Odysseus

sanctimonious and boring

Revisado: 03-16-25

I really wanted to learn more about Marie Curie, the great scientist. Unfortunately, this story is a tedious sermon on the evils of double standards for sexual behavior 100 years ago. I really regret starting it.

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A reasonable succinct history

Revisado: 03-01-25

This book is a reasonable succinct history that was a bit marred by an excess of personal opinion by the author. For example, the author believes that the bombing of Japan in1945 was more-or-less unneeded as submarines had already shut down Japanese industry. He therefore described it as "terror" bombing, without providing any evidence that terror was the objective, as opposed to shutting down the remaining Japanese industry. The idea that submarines had shut down Japanese industry was certainly popular among American naval officers -- which was Symonds' background -- but not so much among US army or air force (USAAF) officers. In any case, the state of Japanese industrial production would not have been well understood by US leaders in early 1945 and the Japanese were continuing to prepare for an allied invasion, despite the great handicaps imposed by the submarine campaign.

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There is a reason it is a classic

Revisado: 09-21-24

Dracula was really excellent. I understand why it is a classic. The tempo, the descriptions, the characters were all outstanding. I was wondering if it would hold up well after 125 years and it definitely did. The performance was also excellent, with several readers.

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Much too long, repetitive, and careless with facts.

Revisado: 09-09-24

Much too long, repetitive, and careless with facts. I feared this and it was trie.

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A perfectly tiresome lecture

Revisado: 09-12-23

I ordered this book hoping to learn about biological and anthropological human history, that is, the history of branches of the human family, the development of Homo Sapiens and other non-Sapien relatives, as well as the interaction of biology and culture. It does have some of that and these parts are generally pretty good.

But the author indulged himself by lecturing the reader on all manner of matters related to -- but far from central too -- human history, such as religion, economics, politics, culture, etc. The lectures had that peculiarly academic tone in which the speaker/writer lays out his/her own views as the truth, rather than being objective and admitting the limitations of human knowledge.

Particularly annoying was the constant misuse of terms, such as "fiction," for abstract nouns. The reader learns that corporations aren't abstract entities or even legal "fictions"-- which has a precise definition-- but rather "fictions" that exist only in our "imagination." The author is repeatedly remarkably imprecise with such descriptive language.

We also learn that all religious beliefs -- indeed any normative belief, such as a belief in human rights -- are "myths." Of course, an objective writer would be more circumspect about the unknowable.

We find out that the development of agriculture was a "trap" that "tricked" ancient humans into giving up their enjoyable hunter-gatherer existence in favor of a lifetime of labor. Of course, there is some truth to the idea that being a hunter-gatherer is preferable to farming, but the author seems to absolutely miss the obvious: Being a hunter-gatherer is better than being a farmer when there is plenty of land and a rich environment to exploit. But, as populations naturally increase to strain the carrying capacity of the land, hunter-gatherers MUST become farmers or starve as the land becomes picked clean.

For a historian, the writer is profoundly unfamiliar with the meaning of American concepts of equality before the law. The writer seems to think that it is a profound insight to observe that people do differ in physical and mental attributes and that this would have come as a surprise to the American founders.

And the writer makes the remarkable claim that the American Founders believed that their declarations of equality did not apply to African-Americans or Native Americans. The truth is much more subtle. Many of the Founders favored outright abolition of slavery and even many of the slave holders disliked slavery and hoped that the institution would wither away. But the Founders did not know how to get rid of slavery. This was a problem for which they saw no easy answer in the late 18th century. While the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would lay the philosophical groundwork for its extinction, it would take the tragedy of a Civil War to force the issue.

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Poor editing

Revisado: 04-03-22

Some good stories were marred by poor editing and amateurish use of language. Word choice and usage were often questionable.

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Really disappointing.

Revisado: 03-28-21

The objective discussion of the dangers of groupthink and tribalism were marred by obligatory shibboleths paying homage to the left's sacred cows. The book must pretend that microaggressions are to be take n seriously, that the right is busily trying to censor opposition thinking on college campuses and that the half dozen, poor, out of work, ignorant yahoos who make up the modern neo nazi movement are a serious threat to the country. At some point, I tired of reflexive pandering and stopped listening to the book.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

The Korean War for Middle Schoolers

Revisado: 02-18-20

Overall, this title was poor to mediocre.

The writing was often awkward. The politics were confused. The choice of facts to report and emphasize was curious.

The description of the "domino theory" was cartoonish.

The description of the origins of the Cold War was simply wrong.

The book assigned moral equivalence to one of the most brutal, aggressive, murderous dictatorships on the planet and an admittedly brutal government engaged in a civil war that grew into a prosperous, democratic, lawful state in just two or three decades.

I note that no specific author is listed, just "Hourly History." I think that whoever wrote this should be grateful for that. I would be embarrassed to have my name on this book.

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A useful discussion of long run trends

Revisado: 04-23-19

Few of us bother to think about how much life has changed in the past 200 years, how much easier our lives are than were the lives of our great grandparents.

This book chronicles and quantifies the vast improvements in technology that have greatly improved living standards, even well beyond what standard economic measures might indicate.

A downside to the audio version is that the book is very numbers-oriented-- which is ordinarily fine with me -- but counterproductive in an audio format.

An excessively polemical tone also mars the book in many places. I would not begrudge the occasional political view from an author of such a book but the author overdoes it, not just disagreeing with but ignoring reasonable contrary views and interpretations of the data. At times the author simply cherry picks arguments that support the point that he wants to make at the given time. For example, the author implies that the existence of a sex-based wage gap despite the majority of females in college (since 1980) implies that sex discrimination is still an issue. Then, just a few pages later, the author makes the correct point that there is great heterogeneity in the market rewards to various college majors -- e..g, engineering vs. sociology. Of course, the second point is correct but is ignored when the author wants to push the sex discrimination argument.

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Appropriately titled book

Revisado: 04-23-19

Really not a great book. It has some interesting parts and ideas but the plot becomes cringeworthy rapidly with stereotypes of "Christians" and a witches coven. Seriously?

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