Reviews and Comments

Preston Maness

aspensmonster@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 years, 8 months ago

A revolutionary Marxist Leninist that seems to add two books to the stack for every one book I take off...

Keyoxide: keyoxide.org/79895B2E0F87503F1DDE80B649765D7F0DDD9BD5

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Corinna Barrett Lain: Secrets of the Killing State (2025, New York University Press) No rating

Robert Chapman: Empire of Normality (Hardcover, 2023, Pluto Press) 5 stars

'Groundbreaking ... [provides] a deep history of the invention of the 'normal' mind as one …

This was recommended in revolutionaryth0t's video essay on normality:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6oUHaLCc_U

I'd like to get around to it eventually. In particular, I wonder if it has any historical investigation of the human tendency to measure a distribution, and yet walk away from the result of that measurement thinking instead "I have found a point."

Holly M. Karibo: Rehab on the Range (2024, University of Texas Press) No rating

The first study of the Fort Worth Narcotic Farm, an institution that played a critical …

reviewed Biocode by Dawn Field

Dawn Field, Neil Davies: Biocode 3 stars

A Recovering Software Engineer's Review

2 stars

0.1 Introduction to Biocode

Biocode, by Field and Davies, might better be structured in two parts. Its first four chapters present the reader with what may be termed a minimal bootstrapping into the world of genetics in a broad sense. The second four chapters detail the scaling opportunities for genetic technology, showcasing how such technologies have insights to offer from the microbial world all the way to the entire planet.

The first part provides the reader with a layman’s introduction to genetic technology in its first chapter, “DNA,” a non-critical overview of real and potential commercial uses in its second chapter, “Personal Genomics,” a poor attempt to prod the ethics of the field in its third chapter, “Homo Evolutis,” and an incomplete treatment of bioinformatics in its fourth chapter, “Zoo in My Sequencer.” As evidenced by this author’s choice of adjectives, I find this part of the book deficient. The …

Gloria La Riva, Eugene Puryear: China: Revolution and Counterrevolution (2013) 5 stars

An Excellent 2000s-era Collection of Essays on China's Revolution

5 stars

This volume features a collection of essays from, presumably, members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, along with its acquaintances and fellow comrades in struggle. For context, this collection was first published in 2008, well before the Xi Jinping era of China's socialist development. A 2023 "companion" to this collection of essays could be 1804 Books' "China's Revolution and the Quest for a Socialist Future," authored by Ken Hammond; and with an Introduction by Brian Becker and Analytical Essay (also entitled a "Reflection" in certain print runs) by Eugene Puryear, both of whom also have essays in "China: Revolution and Counterrevolution."

Becker and other authors have a decidedly conciliatory tact towards China's Reform and Opening Up under Deng Xiaoping, while Puryear -- and to a greater degree, Ian Thompson -- take a solidly Maoist tact towards it. That the PSL would share print space with ideological competition solidifies, in …