The Evolution of Mediocrity
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution has for a long time been the most widely accepted secular explanation for how living organisms change over time. In t...
Category: Book review
Notes and summaries on relevant books. These articles rather seek to summarize and draw out original concepts directly attributable to the author.
The Fog of War
The photo above was taken by Robert Capa, the only civilian photographer to follow the Allied troops landing at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Capa took 106 photo...
The Origins of Reason
What does it mean, to be rational? This is the question that Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber ask in their revolutionary book, The Enigma of Reason. This book was a...
Does Reputation Matter?
It is fascinating to observe how people become obsessed with their reputation. This is especially true in the era of social media. I find this fascinating becau...
Radical Candor
Kim Scott’s book Radical Candor is a truly fascinating management book. You can tell it is a good book because it is hard to summarize. Each chapter is fi...
The Art of Dealing with Difficult People
The modern relevance of Stoic ideas is beautifully explained by the American philosopher William B. Irvine in two of his books, A Guide to the Good Life: The An...
The Ajax Dilemma
The Ajax Dilemma is a fantastic interpretation of the Iliad by the classicist philosopher Paul Woodruff, centering on the tensions arising between Ajax, Odysseu...
Designing the Office
In Cubed (2015), Nikil Saval offers a refreshing and well-sourced history of the American office, from the counting houses of the nineteenth century to the Goog...
The Limits of Reason
The idea that man is a fundamentally rational being goes back a long way. Descartes believed that our capacity for thinking and reasoning would allow us to disc...
The Nature of Technology
William Brian Arthur’s most recent book, The Nature of Technology: What it is and How it Evolves, is a truly interdisciplinary work that will take you through a...