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This text takes you from the last moments of the Chinese civil war to just prior to the Cultural Revolution. The years when Mao tried to follow in Lenin and Stalin’s footsteps. The author clearly has had access to some primary source material from the CCP archives. After reading a Stalin biography the most impressive part about this window into Chinese history is what is always the most impressive thing about anything in China, which is the scale, in this case it’s the scale of the tragedy. It’s a good text and I do recommend it, but it is not a pleasant place to dwell.

I enjoyed it… there are some insights but the lack of structure means I won’t retain any of it.

Mikey’s text here is as or more important a read than Zinn’s People’s History. Zinn’s lens was class, Mikey’s is racecraft (though he doesn’t use that term). The story is familiar, but it’s told from a perspective missing elsewhere and highlights heroines and heros of American history whose tales are not told elsewhere.

This text covers a swath of antebellum history and the lives of the unfortunate human beings enslaved by John Randolph, which hang in the balance. There is no justice there is no free freedom for many of them. Decades go by before any of them get even a modicum of what they had coming to them. I don’t really recommend you read this unless you want a long sorta narrative version of a wikipedia article. I recommend that you read the Wikipedia article on John Randolph.

@M0KHR@mastodon.radio One a day and I should have it done in like 33 kiloyears or so.

Dr. Chancellor Merkel’s view of freedom is a refreshing one. Democracy as viewed from the perspective of someone raised under dictatorship is not perfect, often a frustrating, but the only path to freedom. I enjoyed this text and it highlighted for me the massive difference between the experience of integrating East Germany to international order as contrasted with many other former Warsaw pact countries. Dr. M’s steadfast desire to maintain a rules based international order is laudable if difficult to imagine here in early 2026.

She knows him inside and out. It is unique in my experience for a historian to have as much exposure to their subject as she had with LBJ. This text tells the whole tale from the Hill country of Texas to the White House and back. After the tale is told, Doris takes us on a tour of her conclusions which are razor Sharp and as applicable today in 2026 as any, I have read, especially useful, are her conclusions about the power of the presidency and how the human beings who occupy that office influence its role in the world.

It’s a good summary of events but what it lacks is a critical analysis of Soviet economics and the very influential role their failure played in the end of the first Cold War.

Adam… a familiar voice in the world of making leads you on a brief journey through his philosophy of making. From what it is, to how his own methods have evolved over the years. A quick and pleasant read. I’d say nearly any maker worth their multitool could learn a thing or two from this text.