2024

Missive #332 Published 15 August 2024

This deeply informed book traces the dramatic history of early Soviet-western relations after World War I. Michael Jabara Carley provides a lively exploration of the formative years of Soviet foreign policy making after the Bolshevik Revolution, especially focusing on Soviet relations with the West during the 1920s. Carley demonstrates beyond doubt that this seminal period—termed the "silent conflict" by one Soviet diplomat—launched the Cold War. He shows that Soviet-western relations, at best grudging and mistrustful, were almost always hostile. Concentrating on the major western powers—Germany, France, Great Britain, and the United States—the author also examines the ongoing political upheaval in China that began with the May Fourth Movement in 1919 as a critical influence on western-Soviet relations.

Missive #331 Published 13 August 2024

A collection of essays on society, environment, politics and economics written between 2012 and 2014. This is the second book in the Collapse Chronicles which are compilations of blog posts to ClubOrlov. I have a quoted from two of those essays here.

Missive #329 Published 10 August 2024

Created by the bestselling SF novelist Jerry Pournelle, THERE WILL BE WAR is a landmark science fiction anthology series that combines top-notch military science fiction with factual essays by various generals and military experts on everything from High Frontier and the Strategic Defense Initiative to the aftermath of the Vietnam War. THERE WILL BE WAR is a treasure trove of science fiction and history that will educate and amaze new readers while reminding old ones how much the world has changed over the last three decades. Most of the stories, like war itself, remain entirely relevant today.

Missive #327 Published 6 August 2024

With ClubOrlov just over four years old, [2008-2011] I am publishing a "best of" book of essays. These are 30 of the most popular articles chosen from the ones that have been published on ClubOrlov. A lot has changed during this time; four years ago this book would have been largely about the future, but now it is largely about the present. In preparing the manuscript for publication, I haven't found anything that I would want to change or retract.

The book's title should be self-explanatory. I am absolutely positive that collapse is underway. I am also absolutely positive that with a bit of preparation and adaptation, some physical, some mental, a lot of us can pull through if we really try. Lastly, I am absolutely positive in my overall outlook and disposition, and hopeful that a fast but thorough collapse will leave enough of the planet in a non-toxic, non-radioactive, non-strip-mined, non-cratered state to allow for our continued existence as a species.

Missive #326 Published 5 August 2024

I had never seen Master John Wyclif so afflicted. He was rarely found at such a loss when in disputation with other masters. He told me later, when I had returned them to him, that it was as onerous to plunder a bachelor scholar's books as it would be to steal another man's wife. I had, at the time, no way to assess the accuracy of that opinion, for I had no wife and few books ...'So begins another delightful and intriguing tale from the life of Hugh de Singleton, surgeon in the medieval village of Bampton, near Oxford, and bailiff of Bampton Castle at the behest of Lord Gilbert Talbot. Hugh sets his cap at the delightful Kate, who proves equally resourceful in the search for the missing books. Some very determined adversaries are out to stop him, permanently if necessary - but are they motivated by greed or a more personal animosity? Then the corpse of a poor scholar, who had tried to sell one of the books, is found in the river: but he had not simply drowned ...<.p>

Missive #324 Published 3 August 2024

A very interesting book. It is no coincidence that social media sites use the same techniques to hook their users as the slot machines builders use to hook their players. The book explains a lot about why generation Z is how and why they are the way they are and what can be expected from future generations to come. The good news is that this is a worldwide issue since the Internet is worldwide so the United States is only at a disadvantage to those countries that suppress smartphone usage by their children. The bad news is there are countries that do that.