Nosemonkey > Recent Status Updates

Not so much a history of humanity as a history and overview of anthropology, and - as ever - how so much of our (mis)understanding of the world is based on (largely) 19th century Western assumptions rather than real evidence. But I'm here for it.

Still on the first chapter, which is so far a glorious demolition of the ahistorical traditional arguments for the origins of society, with brief put-downs of Hobbes, Rousseau, Fukuyama, and Diamond (all of whom I've enjoyed), and a wonderfully fun extended demolition of Steven Pinker (whose books I've occasionally wanted to throw across the room).

I think I'm going to like this one.

Feels a bit dated in many of its attitudes, and its origins as (Japanese) university student essays are clear from the construction of the argument (lots of citations from published sources as the starting point for a discussion).

That said, there're some interesting stuff in here, and some concepts I didn't know but that make perfect sense.

This is basically a twin biography of TS Eliot and Ezra Pound. Both had distinctly unpleasant social and political opinions, with Pound and active fascist. But this is focused on the early 20s, so all that's coming through so far is a bit of foreshadowing, and some passages calling out Eliot's antisemitism.

But The Waste Land *is* a work of genius. Will I still like it as much after this? We'll see.

Nearly a third of the way through, and now up to late 1932, and the mystery of De Gaulle still hasn't dissipated. The man was a complete dick to basically everyone, and utterly delusional about his importance in pretty much everything. Really, really hard to understand the appeal.

The book is excellent, mind.

One chapter in, and this is very promising so far.

This guy can't write for hell, but he's got a lot of interviews with interesting people and uncover d a few bits of trivia I'd not heard before, so I'll stick with it.

Sandbrook's really not a fan of the Wilson government, eh? Or the idea that anything in the Sixties was new. Getting a tad repetitive now, TBH...

Was walking a lot today, so got through a lot. So far this is engaging me less than the previous volume - but that may be because there's a lot more (pop) cultural stuff in this one, about which I know quite a bit. Fewer surprises. Even the anecdotes - about the Beatles, Kinks, Terrence Stamp, etc etc - are far more familiar, where there were more unfamiliar ones in the last book. Probably just me.

A couple of chapters in, this is filling a lot of the gaps I felt were in the first volume - especially around science, industry, and the power struggles in the Labour party in the run up to the 1964 election.

I love this film, and just watched it on the big screen for the first time, but this book seems a bit in-depth even for me... Fun, though.

As I suspected, nothing much here so far has been either new or surprising, and a few interpretations are setting off a tingling in my authorial bias detectors (most notably so far a very, very mild interpretation of the British response to the Mau Mau rebellion, and to imperialism in general) but it's well done for what it is. As it's familiar, it's good dog walk listening, and the audiobook's decent.

This is jumping around a little all over the place with more of thematic than a narrative connection between incidents and chapters, but it's engagingly told.

This is really rather excellent so far. Finally starting to understand how the Terror started, something unclear from previous books I've read, where it just kinda happens.

I always used to read Popova's Brain Pickings newsletter, but have kinda slipped out of the habit since it changed its name. Turns out this book is an excellent reminder of why I liked her stuff. It's sorta rambling, but in a good way. Calming, while also always interesting. I'm going to enjoy this one.

This is very good so far. History of art, psychology, Vienna in its golden age. Ticks many of the boxes.

Light's more interesting than I thought...

Forgot I hadn't finished this. Dense art criticism stretching my brain - enjoying it, mind.