Category: Writing

author: James Bradley
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2010/03/03
date added: 2010/03/10
shelves: history, non-fiction, politics
review:
Excellent book — uses the far east trip of (at the time Secretary of War) Taft and Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter Alice as a structure to talk about American involvements in Asia in the late 19th & early 20th century. It’s not pretty. Amazing use of primary sources to show the specific elements of racism and imperialism at work.

The author got interested in the subject after writing a book about his father’s experiences in WWII, and so a large portion is devoted to the Americans’ encouragement (development?) of imperial ambitions in Japan, and when push came to shove and the Japanese fought the Russians, how the Americans were quick to go back on whatever they’d said to the Japanese. He also makes the explicit connection — as the Japanese did — between the Monroe Doctrine in the Americas and the Japanese’s view of their dominance in Asia.

A similarly large section covers the Americans’ colonization of the Philippines (and Hawaii as well) — the same combination of confidence & naiveté that you see again in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. You’d think we could learn from the disasters of the past, but apparently not.

Highly recommended.

author: David A. Kessler
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2010/03/10
date added: 2010/03/10
shelves: business, health, non-fiction, politics, psychology, science, self-help
review:
Not to be totally corny, but if you only read one book this year, this would be a damn good choice. Former head of the FDA, a guy who’s also had his own struggles with food and weight, examines the psychology of eating in our current food landscape.

"Conditioned hypereating" is how he describes it, encompassing both overweight and not: the obsession with food, the difficulties in resisting hyperpalatable modern foods.

The science stuff is fascinating, the section on food company research is terrifying, and there’s some excellent concrete advice in the last section. I really needed to read this after putting back on some (not a lot) of the weight I lost a couple of years ago.

author: David A. Kessler
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2010/03/10
date added: 2010/03/10
shelves: health, non-fiction, politics, business, psychology, science, self-help
review:
Not to be totally corny, but if you only read one book this year, this would be a damn good choice. Former head of the FDA, a guy who’s also had his own struggles with food and weight, examines the psychology of eating in our current food landscape.

"Conditioned hypereating" is how he describes it, encompassing both overweight and not: the obsession with food, the difficulties in resisting hyperpalatable modern foods.

The science stuff is fascinating, the section on food company research is terrifying, and there’s some excellent concrete advice in the last section. I really needed to read this after putting back on some (not a lot) of the weight I lost a couple of years ago.

author: Randall Robinson
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2007
rating: 2
read at: 2010/03/09
date added: 2010/03/10
shelves: autobiography, biography, history, non-fiction, politics
review:
This was not the book I was hoping for — I think I was looking for more of an overview of Haitian history, and this was almost exclusively about the 2006 coup against Aristide. And unfortunately, I couldn’t even get into that aspect. The narrative style is roundabout and discursive, cutting back and forth over time, which made it hard to get a good sense of what was happening when.

Additionally, there’s only so much "Americans are racist thugs" that I can handle being lectured about. Not that he was wrong in the particulars, of course, but the repetitiveness started to get on my nerves.

Between the lecturing and the confusing narrative, I couldn’t finish it. There are a few bits and pieces that were intriguing, but mostly that makes me want to seek out another book on Haitian history.

author: Randall Robinson
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2007
rating: 2
read at: 2010/03/09
date added: 2010/03/10
shelves: autobiography, biography, history, non-fiction, politics
review:
This was not the book I was hoping for — I think I was looking for more of an overview of Haitian history, and this was almost exclusively about the 2006 coup against Aristide. And unfortunately, I couldn’t even get into that aspect. The narrative style is roundabout and discursive, cutting back and forth over time, which made it hard to get a good sense of what was happening when.

Additionally, there’s only so much "Americans are racist thugs" that I can handle being lectured about. Not that he was wrong in the particulars, of course, but the repetitiveness started to get on my nerves.

Between the lecturing and the confusing narrative, I couldn’t finish it. There are a few bits and pieces that were intriguing, but mostly that makes me want to seek out another book on Haitian history.