Good, with one caveat. When I look at the subtitle, I can't help imagining Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, William the Conqueror, William T. Sherman, Basil LiddGood, with one caveat. When I look at the subtitle, I can't help imagining Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, William the Conqueror, William T. Sherman, Basil Liddell Hart, and others looking at each other and saying, "New? What does he mean, new?" This is a well-organized survey of current applications of the ancient idea that warfare is not limited to physical violence. But it never has been. The only aspects that are new are those that use recently developed technologies and institutions like the Internet. With that reality check in mind, this is, regardless, both interesting and worth reading....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
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
Very good - this sequel to Dune continues that novel's exploration of spirituality, values, mortality, and the balances of individualism with collectiVery good - this sequel to Dune continues that novel's exploration of spirituality, values, mortality, and the balances of individualism with collectivism and independence with determinism. More mysticism and less action than in Dune, this is a different stage of the Atreides saga. Highly recommended for any reader who enjoyed Dune, as well as any who liked Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light and Creatures of Light and Darkness....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 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
A magnificent work, one I recommend strongly, and one I will never read again. I have to echo some of the words of the reviewers quoted on the cover: A magnificent work, one I recommend strongly, and one I will never read again. I have to echo some of the words of the reviewers quoted on the cover: Harrowing. Shattering. Horror. I would add, both absorbing and heartbreaking. I kept remembering a quote from Bertrand Russell: “The mark of a civilized human being is the capacity to read a column of numbers and weep.” Snyder moves back and forth between the analytical and the personal, and does something I've seldom seen. He both makes the bloodcurdling tragedy real at a humble personal level and shows the big picture. The last section, the conclusion, is the best, I think. He subtitled it "Humanity." Snyder again goes over the numbers; he compares and contrasts the Nazi and Stalinist systems in action; he sorts the differential impacts by the categories the killers divided people into. Then he examines the ways that people distance themselves from death and suffering, whether they're the perpetrators or are looking at it from a distance as students of history, and calls that distancing out as a kind of second killing, an erasing of each of the dead as a person with his or her own life, personality, thoughts and feelings. He tears down that abstraction effectively by repeating that the 5.7 million Jews killed in the Holocaust were actually 5.7 million times one - each a unique person. The 3.1 million Soviet POWs murdered by the Nazis were 3.1 million times one. The 3.3 million Ukrainians starved to death on Stalin's orders were 3.3 million times one. I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes after finishing reading this. I can only imagine how many time Timothy Snyder wept while he wrote it. This must have been a terribly hard book to create. I've watched interviews of Timothy Snyder and been struck by how somber his resting demeanor is - as he has made the study of this part of history his specialty, it's easy to see why. Every person who simplistically dismisses whole categories of other people as homogenous masses and objectifies them should have to read this book and talk it over with others, because that kind of distancing and objectification is the first step necessary for the infliction of mass evil....more
This is half an examination of the character and actions of Donald Trump, and half one of how the American system of his targets fared - the rule of lThis is half an examination of the character and actions of Donald Trump, and half one of how the American system of his targets fared - the rule of law, the major parties, the news media from left to right, and the public. Looking back from spring of 2021 (the book was written in 2019), the results seem mixed at best. Trump's attempt to steal the election, and then his follow-on attempt to nullify it and for all practical purposes overthrow the government, failed. The winner of the election is now president. The political cannon fodder from Trump's following that carried out his attack on Congress failed, and an ever-increasing number are being arrested and facing long prison terms. On the other hand, we don't know yet, as of April 2021, to what extent Trump himself will face any real consequences. His control of the Republican party seems as strong as ever, and that party has reacted to the widespread rejection of their values and actions not by reconsidering and trying to appeal to more of the electorate, but by trying to prevent as many people from voting as they can, focusing particularly on groups that seem likelier to vote for Democrats. This is an attack on democracy that's probably even more serious than the one Trump launched on January 6 of this year. Trump's basic nature comes through loud and clear in the authors' recounting of his words and actions, both those that took place in front of cameras on on Twitter and those related by people around him who appear credible. Of course, the title comes from his self-description. Another author, journalist Douglas Brinkley, referred to Trump's 'cavernous stupidity', and that is a better fit to reality. Donald Trump appears to be the most extreme example of the Dunning-Kruger effect (the phenomenon of the people who know the least about subjects believing they are experts) that has ever set foot in the White House. Trump did not being his political career in a healthy country, or a healthy party, and singlehandedly warp them, but he made the pre-existing damage much worse. He has been both symptom and exacerbator. His influence before, during, and so far after his presidency has been a crisis for America. His lying and bungling about the COVID-19 pandemic, which the people who know most about it say probably caused 400,000 more American deaths of the disease than would have happened if it had been managed honestly and competently, is just one facet. Our country will still be healing from the wounds and the sickness for which he will be remembered long after he's gone. I can only hope that he serves as an inoculation so that when a sociopath who actually is a genius comes along, our societal and political immune system will be more ready than it was for Trump....more
An excellent audiobook, and because it's an audiobook in seven chapters, a relatively quick listen - Robert Evans is a seasoned conflict journalist anAn excellent audiobook, and because it's an audiobook in seven chapters, a relatively quick listen - Robert Evans is a seasoned conflict journalist and an astute social and political commentator who hosts or cohosts some insightful (and darkly funny) podcasts including Behind the Bastards and Worst Year Ever. Bleak, irreverent, angry, deeply caring, and highly recommended....more
A clear and well organized examination of a pattern of political thought and movement that, like a persistent kind of toxic weed, just won't stop re-sA clear and well organized examination of a pattern of political thought and movement that, like a persistent kind of toxic weed, just won't stop re-sprouting. Fascism appeals to some of the worst, but most ingrained, parts of humanity as individuals and groups. This is an excellent book to go along with Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom and The True Believer by Eric Hoffer, among others. And unfortunately, as of now, the year 2021, the subject is more timely than it has been for decades....more
Wonderful! At different points the story is funny, touching, tense, suspenseful, and wise. This novel strikes a great balance among being character-driWonderful! At different points the story is funny, touching, tense, suspenseful, and wise. This novel strikes a great balance among being character-driven, plot-driven, and speculative-science-driven, and it's one of those I ended up staying up until two in the morning finishing. Can't wait to read the next two in this series. One of the strengths that stood out for me was the variety among the characters, unlike a lot of stories in which all the characters are variations on the author. Not only were the personalities of the human characters quite different, but in contrast to the pattern of aliens basically being weird-looking humans in their thinking and behavior, Becky Chambers created other intelligent peoples who are fundamentally non-human in the way they interpret the universe and and in their motivations and the actions those motivations drive. Beyond all that, it feels like a book that was not only a lot of work but a lot of fun for the author to write, and that's another reason it's so much fun to read. This was the author's debut novel. It would be impressive as a first work or a twentieth. Given that authors generally keep improving as their careers progress, Becky Chambers should be giving us a long and memorable body of work....more
A very valuable and forward-thinking book! This book addresses aspects of the exploration of space that have been neglected but are at least as importA very valuable and forward-thinking book! This book addresses aspects of the exploration of space that have been neglected but are at least as important as those that have been covered. Previous books on space - I have a shelf full - focus mainly on the sciences and on particular places in the solar system, from low Earth orbit to the Oort Cloud. This book looks at the increasingly obvious fact that the exploration of space will depend on the development of space, on making it profitable or at least affordable. That, in turn, means that business interests will play at least as big a part as nation-states. Even here on Earth, we're in a situation in which transnational corporations keep getting more powerful and have already passed the point at which some businesses are richer and more powerful than some countries. A lot of people see the current world order based on a near-monopoly of power held by nation-states, but that hasn't been the status quo for most of history. In the exploration and development of space, business interests may have a considerable edge on nation-states because they can plan, budget, and move so much faster. Factor in the incredible potential for profit - in asteroid mining and the collection of fusion reactor fuel from the Moon, for example - and it's easy to foresee those businesses far outgrowing countries in power and reach. That brings us to the other area too neglected that this book addresses, the regulation of the development of space. Who makes the rules, and who enforces them, and how? I can foresee a future that in some ways looks more like the Earth of the age of exploration than the world of today. There will be all kinds of faraway places where there is effectively no law - that offers both the possibility of utopian freedom for misfit groups that are increasingly crowded out now, and the possibilities of corporate exploitation of people and of piracy and other lawlessness far beyond anything possible in our world today. This book should be read by political leaders, economists, industrialists, legal scholars, and, also, authors of science fiction. It offers a lot of possibilities for SF plotting that will be fresh and unexplored, and that fictional exploration will inspire more attention on these issues, as Robert Jacobson has dedicated a chapter to the influence of science fiction on the science and exploration of space up until now....more
A melancholy but excellent book - it has to be melancholy to be true to its subject material. The title is telling. In the context of the governments A melancholy but excellent book - it has to be melancholy to be true to its subject material. The title is telling. In the context of the governments of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in particular, and the rising wave of right wing authoritarianism around the world in general, Gessen lays out a clear-eyed and matter-of-fact analysis of how autocracy works and how it soaks into and stains a culture in ways that will take generations to fully wash out. So the title is apt. It isn't "Overcoming Autocracy," "Reversing Autocracy," or anything like that. It's about surviving and resisting an autocratic regime, recognizing that the changes we see happening around us, changes in our national character, may mean we're swimming against the current. I would not call this a hopeful book, but like those of Timothy Snyder, it's a useful one. I wish there were a way to get every eligible voter to read this before the next election, then go and vote....more
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