ironSoap – Complete

author: Rachel Maddow
name: Paul
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2012/07/18
date added: 2012/07/19
shelves: history, new-in-2012, non-fiction, politics
review:
I’m not a fan or follower of Rachel Maddow, as I tend to shy away from talking-head pundits of any political stripe, finding them all insufferably extremist, adding little to the national discourse. However, I decided to check out Drift as it is not (on the surface) a catch-all “Here’s My Worldview” type of book, but rather a focused examination of the United States’ military as it exists today, with an eye cast to the historical series of events that resulted in the current state.

I will say that Ms. Maddow’s politics are hardly hidden here, but she admirably refrains from digressing from the topic at hand and stays focused on the expansion of military spending, the changing face of how war is waged since Vietnam and the increased reliance on long-term, low-impact conflicts aided not by sacrifice from the populace at large but by private para-military contractors. She is very thorough in her dissection of the way this all came about, though you can kind of feel the pull of her personal opinion in the way she chooses to levy the responsibility (or is that blame? it’s not spelled out, but it’s heavily implied) of the shift from citizen-soldier run combat and national burden to deficit-funded and unilaterally mandated on Reagan. I can’t say I fully buy that the title’s drift began the moment Reagan took office (if nothing else, Eisenhower’s speech in 1961 warning of the dangers of the military industrial complex indicates that some of this framework was in place twenty years prior to Reagan), but Maddow makes a pretty convincing case that no matter where it started, war today is almost indistinguishable from what it was less than a century ago.

It’s particularly telling that Maddow devotes dozens and dozens of pages to both Reagan and George W. Bush’s role in the slide from war as a difficult, national decision to one made by the guy at the top but she skims the surface of the roles Clinton and even Obama have played in this transition. Not that she lets them off the hook, far from it. But considering the depth of her dive into the Grenada invasion, Iran-Contra, Desert Shield/Storm and then the post-9/11 conflicts in Iraq (again) and Afghanistan, it does induce some eye-rolls to note how little (other than the Balkans) time she devotes to military action during Clinton’s eight year term.

The most compelling pat of the book is Maddow’s description of the state of our nuclear arsenal, now aging and no longer necessary from the perspective of what it was assembled to accomplish (arranging the mutually assured destruction deterrent against the Soviet Union), including the number of mishaps and mishandling mini-calamaties that are, perhaps, inherent in trying to maintain 5,000 true WMD, some of which date back sixty years. This is a chilling account of past mistakes, current dangers and policy nightmares that make this an ongoing concern—where “concern” is the lightest possible term for something that ought to be a sort of systemic panic but is really more of a casually shrugged-off low-priority issue. Perhaps books like this one will shine some much-needed light on the pressing need for disarmament, a point in which I find myself in full agreement with Ms. Maddow.

Drift is a book that I’m not sure I can use the word “enjoy” to describe my experience with; it is certainly interesting and well-written with Maddow’s casual-but-earnest style that makes it easy reading. More so than anything, I find this to be a book I’d recommend because it invites (perhaps demands is the better word) thought and discourse, which is something that I think both Maddow and I would love to see more of in our politics, especially when it comes to questions of how we exert our military might, how we make those decisions and what we do going forward.

from Paul's bookshelf: read — July 19, 2012 at 10:38AM

author: Susan Cain
name: Paul
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2012/07/13
date added: 2012/07/13
shelves: non-fiction, new-in-2012
review:
Reading Susan Cain‘s book about introversion left me feeling very polarized. In a lot of ways, the breadth of research involved is impressive, and the sincerity with which she chronicles the research into what introversion is and what makes introverts that way illuminates her passion for the topic. Then again, the book suffers a bit under the weight of its presentation.

Cain makes regular effort to highlight that, despite her own admitted introversion, being an extrovert isn’t bad, per se. The problem I found with this is that despite her lip service to one characteristic not being preferable to the other, the book comes across as kind of a manifesto in favor of toning it down or, at the very least, elevating those who aren’t as comfortable being the squeaky wheel. I don’t know that it was possible for this to not be a factor since part of the thesis of the book is that culture (at least American culture), in Cain’s view, values extroversion more than reserved sensitivity. But, despite being pretty introverted myself, I found myself disengaged by the “us vs. them” subtext.

Which is not to say Ms. Cain’s findings and arguments are not enlightening and persuasive. Her descriptions of research surrounding the science of introversion, the correlation between introversion, shyness, sensitivity and empathy are engaging, perhaps not revelatory but certainly worth noting. Though at times the book seems to be aimed at introverts as a kind of legitimizing, empowering tome, I think the best audience for the book are people, especially extroverts, who have introverted people in their homes or workplaces who could use some eye-opening as to what makes the more reserved in their midst tick and how to best accommodate them and draw out their strengths.

What frustrated me the most about Quiet though is that Ms. Cain peppers her findings with specific examples of people, using them to illustrate her points. Illustration is fine, and I don’t even mind the regular use of case studies, but Cain dwells on these anecdotes as if they were supposed to be universally applicable, all while reminding readers regularly that no generalization is really accurate. This where the book feels padded, similarly to a book I read earlier in the year, A Single Roll of the Dice by Trita Parsi, in which a lot of the details (or, here, personal examples) feel contrived to increase word count to flesh out what might otherwise be a solid 100-page scholarly discussion, leaving something like 170 pages that feel burdened by personal asides and digressions.

To make matters worse, there is a weird structural flaw in the way the information and research is presented such that in the first half of the book Cain persistently references future chapters, saying “…which I will discuss more, later, in chapter X.” Then in the latter half of the book, she regularly cites previous topics, like, “…as you recall from chapter Y.” It occurred to me that a better overall arrangement of the material would have avoided the cross-referencing, allowing concepts to flow into each other more seamlessly. As it is, it feels disjointed and spread around, often losing the point and making something that should be clarified feel muddy.

Quiet is an interesting read and a decent book, helped along by some somewhat hidden but very useful/insightful pieces of practical advice. It isn’t without its flaws, unfortunately, making it somewhat less of a tour de force than it may have had the potential to be, but for those interested in the subject matter in particular, it’s worth checking out.

from Paul's bookshelf: read — July 13, 2012 at 03:12PM