From the Deep Woods is
a book about the author’s spiritual and intellectual journey through his life
in the late 19th and early 20th century. Charles Eastmen was a Native American
who received a college education on the east coast and eventually became a
doctor working on reservations in the Midwest.
I was fascinated by
this book, but it also made me a little sad. Eastman’s commentary on the
American society of his time was incredibly wise and insightful. However, much
of Eastman’s critiques and observations would be just as poignant and just as
relevant today as when this book was first written in the early 20th
century.
"Has a many-sided appeal …. This stimulating book is one of the few that really deserve the over-worked term, a human document." — Publishers Weekly. In the first of his memoirs, the popular Indian Boyhood, Charles Alexander Eastman recounted his traditional upbringing among the Santee Sioux. From the Deep Woods to Civilization resumes his story, recounting his abrupt departure from tribal life at age 15 to pursue his education among whites — a path that led him to certification as a medical doctor, the publication of many successful books, and a lifetime of tireless efforts to benefit his native culture.…
The
Fate of Rome is a fascinating, but also unnerving reminder that so
much has changed, and at the same time so little. It was a stark reminder to me
and every other reader of the book that civilization is a fragile construct,
and that it only takes a few systemic shocks to transform or destroy it.
In a nutshell, The Fate of Rome makes the case that the
Roman Empire was unalterably transformed by a shifting climate and several
pandemic disease outbreaks. Sounds exactly like the kind of book someone would
write post-COVID outbreak, but amazingly Harper actually wrote this book before we got a modern reminder of how
devastating global pandemics can be.
How devastating viruses, pandemics, and other natural catastrophes swept through the far-flung Roman Empire and helped to bring down one of the mightiest civilizations of the ancient world
Here is the monumental retelling of one of the most consequential chapters of human history: the fall of the Roman Empire. The Fate of Rome is the first book to examine the catastrophic role that climate change and infectious diseases played in the collapse of Rome's power-a story of nature's triumph over human ambition. Interweaving a grand historical narrative with cutting-edge climate science and genetic discoveries, Kyle Harper traces how the fate…
This book is a good
reminder for me that there are always two powerful impulses that motivate
humanity whenever a new technology is developed.
The first impulse is to use
new tech to gain power, money, influence, or just harm others for the sake of
it. The second impulse is to employ that new technology to benefit people and
hopefully make the world a better place.
The
Declassification Engine is a book that belongs to that second impulse.
Throughout, the author demonstrates how AI and machine learning can be used to
help sort, categorize, and generally illuminate more about top-secret
government documents. The tools shown in this book might help us reclaim some
of our history lost to secrecy.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDHILL HISTORY PRIZE • Every day, thousands of new secrets are created by the United States government. What is all this secrecy really for? And whom does it benefit?
“A brilliant, deeply unsettling look at the history and inner workings of ‘the dark state'.... At a time when federal agencies are increasingly classifying or destroying documents with historical significance, this book could not be more important.” —Eric Schlosser, New York Times best-selling author of Command and Control
Before World War II, transparent government was a proud tradition in the United States. In all but the most serious…
A Lot of Questions, with No Answers is a collection of six essays about
different philosophical topics published by Atmosphere Press. The topics of the
different essays range from how history is taught and understood by the general
public, and why that matters, to the importance of questioning what we believe,
and the assumptions that underlie our beliefs, and how mythologizing historical
figures distorts the reality of that figure’s actual life.
I hope the book
encourages a sense of critical thinking and reasoned judgment in the reader.
