Scott J. Pearson

An Enemy Like Me: A Novel

By Scott J. Pearson | January 24, 2023December 18, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Even my 11-year-old daughter observes that World War II still defines our modern era. It brought the United States of America into prominence; it ushered in a relatively peaceful Europe; it set the boundaries of communism and democracy; it opened up Americans’ eyes to the global order. Many younger people are realizing this history’s impact as their parents and grandparents have recently deceased. In this book, Brown seeks to kindle one fictional family’s history, from…

Leadership Management-Business

Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter

By Scott J. Pearson | January 18, 2023September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

This book entered two new words into my vocabulary of personality: “diminisher” and “multiplier.” To Wiseman, these contrasting interpersonal styles are the secret understanding to why some smart people succeed at leadership and others fail. A diminisher is someone who socially tries to prove how smart they are to everyone around them. As such, they promote themselves, not the people around them. In stark contrast, multipliers make the people around them feel smarter and more…

Biography-Memoir History

Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom

By Scott J. Pearson | January 17, 2023November 23, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

I first heard the Crafts’ story as a student in American History class in a South Carolina high school. My teacher shared how the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was first tested with a couple in Boston who recently escaped slavery. Mass protests made a mockery of the enslavers’ efforts, the Crafts eluded capture by escaping, and the slave-catchers returned to Georgia empty-handed. I remember that the story seemed more complicated than that, but even…

Healthcare HIV/AIDS

HIV & Aging

By Scott J. Pearson | January 15, 2023January 15, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

The discovery of Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART) in the 1990s was a historical game-changer for those infected with HIV. Instead of dying with AIDS four years after diagnosis, patients infected could now live for decades going forward. While certainly a welcome happening, HAART opened up a new set of questions for those affected with HIV along with healthcare providers: How do we handle growing old with HIV? And how does medicine cope with an…

Fiction-Stories History

Night Angels: A Novel

By Scott J. Pearson | January 13, 2023October 20, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

In a little-known part of the Holocaust, a Chinese diplomat facilitated the rescue of thousands of Jews from Vienna, Austria, by using his visa-writing powers. They were sent to, of all places, Shanghai during the Japanese invasion of China. (Of course, a war zone is much safer than the overzealous rage of Hitler.) As described in the Author’s Note, this Chinese diplomat, named Ho Fengshan, was not recognized until after his death in the late…

Biography-Memoir

Educated: A Memoir

By Scott J. Pearson | January 12, 2023January 12, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

This book stems from a profoundly foundational family squabble. Westover’s parents practice a strictly conservative form of Mormonism in Idaho. They follow the virtue of self-reliance to the point that they did not put their children into school or get them birth certificates. However, some of their children, like the author, ended up making their ways into college and eventually graduate school. This memoir tells one daughter’s life from rural Idaho into BYU and eventually…

Religion-Philosophy

Gravity & Grace by Simone Weil

By Scott J. Pearson | January 8, 2023January 8, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Simone Weil, a twentieth-century French philosopher and political activist, possessed excellent academic training and worked in the Spanish leftist political movements. Around the advent of World War II, however, she became disillusioned with the totalitarian politics of Europe and made a reflective move inward. She began to convert to a Roman Catholic form of Christianity. Unfortunately, she died in obscurity before the war’s end as a result of a longstanding struggle with anorexia. She had…

Presentation Science Writing-Communication

The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science

By Scott J. Pearson | January 7, 2023January 7, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

A popular impression about science is that scientists do not know how to write well; that is, they only write in highly technical jargon that’s, well, boring. Scientists spend so much of their training, the story goes, learning about facts that they do not master the art and craft of communication. Montgomery, in this work, seeks to counter that argument by teaching scientists how to communicate well. In so doing, he harkens to a centuries-long…

Biography-Memoir History

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln & the American Struggle

By Scott J. Pearson | December 31, 2022December 31, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” These words were written by an enslaver who held to white supremacy, yet they inspired a nation and inspire it still. A few (like Dr. King) have reached Lincoln’s heights, but no one has surpassed his personal struggle for a union without…

Religion-Philosophy Science

Questions of Truth: Fifty-one Responses to Questions about God, Science & Belief

By Scott J. Pearson | December 31, 2022December 31, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

John Polkinghorne is a Cambridge physicist who decided, mid-career, to become an Anglican priest. Like a good scientist working out a theory, he worked out how his orthodox Christian beliefs were essentially compatible with modern physics. He has won international acclaim and awards for his insights about religion and science. Especially central to his contributions is the idea that both disciplines require a certain amount of belief and faith. This book, compiled with his collaborator…