What We Are Reading Today: On Savage Shores

What We Are Reading Today: On Savage Shores
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Updated 07 February 2023

What We Are Reading Today: On Savage Shores

What We Are Reading Today: On Savage Shores

Author: Caroline Dodds Pennock
 

Caroline Dodds Pennock’s “On Savage Shores” is a landmark work of narrative history that tells the story of the indigenous Americans who journeyed across the Atlantic to Europe after 1492. 

We have long been taught to presume that modern global history began when the “Old World” encountered the “New,” when Christopher Columbus “discovered” America in 1492, but for tens of thousands of Aztecs, Maya, Totonacs, Inuit and others — the reverse was true: they discovered Europe.

Drawing on their surviving literature and poetry, Pennock gives us a sweeping account of the indigenous American presence in, and impact on, early modern Europe.


What We Are Reading Today: Control, The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics 

What We Are Reading Today: Control, The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics 
Updated 30 March 2023

What We Are Reading Today: Control, The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics 

What We Are Reading Today: Control, The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics 

Author: Adam Rutherford

Control, The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics is a non-fiction book written by Adam Rutherford in 2022, handling topics of genetics, history, and political ideology. 

Most of his publications - both books and articles - discuss the interdisciplinary relationship between eugenics, science, and race.

While inspired by Charles Darwin’s thoughts on evolution, the book still is quite argumentative in terms of human biology and genetics. 

Rutherford talks about heredity and how it is ruled by human genetics and its related sciences. 

According to the National Human Genome Research Institute, Geneticist Francis Galton defined eugenics as “the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations.”

The book is divided into two parts. In part one titled Quality Control, Rutherford traces the history of eugenics as far back as Roman times, to the US’s compulsory sterilization in the 1930s and Nazi Germany. 

He sheds light on books five and four of The Republic, where Plato commended population and breeding control even for children in poverty. 

In part two titled Same As It Was, Rutherford lays out the facts that eugenics did not end with the Third Reich in Germany. He delves deeper into the aftermath of such practices through the Doctor’s Trial and the Nuremberg code. 

Rutherford is currently a lecturer in Biology and Society in the genetics, evolution, and environment Division of Biosciences at University College London. 

In 2021, Rutherford won The Royal Society David Attenborough Award Lecture on the politics of DNA. 

He holds a Ph.D. in developmental genetics of the retina in mammals at the Institute of Child Health at UCL. 

Other books he had written include How to Argue With a Racist, The Book of Humans, and A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived. 

Rutherford also worked as a scientific consultant for movies such as Ex Machina, Annihilation, World War Z, and even The Cat in The Hat. a
 


What We Are Reading Today: Children of the State by Jeff Hobbs

What We Are Reading Today: Children of the State by Jeff Hobbs
Updated 30 March 2023

What We Are Reading Today: Children of the State by Jeff Hobbs

What We Are Reading Today: Children of the State by Jeff Hobbs

In “Children of the State,” Jeff Hobbs  writes about the school-to-prison pipeline and life in the juvenile “justice” system.

For many kids, a mistake made at age 13 or 14 — often resulting from external factors coupled with a biologically immature brain — can resonate through the rest of their lives, making high school difficult, college nearly impossible, and a middle-class life a mere fantasy.

Writing with great heart and sensitivity, Hobbs challenges preconceived perceptions about how the juvenile justice system works — and demonstrates in brilliant, piercing prose: No one so young should ever be considered irredeemable.


What We Are Reading Today: A Mystery of Mysteries

What We Are Reading Today: A Mystery of Mysteries
Updated 30 March 2023

What We Are Reading Today: A Mystery of Mysteries

What We Are Reading Today: A Mystery of Mysteries

Author: Mark Dawidziak

Mark Dawidziak’s “A Mystery of Mysteries” is a brilliant biography of Edgar Allan Poe that examines the renowned author’s life through the prism of his mysterious death and its many possible causes.

Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849, at just forty, in a painful, utterly bizarre manner that would not have been out of place in one of his own tales of terror. 

In a compelling dual-timeline narrative alternating between Poe’s increasingly desperate last months and his brief but impactful life, the book sheds new light on the enigmatic master of macabre.


What We Are Reading Today: And Still the Waters Run by Angie Debo

What We Are Reading Today: And Still the Waters Run by Angie Debo
Updated 28 March 2023

What We Are Reading Today: And Still the Waters Run by Angie Debo

What We Are Reading Today: And Still the Waters Run by Angie Debo

“And Still the Waters Run” tells the tragic story of the liquidation of the independent Indian republics of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles, known as the Five Civilized Tribes.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the tribes owned the eastern half of what is now Oklahoma, a territory immensely wealthy in farmland, forests, coal, and oil. Their political and economic status was guaranteed by the federal government—until American settlers arrived. Congress abrogated treaties that it had promised would last “as long as the waters run,” and within a generation, the tribes were systematically stripped of their holdings, and were rescued from starvation only through public charity.


What We Are Reading Today: Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull

What We Are Reading Today: Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
Updated 28 March 2023

What We Are Reading Today: Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull

What We Are Reading Today: Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull

The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture and allowed it to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve, says a review published on goodreads.com. “Creativity, Inc.” has been expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. This updated edition details how Ed Catmull built a culture that does not just pay lip service to the importance of things like honesty, communication, and originality but commits to them.