Category Archives: War Books

America is not the good guy anymore

Preface.  This is a book review of Toft & Kushi’s 2023 Dying by the Sword: The Militarization of US Policy.  Oxford University Press. They make the case that America is not the good guy anymore, and hasn’t been for a … Continue reading

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Book review of No friends but the Mountains. Dispatches from the worlds violent highlands

Preface. I am fascinated by war and conflict, and especially in this book which shows how societies and conflicts are similar across time and mountain ranges all over the world. These cultures may be inevitable due to the harsh environments. … Continue reading

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Book review of Turchin’s “Secular Cycles” and “War & Peace & War”

Preface. This is a book review of both “Secular Cycles” and “War & Peace & War”.  I recommend reading “War & Peace & War” first, then the more difficult “Secular Cycles”. Turchin has found patterns in the rise and fall … Continue reading

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After the Reich. The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation

Preface. This is a book review of: Giles MacDonogh (2007) After the Reich. The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation.   In trying to understand what life might be like as energy declines, I’ve read a lot of books about … Continue reading

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Book Review of “War: How Conflict Shaped Us”

Preface.  This is a very profound and wide-ranging book about many aspects of war, the reasons for fighting, what it’s like to be a soldier, women’s roles during wars, the history and future of war, and more, a really outstanding … Continue reading

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The Vory. Russia’s Super Mafia

Preface. After reading this book about the history of organized crime in Russia, I thought surely Russia must be the most corrupt nation in the world.  But amazingly there are 47 countries that are ranked even lower of the 180 … Continue reading

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An extremist Republican gun industry will lead to a dark future in the U.S.

Preface. This is a book review of Busse’s 2021 “Gunfight. My battle against the industry that radicalized America”. I have always wondered why stricter gun laws haven’t been passed after horrifying mass shootings at schools and workplaces. This book explains … Continue reading

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Review of Wrangham’s The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue & Violence in Human Evolution

Preface. This is a fantastic, must read book if you’re at all interested in how we evolved to be who we are today, how we domesticated ourselves, gossip, conformity, violence and more.  It reminds me of why I don’t read … Continue reading

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Excerpt from “The Geopolitics of Resource Wars”

Preface.  This is an excerpt from Philippe Le Billon’s (editor) anthology “The Geopolitics of Resource Wars.” Global peak oil production happened in 2018 (EIA 2020), and the energy crisis will probably hit by 2025.  The coming energy crisis and climate … Continue reading

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Will the Great Game be won by Cyber Attacks?

Preface.  This is a book review of Joel Brenner’s “America the Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital Espionage, Crime, and Warfare”. The ransom cyber attack on the colonial pipeline forced the shutdown of a vital pipeline delivering half … Continue reading

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