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toggle_fow's Reviews (1.05k)
What it says on the tin.
The preface to this book makes up 30% of the kindle version, because there is so much information needed to situate it in the proper historical and intellectual context. The book itself is a short history of revolt in Black communities around the globe, account after account of strike and militant organization, and an analysis of each movement's philosophical roots.
The preface to this book makes up 30% of the kindle version, because there is so much information needed to situate it in the proper historical and intellectual context. The book itself is a short history of revolt in Black communities around the globe, account after account of strike and militant organization, and an analysis of each movement's philosophical roots.
This book is about the inner lives of people who overcome terrible circumstances -- both the survival skills that allow them to thrive, and the feelings of fear, isolation, and guilt that may haunt them afterwards.
The standout aspect of this book to me was that the author didn't focus on one specific type of adversity, which seems to be the more common approach. Instead, she took all kinds of circumstances that can disadvantage someone's childhood and looked at what they all have in common.
It's a good balance of case study story and analysis, and I found it very interesting. A little depressing, since personally I haven't faced any adversity to speak of and still haven't succeeded, but definitely worth reading.
The standout aspect of this book to me was that the author didn't focus on one specific type of adversity, which seems to be the more common approach. Instead, she took all kinds of circumstances that can disadvantage someone's childhood and looked at what they all have in common.
It's a good balance of case study story and analysis, and I found it very interesting. A little depressing, since personally I haven't faced any adversity to speak of and still haven't succeeded, but definitely worth reading.
Deeply scary and very fascinating. I came away from this book marveling at how little we still understand about what makes a human being tick.
This book is a sort of primer/guidebook to go along with the Strengths Finder Gallup test online. There is a simple preface expressing the test's thesis that building on your strengths is a more constructive way to approach personal growth rather than focusing on your weaknesses. The rest of the book is short, bullet-pointed profiles of the 34 strengths.
Given its extremely brief nature, the only reason to buy the book is for the included one-time-only use access code for the test. Unfortunately, most of the information the book reveals about the strengths is just a regurgitation of the free articles offered online after you complete the test. Everything else is behind a paywall.
I'm not going to say "this is a scam," but I'm not NOT going to say it either. The test itself is interesting, but for $34 dollars, I really expect a lot more than essentially what you can get in more depth and for free from a number of online MBTI or Enneagram tests.
Given its extremely brief nature, the only reason to buy the book is for the included one-time-only use access code for the test. Unfortunately, most of the information the book reveals about the strengths is just a regurgitation of the free articles offered online after you complete the test. Everything else is behind a paywall.
I'm not going to say "this is a scam," but I'm not NOT going to say it either. The test itself is interesting, but for $34 dollars, I really expect a lot more than essentially what you can get in more depth and for free from a number of online MBTI or Enneagram tests.
This is a short and to the point book, written as a primer on Islam for a Western Christian audience. Its goal is to give a sense of the real history and teachings of Islam to people usually overfed with sensationalized fear-mongering, and I would say it succeeds.
I'm sure most of us know the type of deeply Christian person who shares poorly-made, inflammatory graphics about ISIS on Facebook and supports legislation banning "Sharia law" in the United States. Kimball is reaching out to this person and every Christian who wishes they understood better how to connect with their Muslim neighbor, trying to give us tools to reach out ourselves.
I found his chapters on the Five Pillars of Islam and what Islam has both in common and in contrast with Christianity to be the most useful. I have studied Islam quite a bit historically, but much less in an actually theological way, so that was helpful. The least useful content he includes is the chapter on the history of interfaith relations, which reads like a list of conferences and church councils with acronym names.
However, his point is still well taken. It would be wonderful if Christians in general could spend less time fomenting unnecessary worldly strife. A so-called "clash of civilizations" is irrelevant to our faith; the gospel is spread through human connection, not vicious culture wars. Islam has been set up by much of our media as the perfect straw man enemy, and person-to-person conversation and understanding go a long way toward erasing that false image.
"Our struggle is not against flesh and blood... but against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Eph 6:12)
I'm sure most of us know the type of deeply Christian person who shares poorly-made, inflammatory graphics about ISIS on Facebook and supports legislation banning "Sharia law" in the United States. Kimball is reaching out to this person and every Christian who wishes they understood better how to connect with their Muslim neighbor, trying to give us tools to reach out ourselves.
I found his chapters on the Five Pillars of Islam and what Islam has both in common and in contrast with Christianity to be the most useful. I have studied Islam quite a bit historically, but much less in an actually theological way, so that was helpful. The least useful content he includes is the chapter on the history of interfaith relations, which reads like a list of conferences and church councils with acronym names.
However, his point is still well taken. It would be wonderful if Christians in general could spend less time fomenting unnecessary worldly strife. A so-called "clash of civilizations" is irrelevant to our faith; the gospel is spread through human connection, not vicious culture wars. Islam has been set up by much of our media as the perfect straw man enemy, and person-to-person conversation and understanding go a long way toward erasing that false image.
"Our struggle is not against flesh and blood... but against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Eph 6:12)
I thought this would be a book on how to have meaningful conversations that someone desperately socially awkward, like myself, could use to improve on that weakness. Instead, it is a Buddhist guide to activist communication and mediation. That's my bad. I don't intend to sink this book's rating immediately because of my preconceived expectations, so I won't be rating it at this time.
This book was helpful.
It's all the things you already know you should be doing/not doing, but presented in a counter-intuitive way that gives you a fresh perspective on long-held unhelpful thought habits. That may seem gimmicky, but for me, a person who hates the smarmy "health, wellness, and gratitude" aesthetic that internet influencer culture seems to be relentlessly touting, it was useful.
I know that holding onto anger hurts only me, and I know that a poor-me attitude leads nowhere, etc. but Paterson's structure and mirror-image approach helped me look at several things in a new way. Also, as an actual psychologist and not just a well-connected New York City writer, his understanding of how to actually help people seemed deeper to me than that of most self-help happiness gurus.
It's all the things you already know you should be doing/not doing, but presented in a counter-intuitive way that gives you a fresh perspective on long-held unhelpful thought habits. That may seem gimmicky, but for me, a person who hates the smarmy "health, wellness, and gratitude" aesthetic that internet influencer culture seems to be relentlessly touting, it was useful.
I know that holding onto anger hurts only me, and I know that a poor-me attitude leads nowhere, etc. but Paterson's structure and mirror-image approach helped me look at several things in a new way. Also, as an actual psychologist and not just a well-connected New York City writer, his understanding of how to actually help people seemed deeper to me than that of most self-help happiness gurus.
This is like half a suicidal memoir, and half a journalistic investigation into suicide from biological, societal, and systematic perspectives.
Just gotta say, if you're feeling suicidal, probably don't read this book. I didn't find it "triggering," per se, since I am not suicidal, but reading it definitely made two or three days that otherwise would have been completely normal, functioning days into weird, dim, unhappy days.
I expected this book to be about depression, which it kind of is. But it's more about suicide and suicidal ideation, specifically. The journalism on the topic is interesting. I have never personally interacted with the institutions of mental health or psychotropic medication, and reading about how disjointed the whole system is was eye-opening. I also had totally believed the "serotonin" explanation of how SSRIs work, and had no idea that people still straight up do not understand what's going on in the brain regarding this or any other mental condition. Crazy.
Equally crazy is that she works for Reuters now despite what seemed to be a work history record rife with depression-induced demerits and outright holes. She must be one heck of a reporter.
Just gotta say, if you're feeling suicidal, probably don't read this book. I didn't find it "triggering," per se, since I am not suicidal, but reading it definitely made two or three days that otherwise would have been completely normal, functioning days into weird, dim, unhappy days.
I expected this book to be about depression, which it kind of is. But it's more about suicide and suicidal ideation, specifically. The journalism on the topic is interesting. I have never personally interacted with the institutions of mental health or psychotropic medication, and reading about how disjointed the whole system is was eye-opening. I also had totally believed the "serotonin" explanation of how SSRIs work, and had no idea that people still straight up do not understand what's going on in the brain regarding this or any other mental condition. Crazy.
Equally crazy is that she works for Reuters now despite what seemed to be a work history record rife with depression-induced demerits and outright holes. She must be one heck of a reporter.
This book was a scary, informative read.
His thesis, learned from years of counseling abusive men, is that they don't abuse because they were abused as children, or because a previous girlfriend hurt them, or because they're drug or alcohol addicts, etc etc... but because they genuinely believe that they deserve to get their way in a relationship, and any other result is actually an offense against them.
I have to give this book five stars because I have never once heard that before, and this book is already old, so I know it's not a brand-new concept.
It sounded almost crazy when he started out saying that addressing "anger problems" has no effect on abuse, and addressing addiction has no effect on abuse. Really? Is that possible? But then: "Feelings do not govern abusive or controlling behavior; beliefs, values, and habits are the driving forces." Like, okay, wow. He's right. Complete with illustrative anecdotes from his real-life counseling experience, he paints a horribly convincing picture over the course of the book showing that abusers abuse because they truly believe they are justified in doing so.
He does generalize the heck out of gender differences, which I would say is the most major way the book comes off as a little dated.
His definition of abuse requires the abused person to be terrified, threatened, or controlled by the abusive action; because of that, he throws nearly all situations in which a woman might be abusing her male partner out of the definition, since a man can't hardly be frightened by a woman hitting him, right? He also warns that nearly all men who claim to have been abused by their female partner are actually the abuser and just twisting the situation to garner sympathy.
It's impossible to deny that the overwhelming majority of abuse does come from men, from almost any statistic you might consult, but I do think that generalizing as firmly and as broadly as he does is dangerous. Of course there are minority situations in which a perfectly normal man might be terrified or controlled by an abusive wife, and discounting even that possibility is just cruel, given the widespread mockery and disbelief that men who truly have been abused encounter anyway.
Overall, most of this book is aimed toward giving the abused partner tools to understand what is happening to them, but he devotes some sections to advice for concerned relatives and friends, and professionals in the court and mental health systems as well. There is a lot here that I didn't know, and a lot that I probably never would have figured out on my own. Well worth the read.
His thesis, learned from years of counseling abusive men, is that they don't abuse because they were abused as children, or because a previous girlfriend hurt them, or because they're drug or alcohol addicts, etc etc... but because they genuinely believe that they deserve to get their way in a relationship, and any other result is actually an offense against them.
I have to give this book five stars because I have never once heard that before, and this book is already old, so I know it's not a brand-new concept.
It sounded almost crazy when he started out saying that addressing "anger problems" has no effect on abuse, and addressing addiction has no effect on abuse. Really? Is that possible? But then: "Feelings do not govern abusive or controlling behavior; beliefs, values, and habits are the driving forces." Like, okay, wow. He's right. Complete with illustrative anecdotes from his real-life counseling experience, he paints a horribly convincing picture over the course of the book showing that abusers abuse because they truly believe they are justified in doing so.
He does generalize the heck out of gender differences, which I would say is the most major way the book comes off as a little dated.
His definition of abuse requires the abused person to be terrified, threatened, or controlled by the abusive action; because of that, he throws nearly all situations in which a woman might be abusing her male partner out of the definition, since a man can't hardly be frightened by a woman hitting him, right? He also warns that nearly all men who claim to have been abused by their female partner are actually the abuser and just twisting the situation to garner sympathy.
It's impossible to deny that the overwhelming majority of abuse does come from men, from almost any statistic you might consult, but I do think that generalizing as firmly and as broadly as he does is dangerous. Of course there are minority situations in which a perfectly normal man might be terrified or controlled by an abusive wife, and discounting even that possibility is just cruel, given the widespread mockery and disbelief that men who truly have been abused encounter anyway.
Overall, most of this book is aimed toward giving the abused partner tools to understand what is happening to them, but he devotes some sections to advice for concerned relatives and friends, and professionals in the court and mental health systems as well. There is a lot here that I didn't know, and a lot that I probably never would have figured out on my own. Well worth the read.
How the West Stole Democracy From the Arabs: The Syrian Arab Congress of 1920 and the Destruction of Its Historic Liberal-Islamic Alliance
Elizabeth F. Thompson, Elizabeth F. Thompson
There aren't that many moments in history that are SO pivotal and SO frustrating that they tempt me to dedicate the rest of my life to inventing time travel, but this is one of them.
The title of this book is a summary in and of itself. It covers the time from the end of WWI and the Paris Peace Conference into the 1930s, and chronicles in great detail the solid decade of Sisyphean attempts by Arabs to wrest any scrap of self-determination away from the European powers.
Some popular histories cover topics that are so abundantly researched, known, and talked about that you could essentially learn what's in the book by searching the web yourself. This book is not like that. Professor Thompson clearly spent years digging up half-forgotten sources. Some of the early history was familiar to me (Balfour declaration/Hussein-McMahon Correspondence/Sykes-Picot/the King-Crane Commission) but as soon as we left behind the European negotiations, the book delved into things I had barely any awareness of.
For example, a quick google of Rashid Rida turns up a ton of writing on his religious ideas, but barely anything about how he was once the president of Syria. The chronicle of constitutional debates in the Syrian Congress is interesting enough itself to justify the book. Every stage of Faisal and the Arab Nationalists' campaign and every political gambit is recorded, down to who he met with on what day in Paris. I'm glad I know Robert de Caix's name, now, so that I can curse it. The book drags a little at some points, but my primary emotion was impotent rage rather than boredom.
Now, we look back on WWI with nearly pure cynicism. Sure, the Germans started it, but everyone was gunning for that war. Any attempt to cast a morally "good" versus "bad" side sort of falls flat under the shadow of WWII, compared to which all WWI participants are just states acting according to their interests in a pretty understandable way. We know that the between-war years were not great. We know that they were racist as heck, and still racing upward toward peak racism. We know that economies around the world were about to take a near-fatal hit. We know that colonialism was still alive and flourishing, and that no one had the necessary power and will to make the League of Nations anything but a failed experiment.
In contrast, the rhetoric of the WWI victors was firmly cast in the triumph of modern freedom and self-determination over archaic, old-world despotism. Woodrow Wilson really thought he could make the League of Nations work. For most of the players, though, the freedom and justice and rule of law was just wallpaper over the age-old rule of might makes right that had (has?) always governed international politics.
We know all that. But at the time, they didn't.
Even if the Syrian Arabs had known from the start that freedom is taken, not given, they would have had a rough time. A big problem for them throughout the entire independence effort was that they literally could not, physically, get out to trade or communicate with the rest of the world, given their geographical position. It takes a confluence of factors to make a successful revolution, and I'm not sure they would have succeeded even if they went full-throttle for that option from the beginning.
But it is heartbreaking to watch Faisal and all the other nationalist leaders work so hard to build an inclusive, democratic state. They genuinely believed that if they were just politically smart enough, if they just built a good enough state, if their people were united and their country well-administered, that the Europeans would grant them their independence and welcome them into the international community. Why would they believe something like that?? Because that's what the Europeans said. There was just enough real belief in the new liberal international order, just enough genuine, supportive Westerners like Lawrence of Arabia and Charles Crane, to snooker the future of the Middle East.
The French and the British come off horribly, here. This is one historical period where America wasn't the one ruining everything in the Middle East. But the behavior of the European colonial powers is unfortunately not just a shameful past. You could write the same story about Iran, with America cast as the British. The hypocritical tendency of the French and British to deliberately suppress any burgeoning democracy and instead install corrupt or incapable kings, is something that we still love to do today.
After all, what's easier to control, a whole nation's popular opinion, or one single guy who loves money and power? And yet, this short-term solution begun almost a hundred years ago, has created or exacerbated problems that led to how many millions of deaths in the Middle East, from then until now? How much would it be worth, now, to have a stable, powerful, democratic ally in the Middle East, with a hundred-year history of liberal institutions and civil society? Still, it's hard to see any modern power being able or courageous enough to act differently.
Overall, a very interesting and horrible book. To the victor go the spoils.
The title of this book is a summary in and of itself. It covers the time from the end of WWI and the Paris Peace Conference into the 1930s, and chronicles in great detail the solid decade of Sisyphean attempts by Arabs to wrest any scrap of self-determination away from the European powers.
Some popular histories cover topics that are so abundantly researched, known, and talked about that you could essentially learn what's in the book by searching the web yourself. This book is not like that. Professor Thompson clearly spent years digging up half-forgotten sources. Some of the early history was familiar to me (Balfour declaration/Hussein-McMahon Correspondence/Sykes-Picot/the King-Crane Commission) but as soon as we left behind the European negotiations, the book delved into things I had barely any awareness of.
For example, a quick google of Rashid Rida turns up a ton of writing on his religious ideas, but barely anything about how he was once the president of Syria. The chronicle of constitutional debates in the Syrian Congress is interesting enough itself to justify the book. Every stage of Faisal and the Arab Nationalists' campaign and every political gambit is recorded, down to who he met with on what day in Paris. I'm glad I know Robert de Caix's name, now, so that I can curse it. The book drags a little at some points, but my primary emotion was impotent rage rather than boredom.
Now, we look back on WWI with nearly pure cynicism. Sure, the Germans started it, but everyone was gunning for that war. Any attempt to cast a morally "good" versus "bad" side sort of falls flat under the shadow of WWII, compared to which all WWI participants are just states acting according to their interests in a pretty understandable way. We know that the between-war years were not great. We know that they were racist as heck, and still racing upward toward peak racism. We know that economies around the world were about to take a near-fatal hit. We know that colonialism was still alive and flourishing, and that no one had the necessary power and will to make the League of Nations anything but a failed experiment.
In contrast, the rhetoric of the WWI victors was firmly cast in the triumph of modern freedom and self-determination over archaic, old-world despotism. Woodrow Wilson really thought he could make the League of Nations work. For most of the players, though, the freedom and justice and rule of law was just wallpaper over the age-old rule of might makes right that had (has?) always governed international politics.
We know all that. But at the time, they didn't.
Even if the Syrian Arabs had known from the start that freedom is taken, not given, they would have had a rough time. A big problem for them throughout the entire independence effort was that they literally could not, physically, get out to trade or communicate with the rest of the world, given their geographical position. It takes a confluence of factors to make a successful revolution, and I'm not sure they would have succeeded even if they went full-throttle for that option from the beginning.
But it is heartbreaking to watch Faisal and all the other nationalist leaders work so hard to build an inclusive, democratic state. They genuinely believed that if they were just politically smart enough, if they just built a good enough state, if their people were united and their country well-administered, that the Europeans would grant them their independence and welcome them into the international community. Why would they believe something like that?? Because that's what the Europeans said. There was just enough real belief in the new liberal international order, just enough genuine, supportive Westerners like Lawrence of Arabia and Charles Crane, to snooker the future of the Middle East.
The French and the British come off horribly, here. This is one historical period where America wasn't the one ruining everything in the Middle East. But the behavior of the European colonial powers is unfortunately not just a shameful past. You could write the same story about Iran, with America cast as the British. The hypocritical tendency of the French and British to deliberately suppress any burgeoning democracy and instead install corrupt or incapable kings, is something that we still love to do today.
After all, what's easier to control, a whole nation's popular opinion, or one single guy who loves money and power? And yet, this short-term solution begun almost a hundred years ago, has created or exacerbated problems that led to how many millions of deaths in the Middle East, from then until now? How much would it be worth, now, to have a stable, powerful, democratic ally in the Middle East, with a hundred-year history of liberal institutions and civil society? Still, it's hard to see any modern power being able or courageous enough to act differently.
Overall, a very interesting and horrible book. To the victor go the spoils.