For four years, Coates served as a federal prosecutor for the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in the District of Columbia. This gave her an up-front view on social ills plaguing America. As the title reveals, she, herself black, wrestles at length in this book with the dynamics of race and justice in the legal system. Her analysis does not provide easy answers. Someone surely is not guilty just because he/she is black, but neither…
For my job, I work in a technical field with high-level people in medical research who make important decisions that impact many. Thus, though I am not a primary decision-maker, anything I can do to better understand their mindsets and the impact of their decisions benefits my organization and my career. It is with this perspective that I approach this book. In it, Taleb uses a rare philosophical approach to business by addressing how we…
A close friend of mine was recently diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT). It’s a disease of the nerves (a neuropathy) that especially affects the distal parts of legs and arms. I’ve had a longtime curiosity about how diseases affect life, and I like to read. Therefore, I bought this book to empathize with his experience more. Here, Johnson describes her lifelong experiences on a particularly difficult life journey with CMT. She does so with the…
One of the biggest accolades often put on George W. Bush’s US presidency is addressing the AIDS pandemic in Africa. That required an international effort, and Stephen Lewis, a former Canadian ambassador and UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, details how that effort fell short on many fronts. He calls out contradictions between the aims and implementation of US policy. In so doing, he exposes how both the US and the UN become embroiled…
This book’s ironic title indicates the “average American’s” complacency towards political concerns – a theme as relevant today as it was during the Great Depression. This book, written at the height of the Depression in 1935, imagines what would happen if a populist/fascist won the presidential election of 1936. Fascism was already taking root in Italy and Germany, and it was on the rise in America (primarily through Senator Huey Long, as the afterword explains).…
After 70 years, Eisenhower remains a respected president with a mostly positive influence. Not only did he lead the Allies to victory in World War II, but as president, he also organized the world for a lasting peace. He continued to develop the American economy so that over time, America would win the Cold War against communism while not annihilating the world in the process. Newton analyzes these issues in careful detail, but he tends…
Software security is an important yet neglected issue. Most developers will immediately recognize its importance because, with the Internet, so much of the computing infrastructure (the “surface”) is vulnerable to attack. Yet it’s simultaneously neglected because it relies on mastering the unknown – an unsurmountable topic. Reviewing security issues in one’s own code is often a painful process, much like reading an editor’s notes on one’s own writing. Into this ongoing conversation, Kohnfelder, a developer…
Sleep typically takes up around 1/4 to 1/3 of our lives, and dreams are a major part of sleep. Yet the process of dreaming is still not well understood, especially by the general public. Many decades ago, psychological pioneer Carl Jung provided an framework to understand our dreams through, and in this book, Dalfen builds upon his framework with a professional lifetime helping others interpret their dreams. In so doing, she helps the reader gain…
Technology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries can be as much of a problem as a help. As an instrument, it can make mass killing much easier. Indeed, nuclear bombs enable the world to potentially destroy itself in less than an hour. Yet technology can enable human flourishing as well. For instance, I develop software professionally that I hope will help my domain (medical research) advance. How are we to understand technology, a concept as…
Recent events have caused many thoughtful Americans to reflect on our social cohesion and structures. In this book, Wilkerson performs this task through the educated lens of social theory and builds a compelling case for what needs to change in American culture. She does so by constructing a comprehensive, historical account of injustices done by “the dominant caste” to “the lower caste.” In so doing, she identifies how American society can still have enduring social…