There’s always something over the next hill, just beyond the horizon, and insatiable curiosity will one day propel us to find out what it is. I think that’s why we read, why we hike, why we write, why we build robotic spacecraft with plutonium radioisotope thermoelectric generators: we’re always Chasing New Horizons.
First Review
Sandra Day O’Connor’s life is a thought-provoking story in its own right, and takes place in the context of fascinating decisions and occurrences that have shaped and continue to shape the world in which we live. I’m glad that I made an exception to my twenty five year rule for First.
Brunelleschi’s Dome Review
I took a course for which this book served as a kind of textbook, which I loved in theory, but found very difficult in practice.
Unlimited Memory Review
To be honest, I probably should have read the description of this book, or even the subtitle, a little more closely before I picked it up to read. Had I done so, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with it.
Bernoulli’s Fallacy Review
There are so many reasons why you should read Bernoulli’s Fallacy, many of which we will be addressing in this review, and finally understanding why statistics and probability didn’t make sense back in school is just one of them.
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Review
Don’t expect a text that exists primarily to inform or tell a coherent story, because that’s not what Franklin was setting out to do with his autobiography. It was instead intended originally for his son, and eventually for a wider audience of the burgeoning America, as a moral guide, an example and explication of how it might be possible to live a moral, productive, and well-regarded life, such as Franklin himself led.
The Art of Thinking Clearly Review
This example, The Art of Thinking Clearly, is something that I’ve been meaning to post a review for on the site for quite some time now, mostly because of how often I reference logical fallacies. Whatever else this book might be, and it certainly has its flaws, it is a short, approachable compendium of common logical fallacies.
Warfare on the Mediterranean in the Age of Sail Review
I learned an enormous amount about naval warfare in the age of sail, the tactics and techniques involved, how the evolution from oars to sails took place, and the geopolitical context behind conflicts that I only vaguely knew happened at all.
Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook Review
That title is no understatement. Bloodied copies of this book have been purportedly discovered amongst the most worn possessions of failed coup leaders, which Luttwak is quick to disclaim as being evidence that they did not amply take to heart his text’s lessons, and not a suggestion that his instructions are flawed.
Von Braun Review
Although I’d long desired to find a biography of Werner Von Braun, one of the more complex and mysterious figures of early rocketry, most of the treatments I found seemed unlikely to provide the kind of detail and depth of analysis that I was seeking, so when I came upon a biography of him that was consistently billed as the best study yet done of him and his history, I was optimistic enough to add it to my reading list, and excited enough by its possibilities to read it within a year of its addition.
