Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I have just got to read both of these China books! Thanks tiglover! I've been on a China kick lately too. I've already been appalled and horrified at what I've read and obviously that trend will continue.
This gives you an inside look at the disastrous Great Leap Forward (estimates of death are as high as 43 million) and the equally disastrous Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards.
I thought the Cultural Revolution gave Chinese access to opera and symphony orchestras.
I started reading Extremely Loud/Sound as a Weapon/Juliette Volcler and couldn't finish it, way, way, way too depressing, given I've been with NoiseFreeAmerica for years.
Sound cannons? Infrasounds? What a Sonic Body Can Do?
Yes, the military, worldwide, are using sound for weapons.
Israeli's flying SST's over Gaza to punish the Palestinians? Breaking ear drums, shattering windows?
I started reading Extremely Loud/Sound as a Weapon/Juliette Volcler and couldn't finish it, way, way, way too depressing, given I've been with NoiseFreeAmerica for years.
Sound cannons? Infrasounds? What a Sonic Body Can Do?
Yes, the military, worldwide, are using sound for weapons.
Israeli's flying SST's over Gaza to punish the Palestinians? Breaking ear drums, shattering windows?
No thanks! I quit half way thru this book!
Now that's a new one. Does Israel even have an SST they could deploy over Gaza? The Concorde was the last Western one I recall. Maybe Tupolev, the TU-144? But even that one was risky to fly in its heyday.
I like to read history over current events when I want to read non-fiction.
I read a lot of fiction too, though.
Erik Larson is one of my favorite historians.
Larson chooses his subjects very carefully; he writes about times when there's some big change that's just beginning, then includes some smaller event, often a crime, but not always, that occurred because of the change.
Larson's books all read like they're novels. The moments in time he captures are always colorful, very interesting, and are chock-full of characters good and bad who are almost like actors playing their parts in very twisted and complicated plots.
Any of his books are excellent and easy to read, but my favorite is "In the Garden of Beasts", his account of the U.S. Ambassador to Germany during the rise of Hitler in 1933 Berlin.
Our Embassy in Berlin was a job no one in our State Department wanted. Everyone in the State Dept. knew Germany was headed straight into deep trouble, but William Dodd, one of the few who applied, wanted the job, mostly because he thought it would lead to a more secure retirement.
Dodd obtained his PhD 40 years earlier in Leipzig, and had been a professor at the University of Chicago until he was retired due to age. 65 was a mandatory retirement age at that time.
Since an Ambassador's job is usually ceremonial, Dodd thought taking it would give him the free time to write a long Civil War history he had been working on for years, along with providing him and his family a good life that was free from the scramble for cash his life became during the Depression.
Dodd was never a part of the social elite, the group that seeks Ambassadorships for their social prestige. He had no diplomacy skill at all.
Dodd had 2 adult children, a son and an older daughter. His daughter was in her mid-20s, and had recently divorced her husband and was on loose ends.
His son was working on his own PhD at the time, so once in Berlin, he completed his work at the University of Berlin. Inside the Embassy, Junior assisted his father in the routine daily duties, and never engaged in the very active social activities that went on constantly.
His daughter Martha, though, became a notorious party girl. She was very sexually active, and at one time had lovers that were high up in Hitler's bureaucracy, and a Russian lover who was a Communist leader stationed in Berlin at the same time. Along with a British military man, and several members of several political parties that were all very active and very dangerous.
One of those affairs ended when the German murdered the Russian. The second ended when the German was almost murdered by another German a little later on.
Martha was always the life of the party, known in all the embassies, and at first, she loved the Nazis. One introduced her to Hitler in hopes his boss would take her as his mistress, but Martha found Hitler far too shy around women to suit her.
Dodd was charged by Roosevelt to keep all the Embassy's doings as calm and smooth as possible, but slowly, Dodd and his family discovered they were trapped in Berlin and became terrified that they couldn't escape.
Even when Martha finally realized her life was in serious danger, her activities never stopped or changed.
It's a big book that's filled with characters, and was a much slower read for me than all of Larson's other books; I found I had to go back and re-read earlier events quite often to keep everything straight in my head. The book is carefully divided into many small chapters, so re-reading was easy. So was reading a few chapters at a time.
But for every slow chapter, there was another that kept me up late into the night reading.
It was like reading a fictional saga that I couldn't put down. A tale of innocents who found themselves in a paradise of leisure and privilege that slowly turned into a hell full of imminent danger of death at every turn.
Last edited by banjomike; 09-29-2022 at 03:12 PM..
"Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl" by Stacey O'Brien
"The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness," by Sy Montgomery
"The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World," by Peter Wohlleben, Tim Flannery (Foreword), Jane Billinghurst (Translator), Suzanne Simard
"The Evolution of God," by Robert Wright
"America's Deadliest Export: Democracy – The Truth About US Foreign Policy and Everything Else," by William Blum
"They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America's Wars: The Untold Story," by Ann Jones
"The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History," by Boris Johnson
"Once Upon a Time in Russia: The Rise of the Oligarchs and the Greatest Wealth in History," by Ben Mezrich
"Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS," by Joby Warrick
"Messing with the Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians, and Fake News," by Clint Watts
"Hell and Other Destinations: A 21st-Century Memoir," by Madeleine K. Albright
"First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country," by Thomas E. Ricks
"Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight," by Julia Sweig
I'm reading God's Bankers by Posner. The history of the Vatican.
All I can say is that if Jesus Christ made the big mistake of returning to this world, and landing in the Vatican, the minute he said: Aren't there any Christians here?, he'd be shot on sight!
I had no idea the Vatican is wealthier than many corporations on this Planet.
I didn't realize Hitler was raised a Catholic, which is one reason the Vatican supported Hitler.
I just finished reading President McKinley/Robert W. Merry
McKinley led us thru the overthrow of the Spanish in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and the plan to build a canal in either Nicaragua or Panama.
He died of an assassination at the World Expo in Buffalo in 1901.
A most admirable President, he doted on his sickly wife for decades, would drop everything to help her.
Now on to a bio of Barry Goldwater.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Makes you think
