Non-Fiction Books That Contained the Most "Wow" Moments for Me in 2022

 

• Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different by Gordon S. Wood
• The Rothchilds: A Family Portrait by Frederic Morton
• The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen
• Toward a Meaningful Life: The Wisdom of The Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson by Simon Jacobson
• World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech by Franklin Foer
• Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite by William Deresiewicz
• Life and Death in The Third Reich by Peter Fritzsche
• Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age by Sherry Turkle
• Elon Musk  by Ashlee Vance
• The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties by Christopher Caldwell
• The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Metropolitan Elite by Michael Lind
• Race Marxism: The Truth About Critical Race Theory and Praxis by James Lindsay
• Unassailable Ideas: How Unwritten Rules and Social Media Shape Discourse in American Higher Education by Ilana Redstone and John Villasenor
• Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business by Chet Richards
• The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: From Stupefied Youth to Dangerous Adults by Mark Bauerlein
• The Psychology of Totalitarianism by Mattias Desmet
• The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis
• The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook by Niall Ferguson
• Postjournalism and the Death of Newspapers by Andrey Mir
• The Decline of Higher Education: How It Happened, the Damage It Does, and What Can Be Done by John M. Ellis

Never Retire

 

Nitwittery Update

 New York targets online speech.

Termite Infestations

Law & Liberty: Theodore Dalrymple on "The Ravages of Cultural Termites." 

An excerpt:

Soon into Gatrell’s fascinating book, I noticed a typographical oddity: the decapitalisation of titles such as that of the Duke of Wellington, the Archbishop of York, or the Lord Chancellor, King George IV, which became the duke of Wellington, the archbishop of York, the lord chancellor, king George IV etc., all against customary usage.

Truth Teller

 

First Paragraph

After the boom and bust, after the go-go frenzy and the Wall Street meltdown, the Composure Class rose once again to the fore. The people in this group hadn't made their money through hedge-fund wizardry or by some big financial score. They'd earned it by climbing the meritocratic ladder of success. They'd made good grades in school, established solid social connections, joined quality companies, medical practices, and firms. Wealth had just settled down upon them gradually like a gentle snow.

- From The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement by David Brooks

Keynote

 An organization has asked me to give a keynote address. 

I am pondering the subjects, but am aware that the usual role of a keynoter is to reassure or scare.

Post in Conference Room

Do not flatter yourself in thinking that you have much control over which temptations you click on. Silicon Valley's technologists and their ever-perfecting algorithms have discovered the form of bait that will have you jumping like a witless minnow. No information technology ever had this depth of knowledge of its consumers - or greater capacity to tweak their synapses to keep them engaged.

- Andrew Sullivan, "I Used to Be a Human Being" [New York magazine September 19, 2016]

December 1, 1955

Rosa Parks, American hero.

Event timeline.

[Photo by Unseen Histories at Unsplash]

Getting Into a Shakespeare Mood for December