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Set on a human-settled world called Parsloe's Planet. The people have become physically and mentally dependent on a local radiation, that emanates from the land. The radiation gradually dissipates over time. As a result, the cities are all mobile and can be airlifted to new locations to take advantage of fresh sources of radiation.

Most of the book isn't, however, about the radiation. It's about the career and personal affairs of Robert Marsden, a professional athlete. We see him change careers several times - from athlete, to an astrologer, to a entertainment producer, and finally a politician. While all of this is going on, he obsesses over an affair he's having with a married woman. Through all of this we explore the post-scarcity society he lives in (basically upper-class 1960s Americans with robots)

The radiation issue doesn't come back until the very end, when society starts to fall apart due to the fading of the radiation. Marsden becomes a kind of savior at the end.

I wasn't entirely sure what to make of all this. It's clearly not an adventure novel, and I'm not sure how we we're supposed to feel about the society.

Is the radiation a metaphor? I'm honestly not certain.

Erudite bit of literary analysis. Probably would've hit harder if I'd actually ever read any Tolstoy. I probably need to rectify that.

Osterhammel has penned a masterful work of scholarship, detailing how European thought was profoundly challenged by deeper interactions across Asia as transportation technology improved, spurring the Enlightenment and social science itself. The book chronicles not only how European ideas of "Asia" changed over time, but also engages in historiography around how European thinkers conceptualized themselves and the different civilizations they encountered. Osterhammel continually emphasizes just how new the notion of "travel" was, and how this necessitated new social and business norms.

What was perhaps most surprising to me is how throughout this period Europeans viewed most of the civilizations they encountered nearly as equals. Europeans considering the Dutch sailors they encountered in different ports as less "civilized" than the locals is illustrative here. While it's possible to read these encounters, and the Enlightenment itself, as a prelude to imperialism, this history adds significant nuance to that direct throughline. Highly recommend

A critical look at the U.S. military's failure during the Vietnam War.

According to Gibson, the military and civilian authorities ignored political and cultural realities, in favor of a data-driven "Technowar".

The stories of corruption, fragging, incompetence, poor morale, and war crimes isn't particularly new if you're familiar with the period, but it's bracing to have it all spelled out.

Gibson also criticizes a lot of the other then-current analyses of the failure in Vietnam; those that blamed excessive civilian restraint or anti-war protestors.

It's a book from the 80s, so it ends with concerns that the US was making the same mistakes in Central America. Due to the end of the Cold War, it didn't exactly happen, but there were a lot of parallels.

Gibson's criticisms don't map on to the Afghanistan/Iraq wars directly, but they're not completely unrelated.