Missive #527 Published 7 July 2025

The world is in the grips of mass formation—a dangerous, collective type of hypnosis—as we bear witness to loneliness, free-floating anxiety, and fear giving way to censorship, loss of privacy, and surrendered freedoms. It is all spurred by a singular, focused crisis narrative that forbids dissident views and relies on destructive groupthink.
In The Psychology of Totalitarianism, world-renowned Professor of Clinical Psychology Mattias Desmet deconstructs the societal conditions that allow this collective psychosis to take hold. By looking at our current situation and identifying the phenomenon of “mass formation”—a type of collective hypnosis—he clearly illustrates how close we are to surrendering to totalitarian regimes.

Missive #524 Published 3 July 2025

Emmy-award winning gadfly Mike Rowe presents a ridiculously entertaining, seriously fascinating collection of his favorite episodes from America’s #1 short-form podcast, The Way I Heard It, along with a host of memories, ruminations, illustrations, and insights. It’s a delightful collection of mysteries. A mosaic. A memoir. A charming, surprising must-read.
Mike Rowe’s The Way I Heard It collects thirty-five fascinating stories “for the curious mind with a short attention span.” Five-minute mysteries about people you know, filled with facts that you didn’t.

Missive #522 Published 2 July 2025

Where others saw only sage, a salt lake, and a great desert, the Mormons saw their "lovely Deseret," a land of lilacs, honeycombs, poplars, and fruit trees. Unwelcome in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, they migrated to the dry lands between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada to establish Mormon country, a wasteland made green.

Like the land the Mormons settled, their habits stood in stark contrast to the frenzied recklessness of the American West. Opposed to the often prodigal individualism of the West, Mormons lived in closely knit – some say ironclad – communities. The story of Mormon country is one of self-sacrifice and labor spent in the search for an ideal in the most forbidding territory of the American West.

Missive #522 Published 30 June 2025

I did not like this book as well as An Evening of Long Goodbyes but it is an 'interesting' read. The author has a couple more that I'll read when I can get to them.

Missive #519 Published 23 June 2025

1812 to the Civil War"" has the stirring drama of a good historical novel. He ignores minor trivia, stresses key events and personalities. There are fascinatingly detailed portraits of such figures as the choleric Jackson, the treacherous Santa Ana, the moody Lincoln. And there are firm action accounts of the Battle of New Orleans, the Alamo and the Mexican-American War.