Book completed

Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, by Fareed Zakaria. The author writes a column in the Washington Post and I believe is also regularly on CNN; he name-drops a variety of famous people and writes knowledgeably about politics and economics. In this book, he talks about the dynamic that often happens when a society experiences change in terms of technology, economic factors, and/or identity - many are open to the new change but others find it stressful and prefer things as they supposedly used to be. In the first half of the book, he talks about the history of this open/closed dynamic in the history of the West, especially the liberalism and prosperity in the Dutch republic, which was brought to England with William of Orange, then we learn about the French revolution, then the Industrial Revolution in England and the United States. Perhaps the most interesting tidbit I got from the book was in this latter section - apparently Americans stole intellectual property from the British and also flooded the British market with cheaper and often lower quality goods, just as the U.S. accuses China of doing today. However, since I'm already pretty familiar with Western history, I would have been much more interested to read about the open/closed dynamic elsewhere in the world. In the second half of the book, he explores the open/closed dynamic in terms of economic globalization, information and computer technologies, identity politics, and the threats of China and Russia. This half of the book was rather rambling, and honestly, when I read about the history of finance (as in the globalization channel) I tend to glaze over. The summary was pretty good, though.

Book completed

The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller. This wonderful and beautifully written novel is the story of The Iliad from the perspective of Patroclus, the lover and soulmate of Achilles. I've read it before and didn't really intend to reread it, because the story is so sad, but it was my husband's book club book this month, so I read it again after he'd read it for the first time. I'd give it 4.9 stars out of 5, because I need to reserve 5 stars for the author's Circe, which I think is even better. I especially appreciate that they don't even head toward Troy until the book is halfway over; their time together elsewhere is so much nicer to read about. I read The Iliad when I was 15ish, and with this book it finally makes sense, showing us how awful Agamemnon was and what could have been going through Achilles's head.