tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post5079942297778399005..comments2024-02-25T05:24:24.948-05:00Comments on Beyond Easy: "The advent of modernity lies in this above all."Patrick Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02410016566636603639noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-72230574398445477482016-10-27T02:05:20.370-04:002016-10-27T02:05:20.370-04:00I bet the atomic bomb compelled most of the remain...I bet the atomic bomb compelled most of the remaining futurists to eat their collective hat.<br /><br />I'll add Postwar to the list; thanks for the recommendation! (Feel free to prod me about it from time to time. Sometimes it takes me a while to get around to reading stuff.)Patrick Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02410016566636603639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-76930096847920548672016-10-18T11:16:48.969-04:002016-10-18T11:16:48.969-04:00I doubt Léger was happy to find out how right he h...I doubt Léger was happy to find out how right he had been.<br /><br />Less than a year after this interview, No. 2 economic arrangements between rival trading blocs brought on the Great Depression and with it an era of violently No. 2 politics, whose leaders went on to produce destruction on an unequaled scale across most of his Northern Civilization.<br /><br />Since you're such a conspicuous omnivore I'll recommend a book on this subject: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Postwar-History-Europe-Since-1945/dp/0143037757" rel="nofollow"><em>Postwar</em></a> by the late Tony Judt. It's a history of the reconstruction of Eastern and Western Europe. It's a rare work of scholarship, but I'm recommending it, really, because the author's prose is such a joy to read. It is elegant, poised, sharply ironic and easily authoritative at the same time. In one section I tried counting how often I said "oh, wow" to myself, or something similar, and got one every one to two pages.<br /><br />And if you're interested in the cultural and economic arrangements that prevail today, this is vital background reading. It tells you how things got this way and what it would take to change them (surprisingly, not as much as you'd think). You could blog about it.<br /><br />Jedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12482605979122678782noreply@blogger.com