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Collected reviews from decades of reading — organized by subject and written for clarity, context, and long-term reference.

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  • The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (1979) by Elizabeth L. Eisenstein

    The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (1979) by Elizabeth L. Eisenstein

    Elizabeth Eisenstein’s The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (1979) is considered a seminal work because it reframed our understanding of the role of print in the development of modern society. Eisenstein’s arguments have had a profound and enduring impact on fields such as history, communication studies, sociology, and the history of science. However,…

  • The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (2010) by Matt Ridley

    The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (2010) by Matt Ridley

    What if Adam Smith (invisible hand) and Charles Darwin (evolution) had a baby? The offspring might be pretty amazing: intelligent, dynamic, innovative, problem-solving. At least that’s what British science writer Matt Ridley argues in “The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves” (2011). First, Ridley wants you to know that being an optimist is long been lonely,…

  • The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (2020) by Erik Larson

    The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (2020) by Erik Larson

    Erik Larson has a rare talent for making popular history read like gripping historical fiction. His trademark approach – finding lesser-known figures like serial killer Dr. H.H. Holmes or American diplomat Martha Dodd and placing them amid moments of great historical consequence – has yielded some of the most compelling nonfiction narratives of the past…

  • Paul Revere’s Ride (1994) by David Hackett Fischer

    Paul Revere’s Ride (1994) by David Hackett Fischer

    David Hackett Fischer writes delightful books. He expertly combines the breezy readability of a master popular historian with the professional craftsmanship and deep primary research of a top rate academic. The end result is a narrative that is at once a dazzling adventure tale and a groundbreaking piece of historiography. The adventure tale aspect of…

  • Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? (2005) by Philip E. Tetlock

    Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? (2005) by Philip E. Tetlock

    I only heard about Philip Tetlock’s “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?” (2005) in late 2024. Vinod Khosla, the legendary co-founder of Sun Microsystems and later venture investor, was speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco. It was an casual style discussion on stage discussing the state of…

  • Salazar: The Dictator Who Refused to Die (2020) by Tom Gallagher

    Salazar: The Dictator Who Refused to Die (2020) by Tom Gallagher

    Portrait of a Pessimist Dictator Antonio Salazar was born the fifth and last child to devout peasant parents in the coastal city of Vimieiro in 1889, a time when roughly eighty percent of Portuguese were illiterate. The future dictator was a brilliant scholar and a sincere Catholic who believed the teachings of the church were…

  • The Visible Hand: Managerial Revolution in American Business (1977) by Alfred Chandler

    The Visible Hand: Managerial Revolution in American Business (1977) by Alfred Chandler

    Some books are worth reading because they are grand and insightful, even if the writing is a bit stale and dry. “The Visible Hand” falls into that rare fraternity of non-fiction; a book that is tough to get through, but will forever alter how you perceive a given subject, in this case, the early economic…

  • Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? (2010) by James Shapiro

    Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? (2010) by James Shapiro

    Who really wrote Shakespeare? It’s a question that’s been asked literally for centuries, sometimes by thoughtful intellectuals, but most often by those with a limited knowledge of literature and a strong predisposition to conspiracy theories. In this book, “Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?” (2020) by distinguished Columbia University literature professor James Shapiro, the author seeks…

  • Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn: Paul Revere and the Growth of American Enterprise (2010) by Robert Martello

    Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn: Paul Revere and the Growth of American Enterprise (2010) by Robert Martello

    “Listen, my children, and you shall hear, Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.” So begins one of the most famous poems in American history, “Paul Revere’s Ride” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1860). Published forty-two years after the death of the great American patriot, Longfellow’s poem cemented Paul Revere’s name in American history. In the…