Like all the books I have read on infectious disease, this book is highly alarmist in tone. It recounts several recent outbreaks, adding a good dose of medical science for good measure, in order to advance the thesis that we need to be more prepared for the next outbreak. The author is not arguing for …
Category: General
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/07/29/microbe-by-alan-zelicoff/
Jul 28 2011
Neuromancer by William Gibson
This book came highly recommended, but it left me cold. Gibson’s vision is of a future in which there is more of the artificial than the natural, in which reality is effortlessly constructed by ubiquitous technology, and in which what you perceive is much of the time what some powerful person wants you to perceive. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/07/28/neuromancer-by-william-gibson/
Jun 07 2011
Let Our Fame Be Great by Oliver Bullough
Review in brief: Encounters between Russia and the peoples of the Northern Caucasus have not been happy ones, and have generally ended badly for the smaller nations involved. From the Nogai driven into the Black Sea in the 1700s to the Circassians mostly slaughtered or removed to the Ottoman Empire in the 1860s to the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/06/07/let-our-fame-be-great-by-oliver-bullough/
May 18 2011
World War I by S.L.A Marshall
The colossal horror of this war is made even more appalling by the fact that it was probably the most pointless war ever fought, yet the sacrifice involved was unimaginable. The author is rather harsh in his assessment of the quality of both the military and political leaders during these four years of unabating slaughter, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/05/18/world-war-i-by-s-l-a-marshall/
May 15 2011
Alexander to Actium by Peter Green
I can’t possibly do justice to this monumental work in the short space allowed for Facebook book reviews, but I would just like to say that in additional to being informative and educational, this book was delightfully entertaining and enoyable. I am currently taking a course on the Hellenistic Age, but this book, combined with …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/05/15/alexander-to-actium-by-peter-green/
Jul 23 2010
Religion and Science by Bertrand Russell
Russell seemed confident, even in 1935 when this book was written, that science had effectively triumphed over religion in the minds of most people. He no doubt would have been appalled to see that in twenty-first century America religious faith is still going strong. But his analysis of the issues that religion and science dispute …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2010/07/23/religion-and-science-by-bertrand-russell/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2010/06/14/mr-untouchable-by-leroy-barnes/
Jun 14 2010
Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King
This is Stephen King’s fantasy remake of The Magnificent Seven. Not one of the best ones in the series, but still pretty good. King’s prose is sometimes rather clunky, but his imagination never fails him. And I must say that this series reveals a side of King not seen in his other works. For a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2010/06/14/wolves-of-the-calla-by-stephen-king/
Apr 24 2010
Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare
Never has misanthropy been so eloquently expressed. Timon’s reversal of fortune serves as a cautionary admonition to our craving for material prosperity, as well as a cynical lesson on the fickle nature of men. The cynic Apemantus emerges as the wisest character in this story of riches to rags, yet even he is not spared …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2010/04/24/timon-of-athens-by-william-shakespeare/
Mar 13 2010
The Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom by Sandra Mackey
This book is about what happens when a hopelessly backward society is suddenly flooded with wealth and forced to modernize overnight. Of all the Islamic countries that are facing a crisis of modernity, Saudi Arabia has been the hardest hit. The Saudis have a bottomless appetite for the material goodies the West has to offer, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2010/03/13/the-saudis-inside-the-desert-kingdom-by-sandra-mackey/
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