Recommended…Reads.
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
This was the “must read” book of the blogosphere in 2007- 2008, widely cited (though perhaps first by John Robb) for the Black Swan concept itself. Taleb is an idiosyncratic, wide-ranging, writer interested in counterintuitive perspectives and is deeply skeptical of the validity of existing epistemological methodologies. Parts of the book will be of interest only to those with advanced backgrounds in probabalistic analysis and mathematics but there is much else that is intriguing and entertaining along the way while Taleb explains the characteristics of Extremistan and Mediocristan. A friend who moves among quite a few “thought leaders” described Taleb to me as “arrogant” but with something of value to say. Agreed.
On War (Oxford World’s Classics)
Pick up a copy and join us during the Clausewitz Roundtable in January!!
Annihilation from Within: The Ultimate Threat to Nations
Ikle, a senior Defense Department official in the Reagan administration tackles apocalyptic threat scenarios including the one coming from our own best efforts to avoid them. A gloomy but thought-provoking read.
The Cold War: A New History
Gaddis intended to write a book for the college undergraduate or layman that concisely explains the Cold War and the “why ?” of the victory of the West and generally does a superb job of it. The undercurrent or background that may not be obvious to the layman is that Gaddis is sticking a thumb in the collective eye of the revisionist diplomatic historians of the New Left – notably Walter LaFeber, Lloyd Gardner, Gabriel Kolko and Robert Buzzanco and others descending at least vaguely from the school of thought founded by William Appleman Williams.
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