Books I Read

  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53946.The_Reformation This is the third book I’ve read in as many months that really shook me. The previous two reviews are certainly not my best efforts but these last few months have been like drinking from a firehose. Each of the books were over 600 pages with this one clocking in at just over 700. I have tackled history books of this length before and enjoy the depth and detail. What I was not prepared for was the complete shattering of my conviction that freedom and democracy was ever a goal for western civilization. I am at a loss for words. So much information. It’s hard to focus on any particular narrative. What lessons do I draw from the chaos of the past? Msgr. MacCulloch has delivered on all the reviews praising his work. He has done exhaustive research and created a magnum opus concerning the events of what we know as the Protestant Reformation. He starts with an excellent prolog as to the situation of the western Christian chur...

  A New World Begins: The History of the French Revolution by Jeremy D. Popkin | Goodreads After my introduction into the French Revolution via Madame de Stael, I tracked down a title that could give me a more general overview of the events French Revolution. This edition was published recently, which I find important. Reexamination of records, memoirs, and publications by fresh eyes is what history is. What lessons do we take from the past? Which lessons are relevant to the era we’re living in.   Where does one start the start of the story of the French Revolution? I recently heard the term extinction burst; the existing societal order is lashing out amidst it’s death throws caused by its inability to adapt to the needs of the governed society. It no longer functions in its mandate of stability and order for the larger population. The administrative and governmental apparatus has degenerated into benefiting a small population of elites at the apex of society at the expense ...

  Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Stael by J. Christopher Herold | Goodreads I know nothing about the French Revolution. I was taught the French Revolution was tyrannical inept King, mob violence, The Terror, Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington saves the day at Waterloo. French people get on with being very French. I've decided to read a couple books about it. This is from my shelf full of old books. It is a biography of one Madame Germaine de Stael. An influential and notorious figure during the French Revolution, she was an eccentric intellectual that hosted one of the famous salons of pre-revolution France. It was in these salons and other social clubs that the philosophy of the revolution was developed. Critically, it was then disseminated to the public by the numerous printing houses of Paris in almost real time. Madame de Stael can be described as a political provocateur whose every plan and intrigue failed miserably. She published plays and books with thinly disguise...