Tag: nonfiction

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#BookReview: Your Data Will Be Used Against You by Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

If You See This Review, You Should Be Terrified. I’m a Xennial. I’ve grown up with computers. The Net first became a public thing when I was 10 yrs old, and within a decade I would complete a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. I’ve known all along that privacy online was more theater than fact, no matter how careful you are – that if it has a computer chip, you’re safer to assume it is tracking you than not, and that someone you may not like will likely be able to access that data.

Even knowing this almost as long as I’ve known anything… Ferguson makes clear just how much worse it actually is, from a legal perspective. *Even in* the United States, where we “supposedly” have 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States rights limiting government searching of our data and how it can use the results of such a search.

While Ferguson doesn’t address at all how very eroded and damn near paper thin those Amendments have become over the last 250 yrs of jurisprudence, he makes it all too crystal clear that the words on the papers haven’t kept up with the actual technical capabilities, and because of this, many of the things that once kept your written words on paper safe or even your words to certain people safe no longer protect you in this digital era *at all*. Indeed, quite the opposite – many of the exceptions to those earlier forms that actively limited what government was allowed to do are instead now the rules that give government nearly unlimited abilities to search your data without even having to get a “warrant” rubber stamped.

Indeed, another of Ferguson’s large points throughout this text is just how little privacy you have *specifically* when a warrant is signed… and he even tosses a point or two in about the “qualifications” needed to be able to sign such a warrant. (There are basically none to be a Magistrate Judge in particular.)

While all of this is utterly terrifying – and Ferguson goes to great lengths to show that this *should* be terrifying no matter your own personal political bent -, Ferguson does actually offer paths forward at every level that could at least begin to alleviate many of the concerns he details. He even goes so far as to note which ones are likely more politically palatable within the current system and which ones would do more to actually alleviate privacy concerns… but which are also far larger hauls in the current political environment.

Overall this is absolutely a book every American should read, and indeed anyone globally who thinks of America as the “land of the free”. Ferguson shows here that this “freedom” is illusory at best, particularly in the current world environment.

Very much recommended.

This review of Your Data Will Be Used Against You by Andrew Guthrie Ferguson was originally written on December 22, 2025.

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#BookReview: The Oldest Rocks On Earth by Simon Lamb

Part Geologic History. Part Memoir. All Intriguing Information. This is one of those books where, like at least one other early reviewer mentioned, it is nearly as much about the author as it is his subject. So for those looking for a book more solidly focused on geology or science, where the author rarely if ever interjects himself into the narrative… know up front that this isn’t that. At all.

Instead what we get is a book where the author has spent a lifetime researching something he is clearly passionate about, one where he has several personal theories he openly admits aren’t shared by all of those in his field, yet also one who has had some very interesting experiences along the way as he was doing his research. This narrative encompasses all of the above and more. We get a lot of deeply scientific detail of how the oldest rocks on Earth formed and how scientists find and study them. We get a lot of stories of the type of “and that is how I wound up being the personal taxi for an entire region when the regional bus failed one day” or “these are the people I was partying with at a remote campsite deep in the African wilderness”. We also get several instances of “these are my personal theories based on my own research and studying the field for a lifetime, but not everyone agrees with me”.

In other words, a fascinating look at a topic that some could consider quite dry indeed, but which Lamb brings to life with both his own life and his passion for the subject. Yes, there is perhaps too much here at times for anyone who knows anything less about this subject than Lamb himself does, but for the most part he really does explain even these concepts well enough that the reader can have at least a rough understanding of them – enough to generally follow along with Lamb’s narrative and story, if not enough to pass any kind of test about them.

No, the only real thing I could find to fault here is the dearth of a bibliography. Yes, I recognize that this tale is at least part memoir, but still, there is enough geology and objective nonfiction here that just 12% bibliography still seems lacking, even if much of the objective nonfiction is based on the author’s own research. But hey, maybe I’m being a touch harsh there. Read the book for yourself and write your own review of it and let the world know either way what you think on that point. 🙂

Overall a truly fascinating book that works as much as a travel memoir as it does as a geologic tale.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Oldest Rocks On Earth by Simon Lamb was originally written on December 18, 2025.

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#BookReview: The Most Awful Responsibility by Alex Wellerstein

Reasonably Well Documented Book Will Force You To Rethink All You Think You Know Of The Post-WWII Era. This is one of those rare history books that actively goes in to not just point out something most people missed about an era and/ or a person, but also goes to show the reader that a lot of what you thought you knew… may not have happened quite the way you think it did.

For example, one of the main points of the early part of the text: You think President Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That was what most textbooks (at least in America) teach, at least lower than say upperclassman history majors at the collegiate level. Except…. Wellerstein shows here – repeatedly – that this wasn’t exactly how that went down. Indeed, Wellerstein uses first hand sources from a few different key people – including Truman himself, where possible – to show that not only was there not one single decision to drop the bombs or where, but that Truman himself likely understood neither the weapon nor the target profile. (Which, let’s face it, both humanizes him a bit more – something Wellerstein is *great* at in this text, for what that’s worth – and should give most of us at least a touch of hope given more recent Presidents and their mental abilities.)

Then, in the period after the bombings, Truman – and the world – realize what has been done… and Truman is personally absolutely horrified. This is where and when the real struggles begin, and the “rest of the story” (as Paul Harvey famously proclaimed for so long) begins. And y’all, this part reads almost like a DC spy thriller/ court drama. High ranking people across several different realms within the US government all seeking to have their vision of the future made manifest, with Truman – and his famous “buck stops here” mantra – the focal point and the one both making decisions and seeking to establish his own preferred path.

Now, with all this lesser known history and with the entire point of the book showing a side of Truman most often ignored by history and historians, some may argue that this necessistates application of the Sagan Standard -that these are extraordinary claims that thus require extraordinary evidence. From my reading here and my understanding of both this text and the relevant histories as I know them, I don’t think this is true. This is a bit of a bombshell, yes, but is also fits pretty squarely in with known histories, it simply illuminates lesser known corners of those histories more properly. Thus, for me, the roughly 20% bibliography here sufficiently establishes a reasonable amount of documentation, and the frequent citations of the diaries and memoirs of those directly involved show the depth of research Wellerstein was able to bring to the table here.

Overall a very well written text that will completely rewrite your understanding of the post-WWII period as it relates to the use and control of atomic weapons – which seems to be Wellerstein’s very point, meaning he executed that point to near perfection.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Most Awful Responsibility by Alex Wellerstein was originally written on December 14, 2025.

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#BookReview: Placeless by Patrick Markee

For The First Time In My Life, I Feel Actively Stupider For Having Read A Book. Yes, y’all, this book is *that* bad. This isn’t even “I disagree with this guy’s politics and he is hyper preachy throughout the text” level, though there is that too. This is “this dude cites things that have been repeatedly and conclusively not only actively disproven, but actually shown to be the exact opposite of what he claims” level bad. Truly literally everything this guy says promoting rent control? Actual economics conclusively proves that he is not only 100% wrong, but that indeed reality is exactly the opposite of what he claims in this text.

I mean, y’all, I’m absolutely flabbergasted by this book. I *wanted* it to be good. I *wanted* an expose of homelessness in America that I could shout from the rooftops proclaiming its brilliance and showing how far America has fallen – because we admittedly have. And yet while we have fallen, we’ve also raised the standard of living *even for our homeless* to levels never before seen in the history of humanity – and that is a level of hope that is sorely missing in Markee’s text here.

Instead, in this text, everyone who opposes outright pure Marxist economic theory is a racist Nazi monster who can’t possibly have a single redeeming quality. And yes, Markee actively and specifically calls someone he disagrees with a Nazi in this text, without providing any actual evidence at all that they had ever supported the actual Nazis. Further, Markee openly admits to stealing from a former employer in Austin, TX in this text *while never thinking he did anything wrong*.

My dear reader of my review, for literally years I have thought that a “gold mine” was my worst possible rating. It means that there is a speck of something redeemable in the text, but you have to shift through literal tons of detritus to find it.

I. Was. Wrong.

I need a new term for my worst possible rating, because this book officially goes well beyond any book that has ever earned my “gold mine” rating. I was not joking in the title here, I actively feel stupider for having read this book.

To the level that I can’t even recommend it even if you agree 100% with Markee’s politics, which he is extremely preachy on throughout this narrative. Because he is so easily proven wrong on so very many points, he will actively make you a worse debater and *less* actually informed on this topic from being so wrongly misinformed. Indeed, recommending this book in 2025 would be akin to recommending a book about germ theory from say the 13th century in 2025 – it would be so wrong it would actually harm you and potentially cause you to actively harm others due to how misinformed you would be from reading the book.

Not recommended. It should never have been written to begin with. And I truly hate to say that about any book – and never have before this one.

This review of Placeless by Patrick Markee was originally written on December 4, 2025.

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#BookReview: The History Of Money by David McWilliams

Solid Enough Primer. This is one of those “history of humanity” type books that attempts to take literally thousands of years of human history (including pre-history) and condense it into a sub-400 page narrative. (With 12% of its 403 Kindle pages being bibliography, which we’ll get to in a moment.) Human history being as complex as it actually is, none of these types of tales are going to be 100% correct in all details, as details are more often than not incredibly nuanced. But as an overall narrative, this one is at least interesting and provides a lot of solid jumping off points of “hey, did this particular bit of history *actually* happen the way McWilliams claims?”. Sometimes that answer will be “mostly”. Others, it will be “somewhat”, and still others will be “barely”. Different specialists will have different opinions at different points, and I know my friends trained more in the Austrian school of Economics (Milton Friedman, Ludwig Von Mises, Frederick Hayek, etc) will likely take quite a bit of umbrage with McWilliams’ 20th and 21st century histories in particular. Including the fact that McWilliams is obviously quite the fan of one John Maynard Keynes – the singular “economist” who has done more harm to the global economy than very likely any other in the history of humanity.

Still, like I said, as an overall primer on the history of money… this is at least entertaining and mostly informative… if you’re willing to do more research.

No, the actual star deduction isn’t for McWilliams’ adoration of Keynes or his at times gross over simplifications. Those can at least somewhat be excused as not 100% objective criticisms – even if they *are* educated criticisms. The actual star deduction here comes from the aforementioned 12% bibliography. Quite simply, a book with this much history should be cited *far* more than this, and indeed I’ve personally read books over the years covering a far more limited historical scope that had multiples of this level of documentation.

So read this book to begin to get a rough idea of the topic – and, as I’ve already pointed out to one friend and fellow book blogger since reading this, it *can* be enough to refute a few monetary policy memes/ stories floating around online. Then do even more research on the actual events portrayed here and see how accurate McWilliams truly was. Or was not.

Very much recommended.

This review of The History Of Money by David McWilliams was originally written on December 1, 2025.

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#BookReview: Every Last Fish by Rose George

More Primer Than Deep Dive. I read George’s (nearly 20 yr old now) The Big Necessity near the start of 2025, so beginning the ending of 2025 with her latest release seems appropriate, right? 😉 Like Necessity, this book takes George to several different places to talk to several different people and chronicle their lives and thoughts on the subject at hand – in this case, commercial fishing. Unlike Necessity, here George mostly stays in and around the British Isles, with a few ventures into other European areas such as Norway.

The overall text here is essentially 15 different essays, one per chapter, using wherever she is and whoever she is talking to for that chapter to glance at the history of that chapter’s focus before primarily looking to what is currently going on in that area. There is little to no overall narrative beyond “I want to look at as much about commercial fishing in and around the United Kingdom as possible.”

And yet, for what the book is, it absolutely works and works well. You’re going to learn a little about a lot here, even as George has her own distinct editorial thoughts. On those, your mileage will absolutely vary, but George does a seemingly solid job of presenting the issues at hand in a mostly even-ish manner and never treating those she is profiling in the given chapter as anything less than fully human – for good and not so good.

No, where the star deduction comes here is the just-too-short bibliography, clocking in at 12% of the overall text, at least in my Advance Review Copy, and thus coming in just shy of the 15% or so I expect to see even with my more recent more relaxed bibliographic standards. Had George been more forceful or more novel, the Sagan Rule might have applied, but I don’t think the text here warrants that particular application – through the vast majority of the text, George is relating what she personally sees as well as what those she is profiling have directly seen as well.

Overall a solid primer on the issues surrounding commercial fishing, at minimum in and around the United Kingdom, and something a lot of us will learn a fair amount from reading.

Very much recommended.

This review of Every Last Fish by Rose George was originally written on November 13, 2025.

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#BookReview: Gemini by Jeffrey Kluger

Solid History Of A Well told Yet Unfocused On Era. The subtitle of this book speaks of the “untold story” of Gemini… which is a bit misleading. Anyone who knows most anything about NASA in the 1960s and/ or the Apollo missions knows a fair amount about the Gemini missions that created and proved the tech that made Apollo possible. What this book does is that it *centers* its focus on that exact period. (Literally, the central part of the book is specifically about Gemini, after an introduction discussing how we got to Gemini, including Mercury, and a back end that begins discussing Apollo and other fallout from Gemini.)

In this focus, Kluger does exceptionally well. He shows the key players and tech, and even provides details that even those who know a fair amount about the history involved here may not know. (Such as the Chris Kraft toddler/ sandwich story, which I had never previously heard despite reading several books about and memoirs from many of the people Kluger profiles yet again within these pages.)

Indeed, the only real fault I could find here is the absolute lack of any bibliography at all, at least in the Advance Review Copy of this book I read. Which is the reason for the star deduction.

Overall this is a book where many will probably already know a lot about this subject, but more in passing while having been focused on other things. Again, the subtitle is misleading in that the Gemini story has always been well told, but most always before now *as part of* the Apollo narrative. Indeed, Kluger’s own Apollo books, at least the ones I’ve read, have all discussed the Gemini missions to some extent as well. But in centering this text precisely on Gemini, this new version does in fact provide at least some new details even those who think they know every possible thing about the Space Race of the 1950s and 1960s could possibly know quite likely did not, in fact, know.

Very much recommended.

This review of Gemini by Jeffrey Kluger was originally written on November 12, 2025.

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#BookReview: The Great Math War by Jason Socrates Bardi

Math And History Nerds Will Love This. Solid History For Everyone Else Too. Ok, so I’m a dude that got a Computer Science degree 20 yrs ago and came within literally half a dozen classes of getting degrees in Mathematics and Secondary Mathematics Education at the same time… who also took HIST classes as electives just because they sounded interesting. In other words, this book may as well have been titled “Jeff Sexton Will Beg To Read This Book”, because I damn near did. But clearly, I *am* the very math and history nerd that my title of this review above explicitly said would love this book.

Clocking in at 19% bibliography, it has a healthy enough backing so that it doesn’t drop a star on that account, and really the only even quibble I have here is that in choosing to end in 1938, Bardi doesn’t even attempt to show how the war he describes here played out in the Post Second World War world where the rise of computers and computer science changed pretty well everything in mathematics.

Still, for what it is and what it actually covers, this is an utterly fascinating book that gives enough of the backstories of everyone involved to show how they arrived at the moments they did and why they mattered when they got there without going too deep into unnecessary detail too often. Yes, even when it looks like Bardi is going off on some wild tangent that can’t possibly be related to The Great Math War (such as the Boer War), he ultimately manages to bring it right back around and show how that tangent actually played a role in shaping the thinking of one of his principle targets or at minimum someone closely linked to them who also shaped their thinking.

For me, this was an utterly fascinating look at a period of math history I hadn’t previously really considered, featuring several names I had known of from other exploits and adventures, but had never really dived into from this angle. And yes, at least some of the most famous of their era make appearances here, up to and including one Albert Einstein.

I do think that one of the more fascinating tidbits that I had not known, particularly as someone who learned the basics of Set Theory in 2004-2005, was just how new that particular branch of mathematics was – and how controversial it had been even a century before I learned it, at which time it was (clearly) being routinely taught to Senior level college students. (And I still hold that we can actually teach it even in elementary school, as one key feature of it ultimately revolves around remainder division.)

Truly an excellent book written without the dryness that can accompany such texts in the hands of less skilled storytellers, this is absolutely one of those kinds of books that many will enjoy and a few will absolutely love.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Great Math War by Jason Socrates Bardi was originally written on November 12, 2025.

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#BookReview: The Pursuit Of Liberty by Jeffrey Rosen

Intriguing Academic Analysis Of 250 Years Of American History Through One Central Lens. With about 16% bibliography, Rosen here crafts a well wriiten – if perhaps dryly academic in styling – narrative that serves as both history (particularly of the actual events while Hamilton and Jefferson were both alive) and filter to history (as American history progresses through 2024).

On the actual history end, Rosen is perhaps at his best, seemingly almost bringing us into the rooms where these discussions and their resultant divisions first happen. On the historical filter end, Rosen does a solid job of keeping his filter intact while examining different periods of American history from its earliest days and first insurrections (the Whiskey Rebellion, among others) through the Jan 6, 2021 “insurrection” (used in quotes here because even this text shows how dramatically different they were). And yes, we get stops at Jackson and his Indian Removal, the obligatory Civil War look, several other key points in American history. All through this lens of how various leaders chose to interpret the writings and philosophies of both Hamilton and Jefferson.

Overall it really is a fascinating look that both illuminates key ideas in new ways and works well with other books and their own filters to give a more complete view of both the American Founding and the resultant 250 years of American history. Thus, it is absolutely one that every American should read and consider, and it may well be something that even those outside the United States could learn valuable lessons about either their own countries or perhaps just the American mindset which frequently flips between Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian ideals.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Pursuit Of Liberty by Jeffrey Rosen was originally written on October 21, 2025.

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#BookReview: World Enemy No. 1 by Jochen Hellbeck

Possibly Explosive Soviet-Side History Of WWII. The central tenet of Hellbeck’s narrative here is rather simplistic: Yes, Hitler hated Jews. But he *really* hated *Communist* Jews, and believed that the Soviets were just dumb rubes being controlled by said Communist Jews. This, according to Hellbeck, explains everything from the infamous (and disastrous, for both Germany and the Soviet Union) Operation Barbarossa to why, where, and when the most infamous of the death camps – all located in former Soviet controlled territory after Barbarossa pushed so far into Russia – all came to be, and much more.

Admittedly, as an American and an American who happens to be a grandson of two different men who both fought in the Ardennes Offensive/ Battle Of The Bulge, I’ve been fascinated by WWII all my life. I grew up hearing that one grandfather had been there – I found out at his death that he actually had earned the most medals of anyone in his small exurban (at the time) Atlanta town. The other died weeks after my birth, and I learned decades later – when I finally got his service records – that his Division had been the first on the American side to liberate a concentration camp.

Thus, WWII is as much a part of me and my blood as it is for Hellbeck, simply on opposite sides of the fight against Germany. Well, maybe more for Hellbeck, a Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers specializing in Soviet history, as he both chose and found a way to make studying WWII his occupation, while I remain a professional software engineer and “hobbyist” prolific book reviewer.

Beyond his central premise above, Hellbeck does as good a job as any – and better than many – of presenting both his case and his evidence. Clocking in at roughly 26% bibliography (as measured from where the Acknowledgement section begins, at least in my Advance Review Copy), this is both a fairly hefty tome at over 550 pages and a well researched one, with over 150 of those pages being source documentation.

By shifting the focus from Jews generally to specifically *Soviet* Jews, this narrative could become explosive, potentially even nuclear level explosive. And yet, even while focusing on Soviet Jews and Soviet citizenry more generally, Hellbeck actually presents a more balanced approach to the history than those who focus exclusively on Jews generally (and erase the extra hatred Hitler directed at Soviet Jews specifically) or those who focus on Soviets generally (and whitewash the Jewish nature of Hitler’s specific targets, as Hellbeck brings the case that the Soviet Union did throughout their existence).

WWII as a whole and even the history of the Holocaust specifically is such a large topic that I fail to see how anyone can truly grasp *all* that happened and why, and thus I appreciate histories such as this one that bring a side of the discussion that we often miss, particularly in the West. While others with more specific knowledge about specific events may have more harsh criticism of particular points or perhaps even the entire narrative here, it fits in enough with my own existing knowledge that the text here provides a lot of information I didn’t previously know, yet seems plausible given what I did know prior to encountering this book.

And yes, utterly, absolutely, horrific – no matter who was doing the killing or why. (As you’ll see here, Hellbeck doesn’t excuse Soviet actions against the Jews either.)

Overall truly a fascinating look at the war from an angle I hadn’t often considered, and for that reason alone it would be a worthy read. That it was so well documented and read so easily was a bonus.

Very much recommended.

This Review Of World Enemy No. 1 by Jochen Hellbeck was originally written on October 21, 2025.