Poor Ash’s Almanack > Book Reviews > History / Biography
★★★★★★★ (7/7) (life-changing)
Troubled by Rob Henderson: Review and Analysis – Buy Troubled on Amazon
The unflinching memoir of Rob Henderson, chronicling his journey from a chaotic childhood through the U.S. Air Force to elite Ivy League schools, and introducing the influential concept of “luxury beliefs” – underpinning the luxury beliefs part of our new nature vs nurture mental model.
Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky: Review and Analysis – Buy Polio: An American Story on Amazon
A fascinating exploration of the triumph of science over the childhood scourge of polio in the mid-1900s; highly educational and a rip-roaring story that won the Pulitzer Prize. Mental models include: salience, multicausality, incentives, ego, a/b testing, trait adaptivity, opportunity costs, and n-order impacts.
Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning: Review and Analysis – Buy Ordinary Men On Amazon
The majority of “evil” is committed by ordinary individuals, not sociopaths. Understanding the psychological mechanisms that led a group of non-ideological, working-class men to become hardened Holocaust killers changed the way I think about history – and psychology. Mental models include: salience, contrast bias, habit, authority bias, social proof, and more.
On Grand Strategy by John Lewis Gaddis: Review and Analysis – Buy On Grand Strategy On Amazon
Spanning history from Ancient Greece to World War II, Pulitzer Prize winning historian John Lewis Gaddis concisely – and astonishingly insightfully – breaks down three key elements of grand strategy (time, space, and scale) in a multidisciplinary, utility-focused way.
★★★★★★ (6/7) (standout for its category)
The Landscape of History by John Lewis Gaddis: Review and Analysis – Buy The Landscape of History On Amazon
How do historians peer through the fog of the past to pick out data that can help us understand the present, and prepare for the future? John Lewis Gaddis provides a fascinating, multidisciplinary, and extremely concise/accessible exploration that is surprisingly thought-provoking, invoking models like: storytelling, complexity / emergence, precision vs. accuracy, and utility.
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes: Review and Analysis – Buy The Making of the Atomic Bomb On Amazon
As much about humanity and the individual as it is about science and the country, this Pulitzer-Prize winning book is lengthy but fascinating.s Seeing how science progressed – and didn’t – is a keystone opportunity to explore mental models ranging from bottlenecks to empathy to luck to schema to scientific thinking and many more.
Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari: Review and Analysis – Buy Chasing the Scream on Amazon
Chasing the Scream challenges the conventional “pharmaceutical theory” of addiction. Johann Hari argues that addiction is not a chemical hijacking but an adaptation to a “cage” of isolation, trauma, and powerlessness. The book uses research like the “Rat Park” experiment (admittedly controversial among scientists) to reframe addiction as a “disease of loneliness,” and critiques the systemic violence and harm caused by prohibition.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: Review and Analysis – Buy The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin On Amazon
Charlie Munger inspired Poor Ash’s Almanack – and Munger, in turn, was perhaps inspired most by Benjamin Franklin, lauded centuries later for being one of the wisest of all Americans. Franklin’s humorous yet insightful autobiography still holds up well today, with models including habit, empathy, rationality, confirmation bias, structural problem solving, and more.
★★★★★ (5/7) (solid for its category)
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin: Review and Analysis – Buy The Autobiography of Charles Darwin On Amazon
How did a sickly man once dismissed as an unpromising student manage to deduce the process of evolution – much the way we still understand it centuries later – without the help of a single mathematical equation, let alone modern computing power? Understanding Darwin’s insightful thought process yields models including: scientific thinking, ideology, disaggregation, and more.
★★★★ (4/7) (acceptable for its category)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: Review and Analysis – Buy Guns, Germs, and Steel On Amazon
An interesting and thought-provoking book, but Diamond is a clear man-with-a-hammer, applying his environmental determinism theory way too far – he fails to explain anything interesting about the modern world, even though his story is credible up to the Renaissance.s Worth reading, but dramatically overrated and not worth your time unless you have no better books to read.
★★★ (3/7) (mediocre)
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson: Review and Analysis
Benjamin Franklin is a fascinating subject – unfortunately, Isaacson doesn’t do him justice, as he spends an inordinate amount of time focusing on trivial, mundane details. Franklin still manages to be interesting (on occasion) even through Isaacson’s misdirected lens, but this is a book with only the occasional worthwhile page amidst piles of boring tedium.
★★ (2/7) (meaningfully flawed)
none at this time!
★ (1/7) (run, Forrest, run!)
none at this time!