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We tend to talk about China through the prism of our own world history. Diplomats, academics, politicians, and journalists in Washington or London or Paris muse on how to fit China into our world. But that’s not at all how the Chinese see
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“nothing invests life with more meaning than the realization that every moment of sentience is a precious gift.”
― The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
― The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
“The KGB had already tried to kill him a few days earlier by slipping poison into his Coca-Cola; unfortunately for the Russians, the imperialist beverage had somehow neutralized the toxins, and Amin survived the attack, though it did make him seriously ill.”
― Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century
― Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century
“So much was expected of the true strategist: a student of the present who must be aware of the past, sensitive to the possibilities of the future, conscious of the danger of bias, alert to ambiguity, alive to chaos, ready to think through consequences of alternative courses of action, and then able to articulate all this with sufficient precision for those who must execute its prescriptions.2 This was a counsel of perfection. There was only so much knowledge that an individual could accumulate, assimilate, and manipulate; only so many potential sequences of events that could be worked through in a system that was full of uncertainty, complexity, and chaos.”
― Strategy: A History
― Strategy: A History
“But actuality in the end proves unmanageable. It breaks in upon men’s conceptions, changes them, and finally destroys them. Even where men’s conceptions are sound and reasonable, where by their own creative power and their discernment of actuality they correspond to things, actuality in its capacity as Luck, will behave in an unreasonable way, as Pericles says, and overturn conceptions of the greatest nobility and intelligence.”
― Strategy: A History
― Strategy: A History
“In this cosmic arena, Luo Ji faced not the fancy moves of Chinese sword fighting, resembling dance more than war; nor the flourishes of Western sword fighting, designed to show off the wielder’s skill; but the fatal blows of Japanese kenjutsu. Real Japanese sword fights often ended after a very brief struggle lasting no more than half a second to two seconds. By the time the swords had clashed but once, one side had already fallen in a pool of blood. But before this moment, the opponents stared at each other like statues, sometimes for as long as ten minutes. During this contest, the swordsman’s weapon wasn’t held by the hands, but by his heart. The heart-sword, transformed through the eyes into the gaze, stabbed into the depths of the enemy’s soul. The real winner was determined during this process: In the silence suspended between the two swordsmen, the blades of their spirits parried and stabbed as soundless claps of thunder. Before a single blow was struck, victory, defeat, life, and death had already been decided.”
― Remembrance of Earth's Past: The Three-Body Trilogy
― Remembrance of Earth's Past: The Three-Body Trilogy
Fred’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Fred’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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1,062 books
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756 books
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338 books
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48 books
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53 books
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