Gary Shteyngart's first novel, and it shows. While it has the Shteyngartian charm and language, the plot meanders, the philosophy is confused, and the characters listless. Compared to the uproarious mania of Absurdistan, or the "so true it hurts" melodrama of Super Sad True Love Story, this is clearly a lesser novel. Still worth it, if you like his other stuff, but not his best.

If you look for 'revisionist history' in the dictionary, you'll probably find this book. Adams goes at great length to penetrate the mystique of WW2, showing it as an ugly conflict where the average soldier lived in total terror, not knowing what he fought for, that made only half-hearted steps towards integrating American society, and helped destroy the social fabric of rural America. All of this may be true, and it serves as a nice counter-balance to the usual hagiographies, but as a whole this book exaggerates, elides, and is totally American centric. What about Germany, Russia, England, Japan, France, etc? (okay, it says that in the title, but really, those guys fought too). The home front stuff was alright for social history, but you might as well go to the way better primary source for the battles and read Eugene Sledge's With the Old Breed.

This book is pretty much what it says on the cover, a biography of Alessandro Volta, inventor of the battery, as well as an exploration of the Enlightment through his life and times. A great book for anyone interested in early batteries, or Italian natural philosophers, but Volta was in many way a peripheral figure in the Enlightenment. Some interesting theory about the use of science in diplomacy, to project power and prestige, but there are probably more fun sources elsewhere.

Ruttan studies five technologies, machine tools and mass production, airplanes, nuclear power, space travel, and computers, showing the pivotal role that the military played in each of these. Ruttan writes well and easily, and explores unknown facets of these technologies, but I have two problems. First, this book dates from 2006, but seems much older. Nothing much has changed since the mid-90s, apparently. Secondly, while military funding has driven technologies, it's unclear if this is the best way, or even a good way to stimulate innovation and the economy. The military provides an alternate set of values, beyond a short-sighted profit motives, but shouldn't we have higher values as a nation than force?

A good book to use on people who say that the government has no role in innovation, but not essential.

Really creative sci-fi is rare these days, and The Chronoliths is one of those rare pleasures. "Software designer Scott Warden is living with his family in early twenty-first century Thailand after his latest contract has ended. He and his friend Hitch Paley are among the first to find an enormous monolith which appears out of nowhere in the jungle. On closer examination, it is found to be a monument made of a mysterious, indestructible substance. It bears an inscription commemorating a military victory by someone named "Kuin", presumably an Asian warlord -- twenty years in the future."

The book goes on to chronicle the very personal changes in Scott Warden's life, as he lives through the tumult caused by these mysterious monoliths, and the unknown person responsible for them, and becomes part of a project to defeat Kuin, whoever he is. Wilson plays with themes of destiny, futurism, loyalty, love and loss. An inventive and profound book.

Mowrey and Rosenberg investigate 20th century innovation in America through the lenses of internal combustion engines, chemistry, and electricity/electronics. I feel like these fields are rather ad hoc, compared to the 'carrier branch technologies' of a Kondratiev Wave. They make some interesting observations about the shift from an internal corporate-level R&D to the modern state supported defense R&D system, and the role of anti-trust law, but don't really go into in rigorously.

As for why America won the innovation race in the 20th century, it's because we won WW2. We didn't have our industrial base bomb, we looted German scientists post-war, we had access to overseas resources and could afford to pay for them. The interplay of military dominance, scientific expertise, and a rising middle class is very important, but only really alluded to.

Not that is is a bad book, it's just not as good as the other books on my innovation shelf.

Why has the federal government been so spectacularly unsuccessful in commercializing technology? Cohen goes deep in the economics and politics of several major projects in energy and aerospace, showing how a combination of overly optimistic predictions on the part of technologists, and the fickleness of Congressional delegations who aim to extract monies for their districts without a longterm commitment to the ultimate success of the project lead to billions of dollars in useless waste and extravagance.

A detailed and hard-hitting book, The Technology Pork Barrel is weakened by its focus on the energy and aerospace sectors, where purely private and purely defense projects are also prone to overruns and failure. I would have liked to see some success stories in electronics or biomedicine. But for anybody advocating big governments investments in technology, this is a vital read for what not to do.

Brown traces the complicated co-evolution of science and democracy, and the continued conflict between expert advice and popular rule from Machiavelli through Hobbes and Rousseau, the Progressive Movement, Bruno Latour, and to the modern structure of over 35,000 federal science advisors. Brown thesis is opposed to those who want scientists to retreat politically to the role of "an honest broker." Instead, he shows that in our complex, institutionalized system of government, science acts as an "anti-politics", where an appeal to science can trump political concerns. In this environment, where scientific knowledge is so privileged, political actors will perforce learn ways to counter science, by introducing fake "controversies" or attacking the personal credibility of scientists.

I believe that we today face major collective challenges, about climate change, peak oil, new diseases, and a host of other issues, and that we cannot simply randomly walk into the future and survive. Expertise will be a vital part of of our future, and if experts are to be credible, they must move out of the marbled halls of power, and appeal directly to the people.

Despite it's heavy topic, Science in Democracy is written in a clear and minimally jargon filled style. This is a book that everybody should read.

Let me get this out of the way. I am a Sterling fan, I love everything he's done unconditionally, but I think A Good Old Fashioned Future, is his best short story collection, and the best introduction to his work. From the soft and thoughtful "Maneki Neko", to the gonzo cyber-entrepreneur-terrorist-punk of "The Littlest Jackel" to the tour de force trio of linked stories at the end, Sterling shows us precisely how strange our very human future is going to be, and how we might survive and thrive in it.

*** Updated for 2024 ***

What a weird journey it has been in the 13 years since I last cracked open this book. I'm glad I returned to it, because if anything these stories have only improved with age (with the exception of the Rudy Rucker collab "Big Jelly", which was never much good). After another cycle or three of tech hype bullshit, the parodic take on 90s dotcom boom culture has golden nostalgic glow. But in this are four utterly serious, damn near perfect stories about technology, their consequences, and the way that people living in our future see their present. "Taklamakan, in particular, is a gem.

Mass movements are one of the most terrifying forces in recent history; cataclysmic social upheavals that shatter states and lead to war, famine, and genocide. In this dense, philosophical tome, Hoffer examines the common features of mass movements, from semetic religions, to Nazis and Communism. All mass movements draw on a particular alliance between the worst elements of society, and the frustrated literati, creating an image of an idealized future that justifies any violence inflicted on the present. The fanatic does not want to be free, but rather desires to be free from freedom.

While this book is decades old, and hence a little dated, it's lessons are still invaluable when applied to contemporary politics. What might seem facile directed at the moments of today has great truth when applied with a little historical perspective.