If there’s one book that I find myself recommending more than most lately, it’s Thomas Ricks’ survey and analysis of US generals from World War II to the present. With an eye to examining why history has been so kind to the men who led the US Army during that war, but less so to […]
Book Review | The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today by Thomas E. Ricks
2015-09-07 · by ·
Review | On Writing by Stephen King
2015-02-17 · by ·
Do you want to be a writer? I’m not asking “do you want to write?” It’s not the same question. Rather “do you want to be a writer?” If so, you could do worse than reading On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. On Writing is part memoir that provides context for […]
Book Review | Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp, and Camille Kingsolver
2014-06-19 · by ·
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life is a story about a family who chooses to eat local foods (many of them grown and raised by themselves) for one year, for the purpose of minimizing their petroleum foot print. Their story is told from three different perspectives: mother, father, and teenage child. Each perspective […]
Book Review | The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath by Nicco Mele
2014-01-13 · by ·
If Thomas Friedman‘s thesis in his 2005 The World Is Flat is that globalization has led to a flatter playing field, then The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath tells the author Nicco Mele’s vision that the ultimate tool of that equalization is the internet. In truth, it’s not a hard […]
Book Review | Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown by Wiedemer, Wiedemer, and Spitzer
2014-01-05 · by ·
I can’t recall who exactly recommended this to me when I first picked this up back in 2010 or 2011, but I do recall the cautionary note that they took as they described it and the author’s conclusions. The global recession had begun four years earlier, since which time I had just barely been able […]
Short Review | Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages by Jean Gimpel
2014-01-04 · by ·
The medieval ages were far more like our modern age than we often think. The only thing that came to my mind prior to reading this book was knights and castles. Hardly a dark age as often portrayed, the period was full of industrial innovation, and Jean Gimpel makes an interesting survey of some of […]
Book Review | Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum
2013-12-28 · by ·
Perhaps what is most fascinating about the strange episode of human history under which the communist oppression of Eastern Europe falls is that it has gone so long without a comprehensive history of how it occurred. Anne Applebaum‘s Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 appears to step into that gap, providing in-depth research and a […]
Book Review | The Beautiful Tree by James Tooley [Contributor]
2013-12-17 · by ·
The Beautiful Tree is a book about what’s right with the world. Amazingly, what is right with the world is found in the slums of Nigeria, India, Kenya, China, and Zimbabwe. The poor educating themselves without government assistance is the name of the game. In the early 2000s author of The Beautiful Tree, James Tooley (a British […]
Review | The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die by Niall Ferguson
2013-10-30 · by ·
One of the most interesting books I’ve read in recent years was Niall Ferguson‘s Civilization: The West and the Rest, an examination of the extraordinary rise of Western Civilization relative to the rest of the world and the causes that seem to be at the root of its apparent decline. Ferguson’s newest book–The Great Degeneration: […]
Review | With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain by Michael Korda
2012-12-16 · by ·
Ranked among the greatest battles in British history, along with Waterloo, defeating the Spanish Armada, and Trafalgar, the Battle of Britain stands as a turning point during World War II when the Nazi juggernaut finally faced a foe that would not fall. Though few recognized it immediately, it was the turning of the tide in […]
