Tim Marshall (2015)

A concise discussion of geopolitics, by someone in a position to understand. Marshall brings years of political commentary to bear on how governments see, and respond, to geography – both their own and those of their potential rivals.

It’s purely about the effects of geography on States’ behaviours, which sometimes lends the book an almost nineteenth-century feel. There’s no discussion of the possibly conflicting attitudes of large national and multinational companies, whose activities might be difficult for governments to steer. I suspect Marshall views States as still to dominant actors without actually saying such – and he may well be right, in the sense that the credible threat of force can trump other approaches. The arguments are quite compelling, and show how the forces that affect grand strategy haven’t fundamentally changed since the days of the Great Game and earlier.

4/5. Finished Monday 5 August, 2019.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Simon Winder (2019)

Lotharingia, the part of Europe lying between what are now the agreed cores of France and Germany, the part of the continent that doesn’t readily fit into the national character of either country. This is a very small-scale history, full of anecdotes and insights as to the connections between the various actors and events that have criss-crossed this area. I read it shortly after reading The Shortest History of Germany, to which I think it makes a very agreeable companion and contrast while picking out a lot of the same themes, especially the difference between the eastern-oriented, Prussian and Hohenzollern Germany and the western-oriented Rhineland.

It’s personal history, though, which means that the author’s life breaks into the narrative quite intrusively. I’ve only given the book four stars because of this writing style, which detracted (for me) from the otherwise excellent research and observations.

4/5. Finished Friday 26 July, 2019.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Roger Levy (2018)

4/5. Finished Friday 5 July, 2019.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

William Davies (2018)

How did we end up where we are, with a seemingly unstoppable rejection of reasoned argument in favour of blatantly false – if somewhat reassuring – fantasy positions served up by charlatans? Davies presents a very convincing case, and some prescriptions for the future, that should be read by anyone who considers themselves to live in the world of objective reality – and especially those tasked with explaining that reality.

The essence of Davies’ position boils down to the idea that there’s been a change in the nature and purpose of information: that it has gone from being used as a way of understanding a shared reality to instead operating on that reality, with the significance of this change being that the latter requires neither global agreement on a set of facts nor any real persistence in time. It’s perfectly possible to discover, act upon, and profit from something that them disappears without a trace, and this changes both what it means to be a fact and how these (perhaps purported) facts are presented: it doesn’t matter if something is later falsified, since the purpose was not to state a permanent position but to achieve a timely objective.

Davies backs this proposition up with a deep-dive into military history, philosophy, and the emergence of the commercial internet: this is definitely a book fore the widely-ranging mind. His prescriptions are troubling to those of us who work in science: that we need to shed our public scruples and engage politically, not giving up the search for the objective but making sure that we use it to act on the world. In that sense he’s supportive of events like the “March for Science” that were opposed by many scientists as a corruption of objectivity – and I have toi say that that’s not something I wanted to hear, but that I find rather compelling.

5/5. Finished Friday 28 June, 2019.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Ian McDonald (2015)

What would living on the moon be like? How would the inhabitants relate to those left on earth? What would be the economics? The sociology?

There’s more than a touch of Robert Heinlein‘s masterpiece The Moon is a Harsh Mistress here, updated for the twenty-first century. McDonald has the moon evolving an clan-based oligarchy that resembles fourteenth century Italy, but with some amazingly clever nods to the science and engineering needed to actually build a viable lunar civilisation, as well as for their social implications.

4/5. Finished Saturday 22 June, 2019.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)