Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Finally finished The Black Jacobins. Moving on now to school summer reading, The Making and Breaking of the Soviet System by Christopher Read.
What are you reading?
- Thread starter Mouthwash
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For some reason the browser screwed up my post.
The skinny: I don't know if my recent trend towards biographies is a mood or just an unconscious coincidence of recent book selections and recommendations, I've only just now noticed it.
I've been working through Edmund Morris' three-volume set on Theodore Roosevelt; I've finished the second on his presidency and plan to start the third on the post-presidency after the Earl Warren bio. It's not as flattering as one might naively expect a bio to be (don't know how it would compare to Bradley's take, haven't read that yet), especially with regards to the Battle at San Juan, his actions in Panama, and his general handling of diplomacy. It still tells everything "over his shoulder" though, so while it is a great adventure I can't help but feel there could be a little more meat to the analysis.
Even when in the mood for biographies, I don't know of anyone I want a bio on enough to read a 3 volume set.
Hell, even that Hamilton book was really a bit more than I really wanted to know.Even when in the mood for biographies, I don't know of anyone I want a bio on enough to read a 3 volume set.
Heh, I'm a sucker for completing stuff cover-to-cover, sometimes to my detriment.
Wrymouth3
Emperor
All I know is C.L.R James is a big cricket guy, how much cricket is in The Black Jacobins?
the latter; if it were the former, I wouldn't have needed a few hours to get through it
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
None. There's also a distinct lack of black on white genocide
Nope. He distinctly points it out and faults Dessalines for allowing it to happen after independence, although he notes how understandable it is. And he talks a lot about the early slave lashings out in revenge against slave-owners. But for the most part Toussaint kept violence against Whites and Mulattoes to an absolute minimum. He also faults Toussaint at one point for punishing some blacks who did lash out and massacre some whites, so YMMV.
At the moment I'm trying several books, but haven't committed to one yet. The Making of the Fittest: the Genetic Evidence for Evolution by Sean Carrol is a strong contender largely because it's an interlibrary loan book. The Righteous Mind by Johnathan Haidt is probably next.
The joys of university libraries.the latter; if it were the former, I wouldn't have needed a few hours to get through it
Ajidica
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Now that I've wrapped up The Witcher books I'm moving on to Thank You Comrade Stalin about the Soviet media and Dilemma of Victory, about the immediate impact of the Chinese Revolution viewed through how it actually impacted people in the cities and villages.
There's an annotated version? I really enjoyed that book when I was a boy.
Darth Caesar
Might be a Wizard
I'm reading Paradise Lost right now
I enjoyed these. Waiting for the 3rd in the series to be published. Don't know when that's going to be. That's always the bad part about getting into new series.
The Righteous Mind was one of the best books I've read all year, and that's including The Plain Reader and Religion for Atheists. It broaches on morality, evolution, anthropology, politics, and religion, maintaining that humans act more on instinct and intuition than reason (though we use reason to justify our instincts), that these instincts make us susceptible to factionalism. It's a sweeping book, but one concept worth noting is that the author believes there are six factors in morality, with instinct prompting us to lean toward some or the other, modified by our life experiences. Liberty is one factor, care another: as you might expect, libertarians test as Devoted to liberty, while liberals are stronger on the Care aspect. Conservatives in general, according to Haidt, draw more broadly from all six bases, though one assumes factions within conservatism demonstrate clear biases. The factors are care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity. All have biological/evolutionary origins that get expressed in high-flown language.
I recently purchased Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of American Libertarianism because it mentioned Hayek. I felt dirty after I got home when I realized it has a big chapter on Ayn Rand, so I'm going to wait until I have something like The Shock Doctrine or Power, Inc to protect me from the anarcho-capitalists perverse influence.
I recently purchased Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of American Libertarianism because it mentioned Hayek. I felt dirty after I got home when I realized it has a big chapter on Ayn Rand, so I'm going to wait until I have something like The Shock Doctrine or Power, Inc to protect me from the anarcho-capitalists perverse influence.
