Book Reviewed: The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones

The 1619 project is a politically motivated story U.S. history documents the success of American revolutionaries in establishing a new nation for freedom and prosperity. The Founding Fathers were at enormous odds to fight a formidable enemy to end English authority in colonial America. But author Nikole Hannah-Jones, calls her work the 1619 Project named after the arrival of first Africans on American soil. And she seeks to place slavery at the center of American history. According to her, the reason for the declaration of independence from England was colonial America wanted to protect the institution of slavery when abolitionist sentiment grew in England. The story of American founding fathers in this book is different from what we find in the U.S Constitution or American history. It portrays slavery as a uniquely American phenomenon and the revolutionary war was fought to preserve slavery. Hannah-Jones proclaims that Black Americans’ struggle made American democracy real. She claims that the U.S. Constitution gave ironclad protections to slavery without mentioning it. How is that possible when the constitution explicitly states that “all men are created equal.” There are other factual errors, enslavement did not start in 1619 but it was present decades before that. Quakers comprised of only white population fiercely opposed slavery since colonial days and they were active in freeing slaves, documenting their stories, and connecting freed slaves with long lost relatives. American Revolution was kindled in New England, where anti-slavery sentiment was strongest. Early patriots like James Otis, John Adams, and Thomas Paine were opposed to slavery, and the revolution helped to fuel abolitionism in the North. The publication of 1619 Project by the New York Times demonstrates that it does not care about the truth, as it has progressively moved to the Far-Left of the political spectrum. It hires and promotes journalists who belong to the woke culture, they misinterpret facts and glorify racism. This is an effort to falsify the history that focus on Black issues rather than the class conflict that occurred prior to 1776. The 13 states were deeply divided over the property right issues, economy, wealth and how a federal government may dominate individual states. The NY Times project is a conspiracy theory developed from the chair of ultimate cultural privilege in America that tries to discredit the American values. The book is malicious and inaccurate which offers a distorted economic history, misrepresents the intentions of Founding Fathers, and the legacy of President Abraham Lincoln. The 1619 Project curriculum is not an educational enterprise. It is a tool of political indoctrination. Since its publication, school students in all 50 states have been taught parts of its curriculum. The core of the social justice training uses the ideologies Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the Marxism. To teach children that the American Revolution was fought to strengthen slavery would result in misunderstanding the American Revolution, and the loss of one million lives during American Civil War that ended slavery. The future American population will have the notion that their country is racist since day one. Currently, the 1619 Project applies a wide-ranging topics like the broken healthcare system, crime, American music, and the wealth gap.

Book Review: The New York Times Book Review: 125 Years of Literary History Hardcover by The New York Times

An appraisal of NY Times book reviews We get a view of book reviews of the earliest years in the history of NY Times and its coverage in shaping the literature. The reviews encourage debate and exchange of ideas. An editor's note from 1897 points out, "Life is worth living because there are books.” The reviews became more opinionated, broader, and deeper since 1925. Some of the reprinted reviews in this book are edited for clarity and to shorten them. One can read errors, insensitivity, race and gender bias, and misunderstood masterpieces of their time. The inaugural issue of the book review started in 1896. In the early days, reviewers never used the term "I" that was discouraged by the newspaper, but the magisterial "we" was encouraged, like for example, what flaws did "we" discover in this promising book. Some examples of reviews are as follows: An unnamed critic wrote about Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species,” "Shall we frankly declare that after the most deliberate consideration of Mr. Darwin's arguments, we remain unconvinced.” In 1948, a reviewer dismissed Gore Vidal's novel “The City and the Pillar” as "pornography" not because of sexual content but because it was about the shame of two gay men in love. In the review of Christopher Isherwood’s’ “Novella Goodbye to Berlin” and the character of Sally Bowles, both of which inspired the musical and movie Cabaret. NYT reviewer gave a mixed praise for the author's gifts: "Isherwood is a real novelist, a real minor novelist." For Jhumpa Lahiri’s 1999 book “Interpreter of Maladies” Caleb Crain gave a lukewarm review for author’s plain language. “The Souls of Black Folk” a 1903 work by W. E. B. Du Bois, which is a seminal work in American history and a cornerstone of African-American literature used the term "double consciousness" applying it to the idea that Black people must always have two fields of vision. They must be conscious of how they view themselves, as well as being conscious of how whites view them. The NYT review contains significant use of “N” word, in fact, eight times in the first paragraph alone, and there are eight paragraphs in the book review, which illustrates the height of bigotry even at New York Times. The unnamed reviewer largely focuses on the rivalry of W.E.B. Du Bois with Booker T. Washington who were two dominant leaders of African Americans, and NYT takes the side of Washington for his views that African Americans would be better off to remain separate from whites than to attempt desegregation as long as whites granted Black Americans access to economic progress and education. In 1981,Toni Morrison stated that "I have yet to read criticism that understands my work or is prepared to understand it. I don't care if the critic likes or dislikes it." The book is significantly edited and not all NYT book reviews are found. It is of historical interest to read as how African American authors were treated in literary world.

Book Reviewed: Along Came Google: A History of Library Digitization by Deanna Marcum and Roger C. Schonfeld

Illusions of book digitization This book focuses on the history of a universal digital library, and specifically focus on the entry of Google into the library arena with promise of making global books available online. Several leading academic institutions and public libraries eagerly joined this effort to accelerate the digital activity. They embraced the concept of a universal library and began advocating for change to disseminate the information, literacy, information access, policy awareness, digital preservation, collaboration, information access and control. On December 14, 2004, Google stunned the library, technology, and copyright worlds announcing that it would start scanning millions of books from leading research libraries to create a comprehensive database of books that would be available online. But this plan did not protect authors, which precluded them from earning a return on their investments of time, efforts, and knowledge which were essential to free flow of ideas. Google’s goal was to create an unrivaled digital library that would draw users to its website, strengthen its dominance of search-engine market, expand the client niche, and increase its advertising revenue. The libraries also wanted to digitize their collections but could not do themselves because of possible copyright violations and financial resources. Google had scanned about 20 million books, and it displayed snippets - short passages in Google online searches. It gave digital copies to libraries for their own use, in payment for their cooperation for loaning their books for digitization. The Authors Guild acted against Google Books, in the Second Circuit Court of New York, the court ruled in an unprecedented expansion of the “Fair Use” doctrine that Google’s copying and providing access to some four million copyrighted books for profit-making purposes was a “Fair Use.” The court was blinded by Google’s “public benefit” arguments, calling scanning a copyrighted book is a “Fair Use.” On April 18, 2016, the Supreme Court declined to review that decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the landmark copyright infringement lawsuit, Authors Guild v. Google. The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case leaves in place the “Fair Use” doctrine and let Google have its way. Google with unlimited engineering and financial resources supported their aspirations and digitization went unhinged. But the digital transformation has led to tensions between global and domestic issues. Universal access and tech-controlled filter bubble, between freedom and control, between openness and truth, information and disinformation have made their way in an unprecedented way. Recently, Google threatened to demonetize publishers using its advertisement network if the publishers’ dissent from regime change idea for Russia. Similar threats were made by Google against publishers who accurately reported on BLM – ANTIFA riots across the country. In his book, “The Tyranny of Big Tech.” Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri has described the ways Google and Big Tech giants have been using heavy-handedness in pushing their own liberal and progressive ideas through their platforms. Shadow banning conservative ideas in Wikipedia and Google searches have become well-known in recent years. The authors of this book lack focus in narrating the history of book digitization, one chapter does not flow well into the next chapter. Chapters are open-ended with no conclusions. In chapter 7, the authors examine the role of Hathi Trust as an alternative to a universal library. It is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books. But the financial resources and the possible cooperation with other large libraries is unsure. And the fact that it still depends on Google Books for digitized content makes it less of an alternative for Google Books.

Book Reviewed: The Founders' Fortunes: How Money Shaped the Birth of America by Willard Sterne

The U.S. Constitution and economic self-interest of Founding Fathers The death of George Floyd and several young Black men in confrontation with the law-enforcement in the past couple of years sparked anger, and protest the American political system, and the Founders of the U.S. Constitution themselves. Their legacy was unchallenged for two centuries came under attack from academics, media, and the left. Monuments of the Founding Fathers have been defaced and toppled in violent protests across America. In 1913, historian Charles A. Beard of Columbia University argued, in an economic interpretation of the U.S. Constitution argued that the Founding Fathers were more interested in promoting their individual economic and financial interests in the new nation. Since then, many constitutional and historical scholars have challenged this analysis as too narrow, because he did not have the much needed economic and financial data of the Founders. Many scholars including the author of this book have shown that the principles and political philosophies motivated them. They were patriots interested in freedom from the colonial rule and offered their wisdom to a nation that was deeply divided. George Washington was poor when he was growing up. He refused a salary and sought reimbursement for expenses. During the eight-year-long struggle, he lost half his wealth, largely because he neglected his farms. He received no pension. Like some of the Founders, Washington was rich in land and slaves but cash poor. In a long postwar depression, he couldn’t sell or rent his lands. Some of the Founders like Samuel Adams was not rich, and John Hancock crammed the family fortune into a carriage to invest in the American Revolution. James Madison, son of a wealthy Virginia planter, took his seat in Congress, but his widow, Dolly Madison became penniless later in life and had to seek help form one of her former slaves during her difficult economic circumstances. Alexander Hamilton, who created the financial system of the U.S., was so broke when he died in a duel that his friends had to accept a collection for his funeral. This book discusses on the difficulties the Founders faced during the formative years. Fighting the formidable English colonists when they had enormous political and economic superiority over the American colony. The author discusses the events in the history leading up to the American revolution and immediately after that in some detail. A vast amount of material has been covered and it is interesting to note that the Founders of American constitution had good intentions and sought prosperity for its citizens.

Book Reviewed: Poor Richard's Women: Deborah Read Franklin and the Other Women Behind the Founding Father by Nancy Stuart

A struggle with prudence and passion There are little-known facts about the life of Benjamin Franklin that has been neglected by historians. Some of them would reveal the voices of women he loved and lost during his lifelong struggle between prudence and passion. Deborah Read Franklin was his common-law wife over forty-four years, and in this book, the author assesses their relationship in the first few chapters and finds that she was not an illiterate woman as many historians thought but equaled the Founding Father in many ways. In fact, she was like a modern-day feminist, who raised two of his children and ran family business and protected his interest during his long absences from their home in Philadelphia, away in Paris and London. This book illustrates that she was an independent woman who successfully managed his finances, even though Ben Franklin's Autobiography mentions her briefly and with little feelings expressed. The author also addresses Ben Franklin’s humor, resiliency, intelligence, and his faith. This book relies on the selections from Claude-Anne Lopez’s research on his life that includes nearly thirty thousand documents assembled at Yale University. They include his years in Paris and his numerous liaisons & sexual affairs with French aristocratic women. These women played an important social and possibly political role in Benjamin Franklin's life during the Revolutionary War. In fact, his associations with French helped to bring the strong support for American cause during the revolution. This book also briefly includes his romances with Madame Brillon, the beautiful French musician, the witty Madame Helvetius, Margaret Stevenson, the widowed landlady in London and a young American named Catherine Ray. Franklin suffered from obesity throughout his middle-aged and later years, which resulted in multiple health problems, particularly gout, which worsened as he aged. Despite his health problems he had cravings for sexual intimacies with ladies. Ben Franklin believed that organized religion was necessary to keep men good to their fellow men, but he rarely attended religious services himself. But his parents were Puritans, and the family attended the Old South Church, a liberal Puritan congregation in Boston. He once wrote the charismatic preacher George Whitfield, "That Being who gave me existence ... and has been continually showering his favors upon me ... can I doubt that he loves me? And if he loves me, can I doubt that he will go on to take care of me, not only here, but hereafter?" In 1758, Ben Franklin advocated the opening of a school for the education of black slaves in Philadelphia, and later became notable abolitionist denouncing the practice of slavery leading to the establishment of Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery in 1774. There are two earlier books on Ben Franklin’s female friends, one entitled “Mon Cher Papa: Franklin and the Ladies of Paris” by Claude-Anne Lopez, and later “The Private Franklin: The Man and His Family, by Claude-Anne Lopez and Eugenia W. Herbert. The Papers of Benjamin Franklin project is available at the Yale University, and at the Library of Congress and the National Archives websites. The author’s efforts to illustrate Deborah Read was an independent woman who contributed to the success of Ben Franklin despite his infidelity. She narrates the story wonderfully and feels great to read especially the first few chapters. The readers get a close look at the life of Deborah in the 18th century Philadelphia. With limited rights for a woman those days, her life demonstrates that you can still be good wife, good mother, a good friend, and a great business partner, and can lead your life that best suits you.

Book Reviewed: Gravity: How the Weakest Force in the Universe Shaped Our Lives by Brian Clegg

A historical account of spacetime warping This book offers a historical account of gravity, one of the four fundamental forces of nature, and how it eludes our understanding. This is a concise narrative that is engaging without any equations or too much physics. It is explained in a very simple language. But some of the recent and relevant discussions have not been included here. The Newtonian physics describes the behavior of matter and energy in space and time. According to Isaac Newton, time flows equably without relation to anything external, and absolute space is also its own thing, always similar and immovable. Events of physical reality performed independently on a neutral stage where actors strutted and fretted without influencing the rest of the theater. This pretty much explains physical reality we see and experience in our daily life. But Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity turned Newton’s absolute space and time into a relativistic mash-up. According to him, spacetime is completely amalgamated into a malleable fabric and the two do not exist independently as Newton predicted. This is a new arena in which the players altered the space of the playing field. It was a physics game changer. Einstein also showed in his general theory of relativity that matter and energy warped the spacetime surrounding it. In fact, that is called gravity, which Newton thought was a force. Newton’s apparent force of attraction became a sort of illusion perpetrated by spacetime geometry. The shape of spacetime dictated the motion of massive bodies, and in turn massive bodies determined spacetime’s shape. With our understanding of quantum physics where matter at the most fundamental state is known to have wave-particle duality, that is it exists as both particle and a wave simultaneously. If that is the case, then how does matter exert gravity when it is in a wave-state? Quantum physicists suggested that spacetime at the most fundamental state also exists in discrete quanta, that in bits and pieces, qubits. In fact, the treatment of gravity with quantum physics has led to thorny issues that is largely derived from the black hole physics where spacetime is curved to an extreme extent. To understand the quantum properties of space and time, it is realized that information plays an important role in quantum reality, because it gives the observer a role who becomes an integral part of the physical reality. Recent advances in quantum Information have shown that information naturally describe evolution of quantum geometry. There seems to be a deep connection between information and the nature of space and time, and space and time are losing their role as grounds for an objective physical reality. The observer or the consciousness is an integral part. It may also mean that gravity may be an emergent phenomenon in quantum physics, or gravity and quantum physics are different approximations of a more fundamental theory that is still out there but not yet discovered.

Book Reviewed: The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros by Matt Palumbo

Soros: The man in the ‘hood' George Soros is a modern-day ‘hood who funds anarchists, and radical leftists who will take to the streets and agitate with threats and violence. Soros has no national boundaries, he works globally and tries to destabilize democratically elected governments, political parties and organizations that believe in conservative values that are deemed harmful for racial and ethnic minorities. He has spent nearly 32 billion dollars using his personal charity, the Open Society fund. He has emerged as the biggest supporter of Islamists worldwide promoting antisemitism, and Hinduphobia. He uses the political action committee (PAC) in United States that pools campaign contributions from members and donates them to campaigns for or against specific candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation. PACs are formed to represent business, labor, or ideological interests to privately spend for a political campaign. Much of Soros funds has gone to promote the values of democratic party in the United States, and in fact, he became the biggest individual benefactor of Biden in the 2020 U.S. Presidential race. He has become a modern-day bogeyman for the funding leftists who want to burn American Constitution. They seek to undermine the war on terror, destabilize America, and effect radical "regime change" at every level of the democratic system. Soros's Open Society Foundation has challenged the democratic policies of Israel in international forums. He has funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are critical of Israeli policies including groups that campaign for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, and supporting terrorist activities of Palestinians. In India, George Soros is not just a philanthropist or a savvy investor, but he is the 21st century avatar of capitalism, wealth-creation, and benevolence leading to economic dependence and cultural decimation by funding Islamists and leftists who are openly advocating to revolt against a democratically elected government. Matt Palumbo is a conservative journalist who has chronicled the life and work of Soros beautifully and addresses his involvement in Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine. How he has infiltrated the higher education, the media, and the local governments with his ill-gotten money. This book is well-researched and reader-friendly.