This was such a delightful book, full of fascinating science and history. Ever since Charles Darwin cherrypicked his data to suit Victorian sensibilities about gender roles, schools teach that the female of any species is generally a meek, nurturing caretaker while the male gads about hunting, fighting, and flaunting bright plumage. Cooke goes into the field with many different scientists to observe the many ways that creatures in nature defy this theory, and also digs into the science to show that general assumptions made by observing limited species are far from universal. The content sounds dry, but Cooke’s writing style is super enjoyable. Really great read.
Tag: genre-social commentary
Wintering: the Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, by Katherine May
As the author struggles with an emotional “winter” in her life, she finds ways to recover her equilibrium by observing how cold-weather cultures deal with the gray chill of wintertime. I found this book a little hard to get into; as a lifelong fan of wintertime and winter activities, I struggled with equating the season to a down emotional time. However, I can see the benefit of this book for people who a) find it hard to take time for themselves, and b) people who don’t know how to handle winter chill.
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, by Clint Smith
I cannot tell you how good this book was. Smith dives deeply into plantations, memorials, cemeteries, prisons, and his own family oral history; he gathers viewpoints directly from docents and other visitors, and lets their words stand next to what facts can be gleaned from the historical record. He talks with people who have set ideas on what their history is, and with those who are still open to learning more; he interrogates the stories that Americans tell themselves about their shared history, and where those stories originated (very often as propaganda). He wanders through the American landscape as if it’s a crime scene, which it very much is; not only were horrific crimes committed here against so many, but the crime against Black America is still unfolding, and the weight of it affects everything we do and defines who we are. The narration is often punctuated by piercing insights, and the prose is just beautiful. Truly amazing portrait of how far we’ve come, where we are now, and how far we have yet to go in reckoning with the impact of slavery in America.
Bullshit Jobs, by David Graeber
I agreed heartily with most of this book but it was oh. so. repetitive. Many (most?) people work “bullshit” jobs that could be automated, streamlined, or eliminated altogether; however, because they need the paycheck (or because middle managers need a certain minimum number of people underneath them), they find themselves trying desperately to look busy or otherwise justify their positions while despairing over the fact that what they do makes no meaningful contribution to the world. Meanwhile, people who work real, needed jobs (teachers, sanitation workers, caretakers) are deliberately undervalued and looked down upon despite fulfilling arguably more necessary and beneficial roles in society. This book would have been stronger without many of the first-person accounts that crowd the pages; any one would have been enough to illustrate Graeber’s point but he always includes multiple sources, and the accumulation of complaints from people trapped in dead-end jobs weighs upon you as you read. The book is a takedown of capitalism, which is supposed to produce hyper-efficiency but instead rewards bureaucracy (the more intricate your system, the more you can pass money around); it also lays bare the hypocrisy of pretending that if you aren’t working hard and long, you shouldn’t be paid, which forces workers into 40-hour work weeks doing work that could take them one tenth the time. The last chapter proposes a universal basic income, which after reading about all the nonsensical things people get paid for (and all the really vital work for which people don’t get paid), honestly seems like the only logical and fair way forward.
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson
Wilkerson posits that the race-based unspoken social rules in America are analogous to a caste system like the one in India, and also pitilessly demonstrates how Nazi Germany formed their own systems of categorizing people based on what they learned of the US. There are oh so many details in this book (and it’s another one which I intend to buy later, so I can mark it up and drink it in properly) but my best takeaway from this book is that if you look at racism in the US from the viewpoint of a caste system, then it makes total sense that people doing racist things don’t see themselves as racist; the word “racist” implies a person who is acting outside the bounds of civil behavior, whereas since the entire foundation of American civil society is bounded and defined by racism, those steeped in that culture will justify any actions taken in upholding that system. With patient, inexorable detail, Wilkerson uncovers the pillars supporting the caste system, and provides many examples of how it hurts all Americans, not just the ones at the bottom.