Tag: history

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#BookReview: A Small Farm Future by Chris Smaje

Wildly … Imaginative… Reasoning, Close Yet Still Incorrect Conclusion. Most any math teacher (even former ones like myself) have stories of situations where when told to “show their work”, a student somehow has so-incorrect-as-to-nearly-be-incomprehensible reasoning, but somehow still manages to wind up at an answer that is close but still not quite correct. Maybe a decimal point in the wrong position, but the right actual digits in the right sequence, for example. Another example relevant here would be a space mission to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa that somehow launches when Jupiter is at its furthest point from Earth and launches away from Jupiter (or any reasonable path to the planet) to boot… and yet still manages to wind up on Callisto – another of the Galilean Moons of Jupiter with similar properties, though not the originally intended target and not as rich in desired attributes for the science aboard the mission.

This is effectively what Smaje has done here. More conservative readers may not make it even halfway into the first chapter, which is little more than a *very* thinly veiled anti-capitalist diatribe. Even more liberal/ progressive readers will have some tough pills to swallow with Smaje’s ardent defense of at least some forms of private property as the chief means of achieving his goals. And at the end, Smaje does in fact manage to do at least some version of what he sets out to do – make some level of a case for A Small Farm Future. The case Smaje makes here is indeed intriguing, despite being so deeply flawed, and absolutely worthy of further examination and discussion. It seems that he is simply too blinded by his own political and philosophical backgrounds to truly make the case as it arguably should have been made. Recommended.

This review of A Small Farm Future by Chris Smaje was originally written on August 26, 2020.

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#BookReview: Mill Town by Kerri Arsenault

MEmoir/ History / Political Treatise… all in one package. I’ll be honest, I picked up this book thinking it would be a bit closer to my own history of being in and around a mill town. In my case, the actual mill town was, by my time – roughly when Arsenault was graduating HS – , just a neighborhood of a larger County seat town it was founded just outside of around the same time as the mill Arsenault writes about. I know what it is like to live in such an area and have the mill be such an important aspect of your life, and I was expecting a bit more of an examination of that side of life. Which is NOT what we get here. Instead, we get much more of the specific familial and mill history of Arsenault and this particular mill and its alleged past and current environmental misdeeds. We even get a screed against Nestle along the way, and even a few notes of misandrist feminism. Also quite a bit of heaping of anti-capitalist diatribe, all tied up in Arsenault’s own complicated emotions of being someone who cares about her home town, but who it was never enough for. (The exact dichotomy I was hoping would have been explored directly far more than it actually was, fwiw, as that is exactly what I struggle with myself.) Overall, your mileage may vary on this book depending on just how ardent you are in your own political beliefs and just how much they coincide with Arsenault’s own, but there was nothing here to really hang a reason on for detracting from the star level of the review, and hence it gets the full 5* even as I disagreed with so much of it and was so heavily disappointed that it didn’t go the direction I had hoped. Recommended.

This review of Mill Town by Kerri Arsenault was originally written on August 11, 2020.

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#BookReview: Members Club by Piet Hoebeke

Factual Overview Of The Penis. This book, written by a Belgian urologist, has a bit of everything when it comes to factual information about the penis. We’ve got history. We’ve got biomechanics. We’ve got anatomy. We’ve got medical recommendations for a wide range of topics related to the penis from basic hygiene to STDs and when to seek further consultation. If you’ve ever wanted to know really most anything about the penis, this is the book you should probably look to if you don’t already have some degree of academic knowledge of it. Seemingly comprehensive, though the version I read (nearly 5 months before actual publication) didn’t have much of a bibliography at all – just about 5% of this text, vs closer to 25% of an average nonfiction text. Still, Dr. Hoebeke mostly relies on his own decades of experience and appears generally authoritative – at least in a general sense – even without the extensive bibliography (which may yet be added between the date I write this review in early July 2020 and the date of publication in early November 2020). Very much recommended.

This review of Members Club by Piet Hoebeke was originally written on July 8, 2020.

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#BookReview: Last Mission To Tokyo by Michel Paradis

Slightly Misleading Title, Solid History. If you’re looking for a history of the actual Doolittle Raid… this isn’t it. Instead, this focuses on the 1946 war crimes trial of the Japanese officials implicated in murdering four of the Raiders after their capture in China following the raid in 1942 and subsequent conviction in a kangaroo court. But for what it is, this is truly a remarkable story that brings to life a part of history I personally had never so much as heard about. Paradis notes in the afterword that upon researching what was originally supposed to be a more straightforward legal analysis, he realized that he needed to change the focus to be a historical narrative fit for a wider audience, and in that new goal this reader can confirm that he did particularly well. Yes, Paradis is a miliary lawyer historian by trade, and this particular background comes through quite blatantly in the text, but it is never so full of jargon from any of those parts of his background as to be incomprehensible to the wider audience only cursorily aware of those subjects. Very much recommended.

This review of Last Mission To Tokyo by Michel Paradis was originally written on July 5, 2020.

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#BookReview: Political Junkies by Claire Bond Potter

Solid Discussion Of Sometimes Obscure History. Full disclosure up front: As a former political blogger who was an organizer of one of the Tea Party events (before the professionals got involved) and as both a Party Official (for the Libertarian Party, at both local and State levels) and Candidate (for City Council in a town encompassing an area just four square miles), I actively participated in some of the history Potter discusses here. Though quite a bit of it was before I was born – she begins her discussion in the 1950s, before even my parents were born, and I would come along during Ronald Reagan’s first term as US President but not become truly politically active until November 5, 2008.

But even as someone with the aforementioned background, even as someone who once had a very high level of behind the scenes access within at least State level politics of at least one State, this truly seems like a comprehensive and accurate history of how we got to where we now find ourselves as Americans relating to politics through media. Potter has done a remarkable job of showing how various movements and moments played on and into each other, building on and around prior and contemporary techniques to go from a dude in his garage just trying to present news the Big 3 weren’t to the modern era of ubiquitous cameras and Deep Fake technology. Though actual Deep Fake tech is one area Potter doesn’t *truly* get into, likely as it hasn’t been shown to be actually active in political circles in the US. Yet. Truly an excellent work, and anyone who is interested in why we are as fractured as we are as a populace would do well to read this to at least know how we got here from an alternative media side. If you’re discussing regulation of social media or complaining about the vitriol far too many online discussions turn to, read here to find out how we got to this point – and a couple of passing ideas on how we can do a little better. Very much recommended.

This review of Political Junkies by Claire Bond Potter was originally written on July 4, 2020.

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#BookReview: Prisoners Of Geography by Tim Marshall

Interesting Concepts. Marshall presents an interesting case of geopolitics from a geographical perspective, and while quite a bit of it makes perfect sense, there are also times where he presents an idea as perfectly obvious… when it actually isn’t/ wasn’t. For example, he claims that once America gained access to the Pacific Ocean in the 19th century via the Oregon Territory, it was destined to become a great world power simply because it had direct access to both of the world’s great oceans. If it was so perfectly obvious, why did it take another century or so – for this barely century old nation at the time – to achieve such supremacy? But the cases Marshall does make, he makes many interesting points on that even I had never considered, and I consider myself a fairly learned and analytical person. He also does so with great humor, which makes what could have been a much drier, more academic treatise into a much more enjoyable read. So read this thing. It has some good ideas and you’ll be entertained. Just don’t believe every word it says, and keep a critical eye on all things at all times. Recommended.

This review of Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall was originally written on June 29, 2020.

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Featured New Release of the Week: Feeding The People by Rebecca Earle

This week we’re looking at a remarkably well researched novel history. This week, we’re looking at Feeding the People by Rebecca Earle.

This is one of the more novel histories I’ve ever read, whose central point is looking at the Andean Potato as at least a sign, if not a driver at times, of world history through the last several centuries since it was brought to Europe and popularized there post-Columbus. Structurally, it divides its chapters between various ages – Enlightenment, Scientific, Globalization, etc – and examines how potatoes were playing a role in world history during those ages. And it makes some very interesting cases that I personally had never considered, but which largely make sense.

Truly the most remarkable thing about the book though is just how well documented it is – literally 42% of the edition I read was bibliography and index. Considering that more normal documentation rates for even books I generally consider to be well documented are closer to 25-30%, this is exceptional indeed.

For its completeness, its documentation, and yes, its novelty, this is absolutely a very much recommended book.

As always, the Goodreads/ Amazon review:
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Featured New Release of the Week: The Sum of the People by Andrew Whitby

This week we’re looking at a history of the origins and current uses of the census – at the very time the United States Census officially begins. This week, we’re looking at The Sum of Us The People by Andrew Whitby.

I don’t exactly hide the fact that despite reading quite a few books, at heart I’m a numbers and computing guy. And few things get more numeric than efforts to count literally billions of people around the world in the span of just a year or two – the very subject of this book, and efforts that officially began a couple of months ago when this post (and the book it is about) are published. (I sit here writing this post on New Year’s Day 2020, having made this book the first book I read in the year the Census begins in the US.)

And y’all, Whitby does a seemingly excellent job of taking a complex and complicated subject like the modern realities of counting people – particularly when such counts can lead to shifts in power – and boiling it down so that anyone, even those without the mathematical foundations Whitby and I share a portion of, can understand what is happening, why, and why both are important. He states early on that a primary goal is writing a book that can be understood by most anyone, and to me it seems he has done an exemplary job of this.

I might nitpick about his discussions of the beginnings of computing and even the mathematics of statistics as its own field of study (among others), but neither does my own cursory knowledge of those areas allow me to outright refute them. So while I tend to think that he *may* have overstated his case in believing that these things came about due to a need to count people, I cannot be positive of this and his arguments are well documented and worthy of critical examination. (And here, he has provided nearly 25% of this text in notes and bibliography – generally a sign of a very thoroughly researched and presented discussion, in my experience.)

Truly a fascinating book, and one anyone remotely interested in the how or why of a census should read. Very much recommended.

As always, the Amazon/ Goodreads review:
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#BookReview: Did Jesus Rise From The Dead by William Lane Craig

Solid Introduction To The Arguments. This short and easy to read book is a solid introduction to the various arguments on the issue at hand. The only way it is lacking is in that many of these arguments probably need a lot more discussion of their various points and counterpoints and nuances, but that doesn’t seem to be the intent of this particular book. Instead, this book seems more geared to those that are looking for the basics, and is written in exactly that tone – scholarly, yet more of a “fireside chat” and not the hyper dry prose normally reserved for works aimed at fellow academics and particularly those in the same field. Very much recommended.

This review of Did Jesus Rise From the Dead by William Lane Craig was originally written on December 29, 2019.

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#BookReview: Twain’s Feast by Andrew Beahrs

Twain Would Be Proud. This lighthearted yet fascinating look at the life of Mark Twain through the Feast he laid out in one of his books – but never actually ate himself – is a breathtaking. From describing the prairie hens as Twain would have known them (more multitudinous than even the famed bison) to San Francisco as Twain knew it to his beloved Mighty Mississippi. The combination of tales of food and food history with the history and writing of perhaps the world’s first true mega-celebrity is a delight to read, particularly as today is itself Thanksgiving Day 2018.

This review of Twain’s Feast by Andrew Beahrs was originally published on November 22, 2018.