The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

#807
Title: The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Author: Barbara W. Tuchman
Publisher: Knopf
Year: 1984
447 pages

Audiobook.

In A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, Tuchman follows details of individuals' lives to paint a portrait of the 14th century. In The March of Folly, she tells four tales--the destruction of Troy, the fall of the Vatican, the loss of the American colonies, and the war in Vietnam--to illustrate "folly"--governments or leadership groups that subvert their own interests despite evidence and warnings that they're not acting in their own best interests. It's an interesting question, though Tuchman ultimately succeeds in underscoring it more successfully than answering it. Her examples are spelled out and useful in promoting discussion. If I take anything from it, it's that "checks and balances" is a fiction.

The level of detail is dense and hard to follow, at least in an audiobook, but I didn't find that I needed to absorb and retain all of it. Tuchman brings the text back around to her question every few pages, so as in A Distant Mirror, the wash of data supports but isn't central to following the thesis. At times, this can result in a sense of plodding along through facts in order to get to the discussion. The Vietnam section was longer than the others, probably due to its recency (and, perhaps, it was the impetus for the inquiry), and so becomes more bogged down in details.

Given current political and governmental behaviors, this book has lost none of its relevance.

Know Your Poisonous Plants: Poisonous Plants Found in Field and Garden

#806
Title: Know Your Poisonous Plants: Poisonous Plants Found in Field and Garden
Author: Wilma Roberts James
Publisher: Naturegraph Publishers
Year: 1973
99 pages

This useful handbook of the early 1970's features useful descriptions and line drawings of poisonous plants, most of which can be found in my yard, though I swear I didn't landscape with this in mind. I take some exception to the inclusion of marijuana, which though psychoactive does not cause rashes, convulsions, or death as do so many plants. (Please note that there is no marijuana in my garden.)

My used copy was helpfully annotated by the previous owner, generally in regard to livestock, e.g., for poisonous hemlock, "giVE CNS STIMULENT (DO PRAM) TANNIC ACId (i.e. INSTANT TEA) HELP PRECIPITATE OUT MERK VET MAN NO HELP" and for larkspur, "TREATMENT: DO NOT EXCITE RELIEVE BLOAT". These cures and anodynes please me at least as much as the handbook.

The Invisible Cure: Why We Are Losing the Fight Against AIDS in Africa

#805
Title: The Invisible Cure: Why We Are Losing the Fight Against AIDS in Africa
Author: Helen Epstein
Publisher: Picador
Year: 2007/2008
352 pages

One of the better HIV books I've read recently. Epstein writes well and although this is information-heavy, it moves right along and I was sorry when I finished.

Epstein's focus is on infrastructure misunderstandings about African HIV transmission and faulty prevention and intervention strategies based on incorrect assumptions. She updates the reader on relatively new theories of HIV's origins and early spread (including a very clear explanation of how passaging strengthens a virus). She answers the important questions that were not addressed in Togarasei et al.'s The Faith Sector and HIV/AIDS in Botswana: Responses and Challenges, which are What did sexual partnerships look like prior to the arrival of Christianity, and does that affect HIV transmission patterns? Her answers are that in many of the areas currently hardest hit by HIV, polygamy/polyandry was socially acceptable, and that concurrent long-term partnerships may spread HIV more effectively than serial monogamy. If that's hard to picture, she's included a flip book. Really. It's the only scientific treatise I've ever seen with a flip book, and it's quite effective.

The last couple of chapters are less-well integrated and read more like articles. The last chapter ends abruptly and disappointingly. I would have liked at least a summary of the book's main recommendations.

The Brummstein

#804
Title: The Brummstein
Author: Peter Adolphsen
Translator: Charlotte Barslund
Publisher: Amazon Publishing
Year: 2003/2011
80 pages

Ebook.

"All around them, chemistry carried out its destructive business...." A strange but engaging novella presented more or less in the language of a monograph on a scientific peculiarity, though the putative author knows more than he would have for complete verisimilitude. A useful structural comparator is Brooks's People of the Book, though here the point seems to be that human concerns and history are ephemeral and trivial, perhaps the opposite of Brooks's theme.

There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children

#803
Title: There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children
Author: Melissa Fay Greene
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Year: 2006
480 pages

Audiobook.

In some ways, this book is overambitious. The author attempts to tell three intertwined stories: AIDS in Africa/Ethiopia, one woman's efforts, and much more peripherally, the author's adoption of two Ethiopian children. However, these strands are not balanced and don't ultimately braid together in a satisfying and even way, though it's sufficient. Less well-executed is the narrative voice, which cannot find its genre--is it reportage, indignant essay, or fiction? It's not intended to be fiction, but the frequent interior monologues and statements about how people other than the author (who is also a character) feel and what they're thinking are incredibly jarring and decrease my belief in the story's veracity. They raise questions about Greene's assumptions. Since many of these putatively nonfictional passages rely on pathos, they're particularly intrusive. The audiobook version features swelling emo instrumental riffs at especially poignant moments, which was startling and annoying.

Someone must tell Greene that "lowly" does not have a primary meaning of "quietly" or "in a low voice," but "humbly." She uses it several times.

These criticisms aside, it's an engaging and maybe even important book, probably an accessible way to interest a book group in AIDS prevention and intervention in Africa. 

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

#802
Title: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
Author: Susan Cain
Publisher: Crown
Year: 2012
333 pages

Audiobook.

Very readable and interesting, though sometimes repetitive and sometimes overgeneralized. I read this as an audiobook and might have found it more compelling with the opportunity to look up the studies the author references. Probably a useful popular text for teaching management and pedagogy classes; at the least, a good stimulus for reflection or discussion.

Twenty Chickens for a Saddle: The Story of an African Childhood

#801
Title: Twenty Chickens for a Saddle: The Story of an African Childhood
Author: Robyn Scott
Publisher:Penguin
Year: 2008
464 pages

Robyn Scott's family is pleasingly eccentric, so her developmental adventures in Botswana are enjoyable and sometimes odd or alarming. I could leave it at that, but another thread that runs through the stories is the ever-increasing presence of HIV in the community. This interested me as much as, if not more than, Scott's amusing episodic memoir.