American Concentration Camps in the Philippines – The Brutal History

This post is not, as you might expect, about Americans in World War 2. Although that war did indeed feature concentration camps in the Philippines for captured Americans. Run by the Japanese, they were brutal places. They are also worth learning about. Instead, though, today I mean to describe the American concentration camps in the […]

Steinbeck’s East of Eden, is it Worth My Time? Rob’s Expert Review

There’s little I can write about John Steinbeck’s East of Eden that no one’s written before, I realize. The classic is about to reach its sixth decade since publication. But that doesn’t mean that you’ve read it. So, hopefully this review will be new to you. The book is about as epic as books get. […]

Review of King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild

Mutilated children from the Congo Free State A Congolese man looking at the hand and foot of his daughter Cartoon criticizing Leopold’s rule I’ll give the last word to one of Leopold’s contemporaries. It’s no wonder that Mark Twain wrote, In fourteen years Leopold has deliberately destroyed more lives than have suffered death on all […]