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TheDon01 posted:Just started reading Lucifers Hammer. No real reason other than I like Sci-fi, seen it on a bunch of lists and it was super cheap at the bookstore. Haven't read it but the authors are notorious right-wing cranks and based on second hand summaries the plot is all about how sensible and patriotic white guys from suburban California have to band together in the apocalypse to preserve a rational society. That means organizing to violently resist the (literally cannibalistic) black looters streaming out of the nearby inner cities. Along the way we get plenty of helpful lessons on the evils of feminism, environmentalism and welfare.
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Jan 5, 2018 20:04
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Every excerpt from The Divide that I'm seeing posted here seems really good and I'm tempted to buy the book. However, I'm not a huge fan of long-form journalism that leans too heavily on first person narration. In the past I've struggled to get into Taibbi's writing because so many of the sentences start with "I", "I went here, I saw this, I did that, I spoke to X, I spoke to Y" etc. Can anyone comment on how The Divide is written? If I opened a copy of the book and flipped to a random page how likely would it be that the first thing I'd read would be a paragraph started with "I"?
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Jan 8, 2018 19:28
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StashAugustine posted:reading wages of destruction rn, up to mid 30s. interesting thing is how it fits with the marxist analysis of fascism as the last defense of capitalism: the book seems to argue that the causation is backwards- fascism rose separately and then the capitalists threw in with it because hey, better them than the commies I always interpreted the "fascism as the last defense of capitalism" notion as being slightly more nuanced than just "capital feels threatened and develops comprehensive top-down plan to create fascist street movement". I think it's more that in the 1930s capitalism was under threat and fascist street gangs seemed like the only mass movement that had a chance of being co-opted by right wing industrialists. The alliance developed organically out of shared mutual interests (with many fascist groups having originated as goon squads for local landlords or business owners).
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Apr 13, 2018 16:50
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StashAugustine posted:yeah plus there's the whole impersonal forces of historical materialism thing, but it's one of those things where the simplified view is taken by some of its adherents. e: also it seems more like the nazis weren't co-opted by business but that business were collaborators if you see the difference I've had this one on my shelf for years, might have to finally get around to reading it based on this recommendation.
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Apr 23, 2018 21:08
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Based on the endorsement of John Dolan and Mark Ames (cohosts of the War Nerd podcast) I picked up Seline's "Journey to the end of the Night". It is one of the great war novels of the 20th century, largely forgotten now because Seline went fascist later in life, and perhaps also because it is an extremely misanthropic, petty and resentful description of war, the home front, and life in the colonies. This isn't one of those books you give to a teenage boy to get them hyped up to die for their country. I tend to have thoroughly middle brow tastes when it comes to fiction. I like some plot in my narrative, I often end up reading genre fiction, and this is very much one of those books that functions almost like a string of connected anecdotes. Typically I would read this over a month or two inbetween reading non fiction or short stories, but because I need to get it back to the library I've been on a sort of forced march to the end. Overall it is really good. Very well written, with an extremely distinctive authorial voice, and a lot of almost aphoristic observations on life and human nature. Worth picking up if you're in the mood for reading something literary.
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May 11, 2018 17:35
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Kotkin's biography of Stalin is extremely good and kind of makes me think of Nixonland insofar as it is an ostensible biography that also works as a history of the era. Highly recommended.
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Jun 3, 2018 18:38
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Marxalot posted:This was probably mentioned but I didnt read the thread :heh: My favorite moment in that book comes close to the beginning when they pretty much call the US intelligence agencies pillars of democracy and democratic institutions, and then pivot to a discussion of Allende's overthrow in Chile. On the same page.
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Jul 12, 2018 05:46
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Helsing posted:Kotkin's biography of Stalin is extremely good and kind of makes me think of Nixonland insofar as it is an ostensible biography that also works as a history of the era. Highly recommended. Recently finished the first volume of this "Paradoxes of Power" and while it is meticulously researched (so far as I can tell given I don't read Russian, and given there are some staunchly right wing sources in the bibliography) and it sort of amazes me that so many tankies love this book. The argument here, once the book moves past the prerevolutionary period, is extremely unsympathetic to bolshevism and works on the largely unexamined premise that markets would have been a faster and more effective form of development than the five year plans... an argument that may well be true (though the author doesn't really try to prove this he just takes it for granted other than some perfunctory references to statistics on falling output and an unconvincing comparison to fascist Italy) but which doesn't reflect terrible well on Stalin and essentially suggests his obsession with control and his devious nature caused collectivization to happen, killing millions needlessly and without any improvement in output or economic performance. I suppose, however, that the tankie crowd appreciated that Stalin is presented as the most authentic heir to Lenin and that Trotsky comes off quite poorly in this book as an inexplicably popular humbler careening from one fatal mistake to the next. Stalin is also presented as a rational (albeit secretive and controlling) leader with powerful organizational talents and a strong command of Marxist theory who triumphs in large part by actually winning the key arguments on theory (even as he stacks the politburo with supporters and demonstrates the skillset of a classical Tammany Hall style machine politician). Kotkin also gives a convincing account of why reactionary and right wing movements were hamstrung in Russia by the hopeless backwardness of the tsarist government and its feudal vision of politics. The right couldn't form a mass political constituency to support the government because the ideal tsarist subject was supposed to be totally apolitical, so pro government authoritarian parties were always contradictory entities, creating a regime lacking any strong social base and ceding all political organizing to the left. We also get a good account of how the bolsheviks triumphed against the odds and their own expectations, and why groups like the social revolutionaries failed that test. Similarly, during the 20s we get some sense of why Stalin triumphed over rival Bolshevik pretenders. So overall this book is worth reading but once you get past the October revolution the authors biased become a lot more apparent. I kind of appreciate that since a largely unsympathetic portrayal has many advantages and I'm no fan of Stalin, but by the end I found myself wanting to read something that wasn't penned by a fellow at the Hoover Institute.
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Jul 31, 2018 18:51
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Since most of the ardent bolshevik supporters I've met in real life have tended to be Trots Kotkin definitely does a good job of undermining or at least critiquing their version of events and as you pointed out he always emphasizes the context of these decisions and doesn't resort to lazy psychologizing about Stalin's endless list for power or sociopathy. The stalin of Kotkin's book is devious and clever but his actions make sense in the context of his beliefs and you get a sense of how he was actually much more personable and warm than the arrogant high handed Trotsky or even the relentlessly focused an intense Lenin. Of the three you'd probably enjoy drinking with Stalin the most (just keep him away from any teenage daughters you have). If anyone has any good recommendations for books on the USSR in the 1920s and during the collectivization period especially I would love to hear them.
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Jul 31, 2018 19:24
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GalacticAcid posted:My reading has focused more on the Stalin era but maybe one of these will pique your interest: Thanks for the recommendations!
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Aug 2, 2018 21:19
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"On New Terrain: How Capital is Reshaping the Battleground of Class War" by Kim Moody is an interesting examination of the current state of the labour movement from a socialist perspective that Haymarket published recently.
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Nov 1, 2018 19:57
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SKULL.GIF posted:I'm rereading James Howard Kunstler's* World Made by Hand, which I first read in I think 2010-2011, and back then reading that was an interesting thought experiment on what post-collapse living would look like, but nowadays it's just horribly depressing knowing that there's a decent chance I'll actually get to find out what living like that is and I'm having trouble getting through the book. This book looks interesting but reading up on the author he seems very big on peak oil theories that were really hot in the mid 2000s but which seem to have been largely discredited now. Sad to think that nowadays the whole peak whole scenario and the return to localism seems optimistic compared to a scenario where all the fish and insects die and instead of having to eat food grown within a days journey of our homes we all starve to death and the remnants of humanity scrape out a vestigial existence farming cockroaches on the shores of the North American great lakes.
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Jan 31, 2019 21:30
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Reading multiple books by the same sci fi author will invariably give you way more details about their hosed up brain than you probably ever cared to know.
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May 1, 2019 16:53
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Admitedly I haven't read either of them in like 15 or 20 years but The Moon is a Harsh Mistress makes Starship Troopers feel grounded and realistic by comparison. Childhood's End is a good read if you ignore that one regrettable sentence about the suffering of those poor oppressed South African whites.
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Jul 21, 2019 23:35
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im on the net me boys posted:some day books won't cost any money at all so we can at least look forward to that Most of them already are 
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Jul 26, 2019 19:01
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GalacticAcid posted:Ten Days that Shook the World lol http://ciml.250x.com/archive/comintern/english/1926_armed_insurrection_comintern_manual.pdf
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Aug 2, 2019 18:11
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I just wanted to give anyone reading this thread a heads up that I am planning to do a thread discussing the book “Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties” by Tom O'Neill. It is a book that began as a magazine article that was supposed to come out in 1999 but which gradually sprawled into a multi-decade obsession for the author as he kept uncovering details that had been suppressed or forgotten and which directly contradicted the established narrative about the killings. Speaking as someone who never had any reason to care about the Mason murders and who was only vaguely aware of what had happened I didn't expect to be so fascinated by this book but over the course of his investigation the author uncovers a lot of bizarre details that all suggest a significant cover up and which hint at a largely unknown and mostly unsuspected side of the history of the 1960s counter culture. Before the end of it the CIA, MK Ultra and even the Kennedy assassination are tangentially involved/ It probably wouldn't be that difficult to simply summarize the details of the book in a short write up but I found the journey almost as satisfying as the destination so I thought it might be fun to cover the book section by section while anyone interested can get their own copy and read along. I'm a big believer in the freedom of information and can probably suggest ways to acquire the book if you cannot afford it and don't live nearby a public library but if possible I urge people to pay for the book because frankly you don't get investigative journalism like this anymore and the author deserves some coin for the literal decades of work that went into the book itself. If any of that sounds interesting to you get a copy of the book, start reading and watch out for the thread, coming soon.
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Jan 16, 2020 21:10
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Helsing posted:I just wanted to give anyone reading this thread a heads up that I am planning to do a thread discussing the book “Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties” by Tom O'Neill. It is a book that began as a magazine article that was supposed to come out in 1999 but which gradually sprawled into a multi-decade obsession for the author as he kept uncovering details that had been suppressed or forgotten and which directly contradicted the established narrative about the killings. In case anyone is interested, the thread is now live.
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Jan 30, 2020 19:44
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I'm sure you would get something out of reading it but unless you're very specifically interested in the nuances of intellectual history or are planning to write about that era then I'm not sure the opportunity cost of reading the book is really worth it.
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Feb 2, 2020 00:23
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