Book Summaries

Neil Postman’s observation that every technology creates “winners and losers” challenges the widespread assumption that progress is invariably a tide lifting all boats. He draws on the work of Harold Innis to illustrate how technological shifts reconfigure social power dynamics. When a tool or system becomes indispensable, those who control it gain prestige and authority, … Read more

Neil Postman’s Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology begins with a striking myth about the Egyptian god Theuth, who presents his invention of writing to King Thamus. Theuth proclaims writing to be an incomparable gift: a remedy for faulty memory and a gateway to knowledge. Thamus, however, rebukes Theuth, warning that writing will produce … Read more

The below sections will summarize chapters 4, 5, and 6 from Irrational Exuberance. The emergence and evolution of speculative bubbles in financial markets is intricately tied to the history and role of the news media. Speculative bubbles date back to the advent of newspapers, with early examples like the Dutch tulip mania of the 1630s … Read more

For this post, we will continue covering chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 in the classic text, A Random Walk Down Wall Street. In the realm of investment, two principal approaches, technical analysis and fundamental analysis, vie for dominance as tools to predict stock prices. These methods reflect diverging philosophies about market behavior and investor … Read more

Few phenomena capture public fascination more than unexpected lights dancing in the night sky. When drones allegedly appeared over New Jersey, multiple theories sprang to life, each one invoking different shades of skepticism and intrigue. This overview connects each theory to Thomas Sawyer’s “Mastering Deception,” demonstrating how these sightings might embody the artful (or nefarious) … Read more

The tragic fate of the Moriori people in the Chatham Islands serves as a poignant illustration of how environmental factors and cultural evolution can shape societies. By the 19th century, the Moriori—a small, isolated population of hunter-gatherers—faced annihilation and enslavement at the hands of Maori invaders, who arrived armed and organized after centuries of agricultural … Read more

Growth Modes and Big History Not long ago, our ancestors were still swinging through African trees. In evolutionary terms, the rise of Homo sapiens was a rapid ascent. Small shifts in posture, thumbs, and brain organization led to an extraordinary leap in cognition. Humans became capable of abstract thought, complex communication, and the cultural accumulation … Read more

The years since the 1970s have been a whirlwind of financial turbulence, marked by wild swings in the prices of commodities, currencies, real estate, and stocks. Financial crises, once relatively rare, have become unsettlingly frequent, with their roots often in the same recurring patterns of speculation, euphoria, and collapse. From Japan’s real estate bubble in … Read more

Russia, the largest country in the world, spans six million square miles, crossing eleven time zones. Its immense geography defines its history, politics, and worldview. From the forests and steppes of European Russia to the frozen expanses of Siberia, this vastness has shaped a nation both unified by its strategic vulnerabilities and divided by its … Read more

In World Order, Henry Kissinger chronicles three monumental events that forever altered Europe’s landscape: the Peace of Westphalia, the French Revolution, and the Treaty of Versailles. Each event remade Europe’s politics and people, shifting them from a continent of warring dynasties and religious allegiances to a web of nations bound by the tenuous threads of … Read more