Ancient Worlds – A Global History of Antiquity by Michael Scott

I found this one especially interesting because it explores the ancient kingdoms and empires in the Mediterranean, central Asia, and China, but from the perspective of how they interacted, interconnected, and influenced each other. Most histories I have studied tend to deal with one empire. Its context within the broader world order of the time was only dealt with in a peripheral way.

House of Trump House of Putin by Craig Unger

First, I will say the author presents no smoking gun. However, the circumstantial evidence he presents is so compelling it is hard to even imagine that Trump as well as his father were not involved with the Russian mob and massive associated money laundering operations. The author identifies 59 Russian mobsters, oligarchs, and associated Russian Government actors involved in cash purchases of Trump real estate and other suspicious interaction with Trump himself.

The book was particularly enlightening to me. In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s I was in Russia several times trying to create telecom partnerships and joint ventures. One of the companies we were courting actually expressed interest in buying a minority interest in our company as part of a deal. Thankfully we never could come to terms. But that company, Gasprom, the author says was controlled at the time by the Russian mob and used to launder money.

God is a Question, Not an Answer – William Irwin

This book does not reflect an effort on the part of the author to prove there is no God. It is really a philosophical treatise on the subject. The author casts himself an “honest atheist”. By that he means that while he does not believe in God he admits that regardless he still sometimes has doubts.

His objective seems to be to shake the confidence of people on both sides of the issue. He argues that doubt is a virtue. He advances the idea that doubt is an integral part of the human condition as it relates to God and faith. He says every person has doubts from time to time if they are honest with themselves. He also thinks that doubt is a place where both people of faith and those who have no faith can find common ground in finding ways to show mutual respect and live in peace with each other.

Team of Vipers – My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House by Cliff Sims

I did not learn much about the Trump Administration that I did not already know or suspect. The author does shine much more light though on the internal cut throat behavior of the White House staffers, how they attack and back-stab each other to get ahead, and the level to which they will go to pander to Trump.

The most striking revelation for me was the author’s reverence for Trump, almost as a messiah. He relates how much he believes in virtually everything the President was doing or trying to do. The especially sad part of that is that Sims claims to be an evangelical Christian yet was by his own admission one of the vipers he writes about. I can’t even imagine a sincere Christian who seriously follows the teaching of Jesus and also cares about our country behaving as he admits he did. Of course I know I am prejudice here!

Fantasyland – How America Went Haywire by Kurt Andersen

This book explores the migration to, the settlement of, and the maturing of our liberal American Democracy. Essentially the author makes the case that the original migrants who came to the American continent were mostly religious and social misfits in European society, trouble makers, or people hoping to find gold in the new world, get rich quickly, and go home.

Vintage sexual tensions and nylon stockings. He argues that once these early migrants arrived they quickly discovered that there wasn’t any gold and they could not get along with each other, especially as it related to religious doctrine. Various groups splintered from the original Puritan religious dogma, spread out in the country, and started their own communities with their own interpretation of truth and reality.

The author follows that “reality” thread through the 500 years that Europeans have inhabited America. He claims that the American sense of reality is fundamentally different from and much more radical than any European country. It is an interesting read.