Reflection on The Fall of Berlin 1945 by Antony Beevor

     The Fall of Berlin is a good follow-up to Beevor's Stalingrad, but definitely not as engaging a read due to the subject matter. Stalingrad is interesting because it is the turning of the tide on the Eastern Front. The fall of Berlin is less interesting because it is a fait accompli.

    The scale of the Russian offensive post-Stalingrad is mind-blowing. It was 6.7 million men in the Red Army from the Baltic to the Adriatic, TWICE the number of Nazi invaders who went to Russia. The effect of this is even greater because the Russians, moving west, would be concentrating their troops on the central European plain, whereas the Germans would need to be ever expanding as they entered Asia, especially when passing the Black Sea to the south and the Baltic Sea to the north. In front of the Soviet invasion was a refugee crisis in the German-occupied territories, with 19 million refugees by February of 1945, with up to 50,000 arriving in Berlin every day ahead of the Red Army.

    Meanwhile, Hitler was completely devastated and could not have cared less about the lives of Germans. In ordering the destruction of bridges, Hitler said, "If the war is lost, the people will also be lost. It is not necessary to worry about their needs for elemental survival... For the nation has proved to be weak, and the future belongs entirely to the strong people of the East." Unsurprisingly, most Germans were not so absolutist, and absolutely planned to outlive the war. For the military, it was a difficult choice. One German lieutenant wrote, "to be an officer means almost always having to swing back and forth like a pendulum between a Knights Cross, a birchwood cross, and a court martial."

    A major theme of the book is the Americans' naivete and the Russians willingness to use it to advance further faster. Stalin was dead-set on extending the Soviet Union as far west as possible, and largely succeeded by telling Americans the advance on Berlin was just a reconnaissance mission. the British urged the Americans to move faster and moved to Denmark quickly so that it wouldn't fall to the Russians, but Eisenhower was resolute that he wouldn't sacrifice American lives for speed. For this reason, the Russians went all the way into Germany and Czechoslovakia as well as the Balkans. This really makes you think about how Russia needs massive disruption and conflict in Europe to achieve such gains. The Russian Revolution couldn't do it. Only a massive invasion of Russia, followed by a counter-offensive, could lead to sweeping over the continent. Europe needs to be highly unstable for Russia to do this, as the only two times I can think of in the modern era that Russians have successfully invaded Europe are WWII and the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Otherwise I can only think of the Golden Horde and the Mongol invasion of Hungary and Attila the Hun almost a thousand years before that.

    Socially speaking, there was madness as the Russians got closer, bringing with them waves of mass rape to the women of Germany. Beevor writes that ahead of the Russian advance, young Germans were having lots of sex, as they knew they could die soon, and the German girls preferred to lose their virginity on their own terms to a German rather than by rape. By April this was common, The Russians were of course indiscriminate, raping not just German women, but liberated Jews and also some of their own women as well as the "liberated" people of Eastern Europe. Russian women started to grow despondent, knowing that, with so many Russian men dead, they would be a generation of spinsters. After their rapes, women then had to deal with German men, who regularly divorced them, cried, or refused to talk about it. Or all three. German men were immensely shamed at their inability to protect their women, which further damaged their relationships. The line of consent was also blurred. Sometimes, Russian soldiers would simply offer food in exchange for a sexual relationship, which is inherently coercive. In Berlin, cigarettes were used as currency, so one reason we may hear more about Russian rapes than Americans is that Americans were given nearly limitless cartons of cigarettes, meaning they could trade them for sex instead of using force. Beevor describes rape as evolving in 1945 from the forceful to the simply coercive, to the trading, and finally to a form of cohabitation in which Soviet officers settled in with German "occupation wives" who replaced their Soviet "campaign wives."

Miscellaneous Facts:

• Apparently Eva Braun was totally unknown outside Hitler's court, and hardly anyone who hadn't visited the high command knew who she was.
• I had never heard of the greatest maritime disaster in history: the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustoff, in which between 5,300 and 7,400 German refugees died when a Soviet submarine sunk the ship.
• The Red Army had to issue an order prohibiting soldiers from riding bicycles because so many Russian soldiers were injuring themselves with the plundered bikes.
• Hitler was very into Frederick the Great and kept a portrait of him in the bunker.
• The USSR was very skeptical of its soldiers who had spent time being exposed to Nazi propaganda in prison camps. As recently as 1998, declaration forms to join a research institute in Russia asked whether a member of the applicant's family had been in an "enemy prison camp."
• Germans were completely oblivious to the facts of the war and learned a lot when Berlin was taken. They had thought the United States declared war on Germany when it was the other way around, and they had no idea about their bombing campaigns against Britain.

Reflection on Oathbringer (Stormlight Archive #3)

     Another great Stormlight Archive book, this one even longer than the last two. Oathbringer was an epic that took out characters from the high mountaintops of Urithiru to the besieged city of Kholinar, and from the darkness of Shadesmar to Thaylen City. All in all solid book and I still enjoy the series very much.

    A big highlight of the early part of this book is Pattern. That character is just really funny to me. I like when he "hums happily" or "buzzes happily" and his reactions to human life. Like when he learns that chaperones are supposed to stop humans from doing anything inappropriate, he asks if they mean dividing by zero. Funny stuff.

    This book also has the big reveal of why the Recreance happened, which I won't spoil here. I would only say as I finish this book that I don't know how Sanderson is going to keep going with this. I feel like we have already gotten to extremely high stakes that will be hard to top.

Miscellaneous:

• Why do musicspren trail after Ryshadium?

Reflection on Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942-1943 by Antony Beevor

     This is an extremely complete and full look at the fighting between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russian in Stalingrad and the buildup beforehand from the German invasion. The book is written very well, taking the story from Hitler's strategy sessions at the Berghof to the starving German soldiers decorating their bunkers for Christmas, to the Russian soldiers writing letters home, up to Stalin himself anxiously pushing his generals to launch a counterattack. The book is awesome, and classic dad-history that I am very glad I read.

Operation Barbarossa and Getting to Stalingrad   

    The Germans made two big pushes against Russia in World War Two. The first was a complete surprise in June 1941, when Hitler suddenly revoked the pact he made with Stalin and invaded Russia. In 1941, the Germans made huge advances, seizing all of the Baltic states and most of Ukraine advancing through Crimea. But they were too late in attacking. By launching their attack on June 22, 1941, they started too late and when the rains came in September, turning roads to mud, the attack stalled as they then waited out the rains and the winter. Below is a map of Operation Barbarossa as it played out:

    In 1942, the Germans launched a second offensive, called Case Blue or Operation Blue. Controversially, Hitler chose to invade southwards, attacking the Caucasus with the goal of seizing oil supplies in Baku, Azerbaijan. His generals, such as Guderian, argued that they should seize Moscow, to cut Russia's communications and logistical hub. However, partially because of the oil, and partially out of fear of following in Napoleon's footsteps, Hitler refused. Here is a map of Operation Blue:

    So you can see that the Germans made it to Stalingrad (now Volgograd) on the Volga River, but no further. Critically, Stalingrad was not only the river connection to the Caspian Sea, but also the rail connection to the south of Russia. To take Stalingrad would be to cut the Soviet Union off from its south, and so it became a struggle of life and death for Russia. But problematically, Hitler launched his offensives towards the south (Caucasus) and towards the east (Stalingrad) simultaneously, weakening each one. On Sunday, August 23, 1942, German forces reached Stalingrad.

The First Attack

    The Germans launched air attacks to destroy the defenses and morale of Russian soldiers charged with destroying the city. It worked. Soldiers deserted in whole groups from the front lines until commanders adopted policies of decimation, one commander shooting every tenth man at point-blank range until his magazine was empty.

    The German commander was Friedrich Paulus, controlling the troops not just in Stalingrad but across 130 miles of front, from the Don to the Volga. Despite having the largest formation in the German Army with a third of a million men, Paulus could only keep one division in reserve while the rest were kept on the front lines.

    Problematically for the Germans, when they reached Stalingrad they lost their blitzkrieg advantages of speed and maneuver. There, they were forced to adopt older techniques, resorting to trench warfare, as so many buildings had been destroyed by their air bombardment that even at the beginning there was little shelter for the large army. The combat at Stalingrad was in close quarters. Germans called the fighting "rattenkrieg" because they fought in cellars and sewers against constant ambushes from basements, wall remnants, ruins, and hidden bunkers. Because the German air attack had done such damage to the city, they couldn't move through it, facing huge obstacles from fallen and bombed out buildings blocking many streets. This slowed them down and aided the Russians in defense.

    The Russians, commanded by Chuikov, funneled and fragmented German assaults by using strengthened positions with machine guns to channel Germans into alleyways and streets where camouflaged tanks were waiting, half-buried in rubble. The Russian sappers had the highest casualty rate of all, as they were the ones who had to crawl out at night to lay anti-tank mines, or sometimes run out in front of a tank to drop a mine as it advanced. Their motto was, "Make a mistake and no more dinners."

Fortress Stalingrad

    Because the Germans reached Stalingrad at the end of August, there was some time to fight before cold set in, but not much. Germans became demoralized. From their letters home, we learn that they are often in disbelief at what was happening as their attack stalled in the city. Meanwhile, Russian soldiers were openly expressing their discontent in letters home and revealing state secrets. This greatly distressed the NKVD, the Russian intelligence service.

    Luckily for the Russians, Hitler refused to believe that they had any more armies in reserve, and additionally, weak Russian tank attacks across the front lines made the Germans underestimate Russian capacities. Because of this, the Germans would fail to anticipate the Russian counterattack in November. During the summer of 1942, Hitler's generals had informed him that the Soviets were producing 1,200 tanks a month while the Germans only made 500, but Hitler did not believe it. In fact, the numbers were even higher, with the Soviets producing 2,200 a month. Aircraft production on the Russian side had also been increasing throughout 1942. 

    When the Russians counterattacked in November, the Germans were surprised. To prepare for a Russian counterattack, Paulus would have needed to withdraw tanks from the city to keep in reserve, but this preparation would have been a disobedience of Hitler's orders to through everything at the city. When the Russians finally did counter-attack, Paulus took almost no notice of it, and did nothing to respond. During the Russian encirclement, there was still time for the Germans on the outside to get between Russian armies if they had a strong mobile reserve, but they did not, and so Stalingrad became surrounded. 

    At first, the Russians were unaware how large a force they had surrounded, guessing around 86,000 German soldiers when in fact, including German allies, there were about 290,000 men. The suffering of these men would be enormous. One event that seemed all-consuming was the lice outbreak. The lice lived in clumps on the living men, and could be seen leaving the flesh of the recently deceased en masse.

    With his soldiers trapped in Stalingrad, Hitler's mood changed. Rather than holding forth at his dinner table to give longwinded speeches to his sycophants, Hitler was silent. He trembled and stared down as his soup. However, he showed no regret for the lives lost, only thinking of ways to raise the stakes and win the war.

Civilians in Stalingrad

    Unlike the soldiers, no one was giving civilians rations to keep them alive in the city. Despite that, after five months of battle, 10,000 civilians remained, with at least 1,000 of them being children. From the first air raids on August 24 to September 10, 300,000 civilians were evacuated to the east bank of the Volga while 50,000 remained on the west. The scenes of evacuation must have been horrible to witness. One ferry was packed with people desperate to leave at the end of evacuation and made it about 50 yards before being hit by a bomb and sunk in front of all those still waiting on the west bank to escape. For many civilians in the towns west of Stalingrad, no escape would be possible, as the Germans moved too quickly and cut them off.

    The Germans mad use of the orphans of Stalingrad to do dangerous tasks such as filling water bottles in the river where they would be exposed to snipers. The orphans would do this in exchange for a crust of bread. However, then the Russian army realized what was happening, they issued the order to shoot any children seen on such missions. When the battle was over, only nine children were reunited with their parents. The rest were sent off to state orphanages or given work clearing the city. Most of them were swollen with hunger. One American aid worker wrote that the children "cringed in corners, afraid to speak, to even look people in the face."

After Stalingrad
    Once Paulus' Sixth Army surrendered, the people of Russia had no doubt they would win the war. The morale boost was so great the Stalingrad veterans were divided as much as possible to influence other units. For the Germans who fought at Stalingrad, the suffering and starvation was not over. Of the 91,000 who surrendered, half would be dead by springtime, mostly from starvation. While the Soviets technically made allowance for food for the POWs, bureaucracy, corruption, and indifference meant that it would not arrive, or at least not enough. Very few of the German soldiers captured would return home.

Conclusion

    This is honestly a really rough book to read. The talk of deserters, disease, and starvation is rampant and obviously this is just a tale of immense human suffering. That said, the book is excellent and very well-written. Definitely a classic read for anyone who wants to know more about World War Two and the Eastern Front.

Miscellaneous Facts:

• When the Russians struck out under Zhukov, the Axis divisions that bore the brunt of the attack were Romanians.
• Doctors and medical workers ran out of blood and gave so much of their own that they frequently collapsed.
• There is a weird quote from Hitler when he was railing against Paulus for not fighting to the last man and then killing himself: "When you consider that a woman has the pride to leave, to lock herself in, and to shoot herself right away just because she has heard a few insulting remarks, then I can't have any respect for a soldier who is afraid of that and prefers to go into captivity." Beevor doesn't remark on it, but I think Hitler was specifically remembering his niece, Geli Raubal, who lived with Hitler from 1929 to 1931. While unconfirmed, it seems that many historians suspect they had a sexual relationship, but that she killed herself, either because they were expecting a child or because Hitler kept her as a prisoner in his apartment. She died of a gunshot would through her lung in 1931. I cannot help but think Hitler is describing this event.

Reflection on Edgedancer by Brandon Sanderson

    So I just finished yet another book set in the Stormlight Archive universe on the planet of Roshar. This is not a numbered part of the series however. Edgedancer is almost like a very long version of one of the interludes that Sanderson uses in his books. In this one, Lift, a Reshi thief, continues to further develop her powers of friction-manipulation and healing in a labyrinth city cut into the ground. She is hunted by Darkness, a name she uses for the herald of justice, Nan. You could probably skip this book if you were reading the series, but I wouldn't, because Lift will supposedly become a major character later and it was just fun to check out this weird city where people trade information and wear these long toga-like robes. 

Reflection on Words of Radiance (Stormlight Archive #2) by Brandon Sanderson

     I am moving pretty quickly through the Stormlight Archive books. I just love Brandon Sanderson's worldbuilding. In Words of Radiance (WOR), we reach the culmination of the long storyline of the war on the Shattered Plains as all our main characters unite there. Luckily, to break up all the Shattered Plains stories we get really interesting interludes, one of which is now a novella of its own that I am reading next. I would say the main strengths of this installment in the series are the exploration of Parshendi characters (we finally get the perspective of one of them in some interludes), the development of Shallan's backstory, and the greater involvement of the Heralds, who are like Greek demigods. It was frustrating to see how Kaladin transformed into an annoying and grumpy guy, but it was honestly good character development in this book. He was honestly even lower at some points in this book than he was in the first because at this point his life should have been better, but he still felt depressed.

    I guess I am officially hooked on this series. I think I'm going to read everything in the Stormlight Archive that is out before taking a break from Sanderson. This has really been scratching my fantasy/adventure itch.

Reflection on The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson

    This book completely consumed my week. I really struggled to put it down and read all 1000 pages as quick as I could. This is the intro to The Stormlight Archive series. It is high fantasy, and probably not everyone's cup of tea. It starts out with the end of a great battle and a greater deception and cuts forward 4,500 years to the assassination of a king by a mysterious man in white who was commanded by an even more mysterious group- the Parshendi. Parshendi are a humanoid race only just discovered in Roshar, the world of The Stormlight Archive. They love music and can communicate telepathically, and they also are nearly identical to the mute slaves called Parshmen, who live throughout Roshar, completing tasks for their masters. This is a world of spren, little spirits that surround change. There are painspren, creationspren, gloryspren, waterspren, windspren, flamespren, inkspren, and literally any iteration you can think of. There are also precious stones that hold stormlight inside them. Recharged by each highstorm passing over Roshar, certain individuals can use them as the source of their magical powers, and others use them as currency. Additionally, each chapter begins with the dying words of some individual, the meaning and context of which is not revealed until the final chapters. 

    The main reason that I loved this book was the worldbuilding. Sanderson is obviously so meticulous in what he writes and creative in what he plans that you just can't wait to learn the next thing about his universe. I couldn't resist and did a lot of extra research on the internet. Here are some minor spoilers that blew me away and had me wanting more:

• Sanderson's books are all taking place in the same universe, called the Cosmere
• Sanderson writes other books set not in the more medieval, high fantasy setting, but in the age of industry and information
• Certain characters, like Hoid/Wit travel between
• The book's prologue tells us that Talanel, one of the Ten Heralds (basically gods) is stuck being tortured by Odium until the next Desolation comes. In the epilogue, Talanel arrives on Roshar, and falls dead. The Desolation is coming.

Reflection on An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson

       This book was undoubtedly a masterpiece. You obviously need to be interested in WWII or military history to enjoy it, but Atkinson masterfully takes the reader from the biggest, highest strategic level down to individual foxholes. He makes the real-life individuals who fought in North Africa into characters as vivid as any novel. The writing is so elevated at times that it's poetic. Describing Eisenhower in Timgad, shortly after an operation resulting in heavy casualties, Atkinson writes,

Eisenhower and Truscott studied an inscription chiseled between two columns in the great forum: “Venari lavari ludere ridere hoc est vivere”: To hunt, to bathe, to play, to laugh—that is to live.

“When you remember me in your prayers, that’s the special thing I want—always to do my duty to the extreme limit of my ability,” Eisenhower wrote his wife a few hours later, during a stop in Constantine. Finally returning to Villa dar el Ouard after the long last leg to Algiers, he sat at the grand piano in the room where a few nights before he had belted out “One Dozen Roses.” Sometimes Eisenhower amused himself at the keyboard by plunking “Chopsticks” with two fingers. This night, weary and morose at the increasingly bad news from Tunisia, he instead, very slowly, picked out “Taps,” then stood without a word and went to bed. To err, to fret, to grieve, to learn—that, too, was to live.

    One major theme of the book is Eisenhower's transformation into a great war leader. He went into North Africa well-prepared, but unsure of himself, and overly deferential to the British. But he came out of North Africa firmly in charge of allied forces. In March, as the tide began to turn against the Nazi counterattack and the allies regrouped, Eisenhower wrote to his son at West Point, "I have observed very frequently that it is not the man who is so brilliant [who] delivers in time of stress and strain, but rather the man who can keep on going indefinitely, doing a good straightforward job." Later, Eisenhower's son, John, wrote that, "Before he left for Europe in 1942, I knew him as an aggressive, intelligent personality," but that he had transformed in the mountains of North Africa "from a mere person to a personage... full of authority, and truly in command. 

    I would say the biggest themes I picked up militarily are the important of supply and intelligence. It was absolutely critical to the allied victory that they just showed up with more stuff. As long as they were logistically supported, our Armies could face setbacks but keep moving. And then the fact that the Americans and British were breaking German codes was absolutely huge in our ability to counteract their maneuvers and catch them unaware.

Miscellaneous Facts:

• To be conscripted into the US Army, a soldier had to be at least 5' tall, 105 pounds, have twelve or more teeth, and no flat feet, hernias, or venereal disease. The Army drafted no fathers, no felons, and no eighteen-year-olds at first, but those standards changed quickly. The joke by the end of the war was that the Army no longer examined eyes, just counted them.
• Patton is exactly what you would expect. On of his diary entries: "When I realize the greatness of my job and realize that I am what I am, I am amazed, but on reflection, who is as good as I am? I know of no one."
• French General Giraud, who went over to the Allies, was famous for getting captured and escaping. In 1914, he was taken prisoner, but made it to Holland and then England disguised as a butcher, a stableboy, a coal merchant, and a magician in a traveling circus. Then, in 1942, when he was 63 years old, Giraud escaped a German prison in Konigstein by saving string used to wrap packages, forming a rope with it, and using it to climb 150 feet down to the Elbe River before hopping on a train to freedom.
• To deal with traffic fatalities in the invasion, the allies established a sliding scale of reparations for people killed: $500 for a dead camel, $300 for a dead boy, $200 for a dead donkey, and $10 for a dead girl.
• During the German counterattack in February 1943, a departing officer left at his headquarters a large wall map showing the battle lines around Stalingrad, where Paulus had just surrendered the German Sixth Army to the Soviets.
• For every six men wounded in the American Army in WWII, another was a neuropsychiatric casualty. More than 500,000 men from Army ground forces were discharged for psychiatric reasons and 12 percent of the 15 million draftees examined had already been culled as mentally unsound.
• Treatments for mental illness in North Africa included electric shock, barbiturates, and inducing deep sleep for 2-7 days. Army doctors found that "the average soldier reached his peak combat effectiveness in the first ninety days of combat and was so worn out after 180 days as to be useless and unable to return to military service."
• Venereal disease rates in Tunisia reached 34 cases per 1,000 white soldiers and 451 per 1,000 black soldiers. Atkinson doesn't give an explanation for this and I am stumped about why. 
• Another good Patton quote: when a subordinate told him that at least he hadn't lost any officers in combat, Patton said, "Goddammit, Ward, that's not fortunate. That's bad for the morale of the enlisted men, I want you to get more officers killed."
• It seems like war crimes were rampant. Some American soldiers would shoot at them for fun, sometimes making those Arabs suspected of being spies dig their own graves before shooting them.
• Every time you read about WWII, you find lots of examples of Hitler blowing it when his generals made good recommendations. In this case, he refused their suggestions to evacuate North Africa because it would be bad for morale, not understanding or refusing to understand that the German Army in North Africa would be completely wiped out by the summer of 1943.
• Interestingly, there was a huge divide within the allies among those who came with Montgomery from Egypt and had fought in the desert and those who came with Eisenhower from Morocco and had fought in the mountains. They really didn't like each other.
• The French faced a serious dilemma early on in the allied invasion of North Africa. They were under the Vichy regime, which was allied to Germany. But they hated Germany, having just been conquered by Hitler's armies. So when the Americans and British invaded, French officers suffered crises of loyalty, where some fought the Americans, some fought the Germans, and many fought both at different times or simultaneously

Placeholder to mark that I read two books on the last post

Double-Reflection on The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi and The Only Language They Understand by Nathan Thrall

           I decided to read two books about the Israel/Palestine conflict simultaneously to do a sort of learning unit on the subject. One is The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017, (HYW) by Rashid Khalidi, and The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine (TOL) by Nathan Thrall. In short, I would say Hundred Years’ War was the better written book. The Only Language was more academically written, and more detached. HYW was way more personal, since Khalidi is personally involved in the conflict, and it is told from the first-person point of view.

My biggest takeaway from both books is how lopsided the Oslo Accords were, as Israel came out firmly on top long term. Israel may have formally acknowledged that there was a Palestinian people and that the PLO represented them, but it did not actually recognize Palestine as a state, which the Palestinians thought would come soon after. Israel really got an amazing deal when Arafat gave up the 1947 borders for the 1967 borders, where Palestinians gave up half of the land they were left with.

Thrall points out in TOL that the Oslo agreement was nearly identical to the framework established in 1978 at Camp David that was not enacted w/r/t Palestine. Both promised a Palestinian government in the West Bank and Gaza, both redeployed Israeli forces to other locations, both created Palestinian national elections and the creation of a local Palestinian police force, and neither allowed Palestinian refugees to return to Israel. Both required Palestinians to recognize Israel’s right to exist. It took 16 years for this agreement to come into being, from 1978, when Carter, Begin, and Sadat negotiated it, to 1994, when Clinton, Rabin, and Arafat agreed on it. However, there was a critical difference. In 1977, Begin was planning to give citizenship to all residents of Mandatory Palestine in the interim period before the two-state solution was achieved, which would have forced Israel to pull out as it would have ended the Jewish character of the Israeli state. Because that never happened, Israel has had no incentive to give up the occupied territories, and instead tightens its grip on them with Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank (formerly Gaza too until the 2006 pullout).

The result of the Oslo accords allowing the PLO to move from Tunis to the West Bank seemed like a good thing for Palestinians, as their leadership was allowed back into the country, but it backfired. Because the plan did not result in sovereignty, the PLO leadership was essentially imprisoned, and could be humiliated later on, stopped from leaving. Now, instead of Arafat and PLO leadership being kept out of Israel against their will, they were kept in the West Bank against their will.

Thrall also writes that Israel does not greatly desire a peace agreement because it has an excellent fallback option. In the long term, Israel can continue to occupy the West Bank and Gaza and has every interest in doing so to preserve its own security. It used to be that Israel would need to make an agreement to get peace with the other Arab states, but Israel has had de facto peace for years, and now many gulf states have turned it into full recognition.

From the beginning, in the 1948 war, the Zionists were organized and Arab states were not super concerned with Palestine if they couldn’t rule over the Palestinians and their territory. They were just monarchs who looked out for their own holdings, so after the War of Independence, Arabs didn’t offer much help to the Palestinians, who were still under the control of Jordan and Egypt. Therefore, the Israelis had the momentum with them in the war. But in spite of that momentum, Israel had a long-term problem. Khalidi quotes historian Tony Judt who said that Israel’s big error was arriving too late. The Zionist movement would have fit in perfectly in 1847, but not in 1947, which was right at the beginning of a huge wave of decolonization. As a result, the world has criticized Israel heavily because the world has moved on.

            There are some broader obstacles to peace that have stopped or slowed the process for decades. The problem is well-stated by former head of Mossad Efraim Halevy, who said, “Imagine that Hamas does disperse its military units and they lay down their arms. What will Israel do if it doesn’t kill them? What incentive will we have to negotiate with them if they are no longer a threat to us?” Similarly, if Israelis laid down their arms, religious extremists on the Palestinian side would certainly kill all the Israelis they could get their hands on.

I didn’t realize that Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon was meant to defeat the PLO, which was operating within the country. I learned that while Israel was able to crush the PLO, it backfired and strengthened the Palestinian national movement within the occupied territories. The invasion of Lebanon resulted in Israel capturing 6,000 PLO guerrillas, forcing Arafat to capitulate, but the Oslo accords wouldn’t come for another 12 years, as the First Intifada intervened in 1987. An interesting thing that Thrall pointed out is that the Palestinians need to constantly be in negotiations to get Western funding. They have to sort of perform the peace process and progress to get money, which they need more than Israel. As a result, there is substantially more external pressure on Palestine than Israel to make peace. Thrall writes that Israel’s most difficult issues are that the borders be based on the pre-1967 lines and that the Palestinian capital would be in Jerusalem. For the Palestinians, it is hardest to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, the absence of a timeline for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, and that there would be no right of return for Palestinian refugees to Israel.

While I would definitely recommend both books, I would say that both writers are biased towards the Palestinian side of the conflict, especially Khalidi for obvious reasons. Both writers seem to dip into the passive voice when describing violence on the Palestinian side, as if it was an unavoidable consequence of Israeli actions. They don’t seem to give the Israelis the same benefit of the doubt.

I think a major truth of Thrall’s book, that is not so much a concern for Khalidi is that Zionism cannot achieve its purpose until it gains recognition from the Palestinians. As long as the two people remain in conflict, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is not a fully moral endeavor. However, Thrall makes a very good point that it unfortunately seems the only way that either side can get anywhere is through violence. And if violence is the only thing that both sides understand, that does not bode well for peace.

Miscellaneous Facts:

In the 1936-39 Great Arab Revolt, ten percent of the male population was killed, wounded, imprisoned, or exiled.

The 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine quoted from the Balfour Declaration, but neither document had any significant, direct legal effect.

During the eight years of the First Intifada, 1,600 people were killed, 88% Palestinians and 12% Israelis. In the four calmer years, 90 people died (22% Israelis). Then, in the eight years of the Second Intifada, 6,000 people died (17% Israelis). So the Second Intifada was way more violent than the first.

One important point Khalidi makes about the Second Intifada is that the campaign of suicide bombings backfired on the Palestinian movement by uniting their adversaries against their brutal tactics. Suicide bombings were even opposed by a majority of Palestinians.

Israel collects taxes in the occupied territories on behalf of the Palestinian Authority for a 3 percent fee. The PA in Ramallah collects taxes on all goods entering Gaza, but does not have to spend them in Gaza, a source of conflict between Gaza and the West Bank.

In an Arab summit conference in 1967, after the Six-Day War, Arab states tacitly acknowledged the legitimacy of Israel’s gains in the 1948 war when they demanded Israeli withdrawal from only the “lands which have been occupied since the aggression of June 5.” However, they also proclaimed “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it,” which received much more press. This statement was known as “the three noes.”

One of the biggest mistakes Arafat/ the PLO made was supporting Iraq in the Gulf War. It completely delegitimized the Palestinian leadership in the eyes of the world, even Arab states, which uniformly opposed Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait.

While Ehud Olmert progressively offered more and more of the Occupied Territories to the PA, starting under 70% and eventually going as high as 99.5%, Mahmoud Abbas did not accept because Olmert was unpopular and embroiled in scandal. Abbas felt that a new Prime Minister would not honor such a deal.

Reflection on And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

     This was a really good book. When I read Murder on the Orient Express, I was a little disappointed, but And Then There Were None is excellent from start to finish. Ten people arrive on an island estate, all invited for different reasons. It turns out that each of them has killed someone before in ways that allowed them to avoid legal justice. Then, they start dropping like flies in a way that matches an old children's rhyme. This was a really good and satisfying murder mystery.

Reflection on Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

     Pillars is truly an EPIC of historical fiction. This book covers lifetimes and generations of medieval English people and major historical events of 12th century England: the sinking of the White Ship, the anarchy that followed, the Battle of Lincoln (1141), and the assassination of Thomas Becket, among other events. But the focus of the books is not the historical events, it's the lives of the people who were on the periphery of history. We follow Tom Builder and his family at first, and then move onto other characters, all of whom are forced to deal with the evil William Hamleigh, who is just fucking horrible. The book is long. But even though it's about 1,000 pages, I read it in like a week because it was just so damn interesting and readable. I could not put it down.

    Maybe the best thing about Pillars is how Follett includes small details about medieval life. These include the fact that bishops had mistresses, although monks were more chaste, or that people kept stones in their fires to pull out and use to rapidly heat small amounts of water or soup. One interesting aside is that sermons were becoming more common in churches in the 12th century, and we see that change happen in the books. Follett also teaches us about how stained glass is cut, using a red-hot rod to trace a line and cause a crack. There are a million more examples of this in the book. The uniting theme of the book is the mission to build a church in Kingsbridge, so the reader learns a ton about architecture and its evolution in the High Middle Ages. People don't realize it, but lots of invention and innovation happened throughout the Middle Ages, and it wasn't just stagnation until the Renaissance.

    All in all, this is a highly recommended book.

Reflection on Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

    This was a great book that is written like a novel. Empire of Pain is a highly readable history of the Sackler family and their rise and fall from grace. The book starts with the brothers Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond, who made millions off of various medicines and advertisements for medicines. It continues, after Arthur's death, with the children of Mortimer and Raymond, who gradually take over the company. One in particular, Richard, son of Raymond, is especially important, as he invents and aggressively markets Oxycontin, the drug that would earn billions for the family and become a major cause of the opioid crisis in America.

    The entire first part of the book is really about Arthur, who was the leader of the brothers. If you are totally interested in the opioid crisis and not the family, this part is probably not even necessary for you to read. However, it was really well-written and interesting. You get to see Arthur rise up from a working-class family in Brooklyn and become a multi-millionaire who is completely obsessed with work and collecting art and artifacts from around the world. His only other hobby is donating said art and artifacts (as well as millions of dollars) to museums so that he could have his name put on galleries and wings. His second wife said that, "Arthur found safety and comfort in objects; they could not hurt him, they could not make demands on him." Arthur had very little public life besides his philanthropy. Arthur's death is so abrupt and sudden I had to reread it. He felt chest pains and went to a hospital without informing his family and checked in under a fake name. He did not want to be dependent on anyone and feared that someone may take advantage of him while he was impaired. By the time his family found out that he was in the hospital, he was already dead. He left $600,000 to each of his four children and over $100 million to his third wife. 

    In general, this family sucks. It's not just Arthur. They're not just callous to all the human lives they ruined with Oxycontin, but they are also just terrible to each other. Constant fighting over money, disrespect for one another, and backstabbing. The environment they lived in seems really horrible.

    Oxycontin even had a damaging effect on Purdue because it made higher returns than anything else. As a result, people didn't want to invest in products that couldn't return as much as Oxy, and there was simply nothing they could invent that was better. As a result, Purdue's profits depended more and more on Oxycontin, and the company never diversified. Purdue tried to claim that they were responsible for only 4% of the opioid epidemic, but that was only in pills sold. Purdue sold the highest-intensity pills, and when you account for that, they sold 27% of all oxycodone. In some areas, Purdue's market share was 30%. 

    The Sacklers, and their company, Purdue Pharma, knew early on that Oxycontin was addictive and that people were abusing it. They tried to argue that the special slow-release coating they put on it meant that the drug was not addictive, but all that happened was that addicted users would crush the pills or chew them to break that layer and get a huge hit of oxycodone. When Purdue finally got in trouble in 2007, three non-Sacklers took the fall and were each paid millions by the company. From 1997 to 2007, Purdue paid out $126 million to the Sacklers. But once they knew that the company was in trouble, they raided the treasury. After 2007, the company paid out billions to the Sacklers, who moved it overseas to avoid US authorities. The feds will be searching for that money for a long time.

Miscellaneous Facts:

• During the 1930's, many American medical schools established Jewish quotas, as by the mid-1930's more than 60% of applicants were Jewish. Yale marked Jewish applicants' forms with H for Hebrew.
• Curtis Wright (the former FDA Director, not the company Curtiss-Wright) left the FDA and worked for a small pharmaceutical firm for one year before accepting a position at Purdue Pharma (the Sackler company) that paid him a first-year compensation package of nearly $400,000 dollars. CORRUPT.
• African-Americans were hit less hard by the opioid epidemic. The author writes that doctors were less likely to prescribe black patients with opioids because they either did not trust them to take the drug responsibly or because they did not feel as much empathy or belief for/in their pain. 
• Tasmania, Australia grows 85% of all the thebaine in the world. Thebaine is similar to opium and used in Oxycontin.

Reflection on Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger

Storm of Steel was a very fast read for me, in which Junger details his experiences as a German soldier on the western front of World War One. Junger adapted his memoir from his journal, so sometimes the narrative is not so clear, but he writes very descriptively and there were times when I couldn't put this book down. One example is how he describes weathering an artillery barrage, like being tied to a post while a man swings a hammer at you over and over, just barely missing you, sometimes hitting the post, and sending splinters raining down over you.

Reading Storm of Steel gave me a better appreciation for the different phases of the war, as it began in pitched battles that resulted in stalemate and trenches, followed by a war of materiel and artillery barrages, followed by some mechanized warfare at the end.

Some things that stood out to me included the general absence of life not on the front. Junger frequently tells us about when he has leave to go back home or when he goes to training or when he is in the hospital convalescing, but only to inform us that there is a pause. The action of the book does not take place in the hospital or Hanover (Junger's home). Rather, he tells us that he is gone for a while, and then, in the next sentence, we are back fighting in northern France. I also thought it was strange that the officers and maybe other men wore their awards in battle. It is strange to imagine them fighting with ribbons and iron crosses on.

Junger as a person at times seems like an absolute madman who sometimes really enjoyed the war. He writes about how "these short expeditions, in which a man takes his life in his hands, were a good means of testing our mettle and interrupting the monotony of trench life. There's nothing worse for a soldier than boredom." The book is highly emotional, as Junger is deeply introspective about his own reactions to war. He is enthusiastic at times, and at other times paralyzed with fear, sometimes throwing himself on the ground and crying, "sobbing hysterically," as he writes it. Other times, he finds himself experiencing no fear at all and experiencing "fits of laughter I was unable to repress."  Twice Junger thinks that he is about to die, and his descriptions of that are very interesting, especially the second time. He mainly describes surprise and relief as his emotions, where he gains a deeper understanding of his purpose in life. For Junger, war evokes the entire range of human emotion, often not the types that you would expect would match the situation. He is unapologetic for showing emotion. Junger reflects on seeing a dead English soldier who was so young that Junger calls him a boy-- "the state, which relieves us of our responsibility, cannot take away our remorse; and we must exercise it. Sorrow, regret, pursued me deep into my dreams." I think that is the best line of the book.

Reflection on The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Empire by Max Boot

Boot's biggest point in this book is that America's small wars (Nicaragua, Haiti, Philippines) are the way we fight wars and the big wars (WWI/II, Korea) are exceptions. I think he is right about that. He convincingly points out dozens of different operations that US forces have been a part of from our founding until the modern day, and it is clear that we have a long history of interventionism. The problem is that he ties this history to his own interventionist ideology, and pointing out past interventions is seemingly his way to argue that there is precedent for more interventionism in the future. But the book is weak in evidence that those interventions worked. Boot is always arguing that the occupation just needed to go on for longer, and I think he would always argue that even if we occupied countries for centuries.

This is definitely a well researched book, though it is not really systemic in its treatment of small wars. The book is really split with the time period from the Revolution through World War One just recounting different random small wars and then a big skip to Vietnam and a little bit about the nineties. I don't think I changed to many preconceived notions, though I think I am a little more appreciative not of how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not a pure waste. While we should have been focused on China, fighting those wars definitely honed the skills of a generation of American warriors, and so it was not a pure loss of time, blood, and money. However, I would still say that America should not be invading landlocked countries without planning to stay for the long haul. The clearest lesson that I can get from this book and my other readings is that you can't win an occupation unless you plan for it to be permanent. If there is going to be a handoff later, you are always going to lose the territory by design. The great empires of history did not invade lands so that they could do nation building and then leave.

Miscellaneous Facts and Quotes:

• "The strategy of guerrilla war is to put one man against ten, but the tactic is to pit ten men against one." -Mao Zedong
• Congress authorized the Medal of Honor for officers after the battle for Veracruz in 1914 and gave out 55 medals, which was probably too many. Smedley Butler tried to refuse his because he thought the award was now watered-down.
• Haiti invaded and occupied the Dominican Republic from 1801-05 and 1822-43. The Dominicans could not defend themselves and even volunteered to return to Spanish sovereignty in 1861, though Spain pulled out in 1865. The Dominicans asked the USA to annex them but the treaty was defeated in the Senate in 1871 even though President Grant was interested.
• Smedley Butler voted for the socialist candidate Norman Thomas in 1936 and shared speaking platforms with members of the American Communist Party. He also opposed US intervention in World War Two. 
• In the early twentieth century, marines were known as "State Department troops."
• General Victor Krulak was only 5'5" 138 pounds. 
• Between 2003 and 2008, 10,000 people died of suicide bombings in Iraq
• "Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum." -Vegetius (Let him who desires peace prepare for war).

Reflection on Disunited Nations by Peter Zeihan

 So in this book, Peter Zeihan talks all about a predicted decline in American leadership, an increase in isolationism, and how that will affect the world. The book is about international relations, but honestly is even more about geography. I don't feel like writing a big post, but I'll say that it was interesting, but had no sources for anything and he talked way too much about rivers. I know he was getting stuff wrong because he said Cuba is only 90 miles from Miami, which is false. Cuba is 90 miles from Key West. So I think he is bullshitting. Way too much about rivers and demographics, not enough hard facts. I will say he made one interesting point about how or people to have kids, they need space, which is something interesting about suburbs.

All in all, I would say this was a decent introduction to international affairs, but was too light on the facts and too heavy on the sarcastic comments and speculation.

Reflection on Nemesis Games (The Expanse #5) by James S.A. Corey

 I really didn't take notes on this one, but just another solid entry in the Expanse series. I will say that I hate the redemption arc for Clarissa Mao and I wish we had more protomolecule in this one. I think splitting up the crew was cool, but there was a lot of stuff revealed that felt like it came out of nowhere. Like this book had a lot of character development that we should have already known about. I'm sick of new villains who just keep popping up. I liked the overall plot point that occurred when SPOILERS Earth was basically destroyed, which I assume will force everyone through the ring.

Reflection on Cibola Burn (The Expanse #4) by James S.A. Corey

These books just keep getting better. Last time I said that the third one was the best but I like this one even more. The author introduces us to a few new perspective characters, but I found two characters to be especially interesting. Elvi is a scientist who goes to the newly discovered planet of Ilus, far outside of our solar system, only accessible by a mysterious alien ring. She is written so well as an awkward genius, and you can really feel how self-conscious she can be but also how absorbed she can be in discovery and she is such a good character. I just love parts where she "felt immediately uncomfortable with her phrasing" and when she doesn't know what to do with her hands. They got her just right. And then Murtry is a sort of security chief who ends up as a really good villain, probably the best of the series because he is the villain who is the most present that we have seen so far. He is totally committed to protecting his company's claim to scientific research on Ilus, and he will stop at nothing to ensure it. He doesn't care about living or dying and he makes some pretty interesting points for a villain about bringing civilization to the galaxy. His self-assuredness really stands out and he is like a fanatic dedicated to his mission.

My favorite thing about this series continues to be the constant discovery of alien artifacts and ruins and the unraveling of the mystery of disappeared alien life. SPOILERS. Ilus turns out to be a sort of giant gas station used to mine lithium billions of years ago, and the ruins on the planet seemed to have been used for that. Interestingly, one character notes that things weren't really evolving on Ilus until about 1.5-2 billion years ago, which is about the time the designers of the ring disappeared.

Another great part of this book: constant use of the word "carapace."

Reflection on Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin (Reread)

So in the hype of House of the Dragon next year, I had to do a reread, and damn I am so excited to see how they bring the Dance of the Dragons to screen. It's gonna be awesome.

I forgot how good the beginning of the book, before the Dance is. Like Area riding Balerion to Valyria. And like Elissa Farman's journey west (where they went even farther then the hairy men of Ib). I would also love to read a whole story about Johanna Swan, who was sold into a Lysene pillow house and eventually became the ruler of Lys.  I also feel like there's a story that could be made about Thaddeus Rowan's squire, who got his ear cut off for bearing steel to the Kingsguard.

Here's a little hint of what's gonna be in the Dance of the Dragons in the new HBO show, straight from the book itself: 

Those who sat at the black council counted themselves loyalists, but knew full well that King Aegon II would name them traitors. Each had already received a summons from King’s Landing, demanding they present themselves at the Red Keep to swear oaths of loyalty to the new king. All their hosts combined could not match the power the Hightowers alone could field. Aegon’s greens enjoyed other advantages as well. Oldtown, King’s Landing, and Lannisport were the largest and richest cities in the realm; all three were held by greens. Every visible symbol of legitimacy belonged to Aegon. He sat the Iron Throne. He lived in the Red Keep. He wore the Conqueror’s crown, wielded the Conqueror’s sword, and had been anointed by a septon of the Faith before the eyes of tens of thousands. Grand Maester Orwyle sat in his councils, and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard had placed the crown upon his princely head. And he was male, which in the eyes of many made him the rightful king, his half-sister the usurper.

Against all that, Rhaenyra’s advantages were few. Some older lords might yet recall the oaths they had sworn when she was made Princess of Dragonstone and named her father’s heir. There had been a time when she had been well loved by highborn and commons alike, when they had cheered her as the Realm’s Delight. Many a young lord and noble knight had sought her favor then…though how many would still fight for her, now that she was a woman wed, her body aged and thickened by six childbirths, was a question none could answer. Though her half-brother had looted their father’s treasury, the princess had at her disposal the wealth of House Velaryon, and the Sea Snake’s fleets gave her superiority at sea. And her consort, Prince Daemon, tried and tempered in the Stepstones, had more experience of warfare than all their foes combined. Last, but far from least, Rhaenyra had her dragons.

“As does Aegon,” Maester Gerardys pointed out.

“We have more,” said Princess Rhaenys, the Queen Who Never Was, who had been a dragonrider longer than all of them. “And ours are larger and stronger, but for Vhagar. Dragons thrive best here on Dragonstone.” She enumerated for the council. King Aegon had his Sunfyre. A splendid beast, though young. Aemond One-Eye rode Vhagar, and the peril posed by Queen Visenya’s mount could not be gainsaid. Queen Helaena’s mount was Dreamfyre, the she-dragon who had once borne the Old King’s sister Rhaena through the clouds. Prince Daeron’s dragon was Tessarion, with her wings dark as cobalt and her claws and crest and belly scales as bright as beaten copper. “That makes four dragons of fighting size,” said Rhaenys. Queen Helaena’s twins had their own dragons too, but no more than hatchlings; the usurper’s youngest son, Maelor, was possessed only of an egg.

Against that, Prince Daemon had Caraxes and Princess Rhaenyra Syrax, both huge and formidable beasts. Caraxes especially was fearsome, and no stranger to blood and fire after the Stepstones. Rhaenyra’s three sons by Laenor Velaryon were all dragonriders; Vermax, Arrax, and Tyraxes were thriving, and growing larger every year. Aegon the Younger, eldest of Rhaenyra’s two sons by Prince Daemon, commanded the young dragon Stormcloud, though he had yet to mount him; his little brother, Viserys, went everywhere with his egg. Rhaenys’s own she-dragon, Meleys the Red Queen, had grown lazy, but remained fearsome when roused. Prince Daemon’s twins by Laena Velaryon might yet be dragonriders too. Baela’s dragon, the slender pale green Moondancer, would soon be large enough to bear the girl upon her back…and though her sister Rhaena’s egg had hatched a broken thing that died within hours of emerging from the egg, Syrax had recently produced another clutch. One of her eggs had been given to Rhaena, and it was said that the girl slept with it every night, and prayed for a dragon to match her sister’s.

Moreover, six other dragons made their lairs in the smoky caverns of the Dragonmont above the castle. There was Silverwing, Good Queen Alysanne’s mount of old; Seasmoke, the pale grey beast that had been the pride and passion of Ser Laenor Velaryon; hoary old Vermithor, unridden since the death of King Jaehaerys. And behind the mountain dwelled three wild dragons, never claimed nor ridden by any man, living or dead. The smallfolk had named them Sheepstealer, Grey Ghost, and the Cannibal. “Find riders to master Silverwing, Vermithor, and Seasmoke, and we will have nine dragons against Aegon’s four. Mount and fly their wild kin, and we will number twelve, even without Stormcloud,” Princess Rhaenys pointed out. “That is how we shall win this war.”

All in all, great book, and I'm glad I reread it to refresh myself before the show comes out. I highly recommend. 

Miscellaneous Facts:

• After the civil war that happened in the Iron Islands after Harren the Black died, Martin mentions that krakens appeared by the hundreds to eat the dead. So that, in addition to all the mentions of krakens in the narrow sea in ASOIAF, makes me think that GRRM really wants to bring krakens into the main series.
• Apparently Maegor Targaryen went to the Stepstones to kill a pirate named Sargoso Saan, who must be an ancestor of Salladhor Saan. 
• I forgot that when Aerea rode Balerion to Valyria that Balerion came back with wounds. Like what the fuck could have actually done that? He had a "jagged rent down his left side almost nine feet long..." I think another dragon that was even bigger is most likely. 
• In 115 AC, Daemon Targaryen's wife Rhea Royce fell from her horse and died, freeing him to marry. That is suspicious...
• There is a dragon named Morghul- clear reference to Tolkien 
• The Battle of the Kingsroad (The Muddy Mess) is clearly supposed to be like the Battle of Agincourt, literally with longbows and all.

Reflection on Abbadon's Gate (The Expanse #3) by James S.A. Corey

    I think this was the best book in the series so far. In this book, the world expands a lot more with new point of view characters converging on a mysterious ring at the far end of the solar system. I'm really mainly into the protomolecule saga with the ring and all that, but the human stories were more interesting in this one. I like that we still get Holden's point of view but that it's just one of a few different ones. I won't write any spoilers here, but things are starting to get very interesting in this book and I'm officially hooked on the series. 

Reflection on Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters-- and How to Get It by Laurie Mintz

 This was kind of a weird book for a man to read, but a female friend of mine was talking about how great it was and it is written by a UF professor so I thought I would give it a try. It's a book for women all about the social problem of heterosexual women not having enough orgasms due to their own ignorance about their bodies as well as their partners' apathy. The book is a really good and detailed guide for women on how to discover what they like and also has a final chapter that is meant for men to read as sort of a summation of the whole book. 

Ultimately, this book is all about communication. The ways that women orgasm are not a secret, but unfortunately women aren't nearly as comfortable as men in expressing their preferences. However, Mintz says that men are generally interested in learning, and that in surveys, most men want to learn how to please their partners but just don't know how. While about half of men are unsatisfied with the size of their penis, their penis is not what gives their (female) partners the most pleasure. In fact, in surveys women tend to say that communication and eagerness are far more important qualities than their partners' endowment.

Really interesting book that covered a lot of otherwise taboo subject and actually referenced Girls and Sex by Peggy Orenstein, another great book. I'll give it a strong recommend, and put some facts from the book below.

Miscellaneous Facts

• Only about 15% of women can have orgasms from thrusting alone
• 95% of women say the most reliable way for them to orgasm is from clitoral stimulation, with about half this group combining clitoral stimulation with penetration
• The vibrator was the fifth appliance to be electrified, acted the sewing machine, fan, teakettle, and toaster (and before the iron and the skillet)
• The inner two-thirds of the vagina have almost no touch-sensitive nerve endings and instead have more pressure-sensitive nerve endings. Surgery can even be performed in those parts of the vagina without anesthetic! 
• Generally, women who can orgasm from penetration alone are still orgasming from clitoral stimulation. This is because they tend to have their clitoris located within about one inch of their vagina, so that intercourse is close enough to stimulate their clitoris.
• The clitoris is actually very large, and has a sort of stem that goes under the mons pubis and two bulbs on either side of the vulva (kind of behind the outer labia) that many women find pleasurable to touch.
• Arousal in women is probably not related to sexual orientation. Studies have found that women who identify as lesbian get excited watching both lesbian and heterosexual sex and the same is true of women who identify as heterosexual.
• Most women require about twenty minutes of "fooling around" (author's words not mine lol) before they are ready for penetration, but in heterosexual couples, the average time is only five minutes.

Reflection on Caliban's War (The Expanse #2)

     I think this book was better than the first expanse book. Cool new characters and interesting new stuff happening with the protomolecule. I didn't really take any notes, so I'm not gonna leave a long review. But I'll just say I liked it even though it had a lot of the problems of the first, mainly being that Holden is just not an interesting character to me. But that doesn't matter. Because I like this book for its plot and the really cool story of the protomolecule. That's what I read it for. Also, why's it called Caliban's War? Did I miss that? Who/what is Caliban?

Reflection on Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy by Adam Jentleson

            In this book, the author puts forth an excellent and short history of the development of the filibuster, from the time of the founding (when no such thing existed) to the modern day, when the minority party has a veto over all legislation the majority tries to pass with a simple majority. The filibuster as we knew it doesn’t even exist anymore. Senators no longer have to give long speeches to keep business from moving on the floor. In fact, floor debate is no longer a feature of what was once America’s greatest deliberative body. By claiming the right to unlimited debate, minorities in Congress can demand that the majority use 60 votes to “end” a nonexistent debate that lacks any significant number of floor speeches. So that means that in the polarized era when everyone votes along party lines, the majority party in the Senate needs 60 votes to pass any legislation, something brand new to our republic.

            In 1806, the Senate created a loophole eliminating the previous question rule, which allowed senators to close debate and vote on a bill. At the time, it seemed unnecessary because gentlemanly norms led to all senators sharing mutual respect and avoiding superfluous debate; they were able to self-regulate for decades without any problems. But in 1841, a half-century after the founding, Senator John C. Calhoun invented the filibuster when he sought to stop a bill regarding the national bank. However, all he could do was unnecessarily delay the bill and annoy his opponents. It surprised the bill’s supporters, who sought to restore the previous question rule but backed down, being satisfied with just passing the original bank bill when Calhoun’s supporters got tired.

            Calhoun’s model allowed senators to cloak themselves in high-minded ideas like minority rights as they obstructed the democratic will of the people. It became especially popular among Southern senators to block civil rights bills. For example, in 1891, when the Senate sought to pass a bill to institute better voting rights for blacks in the South, Southerners filibustered it. For the first time since 1841, the senators in support of the bill sought to restore the previous question rule and had a majority to do so, but Southern senators pounced when they realized one of the supporting senators would be leaving town. They quickly brought one of their own men out of his sick bed to the Senate and another from home to quickly advance the bill to the floor and vote it down.

            The modern filibuster is a product of Senate Rule 22, originally created in 1917 with the intent to curb obstructionist debate, but perverted into a tool of obstructionists against the majority. It allowed senators to vote on “cloture,” ending debate; however, unlike the previous question rule that allowed a simple majority to end debate, Rule 22 set the requirement at two-thirds (later amended to three-fifths). The majority of senators who created the rule wanted to set it at a majority, but they compromised, as the Senate still held onto certain norms that are gone today that made it seem unthinkable that a third of the Senate would obstruct the rest. Rule 22 backfired, and now that it existed, it became expected that the majority would have to use it. So instead of the minority giving in when it seemed reasonable, it became more common in the twentieth century for the minority to only give in when defeated by Rule 22.

            When reformers tried to change Rule 22, Senator Richard Russell of Georgia seized the opportunity to grants some ultimately meaningless changes, but to also peg the two-thirds cloture requirement to the total number of senators, not to the total number present, making it even easier for a minority to block a bill. He also added new requirements to make it nearly impossible to alter Rule 22 in the future. From 1949 onward, there was a constant struggle to defeat Rule 22 by reformers but they were defeated again and again. Eventually, changes were made in the 1970’s. One was the “tracking” of legislation, so that a filibuster could block one bill, but still allow Senate business to continue. However, this meant that filibusters were easier because a senator could block a bill and other senators wouldn’t be as annoyed with him because Senate business would continue. Then, the cloture rule was amended in 1975 to require only three-fifths of the chamber to invoke cloture, but that number became harder and harder to reach as Senators became more partisan.

            The Senate used to be a more chaotic place that was leaderless, as individual senators could become influential, but the role of “Majority Leader” was not a powerful one until Lyndon Johnson occupied it in the late 1950’s. Until then, committee leaders were decided by seniority, but Johnson convinced older members of the senate to step away and let newer, younger faces take over to save the Democratic party. With the backing of his mentor and close ally, Richard Russell, Johnson was successful in changing the committee assignments from a seniority-based equation to one where he had significant control. Johnson was considered to be an aberration as a powerful majority leader, as once he left to become Vice President and eventually President, the Senate reverted back to its old ways somewhat. However, in the 1980’s and 90’s that started to change.

            Democrats in the 1980’s started issuing a report, the first opposition document, that sought to draw differences between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, something that had not been done before when the Senate was an institution more of individuals than of parties. It still hadn’t become systematic though, and after the Democrats retook the majority in 1986, they stopped publishing the document. But Senate Majority and Minority leaders began to take more control in ways not seen since Lyndon Johnson, especially in fundraising, where they started defending incumbents in primaries. Soon, because the leaders in the Senate could indirectly control funds to other senators’ campaigns, party leadership took control of the filibuster and in the 21st century, party leaders have used it to essentially create a requirement that every bill have three-fifths support to pass, not the original majority. Thanks to partisanship, few senators defect, and it is incredibly difficult for any one party to win three-fifths of the Senate.

The filibuster got completely out of control during the Obama administration, as Republicans filibustered against nominees they were still voting for. Under Clinton, nominees waited an average of 17 days for a vote and under George W. Bush it was 29 days. Under Obama, nominees waited an average of 125 days. Eventually, Democrats got fed up and executed what was dramatically called the “nuclear option” in 2013, abolishing the filibuster for non-Supreme Court judicial nominees. It was the biggest filibuster reform since the creation of Rule 22 in 1917. When the Democrats eliminated the filibuster for all judicial nominees except for the Supreme Court, they exempted the highest court in the land because they thought it would serve as a way to keep SCOTUS as the last line of defense for abortion and the filibuster would stop anti-abortion nominees. But within months of Trump becoming president Senate Majority Leader and Republican Mitch McConnell eliminated it, and put Justice Gorsuch on the court with 54 votes, one of the lowest vote-earning justices in modern times.

In the end of the book, Jentleson advocates for several change to Senate procedure to restore debate and make it more democratic. The biggest and best one is to require a minimum number of Senators to be on the floor for a minimum number of hours (more than half for five hours) before it can adjourn overnight or more than 16 hours. In practice, that would result in Senators being forces to spend at least some time on the floor together debating issues, which they no longer do. He also says that we should simply eliminate the filibuster. While budget reconciliation gives us a once-a-year exception to the filibuster, it is time to get rid of it and restore majority rule to the Senate. Additionally, he argues that the Democratic and Republican Parties should stop participating in primaries. It is not fair that they direct funds to incumbent Senators and stop new voices from joining politics.

All in all, this was a great and very readable book. It draws a lot from Robert Caro and Doris Kearns Goodwin on Lyndon Johnson as well as on Zephyr Teachout’s Corruption in America. I thought it was great and offered solid solutions. I would recommend all Democrats read it (it’s definitely written by a Democrat for Democrats).

 

Miscellaneous Facts:

• All other presidents combined endured 82 filibusters against their judicial nominees, but from 2009 to 2013, President Obama alone faced 86. 

Reflection on Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

             Leviathan Wakes was a really cool sci-fi book. I am trying to read more fiction and this was a really good choice. One excerpt from the book sums up the setting pretty well: “Earth had been so focused on her own problems that she’d ignored her far-flung children, except when asker for her share of their labors. Mars had bent her entire population to the task of remaking the planet, changing its red face to green. Trying to make a new Earth to end their reliance on the old. And the Belt had become the slums of the solar system.” Basically, the book is all about a time in the future when humans on Earth, Mars, the Asteroid Belt and the various moons of Jupiter and Saturn enter a time of conflict. About twenty million people live on the moons of Saturn and forty-five million on the moons of Jupiter. One moon of Uranus, the farthest out, as five thousand people. Earth has tens of billions. And meanwhile, Mormons are planning a mission to go even further into outer space. At the same time, a mysterious “protomolecule” is revealed that has the power to end all human life.

            I found the two main characters of the book whose perspectives we read from not incredibly interesting. I wished that we had more perspectives like in A Song of Ice and Fire. That said, it’s not really a character-driven book, and some characters felt cliché- mainly Holden, Miller, and Fred. But that said, the plot is what keeps you reading, and I read 300 pages in the first three days I read the book. It covers really interesting parallels to modern society like misinformation and the dangers of technological development. A really good debate that happens between two characters on whether to reveal some secret information is whether the public knows too much or doesn’t know enough. That feels so relevant to modern day when I think about the effects of the internet on society. Would we fix our problems by restricting the flow of information (including misinformation), or would it be better to spread even more information out there in the hopes that the truth will be more convincing in the end?

Reflection on Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

             I am undecided on whether or not I would recommend this book. I found it an interesting introduction to the murder mystery genre but ultimately unsatisfying. The end made the book feel kind of cheap and as if the story didn’t matter to me. I also got very annoyed by all the stereotyping of nationalities and faux diversity. Christie has all the characters go on about how diverse the people on the train are but they’re all just Europeans and Americans! They pass through Syria and Turkey and don’t encounter a single non-European person. Dumb. There’s also a ton of ridiculous statements people make like “Englishmen don’t stab.” Have you never heard of Jack the Ripper? Like there are so many moments where they remark on it being a womanly murder or with a “Latin temperament” and it really took me out of it. This detective is supposed to be a genius and he doesn’t think an Englishman will stab anyone? Now that I write all this down, I do not think I would recommend the book.

            All that said, I did fly through this book so it was definitely a page-turner. Christie’s style keeps you moving through things fast even if the story is a little confusing at parts. I was definitely very engaged by the book, but like I said, the ending made me feel like it wasn’t worth it. I have two other books of hers that I may or may not read.

Reflection on The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James

             This is one of the most unique books I’ve ever read. James writes a history book with a polemical style, including his own thoughts on the modern era (1938) towards the end of most chapters in short asides. But the core of the book is the Haitian Revolution, the greatest slave revolt in history. The story is an incredible testament to the triumph of the oppressed over the oppressors and it is an exciting read. At times, it is difficult to keep up with the names so I had to do a bit of googling, but mainly you just need to know about one guy: Toussaint Louverture, the leader and hero of the revolution. One passage that best exemplifies both James’ love of Louverture and his modern polemicizing is when he writes of Louverture that, “He said afterwards that, from the time the troubles began, he felt he was destined for great things. Exactly what, however, he did not know; he and his brother slaves only watched their masters destroy one another, as Africans watched them in 1914 – 1918, and will watch them again before long.”

            The brutality of slavery seems worse than anywhere else I have ever read about. James gives the reader appalling descriptions of it, for example, telling us that one-third of enslaved children born on plantations died of jaw-sickness, a mysterious illness that seemed to only affect enslaved children and was likely the result of a choice by mothers and midwives to kill the children rather than let them grow up in the cruelty of slavery. Most colonists in San Domingo (pre-revolution Haiti) were transitory, a problem that existed in the Spanish colonies as well. This meant that unlike in the English colonies, where colonists sought to stay and build a society, the French colonists just wanted to make as much money as possible, extract what wealth they could from the island, and return to France as wealthy merchants. Interestingly, racism grew stronger and stronger as time went on in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Mulattoes (an ugly term but the one that James uses) were all free up to the age of 24 by law in the 17^th century and the Negro Code of 1685 authorized white men to marry enslaved African women, freeing them and their children. Free Mulattoes and freed Africans had the same rights as free white men initially. But as the population grew, the French colonists developed a familiar hierarchy with Whites at the top, followed by Mulattoes, followed by Africans. Mulattoes were given just enough to bind them to the whites rather than the blacks and they formed the police organization responsible for protecting travelers and capturing escaped slaves. They also joined the militia. However, Mulattoes were still vulnerable to lynch mobs and would lose any case in court to a white man, significantly lowering their status. Yet until 1716, every slave who touched French soil was free, a law that was reaffirmed in 1762. Blacks and Mulattoes served nobility at court in Paris and some Mulatto children were sent to Paris to be educated. But in the 1750’s and 60’s persecutions of Mulattoes and free blacks grew. New laws were passed in San Domingo to ban Mulattoes from carrying weapons, meeting “on the pretext of” weddings, feasts or dances, staying in France, or taking the titles of Monsieur and Madame. They were left with the privilege of lending white men money (which I am sure they wouldn’t get back).

            The French Revolution came in 1789 and the Haitian Revolution in 1792, a time when San Domingo’s production of sugar cane and other agricultural products was at its most profitable heights. Slavers continued to bring in more and more slaves. In 1770 it was between 10-15 thousand brought in and by 1787, French slavers brought more than 40,000 slaves in chains to the colony per year. In 1789, there were half a million slaves in the colony, and more than two-thirds were born in Africa. This was not a stable society.

            When the French Revolution began, the “small whites,” AKA the whites who were not the largest landowners, joined the revolution. Due to their intense violence and lawlessness, the Mulattoes joined with the “big whites” and the royalists in opposing the revolution. The revolutionaries in Paris debated over what rights to give to Mulattoes in San Domingo and arrived at a compromise that every Mulatto born of two free parents would be given the vote- this meant giving the vote to just 400 men. This is pretty underwhelming, but at the time it was seen as a major achievement of equal rights. To bring the revolutionaries in San Domingo in order, the French government sent two regiments, but those soldiers quickly defected and joined the revolutionaries in San Domingo.

            Meanwhile, the enslaved Africans listened and understood that big changes were coming. Naturally, they began a revolution of their own and began escaping en masse to the countryside and mountains. The big whites, fearing the chaos in France, turned for help to Britain, Spain, and the United States but did not receive any. Instead, it was the Mulattoes, anxious about what little property they had, who volunteered to fight the slave revolution while the small whites demanded the exorbitant price of service of 2/3 of all the booty taken from recovered plantations. I won’t go into detail on Toussaint Louverture’s early life, except to say that when the revolution came, he was a middle-aged man, enslaved on a plantation where he was a sort of manager and had gotten some education.

            Upon becoming a leader, Louverture went to the Assembly of San Domingo, where he negotiated with the big whites to end the revolution. He pled that he would end it all if they would free just 60 slaves, but they would not accept even that. From then on, he knew that freedom would have to be taken by force. He built an army full of Africans born out of the colony who could not even speak French and the chief officers were also ex-slaves. I think that really emphasizes the breadth of the accomplishment—Louverture united men who didn’t even share a language under the leadership of former slaves—that is something astounding.

            Initially, Louverture did not seek independence, just the freedom of enslaved Africans in San Domingo, but the French government never believed that. Louverture eventually was forced to act against the Directory, then ruling France, when he invaded the Spanish side of the island, knowing that the French may turn on him and that he would need control over all of his flanks. Before Napoleon came to power, the colony was essentially in a civil war, with Louverture as the foremost warlord. Over the decade of the 1790’s, one-third of the 500,000 blacks were killed. Only 10,000 of the original 30,000 whites on the island remained, although about 30,000 of the original 40,000 free blacks and Mulattoes were still there.

            Despite all of the racism and betrayal by the whites, Louverture strongly believed in the greatness of revolutionary France and the importance of French culture and connection for Haiti. This was what killed him. He trusted too heavily in Napoleon, who sent General Leclerc to Haiti to reimpose slavery and secure the colony for France. Louverture simply did not believe this. As he fought with Leclerc, Louverture believed that the French general was acting outside of Napoleon’s orders and Louverture refused to believe that a fine revolutionary like Bonaparte would want to reimpose oppression on the island. Louverture was wrong. He planned to capture Leclerc and send him back to France with an account of Leclerc’s conduct, in the vain hope that Bonaparte would punish the not-so-wayward general. He hoped Bonaparte would see reason and that the relationship with France would be maintained but it was not to be. The author puts it well when he says that Louverture’s “politics lagged behind events.” Napoleon later said at St. Helena that he regretted capturing Louverture and putting him in conditions to die, as Louverture was truly a moderate who would have ruled the island as a colony of free men loyal to France or as a French ally. The critical moment when other Haitians began to lose trust in Louverture and everyone lost trust in Leclerc was when the French reimposed slavery in Guadeloupe, signifying the same plan for San Domingo. Even this caused Leclerc to lose faith in Bonaparte, as it made his job in San Domingo even harder as he and his troops were killed by Yellow Fever and other tropical diseases. Of the 34,000 French soldiers that landed, 24,000 were dead and 8,000 were in the hospital by the end of the expedition, leaving just 2,000 healthy and able to fight. They were ravaged.

            My biggest problem with this book is that the author is a complete and total raging Communist. He praises Robespierre and has a whole appendix lauding Fidel Castro and comparing him to Toussaint Louverture. I don’t know what to do with this information. The book was good, but stuff like that completely delegitimizes it in my eyes. I was literally writing “wtf” in my notes at points because I couldn’t believe what James was saying. Additionally, the author engages in a little too much hero worship over Louverture, talking about the man sleeping two hours a night and being satisfied only with a banana and a glass of water. I believe that he was a great and impressive man with lots of self-control but that is just plainly ridiculous. He was still a mortal.

            After finishing this book, I can’t help but think that there is sort of a trifecta of great American men (in the hemispheric sense) in this era: Washington, Bolivar, and Louverture. They have a lot of differences in class and race as well as language, but all three are legendary generals who were responsible for freeing their people from colonial oppressors. Bolivar even spent some time in Haiti. Yet all three came to different conclusion on slavery. Washington preserved it and was a slaver all his life. Bolivar was a slaver but sought to free the slaves. Louverture’s entire reason for being was to free his enslaved people. Both Louverture and Bolivar are especially famous for spending so much time in the saddle, riding insane distances frequently from one end to the other of their respective lands. Only Washington, though, can be said to have died with his country intact, as Bolivar watched Gran Colombia fracture and Louverture, tricked by Napoleon, was captured and died before his revolution was complete. All three were well-educated and they would all be very interesting dinner companions. None of them ever met each other but I would like to hear their conversation if they did.

            To end, I would just like to point out that this revolution was a bloody and horrible event on all sides, but that only the side of the freed slaves could be justified. In this war, General Dessalines famously massacred whites all over the island, but you have to remember that the whites had been burying black up to their necks near insects, drowning escaped slaves, and engaging in some of the worst cruelties imaginable for two centuries before revolution broke out. The whites fought a war of extermination just like Dessalines—only they lost. During the war, sixteen of Louverture’s generals were chained to a rock where they wasted away for 17 days. Prisoners were broken on the wheel. But in light of all this brutality on both sides, you just have to ask what were they fighting for? And obviously fighting to free people from slavery is far more righteous that fighting to put chains back on the slaves’ necks. So I’m with the Haitians.

 

Reflection on To Be a Jew by Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin

            This was a really good book, although I definitely did not agree with everything in it. I found it at Barnes and Noble and enjoyed the parts that I read, so I bought it. I did not realize it was written by an Orthodox rabbi! But I did enjoy his discussions of Jewish morality especially, such as mercy, modesty, and acts of kindness being ritical to Jewishness, charity as being above all other offerings, how to best observe the sabbath, and the pro-poor laws on work and wages.

            However, the problem I see with the author’s writing is that he doesn’t really distinguish between which commandments and practices are most important and which or not. His interpretation of Judaism seems all-consuming to me, so that it would totally remove the Jew from society, constantly observing obscure holidays and engaging in arcane practices. It is unclear in the book which practices and observances are truly biblically-grounded. I am skeptical about the practices derived from non-biblical sources or strained metaphors So I would like to read a Reform Judaism version of this book.

Reflection on A History of American Law by Lawrence Friedman

            This book was excellent, and I would recommend it to other law students. I read it during the winter break of my first year in law school and I recognized many concepts from my Torts, Property, and Civil Procedure courses that I took last semester. I am sure that I also read plenty of pages covering topics that will come up in my next semester. The book is thorough and well-written. People who saw me reading it assumed that from the name and topic that it would be dry, but this was actually an extremely engaging book.

            On the subject matter, the book goes chronologically through American history, starting in colonial times. But it flies quickly through the twentieth century. The main focus is definitely pre-20^th century, especially the post-revolutionary period through the nineteenth century. All in all, this was an excellent read.