kevmoo

I've consumed a lot of content in this area (books, videos, etc). I felt like the authors were a bit distracted here. What is M theory. A discussion of creation myths and how they map to our desire to understand. I felt that the book jumped around a bit. I felt the treatment of M theory to be a bit lacking. I did learn some things. I came away with a much greater appreciation for Feynman, especially. But I was also a bit disappointed. I'm not sure how to compare the content of this book to that of Brian Greene, but Dr. Greene does weave a better narrative.

Genghis Khan was far more civilized than most Europeans of his age. He was just a much better military strategist.

Essential for a non-Eurocentric view of world history.

A great book. Pushing 50 years since it was published, it holds up well.

The performance was solid although it seemed there was a bit of inconsistency with the performers, which was a bit confusing.

An amazing and important book. I learned so much about the Communist Party in the US pre-WWII and the "Red Scare" post WWII.

Oppenheimer was a complicated man, but no doubt brilliant, patriotic, and important.

It's so crazy to see this figure overlapped with Einstein and Feynman and Bohr, among others.

My favorite bit of the book came towards the end. Oppenheimer on style:

"The problem of doing justice to the implicit, the imponderable, and the unknown is of course not unique in politics. It is always with us in science, it is with us in most trivial of personal affairs, and it is one of the great problems of writing and of all forms of art. The means by which it is solved is sometimes called style. It is style which complements affirmation with limitation and with humility; it is style which makes it possible to act effectively, but not absolutely; it is style which, in the domain of foreign policy, enables us to find harmony between the pursuit of ends essential to us, and the regard for the views, the sensibilities, the aspirations of those to whom the problem may appear in another light; it is style which is the deference that action pays to uncertainty; it is above all style though which power defers to reason."

My only critique is style, ironically. A large amount of the book is quotes from FBI interviews and wiretaps. Lot's of back and forth which made the content, at times, difficult and tedious to follow.

The production quality was jumpy at times. Clearly lots of editing and very obvious cuts. Asides from hiccups, the quality of the performance was top-notch.

For anyone that is a lover of the American Republic, this is a must read book.

My only gripe: at times there are some weirdness in the sound production, but Lessig's reading is clear and persuasive.