History

Summary A concise account of one of America’s most popular presidents and his infamous assassination. Thoughts The authors’ intent with this book was to write history in a way that was “fun.” They largely succeeded; Killing Kennedy reads similarly to a tabloid, filled with murders, conspiracies, villainous Russian leaders, and, of course, lots of sex. In defense of Bill O’Reilly, if ever there was a presidency that lent itself to this lens of analysis, it was JFK’s. Serving from 1961 to 1963, JFK was at once the most powerful man in the world and nearly the youngest president in US history. In those three short years, America navigated through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, and the inception of the Vietnam War. This book is a quick and easy way to get some context surrounding America’s 35th president, as long as the writing style doesn’t grate too strongly against your sensibilities. ...

Summary This book looks into what is known as the Bronze Age collapse. There was an interim between the Bronze and Iron ages where highly connected systems of trade and communication went dark. Cline tries to investigate various theories as to why this happened. Long story short, it was a lot of things. There was a mega drought, or more likely two mega droughts which together spanned 150 years. This was no doubt part of the reason why certain tribes had to migrate escalating tensions. There is some evidence of earthquake storms happening around the same time, which are caused by two tectonic plates who won’t stop dancing. There were signs of internal rebellion, no doubt exacerbated by the famine. All single things that on their own could be survived, combined into a perfect storm causing a complete collapse of the interconnected Mediterranean world. The date picked to represent the culmination of this collapse is 1177, but this is just a neat handle, much like the term Bronze Age. The actual collapse probably took over 50 years. ...

History as moral narrative versus natural fractal systems—humanity as pattern, not protagonist.