Mary Brodd
Daily life in Stockholm during the war, life that was strangely normal compared to the chaos elsewhere on the continent. Diary entries are mostly about her husband and children (illnesses, poor grades - some things never change!) but she obsessively clipped newspaper articles about the war and was as afraid of the Soviets as she was of the Germans. Gained a better understanding of Finland's situation immediately before and during the war (the definition of “no-win”).
If you enjoyed the “Planet Money” podcast, this book will be right up your alley. It's got the same breezy style, going off on tangents that turn out not to be so tangential after all. It's a quick read, but the “Notes” at the back look to be rich source of further reading material.
“The essence of finance is time travel.” (quoting Matt Levine)
Counterfeiting money is as old as money :-)
Interesting overview written recently, but not recently enough to incorporate COVID-19 info (author's observations on what is likely to occur during next pandemic and what will need to be done to fight it induced much hollow laughter in this reader).
My takeaways:
Truly global scale of pandemic still not fully appreciated - possibly as many as 100 million people died from this! Author examines situation in various parts of the world (Brazil, S Africa, Persia, India, in addition to US and Europe)“Cytokine storm” may not have had as much to do with deaths of younger healthier victims - more likely due to virus mutating between spring and fall, becoming more human-transmissible and less bird-transmissible.
*Earlier epidemics (Russian flu in the 1880s[?], etc) may have provided some measure of immunity to certain populations/age groups, explaining otherwise strange patterns of morbidity/mortality.
Mind-blowing takeaway:
So many native Americans may have died in the first few centuries of European arrival that the reforestation as farmed land returned to the wild and sequestered more carbon actually CAUSED the little Ice Age.
Went looking for this book as part of my Brexit obsession - I realized I knew nothing about the history of England and Ireland's relationship. Spoiler - as always, history of weirder and more fractal than we've been led to believe in school. One interesting point I hadn't considered regarding Brexit - that's the second time England has yanked itself out of the larger community of Europe. Henry VIII throwing over the Catholic Church was the first. Not having fully understood just how closely the Catholic Church connected the upper/educated classes, I hadn't realized what a wrenching break that would be. (Also, speaking as an American hard-cider fan, I now know never to go to an Irish pub and order Strongbow!)
Other notes - I now know a bit more about the Commonwealth, and why the Irish don't have much time for Oliver Cromwell. The Civil War was actually a bunch of wars smashed together, including wars in Scotland over the status of bishops (!).
If for nothing else, read this book for his discussion of “English” vs “British.” It should resonate if you've been reading about current events.
I enjoyed this book enough that I stayed up until almost 3:00 a.m. to finish it. As usual in books like this there was a ton of really interesting info about how people got on on a day-to-day basis (e.g. how did people of modest means who really wanted a college education afford it? They worked. Constantly. All day every day. How the protagonist of this book did not drop dead of exhaustion at age 18 will be an enduring mystery to me.)
You know that any type of book that discusses sport is going to get on to “flow” eventually, and this book really stands out in explaining the mental work of rowing in a way that made me want to go find a scull somewhere and learn to row.
long political career before presidency.
swore to be one-term president, and stuck to it!
(re?)created treasury (doesn't this sort of conflict with being an heir of Andrew Jackson though)
micro-managed - didn't trust underlings to do things right.
likely died of cholera (!) w/in a few months of leaving office.
(Ehrman is agnostic now, interesting...)
Notes on my reading:
reading the bible devotionally is completely different from reading it from academic historical point of view (“historical-critical”).
Who were the actual authors?
Are some/all all of the authors not who they claim to be, or are claimed to be?
When did they live?
What were the circumstances under which they wrote?
What issues were they trying to address in their own day?
How were they affected by cultural/historical assumption of their time?
What sources did they have access to?
When were those sources produced?
Could the perspectives of the sources differ?
Could authors have had different perspectives from each other, and from their sources?
Are there internal contradictions?
Irreconcilable differences in Gospels - what day did Jesus die on? When was Jesus “begotten” by God?
Resurrection stories conflict.
Gospel of John vs. “Synoptic” Gospels - John was written last, differs the most. Aims of the authors were different. John has Jesus talking about himself, other Gospels he is talking about the Kingdom of God.
8 of 27 books of New Testament people are pretty sure authors are who they are claimed to be. Other 19 books are basically forgeries.
The longer away in time something was written, the likelier it was to be bogus, or to have a purpose that had nothing to do with Jesus.
Christianity is a religion “about” Jesus, not “of” Jesus.
Jesus was a minor Galilean Jewish apocalyptic prophet. Did not, according to earlier sources, claim to be Son of God - attributed to him later, in John. Taught that the end was near, like many other apocalyptic prophets, and that people should be following God's laws as closely as possible to be included in the coming Kingdom.
“Wild Diversity of early church”
Some thought following Jewish law was still necessary, some thought following Jewish law would doom you to damnation, some thought there were different Gods (gnostics), Roman christians won in the end.
Many other gospels/letters/documents that could just as easily have been included in New Testament. Choice of what to include was political - is different in different churches.
Read as a companion piece to her sister's book - TM's book much more of a complete memoir, starting with life in Russia, their various escapes, life in emigre outposts throughout Europe. I'm happy to have read it, but probably wouldn't re-read. The end of the book, describing their travels from Königswart to Johannisburg, escaping mere hours before Czech border controls were put in place, is pretty gripping though!
