Some Holiday Book Gift Recos and Some Books to Avoid!
Romi Mahajan
Chief Executive, Chief Marketing Officer, Science-Commercializer, PropTech Advisor, and Strategist, Author, Investor
Real people like Bill Gates publish “recommended” book lists every year.?Other real people like Oprah have book clubs that drive hundreds of thousands of dollars of sales.?This year, I too have the temerity to suggest that what I have to say about particular books might convince you to buy and read them or to give them to a friend or loved one for the upcoming Holidays. Or to avoid them!
My recommendations--
When Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced in 2016 that Harriet Tubman’s face would adorn the front of the $20-bill and that Andrew Jackson’s would move to the back, controversy ensued.?Conservatives largely suggested that this was a bad move, casting a pall on one of their heroes- the 7th President of the United States and a noted and virulent racist.?Liberals for the most part were glad to see an ex-slave, abolitionist, female, Black hero put on the bill.?Some progressives argued, however, that there was a cruel irony involved- that Black women had been commoditized enough and, further, that it is money (or lack thereof) that keeps many minorities down and out.?Lusane’s book covers the history of these controversies and offers a rich lesson in US history, but not the history typically taught.?
Until twenty years ago or so, Western histories of both World War 2 and the interwar years ??were characterized more by their ahistoricity and elision than they were by balanced scholarship.?The typical self-serving Western story (and usual players) were trotted out- and the villains easily identified- like the dramatis personae in a play written by a ten year-old.?Not true of histories written more recently, though most still have glaring omissions and reveal tendentious Western bias by their emphases, language and normative conclusions.?
Not so with Jonathan Haslam’s magisterial account of the inter-war years in Europe and the failed attempts at diplomacy, compromise, and progressivism.?Fear of Bolshevism and of Soviet influence drove European politics in the crucial two decades before World War 2- much more than any other factor.?The support of fascism, Hitler’s rise and the woeful progression thereafter is a partial consequence of this ideological, anti-Soviet and anti-Communist focus.?
Most of the news in the mainstream press would have you believing that India is a shining example of economic success and democracy writ large.?Indian billionaires and diasporic CEOs get a huge share of coverage, and a complex and thoroughgoing PR machine works 24/7 to ensure that the story is straight.
But jagged it is.?The abject poverty and desperation in the Indian countryside- with hundreds of thousands of farmer suicides and hundreds of millions caught in the vise of inequality, distress, and hunger has to be understood not only in statistical terms but also in the personal stories of the people who endure hardship and misery.?Ramrao is a book about Sociology, Economics, and History refracted through the life of one person.
There is much literature on diasporic cultures and notions of cultural “retention.”?There is also much “literature” on the success of diasporic communities—it seems like 50% of the articles about Indians abroad are CEO-worship pieces.?In a digital world with “immediate” signaling and with a well-heeled emigrant population, India has done a great job exporting casteism where and when it exports people.?
Dalit-activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan’s book outlines the various ways in which casteism abroad rears its ugly head in the Indian diaspora’s personal, professional, and political lives.?The author spares no one in this full-front attack on casteism and strategy guide on how best to deal with it.?It’s both a mordant piece of political commentary and a meditation on survival.?
领英推荐
Until recently, very few historians focused on the European diplomacy and political currents of the 1930s, instead favoring studies of the six war years (In Europe) instead.?This is partially due to the “appeal” of war as a topic but also because the West had a lot to be ashamed of with regard to its conduct supporting Hitler and propping fascism.?
Dr. Young’s book shows just how close large swatches of the English aristocratic class were to Hitler, with a specific focus on the allegiances of the Mitford family.?Using the relationship between Unity Mitford and Hitler as a stepping stone, the book offers a salutary corrective to the redacted histories- so commonly produced in the West- of English resistance to fascism.?The mirror’s reflection is not always pretty.
For decades, Bacevich has offered a sober, intelligent, and mordant (even profane) perspective on America’s place in the world and its waning importance.?He argues that the Cold War “consensus” was built on false assumptions and a denial of history and reality, but that it offered the glue that held the United States policy framework together.
With the end of the Cold War, the rise of multipolarity, and the metastasis of existential threats against humankind, we need, he argues, to shed our obsolescence of policy and outlook and to embrace reality as we go headlong into disaster.
But, there’s more!
Now, for the cheeky party.?Here are three books I suggest you avoid--
?The Bomber Mafia –Malcolm Gladwell
Gladwell should have spent 10,000 hours learning just a bit about the history of bombing and specifically about the American bombing of Japan before attempting to take on the subject.?What he ended up giving us is a shallow, fulsome, immoral, and puerile love-letter to a bunch of ideologues (like Curtis Lemay) who sought to maximize Japanese civilian casualties.
Surrender- Bono
You’d be fine with or without this book.?Bono is an excellent musician but a pompous dilettante.?The only book on or by him that should be read is Harry Browne’s “The Frontman.” ?
What We Owe the Future- William MacAskill
Anti-scientific futurism wrapped in amoral callousness prettied up by the illusion of erudition and Philosophy.?Indeed, this ode to “Long-termism” should find no place in a world with real problems.?Pure dreck.