Serious Breadth: Eye Openers and Unsung Heroes

by Michael Connolly

The standard college curriculum no longer provides the students with a comprehensive general education. And the Great Books program does not include recent books. In order to offer a new take on what all college students should learn, I have created a collection of summaries of 150 non-fiction books, organized by subject. For the most part, the main criterion for inclusion in the collection is that the information provided by the book be important, something that every educated person should know. This collection is balanced in the sense that it includes books from a wide spectrum of subjects. On the other hand, it is not balanced with respect to philosophical or political point of view. For example all of my books on sex and reproduction are pro-choice, and all of my books on economics are pro-capitalism. I have chosen not to give equal time to the supporters of Mao, nor to the critics of Darwin. In my opinion, the best way to attain balance is to include a wide range of topics, rather than to present both sides of any particular issue. The books selected are not necessarily the best written nor the most entertaining, because my main criterion has been the importance of the information contained. The standard college curriculum commits sins of omission. That is, it leaves out events that deserve to be better known. Examples of such sins of omission •The Great Leap Forward•The forced repatriation of Soviet citizens at the end of World War II•The Circassian genocide•The expulsion of the Pontic Greeks in 1922•Chinese forced labor camps (laogai)•Castro’s political prisoners•Himmler’s Einsatzgruppen, who killed eastern Jews with bullets•The Bengal famine during World War II•Communist Pathet Lao forced labor camps in Laos•The Holodomor famine in Ukraine in the early 1930s•Korean women forced into prostitution for Japanese soldiers during World War II•The Albigensian Crusade against heretics in southern France during the Middle AgesA few of the books included here describe historical mistakes, many of which are not yet widely recognized as being mistakes. Examples of such •Government schools•Whole-word reading instruction (phonics works better)•The abandonment of the distinction between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor•Criminalization of narcotics (War on Drugs)•Closing the mental hospitals in the United States•Overbuilding of dams in the western United States•Foreign aid to poor countries (props up dictators)There a biographies and memoirs of some great individuals that are not as well known as they should be. The prime example is Aristotle, who is the root cause of Western civilization. Further examples of heroes and •Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Somali reformer of Islam)•Norman Borlaug (father of the green revolution in agriculture)•John Boyd (jet fighter designer)•Napoleon A. Chagnon (anthropologist of indigenous South Americans)•Philo T. Farnsworth (inventor of television)•Paul Hoffman (geologist)•Eric Kandel (neuroscientist of memory)•Lise Meitner (discovered nuclear fission)•Shuji Nakamura (inventor of the bright, blue light emitting diode)•Ayn Rand (philosopher, novelist)•Flemming Rose (Danish journalist)•Albert Schatz (discovered Streptomycin antibiotic for tuberculosis)•Ignác Semmelweis (discovered that childbirth fever was a contagious disease)•John Snow (discovered the relationship between cholera and sanitation)•Geert Wilders (Dutch politician)There are are also some books in this collection that reveal as frauds some individuals who are still taken seriously. See the forward for details.

497 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2014

About the author

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For bestselling author of the Harry Bosch series see Michael Connelly.