Agree re: Andrew Ross Sorkin's new book.

I've spent a lot of time in the last twelve years in a self-education thread I think of as "WTF happened to my country while I wasn't looking?" series.

Over the last twelve months, Sorkin's book comes in second to Peak Human, by Johan Norberg.

I strongly recommend this one. Sixty-plus pages apiece on seven civilizations: Athens, Rome, the third Islamic caliphate, Song China, Renaissance Italy, the Dutch Republic, and the "Anglosphere" i.e. British -> American hegemony:

- what were their advantages in time and place?
- what good choices were made?
- how did they deal with almost unlimited political power?
- how did they screw it up?

History rhymes very, very strongly in this book. I particularly learned things about the Dutch Republic that sounded like last year's news, but the takeaway is: no very good reason to assume this time it's different. (TL;DR: There is no advantage that wise leaders endow that can't be screwed up a few generations down the road)

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Runners-up were:
American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis" by Adam Hoschild. A good companion volume to Sorkin's book, as it covers the preceding decade. I just finished this one last week. Very readable.

Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law by Neil Gorsuch. I'm not a Gorsuch fan, but even a blind pig etc. Wonder how Fox News fell on such fertile soil in flyover country? Were I a farmer, rancher, fisherman or even a trades contractor, I'd be done, too.

The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelism in an Age of Extremism" by Tim Alberta. This one may be from 2023. But, still. It's well researched, from a potentially sympathetic author, and thoroughly damning while falling short of a rant.

A little OT but a more digestible read on materials science then some of his earlier tomes is Vaclav Smil's "How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going" (It's a little one-sided IMO - Malthus hasn't been right so far, after all)

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and while I'm pontificating: Wendy et al have occasionally discussed fiat currencies here. While the world gradually adopted paper money in stages, one key moment for this country was the US Civil War 1861 - 1865. Roger Lowenstein's Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War is wonderful. (Next step: getting the population to accept paper not backed by precious metals. See: Roosevelt, Franklin D)

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apropos of the "It takes a man to build a barn but any jackass can kick one down" theme, my favorite new quote, from ca. 330 BC:
So true is it, evidently, that a base nature, when given great indulgence, generates public disasters.
οὕτως ὡς ἔοικε πονηρὰ φύσις, μεγάλης ἐξουσίας ἐπιλαβομένη, δημοσίας ἀπεργάζεται συμφοράς. Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon 147 (tr. Chris Carey)


--sutton
back to figuring out what happened in molecular biology while I was practicing medicine, i.e. my "Meanwhile, Back At The Lab Bench" series