Interested in tech, history, social science, and 20th century literature, but I always like to branch and out be surprised, too.
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I did not find the book's individual facts and arguments unique or novel, but the connections that Hari makes between them add up to a compelling argument and rise to collective action in a surprising and effective way. Attention and the climate are connected crises, he says convincingly. And Facebook, in the extent of Hari's telling, is so much worse than I thought possible.
The exceedingly annoying narrator had me nearly put down the book several times. The too many too-clever feints and clichés were tiring. What saves the book, just barely, is the pacing, which let me gloss over the rest. In the end, a so-so murder mystery.
Mind bending. The author's interrupting personal backstory is uncompelling and unsympathetic but his overview of research on this topic is well done and surprising. A good introduction to the topics. Skip Chapter 1, which is an irrelevant preface.
Every turn of Slide's surreal adventure came alive with the author's electric writing. The best part of the novel is its persistent, quiet wisdom. Underlying the story is a strange, confident idea that this is how it is; this is how the world really works, and it feels true.
Blackshirts & Reds explores some of the big issues of our time: fascism, capitalism, communism, …
Clear and clairvoyant - hard to believe it was written in 1997 and yet it perfectly describes the moves of the neo-right that have happened since. The book is mistitled. Though it describes the historical blackshirts and reds, it is more far-reaching, and isn't really a history book as one might think. The book convincingly dissects fascism as authoritarianism in service to capitalism and explains how the intentional conflation of capitalism with democracy has suppressed freedoms all over the world. Very well written with compelling historical examples. A good, challenging read.