The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

Stacy Schiff

The story of Sam Adams and his role as provocateur in the lead up to the American Revolution from England. He was nearly universally regarded as the prime voice developing the push for American rights in Massachusetts and organizing a collective voice for the colonies. He was very the twitter-bot of his time, publishing in newspapers under over 15 different pseudonyms, and really not very concerned with the veracity of the facts that he published. He had a point of view and was going to promote that regardless of the truth (which is reminiscent of the fake news / conspiracy trends of the past decade). As presented in this telling, it was also very clear that the colonists were in the right in every way, so even this telling had a point of view. The blinders showed especially in letters Adams wrote to Native Americans asking for their support, suggesting that the crown would continue to abuse them, but colonialists would treat them with respect and honor their sovereignty. Maybe he really believed this, but in hindsight it is so ridiculous that is seems self serving at best. Overall, a fascinating biography. 

3 stars (out of 4)

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Linda Brent

This is an autobiography written in 1861 by Harriet Jacobs under the Brent pseudonym. It is the story of Jacobs life from about the age of 10 through 25 or so. The story tells of her years as a slave and travel to the north after escape. I won't summarize the story here, but please read this. It is a fascinating primary source telling of slavery by a particularly unique woman in so many ways. Through the telling her life story, Jacobs illuminates so many misconceptions about slavery that exist even today. She powerfully captures many of the root emotions associated with slavery, and the generational impacts of slavery on both black and white, north and south. This is not a book about slavery, but an exposure of humanity, the corruption of power, persistence, and self worth. Read!

5 stars (out of 4)

Lab Girl

Hope Jahren

A memoir telling the 20 year story of what it is like being a woman scientist. Jahren is a botanist who documents her journey through grad school and subsequent setting up of 3 separate labs as she moves from school to school to find her home. Along the way, we are invited into her life story where she details the subtleties of scientific thinking, work relationships, funding, mental illness, family, students and humanity's relationship with the planet. All of this is chronicled in a way that truly provides insight into the mind of a scientist. Jahren uses a storytelling device where each chapter is preceded by a short description of something fascinating from the world of plants that she then parallels in her own story. She clearly loves plants and the earth and the amazing life that these plants are. This is clearly communicated and gives the reader a true appreciation for both the complexity of life and the crazy adaptability of living things to make live over generations possible. This is a fabulous story. At the same time, I found it to be a story that easily walks that middle ground of books. Every time I sat down to read it, I was enthralled and educated and engaged. But is was not a thriller/page turner such that when I set it aside, it did not demand that I come back. As such, I was allowed to read this over a longer span that I normally spend on books, and maybe because of this, the appreciation set in more slowly, and more deeply.

4 stars (out of 4)

The Invention of Air

Steven Johnson

Nominally, this is a biography of Joseph Priestley, the late 18th century English natural philosopher (scientist), theologian, politician. More accurately, it is the story of how science worked 250 years ago, using Priestley as a protagonist to walk us through the process. And more importantly, Johnson intersperses commentary throughout to highlight how "doing science" has changed, both for better and worse. So while this is a biography and presentation of the historical record, it is also an opinion piece and a persuasive essay. Mixing this all together is ambitious, but Johnson is up to the task and, at least from the point of view of this scientist, hits a home run.

The foundation for the story is the scientific life of Priestley and his experimental investigation of air. He, along with Ben Franklin and a group of intellectuals that refer to themselves as "The Honest Whigs", over the course of 10 years in the 1770's are discovering the physical properties of air. Before this time, air was invisible nothing, and therefore there was nothing to discover. But new equipment (accurate scales, air pump, etc.) make investigation possible. Priestley is credited with "discovering" oxygen, and recognizing that plants and animals affect "common air" differently.

What I love about this book is what Johnson refers to as "the long zoom view". The fact that plants and animals affect air differently could be just a scientific fact. But these intellectuals are not just scientists. They are theologians, politicians, industrialists, etc. as well, which allows them to see "fact" differently. In this case, Franklin takes the 'affect air differently' fact and posits a systems view of life on earth. That is, he suggests for the first time ever the idea of an ecosystem and the possibility of a necessary global homeostasis. This is astounding insight. But it is not just his. Johnson suggests that most of the discoveries and scientific epiphanies that occur during this time are really the result of two social artifacts:

1. the communal nature of science. The Honest Whigs did not have a proprietary sense of knowledge. Instead, they were acting proponents of open source knowledge, sharing everything with each other and even with their scientific and industrial rivals. So Franklin on his own never makes this ecosystem observation, and
2. the long term "leisure" life of the scientists. That is, Priestley had 20-30 years of a hunch about the scientific fact of air being different that the common understanding of air. During this time, the idea was percolating and bouncing around as he investigated other things, as he shared ideas with others, as he delved into theology. Were Priestley to be working on a government funded grant that demanded results in a few years, perhaps he never makes the discoveries and history changes (the oxygen idea leads to better gunpowder production by the French, which is sold to American revolutionaries, giving them a military advantage over the British). 

Today's scientific research has neither of these factors. However, you can see elements of them when looking at hot new scientific fields. Big change is happening where open source knowledge prevails, and we the interface between traditional specialties (fields of biophysics, biochemistry, materials science (chemistry + physics), medical physics, etc.) all revealing ground breaking discoveries.

The book is a super fast read, and a great combination of scientific biography and meta-scientific sociology.

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The Berlin Stories

Christopher Isherwood

Some parts fiction, some parts autobiographical, this is a description of life in Berlin in the early 30's as the Nazi party is gaining strength. Isherwood is living in Berlin, doing some writing and living the artists life (meeting people, going on vacation with them, getting involved in lives). What I find most fascinating about these stories is the political development. Isherwood is not writing as a political writer, but since the political scene is so dominant, it infiltrates every aspect of life. And, from this perspective, in the early 30's in democratic Germany, there was a legitimate struggle between the Nazi and Communist parties for control of the elections, and at least in Isherwood's circles, no one thought the Nazi's would come to power. So while these are stories of people, an actress, a business man, a professional sponge, they are also stories of time and events. And together these stories offer another insight to how we can get so far down a road that it is hard to come back.
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The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Sherman Alexie

A somewhat autobiographical tale of life on the reservation. Alexie is a Spokane Indian and this collection of stories provides us a picture of modern reservation life. By no means is this a linear story of Alexie's life as he portrayed in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. Instead, since these are fictional short stories, we are not really sure which character would be Alexie and the stories are mythological in scope. What I found fascinating was how, even after more than a century removed from traditional Indian life, a large part of life is spent struggling with the integration of traditional and "modern" life, both in terms of day to day living and in terms of expectations for how to live. What also comes through strongly is the honor given to tradition. It is clear that fancydancing and storytelling continue to provide a lot of meaning. By presenting these short stories, by embracing the free form, mythological storytelling style, Alexie provides real insight to how modern Indians think and who they are.

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Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

Leslie T. Chang

I am not sure what genre this book falls in. It is part autobiography/memoir, part expose, part cultural exploration. Chang is a reporter who, while living in China for several years, also explores her own family history. She does this by investigating/developing relationships with the migrant class in south China. This class is predominantly female (70%) and young (starting at 15, with 20 somethings finding themselves old and experienced). They have moved from the village, where they lived on a family farm, and entered the big manufacturing cities. These cities are factory driven, with 10 million or so people living with the purpose of producing goods and (initially at least) sending money back home. Chang befriends some of the women working in the factory and writes about their transition to city life over the course of several years. This portion of the book is fascinating, and it is a bit of an expose about life in the big factories that produce all of our products. However, Chang focuses on the actions/life of the workers, including their own dreams & struggles. This means we are not being taken into a moralistic, anti-consumerist, worker-quality-of-life outrage against the corporation. Instead, we are looking at people and individual decisions about what makes life good and what makes life hard. We are looking at the changing of a culture from holding a collective, community based value to one in which individualism is king. This brings us to a place where we can really think about cultural differences and our (U.S.) role in globalization.

Chang intersperses this fascinating story with an exploration of her own family history. It just so happens that her genealogy includes advisors to emperors and participants in the events leading up to the cultural revolution. For me, this section loses steam. But I suppose it was necessary to allow a real comparison between the village-centric life (her uncle gives her a 30 generation genealogy and explains that its main purpose was to ensure that marriages did not happen between relatives who were too close) and the individual focus existence that is being promoted by the factory. I loved the exploration of how generations shake of values of their elders or if it is even possible to do so. I loved thinking about other community cultures in Latin America or Africa where land ownership has differed dramatically from China, and wondered how a view of the land could so dramatically affect a view of family. I loved thinking about globalization and its relationship to consumerist and individualistic identities in the producer, wondering about how these changing identities will manifest in culture.

This is a fascinating book to read, although it was slow enough at times that I had to commit to picking it back up. In the end, the whole process holds together and Chang makes it worth your while.

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Shantaram

Gregory David Roberts

An epic novel. And by that I mean huge, covering lots of territory, broad in scope. The book is fiction, but based (presumably loosely) on the life of an escaped Australian convict. In the novel, this character is Lin. Lin has traveled to Bombay to get lost in the sea of people there. He gets involved with the local underworld (working in the money trade, passports, etc.), lives in a slum, spends time in prison, lives in a rural village and works as a talent scout in Bollywood.  In all of these contexts, Lin (and we) get to know Bombay and fall in love with the city on a variety of levels. Throughout, the enduring characteristic of Lin is that he will always help a friend, at any cost. And while this often gets him into trouble, it also bonds him to people who help him out as well. After spending a large portion of the novel in Bombay, Lin travels to Afghanistan on a gun delivery mission and we get a good introduction to that country during the Russian occupation. I actually listened to the audio version of this book and it was a fabulous book to listen to. The reader captured the indian accents extremely well and I found myself laughing out loud (which I would not have done with text). In hindsight, the love for Bombay is very romantic and clearly leaves out the crowds and claustrophobia and filth and density of the city. But it makes for a great novel.

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Unbroken

Lauren Hillenbrand

Wow! The story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner in the 30's from Southern California who ends up in the pacific theater of WWII as a bombardier and as a POW in Japan. The story covers his pre-war life, his journey adrift in the Pacific for a couple months (yes, a couple), eventual capture and two years in POW camp, and finally his life after camp. Every component of his life is astounding and so crazy that you think it is made up. Hillenbrand does an excellent job of providing the details needed to visualize the craziness of every situation, as well as to suggest the calm & matter-of-fact nature of how Zamperini deals with what is thrown at him. I particularly appreciate that the book doesn't end with rescue, but lets us know about the difficulties and successes of life after POW. Zamperini is a particularly charismatic subject to highlight this part of WWII, but I think he is in many ways just a common soldier who survived.

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