Book Review #3 - Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

5/5 stars

recommended

This book was recommended to me by Dr. Marcus Moss, who extensively referenced it during his HCOP keynote address at UCONN this past April.

What needs to be addressed immediately, is that you really need to ignore any preconceived notions that you may have about Dr. Ben Carson before you read his book. Try to go into it with an open mind; forget that you probably only know him as a talking head on Fox News.

I found this autobiography to be very enjoyable and helpful. It’s a success story. The background of Ben Carson’s life and where he ended up is incredible. It’s a story filled with hope, faith and resilience. I would recommend this autobiography, because gaining insights from someone more advanced then you is extremely helpful for guiding your own ship through life’s waters. Ben Carson was essentially the Michael Jordan of neurosurgery in the late 1980s… His level of achievement is so profound that pretty much wherever you are on the spectrum of “making it”, you will benefit from reading his life journey.

Dr. Ben Carson’s childhood and youth were one of the more moving parts of the book for me. I found the deepness of his faith in God to be really admirable. The guy faced so many challenges early on, but with the help of his Mother’s guidance and with reliance on faith, he managed to conquer every obstacle presented to him.

The guy is totally a role-model and someone to be looked up to. Forget his political opinions and his association with the news media and read his story! You will gain insight that will help you overcome your own unique obstacles.

Technical notes:

I noticed in some areas that it seemed obvious the book was written by more than one person. It was noticeable that some sections were heavily written in tandem between two authors. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just something I noticed. Having made this observation, however, it made me suspicious of some of the dialog presented in the book. I think it’s unlikely that all the dialog is one hundred percent accurate. Likely there is some creative license being exercised, especially when you read very detailed childhood conversations.

Also, there were a few areas where it felt like paragraphs were jumping from topic to topic haphazardly. Some chapters felt abstract in that there was content being shoehorned in at the end.

I feel the “breaking” of the fourth wall that happened several times in the reading could have been mitigated if it wasn’t as noticeable that there were multiple authors. These, of course, are just my creative nit-picks (constructive criticism!). You might not find anything I’ve mentioned to be an issue at all. Enjoy.

Book Review #2 - China In The 21st Century: What Everyone Needs To Know

5/5 stars

recommended

This book filled a notable gap in my cold war history knowledge. That for me was worth the read alone. I had always been a big fan of reading about the USSR and Stalin (and the Russian revolution before that). I had a big gap in my knowledge when it came to Maoism and all the cold war events that were taking place concurrently in the PRC. This book filled in those gaps. It’s also very important to say that this book also gave me a glimpse of the complex (and confusing) ebb and flow of the dynastical history of ancient China.

Towards the end of the book, the focus turns to the international relations of China and the USA. It could be argued, that this is the most crucial knowledge provided, considering it’s likely China will be a world superpower at some point in our lifetimes. If you are a fan of history but have some gaps in your China background, I would recommend this book highly.

Technical details:

The book has a very unique structure, such that the chapters all answer questions. This unique layout (having chapters represent questions, and having these questions come in logical order) makes returning to previous topics to brush up on them a breeze. Interestingly, this layout helps you learn the material very efficiently. I’m kind of surprised academic textbooks don’t really ever have this type of format, because I found it immediately useful. For example, having read through the following several questions/chapters a few different times, I know that the chronological order of events goes: The Hundred Flowers Campaign > The Anti-Rightist response campaign > The Great Leap Forward > The Cultural Revolution response to the Great Leap backlash.

You’ll be able to learn your favorite parts of Chinese history easily, all in their chronological context. This is the genius of the layout of the book, I haven’t really read a history book that was formatted this way, and since reading this…  I think more should be.

Book Review #1 - Putin: His Downfall and Russia’s Coming Crash

5/5 stars

recommended

I recommend you read this book. It was a very informative read and I’m glad I picked it out. The intro to the book was a very pleasant crash course on Russia’s interference in American politics (This book was written in 2017, so for the most part, you’re getting current enough information to learn a lot from). The author did a good job explaining their interference with the 2016 US presidential election. You’ll learn why exactly Paul Manafort is in jail, why Wikileaks was such a huge factor, and you’ll learn about the alleged FSB connection to the Guccifer 2.0 hacks. This is all worth knowing about, especially if you don’t follow the news cycle very closely and aren’t very informed about the background of and the extent to the Russian’s interfering in our elections (yours truly! I’m really glad the author included all this).

The next ¼ of the book is a biography on Vladimir Putin. You’ll learn the details of his unlikely (yet almost destined) rise to the top of Russia’s post-USSR political structure. The second half of the book is the most interesting in my opinion. You could get away with just reading the second half and you’d come away greatly benefited. The author picks several key dynamics in terms of Russia and its foreign policy/national interests to explain in depth. He then details the potential moves Russia will have to make in the future based on their current realities.

You’ll learn about:

• Why Russia has oligarchs and how they got so rich.

• Why the Russia economy is oil dependent.

• Why Russia will likely spark a ‘race to the Arctic’ among the United States, Canada, Finland, Greenland

• Why Russia is at war in Ukraine.

• The potential future dynamics between a rising China and Russia. The author talks about Kazakhstan being so geopolitically crucial to both Russia and China that in the future it might be plausible to see a Ukraine annexation situation there... Potentially with either Russia OR China being the one doing the annexing! VERY interesting stuff.

Technical details:

This book has a lot of information packed into it, considering its sort of a small book and quick read. I noticed about 5-6 typos and sloppy sentence structure (the majority of which seemed to be at the beginning of the book). I sensed the author's philosophical worldview (in terms of international relations) to be a mixture of constructivism and liberalism. I feel some of his outlook in terms of “Russia being destined to fail” based on its current structure is assuming too much. The author (in my opinion) is discounting the possibility that an economically globalized, values-based, democratic political framework for nation states (like how the EU and America have currently) might end up being a liability instead of an inherent advantage like how it has been for us in America. It’s an alternative point of view that he didn’t really explore much.