Another great reference in this series, again ranging from easily accessible facts for readers without backgrounds in math or the sciences to extremelAnother great reference in this series, again ranging from easily accessible facts for readers without backgrounds in math or the sciences to extremely detailed data on physics and chemistry, down to the level of calculus and complex chemical equations. This one covers the gas giant planets and their moons, overlapping with the author's coverage of other parts of the solar system. Extensively illustrated and enriched with tables and sidebars. A clear labor of love. Highly recommended for anyone interested in astronomy, geology, chemistry, and for writers of science fiction and others needing clear and well organized information about the sun, major planets, and their moons, as well as the asteroid belt and the Trojan asteroids sharing Jupiter's orbit....more
A dyspeptic, muddled sludge of idiosyncratic pet peeves, contrarianism, libertarian ideology, and sloppy thinking - deeply disappointing. This is riddA dyspeptic, muddled sludge of idiosyncratic pet peeves, contrarianism, libertarian ideology, and sloppy thinking - deeply disappointing. This is riddled with unsupported opinions presented as facts, exaggerations and distortions of regulations and statements he doesn't like, and sweeping gneralizations. The author seems obsessed with finding the most negative possible take on the medical field's response to the COVID pandemic, to the point of approaching anti-vaxxism; he presents opinions as facts and cherry-picked problems as generalities. For example, he says that screening for diseases causes more harm than benefit because of anxiety, diagnostic errors resulting in unneeded surgeries, and side effects of treatments like chemotherapy. That one hit a nerve with me - cancer runs in my family; if some of the screening techniques and treatments now available had been around in the past, cancer would probably not have killed my grandfather and both my parents - and it's because those screening techniques and treatments are available now that my wife is a cancer survivor. Yes, chemotherapy was brutal. It also saved her life. It's also a tell that he rails against "woke culture", the Me Too movement, the Black Lives Matter movement, and "environmental ideology." For some reason, he finds it offensive that intersections have more clearly marked crosswalks than decades ago and there are more regulations on where people can smoke. The author also presents himself as an authority on more scientific subjects than any one person can probably be - or if he is not doing so, he is an accomplished psychologist, psychiatrist, sociologist, historian, anthropologist, public health expert, economist, engineer, zoologist, and ecologist. One of the greatest ironies of this book may be that a lot of the societal critiques the author flings at anything he has found frustrating or annoying are most commonly found in connection with pro-totalitarian philosophy and movements. Deeply disappointing....more
Another great reference from an author who is both deeply knowledgeable and passionate about her subject. Very much like the first book in this seriesAnother great reference from an author who is both deeply knowledgeable and passionate about her subject. Very much like the first book in this series I reviewed about a different part of the solar system - starting with a factual overview, then progressing into the history of discoveries and exploration to greater technical detail. Highly recommended both for anyone interested in the subject in its own right and for anyone who wants a solid reference for any other purpose....more
A masterful exploration and reference. The author starts each section with a history of the science and the key scientists, along with presenting the A masterful exploration and reference. The author starts each section with a history of the science and the key scientists, along with presenting the material in fairly simple, straightforward language. Then she goes on to explain it in more and more depth, to the point of offering calculus equations, for readers who want that much depth. Then she proceeds to the next specific topic and repeats the process. This is well organized, densely factual, and at times (the most in-depth segments) dry, at least to me. However, I was able to gain a better understanding than I had before, despite my having a reasonable layman's grasp of space science, math up through basic calculus, physics, and chemistry, and having an interest in this subject since I was in high school fifty years ago. At the same time, the author's enthusiasm shines through. This is a labor of love. Highly recommended, and I will be reading more of this series....more
A mixed bag. Not as good as the first in this series, Prisoners of Geography. The book covers the history of many of the world's flags - mostly those oA mixed bag. Not as good as the first in this series, Prisoners of Geography. The book covers the history of many of the world's flags - mostly those of countries, but also a few others such as the flags of the UN, the Olympics, and the rainbow flag of the LGBTQ+ community. Contrary to the title, it doesn't really effectively communicate why people find flags worth dying for, at least I didn't think so; then again, it isn't the flags themselves people typically die for anyway - it's what the flags represent, and often the friends fighting beside them for those same polities and principles. It's not encyclopedic - quite a few countries are missing, as well as the past forms of the flags of the U.S. and other countries. Being American, I'd have liked it if the author had included state flags, too. Beyond that, the tone is uneven; if I'd been the editor, I'd have toned down the fairly frequent injections of what could either be called snark or dad jokes. The author cracks himself up too often. Even so, it's worth reading, because it is clearly well researched and contains quite a bit of information, not only showing and describing the flags of most of the world but giving the backstory of those flags, at least briefly. Even so, I'm hoping that the rest of this series rises back to the level of Prisoners of Geography....more
Chilling and eloquent, with way too many parallels to current events. Rachel Maddow has written a solid, detailed, well-organized history of the fasciChilling and eloquent, with way too many parallels to current events. Rachel Maddow has written a solid, detailed, well-organized history of the fascist movement in American politics in the years before World War II, a movement that never really died. It just went quiet for decades, sticking its head up periodically in episodes like the Red Scare of McCarthyism and, now, the MAGA movement - which has even taken up the name of the anti-Semitic, race-baiting, neo-fascist organization of ninety years ago, America First. Every American voter should read this book. It's a warning....more
Very well organized and presented, practical, down-to-earth and presented without the sort of weird attitude some of the literature in this area has. Very well organized and presented, practical, down-to-earth and presented without the sort of weird attitude some of the literature in this area has. In other words, it covers the possible need to defend yourself, but that's a very small part of it, as it should be, whereas a lot of books on prepping and survivalism don't get far past the "Red Dawn" guns and ammo stage. When I come across something in that vein, I know it's not from someone who has actually done much of this stuff, because in twenty years in the Marine Corps, even in a military setting we spent more time on staying fed and hydrated, taking care of our feet, staying warm enough or cool enough, avoiding getting eaten alive by the bugs or getting badly sunburned, and maintaining hygiene than on planning fields of fire for the machine guns and registering targets for the mortars (my MOS in my first enlistment.) I think that's because the author is drawing on years of experience actually taking small groups of people into the wilderness and teaching them the skills to live without a lot of the infrastructure we take for granted, so it's strictly this-works-and-this-doesn't-and-here's-why. The book includes a lot of specific, concrete recommendations, sometimes of specific brands and products and sometimes of general types, but useful in either case. My wife and I have given this subject some thought and preparation, mostly by way of having a couple of hundred gallons of potable water in barrels with a hand pump, several weeks worth of shelf-stable food (including pet food), hand tools that don't need electricity to work, a little reference library with the Foxfire books and various others, and a generous stock of medical supplies. The guns and ammo are in place too, but not as a priority. We know that contrary to the lurid predictions of a lot of people, when there are natural disasters and the system does break down, people generally pull together and help each other out, and our neighbors are good people. Even with my couple of decades in the service and my wife's experience doing quite a bit of backpacking, since neither of us has dealt with a situation of hanging out at home without power, running water, etc., this book has come up with some "How did we not think of that?" items that by themselves would justify the cost of the book. We are lucky enough to live in a part of the southwest with remarkably few natural disaster - we don't get big quakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, or fires that would get near us. We just get heat in the summer and this drought that seems likely to outlast us and maybe our kids (who are in their forties.) We've both lived in places prone to earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods before, so we know how fortunate this is. But as seniors with some disabilities, we would still be unwise to make no preparations - it's like making sure your vehicle has a spare tire and jumper cables. Highly recommended to anyone who lives anywhere they rely on any kind of infrastructure that might go away on short notice....more
This book and Jared Diamond's 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' complement each other. However, Diamond's book focuses much more on sociology and anthropology This book and Jared Diamond's 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' complement each other. However, Diamond's book focuses much more on sociology and anthropology than does this one. This book is more a study in the interaction of politics with the settings of the nations involved. It looks at both their natural boundaries and landscapes, and at how their locations in relation to other countries have affected their histories, possibilities, and limitations. The writing is clear, down-to-earth, well-organized, and solidly grounded in history and analysis. It's the first in a series of five (so far) by this author, collectively called the Politics of Place. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series....more
Interesting, at times frustrating. The author comes across with what seems to me an odd blend of clear self-appraisal in some ways and grandiosity in Interesting, at times frustrating. The author comes across with what seems to me an odd blend of clear self-appraisal in some ways and grandiosity in others. This memoir tracks the devolution of an idealistic religious community into a dangerous militant group centering criminal activities and plans for extreme violence around a cult of personality. A charismatic leader follows the dreary and familiar path from narcissism to trampling the boundaries of others to believing himself infallible and anything he wants justified. It is in reference to leaders like the one Noble describes here that Sheldon Kopp titled one of his books "If You Meet the Buddha On the Road, Kill Him!" Particularly in a time of rising authoritarianism, anti-intellectualism with hostility to objective facts, and militant "Christian nationalism," I recommend this book to anyone who is watching these trends and finds them disturbing....more
Herbert Block's editorial cartoons have always been among the best around, as far as I'm concerned. It might be accurate to say that Herblock was a meHerbert Block's editorial cartoons have always been among the best around, as far as I'm concerned. It might be accurate to say that Herblock was a member of a wave of editorial page cartoonists who most definitely, as the saying goes, comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable. This is a relatively small collection, but Block had his work published over such a long stretch of years - decades - that, as the subtitle says, he was working, from the Crash to the Millennium, i.e. a span of about 70 years, as an active, astute, often angry or aggrieved commentator on American society. I hope future schools use this and his other work as teaching tools....more
Excellent on several levels – the author wove several strands into a unified history. In the process he provided as close to a 360-degree examination Excellent on several levels – the author wove several strands into a unified history. In the process he provided as close to a 360-degree examination of this ugly, tragic affair as anyone could have done. I was especially struck by his success in balancing the personal, human aspects of the case with the details turned up by his beyond-extensive research. The titular murder was the killing by a team of Green Beret officers of a Vietnamese man they had hired to help them with intelligence-related parts of their duties, but whom they had come to believe was really a North Vietnamese spy based on circumstantial evidence that could probably be described as being moderately strong. From the time they came to this suspicion, the story turned into what would have been a comedy of errors had it not led to his death. The participants included the Green Berets themselves; the local detachment of the CIA; the commanding general of all U.S. military forces in Vietnam and several of his staff; a dozen or more military and civilian lawyers, on both sides; members of Congress; the director of the CIA and some of his staff; the Secretary of the Army and some of his; then-President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, other members of Nixon's staff; the future Watergate “plumbers”; and Daniel Ellsberg, for whom this case was the tipping point in his decision to leak the Pentagon Papers to the press. Ultimately, the story leaves me feeling sad, tired, and disgusted. My level of disgust rises with each rung up the chain of command. Some of it stems from the inevitable way warfare dehumanizes, for its participants, whoever is designated as the enemy, and how that view spreads to entire nationalities. That dehumanization, the reduction of fellow human beings to objects to be used, manipulated, and sometimes disposed of to protect not only the lives but the careers and egos of the more senior people involved, extended to their treatment of the junior Americans involved. One of the most important things I learned as an NCO and commissioned officer was that if my people did something, following my orders, I was ultimately responsible. One of the things the senior people here did was a classic buck-passing maneuver, giving their subordinates vague orders with multiple possible meanings, then when the one they picked blew up, piously saying, “Well, that wasn't what I meant at all. I never told them to do that,” and leaving their people twisting in the wind. Another dirty trick by the brass was one of Nixon's specialties, illegally spying on people on the other side of an issue and trying to intimidate them – opening their mail and resealing it in obvious ways; conspicuously tapping their phones; grilling their friends,neighbors, and employers looking for dirt that could be used to make them look bad; putting the Green Berets involved in solitary confinement before the investigation was even half done in 5' x 7' cells made of converted shipping containers, in the hot season in South Vietnam. Meanwhile, the background is the Vietnam War raging in 1969, with the news about to break of the slaughter at My Lai of hundreds of hapless civilians by an over-stressed, under-trained, horribly led Army unit. With thousands dying daily under air and artillery strikes and nightly via assassinations of suspected enemy agents under the CIA/Special Forces Phoenix program, this case became a headline story nationally, if not worldwide. Ultimately, to me, those themes are what this book is about: how even good people are sucked into the perspective of dehumanization and end up doing things they would, at one time, never have believed they would do; cowardly failures of leadership at the highest levels and scapegoating of subordinates instead of accepting responsibility; lies and secrecy piling up in layers like compounded interest; and the unintended consequences of hubris. Again, an ugly, tragic story very well told. Recommended for anyone interested in geopolitics and the psychology of warfare. BY THE WAY: The author, Jeff Stein, cohosts (at the time of this review) a pretty good podcast called "Spy Talk" about the interlocking worlds of espionage, the military, diplomacy, and related fields. I'll just say that he is a bona fide subject matter expert....more
A great reference for writers of fantasy and/or science fiction or anyone else engaged in world-building, such as game designers, as well as for thoseA great reference for writers of fantasy and/or science fiction or anyone else engaged in world-building, such as game designers, as well as for those creating specialized maps of real places, past and present, or projections related to politics, demographics, climate change, and so on. Cartography is an art form that can be a lot of fun, and this is a handy volume to keep at hand. I will be referring to this book regularly for the science fiction novel I have been allegedly writing for almost a decade now....more
A thorough look at a dismal subject. At times the writing has an incredulous quality that was faintly grating; the former president is a known quantitA thorough look at a dismal subject. At times the writing has an incredulous quality that was faintly grating; the former president is a known quantity, even when specifics On the psychology of Donald Trump: he's dangerous, he's a warped soul, but he isn't all that intriguing. There isn't enough for me, at least, to empathize with to make him interesting in that way, and he's too predictable to generate much suspense. John Dean worked for Richard Nixon, who is now, thanks to Trump, the second-most malignant and corrupt president rather than the most. But Nixon was a lot more complicated than Trump, a lot smarter, and a lot more competent. There are an infinite number of ways people can be good, smart, and talented; those who are sociopathic, dumb, and incompetent tend to be pretty cookie-cutter. The variations come mostly from their situations and the severity of their sociopathy. Evil is not charismatic when you get a really good look at it, not deep. Hannibal Lecter is a myth. The real thing is usually not even capable of grasping the tragedies it inflicts. I once read an author describing a group of violent criminals as "nasty human weather." That's Trump. He's malicious, but so narcissistic that he can't really see anyone else clearly enough for it to be truly personal (although his vendettas seem personal, as in his monomaniacal determination to erase Barack Obama's legacy, he never really saw or understood the target of his hatred.) When I worked in mental health in the prison system, especially when I worked in a prison psychiatric hospital, I got to know some Trump types among the inmate patients and a few among the staff. So watching the slow-motion train wreck of his birtherism, candidacy, presidency, and post-presidency has been depressing, sometimes frightening, often infuriating, usually disgusting, but never surprising. When it comes to his followers, there is also little that's surprising and less that's interesting. They are the type that Eric Hoffer wrote about in his 1951 book The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... Hoffer was writing 71 years ago at the time of this review, but he could have been documenting the MAGA movement during 2020-2022. It seems that in every time and place, about a third of people would rather have some leader, usually one they find charismatic even though others see him or her as a thuggish clown, do their thinking for them and will blindly believe and follow that leader, abdicating their adulthood. They see the world and people in terms of good or bad, a binary rather than an analog view, and yearn to be part of an in-group that enables them to look down on outsiders, who of course are defined as bad. The area where this book disappointed me was in its promised spelling out of a solution, a way to inoculate the culture against recurrences of Trump's nearly-successful coup d'etat against his own country and against the societal factors that made it possible. There just is no way to change the personalities and worldviews of of a third of the population. The solution is to build systems that are as resistant to their attacks as possible, but how do we do that when they have enough power to operate a tyranny of the minority?...more
Very good, and very chilling. Basing her explanations on a solid body of research and historical analysis, the author matter-of-factly describes the pVery good, and very chilling. Basing her explanations on a solid body of research and historical analysis, the author matter-of-factly describes the processes through which countries and their societies break down into factions that turn on one another. The thing that makes it chilling, for me, is how the current situation in the United States matches up with some of the dangerous patterns she talks about. I've always dismissed the idea of malcontents starting a second civil war here, basing my views on the strengths of our institutions and the fact that most Americans do not want civil war. It turns out that both of these circumstances have existed in other countries that ended up disintegrating into civil war anyway. Once I read a book on psychology, about behavior patterns and emotional patterns in people who have experienced specific types of trauma that are part of my history. It was unnerving - I felt as if this author had been following me around taking notes. At the level of my society, I get that same unsettled feeling from this book....more
A thoughtful meditation on the connections human beings form by sharing trials and trauma or by being born into cultures in which the norms involve moA thoughtful meditation on the connections human beings form by sharing trials and trauma or by being born into cultures in which the norms involve more and stronger bonds than ours, and the needs those connections fill for us, especially if we are living in an environment where interpersonal ties and loyalties are too few or too flimsy. The author draws on sources from literature to his own experiences as a war journalist to the experiences of the military people among whom he has lived and worked, to his own background as a combat journalist. Ultimately it seems, ironically, that one of the reasons we seem so unable to avoid going to war over and over is that it is addictive; not the adrenaline - or not only the adrenaline - as many think, but the joy of being among people that you know would die to protect you, and whom in turn you would die to protect. The U.S. gets into more than our share of wars. Maybe one of the reasons (along with the care and feeding of the military-industrial complex, economic imperialism, the usefulness of saber-rattling and saber-drawing in political careers, and our self-assigned role as the world police) is that Americans live more isolated lives than people in most of the world. If we could change our culture in some ways that would shift our national self-image from the extreme of individualism to something closer to a healthy balance of individualism with collective life. Junger makes this point and supports it with historic examples such as the phenomenon, during the European colonization and occupation of the Americas, of European-descended people, both children and adults, male and female, finding themselves living in Native American societies and coming to prefer them so strongly that if they were returned to White society, many of them ran away and returned to the Native communities where the connections among people were much stronger than in the White society that was becoming repressed and self-isolating even then. On the other hand, Native people who found themselves likewise grafted into European-descended communities, whether voluntarily or via capture, as children or as adults, hardly ever chose the White colonial life when they did have a choice, even though it was materially safer and more secure. They needed a more vital amenity than material plenty....more
A deeply researched and well organized study of the type of person who becomes a dictator, or tries to do so in the case of Donald Trump. More than reA deeply researched and well organized study of the type of person who becomes a dictator, or tries to do so in the case of Donald Trump. More than relating the details of the histories of the several men Ben-Ghiat uses as subjects, the book highlights the patterns in their personalities and behaviors. It's a sad and depressing story, an important one. Three things stand out to me. First, the picture she brings into focus shows that these men have an almost cookie-cutter resemblance to one another - and so do the people who are their followers and enablers. They are eminently predictable and almost interchangeable. Second, the term "strongman" is deeply ironic, because they aren't strong at all. They are fragile, incredibly needy (she calls them "high maintenance"), and constantly seeking validation of a self-image that, deep down, they don't really believe themselves. Here it reminded me of a point made by another author in a different context - Donald Dutton, in his book "The Batterer", a study of domestic violence perpetrators. Dutton notes that there are both stable and fragile narcissists. The stable ones are far less dangerous because their source of validation, however mistaken, is internal, so they're less vulnerable. The dangerous ones are the fragile narcissists who need validation from outside themselves. Everyone else becomes simply an instrument, a source of that validation, and if they don't provide it, the narcissist takes it as an existential attack and reacts with rage. This pattern is the same with dictators for whom the abuse victim is a society rather than an individual partner (they may combine both kinds of perpetrator, dictator and batterer, in themselves.) Third and most depressing, this keeps happening because we collectively just don't seem to pay attention and learn anything. No matter how many times a Mussolini / Franco / Hitler / Stalin / Gaddafi / Amin / Mobutu / Putin / Erdogan / Berlusconi / Trump / etc. arises and acts out the same script more closely than a lot of Hollywood remakes, there will always be enough people who line up to pledge allegiance to follow them, for either naive or cynical reasons, to make them deadly and cause immense suffering. I wish there were a way to get every voter to read this and participate in a group discussion of it, but as the cliches have it, that will happen when there are pigs winging over the glaciers in Hell....more
A thorough exploration of a recurring cancer on our society - on, probably, just about every society - that is currently threatening to kill this partA thorough exploration of a recurring cancer on our society - on, probably, just about every society - that is currently threatening to kill this particular host. Daryl Johnson does an excellent job organizing and presenting a mass of information about the ways that individual human beings are radicalized and about the organized groups that both feed into that process and draw strength from its results. Unfortunately - but probably inevitably - the book is long on problem and short on solution; I think that may be due to the absence of a clear solution that is consistent with maintaining our civil rights and liberties. Three factors that I think are going to keep feeding into the problem of violent extremism and attacks on democracy, the rule of law, and our ability to maintain a pluralistic society: 1. The growing trend toward a kind of generalized scarcity, as there are more people every day but not a corresponding increase in the available amounts of the things we need to have good lives; 2. The transformative role of the internet, deep fakes, and other digital technology in creating confusion about which of the pictures of reality being proffered on any particular topic is accurate, which are honest mistakes but still incorrect, and which are deliberate fictions meant to manipulate us; and 3. The systematic deletion of civics and history from public school curricula and the focus on teaching methods that require students to memorize and regurgitate data points - I call it the trivial pursuit approach - rather than requiring them to develop critical thinking skills. I'm a pessimist by nature, but at the moment I think my gloom and doom may be more valid than it has been for most of my life. It's like global warming - I can remember what the climate and the weather were like here fifty years ago (I live within five miles of where I lived then), and it has changed - hotter, drier. In the same way, I can remember what the political and social climate was like then and compare it to now. It was no paradise then, but the amount of vitriol and violence coming from the extremists, the positions of power they're reaching, and the open in-our-faces contempt for pluralism and representative democracy would shock and horrify the great majority of the Americans of the early 1970s, even though they were just coming out of the era of the Vietnam war. I really hope my now middle-aged children, my grandchildren, and my great grandson get to spend their lives in a country where they can express unpopular views without having to deal with violence or threats as a result. I wish I could do more to make that more likely....more
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