|
Post by thehartshillbadger on Nov 13, 2023 20:09:37 GMT
I don’t like how it depicted badgers being the dirty ones. They don’t even mention Vale fans🤷🏻♂️
|
|
|
Post by maxplonk on Nov 13, 2023 20:16:12 GMT
|
|
|
Post by musik on Nov 13, 2023 20:37:27 GMT
"The righteous killer" by Lasse Kristensson
But also on the desk Edgar Allan Poe - Collected stories vol 1 Alice Munro - Burning life Ernest Hemingway - A short time of happiness
|
|
|
Post by LDE76 on Nov 13, 2023 20:43:57 GMT
|
|
|
Post by backintheday on Nov 13, 2023 20:44:06 GMT
Lack of offensive spirit History of the 46th division on the Great War. The fist complete territorial division sent to France in march 1915 One of the brigades (137 th ) was the staffordshire brigade including 1/5 north staffs lads from Stoke and surrounding areas.
|
|
|
Post by thehartshillbadger on Nov 13, 2023 21:08:56 GMT
I agree. If I wanted non fiction I’d watch a film. Real stuff is much more readable imo
|
|
|
Post by davethebass on Nov 13, 2023 23:44:37 GMT
Architects of Fear by George Johnson, first published Nov 1983. Been out of print for years, in fact thousands of copies of it were burned. It's now on Kindle. It's a fascinating read and gives a real insight into the wideneing divisions in politics and society in USA, and here too, and is more relevant today than ever.
Here's a review of it by Mark on the Goodreads website:
"Architects of Fear describes the history of paranoia in American politics, as enabled by various conspiracy theories. It’s seems we’ve always had some kind of international conspiracy to pin our fears on and blame for whatever we don’t like about the encroaching forces of the modern world. Almost all of it, even the modern day paranoia, can be traced to the belief that Bavarian Illuminati was plotting to replace religion with rationalism and break down international borders to form a one-world government. I was surprised to find out how the Federalists used anti-Illuminati hysteria to justify various policies in the later 1700s.
Over the years the country has been gripped by various waves of anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, fear of Communism, and international bankers. All sorts of people have been caught up in it and openly promoted their pet conspiracy theories, including Henry Ford, who distributed anti-Semitic propaganda. The many, many works of pseudo-scholarship devoted to giving credence to irrational beliefs that the book describes are incredible.
One of the most fascinating things for me was the account of the then-New Right of the early 1980s, which was formed from a coalition of various forces, including extremely conservative Christians, such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Tim LaHaye, who see everything in the modern world as evidence of anti-Christian “human secularists” conspiring to destroy their religion and bring about the aforementioned one-world government to enslave all mankind.
One conclusion the book points to is that conspiracy theorists, or at least right wing conspiracy theorists (which the book focuses on), have a specific and very orthodox world view, and resort to conspiracy theories because they are an easy way to explain things that don’t fit.
It was written in the early 1980s, and is calling out for an update that incorporates 1990s Bill Clinton and post-9/11 conspiracy theories and addresses the effect this style of paranoia has had on the left.
Overall, a great book and worth a look for anyone interested in the subject. My favorite comment comes from the conclusion of the chapter on Lyndon LaRouche and his followers, who the book says are extremely well educated and conversant in obscure details of history but their talk never strays beyond the edges of the network they’ve stamped on reality and “like the sailors of old who insisted the world was flat, then navigated carefully lest they disprove their illusion.” That pretty much sums up the whole thing."
I'm about two thirds the way through it
|
|