aside from a bunch of game books at the begining of the summer, and a reread of Dune and some science fiction by Theodore Sturgeon (of the Ray Bradbury era of scifi) my reading has been what some might consider dry.
"Lies My Teacher Told Me." Good book, takes a look at highschool history classes in the U.S. and why it's one of the worst subjects for students, history text books have gross inacuracies (and in some cases out right lies) and how history classes in general tend to avoid topics like racism and segregation, U.S. foriegn policy, and leader responsibility. It's a strong critique but it's interesting in the amount of history it divulges as it's critiquing.
"A History of Knowledge." Over all i liked this one, it explored philosophy, science and religion through the ages. it's very western in it's paradigm though and little acknowledges asia (Chinese primarily) influence or discoveries (which often times pre-dated the same european discoveries by hundreds of years). it's interesting though, to see how things are related.
"1421: The Year China Discovered America" This book was fasinating. the author, who's interest in renasaince cartography led him to begin researching this idea earnestly about 15 years ago, is not the only one that holds to this theory, but he is probably the first westerner that is so passionate about it, and the most vocal. He has alot of very good evidence (and some that may be stretching it a bit) for this book, and as Archeological digs that he has arranged begin to occur, more evidence will either surface or sink him. One interesting note, only in the west (europe and american, and australia and new zealand though the evidence of large scale mining projects and chinese architecture are hard to argue against) is the idea that China discovered america not popular amoungst the historians. Else where in the world it is quite common. Just finished this one and i'm moving on too....
"Freakonomics." i've actually read two chapters out of this and .... this is a book about the quirkiness of the world, and the way it works. pretty interesting.
so that's what i've been reading.
posted by F.G. Shaw @ 7:19 AM
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