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This book is both a triumph of qualitative historical analysis and less than the sum of its parts. Each chapter, covering a different aspect of the 1865-1900 period, is deeply researched and insightful, albeit with far less quantitative support than I'd like. Unfortunately each chapter barely interacts with the others, failing to advance any of the many hypotheses peppered across the book. It's still a great history, but probably more useful as a reference for specific topics. Highly recommend

This book is an important, impressive work of scholarship that combines personal accounts with macro perspective to demonstrate the importance of slavery in driving US economic growth. In addition, Baptist repeatedly demonstrates how the protection and expansion of slavery was baked into US systems of governance. I would have looked to see more quantitative data and analysis, and there are entertaining but ultimately distracting asides and flowery prose that aren't my cup of tea. Overall this is still a great book that is unfortunately more relevant than ever. Highly recommend

If you don't already have a lot of background on the Spanish American war, as well as on the situation in the Philippines and Cuba both before and after that conflict, you're going to have a hard time following this history. Jackson does a good job zooming in on the formative years after that conflict, but the pairing of Cuba and the Philippines is a bit strange given how radically different those regions were, and besides the racism of the American occupation there's very little connective tissue between the events there during this period. This book does an excellent job documenting the interactions between the US military and the different local and international actors in these areas, although without much of a thesis on what binds these events together it's more of a chronology than anything else. As a reference book, however, this book is extremely useful

This is a good, compact collection of some of Dōgen's writings, with a nice introduction and some commentary before each section. As a piece of philosophical writing it's interesting in and of itself and provides some insight into more modern norms in Japan. I would've liked more commentary and analysis here, however, since as a beginner in this space it's difficult to fully appreciate the context of these writings. As a first introduction, however, this book serves as a good jumping off point. Highly recommend