Tag: nonfiction

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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.

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#BookReview: Nations Apart by Colin Woodard

The BlueSky Crowd Will Love This Goldmine. “Clashing regional cultures” didn’t shatter America. America is strong and survived this for generations. What has shattered America in these past 20 ish years has been the hyper partisanship and doomerism that Nate Silver now calls “BlueSkyism” – which is why that crowd will love this book. Everyone else, don’t waste your time.

With that TL;DR already dealt with, let’s dive into the details. First, “goldmine”, above. My personal worst possible rating for a book. It means you’re shifting through a ton of shit to find something redeemable… but at least there *is* a fleck or two of something approaching redeemable here.

Second, backing up and briefly mentioning my own background, Woodard himself will probably just excuse this particular review knowing that I am a Son of the South who grew up at the border of what he calls “Greater Appalachia” and “Deep South” according to his own maps, directly along the path of that war criminal terrorist bastard William Tecumseh Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign – and my home County literally still bears its physical scars to this day, in places readily seen even as their history isn’t as readily known anymore.

Now let’s truly discuss the book. To get to a one star rating means I had four major issues with the book, in this case and in no particular order:

-dearth of bibliography
-shoddy “journalism”
-elitism
-doomerism

The bibliography here, calculated as the point when the “Acknowledgements” section begins, is just 14% of this text, which falls short of my expectation from reading many nonfiction books over my over seven years as a book blogger of between 20-30% documentation. Further, given the rather extreme nature of this book generally, the Sagan Rule – extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence – applies, meaning even more documentation is actually needed… which this book failed to supply. So there goes one star.

Next, shoddy “journalism”. For one, Woodard cites in at least one incidence that Donald Trump claimed the people at the “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA were “very fine people”. This has been resoundingly debunked… simply by showing the entire transcript of that very speech in question. Furthermore, Woodward speaks quite often of “voter suppression” and (accurately) proclaims that the right’s fears of “voter fraud” are excessively rare so as to be near 0 actual incidents… except that the actual evidence of “voter suppression” turns out to be just as scant, despite Woodard openly proclaiming it happening quite often. In areas where his side is losing, of course. Note that even here, Woodward is blatantly and openly lying as he claims that Georgia does not allow people to be given water while waiting in line to vote. And these are only the things I have direct and personal knowledge of myself. So there goes another star.

Next, elitism. Simply put, Colin Woodard thinks he knows everything about every political issue… and even a lot of non-political ones. Colin Woodard needs to learn a bit of humility… and this is coming from someone often accused (at least earlier in life) of exactly what he is accusing Woodard of here. Let me be clear here: The general theory of the twelve nations is revolutionary and seems to have quite a bit of merit. It is why I was interested in this book to begin with. But when Woodard leaves this theory to comment on things such as climatology or virology, among many others, he inevitably winds up simply repeating extreme leftist talking points rather than actual history or science. And yet he makes these claims openly proclaiming them to be absolute fact and openly mocks those who disagree… even when he is blatantly wrong and, as a scholar, *should* be aware of just how wrong he actually is here. But again, blinded by his elitism. So there went another star.

Finally, doomerism. I mean, the subtitle of this book really does give that part away, I’ll grant that. But particularly in light of the two attempted assassinations of now President Trump in 2024 (which happened as Woodward was still writing this book), followed by the assassination of former Minnesota Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman in June 2025 and then the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk in September 2025 (admittedly barely a week before I write this review), the doomerism in politics must end.

To do my part in helping end this scourge, I will do the one thing I can as a book reviewer, the one tool I actually have: I’ll remove one star every time I see this in a nonfiction politically oriented book, beginning here.

There never was a place for such doom and gloom as “my opponents will end all elections!”. It was wrong when the right did it, and I called it out back then. It is equally wrong when the left does it, and I call it out now. Elections for both Congress and President were held during the most trying times in US history – the US Civil War from 1861 – 1865 and World War II from 1941 – 1945. If we as a country can hold elections even in those circumstances, we’re going to keep holding them in every peacetime circumstance, no matter what Woodard and other doomerists claim.

No, the only outcome of such doomerist proclamations is that more people will die both from suicide – as suicide is almost inevitably from a loss of hope for one reason or another – or from murder, as more and more people begin to believe that the only hope remaining is if their political opponents are dead. THIS. IS. WRONG. It is 100% unacceptable, and we as a society must verbally oppose this ideology with as much force as our words can possibly carry.

America can survive as a federation of twelve nations. We have for 250 years in just a few more months – and yes, we will absolutely make it to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence next summer. We’ll also make it tot he 250th anniversary of our current Constitution first being ratified on June 21, 2038, when we will have at least one and possibly two Presidents post-Donald Trump.

We just have to have hope. We have to believe in the processes we have created, and that we can make the changes within them to continue to make ourselves a “more perfect union”.

No matter the doomerism of Woodard and others.

Not recommended. (But you already knew that if you got here. 😉 )

This review of Nations Apart by Colin Woodard was originally written on September 19, 2025.

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#BookReview: The Last Hart Beating by Nattie Neidhart

Among The Best Wrestling Memoirs Ever Written. I’ve been reading wrestling memoirs roughly as long as Niedhart has been a professional wrestler – beginning roughly in 2001 when we were both in our late teens, maybe slightly earlier – whenever Mick Foley’s first book hit mass market paperback. And yes, I’ve read both of Foley’s early books. I’ve read at least one of Jericho’s books, I’ve read Batista’s book and at least one of HBK’s books. I even read The Rock’s dad (“Soulman” Rocky Johnson)’s book and Hornswoggle’s book. More recently, I’ve read Rousey’s 2024 book along with Lynch’s book released at nearly the same time. Earlier this year, I had a chance to do an Advance Review Copy of Killer Kross’s book that released about a month ago as I write this review.

In other words, I have a lot of experience reading wrestler’s memoirs, though there are still several I’ve yet to get to.

And y’all, I absolutely put this one right up there among the top.

This one is full of everything that makes a good wrestling memoir great – the history, the peeks behind the scenes at various points and from Niedhart’s view from whatever age she was at the time growing up, her own story from the first time she ever picked up The Anvil’s championship belt through becoming a multi-time Champion within WWE herself. We see more of her struggles with her dad than even Total Divas really had any capacity of showing. We see her fears – shared by fellow third generation Superstar who also wrote a forward to this book, “some kid named Dwayne” (as Soulman said in his book) – of whether she could live up to her family’s legacy. We see how that legacy shaped both the woman and the professional Neidhart has become – for good and not so great. We even get a friends to lovers romance for the ages that few even fictional romance authors can replicate, showing the first time TJ first showed up at Hart House through their struggles together when he broke his neck in the ring and beyond.

This book seems very transparent – yes, many of us thought we knew Niedhart particularly from Total Divas (though as with all “reality” shows, that one became quite obviously *barely anything resembling reality* rather quickly, particularly after the first season), but here we see even more of her story, particularly her absolute love and admiration for her dad… and all the heartache this caused as his mental condition deteriorated over the years.

Bookending with the 2019 WWE Hall of Fame Induction of Neidart’s uncle Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart and her dad Jim ‘The Anvil’ Niedhart as The Hart Foundation seems a deliberate editorial choice, a way to stop before the pandemic / “Thunderdome” era of WWE… and perhaps lay the groundwork for a later memoir to pick up exactly there, ala Foley, Jericho, and even HBK’s follow-up books?

Wrestling fans of any stripe are going to love this book. There’s simply too much history here for you not to, including Niedhart’s own interactions with one Vincent Kennedy McMahon, Jr over the years. More than that though, this is going to be one for a lot more people. For the Millennial cat moms – yes, Niedhart briefly touches on why she chose not to have human children. For the woman afraid to stand up for herself in her own career – Niedhart shows that even with a legendary legacy in your industry behind you, standing up for yourself is still daunting, but sometimes absolutely must be done. For those interested in women in sports – Niedhart shows the path she made through some family connections but also several shit tons of hard ass work… and a bit of luck even, at times.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Last Hart Beating by Nattie Neidhart was originally written on September 6, 2025.

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#BookReview: The Killing Age by Clifton Crais

Flawed Premise And Weirdly Exacting Time Selection Move Interesting Premise To Garbage Narrative. This is one of those books that I *wanted* to like. I *strongly* believe, based on my own historical studies over the years, that there is a truly strong case to be made for how violence has shaped the modern world in ways that most humans alive today simply aren’t aware of. There is a case to be made for how violence and conquest shape almost literally every facet of everything we currently know, up to and including the most bleeding edge sciences all largely having their origins in military research and applications – including all of computing and very nearly everything we as humanity are doing both in astronomy and in particle physics.

Unfortunately, this book doesn’t even begin to attempt to make that case.

Instead, this is yet another anti-capitalist polemic wherein a “historian” attempts to reframe history… and yet provides a bibliography one would typically expect from a more mundane and well trod “this is what happened at this event” type history book. In other words, it is *far* from meeting the Sagan Standard of “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. And yet, at roughly 22% bibliography (in addition to several more pages of front matter listing many dozens of people and events covered in the text), this text sufficiently meets my 20-30% documentation expectations for nonfiction books generally, so actually doesn’t lose a star there. Note even here though that while there is technically enough bibliography, it is also extremely cherry picked to show exactly the narrative Crais is trying to frame without ever even hinting at other possible interpretations of the events at hand.

No, the two star deductions are distinct enough (in my mind at least) to warrant two separate deductions, but also linked in that they form the basis of how Crais approaches his entire narrative.

For one, Crais blames all of captialism’s rise on slavery… without even going into the 20th century to try to frame the various labor debates there as also slavery or even including the rise of mass incarceration or fast fashion or any other well known labor abuses as also slavery, choosing to instead end his narrative at the end of the 19th century. Thus, even though Great Britain ended slavery relatively early in the time period Crais does choose to focus on and the US fought a civil war near the end of it to force the end of slavery… Crais still blames all of capitalism’s ills on, according to him, capitalism being based on slavery and absolutely nothing else.

For another, and yes, I hinted at this above, Crais is oddly specific in his choice of time period and even areas of focus, choosing to examine only Great Britain and the United States and to begin specifically in 1750 with the publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and end at the end of the 19th century, well before capitalism *really* took off… and yet also before communism caused the deaths of literally millions of people itself… often via direct State violence. This odd specificity allows Crais to openly ignore other violences even within the period he chooses to examine, such as the Napoleonic Wars.

There is great promise in a book that truly and fully explores the history of human violence in its totality and shows how that violence has created and shaped our modern world as we know it.

I simply wish Crais had made even a modicum of an attempt at writing such a history. Perhaps this book would have been better with a different title and more honest and specific premise?

Not recommended.

This review of The Killing Age by Clifton Crais was originally written on September 6, 2025.