Introduction
There are certain books that make an impact on your reality or in the way you see the world. This page will be a running diary of those kinds of books for me.
They will be alphabetized by author and not by order of importance.
Survival Stories: Memories from the Balkan War – by Selco Begovic
Begovic’s gripping account of how his “normal” life in Sarajevo suddendly took a deadly turn is not for the weak of heart.
Begovic gives a detailed account of his one-year battle to stay alive in a city without electricity, water or civil order. It’s everything you need to survive when the rule of law breaks down in a society, except it is told with hair raising true stories.
I could not put it down.
Also, remember that parts of many U.S. cities turned into burning urban jungles for periods of time recently. Begovic’s story is not just relevant for those “over there.”
I am a big believer in knowing history primarily because it gives us as a more accurate view of reality.
Indeed, if you only had a cursory knowledge of three subjects, it would be the most valuable education you could receive:
- Astrophysics – To tell us how the universe is structured and how it works.
- Evolutionary biology – To tell us how plants, animals and humans evolved over glacier time.
- History of human civilizations – To tell us how civilizations, cities, and cultures evolved in the pre-modern era and the legacies they left in place for modern cultures.
Harari’s book helps to fill the gaps for the third subject.
It is a historical overview starting from the dawn of the human race, through the hunter gatherer, agricultural, imperial, economic, industrial, and scientific revolutions.
The descriptions of how Homo Sapiens drastically changed the ecological landscape, particularly with respect to the planet and the animal kingdom were sobering.