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I. When I pivoted a month ago I stopped posting book reviews to this space, and started posting them to Notes. My idea was that I would then do one long book review every month and also link to all the reviews I had done through Notes, so that anyone who was really interested in my take on the great historical novel, Ivanhoe, or alternatively the queer, postmodern New Testament essay collection, Sex and the Single Savior could see that I had in fact opined on both and click through on whichever one actually interested them.1 That is still the plan, but on top of that I have the urge to use this space to ruminate. Whenever I ask someone to critique my writing they always say I do too much rumination, but what do they know?!? Sure, maybe they went to Yale or Notre Dame.2 But do they understand the public's deep yearning for kidney stone stories set in Edinburgh? ... ------------------------------- After the Fall: From the End of History to the Crisis of Democracy, How Politicians Broke Our World Author: Ian Shapiro Year Published: 2026 320 Pages Type: A compilation of thirty-five years of geopolitical regrets, like an old man looking back at the job he didn't take, or the girl he should have married—only the job was the Partnership for Peace and the girl was Russia.5 The old man is proud of a handful of things, like when he didn't sack Baghdad in 1991.6 -------------------------------

While everyone else is talking about AI, I'm going to engage in an exegesis of a single verse in the Old Testament, and yet somehow AI will still sneak in!

Is there some deeper meaning to the traffic cone on Sherlock's head? Or is it just silly vandalism? Most people seemed to think it was the latter, but I think it was a hidden symbol of some mystery. How could it not be? I. June 25 was the tenth anniversary of my blog. I understand that, traditionally, an anniversary post would come out on the actual day, or at least the same week, but I blew past the occasion without even realizing it. And then, even when I did realize it, I was too busy with other stuff to jump on it. In fact I haven't posted anything since July 3. I must have been overcome by the patriotic fervor of our nation's 250th anniversary.1 As a better person than me has said, it's self-indulgent, and even unseemly to dwell overly long on one's recent gap in writing. But this is destined to be a very self-indulgent post so I'm going to ignore her (obviously wise) advice, and explain the gap in great detail. July 3 was two days after my first experience passing a kidney stone. Then two days after that (July 5) I went on a week-long road-trip around the Pacific Northwest.

This was my entry to the 2026 ACX Book Review Contest. Given that it was, sadly, judged inadequate to the high standards of the ACX readership, I must now inflict it on you. Hopefully, with your obviously lower standards, you'll enjoy it. It is ridiculously long. These warnings aside, I would urge you to at least read parts one and two. The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science By: Michael Strevens 0. Why This Book? Out of the tens of millions of books ever written over the centuries, why review this one? Because science is the secret to the creation of the modern world and this book holds the secret to the creation of science.  In particular, it answers the question: why didn't modern science develop any sooner? Why didn't the Chinese, the Greeks, the Romans, or the Arabs develop internal combustion engines, arrive at the germ theory of disease, or send a man to the Moon?  The answer it gives is surprising, and right there in the title. Everyone thinks that the essence of science is open inquiry, but it's really a deliberately narrow procedural straitjacket. Modern science has many irrational qualities. It requires us to wall off our thinking. Natural philosophy was never going to succeed as long as it included philosophy. Philosophy is deep. Science only works if it's shallow.  Strevens is not the first to delve into the workings of science. Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn trod similar ground, and they'll make an appearance, but Strevens incorporates the best of both. He keeps Popper's focus on empiricism, while better describing how actual scientists work. And he acknowledges Kuhn's assertion of paradigmatic thinking, but shows how this gets channeled into productive public argument.  By showing how science works, Strevens also demonstrates how it might stop working. And once you understand the components of the "Knowledge Machine" it would appear to be in greater peril than most people realize. This is why I chose to review this book out of all the books ever written: science needs saving, and with it the rest of the world. I. My Father, the Physics Teacher .....

I. If you don't live in Utah, you may not have heard that the Great Salt Lake is in trouble. It's been rapidly dwindling in size and depth, and while it's never going to disappear entirely (though look at the Aral Sea), there are always issues when an environment goes through a rapid transformation. The big worry is that the lake will become so salty that even brine shrimp and brine flies can no longer survive. This would eliminate a major source of food for migrating birds, while at the same time a shrinking lake also removes the wetlands they use for mid-migration habitat. There are other potential problems as well, but you get the idea.   I'm old enough to remember when we were having the opposite problem, when the lake was so high that it threatened I-80 (the stretch west of SLC), the SLC airport, and various communities and businesses perched around the edge of the lake. This was in the mid-80s and my father worked at one of those businesses. This particular business would take lake brine, pump it into shallow ponds, allow the water to evaporate away, and then harvest the minerals left behind. Their big cash product was potash, which is used in fertilizers. The rising lake threatened to flood their carefully managed pond system, so it was a real ongoing crisis for my father back then.  After a couple of years of hard fighting, the lake eventually won. The outer dike was breached and lake water flooded into the pond system, completely wiping out the productive capacity of the business. It was a dark day...

The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity By: Carl R. Trueman Published: 2026 256 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? In the standard story of the transition from the premodern to the modern, the world has gradually been disenchanted. Depending on who you are, this is either a good thing, a sad thing, or a mixed thing. Trueman's contention is that disenchantment has, over the last few decades, transitioned to desecration. In his telling, the modern world hasn't just outgrown the sacred, it's rebelled against it. Much like a headstrong teenager might revel in doing the opposite of what his parents expect, society has come to celebrate the transgression of things that were previously deemed to be holy.  These transgressions are not only a source of rebellious pleasure, but more critically, they provide a way to make the person feel superior to the divine. Violating rules and norms allows one to feel above them. Why is this important? Because (pulling in Nietzsche) having rejected God, men now need to become gods, and this is one way to do it. But these transgressions, rather than elevating men, debase them. We see this debasement in everything from the sexual revolution down through assisted suicide and IVF. In the end Trueman claims one can either accept Christianity root-and-branch or engage in full-on Nietzschean self-creation, but that there is no middle ground, no cultural Christianity, no stable progressive moral creation. It is either one extreme or the other. What authorial biases should I be aware of? Trueman is, himself, a root-and-branch Christian, so he definitely favors one side over the other.  Who should read this book? ...

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by: Eric H. Cline 1177 B.C.: A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed by: Eric H. Cline and Glyinnis Fawkes The Permanent Problem: The Uncertain Transition from Mass Plenty to Mass Flourishing by: Brink Lindsey The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History by: Odd Arne Westad

Do Not Go Gentle: The Case Against Assisted Death By: Kathleen Stock Published: 2026 304 pages Briefly, what is this book about? The general topic is right there in the subtitle, but Stock separates out two distinct ideological foundations. There are those who consider assisted death (a term she prefers over "assisted dying") to be a way of eliminating suffering. And then there are those who view it as a principle of liberty: If we allow people absolute bodily autonomy, why should someone be prevented from choosing to end their life? One problem with having two ideologies is that they might end up pointing in different directions. And indeed one of the big themes of the book is exactly this tension. But the bigger issue is that proponents of assisted death end up using whichever ideological framework is the most convenient for their argument at the time.  When these different ideologies are distilled down to the practice of implementing a legal "right to die"—which is to say actually assisting in the actual death of actual individuals—it results in incoherent standards. This incoherence leads to misinterpretation. The misinterpretation allows for opportunistic expansion. The expansion leads to abuses not foreseen by the law's framers, and these abuses lead to deaths we might otherwise want to avoid.  Some people might call these deaths murders. What authorial biases should I be aware of? If you've heard of Stock previous to this it was almost certainly for her gender-critical views, which led to her being forced out of her position at the University of Sussex in 2021. I don't think it's fair to call her right-wing, but she is definitely iconoclastic.  Who should read this book? ...

Annihilation: A Novel By: Michel Houellebecq Translated by: Shaun Whiteside Published: 2022 (English translation 2024) 544 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? Houellebecq is a well-known French author, and this book felt very French to me. What does that mean? Good question… Certainly there is a lot of wine drinking, a fair number of R-rated sex scenes, and French politics plays a major part as well. Mostly I think there's a lushness, and a lack of action or even conclusion, which reads more as European decadence than the typical American delusion I'm used to. I opened with a description of the atmosphere because this is a very atmospheric book. Though initially it pretends to be a techno-political thriller, don't be deceived; this book is a melancholic reflection on aging, ennui, death, and loneliness. The central character is Paul Raison, a high-level French civil servant, who appears to have it all, but actually has nothing. The hollowness of his life is brought home when his father has a stroke. This serves as a catalyst for recognizing his emptiness and attempting to pull together some meaning. In particular, it helps thaw the long frozen relationship with his wife.  To the extent that he finds meaning, it's always found in small things, relationships, meals, conversations. And this greater sense of connection doesn't solve all of his problems. In fact, re-engaging with his wife, the world, his family, and his father, brings a whole host of new problems. The journey ends up being very bumpy, but more satisfying than his previous hollowness. What authorial biases should I be aware of? Houellebecq clearly has a reactionary bent...

Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History By: Helen Zoe Veit Published: 2026 304 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? Stop me if you've heard this one… Up until the beginning of the 20th century we never ever did this one thing, and then starting in the 20th century attitudes and culture gradually changed until now, this very new thing, that basically never existed historically, is accepted as a fact of life. For this go-around it's children being picky about food. The whole concept only began to emerge in the 1930s and back then it was just used to identify something that needed to be corrected. Like lying, swearing, or truancy, it wasn't until after World War II that the modern "something we have to work around" usage started to solidify.  This book is the story of why things changed and what we can do to reverse that change. What authorial biases should I be aware of? This is not a disinterested academic overview of things. Veit thinks that pickiness is a bad thing, that it's tied to consumption of "junk food", obesity, and a general culture of overconsuming food. The 19th-century child eating raw oysters and organ meats could be considered the hero of the story, the entire edifice of modern food dysfunction is the dragon, and the 21st-century child who eats nothing but hyperpalatable, low-nutrition snacks, and then is too full for normal meals is the princess in need of saving.  Who should read this book? I think people who have picky kids and worry about whether that's a problem would definitely benefit from reading this book.  I enjoyed it because I'm always fascinated by the strange transitions of modernity. Should you fall into that bucket you'll probably enjoy it as well.  What does the book have to say about the future?

Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today's Supreme Court By: Sarah Isgur Published: 2026 416 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? A deep dive into the Roberts Court, with a historical framing of the Court as a whole. Two main themes run through the book.  First, while people want to evaluate the Court on the single axis of liberal vs. conservative, there is a second, perhaps more important axis that tracks the institutionalism of the justices—respect for precedent, maintaining the legitimacy of the Court, congressional deference, etc. Once you consider both axes, rather than a 6–3, Republican vs. Democratic Court, you get a 3–3–3 Court. Composed of (in Isgur's words): 1- The Deciders: Roberts, Kavanaugh, Barrett 2- The Conservative Honey Badgers: Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch 3- The Lonely Liberals: Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson Second, there's the idea of the Supreme Court as the Last Branch Standing, by which she means that it's the only branch of government that would be recognizable to the Founders. Which also means it's the one branch of government trying to hold a constitutional line. This is not a comment on Originalism or Textualism, this is a comment on the fact that the executive Branch has accumulated an enormous amount of power, while, conversely, the legislative branch does barely any legislation. As a consequence, much of what the Court does is designed as subtle encouragement for Congress to take back some of its power. What authorial biases should I be aware of?

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by: Jerome K. Jerome Something to Do with Paying Attention by: David Foster Wallace The Leopard by: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Rendezvous With Rama by: Arthur C. Clarke

Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity By: Paul Kingsnorth Published: 2025 368 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? Before Kingsnorth can tell you how to be against the Machine, he first sets out to define it. The Machine is multi-faceted, but Kingsnorth distills it down into four S's: Science, The Self, Sex, and the Screen. To take a position "against the Machine" he urges a return to the four P's: People, Place, Prayer, and the Past. But before you grasp this simple heuristic too firmly, it turns out that not all P's are good, and not all S's are bad. He is opposed to progress, particularly as it reduces everything to the parameterized, portable, plannable, and ultimately purchasable. On the other side, he is attempting to carve out a path to salvation, through a return to Christian values, a settledness that comes from having a place and community, and a sacredness that comes from connecting with the natural world. What authorial biases should I be aware of? Kingsnorth has huge biases. He's an ex-environmental activist who converted to Orthodox Christianity. He's spent decades opposing globalization, technocratic progress, and materialism. It's not true to say that he opposes all progress, but he certainly thinks that progress has gone from something we do, to something that is done to us—the Machine of the title, which turns everything (nature, people, culture, pleasure)  into raw material that needs to serve ever more productive ends.  As such he makes no pretense at being balanced. And that's part of the book's value. This is a steelman of the anti-progress argument and a powerful rhetorical broadside against the technological miasma we're currently wading through.  Who should read this book? I think those who would benefit most from this book probably won't read it. And those who will read it, might end up being too radicalized. I personally think that Kingsnorth is pointing in the correct direction, but as a practical matter we can't all duplicate Kingsnorth's life in rural Ireland, growing our own food and fuel, while making a living as a writer. To be fair that's not how he sees things playing out, but he still has a tendency to lump all of progress into one negative whole, without much effort to identify things that might have been useful. What does the book have to say about the future? He doesn't think we're going to overthrow the Machine, or even deflect it very much. He's urging people to outlast it in the same way that Irish monasteries kept the light of knowledge alive during the Dark Ages.   Specific thoughts: What exactly is the "Machine"?

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy By: Nathan Thrall Published: 2023 272 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? The book operates on three levels: First, the book spends quite a bit of time giving you Abed's history: his youth, his participation in the Palestinian resistance, his marriages, the associated family dynamics, etc. Second, there's the actual "day" from the title. Abed's desperate search for his son after he was involved in a horrific bus accident, and the various difficulties presented by Israeli control (checkpoints, different passes, separate roads, etc.) Third, there's everything beyond Abed and the "day". Including the backstory on how the roads were routed, the walls were built, and the rules implemented by the Israelis. The book also contains histories on dozens of characters, including Abed's many loves, an Israeli colonel who designed the wall, ultra-Orthodox volunteer rescuers, and Israeli settlers living in the area. I found the story of Huda Dahbour, who works as a physician with a UNRWA mobile clinic, to be particularly interesting. She also has a child involved in the wreck, and has to deal with a tragedy that's depressing for both its similarity to and differences from Abed's.  Taken all together, it's a level of tragedy, complexity, poverty, and culture that's hard to process for someone living in relative ease on the other side of the world.  What authorial biases should I be aware of? The book is clearly centered on the Palestinian side of things, and it's obvious that Thrall largely views the Israelis as being immoral, unjust, and using their greater power to impose ridiculous restrictions. That said, he does offer sympathetic accounts of some Israelis, but most of his sympathy is reserved for the Palestinians. Who should read this book?

Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History By: Kyle Harper Published: 2021 704 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? A comprehensive historical overview of the never-ending war between humanity and disease. From its earliest days all the way down to the COVID-19 pandemic. With a specific focus on what he calls the "paradox of progress": every new advance creates new opportunities for diseases. But it's not just us driving diseases, they're driving us as well. Efforts to mitigate the negative effects of these pathogens are scattered throughout our history, our civilization and our genes. What authorial biases should I be aware of? None that you'd really be surprised by. He explicitly takes a very global view of humanity's disease burden, knowing that the story of European diseases like smallpox and the plague have already received plenty of attention. (Which is not to say he ignores them. Merely that he locates them as just one among many.) Who should read this book? I think everyone should be more aware of the potential dangers of pandemics, and the monstrous impact plagues have had on the development of humanity and civilization, and this book does a fantastic job with the second part, but it has less to offer on future danger than I hoped. Speaking of which: What does the book have to say about the future? Harper definitely takes the stand that our long war against diseases is far from over, and there is a lot of great discussion about how pathogens evolve alongside us, changing tactics as we change our environment. But there's almost no discussion (none that I really remember) of the danger of bioengineered pathogens, which felt like a significant oversight. Specific thoughts: Two things which continue to baffle me