I have just finished reading once again through a number of Sherlock Holmes stories. These were a selection in a file I had downloaded to my Kindle quite some time ago. It is by no means an exhaustive compendium, but it’s always good to spend some time near the fire in the Baker Street room with an ounce of shag and a cherrywood. I’ll leave Mr. Holmes’ morning pipe to him, though.
Reading Lamps and Smoking Jackets
- Thread starter Knucklehead
- Start date
The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages, by Jean Gimpel. (1977)
Table of Contents:
- Energy Resources of Europe and Their Development
- The Agricultural Revolution
- Mining and Mineral Wealth of Europe
- Environment and Pollution
- Labor Conditions in Three Medieval Industries
- Villard De Honnecourt: Arhitect and Engineer
- The Mechanical Clock: The Key Machine
- Reason, Mathematics, and Experimental Science
- The End of an Era
- Epilogue
One thing I found interesting in the first chapter is that there were extensive for-profit corporations in western Europe during the Middle Ages. They just happened to all be monasteries—many hundreds of them: Cistercians, Franciscans, etc. They subsidized new designs of water-powered machines of all sorts (grain mills, mineral ore mills, hammer forges, etc.), and brought in massive profits through their monopoly control.
Several hundred years of new technologies mostly constructed from wood, and processes requiring heat (e.g. smelting and forging) burning wood or charcoal, was all it took to erase the forests of western Europe. And it was during the dearth of wood that coal (mostly foul, low grade coal) came into use.
The trees were gone, the rivers were heavily polluted, and the air was fouled in every industrial center.
Around 1277 AD, church authorities began to feel threatened by science and technology, and proceeded to slam the door on education, new discovery and technical innovation. That is the "Dark Ages" that was later recalled by the scholars of the Renaissance.
While I found the first chapter a bit slow, most of the rest of the book is loaded with surprises. The author's Epilogue is an embarrassing example of what happens when a skilled historian of the distant past attempts to render his verdict on contemporary events.
Bob
Life on the Edge: memoirs of Everest and beyond, by Jim Whittaker. (1999)
"...I believe the key to a life well lived—as distinct from the 'good life'—is discomfort."
Jim Whittaker, born in 1929, in a rural area of western Washington State, was the first American to summit Mt. Everest. He was the single employee of a specialty outdoors shop (one room in the 2nd floor of a building), providing local climbers with difficult to obtain, mountaineering gear, such as quality ropes, pitons, climbing harnesses. Whittaker nurtured that little shop to eventually become the business we know today as R.E.I. Jim Whittaker was also responsible for introducing Vibram soles to nearly all hiking boots made in the US.
If you happened to read the book, Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer's 1998 account of a catastrophe on Mt. Everest during one particularly tragic season, Life on the Edge recounts numerous, similar adventures—some victorious, some tragic—in Alaska, Washington State, Tibet, Nepal, etc. This is a biography that starts in his childhood, and carries us through all the stages of his life, up to the age of 70 (at which point, he and his family were half-way around the world on a multi-year sail boat circumnavigation of the globe). He became close friends with the rich and famous, and was honored by US Presidents. He served as campaign manager for Robert F. Kennedy's presidential run—and RFK's assassination.
Jim Whittaker died in April of 2026, at the age of 97.
Bob
HillDweller
Well-Known Member
I did read Thin Air, I may have to add this one to the list.
Jon Krakauer discusses his PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) 30 years later.
Jon Krakauer reflects on 30 years since surviving deadly Mount Everest climb
May marks 30 years since the deadly Mount Everest disaster that took the lives of eight people. Journalist Jon Krakauer, who survived the climb, chronicled the tragedy in his bestselling book "Into Thin Air." Krakauer joins to discuss the book's rerelease and his regrets.
www.cbsnews.com
Bob
EDIT: Krakauer's comment regarding the impact of his presence on the behavior of others brings to my mind Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. The act of observing (measuring) always impacts what is being observed.
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Mountains of the Heart: A Natural History of the Appalachians, by Scott Weidensaul. (1994)
One thing I noticed, on opening the book, was that the author, Scott Weidensaul, had actually signed the title page (with the pressure mark of his pen evident on the reverse side of that page).
This book is a wide-ranging discussion of the geologic, geographical, biological and human aspects of the Appalachian mountain range, which stretches from Alabama to Maine, and even into the Canadian Maritimes. (Geologically, it also includes the Scotish highlands, which parted ways with North America quite a while back.)
The opening chapter explains how, in the Appalachians, there are mountains in which the truly ancient rock layers ended up on top of of rock layers deposited millions of years later. Subsequent chapters address categorical topics, such as predatory birds, relict trees from the last ice age, aquatic and semi-aquatic life, peat bogs, elk, moose, deer, bison, etc. The author explains the numerous (generally severe) biologic impacts of human behaviors, like clear-cut logging, the intentional introduction of non-native species, as well as engineering projects: dams and artificial lakes. Every "benefit" comes with a cost—occasionally anticipated but usually a surprise.
Chapter by chapter, the book seems to cary a story of relentless change, always with a soft undercurrent of tragedy.
Bob
Parental Advisory: This is a dirty book.
The Earth Moved: on the remarkable achievements of Earthworms, by Amy Stewart. (2004)
Although the spine of this paperback is clean and tidy, the front and back covers have been carefully designed to look like it has been repeatedly handled by a gardener with dirty hands. Or perhaps the cover was made from paper recovered from a compost bin.
The central image of the front cover is from Charles Darwin, who was the first scientist to seriously study the earthworms beneath our feet. Earthworms are known to drag fragments of leaf into their tunnels. Darwin proved that they selectively pull the stem-end of the leaf or leaf fragment into the tunnel opening, in preference to the wider edge of the leaf. That is...earthworms make decisions!
With up to one million earthworms per acre of land, thinking about earthworms beneath your garden might influence some of your choices. The author cites one study that seemed to indicate that the increased nutritional values documented in "organically" grown fruits and vegetables (when compared to "conventionally" grown fruits and vegetables) may be directly attributable to the abundance of earthworms that survive in soil that has not been chemically treated. [Bob says that "organically" grown crops consistently perform at a lower productivity per acre than "conventionally" grown crops. So the same quantity of output requires greater acreage.]
If you tend a garden, or if you grow your own tobacco, then you will find Stewart's book (~200 pages) delightful as well as truly informative.
Bob
The Earth Moved: on the remarkable achievements of Earthworms, by Amy Stewart. (2004)
Although the spine of this paperback is clean and tidy, the front and back covers have been carefully designed to look like it has been repeatedly handled by a gardener with dirty hands. Or perhaps the cover was made from paper recovered from a compost bin.
The central image of the front cover is from Charles Darwin, who was the first scientist to seriously study the earthworms beneath our feet. Earthworms are known to drag fragments of leaf into their tunnels. Darwin proved that they selectively pull the stem-end of the leaf or leaf fragment into the tunnel opening, in preference to the wider edge of the leaf. That is...earthworms make decisions!
"Darwin continued in this manner, testing them for each of their senses. He blew a loud whistle and found they did not respond to sound. He placed his pots of worms on the piano and played, which sometimes caused them to dash into their burrows. Clearly, he concluded, the worms were sensitive to vibrations. That realization led him outside to beat on the ground, testing the hypothesis that worms come out of their burrows if they believe they are being pursued by a mole. Unable to rouse any worms by pounding on the dirt, he moved on to the subject of smell.
'They were quite indifferent to my breath, as long as I breathed on them gently', he reported. 'They exhibited the same indifference to my breath, whilst I chewed some tobacco...'"
With up to one million earthworms per acre of land, thinking about earthworms beneath your garden might influence some of your choices. The author cites one study that seemed to indicate that the increased nutritional values documented in "organically" grown fruits and vegetables (when compared to "conventionally" grown fruits and vegetables) may be directly attributable to the abundance of earthworms that survive in soil that has not been chemically treated. [Bob says that "organically" grown crops consistently perform at a lower productivity per acre than "conventionally" grown crops. So the same quantity of output requires greater acreage.]
If you tend a garden, or if you grow your own tobacco, then you will find Stewart's book (~200 pages) delightful as well as truly informative.
Bob
A History of East Asia: from the origins of civilization to the twenty-first century, by Charles Holcombe, 2nd ed. (2017)
"The First Emperor of Qin...initially made a display of promoting traditional values by appointing seventy scholars as advisors to the throne. Continued dissent, especially criticism of the Qin regime by comparing it unfavorably to the idealized memory of antiquity, proved intolerable, however. In 213 BCE, the First Emperor notoriously ordered the burning of all books, except for histories of the Qin state and a few useful technical treatises. In 212 BCE, he reportedly went further and ordered the execution, for subversion, of 460 scholars. In Confucian memory, these two horrifying acts became indelible emblems of Qin tyranny.
The First Emperor was also deeply interested in arcane techniques for prolonging life and may have envisioned himself as a god figure (di), wielding cosmic power to align the universe. Perhaps the ultimate example of his self-aggrandizement may be the enormous tomb that he had constructed for himself. The tomb, which is twenty miles in circumference, contains, as just one small part, and entire terracotta army consisting of thousands of life-sized clay soldiers, which was buried and only recently rediscovered by accident. Thus, though the First Emperor's reputation may have been darkened by Confucian biases under subsequent dynasties, the staggering scale of his ambition was real enough."
Following a discussion of the Chinese language and the origins of its pictographic nature, the basic history of China's earliest dynasties carries the reader up to about 300 AD. The spread—and dramatic re-definition—of Buddhism into the Far East is an example of how religions evolve in different cultures. [It evolved into pretty much the opposite of what Siddhartha Gautama had originally asserted!] And it was the spread of Buddhism that carried writing and literacy, first from China to Korea, and then from Korea to Japan.
This book covers the detailed histories of China, Korea, Japan and Viet Nam, up to 2017.
Overall, what surprised me most was my realization that civilization in China finally arose nearly 1000 years later than the rise of civilizations in the Middle East.
My favorite quote:
"The mobility made possible by ease of transportation also encouraged increasingly large-scale recreational tourism. By late Ming [1368 to 1644 AD!], it had become common to complain that 'crowds of tourists' and souvenir vendors were spoiling the tourist attractions."
I had expected that the more modern periods of east Asian history would be mostly familiar material, but I was unaware of how much of it I had not known.
Bob
