Notices by Sean Bala (seanbala@mas.to), page 8

"Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny. Now the time has come when we shall redeem our pledge - not wholly or in full measure - but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, #India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance."

- Jawaharlal Nehru, 14 August 1947

#IndianIndependenceDay @mastodonindians

@anirvan This is so cool!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_Porch_Forum

I grew up near Vermont and it looks like there is coverage near my hometown.

I feel like the #Fediverse could learn some good lessons from this endeavor.

I've always had a fascination with local instances here on Mastodon. I chose a more general one when I signed up but if ever move to a place or settle in a place with a robust or active instance, I would consider moving there.

@zwol @luis_in_brief

Gormenghast is a great answer. Completely sui generis work unlike anything I've read. I think it's author was primarily an artist before writing the books. It reminds me a bit of what was said about Orson Welles and "Citizen Kane" - because he had never made a motion picture, he did not know what he was not supposed to do!

@lex I might also add "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson - was one of the fires that started the modern Environmental movement.

@lex

Maybe not a positive example by it is often said that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe was one of main catalysts of the American Civil War. When Lincoln met her, he said "Here's the the little lady who started the great war."

Beyond its now-problematic portrayals of race, the book got ordinary people talking about the horrors of chattel slavery in the US in a way they had not before. It was talked about everywhere and made abolition more palatable for ordinary people.

And two works of fiction for fun -

9) "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck

10) "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson

Both are beautiful, haunting books. And I think they capture a certain American spirit. Of course, there are many other such books, but these two fiction works have really stuck with me.

#Books #Bookstodon #History #USA #Fiction #literature #JohnSteinbeck #marilynnerobinson

9/10

This is definitely not an exhaustive list but I wanted to share them here if they might be useful for people. I tried to select works that I think are good for a broad audience and could be read by people outside of the United States. Let me know if you have any thoughts about the list or perhaps contribute with your own suggestions!

I'd recommend starting with 1, 2, and 8, and then read the novels and start to go from there.

#Books #Bookstodon #History #USA

10/10

8) "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin - short essays that are are, in my opinion, some of the best takes on race in the US. Baldwin was such a careful thinker and he didn't really rest neatly in any particular ideological camp.

#Books #Bookstodon #History #USA #JamesBaldwin

8/10

7) "This Republic of Suffering" by Drew Gilpin Faust - this is one of my favorite works of historical writing. Faust writes a history of the concept of Death through America's collective trauma of its Civil War. It is accessible and shows the totality of change that arose from that conflict. Might be a nice book to pair with "Confederates in the Attic" by Tony Horowitz.

#Books #Bookstodon #History #USA #americancivilwar

7/10

6) "The Irony of American History" by Reinhold Niebuhr - a short book that makes the argument the irony of American history is that Americans struggle with having an ironic distance with itself. What happens when a superpower actually believes it own rhetoric. Written in the 1950s and still prescient

#Books #Bookstodon #History #USA #Theology #Philosophy #ReinholdNiebuhr

5) "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent" by Isabel Wilkerson - an absolute gut-punch of a book. It makes the uncomfortable claim that race functions like caste in the United States. She has a way of taking complex and uncomfortable subjects and describing them in well-drawn metaphors.

#Books #Bookstodon #History #USA #IsabelWilkerson

4) "A Different Mirror: A Multicultural History of the United States" by Ronald Takaki - I like this one a bit better than Howard Zinn's work or even things like the 1619 project. It has bit less of an ideological axe to grind. What I like is how Takaki excavates unique stories that expand our notion of what the US could be.

#Books #Bookstodon #History #USA

3) "Nixonland" by Rick Perlstein - this is a heavy book that asks one basic question - how could the US go from the largest democratic landslide in 1964 to the largest republican one in 1972. He argues we essentially live in the house that Nixon built with all of its violence and chaos.

#Books #Bookstodon #History #USA #RickPerlstein

2) "The Unwinding" by George Packer - Packer is my favorite US journalist working today. He argues that societies go through periodic periods of unwinding and that US has experienced one since the 1970s. The books follows six people in-depth but also uses the stories of famous individuals who have influenced the unfolding of this period.

He recently published a magisterial article in the Atlantic worth checking out: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/07/phoenix-climate-drought-republican-politics/678494/

#Books #Bookstodon #History #USA #GeorgePacker

When I lived abroad, I had a short list of books to help people understand the US more. It is a big, complicated country and it can be hard to find well-written works. Here are my top books to understand the US -

1) "American Nations" by @ColinWoodard - Woodard makes the argument that the US is not one nation but actually eleven different national grouping all vying for control. Gives you insights into odd quirks of American identity.

#Books #Bookstodon #History #USA

Really fantastic article from Rick Perlstein. He describes here how Chicago, however imperfectly, came together and took care of migrants sent here from TX.

I love #Chicago. Over the years, I've become more angry at its reputation among many who have never been here and use it as a pillory board for all their anxieties. It's a good city with a big heart and much tougher than anything that can be thrown at us.

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-08-14-neighborliness-option-chicago-migrants-dnc/

#Illinois #Midwest #Solidarity #Migrants #Newstodon

@swanksalot GREAT Article - I love Rick Perlstein. "Nixonland" is one of handful of books I recommend to people to understand the US.

As I’ve often said. Mathematics is the language that the universe is written in, the laws of physics are its source code and we’re the reverse engineers living inside the compiled program. So I will for future Defcons, instead of fighting the thoughts that I’m not good enough, I willl embrace what I am good at! I hope to find other #physicists at Defcon…who knows maybe there will be talks? Contests..villages (beyond just the Quantum Villiage!)

@keithius

Oo da lally, Oo da lally, Golly what a day 🤗

@anneapplebaum

Or maybe AG Sulzburger will finally get his Putin interview he feels is owed to him.