by Richard Subber | Sep 28, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Global climate change, History, Politics, Power and inequality, World history
the unknowable future begins tomorrow…
Book review:
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
by Yuval Noah Harari, PhD (b1976)
New York: Spiegel & Grau, imprint of Random House, 2018
372 pages
Harari considers many of the questions that are plaguing 21st century liberal democracies, and the other folks, too.
Perhaps the predominant takeaway of 21 Lessons is that things are changing rapidly, and the unknowable future will be on us during our lifetimes.
If we do not try to deal more effectively and more urgently with the frightful challenges of burgeoning infotech and biotech, and the inescapable constraint of manmade climate change, and our own social, economic, and political shortcomings, we’ll unavoidably learn that we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Harari is a deep thinker, a provocative intellect, and a blunt writer who calls you to risk learning more truth.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: American Colonies
So many and so much
came before the Pilgrims
by Alan Taylor
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Feb 3, 2020 | Book reviews, Books, Global climate change, Politics
human beings may not survive…
Book review:
Losing Earth: A Recent History
by Nathaniel Rich
New York: MCD, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019
206 pages
If you’re thinking that it’s just too much trouble to worry about global climate change and the prospect of a final end to human civilization, do read Losing Earth.
Rich lays it all out, in dispassionate history and an impassioned call for individual and collective action.
The stupefying truth is that nearly everything we know now about global climate change has been known by some sensible and honorable—and some greedy and dishonorable—men and women for the last 50 years.
Here’s the grisly truth: Losing Earth does not suggest any easy fix. There is no easy fix for the apocalyptic acceleration of global climate change, and the massive destruction of our living environment—our planet—that is already happening.
All of us need to try to empower leaders who will take the long view and do the right thing.
We need to “develop a strategy for expanding the limits of what is politically feasible.” The United States and our congress and our president must take the lead in any worldwide action that will be even partly successful.
For everyone, for you and for me, “the first requirement is to speak about the problem honestly: as a struggle for survival. This is the antithesis of the denialist approach. Once the stakes are precisely defined, the moral imperative is inescapable.” Start by telling yourself the truth.
We have to start saying out loud, to each other, that we love our children and our grandchildren with all our hearts, and we want to make it possible for them to live their full lives in some kind of comfort on this planet.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2020 All rights reserved.
Book review: The House by the Sea
May Sarton’s travels, in her mind…
click here
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jan 9, 2020 | Global climate change, Human Nature, Politics, Reflections, Tidbits
actually, not an unthinkable thought…
“Owing in large measure to humankind’s
long, steadily accelerating career of habitat shattering,
the rate of extinction is currently
about a thousand times what is normal.
That’s how fast the planet’s biotic community
is losing member species these days…
I can’t get that extinction crisis out of my mind.
Extinction is not abstract in the least.
It’s the thousands of instances of the desolation
of being the last of one’s kind.”
Stephanie Mills, excerpt from “The One Who Steals the Fat,” The Sun magazine, January 2001
We’re not accustomed to thinking in truly absolute terms—think about it, extinction is the end.
Think again about your grandchildren.
Think again.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2020 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shakespeare’s Wife
Germaine Greer went overboard a bit…
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jan 6, 2020 | Book reviews, Books, Global climate change, History, Reflections, World history
It’s worth a second read…
Book review:
On the Beach
by Nevil Shute (1899-1960)
New York: Vintage International, Vintage Books, 1957
312 pages
I could not read On the Beach again without taking on some of the terminal burden of the characters. I awakened some of my disturbing memories (Weltschmerz, perhaps) of reading it the first time, almost 60 years ago.
Maybe you think you know the story line: in the aftermath of worldwide nuclear destruction, an inescapable deadly radioactive miasma is finally devastating Australia. The land down under is the last refuge of human beings on the planet.
All of them know they’re going to die in a couple months. Many of them choose to live as if they don’t know it.
The reader doesn’t need to apply much imagination. On the Beach is a baldly powerful chronicle of the unyielding imperatives of human nature, including the impulse to work side by side with someone you love, planting a garden, hoping to share a rich crop next year, ignoring the darkness in the northern sky.
Nevil Shute’s story is not out of date.
I desperately fear that my grandchildren may be re-reading this book as they survive in the hills, trying to ignore the advancing seas below.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2020 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shantung Compound
They didn’t care much
about each other…
by Langdon Gilkey
click here
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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