Book Review: A Struggle for Power by Theodore Draper

A Struggle for Power: The American Revolution by Theodore Draper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So how did the relationship between Great Britain and the British American colonies deteriorate into war in a little over a decade after securing a huge victory over France that secured them everything east of the Mississippi and all of Canada? The Struggle for Power: The American Revolution by Theodore Draper details how ideological factors were the main cause of the American Revolution.

While Draper begins the book the debate occurring in Britain about whether to keep Canada or Guadeloupe after the end of the Seven Years’ War—aka French and Indian War—using the arguments that had begun during the Stuart restoration nearly a century before about how to keep the American colonies dependent on Britain. However, Draper showed that those old arguments had since been surpassed by the economic prowess of the American colonies and did not consider the political attitudes and realities of those colonies until it was too late. Throughout the book Draper illustrates that the American Revolution came down not to paying taxes, but who had the power to pass tax legislation and collect the money. Over the course of a little over 500 pages, Draper developed his case by not only American sources but those of the British as well, showing the ideological arguments over 12 years that eventually could only be settled in blood.

The Struggle for Power as a great look into the cause of the American Revolution by Theodore Draper, not only seeing it from the western side of the Atlantic but in the mother country too.

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Book Review: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A human male emissary to a planet of androgynous humans attempts to open them up to the rest of the galactic human civilizations navigates the religious, social, cultural, and political webs that cross the two largest nations of the planet. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin is a science fiction novel that deals sex and gender that changed the genre as well as put her into the forefront of it as well.

Having heard that significance of this book as well the importance of the author to science fiction and fantasy, I felt the need to make sure I read it. Upon completing it I found it a fine narrative and an interesting worldbuilding that Le Guin created in social structures and political systems, and I personally found that the book reveals two different means for its title. However, the 55 years since the book published—at time of reading—things have changed in fiction and real life that have blunted its impact, namely another book and it’s adapted film franchise as well as certain sports controversies including one that happened while I was reading this book. Frankly this is a good read and I’m not disappointed in reading it, but unlike when it first came out its “impact” isn’t really felt to me personally.

The Left Hand of Darkness is one of Ursula K. Le Guin’s best-known works, while I felt it was good I didn’t feel the impact that is associated with one of this book’s main themes which probably affected my overall view of the book.

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Book Review: Cosmos by Carl Sagan

Cosmos by Carl Sagan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A companion book to one of the most influential science documentary miniseries of all-time, the success of both the miniseries and this book redefined the popular science genre for the public. Cosmos by Carl Sagan is a book that not only covers the mysteries of space but various fields of science from the origin to the present (of time of publication).

Over the course of nearly 300 pages, Sagan covers a wide range of scientific topics over the course of 13 chapters that correspond to the 13 episodes of the PBS miniseries it was written to compliment. Using a conversational writing style that connects with the general reader, Sagan explains complex scientific information without being condensing but encouraging for those interested to investigate further on whatever topic caught their attention. Given that this was published over 40 years ago some of the scientific information is outdated—something Sagan would be happy about given his call to expand our knowledge—and the cultural overtones related to the Cold War especially nuclear self-destruction do stand out as jarring, but don’t take away from overall book.

Cosmos by Carl Sagan is an engagingly written book for the general reader about very complex scientific ideas.

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Book Review: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

A friend of mine gave me a warning before Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion that David Hume puts all his mental capabilities to bring into the question the existence of a wise and loving creator, that his can be quite compelling and that I needed to be prepared to have my faith severely tested. After reading this essay, my friend could have saved his time warning me because Hume just wrote stuff down like some people just talk to hear themselves talk, in the words of William Shakespeare this was all “sound and fury, signifying nothing”. This book also contained the unpublished essays “Of the Immortality of the Soul” and “Of Suicide” that were impressive, also included was “Of Miracles” that I read in Hume’s Enquires and I decided not to read a second time for the author circular argument. In all honesty, I have found David Hume to be overrated and wish he had taken the hint when his first book had bombed and never written again.

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Book Review: August 1914 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

August 1914 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is a nation that is politically on edge since a failed revolution after a humiliating military defeat, and now it declared war to defend a little nation no one cared about resulting in patriotic fervor and a ticking clock. August 1914 is the first installment of what author Alexander Solzhenitsyn planned to be a cycle of novels following the death of Imperial Russia and birth-pangs of the Soviet Union.

Given the ambitious plan that Solzhenitsyn had in mind, this book does not stand on its own while part of a greater whole. While the main storyline, the destruction of Russian Second Army at the Battle of Tannenberg, is complete and leads to a cliffhanger ending it’s the other storylines that are simply introduced for later in the series especially in view of the various 1917 revolutions and the aftershocks. That said Solzhenitsyn’s characters are interesting and those with introduced storylines would be interesting to follow in future volumes, however the “main character” of the book is Colonel Vorotyntsev whose journey among the units of Second Army essentially shows the unprepared state of the army and how the private soldiers as well as junior officers gave pride to the uniform while dying to no purpose because of the stupidity of the General Staff. While I knew the outcome of the battle and how depressing it would be to see so many soldiers that the reader would meet that I knew were going to be dead by the end of the book, Solzhenitsyn made me care and that was very well done. If I’m ever able to find the other books of this unfinished cycle I’d give my time to reading them.

August 1914 is Alexander Solzhenitsyn opening installment of a cycle of novels that detail the death of Imperial Russia and birth of the Soviet Union, it’s depressing not only because of how little chance Russian soldiers have but also because it’s Russian literature and what else can you expect.

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Book Review: The Age of Voltaire by Will & Ariel Durant

The Age of Voltaire by Will Durant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The death of Louis XIV to the beginning of the Seven Year’s War was a time of change for Western Europe, especially in a growing conflict between faith and reason. The Age of Voltaire is the ninth volume of The Story of Civilization series by Will Durant and joined for the third time by his wife Ariel investigate the changing politics, cultural traits, and the face of sciences of the early modern era as well as the conflict between religion of philosophy.

While this volume isn’t a biography of Voltaire, the Durants used his life to focus on specific regions of Europe—mainly his native France, England, and greater Germany. Those regions are the focus of the first three books of the volume in which their political developments, their cultural accomplishments in the various arts, and the impacts they and Voltaire had on one another. The last two-fifths of the book features the two highlights of the “Age of Enlightenment”, the advancement of science and the attack of the Philosophes upon Christianity. It is this last topic in which Will Durant had waited decades to get to as reason and faith battled leading to the intellectual development of atheism in the cultural context of Catholicism in 18th-Century France especially in play between factions of the Jesuits and the Jansenists. Durant not only introduces the reader to Diderot, Helvetius, D’Holbach, and Voltaire’s shifting view of religion and philosophy in the context of morality. Through the writing a long-time reader can tell how much Will Durant enjoys discussing the topic, but also how he foreshadows the result of this conflict that would not affect England or Germany the same way and why.

The Age of Voltaire finds Will and Ariel Durant detailing the “Age of Enlightenment” following the life of its most well-known thinker, and setting the stage for revolution.

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Book Review: Season of Storms by Andrzej Sapkowski

Season of Storms by Andrzej Sapkowski
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A mutated individual who hunts monsters that threaten innocent lives, he isn’t supposed to be a name on people’s tongues, but he is and finds himself tangling with monsters he wasn’t trained to tackle. Season of Storms is a prequel novel and final installment in Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher series that follows Geralt of Rivia as he finds himself looking for his stolen property while being a pawn in several power chess games.

This book read like a series of short stories that are interrelated to one another and not like a “normal” novel usually does. Given this was a prequel Sapowski tried to put this into the established timeline of everything he’d already written and so there was information to put this book into the timeline which felt ham fisted at best. While I went into this book willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, but like the last few books published before this one the quality was wanting and given the structure it just made me frustrated. Honestly there were incidents that if had been fashioned into short stories and the book a collection of numerous stories, I might have really like this book but given what it is I enjoyed the good parts and wanted to forget all the other stuff.

Season of Storms ends the Witcher saga is a somewhat limping note even though it was a prequel.

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