Titiana McGrath's new social justice satire was a hoot! I tried reading every page to my wife, but, at best I bored her, at worst, I got a "Not in front of the kids!"
Book review: Titiana McGrath’s “Woke”
Book review: “The Tyranny of Opinion” by Russell Blackford
A modern update to John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty", and a must-read on how the online world has spawned a variety of new threats to free speech, including internet mobs, public shaming, and doxing.
Book review: “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World”
This book offers a well-defended critique of markets. In sum: inequality is in part due to morally dubious behavior of corporate elites, and big philanthropy is an undemocratic process that circumvents elected representatives of the people. Bravo. You convinced me.
Book review: Isaiah Berlin’s “The Power of Ideas”
Perhaps the statement "ideas have power" sounds super-obvious. But if that's the case, we had gosh darn take a moment to examine what ideas are driving us. A timely book considering the strong ideologies present in politics today.
Book review: Karl Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto”
Like the Grinch I am, I thought I would spend Christmas harassing family members by reading passages from "The Communist Manifesto." Here's the resulting book review. Enjoy 🙂
Book review: “The Righteous Mind” by Jonathan Haidt
I just finished reading Jonathan Haidt's most recent book The Codding of the American Mind, and I wanted to go to his original work The Righteous Mind which he wrote back in 2012. I was already familiar with some of the ideas in The Righteous Mind from his TED talk, "The Moral Roots of Liberals... Continue Reading →
Book review: “The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure”
Rating 5/5 Goodreads Summary The generation now coming of age has been taught three Great Untruths: their feelings are always right; they should avoid pain and discomfort; and they should look for faults in others and not themselves. These three Great Untruths are part of a larger philosophy that sees young people as fragile creatures... Continue Reading →
He who only knows his own side knows little of that: Review of “Conflict of Visions”
Rating: 4/5 Goodreads blurb Controversies in politics arise from many sources, but the conflicts that endure for generations or centuries show a remarkably consistent pattern. In this classic work, Thomas Sowell analyzes this pattern. He describes the two competing visions that shape our debates about the nature of reason, justice, equality, and power: the "constrained"... Continue Reading →
Dogs of God: Columbus, The Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors
Rating: 4/5 A beautifully crafted narrative about the three pivotal events that all converged in the year 1492: the Spanish Inquisition, the defeat of the Spanish Moors, and the voyage of Columbus. The basic premise is that these three events, while portrayed with religious and apocalyptic imagery, were all used as tools of the state... Continue Reading →
