Grand unified books thread

[The Brain]

Started on The Wars for Asia 1911-1949, by S.C.M. Paine. I only managed a few pages in before I had to quit.

The author is fighting the good fight against the "conventional" view of the WW2 era, which apparently is a weird kindergarten/cereal box version of events. The different conflicts in Asia in the 30s and 40s weren't trivial and completely separate?? Amazing. Wait, the Russians fought a huge part of German military strength for years?? Who knew. WW2 wasn't completely decided by GIs??? Surely you jest. The author also seems really hung up on words and doesn't seem to understand that adults manage to look beyond words and see meaning. "Incident" doesn't automatically make an adult think that the event was insignificant FFS. "Warlord" doesn't make an adult think that the person has to be worse than Hitler. The author also says that the Japanese force on the mainland was called Kwantung Army or Kanto Army depending on your sympathies, but doesn't elaborate. Since the author then uses Kanto am I to assume that his sympathies are firmly on one side? Wouldn't it be nice if he could tell the reader a bit about his sympathies since they seem to be a big deal to him? The author also claims that the US drive towards (and ultimately if needed onto) the Home Islands would have been impossible if the Japanese army hadn't been heavily engaged on the mainland, but doesn't explain his reasoning. I suppose the Imperial Swimming Corps would have stopped US task forces from roaming at will? Yes resources were spent on the mainland but that doesn't translate into the Japanese having great amounts of aluminium, oil, radar, trained pilots etc etc etc if those resources were spent in the Pacific instead.

[Razgovory]

The People vs Democracy - a Harvard prof paints a very dim future for the survival of Liberal Democracy and then sets out to propose ways it might be saved.  But his solutions were not very convincing and so I came away persuaded that we are at the end of the period of Liberal Democracy and entering an age of populist politics or technocrats.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674976825

Just picked this up.

[crazy canuck]

The People vs Democracy - a Harvard prof paints a very dim future for the survival of Liberal Democracy and then sets out to propose ways it might be saved.  But his solutions were not very convincing and so I came away persuaded that we are at the end of the period of Liberal Democracy and entering an age of populist politics or technocrats.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674976825

Just picked this up.

I would be interested in hearing what you think about it.

[Razgovory]

I'll tell you when I finished.

[Valmy]

Started on The Wars for Asia 1911-1949, by S.C.M. Paine. I only managed a few pages in before I had to quit.

The author is fighting the good fight against the "conventional" view of the WW2 era, which apparently is a weird kindergarten/cereal box version of events. The different conflicts in Asia in the 30s and 40s weren't trivial and completely separate?? Amazing. Wait, the Russians fought a huge part of German military strength for years?? Who knew. WW2 wasn't completely decided by GIs??? Surely you jest. The author also seems really hung up on words and doesn't seem to understand that adults manage to look beyond words and see meaning. "Incident" doesn't automatically make an adult think that the event was insignificant FFS. "Warlord" doesn't make an adult think that the person has to be worse than Hitler. The author also says that the Japanese force on the mainland was called Kwantung Army or Kanto Army depending on your sympathies, but doesn't elaborate. Since the author then uses Kanto am I to assume that his sympathies are firmly on one side? Wouldn't it be nice if he could tell the reader a bit about his sympathies since they seem to be a big deal to him? The author also claims that the US drive towards (and ultimately if needed onto) the Home Islands would have been impossible if the Japanese army hadn't been heavily engaged on the mainland, but doesn't explain his reasoning. I suppose the Imperial Swimming Corps would have stopped US task forces from roaming at will? Yes resources were spent on the mainland but that doesn't translate into the Japanese having great amounts of aluminium, oil, radar, trained pilots etc etc etc if those resources were spent in the Pacific instead.

Oh my God I hate books like that. I mean just tell me your take on the event, no need to inform me what you think I think about it.

'You realize that back when this other civilization was doing very civilized things, Britain was filled with a bunch of sheep-fucking drunks you white devil?'

[Eddie Teach]

Nah, the British were the first truly civilized country, and that only happened in the 17th or 18th century. 

[Savonarola]

I recently completed a book sort of like the one The Brain was complaining about.  It was Myles Dungan's "How the Irish won the West," where the author kept going on about how the Roy Rogers west wasn't a real place.

Irish immigrants did supply a good amount of the manpower in both the army and rail construction (even the Central Pacific had Irish gang bosses for the Chinese gangs).  These two institutions, more than anything, opened the west to white settlement, which, until about fifty years ago, was viewed as "Winning" the west.  That's not a widely accepted view today; and that's not what this book is about anyway.  The railroad only has a brief section and the army isn't covered at all (the author has a different book on that.)  Instead its a series of colorful anecdotes about Irish immigrants to the western states; with a bunch of tut-tutting about how 50s era Hollywood depictions of the west was all wrong.  The result is all over the place; he starts his chapter on the Johnson County War by telling us how it was nothing like the dime store novels, and follows it up with a narration of the Johnson County War that would have done a dime store novel proud.  He carries on about how hard life was for prostitutes in the old west; and then tells tales about the lives of the most notorious, and successful, madams.

I did learn that, at the time of his speaking engagement in the United States, Oscar Wilde was famous for being famous; not for anything he had written.

[Savonarola]

I read "Dear Hippie... We Met at Woodstock" by Daniel Carlson.  Carlson had been a deputy sheriff in Dutchess County; and had been called into Bethel, New York (in neighboring Sullivan County) for Woodstock.  (The town of Woodstock, NY wasn't actually the scene of the Woodstock Music Festival; in fact it's about 60 miles away.)  The book is short; it comes across as hastily written and in need of an editor.  (Carlson, in one passage, refers to Inspector Javert as "A character from the musical Les Miserables.")  Still it does provide a different point of view on Woodstock than the Michael Lang book I recently read. I learned that there were few, if any, arrests for public nudity or drugs because the police had no way to get an arrested person out of the festival.

[Maladict]

RIP John Julius Norwich   

[garbon]

[The Minsky Moment]

he starts his chapter on the Johnson County War by telling us how it was nothing like the dime store novels

IIRC it was more like an auteur movie gone millions over budget.

[Valmy]

RIP John Julius Norwich   

Oh man I was just listening to a Byzantium podcast today. RIP dude you were one of the big reasons I became interested in the Medieval East.

[Savonarola]

I finished "Foucault's Pendulum", even in translation that required a lot of look-ups.  It's easy enough today, but when it was first published it must have been a bit like reading Dune without the glossary.

[crazy canuck]

I finished "Foucault's Pendulum", even in translation that required a lot of look-ups.  It's easy enough today, but when it was first published it must have been a bit like reading Dune without the glossary.

Still my favourite book

[grumbler]

I finished "Foucault's Pendulum", even in translation that required a lot of look-ups.  It's easy enough today, but when it was first published it must have been a bit like reading Dune without the glossary.

I found that i didn't need to understand all of the allusions to enjoy the book.