The Spanish Flu, which raged across the world as a pandemic from 1918-1920, infected one out of three people IN THE WORLD (500 million out of 1.5 billion). It killed anywhere from 10-20% of the people it infected, so somewhere between 50 and 100 million people died. If the upper range is correct, it killed […]
This is the second book I’ve read this year about the Golden State Warriors. The first book was Golden Days by Jack McCallum, which dealt with one season and specifically on Jerry West’s role with the team. This book is broader in scope as it tells how the team was turned around by Joe Lacob and […]
This book is a collection of speeches Scalia gave throughout his time as an Appeals and Supreme Court Judge on many different occasions and many different topics. As you might imagine, a man of his stature and position was asked to speak quite a bit. The book came out last year – a little over […]
I really enjoyed this book. It’s essentially about Jerry West and specifically about his role in two different NBA seasons – 1971-72 as a member of the Laker team that set the all-time record for wins in a season (since broken twice) and the all-time record of 33 games in a row (that still stands […]
Interesting book that was an easy read. Each invention is a chapter that essentially stands alone, so it’s an easy book to pick up and put down. The author’s self-described purpose is not to list the fifty most economically significant inventions. It’s instead to tell of interesting inventions that shaped the economy by tugging on […]
The subtitle to this book is “Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder.” It’s a fascinating book written with a thesis that Woodrow Wilson and Vladimir Lenin actually had a lot in common in their view of and approach to the world. The author’s contention is that both men used the end […]
I’ve read probably three or four books by Mark Bowden, and enjoyed them all. This book is about the battle of Hue, the second largest city in South Vietnam, that took place as part of the Tet Offensive in January and February of 1968. The Tet Offensive was largely a military failure – the North […]
The subtitle of this book is “Inside the Language of Women’s Friendships,” which begs the question – why did I read it? The answer is that I actually got the book for my wife after reading a review of it in the Wall St Journal, but since she has a longstanding policy of never reading […]
Fascinating book about the history of Bellevue Hospital in New York. Before reading this book, I thought Bellevue was a mental institution and didn’t even know it was still in existence. Contrary to my assumptions, it’s very much in existence and is one of the oldest and most respected hospitals in the country. It actually […]
Book is about the 1840 presidential campaign between William Henry Harrison and incumbent President Martin Van Buren. This campaign featured the incredibly memorable slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too,” referring to Harrison and his running mate, John Tyler. Harrison was renowned for winning the battle of Tippecanoe (Indiana) during the War of 1812. Even though this […]
thegamutblog 