On His Majesty's Secret Service
December 29. This was a pretty lightweight book. Bond (007) thwarts a plot to disrupt the coronation of King Charles III. The book read like a sceenplay. A bit dense and action-packed but so formulaic as to be laughable.
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Arlo, Alice, and The Anglicans
December 27. This book is a history of the former Anglican church which was the scene of Arlo Guthire's Thanksgiving Day Massacree song. While ostensibly a history of the church in Stockbridge, MA, it also recounts the history of Alice and Ray Brock (inhabitants of the church), Arlo Guthrie, Alice's restaurant (the restaurant), and Alice's restaurant, the song. This was an easy and entertaining read - especially meaningful for me since I have friends in the area and know it well. A good history of an interesting place and activities that took place there. The church still exists and is presently the home of the Guthrie Center.
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Recoding America: Why Government is Failing in the Digital Age and Why We Can Do Better
December 25. Jen Pahlka is the founder of Code for America, a group that helps governments implement digital projects. She has worked on digital projects for government at the local, state, and federal levels. This book is about why government struggles so much with IT projects. She identifies several factors - first, policy makers are ambiguous about implementation - thus implemementors don't always know what to do. Second, there is a culture of fear among government employees - which means they try to avoid doing the wrong thing, rather than actively doing the right thing. Third, there is not a product management culture in government so projects end up as the union of all possible requirements rather than focusing on the most important requirements. Pahlka describes how to use private sector practices in government such as product management, minimum viable projects, agile development, etc. She believes government IT projects can be better and describes how. She believes in government and wants to make it serve citizens better - much like Ezra Klein. Her book should be required reading for the DOGE gang but I doubt it will be. One of the culprits Pahlka points to are large goverment contractors such as Oracle (run by Elon Musk friend, Larry Ellison) who lard up government projects to be huge, unweildy things that they can make lots of money from. Go figure. Despite seeming like a dry topic, it is very readable. Phalka uses lots of specific example projects to make her points. The book is well worth reading.
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The Waiting: A Ballard and Bosch Novel
December 13. Yet another Connelley novel. It was pretty lightweight and, as Connelley has gotten in recent years, fairly formulaic. It mostly featured Renee Ballard with a short cameo appearance by Bosch. Ballard is now running the cold case unit of LAPD with Mattie Bosch (Bosch's daughter) on staff. They run down and solve a cold-case murder but the writing was pretty formulaic and predictable. A lot less satisfying than Connelley's earlier work.
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The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and The World in the Free Market Era
November 23. Gerstle is an economic historian who previously wrote about the New Deal. He starts this book with a brief discussion of the New Deal and how it came about as a response to both the depression and the rise of communism (the right went along with some of the New Deal because they feared that, if they did not help the working class, it would drift toward communism). He then wrote about the transition in the 70s from the New Deal to Neoliberalism - in which both parties espoused free markets, globalism, and deregulation. This covers the same period as omelandH, which I recently read, albeit more from an economic than a national security point of view. Gerstle asserts that neoliberalism enriches the top at the expense of the broad base of people and that is its undoing. He further asserts that we are seeing many of the signs of a chinage in economic order similar to those that gave rise to the New Deal and Neoliberalism. He cannot describe what will come next and feels that economic transitions are chaotic and unknowable in advance - but thinks we are in one of those transitions to something different. I hope he is right and also hope that it is a net positive - it feels like we might be sinking into a chaotic era with no positive outcome. I remains to be seen. This book is insightful and provocative - worth a read.
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Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves
November 7. Like How the World Ran out of Everything and Arriving Today, Frostbite is about a supply chain. Specifically, the cold supply chain. It describes the history of refrigeration and the rise and dominance of the cold supply chain - a refrigerated supply chain that keeps our food chilled and ready for consumption. Because of the cold supply chain, the nature of food production and delivery has changed dramatically - allowing, for example, meat to be processed near where it is raised rather than locally. Ironically this helped create the western cattle industry - an industrial cause of the "rugged indiviualist" ethos. The book is a bit long but fascinating. It showed lots of facets of a supply chain I was only dimly aware of and its impact on everyday life. At the end, the author looks at some alternatives to the cold supply chain, but it is obvious that it will be with us for some time to come.
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The Girl in the Window: An Inpector Samuel Tay Novel - Book 5
October 23. This is the fifth Samual Tay novel after The Girl in the Window. Samuel Tay is now retired, or was forced to retire, from the Singapore police force. He is enlisted by John August to help figure out why someone tried to kill August and destroy his group. The book takes place in Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Washington, D.C. I get the sense that Needham was running out of crimes to solve in Singapore and had to move Tay along to a different venue and situation. Still an entertaining read.
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Homeland: The War on Terror in American Life
October 23. This is a very ambitious book that attempts to explain how the war on terror promulgated after 9/11 has shaped our lives. It partially does that. It covers a wide ranging set of topics such government surveillance, abuses of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, inadequate response to the global financial crisis, corruption in the occupations of Iraq and Afganhistan, and many others -- to show why Americans distrust government. I liked the attempt but felt that the message was a bit diluted by attempting to show that the war on terror affected basically everything. The book might have been more impactful if the author focused on fewer causes and made them more salient. It is not that the war on terror did not dramatically shape American life, but rather that telling the story might have been more focused and concise. One topic that Beck raised is the assertion that the world gets into wars when it has surplus population - where economic growth cannot keep up with the number of people. He mentions this several times but does not focus attention on the point. I wished he had developed the idea further and made it more salient.
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Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right
September 26. This is the second book by Hochschild after Strangers in Their Own Land to try to explain the political views of poor rural whites. Hochschild focuses this book on Pikeville, Kentucky (KY5 congressional district) and spends lots of time interviewing people of all kinds – from a white supremacist planning a march in town to prisoners to the chaplain of the local college. The tells great stories through their eyes and tries to weave them into a framework that describes their point of view. She settles on a shame to blame loop. These people all have aspirations for a good life and believe it is within their grasp though hard work. This area of Kentucky was hard hit by the decline of coal (due to natural gas, movement of coal mining to Wyoming, and automation – not some political “war on coal”) so they cannot meet their aspirations. This leads to shame and then to blame. Like Strangers in Their Own Land, Hochschild gets into he heads of rural white people and lets us see the world through their eyes. She thus explains the rise of Trump (they see the government as a bad bully keeping them down and Trump as a good bully on their side) and January 6. Hers is not a complete explanation for does help illuminate the causes of their despair and response to it.
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One Nation Under Guns: How Gun Culture Distorts our History and Threatens Democracy
September 20. Ertozain traces the history of American gun culture – starting with its deep roots. He talks about the founders and their worries about guns, the American cowboy myth that a good guy can take the law into his own hands and exact extra-judicial justice, and the tenor in the nation until post wwII days that guns, in general, could be regulated. He then chronicles the rise of the NRA and a very concerted gun lobby that explicitly manufactured a second amendment right (focusing on carrying arms, not the well-regulated militia part) sometimes even going as far as saying guns are a natural right. Of course this contrasts with most other nations. Erdozain does a good job of covering the history of guns and gun regulation in the U.S. He makes a convincing argument for gun regulation – unfortunately he won’t convince many who need to be convinced.
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When The Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked up in the Early 1990s
September 10. This is a book about the myriad of sketchy characters who made up the right in America in the 1990s. I was reading at the same time as The Right and got confused because the story lines, characters, and lessons were so similar. I finished The Right and then finished When The Clock Broke. The books are good complements to each other. When the Clock Broke covers all kinds of swampy characters – David Duke, Pat Buchanen, Rudy Guiliani, Rush Linbaugh, Ross Perot, Carlo Gambino (of the Gambino crime family), Dayl Gates, Newt Gingrich, John Gotti, and – of course – Donald Trump who inhabited and defined the right wing of American politics. It brings these people alive and shows how they influenced American politics. A bit scary and depressing that such characters had such a strong influence on our society.
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The Girl in the Window: An Inpector Samuel Tay Novel - Book 4
August 27. This is the fourth Samual Tay novel after The Dead American. It has the usual cast of characters - starting with Samual Tay and John August, the shadowy figure from US Intelligence (Maybe). Tay is trying to track a terrorist who is known to be in Singapore and finds himself wrapped up in a plot involving Singapore Internal security division. Entertaining, implausable and light weight. In the book, Tay's career and friendships take a fairly big turn.
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The Right: The Hundred-year War for American Conservatism
August 16. Continetti is a conservative writer who chronicles exactly what the book says - the 100-year history of American conservatism - from the Austrian economists through Donald Trump. He talks about two competing threads of conservatism - the intellectual thread focusing on libertarianism, free markets, and limited government and culminating in the presidenices of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush -- and the populist (and often racist and xenophobic) thread culiminating in Donald Trump. Continetti describes the various aspects of the American conservative movement in a lot of detail and points out various contradictions and internal battles. He posits that Trumps election and the rising of the populist wing is a result of the failed policies of the George W. Bush administration - notably the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the global financial crisis - thus eroding faith in government. Given the current state of the conservative movement it looks like the intellectual thread is all but dead and the populist thread is winning. This was a long book but worth the read. Even though Continetti is a conservative writer, his is very open and looks at the conservative movement with a critical eye. At some times it even seems as if he was a liberal writer. Go figure.
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How the World Ran Out of Everything: Inside the Global Supply Chain
July 29. Goodman is The New York Times Global Economics correspondent and he attempts, in this book, to describe what happened to the global supply chain during the pandemic. It was reminiscent of Arriving Today, by Christopher Mims. Arriving Today was weighted toward the technology behind the global supply chaing while Goodman's book is about the business, economics, and political aspects. Goodman focuses on the relationship between capital and labor and shows how a singular focus on shareholder value squeezes workers into unsustainable lives. He shows how the relentless focus on efficiency - in particualar a just-in-time ethos, originally developed for manufacturing then promulgated to everything by consultants like McKinsey - led to very brittle supply chains. This book has some overlap with Arriving Today but both are worth reading. They present a complimentary view of a troubling phenomenon - yet also a kind of miraculous view of the complexity and efficiency of the global supply chain - when it works.
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The Melting Point: High Command and War in the 21st Century
July 29. Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie was the commander of the U.S. Central Command responsible for all combat operations in the middle east from 2019 to 2022. The book is about his experiences. It was fascinating to see the role of a commander of one of the combat commands. As such McKenszie was directly reponsible for leading actual combat operations at the behest of the US civilian leadership. The book describes his role which is an amalgam of bureacurat/diplomat - dealing withe Washington -- and warrier - leading actual combat operations. The book provided great insight into the role or a combatant commmander and to warefare in the Middle East (including the exit from Afghanistan) during that time period. This book was different from many II have read about the military in that it made the job of the commander real and gave a good sense of how major commands in the military operate in context of both the larger enterprise of the Department of Defense and the civilian national security apparatus. It also highlights his relationship with the State Department, partner forces such as NATO, and the civilian leaders of the countries where he operated. Well worth reading.
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Taming The Octopus: The Long Battle for the Soul of the Corporation
June 25. This book was a disappointment. It is about a topic which interests me and I have read a fair bit about - what is the purpose of a corporation and how does it best serve society? The book is about a long history of the debate over whether corporations exist solely to enhance shareholder value or whether they serve a social purpose. I found the book a bit lopsided. It spent a lot of time on a narrow bit of shareholder value advocates and brushed very lightly on modern day efforts like ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) investing. Although I am a strong advocate of corporations serving society I find both Corporate Social Responsibility and ESG efforts somehow lacking. I was hoping this book would illuminate some new solutions to the problem of corpoarate governance to serve actual people and society in addition to investors. It didn't.
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Northwoods: A Novel
June 23. This book is about the history of a single house in western Massachusetts over a period of three centuries. I read it because I am familiar with and have an affinity for Western Massachusetts but was disappointed in the book. THe concept behind the book was interesting but I found the story (really a string of lots of little stories) kind of disjointed. The constant element was the location but it was difficult to connect the stories to the location. It got a bit tedious to read.
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The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government
June 19. This is a comprehensive history of the lobbying industry in American politics. It paints a very depressing picture of how influence peddlers on both sides of the political aisle thwarted the will and interests of the American people to pander to corporate interests. There are familiar names - Roger Stone, Paul Manifort, Tony Podesta - people who led lavish lifestyles based on ethically questionable and sometimes illegal practice. Not a lot in the book was a surprise, but it does paint a picture of influence peddling that makes me very cynical about poltics. It shows why Trump's "Drain the Swamp" slogan was so appealing. Unfortuntely, Trump did not drain the swamp just installed a few more swamp creatures - including his own family. This book implicilty makes the case for getting corporate money out of politics. The authors do point out that modern day poltics is less corporate friendly (not the least because big business has to be responsive to shareholders, customers, and employees) but is now - due to Citizen's United - being co-opted and corrupted by very wealthy individuals. Same problem, different players.
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Rebellion - How Antiliberalism is Tearing America Apart - Again
June 9. Kagan asserts that the founding of the United States was a radical experiment in liberalism. He has a very specific definition of liberalism - that all people have inherent rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - and the role of government is to ensure these rights. This was different from governing paradigms at the time of the US founding. They ascribed rights to only certain classes of people and did not necessarily see government as protecting rights. Of course, the US did not actually live up to these ideals at the founding. Blacks, women, and non land-owners did not have full rights, for example. Kagan describes anti-liberal forces throughout history that try to ignore or restrict rights to people based on race, ethinicity, gender, or religion. He is very clear that the right to worship (or not) as one pleases has been under attack by those who wish to build a Christian nation. This is a good and important book - particularly now where it seems that the forces of antiliberalism - as Kagan defines then - are rising again.
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The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society
May 30. Stiglitz starts his argument against neoliberalism by making the point that one person’s freedom is another person’s constraint. He asserts that neoliberalism focused on economic freedom for some while imposing costs and externalities on others. His plea is to balance those with public investment and regulation. One of his more controversial assertions is that success depends on context and those who have been economically successful have been so somewhat of their own effort but often from societal forces such as education, where they live, public investment etc. Others have become successful by exploiting others – slavery being the canonic example. I liked Stigliz’s arguments. They are clearly articulated and make sense. This adds to the growing body of work that debunks the success of neoliberal economics (he would probably say that neoliberal economics gives liberalism a bad name). One think I liked is that he used Adam Smith – the patron saint of neoliberals – to make his points. Smith was less of a purist than some assert. He was NOT an advocate of unfettered free markets and did believe that things like government regulation were necessary.
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The Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present
May 25. Zakaria wrote a pretty lucid account of revolutions and the reactions to them from 1600 to the present. He started with the Dutch revolution – which I never knew anything about – in which political power was organized in a decentralized way – a prelude the US federal/state/local system. He then moved to the French revolution which – although it abolished the monarchy, failed to create a bottom up political system and remained very hierarchical. He moved to the industrial revolution in England – skipping over the American revolution because it did not fundamentally change political systems. He did come back to the US frequently as the industrial revolution moved to the US in the late 1800s and grew the US into the worlds largest economy. He covers the changes in the world wrought by the world wars and the cold war. He ends with the information (and social media revolution) and China/Russia – and the rise of authoritarianism in the US and the world. It was a fascinating sweep through history and left me a little uneasy with the sense that the US has entered eclipse.
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The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History
May 15. Jill Lapore is rapidly becoming my favorite historian. I've read a number of her works. This book was written shortly after the Tea Party was founded right after the global finanical crisis. I read it to try to understand what the Tea Party actually stands for froma policy standpoint. It always seemed a little incoherent to me. I hoped Lapore would shed some light on this. She did not. Instead she talked about the Tea Partys' somewhat incoherent view of American revolutionary history. She also tacked the idea of fundamentalist belief in the "founding fathers" and how history actually works. She illustrates that the country was a very different place when the country was founded - slavery legal, no women's sufferage, only landowners could vote -- and much of the constitution was a set of messy political compromises. Even though I was disappointed that Lapore did not clearly articulate the Tea Party's policy logic - perhaps because there is none - I nevertheless liked her book.
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Antarctica Station: A Thriller
May 10. This is about an anesthesiologist who is decievedinto joining a secrative organization in Antarctica. She goes to a huge underground base in Antarctica where it turns out people are being put into suspended animation and living virtual lives. She escapes and flees across Antarctica. Ultimately she goes back to the U.S. to find that almost thirty years have passed and the secretive organization is fighting rebels - including her sister. This was pure candy - entertaining but implausible. The use of Antarctica was purely gratuitous. It did not seem necessary but did add some color to the story.
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American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump
May 7. This book precedes Alberta's previous book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory. It begins basically with the Tea Party movement and ends in 2018, when congress flips from the republicans to the democrats. It is basically a story about the rise of populism, as exemplified in the tea party and the take over of the republican party by the populists - who don't seem to have a coherent vision except to tear down the government - and away from the traditional free market, small government conservatives such as Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and John McCain. Interwoven with all of this is the rise of Trump. The book chronicles the inside story of the "civil war" within the Republican party. It is a good addition to the other things I have read on this topic. I thought this might explain the tea party logic - which it does to some extent - but I was left unsatisfied. Perhaps I am looking for a logic that does not exist.
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Unstoppable Us - Volume 2: Why The World Isn't Fair
May 7. This is the second in the series and it expands on volume 1 by describing how humans moved from hunter-gatherers to farmers, which required longer-term planning and investment. This, in turn, led to the formation of cities, religions, and governments - and taxes of various kinds to support them. To keep track of the complexities of taxation, writing and numbers were developed - because brains could not keep track of it all and humans needed external representations to remember and share. All of this was supported by stories. Finally Harari gets into stories we tell about ourselves - that led to slavery, caste systems, racisim, sexism, and homophobia. This was a great extension of Volume 1. He hints at volumes to come and I look forward to what comes next.
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Unstoppable Us - Volume 1: How Humans Took Over the World
April 29. This is a children's book that is very readable and consumable by adults. Harari describes the history of humankind and why humans evolved to be the most successful species on the planet. He asserts that we can coordinate action to do big things because we have the ability to tell stories. It is a simple thesis and Harari explains it well. I saw in interview with him and he said it is difficult to write for children because he has to make his points very clear and straightforward. He accomplishes this in this book. He also delves into the nature of evolution, DNA, and cultural norms. He describes forms of governance and family structure. I wish I had this book to explain things when I was a child. I'm glad to have found this book as an adult.
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The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
April 21. This book was recommended by one of my friends who said it reminded him of some things I used to say when we worked together at Autodesk. I was intrigued. The foundation of the book is a neuroscience exploration into the two hemispheres of the human brain, left - which operates and an abstract, deductive, and analytical fashion, and right - which operates in a more holistic and integrated fashion. McGilchrast asserts that the left brain is where language resides and deals with the world by looking at the various parts. In contrast, the right brain looks at wholes and relationships. The left brain is very literal and the right brain can deal with ambiguity. He also asserts that the two parts of the brain need each other - they are complimentary and communicate with each other. The title of the book has to do with which half of the brain is "in charge", in other words, which half is the master (controlling) and which half is the emissary (executing) He assertst that modern western society has gotten the relationship backwards - letting the left brain dominate, and thus seeing and acting upon the world in a reductive analytical fashion rather than a holistic systems fashion. He posits that the more correct and effective model is one in which the right brain is the master and the left brain is the emissary. This book was very reminiscent of my favorite book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and has a similar message of bringing the classic analytical view of the world and the romantic, holistic view of the world into balance. It is a very long book and arduous to read. McGilchrest tries to dig deeply into philosophy, art, music and literature to justify his points. The tries to justify his views in excruiating detail. I have to give him credit for that, but the book might have been more effective, accessible, and impactful if he made his point more crisply and succinctly so the reader does not have to tortuoulsy dig out the meaning from the justification.
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2054: A Novel
April 3. 2054 is a dsystopian novel set 30 years into the future and 20 years after a catastrophic war between the US and China depicted in 2034. 2054 tries to tie together a political story with science fiction, and the future of warfare. I'm not sure it does any very well. None of the three is clearly explained, just hinted at. The gene editing is used to assassinate a US president and it is unclear who did it or why it was done. There is a lot of vague reference to the Singularity - even a hunt for Ray Kurzweill - who is found dead but it is unclear whether he has been uploaded to the cloud. I looked forward to reading this book, but it was a disappointment. The rhetorical device of hopping around between multiple threads in the story did not help. A more focused story and disciplined writing style would have made this a much better book.
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Making It In America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in America (and how it got that way)
March 29. Slade chronicles the lives and work of Ben and Whitney Waxman, who start up, grow, and operate a fashion company called American Roots - that makes hoodies with American textiles and labor. Their primary market is labor unions, since Ben started his career as a union organizer. Ben and Whitney employ a very diverse (and largely immigrant) workforce and try to pay well and offer good benefits. They are diligent about being good employers and good to their employees. The book describes their trials and tribulations in building the company and surviving times such as the pandemic. The author uses their story to weave in histories of the labor movement, globalism, and free-market capitalism. Her message (and that of Ben adn Whitney) is that manufactuing in the US is difficult but possible. I saw three problems with the book:
The book is provocative and clearly has a point of view - that globalism and free-market capitalism (as exemplified by a sole focus on shareholder value) has become pathological and there is a need for a better, more equitable solution. I'm not sure the solution proposed is viable. It is telling that, near the end of the book, Ben and Whitney hire a consulant from the fashion industry who espouses Taylorism-like efficiency moves. Granted that he does so in a humane way - but it still shows the chokehold that efficiency and shareholder value has on our economy and our society.
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Every Day Freedom: Designing The Framework for a Flourishing Society
March 27. This was a very provocative little book and I quite liked its message. Howard's fundamental thesis is that, starting in the 1960s, our legal system started getting encrusted with rules and procedures that try to enshrine individual rights at the expense of society. He asserts that we did away with agency for managers and leaders and tried to create equity by prescribing how things should be done - thus hamstringing initative and progress. Examples are bad employees who cannot be fired because their managers fear repercussions, schools that cannot be improved because of rules and policies, and an inability to build because of regulations and the veto power of citizens. His assertion aligns with Jen Palka, who describes government contracting for IT services which focus on preventing mistakes vs. doing the right thing and Ezra Klein's view that we create "everything bagel" policies by larding up things like infrastructure bills with well-meaning but stultifiying requirements. Howard urges us to go back to both responsibility and accountability for managers and leaders. I like his message and agree with most of it. I'm unclear in our current political environment whether it can be accomplished. I also am a bit skeptical when I see some of his conservative supporters (in reviews of the book) who exemplify, not leadership but rather capitulation to a corrupt and incompetent political regime. I see a lot of people espousing similar beliefs who are of dubious character. It wold be easier to accept such beliefs of those espousing them were competent and of exemplary character. His ideas are thought-provoking and I am glad I read the book, If only our leaders actually followed his ideas and principles rather than blowing in the political winds.
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How To Know A Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
March 25. David Brooks is one of my favorite NY Times columnists and commentators on PBS. I read and watch him regularly and have read all of his books. His books are not as good as his columns but this is one of his better books. Brooks talks about how to become an "illuminator" by asking questions about the other person. He has lots of advice about subverting your own ego to better understand others. The book is partially based on his experience in losing a close friend to depression. We saw Brooks speak at Dominican University of California last November about the book. the book is an easy read and relatively insightful. It builds on themes that Brooks has been developing over the years. It does have a lot of relevance in getting past stereotypes (and partisan divides) and seeing people for who they truly are.
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White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy
March 20. This book is about the 15% of US voters who are white, rural, and poor. The authors contend that they have taken American politics hostage. They have real grievances - largely associated with their economies based on agriculture, resource extraction, and small manufacturing being left behind by globalization and technology. The authors assert that anti-majoritarian political forces in the US --the structure and filibuser rules of the Senate, the electoral college, and partisan gerrymandering - have given this relatively smallvoting group outsised influence over American politics. Further, the media and political pundits give them outsized attention when trying to figure out what led to Trumpian populism. This voting group is way more conservative around issues like race, immigration, gender, religion, and guns than the American mainstream and the authors suggest that the Republican party has pandered to them by emphasizing culture wars over policy. In fact, this group is not attuned to policy and regularly votes against policies that might help them. The authors have some prescriptions to address this but I'm not sure they will overcome the appeal to this group of voters of cultural warfare. The authors do appeal to progressives to focus less on trying to appease this group - while still enacting policies to help them - and more on the mainstream. One interesting tidbit was that the authors assert that partisan gerrymandering leads to non-competitive congressional districts. Thus, politicians from these districts don't have to compete on serving their constituents and get away with bashing government and engaging in culture wars - neither of which actually improve the lives of constitutents but rather reinforce political division. This was a thought-provoking book, well worth reading. It was a breath of fresh air in a climate that tries to appease this group at all costs.
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Antarctica: A Novel
March 14. Kim Stanely Robinson went to Antarctica in 1995 as part of the U.S. Antarctic Program's Artist and Writer's Program. This novel is a science and social fiction novel based in Antarctia in the near future. Having just been to Antarctica, I could relate to a lot of the places and characters. The book is about seveal characters working in Antarctica - one, named X, for ASL, the group that runs McMurdo station and another, named Val, who is an adventure travel guide. There are several other characters, including Wade, who is an assistant to a US Congressman and a group of "ferel" Antarcticans who are living off the grid (with a signture Kim Stanley Robinson mode of transportation - dirigibles. The story is about life in the Antarctica including some illegal oild and gas exploration and drama around the whole experience of living in an extreme climate. Having just been there, the book was very real and tangible for me. Robinson can sometimes be a bit ponderous and preachy in his writing. and this was no exception, but the book was entertaining, nevertheless.
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The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism
March 10. Wolf sees democracy and capitalism deeply intertwined and interdependent - each depends up the other for success. Further, he sees both as under assault, democracy from an assault by autocracy and plutocracy and capitalism from an assault on free market capitalism. He sees democracy as the best (or at least least worst) way for people to govern themselves and capitalism as the best (or at least least-worst) way to generate prosperity. Both have pathologies which lead to their demise and Wolf describes these pathologies and some prescriptions to address them. He does not propose wholesale revolution but, rather incremental change. Unlike a lot of critiques of politics and economics, he actually offers prescriptions to address the ills he sees. Most are pretty sensible and straightforward. The only fear I have is that in our polarized time, even they may be difficult to enact.
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The Deadline: Essays
March 1. Jill Lepore, author of These Truths, is probably my favorite historian. She is a Harvard history professor and staff write for the New Yorker. The Deadline is a collection of her essays for The New Yorker covering a wide variety of topics from Benjamin Franklin's sister to the January 6 Insurrection. Lepore has great insights and each essay is imbied with historical context. She often starts out with a little historical vignette and uses it to introduce a topic - such loneliness, impeachment, the presidential records act. Many of her essay are very timely and all are well-written. Reading them was a pleasure and left me wanting to read more of her work.
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Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine
February 20. This book is a linear history of warfare from 1945 to the present. It does not attempt to be comprehensive, but, rather to highlight conflicts that have evolved the state of warfare. He covers conflicts that many have forgotten about - the Chinese revolution after WWII, Malay insurgencies, Russia in Afghanistan, Grenada, Panama, Balkan wars. It is illuminating so see how much conflict there has been during that time. Patraeus describes how warfare has evolved and four key elements necessary for military leaders to master for success:
He and Roberts evaluate each conflict on these four elements. One thing that struck me is that while the methods and technology of warfare have evolved, creating ever more lethality and systemaic methods for battlefield success, the world seems to continue to get into wars without a clear purpose and while winning the battle (think Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan for the US), don't have a clear objective or plans to win the peace. It was also strking that while militaries can fight wars, other tools of foreign policy - such as diplomacy - are necessary to secure lasting peace. I hope those who advocate war will take away the larger lessons from this book - particulary understanding why we go to war in the first place and how to achieve peace rather than just endless warfare.
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The Edge: 6:20 Man Book 2
February 4. This is the second in the 6:20 Man series. It is a murder mystery that takes place in a small town in Maine where a CIA agent who is the daughter of a prominent family is found murdered. Travis Devine, ex Army Ranger is dispatched to find out what happened. This is a classic candy page-turner – suitable for the beach (which is where I read it). Lots of characters and plot twists and turns. The military/spy aspect is almost gratuitous, and frankly, a little unbelievable. The author might have done better to leave that part out and just make it a murder mystery. Nevertheless, it was entertaining beach reading.
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Reykjavik: A Crime Story
February 1. This is a crime story set in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1956 (when a murder occurred) and 1986 (when it was solved). In 1956, a 15 year-old girl, Lara, disappeared from the small island of Viday, just off the coast of Reyjakavik. The murder goes unsolved for 30 years until a reporter, Valur Robertsson, takes up the case. The story provides a good window into Reykjavik (where I recently visited) and Icelandic culture. Like a lot of Nordic books, the names are a bit difficult, but the story is a good one, well told. It is a classic murder mystery with Icelandic twists. Worth reading although somewhat candy.
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Invention and Innovation. A Brief History of Hype and Failure
January 26. This is a short little book that describes a number of innovations, how they came to be, inintended consequences, and the hype that surrounded the innovations. Smil is a realist and – like his other books – describes things in a fact-based way that tends to dampen unbridled tech enthusiasm. He talked about innovations with unintended consequences – leaded gasoline, DDT, and chloroflourocarbins; innovations that were hyped but never lived up to the hype – airships, nuclear fission, and supersonic flight – inventions we keep waiting for – vacuum travel (i.e. hyperloop), nitrogen fixing cereals, controlled nuclear fusion. Overall he paints a sober view of invention and innovation as a guided trial and error process. He very much supports the view that invention and innovation move the world forward but punctures that balloon of unbridled tech optimism and unrealistic expectations.
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The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism
January 16. Tim Alberta is an evangelical himself who chronicles from the inside what has happened to the U.S evangelical movement as it has turned from a religious movement to a political movement. He interviews a number of evangelical members and leaders. He asserts that the evangelical political movement does not follow the teachings of Jesus that evangelical Chrristians espouse. In fact much of the attitude and rhetoric of the evangelical political movement is downright un-Christian. I liked the book, Alberta does a good job of explaining what happened to the American evangelical movement and exposes its hypocrisy. What I was a little disappointed with is that, while he describes what happened, he does not really describe why a movement rooted in Christian teachings about loving one’s neighbor turned into such a hateful and divisive political movement.
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Resurrection Walk: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel
January 10. This was a classic Connelley novel. Harry Bosch is working with his half-brother Mickey Haller on finding cases where there was an unjust conviction. This was mostly a courtroom novel with most of the action happening in the courtroom. Having read both Bosch and Haller books, it was a bit confusing who was doing the narrating (Haller was in the first person). The book was, as usual, well written and a pretty good story about a woman wrongfully (as it turns out) accused of killing her husband. Maggie McFierce makes a brief appearance. Now that Lincoln Lawyer is a Netflix TV series, it is easier to envision Haller. Worth reading for those who are fans of Bosch and Haller.
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