en-US Sat, 31 May 2025 10:53:20 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 61354666 A new history of mathematics focusing on the marginalized voices who propelled the discipline, spanning six continents and thousands of years of untold stories.

Mathematics shapes almost everything we do. But despite its reputation as the study of fundamental truths, the stories we have been told about it are wrong--warped like the sixteenth-century map that enlarged Europe at the expense of Africa, Asia and the Americas. In The Secret Lives of Numbers, renowned math historian Kate Kitagawa and journalist Timothy Revell make the case that the history of math is infinitely deeper, broader, and richer than the narrative we think we know.

Our story takes us from Hypatia, the first great female mathematician, whose ideas revolutionized geometry and who was killed for them--to Karen Uhlenbeck, the first woman to win the Abel Prize, "math's Nobel." Along the way we travel the globe to meet the brilliant Arabic scholars of the "House of Wisdom," a math temple whose destruction in the Siege of Baghdad in the thirteenth century was a loss arguably on par with that of the Library of Alexandria; Madhava of Sangamagrama, the fourteenth-century Indian genius who uncovered the central tenets of calculus 300 years before Isaac Newton was born; and the Black mathematicians of the Civil Rights era, who played a significant role in dismantling early data-based methods of racial discrimination.

Covering thousands of years, six continents, and just about every mathematical discipline, The Secret Lives of Numbers is an immensely compelling narrative history.]]> 320 Kate Kitagawa James 3 3.82 2023
author: Kate Kitagawa
name: James
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/05/31
shelves:
review:

]]> 218459300 American history is almost always told from East to West. Yet a closer look at the past reveals the country’s start began not in the East, but in the West—at a Texan city situated in a natural shallow crossing of the Rio Grande River: El Paso.
El Paso is the crossroads of Indigenous America, the nexus of a thousand-year-old Native American migration and trade route, linking MesoAmerican and Pueblo empires and beyond. It’s where the European conquest of North America began, and where the United States� Manifest Destiny was later achieved. Here, East met West, where the consequential transatlantic route, the Southern Pacific, was completed in 1881. Here the West was “won”—the Indian Wars were not fought on the Great Plains, but in the Southwest, with a scorched-earth strategy that went on for decades. It’s where Immigrant America starts—more immigrants have passed through El Paso than Ellis Island—and where crucial battles for Civil Rights were fought—the city smashing through racial and ethnic discrimination before anywhere else in the nation.
The Crossing is a revelatory new history of El Paso that recasts the city as the unacknowledged cradle of American history, where cultures have encountered each other for centuries and forged a thriving multi-ethnic community far ahead of the rest of the nation. As award-winning, El Paso–native journalist Richard Parker charts, the city holds not only the framework of our American story, but also a model for a more diverse and flourishing country.]]> 1 Richard Parker James 4 4.12 2025
author: Richard Parker
name: James
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/05/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 198563695
The American department a palace of consumption that epitomized modern consumerism. Every wish could be met under one roof � afternoon tea, a stroll through the latest fashions, a wedding (or funeral) planned. It was a place where women, shopper and shopgirl alike, could stake out a newfound independence. Whether in New York or Chicago or on Main Street, USA, men owned the buildings, but inside, women ruled.

In this hothouse atmosphere, three women rose to the top. Hortense Odlum of Bonwit Teller, Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor, and Geraldine Stutz of Henri Bendel's took risks, innovated and competed as very different kinds of career women, forging new paths for the women who followed in their footsteps. In the 1930s, Hortense came to her husband's department store as a housewife tasked with attracting more shoppers like herself, and wound up running the company. Dorothy championed American designers during World War II--before which US fashions were almost exclusively Parisian copies--and beyond, becoming the first businesswoman to earn a salary of more than $1.5 million. And Geraldine re-invented the look of the modern department store in the 1960s, and had a preternatural sense for trends, inspiring a devoted following of ultra-chic shoppers as well as decades of copycats.

In When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, journalist Julie Satow draws back the curtain on three American women who made twentieth-century department stores a mecca for women of every age, social class, and ambition. This stylish account, rich with personal drama and trade secrets, captures the department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who made that beautifully curated world go round.]]> 295 Julie Satow 0385548753 James 3 3.88 2024
author: Julie Satow
name: James
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 214194947 From a celebrated military historian, a “searing…persuasive� (Kirkus Reviews) exploration of why the mighty United States military has repeatedly failed in irregular wars and military campaigns from Vietnam to Afghanistan.

Since the early 1960s, the United States has fought in four major wars and a cluster of complicated and bloody irregular warfare campaigns. The majority have ended in failure, or something close to it. Why has the US been so ineffective, despite the American armed forces being universally recognized as the best in the world?

Most scholars and analysts believe that the primary cause of our abysmal war record since Vietnam has been the US military’s overwhelmingly conventional approach to conflict, which favors highly mobile precision firepower and sophisticated systems of command and control. Here, James Warren argues that a much more formidable obstacle to success has been pervasive strategic ineptitude at the highest levels of decision-making, including the presidency, the National Security Council, and the foreign policy community in DC.

Time and time again, American presidents have committed military forces to operations in foreign countries whose politics and cultures they did not fully understand. Presidents of both political parties, including Johnson, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama have overestimated the capacity of US forces to alter the social and political landscape of foreign nations, and underestimated the ability of insurgents and terrorists to develop effective protracted war strategies that eventually, inevitably sap Washington’s will to carry on the fight.

Warren asserts that in the War on Terror that followed September 11, 2001, senior military officers have been complicit in extending bankrupt strategies by refusing to speak truthfully about them to their civilian bosses. So have the American people, who lost interest in the “forever wars� in Afghanistan and Iraq and failed to press their presidents and Congress to bring an end to two futile conflicts. Warren advocates for a less hubristic foreign policy and a broader conception of warfare as a political and military enterprise.

“An admirable must-read for military…foreign policy history buffs� (Booklist), and anyone interested in geopolitical strategy, this book offers unparalleled insights into America’s prior—and potentially future—military conflicts.]]> 326 James A. Warren 1668004577 James 3 4.15 2025
author: James A. Warren
name: James
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 213395473 An iconoclastic philosopher revives Socrates for our time, showing how we can answer—and, in the first place, ask—life’s most important questions.


We all know something about Socrates, though we often reduce him to a paragon of mere “critical thinking.� We think we understand his remark that “the unexamined life is not worth living.� But in Open Socrates, Agnes Callard—who has emerged as one of our most dazzling and provocative public intellectuals—shows that in fact we understand almost nothing about the Socratic project. Socrates� radical aim was to force us to confront the assumptions that prop up our lives and our worldviews, and to ask whether those assumptions are correct—or whether they hold us back. Teasing out the profound insights of the father of modern philosophy, Callard reveals that what we usually think of as “thinking� is in fact anything but. True thinking can only happen in a dialogue with another person; only through conversation can we inquire into the fundamental questions of our lives. And only by following Socrates� model, she demonstrates, can we truly understand politics, love, death, and everything else that matters.]]> 416 Agnes Callard 1631498460 James 4 3.91 2025
author: Agnes Callard
name: James
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 38642323 A teen girl and her robot embark on a cross-country mission in this illustrated science fiction story, perfect for fans of Ready Player One and Black Mirror.

In late 1997, a runaway teenager and her small yellow toy robot travel west through a strange American landscape where the ruins of gigantic battle drones litter the countryside, along with the discarded trash of a high-tech consumerist society addicted to a virtual-reality system. As they approach the edge of the continent, the world outside the car window seems to unravel at an ever faster pace, as if somewhere beyond the horizon, the hollow core of civilization has finally caved in.]]> 144 Simon StĂĄlenhag 1501181416 James 3 4.41 2017
author: Simon StĂĄlenhag
name: James
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 15014
When stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong, you have three choices: Avoid a crucial conversation and suffer the consequences; handle the conversation badly and suffer the consequences; or read Crucial Conversations and discover how to communicate best when it matters most. Crucial Conversations gives you the tools you need to step up to life's most difficult and important conversations, say what's on your mind, and achieve the positive resolutions you want. You'll learn how to:

Prepare for high-impact situations with a six-minute mastery technique
Make it safe to talk about almost anything
Be persuasive, not abrasive
Keep listening when others blow up or clam up
Turn crucial conversations into the action and results you want]]> 240 Kerry Patterson 0071401946 James 3 4.04 2002
author: Kerry Patterson
name: James
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 62919358 The riveting, untold story of the hundred-year intelligence war between Russia and the West with lessons for our new superpower conflict with China.

Spies is the history of the secret war that Russia has been waging against the West for a century. Espionage, sabotage, and subversion were the Kremlin’s means to equalize the imbalance of resources between the East and West before, during, and after the Cold War. There was nothing “unprecedented� about Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. It was simply business as usual, new means used for old ends.

But the West fought back after World War II, mounting its own shadow war, using disinformation, vast intelligence networks, and new technologies against the Soviet Union. Spies is an inspiring, engrossing story of the best and worst of mankind: bravery and honor, treachery and betrayal. The narrative shifts across continents and decades, from the freezing streets of St. Petersburg in 1917 to the bloody beaches of Normandy; from coups in faraway lands to present-day Moscow where troll farms, synthetic bots, and weaponized cyber-attacks are launched woefully on the unprepared West. It is about the rise and fall of eastern superpowers: Russia’s past and present and the global ascendance of China.

Mining hitherto secret archives in multiple languages, Calder Walton shows that the Cold War started earlier than commonly assumed, that it continued even after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, and that Britain and America’s clandestine struggle with the Soviet government provides key lessons for countering China today. This fresh reading of history, combined with practical takeaways for our current great power struggles, make Spies a unique and essential addition to the history of the Cold War and the unrolling conflict between the United States and China that will dominate the 21st century.]]> 688 Calder Walton 1668000695 James 4 4.25 2023
author: Calder Walton
name: James
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 55711554
Following Caesar’s assassination and Mark Antony’s defeat of the conspirators who killed Caesar, two powerful men remained in Rome—Antony and Caesar’s chosen heir, young Octavian, the future Augustus. When Antony fell in love with the most powerful woman in the world, Egypt’s ruler Cleopatra, and thwarted Octavian’s ambition to rule the empire, another civil war broke out. In 31 BC one of the largest naval battles in the ancient world took place—more than 600 ships, almost 200,000 men, and one woman—the Battle of Actium. Octavian prevailed over Antony and Cleopatra, who subsequently killed themselves.

The Battle of Actium had great consequences for the empire. Had Antony and Cleopatra won, the empire’s capital might have moved from Rome to Alexandria, Cleopatra’s capital, and Latin might have become the empire’s second language after Greek, which was spoken throughout the eastern Mediterranean, including Egypt.

In this “superbly recounted� ( The National Review ) history, Barry Strauss, ancient history authority, describes this consequential battle with the drama and expertise that it deserves. The War That Made the Roman Empire is essential history that features three of the greatest figures of the ancient world.]]> 368 Barry S. Strauss 1982116676 James 4 4.01 2022
author: Barry S. Strauss
name: James
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 199793426 Polostan follows the early life of the enigmatic Dawn Rae Bjornberg. Born in the American West to a clan of cowboy anarchists, Dawn is raised in Leningrad after the Russian Revolution by her Russian father, a party line Leninist who re-christens her Aurora. She spends her early years in Russia but then grows up as a teenager in Montana, before being drawn into gunrunning and revolution in the streets of Washington, D.C., during the depths of the Great Depression. When a surprising revelation about her past puts her in the crosshairs of U.S. authorities, Dawn returns to Russia, where she is groomed as a spy by the organization that later becomes the KGB.]]> 303 Neal Stephenson 0062334492 James 3 3.69 2024
author: Neal Stephenson
name: James
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 207296973 A magisterial cultural history of the Atlantic Ocean before Columbus, ranging from the early shaping of the continents and the emergence of homo sapiens to the story of shipbuilding, navigation, maritime exploration, slavery, and nascent European imperialism.

A dazzling and ambitious history of the pre-Columbian Atlantic seas, Ocean is a story that begins with the formation of the mid-Atlantic ridge some 200 million years ago and ends with the Castilian conquest of the Canary Islands in the fifteenth century, providing a template for the methods used by the Spanish in their colonization of the New World. John Haywood eloquently argues that the perception of Atlantic history beginning with the first voyage of the celebrated Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus is a mistaken one, and that the seafaring and shipbuilding skills that enabled European global exploration and expansion did not arrive fully formed in the fifteenth century, but instead were learned over centuries and millennia in the Atlantic and its peripheral seas. The pre-Columbian history of the Atlantic is the story of how Europeans learned to master the oceans. This story is, therefore, key to understanding why it was Europeans, and not any of the world's other seafaring peoples, who “discovered� the world. Informed by the author's extensive travels in and around the Atlantic Ocean, crossing Newfoundland's Grand Banks, the Sea of Darkness, and the weed-covered Sargasso Sea to make landfall at locations as diverse as Vinland, Greenland, the Faroes, and the Cape Verde Islands, and populated by a heterogeneous and multi-ethnic cast of seafarers, fishermen, monks, merchants, and dreamers, Ocean is an in-depth history of a neglected subject, fusing geology, geography, mythology developing maritime technologies, and the early history of exploration to narrate an enthralling and intriguing story—one which lies at the very heart of Europe's modern history and its relationship with the rest of the world.]]> 560 John Haywood 1639367667 James 4 3.99 2024
author: John Haywood
name: James
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 41812831 In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, former mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to transform Palestine into a Jewish state, wrote a letter aimed at Theodore Herzl: the country had an indigenous people who would not easily accept their own displacement. He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, “In the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.� Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi’s great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective.

Accepted interpretations of the conflict tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same land. Drawing on archival materials and the reports of generations of family members—judges, scholars, diplomats, and writers—who were present at key events, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine instead shows this war has always been colonial in nature, waged against the native population first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. Khalidi highlights crucial episodes in this long colonial campaign, from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from the war of 1967 to Israel’s recent assaults on Gaza.

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is not a chronicle of victimization, nor does it whitewash the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or deny the emergence of national movements on both sides. In this lively, original, and important history, Khalidi points to the resistance of Palestinians in the face of the heaviest odds and offers an illuminating new view of a conflict that continues to this day.

"This is the first true people's history of the hundred-year struggle of the Palestine people, a beautifully written text and a call for justice and self-determination." � Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States]]> 319 Rashid Khalidi 1627798552 James 5 4.50 2020
author: Rashid Khalidi
name: James
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 57635275 A comprehensive new history of the Eastern Roman Empire based on the science of the human past.

As modern empires rise and fall, ancient Rome becomes ever more significant. We yearn for Rome’s power but fear Rome’s ruin―will we turn out like the Romans, we wonder, or can we escape their fate? That question has obsessed centuries of historians and leaders, who have explored diverse political, religious, and economic forces to explain Roman decline. Yet the decisive factor remains elusive.

In New Rome, Paul Stephenson looks beyond traditional texts and well-known artifacts to offer a novel, scientifically minded interpretation of antiquity’s end. It turns out that the descent of Rome is inscribed not only in parchments but also in ice cores and DNA. From these and other sources, we learn that pollution and pandemics influenced the fate of Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire. During its final five centuries, the empire in the east survived devastation by natural disasters, the degradation of the human environment, and pathogens previously unknown to the empire’s densely populated, unsanitary cities. Despite the Plague of Justinian, regular “barbarian� invasions, a war with Persia, and the rise of Islam, the empire endured as a political entity. However, Greco-Roman civilization, a world of interconnected cities that had shared a common material culture for a millennium, did not.

Politics, war, and religious strife drove the transformation of Eastern Rome, but they do not tell the whole story. Braiding the political history of the empire together with its urban, material, environmental, and epidemiological history, New Rome offers the most comprehensive explanation to date of the Eastern Empire’s transformation into Byzantium.]]> 432 Paul Stephenson 0674659627 James 4 3.50 2022
author: Paul Stephenson
name: James
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 201930181
Caught up in academic intrigue and affairs of the heart, Dafyd Alkhor is pleased just to be an assistant to a brilliant scientist and his celebrated research team. ĚýThen the Carryx ships descend, decimating the human population and taking the best and brightest of Anjiin society away to serve on the Carryx homeworld, and Dafyd is swept along with them. They are dropped in the middle of a struggle they barely understand, set in a competition against the other captive species with extinction as the price of failure.

Only Dafyd and a handful of his companions see past the Darwinian contest to the deeper game that they must play to learning to understand â€� and manipulate â€� the Carryx themselves. With a noble but suicidal human rebellion on one hand and strange and murderous enemies on the other, the team pays a terrible price to become the trusted servants of their new rulers. Dafyd Alkhor is a simple man swept up in events that are beyond his control and more vast than his imagination. ĚýHe will become the champion of humanity and its betrayer, the most hated man in history and the guardian of his people. This is where his story begins.]]> 422 James S.A. Corey 031652557X James 3 4.11 2024
author: James S.A. Corey
name: James
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 77264775 From an acclaimed historian and author comes an epic the dual biography of Richard II and Henry IV, two cousins whose lives played out in extraordinary parallel, until Henry deposed the tyrant Richard and declared himself King of England. Richard of Bordeaux and Henry of Bolingbroke, cousins born just three months apart, were ten years old when Richard became king of England. They were thirty-two when Henry deposed him and became king in his place. Now, the story behind one of the strangest and most fateful events in English history (and the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s most celebrated history plays) is brought to vivid life by the acclaimed author of Blood and Roses, Helen Castor. Richard had birthright on his side, and a profound belief in his own God-given majesty. But beyond that, he lacked all qualities of leadership. A narcissist who did not understand or accept the principles that underpinned his rule, he was neither a warrior defending his kingdom, nor a lawgiver whose justice protected his people. Instead, he declared that “his laws were in his own mouth,� and acted accordingly. He sought to define as treason any resistance to his will and recruited a private army loyal to himself rather than the realm—and he intended to destroy those who tried to restrain him. Henry was everything Richard was a leader who inspired both loyalty and friendship, a soldier and a chivalric hero, dutiful, responsible, principled. After years of tension and conflict, Richard banished him and seized his vast inheritance. Richard had been crowned a king but he had become a tyrant, and as a tyrant—ruling by arbitrary will rather than established law—he was deposed by his cousin Henry, the only possible candidate to take his place. Henry was welcomed as a liberator, a champion of the people against his predecessor’s paranoid despotism. But within months he too was facing rebellion. Men knew that a deposer could in turn be deposed, and the new king found himself buffeted by unrest and by chronic ill-health until he seemed a shadow of his former self, trapped by political uncertainty and troubled by these signs that God might not, after all, endorse his actions. Captivating, immersive, and highly relevant to today’s times, The Eagle and the Hart is a story about what happens when a ruler prioritizes power over the interests of his own people. When a ruler demands loyalty to himself as an individual, rather than duty to the established constitution, and when he seeks to reshape reality rather than concede the force of verifiable truths. Above all, it is a story about how a nation was brought to the brink of catastrophe and disintegration—and, in the end, how it was brought back.]]> 528 Helen Castor 0241419328 James 3 4.37 2024
author: Helen Castor
name: James
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 201626940 FromĚýNew York TimesĚýbestseller Maureen Callahan, a fierce, character-driven exposĂ© of the real Kennedy Curse—the family’s generations-long legacy of misogyny, murder, and mayhem—and the women who have paid the price for our obsession with Camelot

The Kennedy name has long been synonymous with wealth, power, glamor, and—above all else—integrity. But this carefully constructed veneer hides a dark truth: the pattern of Kennedy men physically and psychologically abusing women and girls, leaving a trail of ruin and death in each generation’s wake. Through decades of scandal after scandal—from sexual assaults to reputational slander, suicides to manslaughter—the family and their defenders have kept the Kennedy brand intact.

Now, in Ask Not, bestselling author and journalist Maureen Callahan reveals the Kennedys� hidden history of violence and exploitation, laying bare their unrepentant sexism and rampant depravity while also restoring these women and girls to their rightful place at the center of the dynasty’s story: from Jacqueline Onassis and Marilyn Monroe to Carolyn Bessette, Martha Moxley, Mary Jo Kopechne, Rosemary Kennedy, and many others whose names aren’t nearly as well known but should be.

Drawing on years of explosive reportage and written in electric prose, Ask Not is a long-overdue reckoning with this fabled family and a consequential part of American history that is still very much with us. At long last Callahan redirects the spotlight to the women in the Kennedys� orbit, paying homage to those who freed themselves and giving voice to those who, through no fault of their own, could not.]]> 400 Maureen Callahan 0316276170 James 3 4.03 2024
author: Maureen Callahan
name: James
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves:
review:

]]> 61817859 One of the Wall Street Journal’s 10 Best Books of 2023
A Booklist Best Book of the Year (Editor's Choice), 2023
Finalist, National Jewish Book Awards, Writing Based on Archival Material
Finalist, Sophie Brody Medal, American Library Association

“Want to understand the roots of the Middle East conflict? Read this book.� �
Haaretz

“Kessler’s history is key to understanding the current situation between Israelis and Palestinians.� � Booklist

“[Kessler] has done an exceptional job and opened new vistas on troubles past and present.� � Wall Street Journal

A gripping, profoundly human, yet even-handed narrative of the origins of the Middle East conflict, with enduring resonance and relevance for our time.

In spring 1936, the Holy Land erupted in a rebellion that targeted both the local Jewish community and the British Mandate authorities that for two decades had midwifed the Zionist project. The Great Arab Revolt would last three years, cost thousands of lives–Jewish, British, and Arab–and cast the trajectory for the Middle East conflict ever since. Yet incredibly, no history of this seminal, formative first “Intifada� has ever been published for a general audience.

The 1936-1939 revolt was the crucible in which Palestinian identity coalesced, uniting rival families, city and country, rich and poor in a single struggle for independence. Yet the rebellion would ultimately turn on itself, shredding the social fabric, sidelining pragmatists in favor of extremists, and propelling waves of refugees from their homes. British forces� aggressive counterinsurgency took care of the rest, finally quashing the uprising on the eve of World War II. The revolt to end Zionism had instead crushed the Arabs themselves, leaving them crippled in facing the Jews� own drive for statehood a decade later.

To the Jews, the insurgency would leave a very different legacy. It was then that Zionist leaders began to abandon illusions over Arab acquiescence, to face the unnerving prospect that fulfilling their dream of sovereignty might mean forever clinging to the sword. The revolt saw thousands of Jews trained and armed by Britain–the world’s supreme military power–turning their ramshackle guard units into the seed of a formidable Jewish army. And it was then, amid carnage in Palestine and the Hitler menace in Europe, that portentous words like “partition� and “Jewish state� first appeared on the international diplomatic agenda.

This is the story of two national movements and the first sustained confrontation between them. The rebellion was Arab, but the Zionist counter-rebellion–the Jews� military, economic, and psychological transformation–is a vital, overlooked element in the chronicle of how Palestine became Israel.

Today, eight decades on, the revolt’s legacy endures. Hamas’s armed wing and rockets carry the name of the fighter-preacher whose death sparked the 1936 rebellion. When Israel builds security barriers, sets up checkpoints, or razes homes, it is evoking laws and methods inherited from its British predecessor. And when Washington promotes a “two-state solution,� it is invoking a plan with roots in this same pivotal period.

Based on extensive archival research on three continents and in three languages, Palestine 1936 is the origin story of the world’s most intractable conflict, but it is also more than that. In Oren Kessler’s engaging, journalistic voice, it reveals world-changing events through extraordinary individuals on all sides: their loves and their hatreds, their deepest fears and profoundest hopes.]]> 336 Oren Kessler 1538148811 James 3 4.19 2023
author: Oren Kessler
name: James
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 183932735 224 Anne Applebaum 0241627893 James 4 4.20 2024
author: Anne Applebaum
name: James
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 50608676
Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard.

Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written an adventure that's also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf explores the fundamentals of truths, the limits of power, the excesses of ambition, and our need to understand them all.]]> 640 Marlon James 0735220182 James 5 3.47 2019
author: Marlon James
name: James
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 31850765 A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel-driven civilization.

Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization.

Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.]]> 552 Vaclav Smil 0262035774 James 3 4.10 2017
author: Vaclav Smil
name: James
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 39988431 Return to Daevabad in the spellbinding sequel to THE CITY OF BRASS.

Nahri’s life changed forever the moment she accidentally summoned Dara, a formidable, mysterious djinn, during one of her schemes. Whisked from her home in Cairo, she was thrust into the dazzling royal court of Daevabad and quickly discovered she would need all her grifter instincts to survive there.

Now, with Daevabad entrenched in the dark aftermath of the battle that saw Dara slain at Prince Ali’s hand, Nahri must forge a new path for herself, without the protection of the guardian who stole her heart or the counsel of the prince she considered a friend. But even as she embraces her heritage and the power it holds, she knows she’s been trapped in a gilded cage, watched by a king who rules from the throne that once belonged to her familyand one misstep will doom her tribe.

Meanwhile, Ali has been exiled for daring to defy his father. Hunted by assassins, adrift on the unforgiving copper sands of his ancestral land, he is forced to rely on the frightening abilities the marid, the unpredictable water spirits, have gifted him. But in doing so, he threatens to unearth a terrible secret his family has long kept buried.

And as a new century approaches and the djinn gather within Daevabad's towering brass walls for celebrations, a threat brews unseen in the desolate north. It’s a force that would bring a storm of fire straight to the city’s gates . . . and one that seeks the aid of a warrior trapped between worlds, torn between a violent duty he can never escape and a peace he fears he will never deserve.]]> 625 S.A. Chakraborty 0008239444 James 4 4.37 2019
author: S.A. Chakraborty
name: James
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 41302953 Katherine Addison returns to the glittering world she created for her beloved novel, 'The Goblin Emperor', in this stand-alone sequel.

When the young half-goblin emperor Maia sought to learn who had killed his father and half-brothers, he turned to an obscure resident of his Court, a Prelate of Ulis and a Witness for the Dead. Thara Celehar found the truth, though it did him no good to discover it. He lost his place as a retainer of his cousin the former Empress, and made far too many enemies among the many factions vying for power in the new Court. The favor of the Emperor is a dangerous coin.

Now Celehar lives in the city of Amalo, far from the Court though not exactly in exile. He has not escaped from politics, but his position gives him the ability to serve the common people of the city, which is his preference. He lives modestly, but his decency and fundamental honesty will not permit him to live quietly. As a Witness for the Dead, he can, sometimes, speak to the recently dead: see the last thing they saw, know the last thought they had, experience the last thing they felt. it is his duty to use that ability to resolve disputes, to ascertain the intent of the dead, to find the killers of the murdered.

Celehar's skills now lead him out of the quiet and into a morass of treachery, murder, and injustice. No matter his own background with the imperial house, Celehar will stand with the commoners, and possibly find a light in the darkness.]]> 240 Katherine Addison 0765387441 James 3 4.11 2021
author: Katherine Addison
name: James
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 48484 Two months since the stars fell...

Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown.

Two months of silence while a world holds its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune’s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever’s out there isn’t talking to us. It’s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn’t want to meet?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won’t be needed, and a fainter hope she’ll do any good if she is needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called “vampire,� recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist � an informational topologist with half his mind gone � as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.

You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they’ve been sent to find.

But you’d give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them…]]> 384 Peter Watts 0765312182 James 4 4.01 2006
author: Peter Watts
name: James
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 7723 The Metamorphosis,� a story that is both harrowing and amusing, and a landmark of modern literature.

Bringing together some of Kafka’s finest work, this collection demonstrates the richness and variety of the author’s artistry. �The Judgment,� which Kafka considered to be his decisive breakthrough, and �The Stoker,� which became the first chapter of his novel Amerika, are here included. These two, along with �The Metamorphosis,� form a suite of stories Kafka referred to as “The Sons,� and they collectively present a devastating portrait of the modern family.

Also included are �In the Penal Colony,� a story of a torture machine and its operators and victims, and �A Hunger Artist,� about the absurdity of an artist trying to communicate with a misunderstanding public. Kafka’s lucid, succinct writing chronicles the labyrinthine complexities, the futility-laden horror, and the stifling oppressiveness that permeate his vision of modern life.]]> 224 Franz Kafka 1593080298 James 5 4.08 1915
author: Franz Kafka
name: James
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1915
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 50891744
TIME IS RUNNING OUT

Agent Raibert Kaminski and the crew of the Transtemporal Vehicle Kleio have stumbled across a temporal implosion that has claimed two whole universes, and neither Raibert nor his crew can ­ figure out what caused this calamity, or how to stop its spread. Meanwhile, old colleagues of Raibert’s from the Antiquities Rescue Trust, together with a version of Samuel Pepys transplanted from the 17th century into the 30th, have proposed an expedition into the past. The goal? To branch the timeline by preventing the Plague of Justinian, one of the worst pandemics in human history. And on a multidimensional level, governmental entity SysGov’s multiverse neighbor, the xenophobic Admin, is stirring. While their ambassadors put on a friendly show, the Admin is amassing a fleet of advanced, heavily armed time machines—with SysGov firmly in the crosshairs.

In the midst of the temporal turmoil, time is running out for Raibert and his team to save the rest of the known universes from ceasing to exist. Navigating the paradoxes of time can be a killer task—especially when dogged by those who seek your destruction at every turn. But this isn’t the ­ first Time Rodeo for the crew of the Kleio , and they won’t go down without a ­ fight—no matter where—or when —the threat to the multiverse arises!

About prequel The Gordian Protocol :

“Tom Clancy-esque exposition of technical details . . . absurd humor and bloody action. Echoes of Robert Heinlein . . . lots of exploding temporal spaceships and bodies . . . action-packed . . .� � Booklist

“[A] fun and thrilling standalone from Weber and Holo. . . . Time travel enthusiasts will enjoy the moral dilemmas, nonstop action, and crisp writing.”� Publishers Weekly

About David
“[A] balanced mix of interstellar intrigue, counterespionage, and epic fleet action . . . with all the hard- and software details and tactical proficiency that Weber delivers like no one else; along with a large cast of well-developed, believable characters, giving each clash of fleets emotional weight.� —Booklist

“[M]oves . . . as inexorably as the Star Kingdom’s Grand Fleet, commanded by series protagonist Honor Harrington. . . . Weber is the Tom Clancy of science fiction. . . . His fans will relish this latest installment. . . .”� Publishers Weekly

“This entry is just as exciting as Weber’s initial offering. . . . The result is a fast-paced and action-packed story that follows [our characters] as they move from reaction to command of the situation. Weber builds Shadow of Freedom to an exciting and unexpected climax.”� The Galveston County Daily News

“Weber combines realistic, engaging characters with intelligent technological projection and a deep understanding of military bureaucracy in this long-awaited Honor Harrington novel . . . . Fans of this venerable space opera will rejoice to see Honor back in action.”� Publishers Weekly

“This latest Honor Harrington novel brings the saga to another crucial turning point . . . . Readers may feel confident that they will be Honored many more times and enjoy it every time.”� Booklist

“[E]verything you could want in a heroine. . . . Excellent . . . plenty of action.”� Science Fiction Age

“Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant!”—Anne McCaffrey

“Compelling combat combined with engaging characters for a great space opera adventure.”� Locus

“Weber combines realistic, engaging characters with intelligent technological projection . . . . Fans of this venerable space opera will rejoice . . .”� Publishers Weekly

About Jacob

"An entertaining sci-fi action novel with light overtones of dystopian and political thrillers."� Kirkus on The Dragons of Jupiter

"Thrilling . . . sci-fi adventure."� Kirkus on Time Reavers



With more than eight million copies of his books in print and thirty-three titles on the New York Times bestseller list, David Weber is a science fiction powerhouse. In the vastly popular Honor Harrington series, the spirit of C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower and Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander lives on—into the galactic future. Weber’s novels have appeared on more than thirty bestseller lists, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today. Weber is also the creator of the Oath of Swords fantasy series and the Dahak saga. He has engaged in a steady stream of best-selling collaborations, including the Starfire series with Steve White; the Empire of Man series with John Ringo; the Multiverse series with Linda Evans and Joelle Presby; the Ring of Fire series with Eric Flint; and now the Gordian Division series with Jacob Holo. David Weber makes his home in South Carolina.

Jacob Holo graduated from Youngstown State University with a degree in Electrical and Controls Engineering. He is the author of eight books, including two Gordian Division novels written with D...]]> 592 David Weber 1982124903 James 3 3.92
author: David Weber
name: James
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 57347786 An epic reappraisal of the medieval world--and the rich and complicated legacy left to us by the rise of the West--from the New York Times bestselling author of The Templars.

When the once-mighty city of Rome was sacked by barbarians in 410 and lay in ruins, it signaled the end of an era--and the beginning of a thousand years of profound transformation. In a gripping narrative bursting with big names--from St Augustine and Attila the Hun to the Prophet Muhammad and Eleanor of Aquitaine--Dan Jones charges through the history of the Middle Ages. Powers and Thrones takes readers on a journey through an emerging Europe, the great capitals of late Antiquity, as well as the influential cities of the Islamic West, and culminates in the first contact between the old and new worlds in the sixteenth century.

The medieval world was forged by the big forces that still occupy us today: climate change, pandemic disease, mass migration, and technological revolutions. This was the time when the great European nationalities were formed; when our basic Western systems of law and governance were codified; when the Christian Churches matured as both powerful institutions and the regulators of Western public morality; and when art, architecture, philosophical inquiry and scientific invention went through periods of massive, revolutionary change. At each stage in this story, successive western powers thrived by attracting--or stealing--the most valuable resources, ideas, and people from the rest of the world.

The West was rebuilt on the ruins of an empire and emerged from a state of crisis and collapse to dominate the region and the world. Every sphere of human life and activity was transformed in the thousand years of Powers and Thrones. As we face a critical turning point in our own millennium, the legacy and lessons of how we got here matter more than ever.]]> 636 Dan Jones 198488087X James 4 4.37 2021
author: Dan Jones
name: James
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 186872416
In this magisterial history, Kathleen DuVal tells the story of Native nations, from the rise of ancient cities more than a thousand years ago to the present, reframing North American history with Indigenous power and sovereignty at its center. Before and during European colonization, Indigenous North Americans built diverse civilizations and lived in history, adapting to a changing world in ways that reverberated globally. As DuVal explains, no civilization came to a halt when a few wandering explorers arrived, even when the strangers came well-armed.

A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size, but following a period of climate change and instability DuVal shows how numerous smaller nations emerged from previously centralized civilizations, moving away from rather than toward urbanization. From this urban past, patterns of egalitarian government structures, diplomacy, and complex economies spread across North America. So, when Europeans arrived in the sixteenth century, they encountered societies they did not understand, having developed differently from their own, and whose power they often underestimated. For centuries after these first encounters, Indigenous people maintained an upper hand and used Europeans in pursuit of their own interests. In Native Nations , we see how Mohawks closely controlled trade with the Dutch--and influenced global markets--and how Quapaws manipulated French colonists. Power dynamics shifted after the American Revolution, but Indigenous people continued to control the majority of the continent. Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa forged new alliances and encouraged a controversial new definition of Native identity to attempt to wall off U.S. ambitions. The Cherokees created new institutions to assert their sovereignty on the global stage, and the Kiowas used their preponderance of power in the west to regulate the passage of white settlers across their territory.

In this important addition to the growing tradition of North American history centered on Indigenous nations, Kathleen DuVal uses these stories to show how the definitions of power and means of exerting it shifted over time, but the sovereignty and influence of Native peoples remained a constant and will continue far into the future.]]> 752 Kathleen DuVal 0525511032 James 5 4.40 2024
author: Kathleen DuVal
name: James
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/08/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 61294937 Shannon Chakraborty, the bestselling author of The City of Brass, spins a new trilogy of magic and mayhem on the high seas in this tale of pirates and sorcerers, forbidden artifacts and ancient mysteries, in one woman’s determined quest to seize a final chance at glory—and write her own legend.

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will.

Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.]]> 483 Shannon Chakraborty James 5 4.25 2023
author: Shannon Chakraborty
name: James
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 173509030 'Every so often, a new work emerges of such immense scholarship and weight that it really does add a significant difference to our understanding of the Second World War and its consequences. Judgement in Tokyo is one such, a monumental work in both scale and detail, beautifully constructed and written, leaving the reader not only moved but disturbed as well.' � James Holland, The Sunday Telegraph

'A work of singular importance . . . balanced, original, human, accessible, and riveting' � Philippe Sands, author of East-West Street

'Always engrossing . . . a breathtakingly ambitious and well-executed piece of history, unlikely to be bettered as a portrait of the trials and their place in postwar global history' � History Today

A landmark, magisterial history of the postwar trial of Japan’s leaders as war criminals, and their impact on the modern history of Asia and the world.

In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the victorious powers turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For the Allied powers, the trials were an opportunity both to render judgment on their vanquished foes and to create a legal framework to prosecute war crimes and prohibit the use of aggressive war. For the Japanese leaders on trial, it was their chance to argue that their war had been waged to liberate Asia from Western imperialism and that the court was no more than victors� justice.

Gary J. Bass' Judgement at Tokyo is a magnificent, riveting story of wartime action, dramatic courtroom battles, and the epic formative years that set the stage for the postwar era in the Asia–Pacific.

'A comprehensive, landmark and riveting book' � The Washington Post, 'The 10 Best Books of 2023']]> 913 Gary J. Bass 1509812776 James 5 4.29 2023
author: Gary J. Bass
name: James
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/07/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 60017541 A comprehensive, sweeping history of America's rise to global superpower--a follow up to the author's acclaimed first volume, from our nation's earliest days to the dawn of the twentieth century.

At the turn of the twentieth century, America was at a tipping point: its population and wealth were growing rapidly, and the country had entered the world stage as a commanding political, economic, and military force. Would America retreat within their own relatively secure and geographically separate borders, or would it continue to expand its influence on an international scale?

Beginning with the "honorable" Spanish American War and ending with the wreckage of World War II, Robert Kagan tracks how America's desire to be an arbiter of peace as a young democracy has conflicted with its desire to stay neutral. Kagan shows how this moral high ground has led to mistakes and acts of ruthless ambition, but he also argues that America's hesitation to intervene in foreign affairs has allowed fascism and tyranny to grow unchecked. Brilliant and insightful, Dangerous Nation, Vol. Two strips away any illusion that America can be an isolationist country, tracing the stunningly quick dissolution of European control and the emergence of a new world order with America at its helm.
]]> 688 Robert Kagan 0307262944 James 4 4.38 2023
author: Robert Kagan
name: James
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/07/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 831106 336 Tacitus 0140441506 James 5 4.14
author: Tacitus
name: James
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/06/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 64396 The Stainless Steel Rat (1961): DiGriz is caught during one of his crimes & recruited into the Special Corps. Boring, routine desk work during his probationary period results in his discovering that someone is building a battleship, thinly disguised as an industrial vessel. In the peaceful League no one has battleships any more, so the builder of this one would be unstoppable. DiGriz' hunt for the guilty becomes a personal battle between himself & the beautiful but deadly Angelina, who is planning a coup on one of the feudal worlds. DiGriz' dilemma is whether he will turn Angelina over to the Special Corps, or join with her, since he's fallen in love with her.
The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge (1970): DiGriz & Angelina are happily married, expecting the birth of sons. The planet Cliaand is waging interstellar war. Against the odds, its Grey Men are invading & taking over planet after planet. The Rat is sent to Cliaand to start a one-man guerrilla campaign to put a stop to the plans of the planet's leader, Kraj. He is aided by the Amazons, a force of liberated freedom fighters, & eventually by his wife who arrives to help him win the war & keep him out of the arms of the Amazons.
The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World (1972): The villainous He has travelled back in time to humankind's distant past on the legendary planet Earth ('Dirt') of '84, where he's altering events so that people who opposed him in the Rat's present cease to exist, Angelina amongst them. Using the Helix, a time-travel device invented by the Special Corps' Prof. Coypu, diGriz travels to '84 America, then to Napoleonic France where tanks & aircraft are helping bring about Napoleon's victory.]]> 402 Harry Harrison 0441004229 James 0 4.12 1977
author: Harry Harrison
name: James
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 48829708 move.

As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn't at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human.

While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope...]]> 880 Christopher Paolini 1250762847 James 4 3.77 2020
author: Christopher Paolini
name: James
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/06/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 57806366 A multifaceted history of Ho Chi Minh’s climactic victory over French colonial might that foreshadowed America’s experience in Vietnam

On May 7, 1954, when the bullets stopped and the air stilled in Dien Bien Phu, there was no doubt that Vietnam could fight a mighty colonial power and win. After nearly a decade of struggle, a nation forged in the crucible of war had achieved a victory undreamed of by any other national liberation movement. The Road to Dien Bien Phu tells the story of how Ho Chi Minh turned a ragtag guerrilla army into a modern fighting force capable of bringing down the formidable French army.

Taking readers from the outbreak of fighting in 1945 to the epic battle at Dien Bien Phu, Christopher Goscha shows how Ho transformed Vietnam from a decentralized guerrilla state based in the countryside to a single-party communist state shaped by a specific form of “War Communism.� Goscha discusses how the Vietnamese operated both states through economics, trade, policing, information gathering, and communications technology. He challenges the wisdom of counterinsurgency methods developed by the French and still used by the Americans today, and explains why the First Indochina War was arguably the most brutal war of decolonization in the twentieth century, killing a million Vietnamese, most of them civilians.

Panoramic in scope, The Road to Dien Bien Phu transforms our understanding of this conflict and the one the United States would later enter, and sheds new light on communist warfare and statecraft in East Asia today.]]> 568 Christopher E. Goscha 0691180164 James 4 4.27 2022
author: Christopher E. Goscha
name: James
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/05/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 128747007
Emperor of Rome is not your usual chronological account of Roman rulers, such as the mad Caligula, the monster Nero, the philosopher Marcus Aurelius. Beard asks bigger questions: What power did emperors actually have? Was the Roman palace really so bloodstained? She tracks down the emperor at home, at the races, on his travels, even on his way to heaven. She introduces his wives and lovers, rivals and slaves, court jesters and soldiers―and the ordinary people who pressed begging letters into his hands.

Emperor of Rome goes directly to the heart of Roman (and our own) fantasies about what it was to be Roman, offering an account of Roman history as it has never been presented before. 160 images; 16-page color insert]]> 493 Mary Beard 0871404222 James 4 4.06 2023
author: Mary Beard
name: James
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/05/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 40604846 Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years—a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population.

Taking us into a landscape most of us have never before seen, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today—an Orwellian world that is by choice not connected to the Internet, in which radio and television dials are welded to the one government station, and where displays of affection are punished; a police state where informants are rewarded and where an offhand remark can send a person to the gulag for life.

Demick takes us deep inside the country, beyond the reach of government censors. Through meticulous and sensitive reporting, we see her six subjects—average North Korean citizens—fall in love, raise families, nurture ambitions, and struggle for survival. One by one, we experience the moments when they realize that their government has betrayed them.

Nothing to Envy is a groundbreaking addition to the literature of totalitarianism and an eye-opening look at a closed world that is of increasing global importance.]]> 338 Barbara Demick James 3 4.47 2009
author: Barbara Demick
name: James
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/05/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 182733784
Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds� notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made. Nuclear War: A Scenario examines the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch. It is essential reading, and unlike any other book in its depth and urgency.]]> 400 Annie Jacobsen 0593476093 James 5 4.36 2024
author: Annie Jacobsen
name: James
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/05/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 30013 This is an alternative cover edition for ISBN 9780586071113

It is the year 12,020 G.E. and Emperor Cleon I sits uneasily on the Imperial throne of Trantor. Here in the great multidomed capital of the Galactic Empire, forty billion people have created a civilization of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity. Yet Cleon knows there are those who would see him fall—those whom he would destroy if only he could read the future.

Hari Seldon has come to Trantor to deliver his paper on psychohistory, his remarkable theory of prediction. Little does the young Outworld mathematician know that he has already sealed his fate and the fate of humanity. For Hari possesses the prophetic power that makes him the most wanted man in the Empire. . .the man who holds the key to the future—an apocalyptic power to be known forever after as the Foundation.]]> 460 Isaac Asimov James 3 4.16 1988
author: Isaac Asimov
name: James
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1988
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/04/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 61885029
Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyperintelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.]]> 264 John Scalzi 0765389223 James 4 4.09 2023
author: John Scalzi
name: James
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/04/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 62120824 A riveting, immersive account of the agonizing decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan--a crucial turning point in World War II and geopolitical history--with you-are-there immediacy by the New York Times bestselling author of Ike's Bluff and Sea of Thunder.

At 9:20 a.m. on the morning of May 30, General Groves receives a message to report to the office of the secretary of war "at once." Stimson is waiting for him. He wants to know: has Groves selected the targets yet?

So begins this suspenseful, impeccably researched history that draws on new access to diaries to tell the story of three men who were intimately involved with America's decision to drop the atomic bomb--and Japan's decision to surrender. They are Henry Stimson, the American Secretary of War, who had overall responsibility for decisions about the atom bomb; Gen. Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, head of strategic bombing in the Pacific, who supervised the planes that dropped the bombs; and Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, the only one in Emperor Hirohito's Supreme War Council who believed even before the bombs were dropped that Japan should surrender.

Henry Stimson had served in the administrations of five presidents, but as the U.S. nuclear program progressed, he found himself tasked with the unimaginable decision of determining whether to deploy the bomb. The new president, Harry S. Truman, thus far a peripheral figure in the momentous decision, accepted Stimson's recommendation to drop the bomb. Army Air Force Commander Gen. Spaatz ordered the planes to take off. Like Stimson, Spaatz agonized over the command even as he recognized it would end the war. After the bombs were dropped, Foreign Minister Togo was finally able to convince the emperor to surrender.

To bring these critical events to vivid life, bestselling author Evan Thomas draws on the diaries of Stimson, Togo and Spaatz, contemplating the immense weight of their historic decision. In Road to Surrender, an immersive, surprising, moving account, Thomas lays out the behind-the-scenes thoughts, feelings, motivations, and decision-making of three people who changed history.]]> 336 Evan Thomas 0399589252 James 4 4.30 2023
author: Evan Thomas
name: James
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/04/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 40873920 A five-hundred-year-old legend. An ancient curse. A stunning medical mystery. And a pioneering journey into the unknown heart of the world's densest jungle.

Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location.

Three quarters of a century later, author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization.

Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease.]]> 326 Douglas Preston James 3 3.95 2017
author: Douglas Preston
name: James
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/04/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 46228086 466 Stephen Fry 1452179042 James 3 4.30 2017
author: Stephen Fry
name: James
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/04/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 61714633 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then . . . six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death--for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.]]> 331 David Grann 0385534264 James 3 4.14 2023
author: David Grann
name: James
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/03/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 62143524 Ěý
Central Europe has long been infamous as a region beset by war, a place where empires clashed and world wars began. In The Middle Kingdoms , Martyn Rady offers the definitive history of the region, demonstrating that Central Europe has always been more than merely the fault line between West and East. Even as Central European powers warred with their neighbors, the region developed its own cohesive identity and produced tremendous accomplishments in politics, society, and culture. Central Europeans launched the Reformation and Romanticism, developed the philosophy of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and advanced some of the twentieth century’s most important artistic movements.Ěý
Ěý
Drawing on a lifetime of research and scholarship, The Middle Kingdoms tells as never before the captivating story of two thousand years of Central Europe’s history and its enduring significance in world affairs.]]> 640 Martyn Rady 1541619781 James 4 4.11 2023
author: Martyn Rady
name: James
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/03/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 122769171
America is undergoing a massive experiment: It is moving, in fits and starts, toward a multiracial democracy, something few societies have ever done. But the prospect of change has sparked an authoritarian backlash that threatens the very foundations of our political system. Why is this happening here, and not in other diversifying nations? And what can we do to save our democracy?

With the clarity and brilliance that made their first book, How Democracies Die, a global bestseller, Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt offer a coherent framework for understanding these volatile times. They draw on a wealth of examples—from 1930s France to present-day Thailand—to explain why and how political parties turn against democracy: When political leaders realize they can no longer win at the ballot box, they begin to attack the system from within, condoning violent extremists and using the law as a weapon. Unfortunately, our Constitution makes us uniquely vulnerable. It is a pernicious enabler of minority rule, allowing partisan minorities to consistently thwart and even rule over popular majorities. Most modern democracies—from Germany and Sweden to Argentina and New Zealand—have eliminated outdated institutions like elite upper chambers, indirect elections, and lifetime tenure for judges. The United States lags dangerously behind.

In this revelatory book, Levitsky and Ziblatt issue an urgent call to perfect our national experiment. It’s a daunting task, but we have remade our country before—most notably, after the Civil War and during the Progressive Era. And now we are at a crossroads: America will either become a multiracial democracy or it will cease to be a democracy at all.]]> 368 Steven Levitsky 0593443071 James 4 4.37 2023
author: Steven Levitsky
name: James
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/03/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 56382342
When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of the nineteenth century, no one could have imagined that one day he would, through ruthlessness, cunning, and a pathological desire for money, build two empires—one in shipping and another in railroads—that would make him the richest man in America. His staggering fortune was fought over by his heirs after his death in 1877, sowing familial discord that would never fully heal. Though his son Billy doubled the money left by “the Commodore,� subsequent generations competed to find new and ever more extraordinary ways of spending it. By 2018, when the last Vanderbilt was forced out of The Breakers—the seventy-room summer estate in Newport, Rhode Island, that Cornelius’s grandson and namesake had built—the family would have been unrecognizable to the tycoon who started it all.

Now, the Commodore’s great-great-great-grandson Anderson Cooper, joins with historian Katherine Howe to explore the story of his legendary family and their outsized influence. Cooper and Howe breathe life into the ancestors who built the family’s empire, basked in the Commodore’s wealth, hosted lavish galas, and became synonymous with unfettered American capitalism and high society. Moving from the hardscrabble wharves of old Manhattan to the lavish drawing rooms of Gilded Age Fifth Avenue, from the ornate summer palaces of Newport to the courts of Europe, and all the way to modern-day New York, Cooper and Howe wryly recount the triumphs and tragedies of an American dynasty unlike any other.

Written with a unique insider’s viewpoint, this is a rollicking, quintessentially American history as remarkable as the family it so vividly captures.]]> 317 Anderson Cooper 0062964615 James 3 3.74 2021
author: Anderson Cooper
name: James
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/03/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 112975117
The story of the Astors is a quintessentially American story—of ambition, invention, destruction, and reinvention.

From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society.

The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate. Over the ensuing generations, Astors ruled Gilded Age New York society and inserted themselves into political and cultural life, but also suffered the most famous loss on the Titanic, one of many shocking and unexpected twists in the family’s story.

In this unconventional, page-turning historical biography, featuring black-and-white and color photographs, #1 New York Times bestselling authors Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe chronicle the lives of the Astors and explore what the Astor name has come to mean in America—offering a window onto the making of America itself.]]> 322 Anderson Cooper 0062964704 James 3 3.70 2023
author: Anderson Cooper
name: James
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/03/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 52048467
To reveal why this happened, How the South Won the Civil War traces the story of the American paradox, the competing claims of equality and subordination woven into the nation's fabric and identity. At the nation's founding, it was the Eastern "yeoman farmer" who galvanized and symbolized the American Revolution. After the Civil War, that mantle was assumed by the Western cowboy, singlehandedly defending his land against barbarians and savages as well as from a rapacious government. New states entered the Union in the late nineteenth century and western and southern leaders found yet more common ground. As resources and people streamed into the West during the New Deal and World War II, the region's influence grew. "Movement Conservatives," led by westerners Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, claimed to embody cowboy individualism and worked with Dixiecrats to embrace the ideology of the Confederacy.

Richardson's searing book seizes upon the soul of the country and its ongoing struggle to provide equal opportunity to all. Debunking the myth that the Civil War released the nation from the grip of oligarchy, expunging the sins of the Founding, it reveals how and why the Old South not only survived in the West, but thrived.
]]> 272 Heather Cox Richardson 0190900903 James 4 4.26 2020
author: Heather Cox Richardson
name: James
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/02/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 62918236 An original, illuminating history of the northern European Renaissance in art, science, and philosophy, which often rivaled its Italian counterpart.

It is generally accepted that the European Renaissance began in Italy.

However, a historical transformation of similar magnitude also took place in northern Europe at the same time. This "Other Renaissance" wasĚýinitially centered on the city of Bruges in Flanders (modern Belgium), but its influence was soon being felt in France, the German states, London, andĚýeven in Italy itself.ĚýTheĚýnorthern Renaissance, like the southern Renaissance, largely took place duringĚýthe periodĚýbetween the end of the Medieval age (circa mid-14th century) and theĚýadvent of the Age of Enlightenment (circa end ofĚý17th century).

Following a sequence of major figures, including Copernicus, Gutenberg, Luther, Catherine de' Medici, Rabelais, van Eyck, and Shakespeare,ĚýPaul Strathern tells the fascinating story of how this "Other Renaissance"Ěýplayed as significant a role as the Italian renaissance in bringing our modernĚýworld into being.]]> 376 Paul Strathern 1639363947 James 3 3.83 2023
author: Paul Strathern
name: James
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/02/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 48932367 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author and pioneering journalist, an expansive look at how history has been shaped by humanity’s appetite for food, farmland, and the money behind it all—and how a better future is within reach.

The story of humankind is usually told as one of technological innovation and economic influence—of arrowheads and atomic bombs, settlers and stock markets. But behind it all, there is an even more fundamental driver: Food.

In Animal, Vegetable, Junk, trusted food authority Mark Bittman offers a panoramic view of how the frenzy for food has driven human history to some of its most catastrophic moments, from slavery and colonialism to famine and genocide—and to our current moment, wherein Big Food exacerbates climate change, plunders our planet, and sickens its people. Even still, Bittman refuses to concede that the battle is lost, pointing to activists, workers, and governments around the world who are choosing well-being over corporate greed and gluttony, and fighting to free society from Big Food’s grip.

Sweeping, impassioned, and ultimately full of hope, Animal, Vegetable, Junk reveals not only how food has shaped our past, but also how we can transform it to reclaim our future.]]> 384 Mark Bittman 1328974626 James 3 3.89 2021
author: Mark Bittman
name: James
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/02/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 19439371 collapse. Its ancient infrastructure could no longer support its
explosive growth; the English Civil War had torn society apart; and in
1665 the capital was struck by a plague that claimed 100,000 lives. And
then, the following year, the Great Fire destroyed huge swaths of the
city. As Leo Hollis recounts in his stirring history of the period,
modern London was born out of this crucible. Among the catalysts
for this rebirth were five extraordinary men, each deeply influenced by
the Civil War, whose intersecting lives form the heart of London Rising :
famed philosopher John Locke, whose ideas about the individual would
outline a new theory of civil society based on natural rights; diarist
John Evelyn, who insightfully chronicled the tumult and transformation
before him; the polymathic scientist and architect Robert Hooke;
developer Nicholas Barbon, who rebuilt much of the city after the fire;
and Christoper Wren, astronomer, geometer, and the greatest English
architect of his time, whose reconstruction of St. Paul's Cathedral was
the essential symbol of London's rebirth. The city today is in great
part the result of the myriad advances in literature, planning, science,
and social issues forged by these five. Hollis paints a vibrant
portrait of one of the world's greatest cities, and of a generation of
men whose impact on London is unmatched.]]> 401 Leo Hollis 0802779727 James 3 3.50 2008
author: Leo Hollis
name: James
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/02/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 61871743 A sweeping and overdue retelling of U.S. history that recognizes that Native Americans are essential to understanding the evolution of modern America
Ěý
� A National Bestseller
Ěý
“Eloquent and comprehensive. . . . In the book’s sweeping synthesis, standard flashpoints of U.S. history take on new meaning.”—Kathleen DuVal, Wall Street Journal
Ěý
“In accounts of American history, Indigenous peoples are often treated as largely incidental—either obstacles to be overcome or part of a narrative separate from the arc of nation-building. Blackhawk . . . [shows] that Native communities have, instead, been inseparable from the American story all along.”� Washington Post Book World, “Books to Read in 2023�
Ěý
The most enduring feature of U.S. history is the presence of Native Americans, yet most histories focus on Europeans and their descendants. This long practice of ignoring Indigenous history is changing, however, with a new generation of scholars insists that any full American history address the struggle, survival, and resurgence of American Indian nations. Indigenous history is essential to understanding the evolution of modern America.
Ěý
Ned Blackhawk interweaves five centuries of Native and non‑Native histories, from Spanish colonial exploration to the rise of Native American self-determination in the late twentieth century. In this transformative synthesis he shows that
Ěý
� European colonization in the 1600s was never a predetermined success;
Ěý
� Native nations helped shape England’s crisis of empire;
Ěý
� the first shots of the American Revolution were prompted by Indian affairs in the interior;
Ěý
� California Indians targeted by federally funded militias were among the first casualties of the Civil War;
Ěý
� the Union victory forever recalibrated Native communities across the West;
Ěý
â€� twentieth-century reservation activists refashioned American law and policy. Ěý
Ěý
Blackhawk’s retelling of U.S. history acknowledges the enduring power, agency, and survival of Indigenous peoples, yielding a truer account of the United States and revealing anew the varied meanings of America.]]> 596 Ned Blackhawk 0300244053 James 5 4.15 2023
author: Ned Blackhawk
name: James
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 62347052
Our contemporary world is inescapably Greek. Whether in a word like “pandemic,� a Freudian state of mind like the “Oedipus complex,� or a replica of the Parthenon in a Chinese theme park, ancient Greek culture shapes the contours of our lives. Ever since the first Roman imitators, we have been continually falling under the Greeks� spell.

But how did ancient Greece spread its influence so far and wide? And how has this influence changed us?

Tony Spawforth explores our classical heritage, wherever it’s to be found. He reveals its legacy in everything from religion to popular culture, and unearths the darker side of Greek influence—from the Nazis� obsession with Spartan “racial purity� to the elitism of classical education. Paying attention to the huge breadth and variety of Hellenic influence, this book paints an essential portrait of the ancient world’s living legacy—considering to whom it matters, and why.]]> 352 Tony Spawforth 030025802X James 4 3.08
author: Tony Spawforth
name: James
average rating: 3.08
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/01/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 98652084 A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum comes a wildly entertaining new history of Rome that uses the lives of 21 extraordinary women to upend our understanding of the ancient world.

The history of Rome has long been narrow and one-sided, essentially a history of "The Doing of Important Things," and as far as Roman historians have been concerned, women don't make that history. From Romulus through "the political stab-fest of the late Republic," and then on to all the emperors, Roman historians may deign to give you a wife or a mother to show how bad things become when women get out of control, but history is more than that.

Emma Southon's A Rome of One's Own is the best kind of correction. This is a retelling of the history of Rome with all the things Roman history writers relegate to the background, or designate as domestic, feminine, or worthless. This is a history of women who caused outrage, led armies in rebellion, wrote poetry; who lived independently or under the thumb of emperors. Told with humor and verve as well as a deep scholarly background, A Rome of One's Own highlights women overlooked and misunderstood, and through them offers a fascinating and groundbreaking chronicle of the ancient world.]]> 416 Emma Southon 1419760181 James 4 4.15 2023
author: Emma Southon
name: James
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/01/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 6572270
Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.

From Booklist
If there is an explanation for the political killing perpetrated in eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, historian Snyder roots it in agriculture. Stalin wanted to collectivize farmers; Hitler wanted to eliminate them so Germans could colonize the land. The dictators wielded frightening power to advance such fantasies toward reality, and the despots toted up about 14 million corpses between them, so stupefying a figure that Snyder sets himself three goals here: to break down the number into the various actions of murder that comprise it, from liquidation of the kulaks to the final solution; to restore humanity to the victims via surviving testimony to their fates; and to deny Hitler and Stalin any historical justification for their policies, which at the time had legions of supporters and have some even today. Such scope may render Snyder’s project too imposing to casual readers, but it would engage those exposed to the period’s chronology and major interpretive issues, such as the extent to which the Nazi and Soviet systems may be compared. Solid and judicious scholarship for large WWII collections.]]> 524 Timothy Snyder 0465002390 James 4 4.37 2010
author: Timothy Snyder
name: James
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/12/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 871906 Poole, W. Scott 187 W. Scott Poole 0865549680 James 4 3.80 2005
author: W. Scott Poole
name: James
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 90590139
“A vibrant, and essential history of America's unending, enraging and utterly compelling struggle since its founding to live up to its own best ideals� It's both a cause for hope, and a call to arms.�--Jane Mayer, author Dark Money

From historian and author of the popular daily newsletter LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN, a vital narrative that explains how America, once a beacon of democracy, now teeters on the brink of autocracy -- and how we can turn back.

In the midst of the impeachment crisis of 2019, Heather Cox Richardson launched a daily Facebook essay providing the historical background of the daily torrent of news. It soon turned into a newsletter and its readership ballooned to more than 2 million dedicated readers who rely on her plainspoken and informed take on the present and past in America.

In Democracy Awakening , Richardson crafts a compelling and original narrative, explaining how, over the decades, a small group of wealthy people have made war on American ideals. By weaponizing language and promoting false history they have led us into authoritarianism -- creating a disaffected population and then promising to recreate an imagined past where those people could feel important again. She argues that taking our country back starts by remembering the elements of the nation’s true history that marginalized Americans have always upheld. Their dedication to the principles on which this nation was founded has enabled us to renew and expand our commitment to democracy in the past. Richardson sees this history as a roadmap for the nation’s future.

Richardson’s talent is to wrangle our giant, meandering, and confusing news feed into a coherent story that singles out what we should pay attention to, what the precedents are, and what possible paths lie ahead. In her trademark calm prose, she is realistic and optimistic about the future of democracy. Her command of history allows her to pivot effortlessly from the Founders to the abolitionists to Reconstruction to Goldwater to Mitch McConnell, highlighting the political legacies of the New Deal, the lingering fears of socialism, the death of the liberal consensus and birth of “movement conservatism.�

Many books tell us what has happened over the last five years. Democracy Awakening explains how we got to this perilous point, what our history really tells us about ourselves, and what the future of democracy can be.]]> 286 Heather Cox Richardson 0593652967 James 4 4.38 2023
author: Heather Cox Richardson
name: James
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/12/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 198493795
"There are few who write science fiction like Ann Leckie can. There are few who ever could."―John Scalzi

Qven was created to be a Presger Translator. The pride of their clade, they always had a clear path before Learn human ways and, eventually, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presger and the human worlds.Ěý

But Qven rebels against that future, a choice that brings them into the orbit of two Enae, a reluctant diplomat attempting to hunt down a fugitive who has been missing for over two hundred years; and Reet, an adopted mechanic who is increasingly desperate to learn about his biological past—or anything that might explain why he operates so differently from those around him.

As the conclave of the various species approaches and the long-standing treaty between the humans and the Presger is on the line, the decision of all three will have ripple effects across the stars.Ěý]]> 448 Ann Leckie 0316290122 James 4 3.97 2023
author: Ann Leckie
name: James
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/12/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 56769525 Angela’s Ashes, Fintan O’Toole, one of the Anglophone world’s most consummate stylists, continues the narrative of modern Ireland into our own time. O’Toole was born in the year the revolution began. It was 1958, and the Irish government—in despair, because all the young people were leaving—opened the country to foreign investment. So began a decades-long, ongoing experiment with Irish national identity.


Weaving his own experiences into this account of Irish social, cultural, and economic change, O’Toole shows how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a Catholic “backwater� to an almost totally open society. A sympathetic-yet-exacting observer, O’Toole shrewdly weighs more than sixty years of globalization, delving into the violence of the Troubles and depicting, in biting detail, the astonishing collapse of the once-supreme Irish Catholic Church. The result is a stunning work of memoir and national history that reveals how the two modes are inextricable for all of us.]]> 616 Fintan O'Toole 1631496530 James 4 4.31 2021
author: Fintan O'Toole
name: James
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/12/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 51002129 Ěý
Tensions during the Yalta Conference in February 1945 threatened to tear apart the wartime alliance among Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin just as victory was close at hand. Catherine Grace Katz uncovers the dramatic story of the three young women who were chosen by their fathers to travel with them to Yalta, each bound by fierce family loyalty, political savvy, and intertwined romances that powerfully colored these crucial days.

Kathleen Harriman was a champion skier, war correspondent, and daughter of U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman. Sarah Churchill, an actress-turned-RAF officer, was devoted to her brilliant father, who depended on her astute political mind. Roosevelt’s only daughter, Anna, chosen instead of her mother Eleanor to accompany the president to Yalta, arrived there as keeper of her father’s most damaging secrets. Situated in the political maelstrom that marked the transition to a post- war world, The Daughters of Yalta is a remarkable story of fathers and daughters whose relationships were tested and strengthened by the history they witnessed and the future they crafted together.]]> 417 Catherine Grace Katz 0358117828 James 3 4.10 2020
author: Catherine Grace Katz
name: James
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/11/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 168677579 Ěý
Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it. It was a sophisticated and shockingly well-funded campaign to undermine democratic institutions, promote antisemitism, and destroy citizens� confidence in their elected leaders, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the U.S. government and installing authoritarian rule.
Ěý
That effort worked—tongue and groove—alongside an ultra-right paramilitary movement that stockpiled bombs and weapons and trained for mass murder and violent insurrection.
Ěý
At the same time, a handful of extraordinary activists and journalists were tracking the scheme, exposing it even as it was unfolding. In 1941 the U.S. Department of Justice finally made a frontal attack, identifying the key plotters, finding their backers, and prosecuting dozens in federal court.
Ěý
None of it went as planned.
Ěý
While the scheme has been remembered in history—if at all—as the work of fringe players, in reality, it involved aĚýlarge number of some of the country’s most influential elected officials. Their interference in law enforcement efforts against the plot is a dark story of the rule of law bending and then breaking under the weight of political intimidation.
Ěý
That failure of the legal system had consequences. The tentacles of that unslain beast have reached forward into our history for decades. But the heroic efforts of the activists, journalists, prosecutors, and regular citizens who sought to expose the insurrectionists also make for a deeply resonant, deeply relevant tale in our own disquieting times.]]> 416 Rachel Maddow 0593444515 James 3 4.35 2023
author: Rachel Maddow
name: James
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/11/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 75494215 THE REAL ORIGIN OF OUR SPECIES: a myth-busting, eye-opening landmark account of how humans evolved, offering a paradigm shift in our thinking about what the female body is, how it came to be, and how this evolution still shapes all our lives today.

How did the female body drive 200 million years of human evolution?
� Why do women live longer than men?
� Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer’s?
� Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly their scores plummet?
� Is sexism useful for evolution?
� And why, seriously why, do women have to sweat through our sheets every night when we hit menopause?

These questions are producing some truly exciting science—and in Eve, with boundless curiosity and sharp wit, Cat Bohannon covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex: "We need a kind of user's manual for the female mammal. A no-nonsense, hard-hitting, seriously researched (but readable) account of what we are. How female bodies evolved, how they work, what it really means to biologically be a woman. Something that would rewrite the story of womanhood. This book is that story. We have to put the female body in the picture. If we don't, it's not just feminism that's compromised. Modern medicine, neurobiology, paleoanthropology, even evolutionary biology all take a hit when we ignore the fact that half of us have breasts. So it's time we talk about breasts. Breasts, and blood, and fat, and vaginas, and wombs—all of it. How they came to be and how we live with them now, no matter how weird or hilarious the truth is."

Eve is not only a sweeping revision of human history, it's an urgent and necessary corrective for a world that has focused primarily on the male body for far too long. Picking up where Sapiens left off, Eve will completely change what you think you know about evolution and why Homo sapiens has become such a successful and dominant species.]]> 624 Cat Bohannon 0385350546 James 4 4.27 2023
author: Cat Bohannon
name: James
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/11/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 199640361
PLEASE This is neither by endorsement nor a replacement]]> 38 james Bamson James 4 4.50
author: james Bamson
name: James
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/11/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 226004 A Fire Upon The Deep, this is the story of Pham Nuwen, a small cog in the interstellar trading fleet of the Queng Ho. The Queng Ho and the Emergents are orbiting the dormant planet Arachna, which is about to wake up to technology, but the Emergents' plans are sinister.]]> 775 Vernor Vinge 0812536355 James 5 4.31 1999
author: Vernor Vinge
name: James
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/11/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 8171378
Wilkerson tells this interwoven story through the lives of three unforgettable protagonists: Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper’s wife, who in 1937 fled Mississippi for Chicago; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, and Robert Foster, a surgeon who left Louisiana in 1953 in hopes of making it in California.

Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous cross-country journeys by car and train and their new lives in colonies in the New World. The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration� within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is a modern classic.]]> 622 Isabel Wilkerson 0679444327 James 4 4.45 2010
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: James
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/10/26
shelves:
review:

]]> 128409125 Caught between realities, a mathematician, a book dealer, and a mobster desperately seek a notorious book that disappears upon being read. Only the author, a rakish sci-fi writer, knows whether his popular novel is truthful or a hoax. In a story that is cosmic, inventive, and sly, multi-award-winning author Lavie Tidhar (Central Station) travels from the emergence of life to the very ends of the universe.

Delia Welegtabit discovered two things during her childhood on a South Pacific island: her love for mathematics and a novel that isn’t supposed to exist. But the elusive book proves unexpectedly dangerous. When Delia’s husband Levi goes missing, she seeks help from Daniel Chase, a young, face-blind book dealer.

Lode Stars was written by the infamous Eugene Charles Hartley: legendary pulp science-fiction writer and founder of the Church of the All-Seeing Eyes. In Hartley’s novel, a doppelganger of Delia searches for her missing father in a strange star system with three black holes.

Oskar Lens, a Russian mobster in the midst of an existential crisis, is determined to find a copy of Lode Stars. Oskar believes that the novel provides protection from unseen aliens, and that reality is only an unreliable memory that is billions of years old.

But is any of Lode Stars real? Was Hartley a cynical conman on a quest for wealth and immortality, creating a religion he did not believe in? Or was he a visionary who truly discovered the secrets of the universe?]]> 256 Lavie Tidhar 161696362X James 4 3.39 2023
author: Lavie Tidhar
name: James
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/10/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 64005186 One of the world’s most creative mathematicians offers a new way to look at math—focusing on questions, not answersĚý

Where do we learn math: From rules in a textbook? From logic and deduction? Not really, according to mathematician Eugenia Cheng: we learn it from human curiosity—most importantly, from asking questions. This may come as a surprise to those who think that math is about finding the one right answer, or those who were told that the “dumbâ€� question they asked just proved they were bad at math. But Cheng shows why people who ask questions like “Why does 1 + 1 = 2?â€� are at the very heart of the search for mathematical truth. Ěý

Is Math Real? is a much-needed repudiation of the rigid ways we’re taught to do math, and a celebration of the true, curious spirit of the discipline. Written with intelligence and passion, Is Math Real? brings us math as we’ve never seen it before, revealing how profound insights can emerge from seemingly unlikely sources.  Ěý]]> 336 Eugenia Cheng 1541601823 James 4 3.70
author: Eugenia Cheng
name: James
average rating: 3.70
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/10/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 60417618
We remember him as a bulldog - squat frame, bulging wide-set eyes, fearsome jowls - but in 1924, when he became director of the FBI, he had been the trim, dazzling wunderkind of the administrative state, buzzing with energy and big ideas for reform. He transformed a failing law-enforcement backwater, riddled with scandal, into a modern machine. He believed in the power of the federal government to do great things for the nation and its citizens. He also believed that certain people--many of them communists or racial minorities or both-- did not deserve to be included in that American project. Hoover rose to power and then stayed there, decade after decade, using the tools of state to create a personal fiefdom unrivaled in U.S. history.

Beverly Gage's monumental work explores the full sweep of Hoover's life and career, from his birth in 1895 to a modest Washington civil-service family through his death in 1972. In her nuanced and definitive portrait, Gage shows how Hoover was more than a one-dimensional tyrant and schemer who strong-armed the rest of the country into submission. As FBI director from 1924 through his death in 1972, he was a confidant, counselor, and adversary to eight U.S. presidents, four Republicans and four Democrats. Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson did the most to empower him, yet his closest friend among the eight was fellow anticommunist warrior Richard Nixon. Hoover was not above blackmail and intimidation, but he also embodied conservative values ranging from anticommunism to white supremacy to a crusading and politicized interpretation of Christianity. This garnered him the admiration of millions of Americans. He stayed in office for so long because many people, from the highest reaches of government down to the grassroots, wanted him there and supported what he was doing, thus creating the template that the political right has followed to transform its party.

G-Man places Hoover back where he once stood in American political history--not at the fringes, but at the center--and uses his story to explain the trajectories of governance, policing, race, ideology, political culture, and federal power as they evolved over the course of the 20th century.]]> 837 Beverly Gage 0670025372 James 4 4.33 2022
author: Beverly Gage
name: James
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/09/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 56269264
For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike—either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself.

Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume.

The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action.]]> 692 David Graeber 0374157359 James 4 4.20 2021
author: David Graeber
name: James
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/09/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 60652997 Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell.

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex� Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.

Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies� most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.]]> 481 Leigh Bardugo 1250313104 James 4 4.09 2023
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: James
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/09/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 58571002 544 Paul Kennedy 0300219172 James 4 4.08 2022
author: Paul Kennedy
name: James
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/08/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 18693884 The Freakonomics of math�a math-world superstar unveils the hidden beauty and logic of the world and puts its power in our hands

The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it.

Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion� really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer?

How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God.

Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.� With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.]]> 480 Jordan Ellenberg 1594205221 James 4 3.95 2014
author: Jordan Ellenberg
name: James
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/08/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 6452731
Affirmative action, same-sex marriage, physician-assisted suicide, abortion, national service, the moral limits of markets―Sandel relates the big questions of political philosophy to the most vexing issues of the day, and shows how a surer grasp of philosophy can help us make sense of politics, morality, and our own convictions as well.

Justice is lively, thought-provoking, and wise―an essential new addition to the small shelf of books that speak convincingly to the hard questions of our civic life.]]> 308 Michael J. Sandel 0374180652 James 4 4.30 2007
author: Michael J. Sandel
name: James
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/31
shelves:
review:

]]> 12814594 Soldier boys emerged from the darkness. Guns gleamed dully. Bullet bandoliers and scars draped their bare chests. Ugly brands scored their faces. She knew why these soldier boys had come. She knew what they sought, and she knew, too, that if they found it, her best friend would surely die.

In a dark future America where violence, terror, and grief touch everyone, young refugees Mahlia and Mouse have managed to leave behind the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities by escaping into the jungle outskirts. But when they discover a wounded half-man--a bioengineered war beast named Tool--who is being hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers, their fragile existence quickly collapses. One is taken prisoner by merciless soldier boys, and the other is faced with an impossible decision: Risk everything to save a friend, or flee to a place where freedom might finally be possible.

This thrilling companion to Paolo Bacigalupi's highly acclaimed Ship Breaker is a haunting and powerful story of loyalty, survival, and heart-pounding adventure.]]> 437 Paolo Bacigalupi 0316056243 James 4 3.88 2012
author: Paolo Bacigalupi
name: James
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 26159745
She thinks she knows who she is.

She is wrong.

A routine salvage mission uncovers evidence of a terrible crime and relics of powerful ancient technology. Haimey and her small crew run afoul of pirates at the outer limits of the Milky Way, and find themselves on the run and in possession of universe-changing information.

When authorities prove corrupt, Haimey realizes that she is the only one who can protect her galaxy-spanning civilization from the implications of this ancient technology—and the revolutionaries who want to use it for terror and war. Her quest will take her careening from the event horizon of the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s core to the infinite, empty spaces at its edge.

To save everything that matters, she will need to uncover the secrets of ancient intelligences lost to time—and her own lost secrets, which she will wish had remained hidden from her forever.]]> 512 Elizabeth Bear 1473208742 James 4 3.69 2019
author: Elizabeth Bear
name: James
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 11967240 “Newton's contribution is as cogent an inventory of Eisenhower's White House years as I've ever read. He blends masterful writing with historic detail and provides the value-added of Ike as the man and the leader.�
—Chuck Hagel,ĚýDistinguished Professor, Georgetown University; U.S. Senator (1997â€�2009)

Newly discovered and declassified documents make for a surprising and revealing portrait of the president we thought we knew.

America’s thirty-fourth president was belittled by his critics as the babysitter-in-chief. This new look reveals how wrong they were. Dwight Eisenhower was bequeathed the atomic bomb and refused to use it. He ground down Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism until both became, as he said, "McCarthywasm." He stimulated the economy to lift it from recession, built an interstate highway system, turned an $8 billion deficit in 1953 into a $500 million surplus in 1960. (Ike was the last President until Bill Clinton to leave his country in the black.)

The President Eisenhower of popular imagination is a benign figure, armed with a putter, a winning smile, and little else. The Eisenhower of veteran journalist Jim Newton's rendering is shrewd, sentimental, and tempestuous. He mourned the death of his first son and doted on his grandchildren but could, one aide recalled, "peel the varnish off a desk" with his temper. Mocked as shallow and inarticulate, he was in fact a meticulous manager. Admired as a general, he was a champion of peace. In Korea and Vietnam, in Quemoy and Berlin, his generals urged him to wage nuclear war. Time and again he considered the idea and rejected it. And it was Eisenhower who appointed the liberal justices Earl Warren and William Brennan and who then called in the military to enforce desegregation in the schools.

Rare interviews, newly discovered records, and fresh insights undergird this gripping and timely narrative.

JIM NEWTON is a veteran journalist who began his career as clerk to James Reston at the New York Times. Since then, he has worked as a reporter at the Atlanta Constitution and as a reporter, bureau chief and editor at the Los Angeles Times, where he presently is the editor-at-large and author of a weekly column. He also is an educator and author, whose acclaimed biography of Chief Justice Earl Warren, Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made, was published in 2006. He lives in Pasadena, CA.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 464 Jim Newton 038552353X James 4 4.06 2011
author: Jim Newton
name: James
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 60321392
N amed a New York Times Notable Book and a Best Book of the Year by The Economist , Oprah Daily, BookPage, Book Riot, the New York Public Library, and more!

In The Song of the Cell , the extraordinary author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Emperor of All Maladies and the #1 New York Times bestseller The Gene “blends cutting-edge research, impeccable scholarship, intrepid reporting, and gorgeous prose into an encyclopedic study that reads like a literary page-turner� ( Oprah Daily ).

Mukherjee begins this magnificent story in the late 1600s, when a distinguished English polymath, Robert Hooke, and an eccentric Dutch cloth-merchant, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek looked down their handmade microscopes. What they saw introduced a radical concept that swept through biology and medicine, touching virtually every aspect of the two sciences, and altering both forever. It was the fact that complex living organisms are assemblages of tiny, self-contained, self-regulating units. Our organs, our physiology, our selves—hearts, blood, brains—are built from these compartments. Hooke christened them � cells. �

The discovery of cells—and the reframing of the human body as a cellular ecosystem—announced the birth of a new kind of medicine based on the therapeutic manipulations of cells. A hip fracture, a cardiac arrest, Alzheimer’s dementia, AIDS, pneumonia, lung cancer, kidney failure, arthritis, COVID pneumonia—all could be reconceived as the results of cells, or systems of cells, functioning abnormally. And all could be perceived as loci of cellular therapies.

Filled with writing so vivid, lucid, and suspenseful that complex science becomes thrilling, The Song of the Cell tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, and are now using that knowledge to create new humans. Told in six parts, and laced with Mukherjee’s own experience as a researcher, a doctor, and a prolific reader, The Song of the Cell is both panoramic and intimate—a masterpiece on what it means to be human.

“In an account both lyrical and capacious, Mukherjee takes us through an evolution of human from the seventeenth-century discovery that humans are made up of cells to our cutting-edge technologies for manipulating and deploying cells for therapeutic purposes� ( The New Yorker).]]> 473 Siddhartha Mukherjee 1982117354 James 4 4.25 2022
author: Siddhartha Mukherjee
name: James
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 3131556 80 Jay Parini 1428262555 James 5 5.00 2008
author: Jay Parini
name: James
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/07/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 75310020 35 Pierre Fleury James 3 3.00
author: Pierre Fleury
name: James
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/07/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 61195585
The culmination of almost forty years at the highest levels of policymaking and scholarship, Grand Delusion is Steven Simon’s tour de force, offering a comprehensive and deeply informed account of U.S. engagement in the Middle East. Simon begins with the Reagan administration, when American perception of the region shifted from a cluster of faraway and frequently skirmishing nations to a shining, urgent opportunity for America to (in Reagan’s words) “serve the cause of world peace and the future of mankind.�

Reagan fired the starting gun on decades of deepening American involvement, but as the global economy grew, bringing an increasing reliance on oil, U.S. diplomatic and military energies were ever more fatefully absorbed by the Middle East. Grand Delusion explores the motivations, strategies, and shortcomings of each presidential administration from Reagan to today, exposing a web of intertwined events—from the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict amid Israeli domestic politics, Cold War rivalries, and Saudi Arabia’s quest for security, to 9/11 and the war on terror—managed by a Washington policy process frequently ruled by wishful thinking and partisan politics.

Simon’s sharp sense of irony and incisive writing brings complex history to life. He illuminates the motives behind America's commitment to Israel; explodes the popular narrative of Desert Storm as a “good war�; and calls out the devastating consequences of our mistakes, particularly for people of the region trapped by the onslaught of American military action and pitiless economic sanctions.

Grand Delusion reveals that this story, while episodically impressive, has too often been tragic and at times dishonorable. As we enter a new era in foreign policy, this is an essential book, a cautionary history that illuminates American's propensity for self-deception and misadventure at a moment when the nation is redefining its engagement with a world in crisis.]]> 496 Steven Simon 0735224242 James 3 3.98
author: Steven Simon
name: James
average rating: 3.98
book published:
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/06/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 59215936
¿Por qué utilizo las expresiones "Integrando", "Integrar"? Bueno, “Integración� es una palabra que comúnmente se define como “el proceso de combinar piezas diversas en un todo, en una sola unidad�, lo cual, en última instancia, es de lo que trata esta regresar a nuestro verdadero hogar, a quienes realmente somos, vinculando los diversos aspectos que nos configuran, desde nuestros orígenes y a nuestro paso por la vida. En la Introducción de este manual te comentaré, a partir de mi enfoque, cómo el lograr esto, de manera consciente y respetuosa, representa una de las bases más importantes de nuestra salud y bienestar psicoló nuestra COHERENCIA.

En cuanto al objetivo específico de este 3er manual, partimos de la comprensión del ímpetu de nuestro ENOJO/IRA, la “emoción coherente� que nos exige accionar de manera enérgica y enfocada, a favor de lo que es justo, digno y/o intensamente requerido, en cada situación retadora que irrespeta y/o violenta nuestro territorio, integridad, dignidad, o que nos aprisiona o frustra.

Para elaborar internamente estas situaciones, tienes los primeros 3 capítulos dedicados a reflexiones sobre los conceptos básicos relacionados, y luego tienes el PASO A PASO del capítulo 4 que guiará tus prácticas.

Espero que esta lectura pueda representar un aporte significativo para sugerir a mis lectores emprender la tarea profundamente sanadora de reconocer aspectos importantes de nuestra naturaleza elemental, comprender nuestros apegos y otras tendencias básicas, respetar nuestros tiempos y procesos de cambio interno, y desde allí elegir y crear nuestro modo de vida de manera cada vez más sintiente, consciente, genuina y plena.]]> 174 Psic Montse Hurtado Cancini James 4 4.50
author: Psic Montse Hurtado Cancini
name: James
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/06/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 35629744
The 21st century has been hailed as the Age of Networks. However, in The Square and the Tower, Niall Ferguson argues that networks have always been with us, from the structure of the brain to the food chain, from the family tree to freemasonry. Throughout history, hierarchies housed in high towers have claimed to rule, but often real power has resided in the networks in the town square below. For it is networks that tend to innovate. And it is through networks that revolutionary ideas can contagiously spread. Just because conspiracy theorists like to fantasize about such networks doesn't mean they are not real.

From the cults of ancient Rome to the dynasties of the Renaissance, from the founding fathers to Facebook, The Square and the Tower tells the story of the rise, fall and rise of networks, and shows how network theory--concepts such as clustering, degrees of separation, weak ties, contagions and phase transitions--can transform our understanding of both the past and the present.

Just as The Ascent of Money put Wall Street into historical perspective, so The Square and the Tower does the same for Silicon Valley. And it offers a bold prediction about which hierarchies will withstand this latest wave of network disruption--and which will be toppled.]]> 592 Niall Ferguson 0735222916 James 4 3.61 2017
author: Niall Ferguson
name: James
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/05/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 21413662 xkcd comic ask Munroe a lot of strange questions: What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there was a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last? What if everyone only had one soulmate? What would happen if the moon went away?

In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations, and consults with nuclear reactor operators. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, complemented by his signature xkcd comics. (They often predict the complete annihilation of humankind, or at least a really big explosion.)

In celebration of 10 years of unusual insight, Randall Munroe has revised his classic blockbuster to ask what if? x 10. The result is 10x the adventure of scientific inquiry. Featuring brand-new 2-color annotations and illustrations, this special anniversary edition is far more than a book for geeks, What If? explains the laws of science in operation in a way that every intelligent reader will enjoy and feel much smarter for having read.]]> 303 Randall Munroe 0544272994 James 4 4.13 2014
author: Randall Munroe
name: James
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/04/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 58985601 The world's leading economist of inequality presents a short but sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding. A perfect introduction to the ideas developed in his monumental earlier books.

It's easy to be pessimistic about inequality. We know it has increased dramatically in many parts of the world over the past two generations. No one has done more to reveal the problem than Thomas Piketty. Now, in this surprising and powerful new work, Piketty reminds us that the grand sweep of history gives us reasons to be optimistic. Over the centuries, he shows, we have been moving toward greater equality.

Piketty guides us with elegance and concision through the great movements that have made the modern world for better and worse: the growth of capitalism, revolutions, imperialism, slavery, wars, and the building of the welfare state. It's a history of violence and social struggle, punctuated by regression and disaster. But through it all, Piketty shows, human societies have moved fitfully toward a more just distribution of income and assets, a reduction of racial and gender inequalities, and greater access to health care, education, and the rights of citizenship. Our rough march forward is political and ideological, an endless fight against injustice. To keep moving, Piketty argues, we need to learn and commit to what works, to institutional, legal, social, fiscal, and educational systems that can make equality a lasting reality. At the same time, we need to resist historical amnesia and the temptations of cultural separatism and intellectual compartmentalization. At stake is the quality of life for billions of people. We know we can do better, Piketty concludes. The past shows us how. The future is up to us.]]> 288 Thomas Piketty 0674273559 James 4 3.95 2021
author: Thomas Piketty
name: James
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/04/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 56668328 An exploration of how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war

AĚýNew York Times Book Review Editorsâ€� Choice

In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history.
Ěý
Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the “Bomber Mafia,â€� asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal? Ěý
Ěý
In contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion. In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, “Was it worth it?�
Ěý
Things might have gone differently had LeMay’s predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war.]]> 256 Malcolm Gladwell 0316296619 James 3 3.98 2021
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: James
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/04/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 60321498
Penric and Desdemona are back in three novellas from Grand Master Lois McMaster Bujold.

Masquerade in Lodi

Bastard’s Eve is a night of celebration for most residents in the canal city of Lodi—but not for sorcerer Learned Penric and his Temple demon Desdemona, who find themselves caught up in the affairs of a shiplost madman, a dangerous ascendant demon, and a very unexpected saint of the fifth god.

The Orphans of Raspay

When the ship in which they are traveling is captured by Carpagamon island raiders, Temple sorcerer Penric and his resident demon Desdemona find their life complicated by two young orphans, Lencia and Seuka Corva, who are far from home and searching for their missing father. Pen and Des will need all their combined talents of mind and magic to unravel the mysteries of the sisters and escape from the pirate stronghold.

The Physicians of Vilnoc

When a mysterious plague breaks out in the army fort guarding Vilnoc, the port capital of the duchy of Orbas, Temple sorcerer Penric and his demon Desdemona are called upon by General Arisaydia to resurrect Penric’s medical skills and solve its lethal riddle. In the grueling days that follow, Pen will find that even his magic is not enough to meet the challenges without help from dedicated new colleagues—and the god of mischance.

Also includes a new introduction, "outroduction," and suggested reading order by Lois McMaster Bujold!

Praise for the Penric & Desdemona

“Lord Penric, Pen to his friends and Penric to others, is a fabulous character. He's got a serious problem; he's never been trained to handle so he's doing the best he can. This ruffles the feathers or exasperates the other characters that he comes in contact with throughout the story. There's tension, danger, humor, and some interesting insights into various human traits.� � SFRevu

“Another thoroughly engaging entry in the Penric and Desdemona series. There are some truly interesting new characters, a medical mystery to be solved, lots of great dialogue, and some philosophical issues to think about when you finish the story. What could be better?� � SFRevu

“An engaging revisitation of the world of the Five Gods. Another felicitous combination of formerly told tales, again meshing masterfully (mistressfully?)� —Seattle Book Review

“[F]illed with a satisfying blend of strong characters and wry humor.� � Publishers Weekly

“Fans of fantasy with clever, innocent underdog characters will root for Penric to beat the odds and hope to visit him and his demon again.� � Booklist

“Bujold’s fans will be delighted with this latest adventure featuring Penric and his resident demon.� � Booklist

“Bujold continues to expand her "Five Gods" world, reviving familiar faces along the way. The fascinating relationship between Penric and Desdemona is especially fun.� � Library Journal

“Bujold's many faithful readers will delight in this engaging blend of mystery and magic.� � Library Journal

“Changing points of view make earlier chapters a little challenging, but strong secondary characters and Bujold's amazing worldbuilding will please readers of this swift-paced series.� � Library Journal

“Fast action and dialog create a humorous and satisfying story that shows the intriguing connection between sorcerer and demon.� —Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Library System

“Bujold's nuanced writing vividly shows the unique relationship between Penric and Desdemona and their journey that continues to grow in action-filled ways.� � Library Journal

“Bujold's fans will appreciate this novella, which returns to her World of the Five Gods and beloved maturing characters.� � Library Journal

Praise for Lois McMaster
“The pace is breathless, the characterization thoughtful and emotionally powerful, and the author's narrative technique and command of language compelling. Highly recommended.� � Booklist

“If you love solid space opera rooted in strong character, you can't go wrong . . . The Warrior's Apprentice already displays the craft and the heart which would soon make Lois McMaster Bujold one of the most feted talents in SF.� � SF Reviews

“Bujold is adept at worldbuilding and provides a witty, character-centered plot, full of exquisite grace notes . . . fans will be thoroughly gripped and likely to finish the book in a single sitting.� � Publishers Weekly on Diplomatic Immunity]]> 336 Lois McMaster Bujold 1982192240 James 4 4.27
author: Lois McMaster Bujold
name: James
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/04/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 60119789 A gripping, behind-the-scenes account of the personalities and contending forces in Tokyo during the volatile decade that led to World War II, as seen through the eyes of the American ambassador who attempted to stop the slide to war.

In 1932, Japan was in crisis. Naval officers had assassinated the prime minister and conspiracies flourished. The military had a stranglehold on the government. War with Russia loomed, and propaganda campaigns swept the country, urging schoolchildren to give money to procure planes and tanks.

Into this maelstrom stepped Joseph C. Grew, America’s most experienced and talented diplomat. When Grew was appointed ambassador to Japan, not only was the country in turmoil, its relationship with America was rapidly deteriorating. For the next decade, Grew attempted to warn American leaders about the risks of Japan’s raging nationalism and rising militarism, while also trying to stabilize Tokyo’s increasingly erratic and volatile foreign policy. From domestic terrorism by Japanese extremists to the global rise of Hitler and the fateful attack on Pearl Harbor, the events that unfolded during Grew’s tenure proved to be pivotal for Japan, and for the world. His dispatches from the darkening heart of the Japanese empire would prove prescient—for his time, and for our own.

Drawing on Grew’s diary of his time in Tokyo as well as U.S. embassy correspondence, diplomatic dispatches, and firsthand Japanese accounts, Our Man in Tokyo brings to life a man who risked everything to avert another world war, the country where he staked it all—and the abyss that swallowed it.]]> 424 Steve Kemper 0358064740 James 4 4.35 2022
author: Steve Kemper
name: James
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/03/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 60190659
The millions of people around the world who read and loved What If? still have questions, and those questions are getting stranger. Thank goodness xkcd creator Randall Munroe is here to help. Planning to ride a fire pole from the moon back to Earth? The hardest part is sticking the landing. Hoping to cool the atmosphere by opening everyone’s freezer door at the same time? Maybe it’s time for a brief introduction to thermodynamics. Want to know what would happen if you rode a helicopter blade, built a billion-story building, made a lava lamp out of lava, or jumped on a geyser as it erupted? Okay, if you insist.

Before you go on a cosmic road trip, feed the residents of New York City to a T. rex, or fill every church with bananas, be sure to consult this practical guide for impractical ideas. Unfazed by absurdity, Randall consults the latest research on everything from swing-set physics to airplane-catapult design to clearly and concisely answer his readers� questions. As he consistently demonstrates, you can learn a lot from examining how the world might work in very specific extreme circumstances.

Filled with bonkers science, boundless curiosity, and Randall’s signature stick-figure comics, What If? 2 is sure to be another instant classic adored by inquisitive readers of all ages.]]> 354 Randall Munroe 0525537112 James 5 4.35 2022
author: Randall Munroe
name: James
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/03/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 58950736 From a New York Times investigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist, “an essential book for our times� (Ezra Klein), tracking the high-stakes inside story of how Big Tech’s breakneck race to drive engagement—and profits—at all costs fractured the world

We all have a vague sense that social media is bad for our minds, for our children, and for our democracies. But the truth is that its reach and impact run far deeper than we have understood. Building on years of international reporting, Max Fisher tells the gripping and galling inside story of how Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social networks, in their pursuit of unfettered profits, preyed on psychological frailties to create the algorithms that drive everyday users to extreme opinions and, increasingly, extreme actions. As Fisher demonstrates, the companies� founding tenets, combined with a blinkered focus maximizing engagement, have led to a destabilized world for everyone.

Traversing the planet, Fisher tracks the ubiquity of hate speech and its spillover into violence, ills that first festered in far-off locales to their dark culmination in America during the pandemic, the 2020 election, and the Capitol Insurrection. Through it all, the social-media giants refused to intervene in any meaningful way, claiming to champion free speech when in fact what they most prized were limitless profits. The result, as Fisher shows, is a cultural shift toward a world in which people are polarized not by beliefs based on facts, but by misinformation, outrage, and fear.

His narrative is about more than the villains, however. Fisher also weaves together the stories of the heroic outsiders and Silicon Valley defectors who raised the alarm and revealed what was happening behind the closed doors of Big Tech. Both panoramic and intimate, The Chaos Machine is the definitive account of the meteoric rise and troubled legacy of the tech titans, as well as a rousing and hopeful call to arrest the havoc wreaked on our minds and our world before it’s too late.]]> 400 Max Fisher 031670332X James 5 4.27 2022
author: Max Fisher
name: James
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/03/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 60141696 From award-winning, New York Times bestselling historian Adam Hochschild, a fast-paced, revelatory new account of a pivotal but neglected period in American history: World War I and its stormy aftermath, when bloodshed and repression on the home front nearly doomed American democracy.

The nation was on the brink. Angry mobs burned Black churches to the ground and chased down pacifists and immigrants. Well over a thousand men and women were jailed solely for what they had written or said, even in private. An astonishing 250,000 people joined a nationwide vigilante group—sponsored by the Department of Justice.

This was America during and after the Great War: a brief but appalling era blighted by torture, censorship, and killings. Adam Hochschild brings to life this troubled period, which stretched from 1917 to 1921, through the interwoven tales of a colorful cast of characters: some well-known, among them the sphinxlike Woodrow Wilson and the ambitious young bureaucrat J. Edgar Hoover; others less familiar, such as the fiery antiwar advocate Kate Richards O’Hare and the outspoken Leo Wendell, a labor radical who was frequently arrested and wholly trusted by his comrades—but who was in fact Hoover’s star undercover agent.

A groundbreaking work of narrative history, American Midnight recalls these horrifying yet inspiring four years, when some brave Americans strove to keep their fractured country democratic, while ruthless others stimulated toxic currents of racism, nativism, red-baiting, and contempt for the rule of law—poisons that feel ominously familiar today.]]> 422 Adam Hochschild 0358455464 James 4 4.16 2022
author: Adam Hochschild
name: James
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/02/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 56897489
From an acclaimed New York Times bestselling biographer, an “eloquently written, impeccably researched, and intensely moving� ( The Wall Street Journal ) reassessment of Abraham Lincoln’s indispensable Secretary of the Treasury: a leading proponent for black rights during his years in cabinet and later as Chief Justice of the United States.

Salmon P. Chase is best remembered as a rival of Lincoln’s for the Republican nomination in 1860—but there would not have been a national Republican Party, and Lincoln could not have won the presidency, were it not for the groundwork Chase laid over the previous two decades. Starting in the early 1840s, long before Lincoln was speaking out against slavery, Chase was forming and leading antislavery parties. He represented fugitive slaves so often in his law practice that he was known as the attorney general for runaway negroes.

Tapped by Lincoln to become Secretary of the Treasury, Chase would soon prove vital to the Civil War effort, raising the billions of dollars that allowed the Union to win the war while also pressing the president to recognize black rights. When Lincoln had the chance to appoint a chief justice in 1864, he chose his faithful rival because he was sure Chase would make the right decisions on the difficult racial, political, and economic issues the Supreme Court would confront during Reconstruction.

Drawing on previously overlooked sources, Walter Stahr offers a “revelatory� ( The Christian Science Monitor ) new look at the pivotal events of the Civil War and its aftermath, and a “superb� (James McPherson), “magisterial� (Amanda Foreman) account of a complex forgotten man at the center of the fight for racial justice in 19th century America.]]> 832 Walter Stahr 1501199234 James 5 4.10 2022
author: Walter Stahr
name: James
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/02/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 54614037 225 Michio Kaku 0385542747 James 0 4.05 2021
author: Michio Kaku
name: James
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 55959465 Based on genealogical breakthroughs and previously unreleased records, this is the first book to explore the inspiring story of the poor Irish refugee couple who escaped famine, created a life together in a city hostile to Irish, immigrants, and Catholics, and launched the Kennedy dynasty in America.

Their Irish ancestry was a hallmark of the Kennedys� initial political profile, as JFK leveraged his working-class roots to connect with blue-collar voters. Today, we remember this iconic American family as the vanguard of wealth, power, and style rather than as the descendants of poor immigrants. Here at last, we meet the first American Kennedys, Patrick and Bridget, who arrived as many thousands of others did following the Great Famine—penniless and hungry. Less than a decade after their marriage in Boston, Patrick’s sudden death left Bridget to raise their children single-handedly. Her rise from housemaid to shop owner in the face of rampant poverty and discrimination kept her family intact, allowing her only son P.J. to become a successful saloon owner and businessman. P.J. went on to become the first American Kennedy elected to public office—the first of many.

Written by the grandson of an Irish immigrant couple and based on first-ever access to P.J. Kennedy’s private papers, The First Kennedys is a story of sacrifice and survival, resistance and reinvention: an American story.]]> 352 Neal Thompson 0358437695 James 4 3.72 2022
author: Neal Thompson
name: James
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/01/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 58401338 176 Cynthia Tucker 158838456X James 5 3.89
author: Cynthia Tucker
name: James
average rating: 3.89
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/01/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 59580653
Leigh Welles has not set foot on the island in years, but when she finds herself called home from a disappointing life on the Scottish mainland by her father’s unexpected death, she is determined to forget the sorrows of the past—her mother’s abandonment, her brother’s icy distance, the unspeakable tragedy of World War II—and start fresh. Fellow islander Iain MacTavish, a RAF veteran with his eyes on the sky and his head in the past is also in desperate need of a new beginning. A young widower, Iain struggles to return to the normal life he knew before the war.ĚýĚý

But this October is anything but normal. This October, the sluagh are restless. The ominous, bird-like creatures of Celtic legend—whispered to carry the souls of the dead—have haunted the islanders for decades, but in the war’s wake, there are more wandering souls and more slaugh. When a local boy disappears, Leigh and Iain are thrown together to investigate the truth at the island’s dark heart and reveal hidden secrets of their own.Ěý


Rich with historical detail and a skillful speculative edge, Emma Seckel’s propulsive and pulse-pounding debut The Wild Hunt unwinds long-held tales of love, loss, and redemption.Ěý]]> 351 Emma Seckel 1953534228 James 0 3.71 2022
author: Emma Seckel
name: James
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 35638743 A sweeping history of nineteenth-century Britain by one of the world’s most respected historians.

To live in nineteenth-century Britain was to experience an astonishing and unprecedented series of changes. Cities grew vast; there were revolutions in transportation, communication, science, and work–all while a growing religious skepticism rendered the intellectual landscape increasingly unrecognizable. It was an exhilarating time, and as a result, most of the countries in the world that experienced these changes were racked by political and social unrest. Britain, however, maintained a stable polity at home, and as a result it quickly found itself in a position of global leadership.

In this major new work, leading historian David Cannadine has created a bold, fascinating new interpretation of nineteenth-century Britain. Britain was a country that saw itself at the summit of the world and, by some measures, this was indeed true. It had become the largest empire in history: its political stability positioned it as the leader of the new global economy and allowed it to construct the largest navy ever built. And yet it was also a society permeated with doubt, fear, and introspection. Repeatedly, politicians and writers felt themselves to be staring into the abyss and what is seen as an era of irritating self-belief was in fact obsessed with its own fragility, whether as a great power or as a moral force. Victorious Century is a comprehensive and extraordinarily stimulating history–its author catches the relish, humor and staginess of the age, but also the dilemmas faced by Britain’s citizens, ones we remain familiar with today.]]> 602 David Cannadine 052555789X James 5 3.63 2017
author: David Cannadine
name: James
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/01/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 43252645 From Hugo Award-winning editor Neil Clarke, the best science fiction stories of the year are collected in a single hardcover volume.

From Hugo Award-winning editor Neil Clarke, the best science fiction stories of the year are collected in a single hardcover volume.

Keeping up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more—a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, a yearly anthology compiled by Hugo and World Fantasy Award–winning editor Neil Clarke, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Clarke, publisher and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed and award-winning magazine Clarkesworld, has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year’s writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome “sensawunda� that the genre has to offer.]]> 624 Neil Clarke 1949102084 James 3 3.12 2019
author: Neil Clarke
name: James
average rating: 3.12
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/01/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 39863371 For the first time in a decade, a compilation of the very best in science fiction, from a world authority on the genre.

For decades, the Year's Best Science Fiction has been the most widely read short science fiction anthology of its kind. Now, after thirty-five annual collections. comes the ultimate in science fiction anthologies. In The Very Best of the Best, legendary editor Gardner Dozois selects the finest short stories for this landmark collection.

Contents
The Potter of Bones / Eleanor Arnason
Rogue Farm / Charles Stross
The Little Goddess / Ian McDonald
Dead Men Walking / Paul McAuley
Tin Marsh / Michael Swanwick
Good Mountain / Robert Reed
Where the Golden Apples Grow / Kage Baker
The Sledge-maker's Daughter / Alastair Reynolds
Glory / Greg Egan
Finisterra / David Moles
The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm / Daryl Gregory
Utriusque Cosmi / Robert Charles Wilson
Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance / John Kessel
Useless Things / Maureen McHugh
Mongoose / Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear
Hair / Adam Roberts
The Things / Peter Watts
The Emperor of Mars / Allen M. Steele
Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain / Yoon Ha Lee
Martian Heart / John Barnes
The Invasion of Venus / Stephen Baxter
Weep for Day / Indrapramit Das
The Girl-thing Who Went Out for Sushi / Pat Cadigan
The Memcordist / Lavie Tidhar
The Best We Can / Carrie Vaughn
The Discovered Country / Ian R. MacLeod
Pathways / Nancy Kress
The Hand Is Quicker ... / Elizabeth Bear
Someday / James Patrick Kelly
The Long Haul, From the Annals of Transportation, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009 / Ken Liu
Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight / Aliette De Bodard
Calved / Sam J. Miller
Emergence / Gwyneth Jones
Rates of Change / James S.A. Corey
Jonas and the Fox / Rich Larson
Kit: Some Assembly Required / Kathe Koja and Carter Scholz
Winter Timeshare / Ray Nayler
My English Name / R.S. Benedict]]> 704 Gardner Dozois 1250296196 James 4 3.76 2019
author: Gardner Dozois
name: James
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/01/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 58394774
Last Call at the Hotel Imperial is the extraordinary story of John Gunther, H. R. Knickerbocker, Vincent Sheean, and Dorothy Thompson. In those tumultuous years, they landed exclusive interviews with Hitler and Mussolini, Nehru and Gandhi, and helped shape what Americans knew about the world. Alongside these backstage glimpses into the halls of power, they left another equally incredible set of records. Living in the heady afterglow of Freud, they subjected themselves to frank, critical scrutiny and argued about love, war, sex, death, and everything in between.

Plunged into successive global crises, Gunther, Knickerbocker, Sheean, and Thompson could no longer separate themselves from the turmoil that surrounded them. To tell that story, they broke long-standing taboos. From their circle came not just the first modern account of illness in Gunther's Death Be Not Proud--a memoir about his son's death from cancer--but the first no-holds-barred chronicle of a marriage: Sheean's Dorothy and Red, about Thompson's fractious relationship with Sinclair Lewis.

Told with the immediacy of a conversation overheard, this revelatory book captures how the global upheavals of the twentieth century felt up close.]]> 557 Deborah Cohen 0525511199 James 3 3.73 2022
author: Deborah Cohen
name: James
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2022/12/18
shelves:
review:

]]>