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Author Archives: smellincoffee
Civilisation: A Personal View
Civilisation: A Personal View© 1959 Sir Kenneth Clark359 pages We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion — … Continue reading
Seeing like a State
Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed© 1999 James Scott464 pages Seeing like a State scrutinizes the organizational approach of state governments and other large institutions from the … Continue reading
The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer
The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer© 2010 Joel Salatin300 pages Joel Salatin is crazy and glad to be so; in print and in media like Food, Inc and Fresh, he gleefully rejects what the late 20th century produced as conventional … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews, Society and Culture
Tagged farming, goods/services, Joel Salatin, organic, social criticism, Society and Culture
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Remembering
Remembering© 1988 Wendell Berry112 pages Andy Catlett is a man far from home, wounded in spirit and in body. His right hand was eaten and destroyed by mechanized farm equipment, and in attending an agricultural … Continue reading
Inch by Inch: A Reading
“If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked — but of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all … Continue reading
The Age of Voltaire
The Age of Voltaire: A History of Civilization in Western Europe from 1715 to 1756898 pages© 1965 Will and Ariel Durant The ninth work in Will Durant’s sweeping Story of Civilization, The Age of Voltaire picks up … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged art, Britain, Classics and Literary, France, Germany, history, history of science, intellectual history, irreligion, literature, philosophy, religion, Story of Civilization, survey, Will Durant
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This week: airplanes with Jesus, Kurt Vonnegut, and Voltaire
This past weekend I read through A Day with a Perfect Stranger, not a difficult task given that it’s less than 100 pages. A sequel to Dinner with a Perfect Stranger, which featured overworked businessman … Continue reading
The Crucified Rabbi
The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity© 2009 Taylor Marshall236 pages Take for granted Christianity’s inseparable connection to Judaism, but what does it mean, beyond knowing that Jesus was Jewish and died during Passover? The Crucified Rabbi … Continue reading
One Second After
One Second After © 2011 William R. Forstchen 528 pages When the power blinked, Colonel John Matherson wasn’t alarmed. These things happen. But they don’t happen at the same exact time as failing phones, stalling cars, and falling planes. As … Continue reading
An Honourable Defeat
An Honorable Defeat: A Hiastory of German Resistance to Hitler© 1994 Anton Gill293 pages No civilized nation on Earth is as haunted as its history as Germany. For twelve years, one of the worst governments conceivable … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged dissent, Germany, history, Man vs State, Nazi, WW2
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