Nosemonkey > Recent Status Updates

I'm always sceptical of Fukuyama, but there's some interesting stuff here on the rise of institutional government - and (reading between the lines, with the context of today's Trump madness) the weakness of American democracy.

This is rather decent. Very much of the "lots of short snippets that individually are merely diverting, but collectively build into something much deeper" school of history.

Another of those I keep forgetting I'm enjoying when I remember to read it. The issue with this one is it's a massive, heavy great thing, even in paperback...

This is rather interesting. I keep meaning to read more popular science stuff...

Keep forgetting I've not read all of this, then dip in and realise how much I enjoy Meades' gloriously, knowingly pompous style.

The biographical introduction was interesting, but now I'm on to the main text I'm starting to revise my opinion of Jung. This is weird, proselytising, evangelical nonsense. I hope it improves...

Having Lynch himself blatantly go off script in the audiobook version is perfect. Might need to get a hard copy to find the differences.

Got a bit bored by the Plato bits in Book One, TBH. Now chugging through Book Two, and enjoyed the takedown of Hegel. Next up, Marx, where I suspect I might start disagreeing a bit more. (Not about teleology being stupid, mind...)

Continuing with my "the world's screwed" reading theme for the year...

I've tried reading this before a few times, and kept getting bogged down and giving up - largely because I felt I should make myself more familiar with Plato, Hegel, and Marx first to properly understand it. But this time I'm finding it not that difficult to follow - albeit I'm definitely missing some of the nuances of the argument.

In the section on the rise of nationalist sentiment in the aftermath of the initial pan-European revolutions, and the book's fully in its stride. The chapters on the place of Jews and women that preceded this were also excellently done.

The most recent chapter of this already wide-ranging (and therefore rather hard to follow) book has just ended with the warning that the narrative is about to fracture and become hard to follow...

It's still interesting, mind...

I gave up on Black Swan because I found Taleb's tone annoying. I find it less annoying in this one - but I *am* struggling to see the point. His central argument is clear, and I agree with it. Do I need to read the rest just to hear more examples of how he's so much cleverer than everyone else?