages of rigid nation states cannot be debunked geographically but on the upper level of geopolitics.
The book concludes with a call to change the way we view our world in order for us to be able to cooperate and solve transnational problems. I do not see how arguing that nations do not have timeless roots or that continents do not correspond to tectonic plates or that Russia really has a warm water port will suddenly get people to cooperate internationally. Problems such as COVID and Climate change will not be changed by changing our outdated views of geography. What needs to change is at the geopolitical layer.



As an aside, while I recommend this book purely for its argument for geographical determinism, its weaknesses are addressed, in my opinion, by another book:
Oceans Rise Empires Fall: Why Geopolitics Hastens Climate Catastrophe
]]> 3.49 Myths of Geography: Eight Ways We Get the World Wrong
author: Paul Richardson
name: David
average rating: 3.49
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/11/22
shelves: geopolitics, international-relations, geography
review:
In Myths of Geography, Paul Richardson attempts to debunk myths that express different shades of geographical determinism.
The book is divided into 8 chapters, each addressing a particular myth of geographical determinism. These are the myths of
the nation,
the continent,
borders,
sovereignty,
measuring growth,
Russian expansionism,
the new silk road,
and that Africa is doomed to fail.
In these chapters he challenges recent popular accounts of geographical determinism and argues that the way the world is represented often isn't how it really is—that the map is not the territory.
The writing is clear and easy to follow. It is stretched out beyond what I consider necessary to convey its point but you can’t accuse the author of being obscure. There are books out there that try to explain development on the basis of geography. They dance precariously on the edge of geographical determinism. While such books have something important to say, they sometimes go too far in attributing to geography effects that should be attributed to human decision making. This book serves as a necessary corrective to that type of tendency.

Yet, where it attempts to correct geographical determinism, it over-corrects either by placing the ills of the world at the foot of the so-called geographical myths or by taking too seriously ideas which are significantly less than fringe.

For instance, in the myth of the nation we read
... nations as conceived today are not preordained or predetermined. They are contested and constructed, their borders are often arbitrary, and across which spill communities and identities. The myth of the nation is that their claim to being ancient, natural, and rooted is largely illusionary. As such, the symbols, displays, and performances of national identity need constant repetition and recitation, so that the intangible connections between today’s citizens, and between the distant past and the present, can be made to feel real. The making of the nation relies on the invention of tradition..

Are there people who rigidly believe that their nation is preordained or that they were not contested? If you know anyone then buy this book and give it to them. In fact the vast majority of people in the world know exactly when their nations were constructed through war, negotiation, or bargaining. Even people who have a particularly rooted attachment to their nations know that what we call nations today did not exist centuries in the past.
What of the myth of continents? The myth of the continent is not a real myth. It is a statement of historical and political construction. If I say someone is from Africa I am not naming a tectonic plate but a geopolitical and historical region of the world. Whether Morocco and Spain share the same tectonic plate is irrelevant to me. I know one is in Africa and the other is in Europe. Understanding that they sit on the same plate will not cause Morocco to be admitted to the European Union. Certain things are true not because they are scientifically accurate but because of political construction. And that’s all right. If there is a need to change it in the future it will be changed. Recognizing that political regions do not correspond to geographical reality doesn’t change anything.
Why?
If on a fundamental level we all realize and admit that the ideas we have about the world and geography do not exactly correspond to geographical reality then we ought to approach them from the level of social construction rather than geography. The decision to build a wall along the US-Mexico border cannot be challenged by geographical arguments but by political arguments. Whatever implication you wish to draw from the disadvantages of rigid nation states cannot be debunked geographically but on the upper level of geopolitics.
The book concludes with a call to change the way we view our world in order for us to be able to cooperate and solve transnational problems. I do not see how arguing that nations do not have timeless roots or that continents do not correspond to tectonic plates or that Russia really has a warm water port will suddenly get people to cooperate internationally. Problems such as COVID and Climate change will not be changed by changing our outdated views of geography. What needs to change is at the geopolitical layer.



As an aside, while I recommend this book purely for its argument for geographical determinism, its weaknesses are addressed, in my opinion, by another book:
Oceans Rise Empires Fall: Why Geopolitics Hastens Climate Catastrophe

]]> <![CDATA[The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements]]> 12139811
The famous bestseller with “concise insight into what drives the mind of the fanatic and the dynamics of a mass movementâ€� (Wall St. Journal) by the legendary San Francisco longshoreman.

A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, Eric Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises in his spare time while living in the railroad yards.ÌęThe True Believer—the first and most famous of his books—was made into a bestseller when President Eisenhower cited it during one of the earliest television press conferences.

Called a “brilliant and original inquiryâ€� and “a genuine contribution to our social thoughtâ€� by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., this landmark in the field of social psychology is completely relevant and essential for understanding the world today as it delivers a visionary, highly provocative look into the mind of the fanatic and a penetrating study of how an individual becomes one.]]> 243 Eric Hoffer David 4 sociology 4.24 1951 The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
author: Eric Hoffer
name: David
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1951
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/11/22
shelves: sociology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis]]> 145624514
Everyone who makes the journey faces an impossible choice. Hundreds of thousands of people who arrive every year at the US-Mexico border travel far from their homes. An overwhelming share of them come from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, although many migrants come from farther away. Some are fleeing persecution, others crime or hunger. Very often it will not be their first attempt to cross. They may have already been deported from the United States, but it remains their only hope for safety and prosperity. Their homes have become uninhabitable. They will take their chances.

This vast and unremitting crisis did not spring up overnight. Indeed, as Blitzer dramatizes with forensic, unprecedented reporting, it is the result of decades of misguided policy and sweeping corruption. Brilliantly weaving the stories of Central Americans whose lives have been devastated by chronic political conflict and violence with those of American activists, government officials, and the politicians responsible for the country’s tragically tangled immigration policy, Blitzer reveals the full, layered picture for the first time.

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here is an odyssey of struggle and resilience. With astonishing nuance and detail, Blitzer tells an epic story about the people whose lives ebb and flow across the border, and in doing so, he delves into the heart of American life itself. This vital and remarkable story has shaped the nation’s turbulent politics and culture in countless ways—and will almost certainly determine its future.]]> 544 Jonathan Blitzer 1984880802 David 0 immigration, latin-america 4.47 2024 Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis
author: Jonathan Blitzer
name: David
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/21
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves: immigration, latin-america
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How Many Is Too Many?: The Progressive Argument for Reducing Immigration into the United States (Chicago Studies in American Politics)]]> 20948687 ÌęÌęÌęÌęÌęÌęÌęÌęÌęÌęÌę
Cafaro roots his argument in human rights, equality, economic security, and environmental sustainability―hallmark progressive values. He shows us the undeniable realities of mass migration to which we have turned a blind how flooded labor markets in sectors such as meatpacking and construction have driven down workersâ€� wages and driven up inequality; how excessive immigration has fostered unsafe working conditions and political disempowerment; how it has stalled our economic maturity by keeping us ever-focused on increasing consumption and growth; and how it has caused our cities and suburbs to sprawl far and wide, destroying natural habitats, driving other species from the landscape, and cutting us off from nature.

In response to these hard-hitting truths, Cafaro lays out a comprehensive plan for immigration reform that is squarely in line with progressive political goals. He suggests that we shift enforcement efforts away from border control and toward the employers who knowingly hire illegal workers. He proposes aid and foreign policies that will help people create better lives where they are. And indeed he supports amnesty for those who have, at tremendous risk, already built their lives here. Above all, Cafaro attacks our obsession with endless material growth, offering in its place a mature vision of America, not brimming but balanced, where all the different people who constitute this great nation of immigrants can live sustainably and well, sheltered by a prudence currently in short supply in American politics.]]> 336 Philip Cafaro 022619065X David 4 immigration 3.30 2014 How Many Is Too Many?: The Progressive Argument for Reducing Immigration into the United States (Chicago Studies in American Politics)
author: Philip Cafaro
name: David
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/21
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves: immigration
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century]]> 43064246 A century ago, everyone knew that people were fated by their race, sex, and nationality to be more or less intelligent, nurturing, or warlike. But Columbia University professor Franz Boas looked at the data and decided everyone was wrong. Racial categories, he insisted, were biological fictions. Cultures did not come in neat packages labeled "primitive" or "advanced." What counted as a family, a good meal, or even common sense was a product of history and circumstance, not of nature. In Gods of the Upper Air, a masterful narrative history of radical ideas and passionate lives, Charles King shows how these intuitions led to a fundamental reimagining of human diversity.

Boas's students were some of the century's most colorful figures and unsung Margaret Mead, the outspoken field researcher whose Coming of Age in Samoa is among the most widely read works of social science of all time; Ruth Benedict, the great love of Mead's life, whose research shaped post-Second World War Japan; Ella Deloria, the Dakota Sioux activist who preserved the traditions of Native Americans on the Great Plains; and Zora Neale Hurston, whose studies under Boas fed directly into her now classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Together, they mapped civilizations from the American South to the South Pacific and from Caribbean islands to Manhattan's city streets, and unearthed an essential fact buried by centuries of that humanity is an undivided whole. Their revolutionary findings would go on to inspire the fluid conceptions of identity we know today.
Rich in drama, conflict, friendship, and love, Gods of the Upper Air is a brilliant and groundbreaking history of American progress and the opening of the modern mind.]]> 406 Charles King 0385542208 David 4 anthropology, profile 4.35 2019 Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century
author: Charles King
name: David
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/21
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves: anthropology, profile
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age]]> 58828638
David Wessel's incredible tale of how Washington works-and why the rich keep getting richer-starts when a Silicon Valley entrepreneur develops an idea that will save rich people money on their taxes and spins it as a way to ostensibly help poor people. He organizes and pays for an effective lobbying effort that pushes his idea into law with little scrutiny or fine-tuning by congressional or Treasury tax experts-and few safeguards against abuse. With an unbeatable pair of high-profile sponsors, bumper-sticker simplicity and deft political marketing, the Opportunity Zone became an unnoticed part of the 2017 Trump tax bill.

The gold rush followed immediately thereafter.

David Wessel follows the money to see who profited from this plan that was supposed to spur development of blighted areas and help people out of poverty: the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, the Portland (Oregon) Ritz-Carlton, the Mall of America, and self-storage facilities-lucrative areas where the one percent can park money profitably and avoid capital gains taxes. And the best part: unlike other provisions for eliminating capital gains taxes (inheritance, for example) you don't have to die to take advantage of this one.

Wessel provides vivid portraits of the proselytizers, political influencers, motivational speakers, consultants, real estate dealmakers, and individual money-seekers looking to take advantage of this twenty-first century bonanza. He looks at places for which Opportunity Zones were supposedly designed (Baltimore, for example) and how little money they've drawn. And he finds a couple of places (Erie, PA) where zones are actually doing what they were supposed to, a lesson on how a better designed program might have helped more left-behind places. Readers will feel outraged as Wessel gives us the gritty reality, the dark underbelly of a system tilted in favor of the few, with the many left out in the cold.]]> 353 David Wessel 1541757203 David 4 finance, politics 4.33 Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age
author: David Wessel
name: David
average rating: 4.33
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/20
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: finance, politics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[National Socialism - Its Principles and Philosophy]]> 54146687 Carlos Videla David 0 third-reich 4.28 National Socialism - Its Principles and Philosophy
author: Carlos Videla
name: David
average rating: 4.28
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/20
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: third-reich
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality]]> 58502650 A landmark, radically uplifting account of our species' progress from one of the world's pre-eminent thinkers - with breakthrough insights into the power of diversity and our capacity to tackle climate change.

In a captivating journey from the dawn of human existence to the present, world-renowned economist and thinker Oded Galor offers an intriguing solution to two of humanity's great mysteries.

Why are humans the only species to have escaped - only very recently - the subsistence trap, allowing us to enjoy a standard of living that vastly exceeds all others? And why have we progressed so unequally around the world, resulting in the great disparities between nations that exist today? Immense in scope and packed with astounding connections, Galor's gripping narrative explains how technology, population size, and adaptation led to a stunning "phase change" in the human story a mere two hundred years ago. But by tracing that same journey back in time and peeling away the layers of influence - colonialism, political institutions, societal structure, culture - he arrives also at an explanation of inequality's ultimate causes: those ancestral populations that enjoyed fruitful geographical characteristics and rich diversity were set on the path to prosperity, while those that lacked it were disadvantaged in ways still echoed today.

As we face ecological crisis across the globe, The Journey of Humanity is a book of urgent truths and enduring relevance, with lessons that are both hopeful and profound: gender equality, investment in education, and balancing diversity with social cohesion are the keys not only to our species' thriving, but to its survival.]]> 304 Oded Galor 0593185994 David 3 3.80 2022 The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality
author: Oded Galor
name: David
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/18
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: anthropology, economics-and-state
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises]]> 125078657 A powerful analysis of how the bias towards wealth that is woven into the very fabric of American capitalism is damaging people, the economy, and the planet, and what the foundations of a new economy could be.

This bold manifesto exposes seven myths underlying wealth supremacy, the bias that institutionalizes infinite extraction of wealth by and for the wealthy, and is the hidden force behind economic injustice, the climate crisis, and so many other problems of our day:



The Myth of Maximizing: No amount of wealth is ever enough.
The Myth of Fiduciary Duty: Corporate managers� most sacred duty is to expand capital.
The Myth of Corporate Governance: Corporate membership must be reserved for capital alone.
The Myth of the Income Statement: Income to capital must always be increased, while income to labor must always be decreased.
The Myth of Materiality: Profit—material gain—alone is real, while social and environmental damages are not.
The Myth of Takings: The first duty of government must be the protection of private property.
The Myth of the Free Market: There should be no limits on the field of action of corporations and capital.


Kelly argues instead for the democratization of ownership: public ownership of vital services, worker-owned businesses, and more. And she sketches the outlines of a non-extractive capitalism that would be subordinate to the public interest. This is an ambitious reimagining of the very foundations of our economy and society.

]]> 256 Marjorie Kelly 1523004770 David 3 economics-and-state 4.11 Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises
author: Marjorie Kelly
name: David
average rating: 4.11
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/18
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: economics-and-state
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Beyond Banks: Technology, Regulation, and the Future of Money]]> 209441677 How new technology is rapidly changing the nature of money and the way we pay

A diverse and growing range of financial institutions and platforms—from PayPal and Venmo to WeChat, Alipay, and the brave new world of stablecoins—has harnessed new technology to disrupt the system of money and payments as we know it. Beyond Banks explains why this disruption holds out the promise of faster, cheaper, more convenient, and more secure payments, but also how it increasingly risks exposing consumers, businesses, and governments to the problem of bad money.

Dan Awrey traces the origins of our current bundled system of banking, money, and payments. He explains why the problem of bad money—the result of antiquated and inadequate laws and regulation that fail to establish credible commitments to hold, transfer, or return a customer’s money on demand—requires that policymakers fundamentally rethink their approach toward the design of the laws and institutions at the heart of this system. He presents ways to effectively unbundle banking from money and payments, ensure the credibility of monetary commitments, and promote the stability of this system. Awrey also envisions a more forward-looking role for policymakers in encouraging greater technological experimentation, competition, and innovation in the realm of payments.

Beyond Banks sheds critical light on the important but too often dysfunctional relationship among technology, regulation, and money, and lays the foundations for a safer, more nimble, and more inclusive system of money and payments.]]> 304 Dan Awrey 0691245428 David 4 finance
This book aims to examine the conflict between the present, past, and future of money. It explores the advantages and disadvantages of both systems and aims to provide insights into how these systems might evolve in the future and what the implications are economically and legally.

For the author, the traditional view of the form of money must give way completely to the functional view. This functional perspective has significant implications for understanding the rise of non-bank financial institutions in the modern monetary system.
He offers a thought-provoking analysis of the evolving monetary system and urges a proactive reassessment of traditional banking frameworks and the regulation of emerging financial technologies.Why? He invokes Gresham’s Law to argue that the technological advances that deliver faster, cheaper, and safer payments often far outpace the changes to our laws and institutions that deliver sound money.

Like the design of money itself, the predictions of Gresham’s new law have profound implications for individuals, for the economy, and for the fabric of our institutions and society. On an individual level, the expansion of the shadow monetary system as bad money drives out good increases the risk of financial ruin for households and businesses as the IOUs they thought were sound money turn into empty promises during periods of institutional and broader systemic instability. On a macroeconomic level, while it is perhaps difficult to imagine today, the shadow monetary system may one day grow to rival the conventional banking system in size and systemic importance. If this eventually happens, it would raise the troubling prospect that the correlated and uncoordinated bankruptcy of the institutions and platforms at the heart of this system could precipitate a severe contraction in the money supply, leading to damaging deflation, a reduction in investment and commercial activity, and undermining economic growth.

In a sense, then, this book is an attempt to apply Gresham’s old law to our credit-based, digital, and networked age, to suggest changes before sectors of the financial industry that are so far unregulated create havoc for the entire industry.


The first part of the book traces the changes of the concept of money through history and the second part introduces us to the new world of money and the risks foreshadowed. It concludes with solid suggestions for fixing a looming problem. I say ‘solidâ€� not in the sense that they are logically airtight (since I do not have the expertise to judge this), but in the sense that they are not full of airy generalities.
It’s a well-written, well-paced book. Highly recommended.]]> 3.38 Beyond Banks: Technology, Regulation, and the Future of Money
author: Dan Awrey
name: David
average rating: 3.38
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: finance
review:
What’s in your wallet? Credit cards, debit cards, gift cards? What kind of money is in them? Those are not the kinds of things we normally think about. Or maybe your wallet is digital. Or you have Crypto currency. Or you have services for sending and receiving money. What are these things? How have they changed the definition of money and what are the economic implications for the existence of such services in a world that still assumes the traditional definition of money.

This book aims to examine the conflict between the present, past, and future of money. It explores the advantages and disadvantages of both systems and aims to provide insights into how these systems might evolve in the future and what the implications are economically and legally.

For the author, the traditional view of the form of money must give way completely to the functional view. This functional perspective has significant implications for understanding the rise of non-bank financial institutions in the modern monetary system.
He offers a thought-provoking analysis of the evolving monetary system and urges a proactive reassessment of traditional banking frameworks and the regulation of emerging financial technologies.Why? He invokes Gresham’s Law to argue that the technological advances that deliver faster, cheaper, and safer payments often far outpace the changes to our laws and institutions that deliver sound money.

Like the design of money itself, the predictions of Gresham’s new law have profound implications for individuals, for the economy, and for the fabric of our institutions and society. On an individual level, the expansion of the shadow monetary system as bad money drives out good increases the risk of financial ruin for households and businesses as the IOUs they thought were sound money turn into empty promises during periods of institutional and broader systemic instability. On a macroeconomic level, while it is perhaps difficult to imagine today, the shadow monetary system may one day grow to rival the conventional banking system in size and systemic importance. If this eventually happens, it would raise the troubling prospect that the correlated and uncoordinated bankruptcy of the institutions and platforms at the heart of this system could precipitate a severe contraction in the money supply, leading to damaging deflation, a reduction in investment and commercial activity, and undermining economic growth.

In a sense, then, this book is an attempt to apply Gresham’s old law to our credit-based, digital, and networked age, to suggest changes before sectors of the financial industry that are so far unregulated create havoc for the entire industry.


The first part of the book traces the changes of the concept of money through history and the second part introduces us to the new world of money and the risks foreshadowed. It concludes with solid suggestions for fixing a looming problem. I say ‘solidâ€� not in the sense that they are logically airtight (since I do not have the expertise to judge this), but in the sense that they are not full of airy generalities.
It’s a well-written, well-paced book. Highly recommended.
]]> <![CDATA[The Money Formula: Dodgy Finance, Pseudo Science, and How Mathematicians Took Over the Markets]]> 34503890 Explore the deadly elegance of finance's hidden powerhouse The Money Formula takes you inside the engine room of the global economy to explore the little-understood world of quantitative finance, and show how the future of our economy rests on the backs of this all-but-impenetrable industry. Written not from a post-crisis perspective � but from a preventative point of view � this book traces the development of financial derivatives from bonds to credit default swaps, and shows how mathematical formulas went beyond pricing to expand their use to the point where they dwarfed the real economy. You'll learn how the deadly allure of their ice-cold beauty has misled generations of economists and investors, and how continued reliance on these formulas can either assist future economic development, or send the global economy into the financial equivalent of a cardiac arrest.

Rather than rehash tales of post-crisis fallout, this book focuses on preventing the next one. By exploring the heart of the shadow economy, you'll be better prepared to ride the rough waves of finance into the turbulent future.

Delve into one of the world's least-understood but highest-impact industries Understand the key principles of quantitative finance and the evolution of the field Learn what quantitative finance has become, and how it affects us all Discover how the industry's next steps dictate the economy's future How do you create a quadrillion dollars out of nothing, blow it away and leave a hole so large that even years of "quantitative easing" can't fill it � and then go back to doing the same thing? Even amidst global recovery, the financial system still has the potential to seize up at any moment. The Money Formula explores the how and why of financial disaster, what must happen to prevent the next one.]]> 244 Paul Wilmott David 4 finance, financial-crisis 4.07 2017 The Money Formula: Dodgy Finance, Pseudo Science, and How Mathematicians Took Over the Markets
author: Paul Wilmott
name: David
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/13
date added: 2024/11/13
shelves: finance, financial-crisis
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World's Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation]]> 206180719 An urgently needed exploration of global technology worship, and a measured case for skepticism and agnosticism as a way of life, from the New York Times–bestselling author of Good without God.

Today’s technology has overtaken religion as the chief influence on twenty-first century life and community. In Tech Agnostic, Harvard and MIT’s influential humanist chaplain Greg Epstein explores what it means to be a critical thinker with respect to this new faith. Encouraging readers to reassert their common humanity beyond the seductive sheen of “tech,â€� this book argues for tech agnosticism—not worship—as a way of life. Without suggesting we return to a mythical pre-tech past, Epstein shows why we must maintain a freethinking critical perspective toward innovation until it proves itself worthy of our faith or not.

Epstein asks probing questions that center humanity at the heart of Who profits from an uncritical faith in technology? How can we remedy technology’s problems while retaining its benefits? Showing how unbelief has always served humanity, Epstein revisits the historical apostates, skeptics, mystics, Cassandras, heretics, and whistleblowers who embody the tech reformation we desperately need. He argues that we must learn how to collectively demand that technology serve our pursuit of human lives that are deeply worth living.

In our tumultuous era of religious extremism and rampant capitalism, Tech Agnostic offers a new path forward, where we maintain enough critical distance to remember that all that glitters is not gold—nor is it God.]]> 365 Greg Epstein 0262379759 David 4 silicon-valley 3.71 Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World's Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation
author: Greg Epstein
name: David
average rating: 3.71
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/13
date added: 2024/11/13
shelves: silicon-valley
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Directionality of Humankind's Development. History]]> 219329697 The book also unveils an encyclopedic list of more than 300 top innovations and other contributions to humankind.
A review of world history has been done from a complex systems viewpoint.
This book is intended for a broad audience, with eighth grade and above.

Victor Torvich specializes in complex systems. He is the author of "Subsurface History of Direction of History" and other works.]]> 531 Victor Torvich David 5 history Phew. Where to begin? This is a DEFINITE candidate for a slower re-read.

First there are two things to keep in mind.
This is not an easy read. It is not your typical human history page turner. For that reason you are not likely to find it in the airport. It is long and dense and boring. But it will DEFINITELY reward your concentration.
Just because I said it is rewarding does not mean you will agree with it completely. What it means is that it will challenge and hopefully loosen the dominant idea-driven form of human history narrative we are used to.


Most books on human development have a particular flaw. Either they are limited to a particular place or short period of time or they fly past history like lightning, making short stops along the way to cherry pick events or short periods that fit their narrative. In order words, those authors know what they think history is about and delicately pick and choose events to suit that claim.

The author attempts to do it in a different way. First, he attempts to treat it as WORLD history. Second, he attempts to do so through an analysis not of subjective terms but of observable resources. This book then is a project against authors such as Marx/Engels, Toynbee, Spengler, Hegel, and Harari, most recently. The problem the author finds with all these thinkers is that there is really no way of measuring the qualities which supposedly mark the direction of human development. The same applies to thinkers who search for goals or purpose of human history. Most of these thinkers seem to find the goal of history to be the very ideology they happen to subscribe to. This is what the book is about.

It attempts to achieve this in four parts.

Part 1 analyzes the previous attempts of thinkers to understand and predict the direction of human development. The author goes through all these thinkers in order to counter them and propose a measurable and verifiable approach.

Part 2 is an analysis of the resources used in plotting the direction of humanity. It goes through 318 examples of the ‘firstâ€� events marking the emergence of a new resource.
Part 3 asks if there is really a direction to human development and what forces (if any) are driving it.
Part 4 brings together the previous parts and finally seeks to discover if human development is close to a crossroad.




Whether the author succeeds in establishing a new foundation for analyzing human development I will leave you to judge for yourself. Why? First because it is not an easy book to summarize based on its approach. And second because it is what I call a foundational book. It is the misfortune of such books that whether they are loved or hated, they will exist to be plundered (favorably or unfavorably) and used to feed future projects. If in the future others attempt to look at human development purely through the created resources we should look back at this book as where it all started.
]]> 3.74 Directionality of Humankind's Development. History
author: Victor Torvich
name: David
average rating: 3.74
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/04
date added: 2024/11/04
shelves: history
review:

Phew. Where to begin? This is a DEFINITE candidate for a slower re-read.

First there are two things to keep in mind.
This is not an easy read. It is not your typical human history page turner. For that reason you are not likely to find it in the airport. It is long and dense and boring. But it will DEFINITELY reward your concentration.
Just because I said it is rewarding does not mean you will agree with it completely. What it means is that it will challenge and hopefully loosen the dominant idea-driven form of human history narrative we are used to.


Most books on human development have a particular flaw. Either they are limited to a particular place or short period of time or they fly past history like lightning, making short stops along the way to cherry pick events or short periods that fit their narrative. In order words, those authors know what they think history is about and delicately pick and choose events to suit that claim.

The author attempts to do it in a different way. First, he attempts to treat it as WORLD history. Second, he attempts to do so through an analysis not of subjective terms but of observable resources. This book then is a project against authors such as Marx/Engels, Toynbee, Spengler, Hegel, and Harari, most recently. The problem the author finds with all these thinkers is that there is really no way of measuring the qualities which supposedly mark the direction of human development. The same applies to thinkers who search for goals or purpose of human history. Most of these thinkers seem to find the goal of history to be the very ideology they happen to subscribe to. This is what the book is about.

It attempts to achieve this in four parts.

Part 1 analyzes the previous attempts of thinkers to understand and predict the direction of human development. The author goes through all these thinkers in order to counter them and propose a measurable and verifiable approach.

Part 2 is an analysis of the resources used in plotting the direction of humanity. It goes through 318 examples of the ‘firstâ€� events marking the emergence of a new resource.
Part 3 asks if there is really a direction to human development and what forces (if any) are driving it.
Part 4 brings together the previous parts and finally seeks to discover if human development is close to a crossroad.




Whether the author succeeds in establishing a new foundation for analyzing human development I will leave you to judge for yourself. Why? First because it is not an easy book to summarize based on its approach. And second because it is what I call a foundational book. It is the misfortune of such books that whether they are loved or hated, they will exist to be plundered (favorably or unfavorably) and used to feed future projects. If in the future others attempt to look at human development purely through the created resources we should look back at this book as where it all started.

]]> <![CDATA[The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism]]> 665 Ayn Rand here sets forth the moral principles of Objectivism, the philosophy that holds human life--the life proper to a rational being--as the standard of moral values and regards altruism as incompatible with man's nature, with the creative requirements of his survival, and with a free society.]]> 173 Ayn Rand 0451163931 David 1 philosophy 3.52 1961 The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism
author: Ayn Rand
name: David
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1961
rating: 1
read at: 2024/10/28
date added: 2024/10/28
shelves: philosophy
review:
Ayn Rand - the philosopher for teenagers.
]]> <![CDATA[A Father's Fight: Taking on Alex Jones and Reclaiming the Truth About Sandy Hook]]> 208691963 How one father, determined to reclaim his daughter’s memory, brought down Alex Jones.


On December 14, 2012, Robbie Parker’s daughter, Emilie, was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in an unthinkable tragedy that changed both Robbie’s life and our country forever. By December 15, Alex Jones was live on air telling his listeners that the shooting was a hoax.




So begins Parker’s David and Goliath story, a story of hope and resilience in a time defined by hatred and division. A Father's Fight is a moving testament to the power of a father’s love and perseverance in the face of insurmountable grief.




Over the next decade, while Robbie and his family tried to grieve the loss of their daughter, Jones’s rabid fans harassed and accused them of being crisis actors. The hatred turned Robbie further and further inward; away from his wife, his daughters, and from himself; to a place of isolation where he thought he could hide. But four years after Sandy Hook and three thousand miles away from Newton, an Info War listener accosted Robbie. “How do you live with yourself? You liar,â€� he said before following Robbie for blocks. It became clear to Robbie that he could no longer avoid this horrible, terrifying reality.




Not long after, seventeen students were murdered by a gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In a terrible twist of fate, Robbie knew one of the parents who had lost their child. They told Robbie they were already bombarded with hateful messages, making it impossible to grieve. It was then that Robbie realized he needed to stand up to Jones if he ever hoped to heal. To reclaim his daughter’s memory and himself he would need to take down one of the nation’s most influential bullies. With the help of the courageous group of Sandy Hook parents, fierce lawyers, and a community of supporters, he did just that.




A Father's Fight is more than a memoir. A Father's Fight is a stirring portrait of an unbreakable human spirit.]]> 250 Robbie Parker David 0 to-read 4.59 A Father's Fight: Taking on Alex Jones and Reclaiming the Truth About Sandy Hook
author: Robbie Parker
name: David
average rating: 4.59
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[True Evil by Greg Iles (2008-11-18)]]> 135505076 True EvilIles, Greg 0 Greg Iles David 3 novel 4.00 2006 True Evil by Greg Iles (2008-11-18)
author: Greg Iles
name: David
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/01
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: novel
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World]]> 205478740
We embraced the mediated life—from Facetune and Venmo to meme culture and the Metaverse—because these technologies offer novelty and convenience. But they also transform our sense of self and warp the boundaries between virtual and real. What are the costs? Who are we in a disembodied world?

In The Extinction of Experience, Christine Rosen investigates the cultural and emotional shifts that accompany our embrace of technology. In warm, philosophical prose, Rosen reveals key human experiences at risk of going extinct, including face-to-face communication, sense of place, authentic emotion, and even boredom. Considering cultural trends, like TikTok challenges and mukbang, and politically unsettling phenomena, like sociometric trackers and online conspiracy culture, Rosen exposes an unprecedented shift in the human condition, one that habituates us to alienation and control. To recover our humanity and come back to the real world, we must reclaim serendipity, community, patience, and risk.]]> 272 Christine Rosen 0393241718 David 0 culture-and-technology 3.71 2024 The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World
author: Christine Rosen
name: David
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/17
date added: 2024/10/17
shelves: culture-and-technology
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York]]> 218034326 PULITZER PRIZE WINNER ‱ÌęA modern American classic, this huge and galvanizing biography of Robert Moses reveals not only the saga of one man’s incredible accumulation of power but the story of his shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York.

One of the Modern Library’s hundred greatest books of the twentieth century, Robert Caro's monumental book makes public what few outsiders that Robert Moses was the single most powerful man of his time in the City and in the State of New York. And in telling the Moses story, Caro both opens up to an unprecedented degree the way in which politics really happens—the way things really get done in America's City Halls and Statehouses—and brings to light a bonanza of vital information about such national figures as Alfred E. Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt (and the genesis of their blood feud), about Fiorello La Guardia, John V. Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller.

But The Power Broker is first and foremost a brilliant multidimensional portrait of a man—an extraordinary man who, denied power within the normal framework of the democratic process, stepped outside that framework to grasp power sufficient to shape a great city and to hold sway over the very texture of millions of lives. We see how Moses the handsome, intellectual young heir to the world of Our Crowd, an idealist. How, rebuffed by the entrenched political establishment, he fought for the power to accomplish his ideals. How he first created a miraculous flowering of parks and parkways, playlands and beaches—and then ultimately brought down on the city the smog-choked aridity of our urban landscape, the endless miles of (never sufficient) highway, the hopeless sprawl of Long Island, the massive failures of public housing, and countless other barriers to humane living. How, inevitably, the accumulation of power became an end in itself.

Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He was held in fear—his dossiers could disgorge the dark secret of anyone who opposed him. He was, he claimed, above politics, above deals; and through decade after decade, the newspapers and the public believed. Meanwhile, he was developing his public authorities into a fourth branch of government known as "Triborough"—a government whose records were closed to the public, whose policies and plans were decided not by voters or elected officials but solely by Moses—an immense economic force directing pressure on labor unions, on banks, on all the city's political and economic institutions, and on the press, and on the Church. He doled out millions of dollars' worth of legal fees, insurance commissions, lucrative contracts on the basis of who could best pay him back in the only coin he power. He dominated the politics and politicians of his time—without ever having been elected to any office. He was, in essence, above our democratic system.

Robert Moses held power in the state for 44 years, through the governorships of Smith, Roosevelt, Lehman, Dewey, Harriman and Rockefeller, and in the city for 34 years, through the mayoralties of La Guardia, O'Dwyer, Impellitteri, Wagner and Lindsay, He personally conceived and carried through public works costing 27 billion dollars—he was undoubtedly America's greatest builder.

This is how he built and dominated New York—before, finally, he was stripped of his reputation (by the press) and his power (by Nelson Rockefeller). But his work, and his will, had been done.]]> 1298 Robert A. Caro 0593802462 David 0 to-read 4.76 1974 The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
author: Robert A. Caro
name: David
average rating: 4.76
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Camino Island (Camino Island, #1)]]> 34121119 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER â€� “A delightfully lighthearted caper ... [a] fast-moving, entertaining tale.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A gang of thieves stage a daring heist from a secure vault deep below Princeton University’s Firestone Library. Their loot is priceless, but Princeton has insured it for twenty-five million dollars.

Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in the black market of stolen books and manuscripts.

Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer’s block who has recently been laid off from her teaching position. She is approached by an elegant, mysterious woman working for an even more mysterious company. A generous offer of money convinces Mercer to go undercover and infiltrate Bruce Cable’s circle of literary friends, ideally getting close enough to him to learn his secrets.

But eventually Mercer learns far too much, and there’s trouble in paradise as only John Grisham can deliver it.]]> 290 John Grisham 0385543026 David 1 novel 3.69 2017 Camino Island (Camino Island, #1)
author: John Grisham
name: David
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2017
rating: 1
read at: 2024/10/02
date added: 2024/10/17
shelves: novel
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality]]> 34017056
From iconic books like Neuromancer to blockbuster films like The Matrix, virtual reality has long been hailed as the ultimate technology. But outside of a few research labs and military training facilities, this tantalizing vision of the future was nothing but science fiction. Until 2012, when Oculus founder Palmer Luckey—then just a rebellious teenage dreamer living alone in a camper trailer—invents a device that has the potential to change everything.

With the help of a videogame legend, a serial entrepreneur and many other colorful characters, Luckey’s scrappy startup kickstarts a revolution and sets out to bring VR to the masses. As with most underdog stories, things don’t quite go according to plan. But what happens next turns out to be the ultimate entrepreneurial a tale of battles won and lost, lessons learned and neverending twists and turns—including an unlikely multi-billion-dollar acquisition by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, which shakes up the landscape in Silicon Valley and gives Oculus the chance to forever change our reality.

Drawing on over a hundred interviews with the key players driving this revolution, The History of the Future weaves together a rich, cinematic narrative that captures the breakthroughs, breakdowns and human drama of trying to change the world. The result is a super accessible and supremely entertaining look at the birth of a game-changing new industry.]]> 528 Blake J. Harris 0062455982 David 0 currently-reading 4.05 The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality
author: Blake J. Harris
name: David
average rating: 4.05
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Paris, City of Dreams: Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Creation of Paris]]> 51315968
Paris, City of Dreams traces the transformation of the City of Light during Napoleon III's Second Empire into the beloved city of today. Together, Napoleon III and his right-hand man, Georges Haussmann, completely rebuilt Paris in less than two decades--a breathtaking achievement made possible not only by the emperor's vision and Haussmann's determination but by the regime's unrelenting authoritarianism, augmented by the booming economy that Napoleon fostered.

Yet a number of Parisians refused to comply with the restrictions that censorship and entrenched institutional taste imposed. Mary McAuliffe follows the lives of artists such as Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, and Claude Monet, as well as writers such as Emile Zola, Gustave Flaubert, and the poet Charles Baudelaire, while from exile, Victor Hugo continued to fire literary broadsides at the emperor he detested.

McAuliffe brings to life a pivotal era encompassing not only the physical restructuring of Paris but also the innovative forms of banking and money-lending that financed industrialization as well as the city's transformation. This in turn created new wealth and lavish excess, even while producing extreme poverty. More deeply, change was occurring in the way people looked at and understood the world around them, given the new ease of transportation and communication, the popularization of photography, and the emergence of what would soon be known as Impressionism in art and Naturalism and Realism in literature--artistic yearnings that would flower in the Belle Epoque.

Napoleon III, whose reign abruptly ended after he led France into a devastating war against Germany, has been forgotten. But the Paris that he created has endured, brought to vivid life through McAuliffe's rich illustrations and evocative narrative.]]> 333 Mary McAuliffe 1538121298 David 0 profile 3.97 2020 Paris, City of Dreams: Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Creation of Paris
author: Mary McAuliffe
name: David
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/07/13
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves: profile
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The New Empire of Debt: The Rise and Fall of an Epic Financial Bubble]]> 8274906
In The New Empire of Debt, financial writers Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin return to reveal how the financial crisis that has plagued the United States will soon bring an end to this once great empire.

Throughout the book, the authors offer an updated look at the United States' precarious position given the recent financial turmoil, and discuss how government control of the economy and financial system-combined with unfettered deficit spending and gluttonous consumption-has ravaged the business environment, devastated consumer confidence, and pushed the global economy to the brink. Along the way, Bonner and Wiggin cast a wide angle lens that looks back in history and ahead to the coming showing how dramatic changes in the economic power of the United States will inevitably impact every American.

Reveals the financial realities the United States currently faces and what the ultimate outcome may be Weaves together the worlds of politics, economics, and personal finance in a way that underscores the severity of the situation Addresses the events leading up to the implosion of the U.S. financial system Looks ahead to help you avoid the pitfalls presented by a weaker United States Other titles by Empire of Debt, Financial Reckoning Day, and Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets
Other titles by I.O.U.S.A., Demise of the Dollar, and Financial Reckoning Day
The United States is heading down a difficult path. The New Empire of Debt clearly shows how this has happened and discusses what you can do to overcome the financial challenges that will arise as the situation deteriorates.]]> 499 Addison Wiggin 0470528702 David 5 4.04 2009 The New Empire of Debt: The Rise and Fall of an Epic Financial Bubble
author: Addison Wiggin
name: David
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/27
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: finance, financial-crisis, economics-and-state
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Denmark Vesey's Bible: The Thwarted Revolt That Put Slavery and Scripture on Trial]]> 61138468 A timely and provocative account of the Bible’s role in one of the most consequential episodes in the history of slaveryOn July 2, 1822, Denmark Vesey, a formerly enslaved man, was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina. He was convicted of plotting what might have been the largest insurrection against slaveholders in US history. Witnesses claimed that Vesey appealed to numerous biblical texts to promote and justify the revolt. While sentencing Vesey to death, Lionel Henry Kennedy, a magistrate at the trial, accused Vesey not only of treason but also of “attempting to pervert the sacred words of God into a sanction for crimes of the blackest hue.â€� Denmark Vesey’s Bible tells the story of this momentous trial, examining the role of scriptural interpretation in the deadly struggle against American white supremacy and its brutal enforcement.Jeremy Schipper brings the trial and its aftermath vividly to life, drawing on court documents, personal letters, sermons, speeches, and editorials. He shows how Vesey compared people of African descent with enslaved Israelites in the Bible, while his accusers portrayed plantation owners as benevolent biblical patriarchs responsible for providing religious instruction to the enslaved. What emerges is an explosive portrait of an antebellum city in the grips of racial terror, violence, and contending visions of biblical truth.Shedding light on the uses of scripture in America’s troubled racial history, Denmark Vesey’s Bible draws vital lessons from a terrible moment in the nation’s past, enabling us to confront racism and religious discord today with renewed urgency and understanding.]]> 207 Jeremy Schipper 0691212678 David 5 bbsf, rl 4.75 Denmark Vesey's Bible: The Thwarted Revolt That Put Slavery and Scripture on Trial
author: Jeremy Schipper
name: David
average rating: 4.75
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/14
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: bbsf, rl
review:

]]> Feminism Against Progress 95194845 Modern feminism increasingly benefits only a small class of professional women. There is no reason to sacrifice everyone else's happiness for their sake.

Mary Harrington shows that women's liberation was less the result of moral progress than an effect of the material consequences of the Industrial Revolution. We've now left the industrial era for the digital age, in which technology is liberating us from natural limits and embodied sex differences. This shift may benefit the elites, but it also makes it easier to commodify women's bodies, human intimacy, and female reproductive abilities.

"Feminism" has been captured by well-off white-collar women, who use it to advance their own economic and political interests under the pretense that these are the interests of all women—all the while wielding the term like a club against anyone, male or female, who dissents.

Feminism against Progress is a stark warning against a dystopian future in which poor women become little more than convenient sources of body parts to be harvested and wombs to be rented by the rich. "Progress" no longer benefits the majority of women, and only a feminism that is skeptical of it can truly defend their interests in the twenty-first century.]]> 254 Mary Harrington 1684514967 David 5 3.96 2023 Feminism Against Progress
author: Mary Harrington
name: David
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/27
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: culture-and-technology, feminism, politics, bbsf
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (American Crossroads Book 21)]]> 23875830 418 Ruth Wilson Gilmore 0520938038 David 0 criminal-justice, race, whtrr 4.13 2007 Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (American Crossroads Book 21)
author: Ruth Wilson Gilmore
name: David
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2021/07/01
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: criminal-justice, race, whtrr
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Black Reparations Project: A Handbook for Racial Justice]]> 109639228 This groundbreaking resource moves us from theory to action with a practical plan for reparations.
Ìę
A surge in interest in black reparations is taking place in America on a scale not seen since the Reconstruction Era. The Black Reparations Project gathers an accomplished interdisciplinary team of scholars—members of the Reparations Planning Committee—who have considered the issues pertinent to making reparations happen. This book will be an essential resource in the national conversation going forward.
Ìę
The first section of The Black Reparations Project crystallizes the rationale for reparations, cataloguing centuries of racial repression, discrimination, violence, mass incarceration, and the immense black-white wealth gap. Drawing on the contributors� expertise in economics, history, law, public policy, public health, and education, the second section unfurls direct guidance for building and implementing a reparations program, including draft legislation that addresses how the program should be financed and how claimants can be identified and compensated. Rigorous and comprehensive, The Black Reparations Project will motivate, guide, and speed the final leg of the journey for justice.]]> 437 William A. Darity Jr. 0520383826 David 1
I gave it a try. I REALLY REALLY wanted to have my mind changed, but nope. After reading this I am even more convinced that this is the worst political idea in the history of the world.]]> 3.00 The Black Reparations Project: A Handbook for Racial Justice
author: William A. Darity Jr.
name: David
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 1
read at: 2023/06/14
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: race, political-philosophy, policy
review:
Nonsense squared.

I gave it a try. I REALLY REALLY wanted to have my mind changed, but nope. After reading this I am even more convinced that this is the worst political idea in the history of the world.
]]> <![CDATA[What You Need to Know About Voting—and Why (Legal Expert Series)]]> 46205680
Want to change the world?ÌęThe first step is to exercise your right to vote! In this step by step guide, you can learn everything you need to know.Ìę

InÌęWhat You Need to Know About Voting—and Why, law professor and constitutional scholar Kimberly WehleÌęoffers practical, useful advice on the mechanics of voting and an enlightening survey of its history and future.Ìę

What is a primary?How does the electoral college work?Who gets to cast a ballot and why?How do mail-in ballots work?How do I register?For new voters, would-be voters, young people and all of usÌęlooking ahead to the next election, What You Need to Know About Voting—and Why is a timely and informative guide, providing the background you need in order to make informed choices that will shape our shared destiny for decades to come.]]> 336 Kim Wehle 0062974793 David 0 politics, policy It is the section about voting rights that reduced my evaluation for this book. It is not that I agree with whatever party trying to impose requirements on voting; it is that the author made a series of arguments unworthy of an adult.

Tell us why it is wrong to have ID requirements for voting. She pointed out that not many people commit fraud because the penalty is too high. Why don't many people commit fraud? Is it because the requirements make it relatively easy to catch fraudsters? If not, tell us. Tell us why voting is a right that does not require identification. Or alternatively, tell us exactly (and not polemically) how the current laws mandating ID requirement are restricting legitimate votes or above what we would consider normal requirement. If we require IDs for so many other things, why is it an unreasonable imposition to ask someone coming to vote to have an ID?

Merged review:

It is the section about voting rights that reduced my evaluation for this book. It is not that I agree with whatever party trying to impose requirements on voting; it is that the author made a series of arguments unworthy of an adult.

Tell us why it is wrong to have ID requirements for voting. She pointed out that not many people commit fraud because the penalty is too high. Why don't many people commit fraud? Is it because the requirements make it relatively easy to catch fraudsters? If not, tell us. Tell us why voting is a right that does not require identification. Or alternatively, tell us exactly (and not polemically) how the current laws mandating ID requirement are restricting legitimate votes or above what we would consider normal requirement. If we require IDs for so many other things, why is it an unreasonable imposition to ask someone coming to vote to have an ID?]]> 3.74 2020 What You Need to Know About Voting—and Why (Legal Expert Series)
author: Kim Wehle
name: David
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/09/09
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: politics, policy
review:

It is the section about voting rights that reduced my evaluation for this book. It is not that I agree with whatever party trying to impose requirements on voting; it is that the author made a series of arguments unworthy of an adult.

Tell us why it is wrong to have ID requirements for voting. She pointed out that not many people commit fraud because the penalty is too high. Why don't many people commit fraud? Is it because the requirements make it relatively easy to catch fraudsters? If not, tell us. Tell us why voting is a right that does not require identification. Or alternatively, tell us exactly (and not polemically) how the current laws mandating ID requirement are restricting legitimate votes or above what we would consider normal requirement. If we require IDs for so many other things, why is it an unreasonable imposition to ask someone coming to vote to have an ID?

Merged review:

It is the section about voting rights that reduced my evaluation for this book. It is not that I agree with whatever party trying to impose requirements on voting; it is that the author made a series of arguments unworthy of an adult.

Tell us why it is wrong to have ID requirements for voting. She pointed out that not many people commit fraud because the penalty is too high. Why don't many people commit fraud? Is it because the requirements make it relatively easy to catch fraudsters? If not, tell us. Tell us why voting is a right that does not require identification. Or alternatively, tell us exactly (and not polemically) how the current laws mandating ID requirement are restricting legitimate votes or above what we would consider normal requirement. If we require IDs for so many other things, why is it an unreasonable imposition to ask someone coming to vote to have an ID?
]]> <![CDATA[Venomous: How Earth's Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry]]> 27883188 A thrilling tale of encounters with nature’s masters of biochemistry

From the coasts of Indonesia to the rainforests of Peru, venomous animals are everywhere—and often lurking out of sight. Humans have feared them for centuries, long considering them the assassins and pariahs of the natural world.

Now, in Venomous, the biologist Christie Wilcox investigates and illuminates the animals of our nightmares, arguing that they hold the keys to a deeper understanding of evolution, adaptation, and immunity. She reveals just how venoms function and what they do to the human body. With Wilcox as our guide, we encounter a jellyfish with tentacles covered in stinging cells that can kill humans in minutes; a two-inch caterpillar with toxic bristles that trigger hemorrhaging; and a stunning blue-ringed octopus capable of inducing total paralysis. How do these animals go about their deadly work? How did they develop such intricate, potent toxins? Wilcox takes us around the world and down to the cellular level to find out.

Throughout her journey, Wilcox meets the intrepid scientists who risk their lives studying these lethal beasts, as well as “self-immunizersâ€� who deliberately expose themselves to snakebites. Along the way, she puts her own life on the line, narrowly avoiding being envenomated herself. Drawing on her own research, Wilcox explains how venom scientists are untangling the mechanisms of some of our most devastating diseases, and reports on pharmacologists who are already exploiting venoms to produce lifesaving drugs. We discover that venomous creatures are in fact keystone species that play crucial roles in their ecosystems and ours—and for this alone, they ought to be protected and appreciated.

Thrilling and surprising at every turn, Venomous will change everything you thought you knew about the planet’s most dangerous animals.]]> 260 Christie Wilcox 0374712212 David 4 popular-science 4.12 2016 Venomous: How Earth's Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry
author: Christie Wilcox
name: David
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2021/11/14
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves: popular-science
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Boom: Mad Money, Mega Dealers, and the Rise of Contemporary Art]]> 42250022 The meteoric rise of the largest unregulated financial market in the world -- for contemporary art -- is driven by a few passionate, guileful, and very hard-nosed dealers. They can make and break careers and fortunes. The contemporary art market is an international juggernaut, throwing off multimillion-dollar deals as wealthy buyers move from fair to fair, auction to auction, party to glittering party. But none of it would happen without the dealers-the tastemakers who back emerging artists and steer them to success, often to see them picked off by a rival. Dealers operate within a private world of handshake agreements, negotiating for the highest commissions. Michael Shnayerson, a longtime contributing editor to Vanity Fair, writes the first ever definitive history of their activities. He has spoken to all of today's so-called mega dealers -- Larry Gagosian, David Zwirner, Arne and Marc Glimcher, and Iwan Wirth -- along with dozens of other dealers -- from Irving Blum to Gavin Brown -- who worked with the greatest artists of their Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, and more. This kaleidoscopic history begins in the mid-1940s in genteel poverty with a scattering of galleries in midtown Manhattan, takes us through the ramshackle 1950s studios of Coenties Slip, the hipster locations in SoHo and Chelsea, London's Bond Street, and across the terraces of Art Basel until today. Now, dealers and auctioneers are seeking the first billion-dollar painting. It hasn't happened yet, but they are confident they can push the price there soon.]]> 464 Michael Shnayerson 1610398416 David 0 currently-reading 3.88 Boom: Mad Money, Mega Dealers, and the Rise of Contemporary Art
author: Michael Shnayerson
name: David
average rating: 3.88
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Reading the Silver Screen: A Film Lover's Guide to Decoding the Art Form That Moves]]> 18599652
No art form is as instantly and continuously gratifying as film. When the house lights go down and the lion roars, we settle in to be shocked, frightened, elated, moved, and thrilled. We expect magic. While we’re being exhilarated and terrified, our minds are also processing data of all sorts—visual, linguistic, auditory, spatial—to collaborate in the construction of meaning.Thomas C. Foster’s Reading the Silver Screen will show movie buffs, students of film, and even aspiring screenwriters and directors how to transition from merely being viewers to becoming accomplished readers of this great medium. Beginning with the grammar of film, Foster demonstrates how every art form has a grammar, a set of practices and if-then propositions that amount to rules. He goes on to explain how the language of film enables movies to communicate the purpose behind their stories and the messages they are striving to convey to audiences by following and occasionally breaking these rules.Using the investigative approach readers love in How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster examines this grammar of film through various classic and current movies both foreign and domestic, with special recourse to the “AFI 100 Years-100 Moviesâ€� lists. The categories are idiosyncratic yet revealing.

In Reading the Silver Screen, readers will gain the expertise and confidence to glean all they can from the movies they love.]]> 403 Thomas C. Foster 0062113402 David 0 currently-reading 3.37 2014 Reading the Silver Screen: A Film Lover's Guide to Decoding the Art Form That Moves
author: Thomas C. Foster
name: David
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage]]> 35682121 “Sexton grapples with the Trump campaign from the perspective of the crowds reveling in the candidate’s presence and message. It is a useful vantage point given the increasingly blatant bigotry in the months since the election.â€� —The Washington PostThe People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore is a firsthand account of the events that shaped the 2016 presidential election and the cultural forces that powered Donald Trump into the White House. Includes an all new afterword that details the first year of the Trump presidency.“With a novelist’s flair for the dramatic scene and evocative detail, Sexton expertly marries the quotidian tedium of the campaign trail (so many hotel room beers) and the outlandish circumstances of this particular election season with his astute observations about our polarized national condition.â€� —Salon“This is the post–campaign book I was waiting for. Essential reading for understanding this country now and going forward.â€� —Alexander Chee, author of The Queen of the Night ]]> 373 Jared Yates Sexton 1619029634 David 2 politics 4.16 2017 The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage
author: Jared Yates Sexton
name: David
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2020/07/23
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: politics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Cold War's Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace]]> 35068475
In this sweeping, deeply researched book, Paul Thomas Chamberlin boldly argues that the Cold War, long viewed as a mostly peaceful, if tense, diplomatic standoff between democracy and communism, was actually a part ofÌęa vast, deadly conflict that killed millions on battlegrounds across the postcolonial world. For half a century, as an uneasy peace hung over Europe, ferocious proxy wars raged in the Cold War’s killing fields, resulting in more thanÌęfourteen million dead—victims who remain largely forgotten and all but lost to history.

A superb work of scholarship illustrated withÌęfour maps, The Cold War’s Killing Fields is the first global military history of this superpower conflict and the first full accounting of its devastating impact. More than previous armed conflicts, the wars of the post-1945 era ravaged civilians across vast stretches of territory, from Korea and Vietnam to Bangladesh and Afghanistan to Iraq and Lebanon. Chamberlin provides an understanding of this sweeping history from the ground up and offers a moving portrait of human suffering, capturing the voices of those who experienced the brutal warfare.

Chamberlin reframes this era in global history and explores in detail the numerous battles fought to prevent nuclear war,Ìębolster the strategic hegemony of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., and determine the fate of societies throughout the Third World.]]> 645 Paul Thomas Chamberlin 0062367226 David 4 cold-war, reread 4.17 2018 The Cold War's Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace
author: Paul Thomas Chamberlin
name: David
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/08
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: cold-war, reread
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Free: Coming of Age at the End of History]]> 59463632
Then the statues of Stalin and Hoxha were toppled. Almost overnight, people could vote and worship freely, and invest in hopes of striking it rich. But factories shut, jobs disappeared, and thousands fled to Italy, only to be sent back. Pyramid schemes bankrupted the country, leading to violence. One generation’s dreams became another’s disillusionment. As her own family’s secrets were revealed, Ypi found herself questioning what “freedomâ€� really means. With acute insight and wit, Ypi traces the perils of ideology, and what people need to flourish.]]> 274 Lea Ypi 0393867749 David 4 memoir, post-communism 4.34 2021 Free: Coming of Age at the End of History
author: Lea Ypi
name: David
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/01
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: memoir, post-communism
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Theology and Black Mirror (Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture)]]> 60246697 355 Amber Bowen 1978711174 David 0 currently-reading 5.00 Theology and Black Mirror (Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture)
author: Amber Bowen
name: David
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why Flying Is Miserable: And How to Fix It]]> 122771899 Why are the airlines always in a crisis?

Everyone has a horror story about air travel—cancellations, delays, lost baggage, tiny seats, poor service. In this day and age, there is no reason that flying should be this bad. In Why Flying Is Miserable, Ganesh Sitaraman, a law professor and policy expert, explains how this It was a conscious choice made by Washington in the 1970s to roll back many forms of regulation that began during the New Deal, in the name of unimpeded capitalism and more competition. Today, the industry is an oligopoly, with only four too-big-to-fail airlines that have received billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts and still can’t offer reliable service.

Miserable air travel is the perfect symbol of the type of unregulated capitalism that America has unleashed. But there are ways to fix airlines—and, by extension, many other sectors of industry—because, after a half-century run, people are sick and tired of the turbulence that deregulation has brought to our economy.]]> 172 Ganesh Sitaraman David 4

Having said all that, I have two problems with the book. The first is not really a problem I have with the book specifically, but one which I have with people who propose sweeping public policy changes in key areas of the economy and politics. There is a difference between intentions and results. It is a mistake to assume that laws and regulations act as bridges between intentions and results. Laws and regulations are intentions while results are always unknown. What this means is that what we have in common between the government (which is usually described as the good guys) and the private sector (which are the bad guys) is the fact that both sectors are composed of human beings. Laws do not bridge intentions and results; they create constraints and incentives to which human beings in both the public and private sectors react against or adapt to. This is the only lens through which to read the author’s proposals. As long as you do not see them as fixes, but as new sets of incentives and constraints to which people will react, you will be fine. That way you can reason your way through them by assuming how well-intentioned proposals can be corrupted.


For example, a law that says that,
”With these dynamics and goals in mind, we can identify three principles for fixing flying. 1. No More Flyover Country. Air travel is critical to commerce and opportunity. We need air service to be available all across the country, including in mid-sized and smaller cities. 2. No Bailouts, No Bankruptcies. We need a stable, reliable, resilient, and innovative airline industry that doesn’t suffer from boom-andbust cycles. We need it to work all the time, not just when the economy is good. 3. Fair and Transparent Pricing. We need a pricing system that achieves both of the above goals—and that doesn’t push airlines to create complicated fare structures with hidden conditions or tackedon fees. Importantly, if we keep these principles in mind, we’ll also achieve a range of other goals. A stable industry is good for workers. Coupling that with fair and transparent pricing is good for improving the passenger experience. If we get the structure of a new national airline policy right, we can fix flying—without a lot of complicated regulations for the industry and without a miserable experience for passengers. So how do we turn these principles into public policy?

might actually create a situation that is worse than what we have now. How? Airlines might begin to creatively shift their costs to the areas that are regulated.

My second issue is that even if all the proposals advanced are implemented, it will not remove other sources of misery from flying. It may fix the financial operations of the airlines, maybe lower ticket prices, and maybe connect more cities, but a lot of the things that make flying miserable will still remain. None of the proposals will cause airlines to increase leg room for passengers, decrease the cost of items at airports, shorten wait time during searches, check-in, baggage check, and (at some airports) getting rides. It won’t improve the conditions of chaotic and improperly maintained airports (I’m looking at you LAX). I am saying this not as a sort of criticism, but just to manage expectations which might be unduly broadened by the title.


Merged review:

Even if you disagree with the author, you will at least agree that he has thought through the problem and his proposed solutions. It doesn’t mean he has thought through it thoroughly, but the book is significantly better than other public policy proposal books in that his proposals are more detailed than general. That is my first praise for the book: it is detailed in its analysis and proposals. My second praise is that it does not sacrifice readability for detail. It is a balanced mixture.


Having said all that, I have two problems with the book. The first is not really a problem I have with the book specifically, but one which I have with people who propose sweeping public policy changes in key areas of the economy and politics. There is a difference between intentions and results. It is a mistake to assume that laws and regulations act as bridges between intentions and results. Laws and regulations are intentions while results are always unknown. What this means is that what we have in common between the government (which is usually described as the good guys) and the private sector (which are the bad guys) is the fact that both sectors are composed of human beings. Laws do not bridge intentions and results; they create constraints and incentives to which human beings in both the public and private sectors react against or adapt to. This is the only lens through which to read the author’s proposals. As long as you do not see them as fixes, but as new sets of incentives and constraints to which people will react, you will be fine. That way you can reason your way through them by assuming how well-intentioned proposals can be corrupted.


For example, a law that says that,
”With these dynamics and goals in mind, we can identify three principles for fixing flying. 1. No More Flyover Country. Air travel is critical to commerce and opportunity. We need air service to be available all across the country, including in mid-sized and smaller cities. 2. No Bailouts, No Bankruptcies. We need a stable, reliable, resilient, and innovative airline industry that doesn’t suffer from boom-andbust cycles. We need it to work all the time, not just when the economy is good. 3. Fair and Transparent Pricing. We need a pricing system that achieves both of the above goals—and that doesn’t push airlines to create complicated fare structures with hidden conditions or tackedon fees. Importantly, if we keep these principles in mind, we’ll also achieve a range of other goals. A stable industry is good for workers. Coupling that with fair and transparent pricing is good for improving the passenger experience. If we get the structure of a new national airline policy right, we can fix flying—without a lot of complicated regulations for the industry and without a miserable experience for passengers. So how do we turn these principles into public policy?

might actually create a situation that is worse than what we have now. How? Airlines might begin to creatively shift their costs to the areas that are regulated.

My second issue is that even if all the proposals advanced are implemented, it will not remove other sources of misery from flying. It may fix the financial operations of the airlines, maybe lower ticket prices, and maybe connect more cities, but a lot of the things that make flying miserable will still remain. None of the proposals will cause airlines to increase leg room for passengers, decrease the cost of items at airports, shorten wait time during searches, check-in, baggage check, and (at some airports) getting rides. It won’t improve the conditions of chaotic and improperly maintained airports (I’m looking at you LAX). I am saying this not as a sort of criticism, but just to manage expectations which might be unduly broadened by the title.]]> 3.67 Why Flying Is Miserable: And How to Fix It
author: Ganesh Sitaraman
name: David
average rating: 3.67
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/02
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: economics-and-state, business, policy
review:
Even if you disagree with the author, you will at least agree that he has thought through the problem and his proposed solutions. It doesn’t mean he has thought through it thoroughly, but the book is significantly better than other public policy proposal books in that his proposals are more detailed than general. That is my first praise for the book: it is detailed in its analysis and proposals. My second praise is that it does not sacrifice readability for detail. It is a balanced mixture.


Having said all that, I have two problems with the book. The first is not really a problem I have with the book specifically, but one which I have with people who propose sweeping public policy changes in key areas of the economy and politics. There is a difference between intentions and results. It is a mistake to assume that laws and regulations act as bridges between intentions and results. Laws and regulations are intentions while results are always unknown. What this means is that what we have in common between the government (which is usually described as the good guys) and the private sector (which are the bad guys) is the fact that both sectors are composed of human beings. Laws do not bridge intentions and results; they create constraints and incentives to which human beings in both the public and private sectors react against or adapt to. This is the only lens through which to read the author’s proposals. As long as you do not see them as fixes, but as new sets of incentives and constraints to which people will react, you will be fine. That way you can reason your way through them by assuming how well-intentioned proposals can be corrupted.


For example, a law that says that,
”With these dynamics and goals in mind, we can identify three principles for fixing flying. 1. No More Flyover Country. Air travel is critical to commerce and opportunity. We need air service to be available all across the country, including in mid-sized and smaller cities. 2. No Bailouts, No Bankruptcies. We need a stable, reliable, resilient, and innovative airline industry that doesn’t suffer from boom-andbust cycles. We need it to work all the time, not just when the economy is good. 3. Fair and Transparent Pricing. We need a pricing system that achieves both of the above goals—and that doesn’t push airlines to create complicated fare structures with hidden conditions or tackedon fees. Importantly, if we keep these principles in mind, we’ll also achieve a range of other goals. A stable industry is good for workers. Coupling that with fair and transparent pricing is good for improving the passenger experience. If we get the structure of a new national airline policy right, we can fix flying—without a lot of complicated regulations for the industry and without a miserable experience for passengers. So how do we turn these principles into public policy?

might actually create a situation that is worse than what we have now. How? Airlines might begin to creatively shift their costs to the areas that are regulated.

My second issue is that even if all the proposals advanced are implemented, it will not remove other sources of misery from flying. It may fix the financial operations of the airlines, maybe lower ticket prices, and maybe connect more cities, but a lot of the things that make flying miserable will still remain. None of the proposals will cause airlines to increase leg room for passengers, decrease the cost of items at airports, shorten wait time during searches, check-in, baggage check, and (at some airports) getting rides. It won’t improve the conditions of chaotic and improperly maintained airports (I’m looking at you LAX). I am saying this not as a sort of criticism, but just to manage expectations which might be unduly broadened by the title.


Merged review:

Even if you disagree with the author, you will at least agree that he has thought through the problem and his proposed solutions. It doesn’t mean he has thought through it thoroughly, but the book is significantly better than other public policy proposal books in that his proposals are more detailed than general. That is my first praise for the book: it is detailed in its analysis and proposals. My second praise is that it does not sacrifice readability for detail. It is a balanced mixture.


Having said all that, I have two problems with the book. The first is not really a problem I have with the book specifically, but one which I have with people who propose sweeping public policy changes in key areas of the economy and politics. There is a difference between intentions and results. It is a mistake to assume that laws and regulations act as bridges between intentions and results. Laws and regulations are intentions while results are always unknown. What this means is that what we have in common between the government (which is usually described as the good guys) and the private sector (which are the bad guys) is the fact that both sectors are composed of human beings. Laws do not bridge intentions and results; they create constraints and incentives to which human beings in both the public and private sectors react against or adapt to. This is the only lens through which to read the author’s proposals. As long as you do not see them as fixes, but as new sets of incentives and constraints to which people will react, you will be fine. That way you can reason your way through them by assuming how well-intentioned proposals can be corrupted.


For example, a law that says that,
”With these dynamics and goals in mind, we can identify three principles for fixing flying. 1. No More Flyover Country. Air travel is critical to commerce and opportunity. We need air service to be available all across the country, including in mid-sized and smaller cities. 2. No Bailouts, No Bankruptcies. We need a stable, reliable, resilient, and innovative airline industry that doesn’t suffer from boom-andbust cycles. We need it to work all the time, not just when the economy is good. 3. Fair and Transparent Pricing. We need a pricing system that achieves both of the above goals—and that doesn’t push airlines to create complicated fare structures with hidden conditions or tackedon fees. Importantly, if we keep these principles in mind, we’ll also achieve a range of other goals. A stable industry is good for workers. Coupling that with fair and transparent pricing is good for improving the passenger experience. If we get the structure of a new national airline policy right, we can fix flying—without a lot of complicated regulations for the industry and without a miserable experience for passengers. So how do we turn these principles into public policy?

might actually create a situation that is worse than what we have now. How? Airlines might begin to creatively shift their costs to the areas that are regulated.

My second issue is that even if all the proposals advanced are implemented, it will not remove other sources of misery from flying. It may fix the financial operations of the airlines, maybe lower ticket prices, and maybe connect more cities, but a lot of the things that make flying miserable will still remain. None of the proposals will cause airlines to increase leg room for passengers, decrease the cost of items at airports, shorten wait time during searches, check-in, baggage check, and (at some airports) getting rides. It won’t improve the conditions of chaotic and improperly maintained airports (I’m looking at you LAX). I am saying this not as a sort of criticism, but just to manage expectations which might be unduly broadened by the title.
]]> <![CDATA[The Invincible Family: Why the Global Campaign to Crush Motherhood and Fatherhood Can't Win]]> 52727407 255 Kimberly Ells 1684510716 David 0 culture 4.38 The Invincible Family: Why the Global Campaign to Crush Motherhood and Fatherhood Can't Win
author: Kimberly Ells
name: David
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2021/03/15
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: culture
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better]]> 10276354 Tyler Cowen’s controversialÌęNew York Times bestseller—the bookÌęheard round the world that ignited a firestorm of debate and redefined the nature of America’s economicÌęmalaise.ÌęAmerica has been through the biggest financial crisis since the great Depression, unemployment numbers are frightening, media wages have been flat since the 1970s, and it is common to expect that things will get worse before they get better. Certainly, the multidecade stagnation is not yet over. How will we get out of this mess? One political party tries to increase government spending even when we have no good plan for paying for ballooning programs like Medicare and Social Security. The other party seems to think tax cuts will raise revenue and has a record of creating bigger fiscal disasters that the first. Where does this madness come from?ÌęAs Cowen argues, our economy has enjoyed low-hanging fruit since the seventeenth free land, immigrant labor, and powerful new technologies. But during the last forty years, the low-hanging fruit started disappearing, and we started pretending it was still there. We have failed to recognize that we are at a technological plateau. The fruit trees are barer than we want to believe. That's it. That is what has gone wrong and that is why our politics is crazy.ÌęIn The Great Stagnation, Cowen reveals the underlying causes of our past prosperity and how we will generate it again. This is a passionate call for a new respect of scientific innovations that benefit not only the powerful elites, but humanity as a whole.]]> 64 Tyler Cowen 1101502258 David 4 3.74 2011 The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better
author: Tyler Cowen
name: David
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/11
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: economics-and-state, finance, policy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century]]> 56347680 The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century upends the way we discuss—or avoid discussing—the problems and politics of sex.

How should we think about sex? It is a thing we have and also a thing we do; a supposedly private act laden with public meaning; a personal preference shaped by outside forces; a place where pleasure and ethics can pull wildly apart.

How should we talk about sex? Since #MeToo many have fixed on consent as the key framework for achieving sexual justice. Yet consent is a blunt tool. To grasp sex in all its complexity�its deep ambivalences, its relationship to gender, class, race and power�we need to move beyond yes and no, wanted and unwanted.

We do not know the future of sex—but perhaps we could imagine it. Amia Srinivasan’s stunning debut helps us do just that. She traces the meaning of sex in our world, animated by the hope of a different world. She reaches back into an older feminist tradition that was unafraid to think of sex as a political phenomenon. She discusses a range of fraught relationships—between discrimination and preference, pornography and freedom, rape and racial injustice, punishment and accountability, students and teachers, pleasure and power, capitalism and liberation.

The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century is a provocation and a promise, transforming many of our most urgent political debates and asking what it might mean to be free.]]> 241 Amia Srinivasan 0374721033 David 2 feminism 4.27 2021 The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century
author: Amia Srinivasan
name: David
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2021/09/22
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: feminism
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism]]> 61911507
In this searing and insightful critique, Adrienne Buller examines the fatal biases that have shaped the response of our governing institutions to climate and environmental breakdown, and are the 'solutions' being proposed really solutions? Tracing the intricate connections between financial power, economic injustice and ecological crisis, she exposes the myopic economism and market-centric thinking presently undermining a future where all life can flourish. The book examines what is wrong with mainstream climate and environmental governance, from carbon pricing and offset markets to 'green growth', the commodification of nature and the growing influence of the finance industry on environmental policy. In doing so, it exposes the self-defeating logic of a response to these challenges based on creating new opportunities for profit, and a refusal to grapple with the inequalities and injustices that have created them. Both honest and optimistic, The Value of a Whale asks us - in the face of crisis - what we really value.]]> 366 Adrienne Buller 1526162628 David 5 3.91 2022 The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism
author: Adrienne Buller
name: David
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/12
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: environment, economics-and-state, finance
review:

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