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Recently finished: Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson. Really enjoyed this one. A very interesting recounting of Lawrence and his actions and motivations through the middle eastern campaign as well as the other forces at work both political and personal, overt and covert. Was expecting a little more analysis of the "making of the modern" bit but unfortunately any of that is relegated to a hastily written epilogue. Nonetheless the story is fantastic and the book reads like a novel so much that I had to remind myself many times that I wasnt reading a work of fiction. Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason and the Gap Between Us and Them by Joshua Greene. Interesting analysis of moral theory through the lenses of neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. At least for the first half of the book. The second half starts to waffle on a bit as the author lays out his theories of utilitarianism and although I found myself agreeing with much of what he was saying, it was simply because I had already reached similar conclusions myself. The strength of his case I felt suffered from an inordinate amount of time spent apologising rather than arguing for his view points. Anyway still an interesting read. Currently reading: Why the West Rules—For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future by Ian Morris. Seems to seek answers to to the same questions as in Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel but with hopefully a bit more of a scholarly approach, I guess. corn in the fridge fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 13:39
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ExecuDork posted:I'm part-way through War, What is it Good For by Ian Morris and so far, so good. Actually, better than good - I'm devouring that book at a pretty rapid pace. He mentions his previous books every so often and he makes his case very well. I'm curious about what you think about Why the West Rules. Yeah, it was good. Ian Morris is a good writer and its easy and enjoyable to read. He does make some interesting observations and has a few good theories but if you're expecting something profound and groundbreaking you might be disappointed. Overall however, it's a very nice contextual history lesson and I would recommended it over Guns, Germs and Steel as it's much more "fleshed out." (I'm pretty sure Morris assumes everyone reading his book has already read Diamond's book)
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Apr 25, 2016 16:16
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