[AFAIK]

I'm currently reading Postcapitalism by Paul Mason. It's accessible and readable and discusses long waves and the declining profit rate due to the abundance of reproduction of information that the internet allows. Apparently Marx discussed this in a notebook that was lost for a century but didn't pursue the thought because it wasn't relevant to the times in which he lived. It's called the fragment on machines if you want to look it up.

I just finished Special by Bella Bathurst about a group of teen girls on a school trip. The writing's great and very immersive but the story is told as a series of anecdotes and vignettes so it feels a bit choppy at times and developments that should be significant plot points lose their gravity somewhat. I'll definitely keep an eye out for this author in the future.

[ThirdTerm]

Voices from Chernobyl by the winner of the 2015 Nobel prize in literature, Svetlana Alexievich.

[anasawad]

Anyone read Rules For Radicals by Saul Alinsky ?

[Potemkin]

Anyone read Rules For Radicals by Saul Alinsky ?

Yes. I read it back in the mid-1980s, long before the right-wing pundits ever mentioned him. It's very down-to-earth and chatty. It was fun to read and yes, l learned everything I know about how to be a Marxist subversive from it.

[Frollein]

Collapse by Jared Diamond. A very entertaining read. From page 109, about Easter Island:

"Easter's chiefs and priests had previously justified their elite status by claiming relationship to the gods, and by promising to deliver prosperity and bountiful harvests. They buttressed that ideology by monumental architecture and ceremonies designed to impress the masses, and made possible by food surpluses extracted from the masses."

Or on page 149, about the Anasazi:

"Chaco canyon became a black hole into which goods were imported, but from which nothing tangible was exported. (...) Chaco society turned into a mini-empire, divided between a well-fed elite living in luxury, and a less well-fed peasantry doing the work and raising the food."

I especially enjoy the parts where they start turning on each other, eating first rats and mice, and then going full in to cannibalism.

[quetzalcoatl]

Tackling David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order, for the second time. Tried to read it a couple of decades back, but its ideas were confounding and elusive at the time. We'll see if my comprehension has improved.

[ThirdTerm]

This is the only academic book available about Proto-Indo-Europeans from the Pontic-Caspian steppe in southern Russia.

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language lifts the veil that has long shrouded these original Indo-European speakers, and reveals how their domestication of horses and use of the wheel spread language and transformed civilization.

Linking prehistoric archaeological remains with the development of language, David Anthony identifies the prehistoric peoples of central Eurasia's steppe grasslands as the original speakers of Proto-Indo-European, and shows how their innovative use of the ox wagon, horseback riding, and the warrior's chariot turned the Eurasian steppes into a thriving transcontinental corridor of communication, commerce, and cultural exchange. He explains how they spread their traditions and gave rise to important advances in copper mining, warfare, and patron-client political institutions, thereby ushering in an era of vibrant social change. Anthony also describes his fascinating discovery of how the wear from bits on ancient horse teeth reveals the origins of horseback riding.

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language solves a puzzle that has vexed scholars for two centuries--the source of the Indo-European languages and English--and recovers a magnificent and influential civilization from the past.

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8488.html

[Drlee]

Just Breathe Normally (American Lives) Peggy Shumacher

Fair notice: I have known the author for close to 50 years. We are not close by any stretch of the imagination but I was present for many of the things that happened to her in childhood.

A remarkable book. Beautifully written. (She is a poet of some considerable reputation.) There is a poetic quality to her prose. If you can find it give it a try.

[Tailz]

I'm a World War II history junkie: The Home Guard Manual 1941

[AFAIK]

Just reread Once a Jolly Hangman by Alan Shadrake. Shadrake is a British journalist who is very anti-death penalty and spent several years in Singapore investigating its use of the death penalty. He paints Singapore as very mercenary and willing to bend and break its sentencing laws to appease those with powerful connections.

[The Sabbaticus]

Dr. Zhivago - overrated historical agitprop against the Soviet Union. It was useful for the insights it gave into the revolution and the effects it had on Russian society, but the happenstance was unconvincing. Though it did have a good line about lofty ideals becoming base and common, explaining the trajectory of the 'revolution'.

[anasawad]

Continuing the Shahnameh currently. And planning for the Avesta starting this weekend, still collecting all relevant sources currently. Better have the full picture instead of the outlines and only limited details on certain topics.

I made several threads previously about Islamic code.
'm thinking that i make a new one about Zoroastrianism. Though i need to get familiar with all the details about it first in all sections.

[Potemkin]

Dr. Zhivago - overrated historical agitprop against the Soviet Union. It was useful for the insights it gave into the revolution and the effects it had on Russian society, but the happenstance was unconvincing. Though it did have a good line about lofty ideals becoming base and common, explaining the trajectory of the 'revolution'.

Pasternak's novel is not the greatest ever written, by any stretch of the imagination - he was a much better poet than prose writer, and constructing a novel with a proper plot and proper characters was not his forte. To be fair to him, it wasn't what he was interested in doing anyway. Dr Zhivago is essentially a series of lyric moments (in the poetic sense) strung together, tied to the historical events of the Bolshevik Revolution, and called a 'novel'. Pasternak was actually scrupulously fair to the Bolsheviks - he presents the Whites as being sadistic brutes (which many of them were), and the Bolsheviks as noble-minded idealists who were morally compromised by their single-minded fanaticism (for example, the character Strelnikov). The novel is neither anti-Soviet nor pro-Soviet - it presents the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian Civil War seen in the light of eternity, as Pasternak would have it. At the height of the purges, a case was being prepared by the NKVD for Pasternak's arrest. Stalin wrote to them, instructing them to "leave this cloud-dweller in peace!" That's pretty much what Pasternak was - a cloud-dweller. A "visitor from another world", to quote the title of the one of the chapters of Dr Zhivago. It is a deeply flawed but unforgettable novel.

[skinster]

Recent:

[Goldberk]

Pasternak's novel is not the greatest ever written, by any stretch of the imagination - he was a much better poet than prose writer, and constructing a novel with a proper plot and proper characters was not his forte. To be fair to him, it wasn't what he was interested in doing anyway. Dr Zhivago is essentially a series of lyric moments (in the poetic sense) strung together, tied to the historical events of the Bolshevik Revolution, and called a 'novel'. Pasternak was actually scrupulously fair to the Bolsheviks - he presents the Whites as being sadistic brutes (which many of them were), and the Bolsheviks as noble-minded idealists who were morally compromised by their single-minded fanaticism (for example, the character Strelnikov). The novel is neither anti-Soviet nor pro-Soviet - it presents the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian Civil War seen in the light of eternity, as Pasternak would have it. At the height of the purges, a case was being prepared by the NKVD for Pasternak's arrest. Stalin wrote to them, instructing them to "leave this cloud-dweller in peace!" That's pretty much what Pasternak was - a cloud-dweller. A "visitor from another world", to quote the title of the one of the chapters of Dr Zhivago. It is a deeply flawed but unforgettable novel.

The novel also has value beyond the literary, namely as a rallying point for left opposition to the Soviet Union across Europe.

[mikema63]

Is there a book that gives a good description of the current state of geopolitical affairs?

Especially stuff like NATO, the EU, the relationships between western powers, and their relationships with other powers like Russia and China.

[Truth To Power]

Is there a book that gives a good description of the current state of geopolitical affairs?

Especially stuff like NATO, the EU, the relationships between western powers, and their relationships with other powers like Russia and China.

Michael Hudson's Superimperialism is a good account of how western powers, especially the USA, have been robbing and enslaving poor countries. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a good companion piece, much lighter, chattier, and easier to read.

[mikema63]

I'm more interested in the current relationships of major powers and not so much neo-colonialism right now.

[ThirdTerm]

Probably this is the best book on the subject. I had learned the basics from a retired Cambridge professor and Kissinger's 'World Order' covers all relevant international actors today such as NATO, Russia and China.

Kissinger’s thesis is as simple as the topic is broad. The Introduction provides in only a few pages a diagnosis of the crisis in which the international order now finds itself. The post-World War II global order was ’an inexorably expanding cooperative order of states observing common rules and norms, embracing liberal economic systems, forswearing territorial conquest, respecting national sovereignty, and adopting participatory and democratic systems of governance.’ The world and international law are still premised on this European Westphalian system of world order based on states and sovereignty. However, this system is now under threat, and we are in search of a new concept of world order. The real challenge for the formation of a new world order is diversity and the diversity of views on that new world order, developed within these different regions of the world. It is a contest between those visions that embrace a universal concept of world order, and those that build order on the basis of pluralism and diversity of cultures and identities. In any case, ”[t]he mystery to be overcome is one all peoples share – how divergent historical experiences and values can be shaped into a common order.”
http://manusama.com/2016/05/13/book-rev ... beginners/

[The Sabbaticus]

Pasternak's novel is not the greatest ever written, by any stretch of the imagination - he was a much better poet than prose writer, and constructing a novel with a proper plot and proper characters was not his forte. To be fair to him, it wasn't what he was interested in doing anyway. Dr Zhivago is essentially a series of lyric moments (in the poetic sense) strung together, tied to the historical events of the Bolshevik Revolution, and called a 'novel'. Pasternak was actually scrupulously fair to the Bolsheviks - he presents the Whites as being sadistic brutes (which many of them were), and the Bolsheviks as noble-minded idealists who were morally compromised by their single-minded fanaticism (for example, the character Strelnikov). The novel is neither anti-Soviet nor pro-Soviet - it presents the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian Civil War seen in the light of eternity, as Pasternak would have it. At the height of the purges, a case was being prepared by the NKVD for Pasternak's arrest. Stalin wrote to them, instructing them to "leave this cloud-dweller in peace!" That's pretty much what Pasternak was - a cloud-dweller. A "visitor from another world", to quote the title of the one of the chapters of Dr Zhivago. It is a deeply flawed but unforgettable novel.

Just the sort of thing that will make for a good Hollywood movie.