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The voice

Revisado: 04-19-25

I liked everything that happened in the book and how you felt like you were there.

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Excellent, but a touch brexity

Revisado: 02-28-25

Was given this by my other half. I don’t know much about history before 1850 so it was a real eye opener. It’s really well written and engaging and i just loved listening to it. As the author approaches the modern day his standpoint becomes clearer and it is further to the right than my own. Not to the point of tub thumping bombast, as he clearly is striving for balance, but he does come across as an apologist for empire at points. We were violent, we oversaw some horrendous acts this all gets dealt with breezily in a ‘mistakes were made, lessons were learned’ kind of way which, having done a phd in colonialism in Zambia, i found unconvincing and trite. Part of this is that he’s a trying to argue against what he calls ‘declinism’, and he’s got a point. The English have achieved so much yet do themselves down an awful lot. We’re wealthy, safe, democratic, and pretty peaceful. There’s a lot to be proud of. So, I’d really recommend this book for anyone wanting a deep dive on the last 1000 years of English history, but know that the later chapters are more clearly coloured by a specific political viewpoint on the right of British politics. That said, 45 hours! I don’t regret it but feel i deserve some sort of badge after all that.

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Best 3P book I’ve encountered

Revisado: 03-10-23

I just loved this exploration of 3P ideas. Beautifully clear. Preferred it to pretty much everything else I’ve read (though that has obviously been great too).

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Excellent, with a few rough edges

Revisado: 01-18-22

This is an excellent exploration of the corporation and its role in society - how we came to be where we are, some of the consequences of this and where we might go from here. It is critical of the corporation and the consequences of the way it has been constructed, but not polemically so - he simply argues that they were originally meant to be for the public good and along the way have stopped doing that and thus in need of reform. The core argument is very compelling and extremely well laid out. I feel some of this is pretty unarguable - large corporations so regularly wreak awful environmental and societal damage that it can’t just be a few bad apples - but note some of the other reviews see it as polemical. I was convinced - and I do academic research in this field - and its changed my perception of the area. His section listening the various court judgements against GE, then the worlds largest corporation, over the previous decade is just jaw-dropping and makes his case as out the problems so strongly. The author is an academic and all his points are very well backed up with interviews and evidence, but this is all worn lightly and it is pretty easy listen and not dense at all. This is the kind of book i wish more academics wrote - authoritative but engaging. The rough edges are that a few sections feel dated with all the references to the Bush administration and so on, and there are editing errors. The beginning of a few chapters is missing. I also have the physical book and can see that chapter 3 is missing the first few pages (including the bit where they say ‘Chapter 3’!) And starts in the middle of an anecdote. I mean, there’s enough repetition so you get the argument, but these jumps are odd.

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Excellent

Revisado: 12-09-21

This was my first book about the Romans I’ve ever read and it was fantastic. Written by the UK’s foremost scholar of Roman history at the end of her long and distinguished career this feels like the definitive history of Rome’s first millennium. I just loved the sensitive and nuanced way she talks about this. The depth of expertise is amazing and she makes it really engaging through lots of interesting stories and details. Overall, you just get the sense of someone who knows this stuff inside out and is not willing to overstate points to make them more interesting but is happy to discuss multiple interpretations while giving her own distinctive take. Personally, i really appreciate this more nuanced take and the healthy amount of myth-busting she gets in to. The only downside is the reader - she’s ok, but not great and stumbles over some sentences (partly because they are not that easy to read) and there are a few (2?) editing errors where sentences are repeated.

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Very useful but a little hard work

Revisado: 09-30-21

The overall advice here is very good, useful and clearly articulated. It has really helped shift my own thinking in productive directions. My main quibble is the lack of warmth and humour both in the writing and the author’s delivery. It’s all just a bit relentless. Warmth and humour are not ‘inessential’, as a university lecturer I know that they are essential for making learning engaging and memorable. In the absence of this it’s all just a bit serious all the points are delivered as if they are VERY IMPORTANT the whole time. This meant I listened in small doses to make it less stressful and more enjoyable. Also, a side point, as an academic, I work in teams where lots of people follow Greg’s advice and are very focussed on their own work to the exclusion of anything that isn’t their research. They make for poor colleagues. I realise he has some caveats to his argument, but I do wonder about what it means when everyone doesn’t take on stuff that isn’t core to their life’s purpose, my experience is that this makes them harder to work with for collective goals for the organisation. Just a thought.

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Well worth a listen but some flaws

Revisado: 09-09-21

I loved most of this book and think the central messages about self limiting and exploring your own ‘genius’ are really useful. I guess my problems are the usual self help/positive thinking ones - they always oversell what they are suggesting, and they downplay the fact that a large part of life is out of your control. I find it very telling that many self help gurus don’t talk about life in poor countries- where most of the worlds population live. Do people living in Bangladeshi slums have an ‘upper limit problem’ or lack self belief? Would being in their ‘zone of genius’ solve their problems? or is just life really tough sometimes? That said there’s food for thought here and some very useful pointers and I will likely listen to some parts of this book again.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Eye opening and mind-stretching, you’ll never look at octopuses the same way again

Revisado: 08-17-21

A really interesting and mind-stretching book. Among other questions, the author explores ‘what’s it like to be an octopus?’ And the evolutionary origin of the intelligence and the mind. Octopuses form the focus of this exploration as they are one of a small number of animals with large nervous systems and they evolved very separately from other animals we know to be intelligent, like some mammals and birds. I found it really informative on the nature of intelligence, consciousness and evolution and i will never look at these fascinating creatures the same way again. It was a touch dry at some points but as a whole super interesting and enlightening.

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Super interesting and useful

Revisado: 06-01-21

I really enjoyed this. So interesting and insightful. Even when I thought the argument was a bit of a stretch (e.g. the idea of societal habits) the examples were still really interesting and illuminating. Best not read as a self help manual (try other books for that like atomic habits) as it only has a short chapter at the end on how to change your own habits - better read as an interesting guide to an important aspect of human behaviour and psychology. Then you will come away full of interesting insights.

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