Book Review: For Honor by Jeff Rovin

For Honor by Jeff Rovin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A Cold War secret for almost 60 years suddenly becomes relevant as Russia looks to gain an ally in the Middle East by secretly giving it nuclear weapons, but a defector and Op-Center’s Geek Tank shines a spotlight on the covert affair. For Honor is the fifth book of the Op-Center reboot as original series author Jeff Rovin full takes over the series as Op-Center attempts to stop a potentially deadly epilogue of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Operation Anadyr was not only the plan to put nuclear ICBMs in Cuba, but outside a remote village in the Artic Circle without the U.S. knowing. A former Soviet officer who became an arms dealer is contacted by his estranged son who is a part of the GRU—the KGB in all but name—to the little village and takes him to were the missiles are stored. Chase Williams and Op-Center help interview a defecting Iranian general, who is a Christian but allowed to rise in ranks to be used a decoy later, when they learn his “imprisoned” daughter is a nuclear physicist who attended a conference that also had Russians and a elderly Cuban who was Castro’s point-woman during Operation Anadyr. Op-Center’s Geek Tank then has alerts about the travels of the Russian arms dealer and his GRU employed son arriving in the same little Russian town, Anadyr. Williams dispatches someone down to Cuba and learns from the anti-Russian scientist that missiles were stored near the town. Op-Center’s Special Forces Team sinks an Iranian undercover naval ship in international waters, but the President and the National Security Advisor are not happy with the incident while the Iranian’s plan for revenge.

For the second straight book, Op-Center felt like it was only featured in the book because it was an Op-Center book. Everything that was interesting happened outside the organization’s building and did not include any character that related to it. Then there were the chronological issues with the Presidential administration that went from being in their first term in the previous book to almost finished with their second even though only one month had passed from the events of Dark Zone. Frankly all these issues have one thing in common, Jeff Rovin, and the foreshadowing of where he plans to take the series means their confused book and undermining of everything that was laid down in the first books of the relaunch means that things will just continue to be confusing and bad.

For Honor sees the full-time return of Jeff Rovin to the Op-Center series, which given the quality of this and the previous book means the rebooted series will have the same quality issues that the original series will. If you’re a fan of Rovin then by all means continue the series, if you’ve never read Rovin before then don’t waste your time.

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Book Review: Reaganland: America's Right Turn, 1976-1980 by Rick Perlstein

Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980 by Rick Perlstein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reaganland ends Rick Perlstein’s four volume history on the rise of modern conservatism in American politics with looking at how the former actor and governor became the embodiment of the 1980s. Beginning with how Ronald Reagan might or might not have failed to help President Gerald Ford in the 1976 then how he became the four-year front-runner to challenge President Jimmy Carter as the economic, cultural, and political landscape shifted under the feet of the Establishment without them noticing.

Perlstein sticks to the trademark of this series with interconnecting cultural, entertainment, and societal issues with politics and history as nothing happens within a vacuum. The women’s rights, gay rights, and abortion rights developments of the early part of the 1970s, brought “organized discontent” from “moral” individuals who brought the “culture wars” that the country has lived with for the past 40 years into the mainstream of politics. Conservative background powerbrokers and boardroom Jacobins latched onto these “moral” crusades as well as the groundswell of taxpayer discontent and manipulated campaigns against consumerism to better their political fortunes and corporate profits. Then there was the continuing economic issues from inflation, energy, and unemployment all interrelated during the late 1970s that ultimately undermined the Carter Presidency than anything else beyond the borders of the nation. Finally, all the factors above that combined to make the 1980 Presidential campaign, not only one of a monumental shift in the political landscape but also historically misunderstood as to why Reagan won and Carter lost.

Unlike previous books, Perlstein didn’t need to give biographies of the major political figures of the era as they had already been covered though he did give minibiographies of individuals of lesser stature but who’s unknown impact would last for years. As I mention in my review of the previous book, Perlstein just goes after Carter and the major figures in his Administration but Reagan and his entire campaign doesn’t escape savaging as well throughout the book especially during the Presidential campaign. Perlstein doesn’t have to manipulate the facts to make the Christian Right, aka Moral Majority, come across as unchristian and unconstitutional in their portrayal in the book as what was covered in this five year period could be copied and pasted from anytime up until 2020.

The 1980s is seen as the decade of Ronald Reagan thus this book title, Reaganland: America’s Right Turn, 1976-1980, perfectly encapsulates how that came to be. Rick Perlstein’s final volume of how modern conservatism took over the Republican Party and changed the political landscape as well as the political Establishment completes a 22-year story yet also feels historically hollow, which is the book’s major drawback. Without analysis of how the trends of 1958-1980 influenced the next four decades, the volume’s end was both sudden and underwhelming for a reader that had spent their time reading it.

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Book Review: Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes

Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Modern philosophy began in the Netherlands by a French mathematician inspired by the events of the Thirty-Years War in Germany. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy are the first two treatise by French mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes that would that would not only start modern philosophy but also the use of reason which lead to the development of natural sciences both of which impact the world in the 21st Century.

The “founding” document of Cartesian philosophical and scientific method is “Discourse on Method” in which Rene Descartes tackles the problem of skepticism while also acknowledging that a truth can be found incontrovertible. Descartes started his line of reasoning, and thus his “method”, by doubting everything so to assess everything from a fresh perspective, clear of any preconceived notions. To test his new method, he uses it on itself which leads to the famous quote of the work, “I think, therefore I am”. Descartes second work, “Meditations on First Philosophy”, expands upon his philosophical system introduced in “Discourse” and presents Descartes metaphysical system at its most detailed level. Within this series of meditations, Descartes sets further the arguments for the three substances that all existence consisted of which formed the basis of Cartesian ontology—matter, mind, and God.

Rene Descartes significance to modern philosophy and the development of the natural science means this two-treatise collection is important in the history of the development of both philosophy and the scientific method. Yet this book is simply the two treatises without an introduction or explanation to the uninitiated about the importance of the works or the author. Also a significant element of “Meditations of First Philosophy” was missing at least from Descartes perspective, particular the objections from scholars around Europe that he submitted the unpublished manuscript to and his replies that were printed when he officially published the work. Though the book comes in at 130 pages without the two features, it hurts the overall product.

Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy are the first two treatise of Cartesian philosophy that Rene Descartes and many after developed and refined over the course of the seventeenth century. While the treatise themselves are five-star worthy, without context or adherence to authorial intent the way they are presented in this book lessens their impact.

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