What Book Are You Currently Reading? (2.0.)

[Brother Jonathan]

Two books at the moment. One fiction, Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward and one nonfiction, Hazem Kandil's The Power Triangle: Military, Security, and Politics in Regime Change

[Brother Jonathan]

Two books at the moment. One fiction, Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward and one nonfiction, Hazem Kandil's The Power Triangle: Military, Security, and Politics in Regime Change

The latter sounds fascinating (no offense to Solzhenitsyn), and I'd been doing a fair amount of thinking in that area without having any real reference text, so hearing about this may be fortunate. How you like it so far?

I've found it interesting. It is almost entirely centered on coups in the Middle East/Turkey though, so if you are looking for a broader description of coups or regime change around the world it won't be of much help. It focuses in Egypt, Turkey, and Iran and examines why each took a different path following their respective coups, which Kandil attributes to differences in the interplay between the major players in the coup (military, political, and security apparatus).It is very interesting for what it is.

[Brother Jonathan]

Two books at the moment. One fiction, Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward and one nonfiction, Hazem Kandil's The Power Triangle: Military, Security, and Politics in Regime Change

The latter sounds fascinating (no offense to Solzhenitsyn), and I'd been doing a fair amount of thinking in that area without having any real reference text, so hearing about this may be fortunate. How you like it so far?

I've found it interesting. It is almost entirely centered on coups in the Middle East/Turkey though, so if you are looking for a broader description of coups or regime change around the world it won't be of much help. It focuses in Egypt, Turkey, and Iran and examines why each took a different path following their respective coups, which Kandil attributes to differences in the interplay between the major players in the coup (military, political, and security apparatus).It is very interesting for what it is.

So most of my reading has centered around "revolution" as such, but getting a better view on the choices made by the security services would be fascinating. This was in part stimulated by a lot of reading on Armenia, where you had reports of troops in uniform protesting, and where the internal security services appear to go about its new tasks rather enthusiastically upon Pashinyan's election, which included the arrest and prosecution of corrupt military officials. This got me wondering about when and under what circumstances siloviki and the like decide to go over to the side of the opposition.

Well I would say it is worth a read. It does focus more on what happens after a revolution/coup, but it does inform some on coups/revolutions and security services in general. It's also a good book when it comes to history in the middle east, which is really more why I read it.

[Brother Jonathan]

Hobsbawm's The Age of Extremes, which is interesting. You can certainly see his political views come through in places, but it is an overall enjoyable read. I've also been reading out of T.S. Eliot: The Complete Poems and Plays.

[Brother Jonathan]

Hobsbawm's The Age of Extremes, which is interesting. You can certainly see his political views come through in places, but it is an overall enjoyable read. I've also been reading out of T.S. Eliot: The Complete Poems and Plays.

I loved Age of Extremes (though I pleas guilty to skipping some of the culture/science sections). An overview of the 20th century in a style I haven't seen elsewhere and something I find useful as one among a few books to use as my touchstone on general trends of the Cold War era.

I wholly agree. Hobsbawm has an excellent style that I think works particularly well for the sort of "grand history" that he writes about here (covering the whole world over a certain period as opposed to a more localized or specific area of history). 

[Brother Jonathan]

I just finished Thinking the Twentieth Century which was generally interesting. I have recently been plodding through The Russian Empire, 1801-1917 by Hugh Seton-Watson in the evenings, and am looking for a new audiobook for when I am working. I was going to start Bloodlands:
Europe Between Hitler and Stalin but I might look for something about the 18th century instead.

[Brother Jonathan]

Just finished Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh, and I'm revisiting Burke's Reflections

[Brother Jonathan]

Just finished Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh, and I'm revisiting Burke's Reflections

I absolutely love Decline and Fall. Incredibly funny. Depending on the day you ask me, I might just say it’s my favourite Waugh novel.

It's an excellent book. I annoyed everyone I live with by incessantly reading it aloud to them. I certainly plan on reading more Waugh in the future.

[Brother Jonathan]

The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics by Christopher Lasch, which has been interesting thus far, though I have only recently had time to really sit down and read it at any length.

[Brother Jonathan]

Nonfiction: The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson and Near Abroad: Putin, the West, and Contests over Ukraine and the Caucaus by Gerard Toal

Fiction: Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh (I've decided to read his novels in order, though based on discussion here I was tempted to jump ahead to Scoop)

[Brother Jonathan]

I've been doing a close reading of Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West and Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man for a project. 

[Brother Jonathan]

In addition to my ongoing non-fiction reading, I picked up Solzhenitsyn's In The First Circle which I am quite enjoying.

[Brother Jonathan]

I've been reading Faith and Political Philosophy: The Correspondence Between Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin, 1934-1964 which is really actually much better than I had expected. I thought I would find it interesting but it honestly has managed to far exceed my expectations. I guess I was expecting a somewhat narrow treatment of the topic, but it is rather broader than just a discussion of faith and political philosophy and goes into some detail on the general work of both Strauss and Voegelin. It's also my first real exposure to Voegelin at length, so that has made it interesting as well.

[Brother Jonathan]

The American Presidency: An Intellectual History by Forrest Mcdonald

[Brother Jonathan]

Read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

About to attempt Heidegger's "Being and Time". Key word being attempt.

Best of luck with Heidegger. I like Heidegger, he's an interesting thinker, but he is very hard especially on the first reading. I was recently revisiting portions of The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, and it is much easier after you have read it through before.

Speaking of philosophy, I'm just wrapping up Strauss's On Tyranny and I am preparing to move on to The Restitution of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism by Michael D. Aschliman

[Brother Jonathan]

Done with the Wodehouse - finished it this morning.

Are you a Wodehouse fan at all? I just read Cocktail Time myself recently, and it was fine, though I did miss the classic Jeeves/Wooster dynamic (which Wodehouse kind of recreates in some form in many of his works, including here, but the Jeeves stories do it better I think).

[Brother Jonathan]

Just started Nietzsche's Corps/e by Geoff Waite. A lot about it I am not liking, but it is also interesting, in particular in its treatment of the esoteric nature of Nietzsche's writings (even if I don't agree with all of Waite's conclusions). Just have to wade through a lot of the self-important post-modern writing style to get to the more interesting aspects.

[Brother Jonathan]

Picked up Ravelstein by Saul Bellow to listen to while I sort through and try to organize my bookshelves.

[Brother Jonathan]

Finished Ravelstein, thought it was good. Now going through Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground and Robert Draper's To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq

[Brother Jonathan]

I've been revisiting Thus Spoke Zarathustra recently, and I am finding it more interesting this time around.

[Brother Jonathan]

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955-1957, Regulation of Armaments; Atomic Energy, Volume XX

[Brother Jonathan]

Demons by Dostoevsky

[Brother Jonathan]

I've been reading Vermeule's Common Good Constitutionalism. I don't really agree with all or most of it, but it is interesting. He does seem to present his ideas in a less polemical form then he tends to online, which I guess is only to be expected, but every now and again that tendency shows through, particularly when Vermeule is railing against Libertarians.

[Brother Jonathan]

Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow and Intruder in the Dust by Faulkner

[Brother Jonathan]

Currently working on Walker Percy's The Moviegoer and Bellow's Humboldt's Gift