Literate Scientist

This book I bought in a local Costa bookshop and found it was written by an Irish sociologist Kieran Allen. Shortly before my interest in Marxism was inspired by seeing a link to Irish communist party website and socialist bookshop in a booklet for Dublin Culture nights festival. It was a bit funny to see communists as part of Irish culture festival especially for me from former Soviet Union. Anyway, later I saw on streets that Marxist festivals are popular in Ireland nowadays. So let’s go back to the book. I found it very good and even lucid in explaining various Marxist ideas and vocabulary. A good start for more advance reading such as “Capital” (I have all 3 hardcover volumes from an Indian publisher and plan to have leather bound edition from Russia if I have enough surplus and MEW German edition) or specialized books such as “A Dictionary of Marxist Thought”. What I also tend to agree with the author is that Stalinism is a mirror of Capitalism (there is also a book “Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization” that I’m reading). I leave an application of a dialectical method of double negation to a reader here. Now the weak points of the book: 1) it doesn’t cover post-Stalinist era; 2) subsequent analysis of alternatives sounds a bit naive for me who really lived in socialism and can compare it to capitalism both in post-socialist country and now living in real capitalist country. The book also has a good reading suggestion list and I even thinking now on reading Voloshinov book “Marxism and the Philosophy of Language” (in Russian, although there is an English edition). Anyway, I would recommend Kieran’s book with reservations (about alternatives) as a first introduction to Marxist thought.

Marx and the Alternative to Capitalism

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Before I finished book I knew very little about USA history limited by my school education in former Soviet Union times. Now I feel more confident and plan to read 4 volumes of Oxford History of the United States and 16 volumes of History of America and not being overwhelmed by details. I’m also reading 3 volumes of The Cambridge History of the Cold War and the book provided missing context for the first volume. As a researcher of a history of Russian revolutions (a book is scheduled by OpenTask publisher for the centennial in 2017) I firmly believe that in order to understand a history of your own country it is beneficial to read about other countries. Then discerned historical patterns and insights can be applied to a different narrative.

America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States

The book also has an overview of historical literature at the back which might be useful if you are interested in further pursuing special topics. Additionally the book provides the great overview of background historical material needed to understand modern cyber conflicts.

In conclusion, I must say I’d never thought before that US history was so interesting and I now feel great sympathy for this country.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

This is a little book that I bought in local bookshop adjacent to Costa and quickly read from cover to cover while commuting. I was interested in this title because my relative studies kindness (and benevolence) as a topic in Russian literature so I thought by reading that book I could better discuss it. Approx. one third of the book narrates the evolution of the meaning of kindness from Classical Greece and Rome to earlier Christianity, Augustine, then to Hobbes (Leviathan), Enlightenment, and finally, Rousseau (Émile).  The second third is a lengthy treatise on the interpretation of kindness from psychoanalytical perspective (Freud, Winnicott). The final third is about the role of kindness in the modern Western society. Interesting read (although a bit repetitive sometimes) that prompted me to buy Leviathan: With Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668 and to reconsider the role kindness in a modern corporation workplace.

On Kindness

This is a cover of the book that I bought (published by Penguin):

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It was my dream since the school days to learn physics in its entirety. Whereas The Feynman Lectures on Physics: Commemorative Issue, Three Volume Set that I own (I read it at school before university in Russian translation) is a bit light and don’t include the developments of the past 40 - 50 years and Course of Theoretical Physics by Landau was a bit heavy for me at those times (although I read Mechanics volume in Russian and a few beginning chapters from other volumes) I finally found what I need: Theoretical Physics course from Walter Greiner. I have now the first 3 volumes (there are many more volumes including Quantum Electrodynamics, Gauge Theory of Weak Interactions, Quantum Chromodynamics) and just started reading the first one: Classical Mechanics: Point Particles and Relativity (Classical Theoretical Physics). It explains all necessary mathematics, has all derivations, lots of examples and illustrations, and even talks about dark matter (in the first classical mechanics volume). More important I also ordered the original German edition (Theoretische Physik. Klassische Mechanik I. Dynamik und Dynamik der Punktteilchen - Relativität) and reading both in parallel. This improves my German as well.

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It’s time to select a secondary level school for my kids in advance. I wasn’t aware that such books exist and I was delighted when I saw the book in a local library. Unfortunately, my expectations weren’t met: 2/3rds of the book is just the list of schools and the text is too academic and politically correct for any good use except to reinforce common sense although I didn’t expect to hear saucy stories. Just two insights I found useful: some parents don’t enroll their children in the nearest school because they perceive themselves as not very responsible if they do that and don’t blindly trust school ranks in academic examination results as they might be influenced by school size. So my conclusion is that this book might be of some help to reevaluate your commitments if you rely too much on certain knowledge acquisition mechanisms such as “grapevine”, never thought about participating in PTA (Parent Teacher Association) or want to hear what Principles carefully say from their side. Some bibliography might be useful if you want to continue this research further on. However, the authors warn that no so much of it exists for Ireland.

Choosing a School: Second Level Education in Ireland

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Due to my Mod N Reading System I had to suspend this blog because N became large (about 100 or more books) and there wasn’t enough read material to review. Now I accumulated some books fully read from cover to cover and many others read to a sufficient number of pages to make an opinion and suggest recommendations. So I’m resuming this blog and plan to write about the next book tomorrow. It will be a history of social sciences. I plan to introduce a new book every day or so. I also made an alteration to Mod N reading to include thematic encyclopedias. Stay tuned.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

While reading evolution books ranging from popular like Darwin’s Dangerous Idea to specialized like Evolution: The First Four Billion Years and Encyclopedia of Evolution I felt the need to read Darwin’s biography. My first encounter with Darwin was even before a primary school when I was looking at illustrations to his voyages in a library. Later, during my school years in Soviet Union, I saw a movie about him. I vividly remember a Wilberforce and FitzRoy scene. So you might imaging that I was very keen to read 680 page book (not counting notes and bibliography). Unfortunately I found it a bit boring and written in a difficult language compared to other biographies I read in English. May be the language was chosen deliberately to emulate Victorian epoch?

Almost in the middle of reading this book I stumbled across another book: The Darwin Conspiracy: Origins of a Scientific Crime and reading the latter (it’s like a thriller and you can download the free PDF from www.darwin-conspiracy.co.uk) gave me an impulse to continue reading Darwin’s biography with a critical eye. Looking at the same facts your can always interpret them differently and the conspiracy book reminded me to read behind the lines more carefully and remember about politics in science and class issues in society. I’m very interested in memetic engineering Darwin used to delicately arrange and propagate his ideas. The biography mentions Wallace in passing a few times but there is no discussion about the priority and the crucial Linnean Society meeting is not in the focus and doesn’t grab any attention.

One fact I didn’t know before reading this biography is that Darwin was always sick. Now “tormented evolutionist” phrase acquires the new meaning to me. I also got the feeling that Darwin’s hesitation to publish his ideas (if he had any to publish) was caused by sickness as well. Actually the sickness was the main focus of the book. However I really wonder how could such a sick man (as described) could write that huge amount of correspondence, do research and write many books.

One quote I found at the end of the book says that Darwin would not approve anti-religious stance of Dawkins and Co.: 

“Moreover though I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds, which follows from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science. I may, however, have been unduly biassed by the pain which it would give some members of my family, if I aided in any way direct attacks on religion.”

http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-12757

The quote got my attention probably because I recently read another book: The Selfish Genius.

Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist

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This is a book I bought a few years ago and started reading immediately but put aside and only this summer read it fully from cover to cover. In order to appreciate its content you need some degree of mathematical and computer science maturity. For example, if you have never heard of his theorems and only read Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel or similar popular book then you would have difficulty going through the book and it would appear boring. It is not an entertaining or bedside reading. This is why I put it aside on the first reading although I knew about this theorem since I read “Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty” more than 25 years ago being a schoolboy (in Russian translation). Just before writing this review I ordered “There’s Something About Godel: The Complete Guide to the Incompleteness Theorem” and the latter looks like less heavy reading judged from excerpts from its publisher website. Putting all these reminiscences aside I really enjoyed second reading of “Godel’s Theorem”. It really clarified some points from ¬B->¬A or PA & ¬Con(PA) perspectives and made me curious about fixpoints. I even borrowed the latter term and introduced them for crash dump analysis and debugging: “a dereference fixpoint”. I also liked chapters 4 and 6 about using Godel’s theorems outside mathematics and clarifying misconceptions in Rucker’s and Penrose’s books. However, after a few months I cannot recall anything definite what I read from that book although I felt good that I understood everything while reading so perhaps the book requires the 3rd reading for me I’m going to give it another try after “There’s Something About Godel” and update this review.

Godel’s Theorem: An Incomplete Guide to Its Use and Abuse

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I read this book in just one day from cover to cover. I’m not a professional biologist and learnt about evolution 25 - 30 years ago from Marxist perspective. My understanding of evolution has greatly improved this year after reading Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, This Is Biology, Breaking the Spell, Evolution: The First Four Billion Years and The 10,000 Year Explosion books. I’ve also started reading (and listening to its unabridged version on CDs simultaneously) the latest Dawkins’ book “The Greatest Show on Earth” (to be reviewed as soon as I finish) after the thought “Who’s that guy?” finally tipped. I noticed the partnership of D. Dennett and R. Dawkins when reading books and also rants from religious camps when reading reviews. So I was very keen to read the promised history of Dawkins thought in “The Selfish Genius” book and I really enjoyed it. Judged from the background knowledge I acquired while reading various books about evolution “The Selfish Genius” seems fair and balanced. Sometimes it reminded me the similar problem in Physics: String Theory vs. Others (Not Even Wrong and the Trouble With Physics). When I put “The Selfish Genius” and resumed reading “The Greatest Show on Earth” I immediately noticed a footnote on page 216 (ISBN 978-1-4165-9478-9): “epigenetics, a modish buzz-word now enjoying its fifteen minutes” and if you are curious about the source of this anger read “The Selfish Genius” book. I also like the point of the book that for different people with different backgrounds “Evolution” means different things. For me it is about evolution of software but mainly about evolution of software defects: Darwinian Debugging and I even bugtated Dawkins’ meme: Bugtation No.108.

The Selfish Genius: How Richard Dawkins Rewrote Darwin’s Legacy

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Here is the reading system I devised to read all books that I review on this blog:

Mod N Reading System

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