Books: September 2025
When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s — John Ganz
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I’m still not sure how we went from: a world where newspapers with large teams, high-quality editing, and expensive reporting would struggle to get people to sign up for $20 a month, to now: where an individual writer, singularly producing blog posts with often no editing, can get many people to fork over $5 a month.
Anyway, this is part of John Ganz’s fame. I have never read him before this book, but I am impressed. This could easily be my favorite book of the year. The writing is superb, and the level of detail he wrings out of the cast of characters – people you think you “know,” like David Duke – reminds me of Rick Perlstein’s work. But while Perlstein’s books are way too long, Ganz cuts through the fat.
The book’s thesis – never fully elaborated, just left to the reader to connect the dots (the antithesis of academic writing which needs to spell everything out) – is that the early 1990s is the period to look at to understand certain currents in contemporary right-wing politics. I left the book feeling like I understood something new.
There are many parallels between the 90s and today. The chapter on David Duke alone is worth the price of admission. His grifting, vanity (extensive plastic surgery), and TV savvy make for fascinating reading.
The paleoconservatives, also discussed here, are a clear intellectual precursor to contemporary populist conservatism: the idea that America is in decline, that there’s a new world order, that Americans are being taken advantage of by foreigners. All of this is captured in Rothbard’s essay advocating for a radical, populist conservatism.
Even culturally, you have the rise of a loneliness epidemic in the discourse, concern about the rise of talk radio and parasocial relationships (clear analogue to today’s podcast ecosystem). I can see this becoming a widely assigned text.
Mason & Dixon — Thomas Pynchon
⭐ In college (or was it grad school?) my now wife and I went to India with another couple. We took trains all the way from Mumbai to Dharamshala. On those long train rides (20+ hours) with nothing else to do, no phones, I read Gravity’s Rainbow and was blown away.
Not only had I never read anything like it before, it also broadened my ability to read and my appetite for difficult books. One: to focus less on the internal logic of the story and more on the meaning of the writing; Pynchon is riffing and improvising and doing crazy jazz with language. Two: to be OK with losing the thread, getting lost, or turning to secondary sources. For most people, getting lost triggers a defensive reaction: if there is no grand plan then this is pointless, like hearing someone press random keys on a piano. But just as with improvisational music, the point is the musician’s ability to dance on the line between unintelligible noise and something sublime.
Since then, I’ve read Inherent Vice (the PTA movie is the best book adaptation of all time, in my opinion) and Lot 49, both of which I loved. That said, Mason & Dixon beat me. An absolute slog. The plot itself is barely there, the prose so obtuse, and the time period not one I’m familiar enough with to have my bearings.
There are a few standout moments. Surprisingly, my favorite parts are in the earlier sections, when they’re in South Africa and sailing. And towards the end, the Hollow Earth stuff was interesting. But too little “happens” while they’re in America to make the juice worth the squeeze.
Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan (American Music Series) — Alex Pappademas
⭐⭐⭐⭐ This book feels like it was written with me in mind. Quantum Criminals is not a biography but a series of essays on Steely Dan, each using a specific song (in chronological order) as a jumping off point to talk about their influences, approach, the lyrics, and Donald and Walter. I loved this format: read a chapter, catch what song they are discussing, pop that on, back to the book.
More than the format, the way the authors frame Steely Dan’s status in the culture captures how I have felt about the band. For people my age, growing up on indie rock that emphasized sincere, lo-fi authenticity, the glossy sound of Steely Dan reads as fake, overly produced, anathema to “real music.” Of course, as you get older, you realize that making sure everyone’s wearing flannel or having songs that start with someone plugging a guitar into a hot amp are no less “fake”: these are all choices made to convey a vibe.
With the Dan/yacht rock renaissance I’ve come to appreciate their music more. They have undeniable bangers. “Peg” does something weird to my brain, it feels impossibly groovy. And lyrically what they are doing is much more complex than I realized, more in the Dylan vein of songwriting.
Would recommend the behind-the-album documentary on YouTube about Aja to pair with this book.
A Popular History of Idi Amin’s Uganda — Derek R. Peterson
⭐⭐⭐ I remember watching The Last King of Scotland in high school and thinking it was great, even rewatching it a few times. It probably says something that, despite watching the movie so many times, I had no idea what country Idi Amin was in charge of, or where Uganda was on the map. I picked up this book as I start working on a research project with relevance to Uganda.
This is a straightforward academic text. Every chapter could be a standalone article; each starts with an overview, then empirical content, then conclusion. An interesting and worthwhile book about Uganda’s most famous leader. Less a comprehensive overview and more a series of chapters that each touch on a theme of his rule.
Some things that stood out. First, Uganda is composed of kingdoms, which persisted through British colonialism and into independence. Each kingdom was pretty close to autonomous, with its own laws, parliament, and even police force. For Idi Amin’s story, the most important kingdom is Buganda, encompassing the modern day capital of Kampala. A weak electoral process brings Obote to power who, because of the pre-existing kingdoms, has little actual power. His first move is to crush the ancient kingdoms, famously Buganda. Given these pre-existing forms of political organization and hostile neighbors, Obote’s government is a “nervous state,” paranoid of overthrow. With good reason: he is ultimately overthrown by Idi Amin while out of the country in 1971.
Second, at the time of independence there are a number of South Asian people living in Uganda, communities that skew better off, tending to own small businesses. There is deep resentment: one of the earliest forms of popular mobilization around independence is a boycott of South Asian businesses. Idi Amin’s early rule focuses on expelling this community as part of his “Economic War.”
Third, while Idi Amin’s brutality is well known, I had less exposure to his efforts to make Uganda the frontline of anti-colonial struggle in Africa. His demagoguery against Israel and later alliance with Palestinian militants, his courting of Libya and Saudi Arabia for funding – fascinating case of a brutal leader who had genuine ideological commitments.
The chapters on the economy during Amin’s rule are also very good: showing how expelling the South Asian community devastated the commercial sector and how the regime then turned to coffee smuggling and other illicit enterprises to stay afloat.
I Am Dynamite! A Life of Nietzsche — Sue Prideaux
⭐⭐⭐⭐ “One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.”
Biographies have a bad habit of lionizing their subject. To my surprise, I Am Dynamite! does the exact opposite, although it’s not clear how intentionally. This is, on the whole, a pretty unflattering portrait of Nietzsche, and not because of his supposed association with Nazism, which the author adamantly rejects.
The book is unflattering on a personal level: Nietzsche seems like a small man, neurotic, delusional. There is at least one woman in the book who, upon first meeting him, is shocked by the discrepancy between Nietzsche the writer (passionate, virile, confident) and Nietzsche the person, who seems to melt into the background. Anyone who’s read him would agree he does not lack passion, whatever you think of his ideas.
Three things stick with me. First, the unusual, libertine culture among cultural figures during this time in Germany. At the center is Richard Wagner, whom Nietzsche is obsessed with, almost to the point of erotic fixation. There are many love triangles, and at one point Nietzsche enters a sort of polycule. It is incredible how much of his short life is spent on these relationships.
Second, the degree to which Nietzsche’s illnesses shaped his life. He would be ill for long spells, sometimes half the year or more, and his vision rapidly deteriorates. This radically shrank his ability to work, and is one reason for his interest in aphorisms; he did not have enough time in good health for longer form writing. To be sick during this time seems especially gruesome, given the low quality of medicine. He spends years receiving painful treatments (enemas, bleeding) that have no bearing on what ails him. There are also darkly funny moments: at the time, problems with eyesight were thought to be caused by excessive masturbation. Wagner writes letters to Nietzsche’s doctor expressing his belief that Nietzsche’s ailments are the result of being an excessive masturbator, and the doctor even recommends Nietzsche visit brothels.
Third, the incredible story of Nietzsche’s sister, who essentially hijacks his legacy after his mental decline, editing his work to align with her increasingly nationalist and antisemitic worldview. The fact that she marries a man who starts a proto-fascist, “Aryan” colony in Paraguay is one of the more bizarre stories I’ve read in a biography.
The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World — William Dalrymple
⭐ Ancient history is a tough read for me. Going from a modern world with roughly 200 state units, all organized in recognizable ways, to the ancient world where the relevant actors are proper noun kings and emperors – my eyes begin to glaze over.
I was hoping Dalrymple would break open the ancient world for me. I’m a huge fan of his work. Return of a King was excellent, and his Empire podcast is great. Sadly, it didn’t take. The chapter on the early history of Buddhism was interesting – we associate Buddhism so much with the far east, and Hinduism with India, that we forget Buddhism was originally Indian. It took state power in the form of Emperor Ashoka to spread Buddhism throughout the subcontinent, and similar moves in China, powered by traders and travelers.
But the rest was a slog and I largely skimmed it.
Museveni’s Uganda: Paradoxes of Power in a Hybrid Regime (Challange and Change in African Politics) — Aili Tripp
⭐⭐⭐⭐ The best part of my job is that I get paid to learn about the world. Two months ago, the most I could have told you about Uganda was how it was spelled. But I was pulled onto a project, mostly as a methodologist, in the north of Uganda, and so now I need to know more. This book has been part of the effort to correct my ignorance.
Tripp sees the hybrid nature of the Ugandan regime (semi-democratic, electoral autocracy) as the core of the country’s politics. Hybrid regimes suffer from contradictions not present to the same extent in full democracies or autocracies. Leaders must allow some basic level of civil rights and political competition while containing them so they don’t meaningfully alter their hold on power. A core problem is that there is no neat way for leaders to cycle out of office in these systems. Leaders must use patronage and violence to remain in power, which makes many enemies and means exiting power is dangerous. Tripp illustrates these ideas through Museveni, who has ruled Uganda since the 1980s, when his rebel movement took power by force.
There are many interesting insights here. For one, Tripp identifies a common pattern in which leaders come into office promising reform but quickly fall back on old forms of rule. This was true of Uganda’s last three major rulers (Museveni, Amin, Obote) who came to power explicitly identifying sectarianism as Uganda’s central ill. Yet once in power they end up organizing systems of ethnic patronage that favor their “home” communities. Tripp would argue this tendency is structural: without institutions to exit power peacefully, leaders must anxiously surround themselves with those likely to be loyal.
Another is Uganda’s switch from a “no-party” system to a multi-party system in the early 2000s, seemingly at least partially instigated by international donor pressure.
A final one is Uganda’s remarkable number of active conflicts and an enormous IDP and refugee population in the north. Tripp enumerates 12 distinct episodes since 1986. The infamous Joseph Kony-led Lord’s Resistance Army was much more of a political and military challenge than the popular narrative (filtered through the Kony 2012 campaign) might suggest.
War in the Age of Trump — Patrick Cockburn
⭐⭐⭐ I listened to this on audiobook and learned that, mercifully, the “ck” in the author’s last name is silent. This will make it easier to discuss his books in my classes.
I loved his last book, Age of Jihad, and have used it in my classes. I was also more familiar with the time period that book covers – the US invasion through the emergence of ISIS – than the period covered here. That might be one reason I didn’t enjoy it as much.
Chapter 3 was probably my favorite. It covers al-Baghdadi’s disastrous rule over ISIS from 2014 onwards. It’s an interesting case study of ideology leading to suboptimal behavior: at first, the Kurds stay neutral on ISIS, using the jihadis’ conflict with central government as opportunity to grow Kurdish holdings. But ISIS attacks Kurds in Syria, turning them against ISIS and ultimately linking them to the US. This was seemingly done because al-Baghdadi viewed everyone as an enemy, at least partially on sectarian grounds.
Other notes: the format is interesting. There are parts that are pure war diary / war correspondent (and these are a treasure) and sections that are post-hoc analysis. A funny thing about reading this now is that his intense conviction that Assad would not fall to jihadis looks silly given what eventually happened. The future is hard to predict.
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917–2017 — Rashid Khalidi
⭐⭐⭐ The title made me think this would be a doorstopper. But the book is actually pretty short (~250 pages) and less of a history than an argument. Khalidi, who was politically involved via Lebanon, takes the reader through the conflict in chronological order but focuses on the critical points of debate: was there really a pre-1948 Palestinian “people”, did Zionists intend to expel the Arab population or was it a “natural” by-product of war, how sincere were efforts at Oslo, etc. These are well-made arguments, though I was hoping for more depth. That said, he is a passionate advocate and someone with credible experience and analysis.
Khalidi’s main line of argument is that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is a form of colonialism, down to the very first Zionist movements which, Khalidi argues, imagined their project as a colonialist one, and only moved away from that framing once colonialism took on a bad taste post-WW2. Khalidi does concede some unusual features, the most obvious being that unlike other settler colonial states, Zionists have a cultural and normative claim on the land that enjoys a decent level of global acceptance, given the long history of Jewish presence in the region and the historical persecution of Jewish people. As Khalidi notes, this makes it seemingly implausible to characterize Jewish people as “colonizing” the land where their religion began.
Khalidi is also more temperate in his apportioning of blame than many others writing on this topic. He is plain in seeing the early objectives of the Palestinian movement – a full return to the pre-1948 status quo, the rejection of Israel as a state – as no longer viable. Khalidi also has little good to say about the PLO and Arafat, whom he sees as ineffective and out of touch, the latter a function of the organization’s exile to Tunis.
This was an interesting dimension I had not properly appreciated. The PLO became the actor representing the Palestinian people during much of this time and yet its leaders were not even living in the territories. Khalidi argues they badly mishandled Oslo I and II, agreeing to things they should not have from a position of weakness.
Another interesting misstep is Arafat’s decision to equivocate on Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, an invasion that every other Arab state had denounced or explicitly resisted. This led the PLO to lose Gulf funding and experience setbacks that hurt during the Oslo accords. Khalidi also has only criticisms for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whom he sees as setting the Palestinian cause back during the second Intifada, especially through their use of suicide bombings.
Who is right and who is wrong in the debates Khalidi addresses is obviously important. But being right or wrong on these questions does not imply answers as to what should be done now that we are 100 years into the conflict. Khalidi seems unambiguous: there is no solution in which Israel does not continue to be a state. Towards the end, Khalidi sets up three endpoints for colonial projects: full defeat of the indigenous population (North America); reversion to indigenous rule via revolution (Algeria); reconciliation of the dominant and subjected populations (South Africa).