2022: The History Impossible Library
The books I read last year
In case people didn’t know: I read. I mean, a lot. This should go without saying, but I don’t think even I appreciated how much I read in 2022 alone until I started looking at all the books I read and then started tallying the pages (I stopped counting at 2,000) and hours (I stopped counting at 100). This is the reality of a historical podcaster, for sure, but also of someone who just likes to read (I was raised right) and learn new things (“I have a competition in me”).
Before I get into it, I need to first give a shout-out to my editor, collaborator, and Twitter pal Jamie Paul over on his own Substack, American Dreaming (and for which I’ve contributed here and here), for inspiring me to write this post. I read a lot in 2022, especially for the sake of researching the podcast. The following list includes the books that I can’t recommend more to all of you kind enough to subscribe to this Substack, or to my podcast. Once I’ve finished watching all the films from 2022 I’m interested in, I just might create a post for that too.
The Nonfiction Books I Read in 2022
Believe it or not, I do find time to read/listen to books just for pleasure and not just for research. And in the end, many of these books do find their way into future episodes of History Impossible (there was the 2018 book Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It by Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik, which featured heavily in “Pandemic: Rendering a Hue and Cry; I only read that one for fun and it was the thing that knotted it all together). However, it should be noted I didn’t love every book on this list; but I did read them and I do think others should read them too, regardless of my feelings on them.
The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization (2022) by Peter Zeihan
I have to admit that going into this book, I had no idea who Peter Zeihan was, let alone what the word “geopolitics” actually meant (it’s not just “world politics”; it’s the politics shaped by geographical forces, to put it the most simply I can). In short, this is one of those sweeping, trends-and-forces analysis of the present and recent past (as well as primers on the ancient past) in order to explain why the future is actually pretty damn bleak for much of the world (excluding America and a few other geographically- and demographically-blessed places). In short, it’s not a happy read, per se, but it’s extremely enlightening, terrifying, and above all, pragmatic look into our planet’s possible (likely?) future. It also is the only book I’ve read that seems to understand just what the Chinese political system actually is and resembles.
Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam (2021) by Vivek Ramaswamy
Oh boy. This blowtorch to America’s current corporatocracy is a doozy. I’ve already pulled a lot from this with my long-form analysis I called “Stakeholder Nazism”, so please check that out if you haven’t already for my own blowtorch that somehow sounds unhinged even for me. But this book offers a peak behind the macroeconomic curtain and reveals just what all of this “ethical capitalism” we’ve been fed by Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the broader media establishment, and even academia for the past decade or so is really all about. In short, to quote George Orwell, “capitalism is disappearing, but socialism is not replacing it.”
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951) by Eric Hoffer
The best overdue classic I’ve read in years, taking its place alongside most greats, such as Orwell. Eric Hoffer, the autodidact longshoreman, does better than most in characterizing not just the historical moments/movements in which he came of age—correctly diagnosing fascism and communism for what they were, i.e. sociopolitical cults—but also what possesses the minds of those who adhere to them. It’s a very fast read, and one I plan to re-read as often as I can, especially whenever dealing with the social psychology of groups.
Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) by Viktor E. Frankl
Tragic optimism. To quote a 2021 article in The Atlantic extolling its virtues, it “is the search for meaning during the inevitable tragedies of human existence, and is better for us than avoiding darkness and trying to ‘stay positive.’” This was the power of Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s masterpiece, along with pioneering logotherapy, something that can be very easily incorporated into the therapeutic process of most types, especially cognitive behavioral, as it was with me. Life may be meaningless on its own, and you may never discover your own meaning, but striving to find that meaning is a reward—and sometimes the best way to survive—in and of itself.
Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class (2020) by Catherine Liu
A somewhat underground hit within the internet Marxist/post-left circles in 2021-2022, this short read serves an incredible blowtorch to the so-called experts of the professional managerial class. Where Barbara and John Ehrenreich pioneered such a distinction, and where Michael Lind “yes and’ed” it, Catherine Liu boiled it down to its essence and showed us how there are indeed some things that can truly unite the left and right, even if it’s profound distrust of an entire class of people (who, thanks to their contempt of the working class and performative distrust of the upper class to whom they are devoted, kinda sorta have it coming). While I appreciated the concision of Liu’s work, it left me wanting more, so I hope we get some sort of expansion or “sequel” to this in the near future.
Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race (2019) by Thomas Chatterton Williams
This has been on my reading list for a few years now, and (despite my dog literally eating pages 88-90) I was able to devour it in short order when I finally nabbed it from my local bookstore. Williams’ ability to transport us all over the various highlights of his life while highlighting specific details and giving us insight into his psychology gives this book a dreamlike, almost Terrence Malick-esque quality. The transcending of racial qualifiers—something increasingly necessary, at least in the United States, as we continue to realize that love has no color boundary—that Williams explores is as fascinating as it might be challenging to many who read this work, whether they’re committed anti-racists trying to hide their multiracial anxieties or just straight up bigot.
The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy - What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny (1997) by William Strauss and Neil Howe
I can’t honestly say this has ever happened to me before, or at least not as memorably or recently: I was constantly frustrated and amused at this book to the point where I was laughing out loud at its assertions every few pages…and yet I couldn’t put it down. The Fourth Turning got a lot more play recently thanks to the associations with Steve Bannon, who considers it his Bible, and while one can appreciate why, it’s a much looser, far less reactionary book than one might assume. In sum, this is historical astrology. Strauss and Howe posit some very interesting hypotheses—some of which have ultimately become validated by world events—but as long-time listeners know, I don’t have much time for notions of literal historical cycles. However: I do have a lot of interest in the idea of them, because I do think the effort to understand history in this manner provides a good starting point for unique analysis. At its worst, this book is overwrought and silly, and at its best its provocative. I can’t not recommend people read it for themselves.
The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations (2006) by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom
It’s always fascinating to read books that purport to explain how the present—especially viz technological progress—is informing the future, but over 15 years after they were originally written so you can compare notes. This book foresaw the phenomenon of leaderless groups—the Tea Party, Occupy, BLM (sort of), Antifa, and so on—and saw them all as a force to be reckoned with. While many of the predictions don’t exactly age well (i.e. many of the leaderless groups that have risen in the last 15 years have fallen just as quickly), it still provided a nice primer on how these sorts of groups have managed to thrive in the internet age. It’s weird to say, but this wasn’t a given in 2006, when most of us were still on MySpace and Facebook was just used to organize house parties.
Love Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex, and Survival (1998) by Andrew Sullivan
It isn’t often that a book nearly moves me to tears. Andrew Sullivan’s account of surviving the AIDS pandemic while others around him—including loved ones—perished struck a particular chord with me, thanks, largely I believe, to the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic was still killing people. This is despite the fact that I knew no one (at least I think?) who died of COVID; at most, I know a few people who lost someone. This is no slight against them, but when it feels like a disease is singling you and those like you out—as it did in those early days of HIV/AIDS, like it or not—the isolation and fear it creates can only be paralyzing; I remember, as a young boy, seeing some people in the church I attended, expressing this sorrow as one of the congregants—Michael was his name—succumbed to the disease. Sullivan captures this—the fear, the isolation, the sorrow—in the first third of this book. The other two thirds—about sex and friendship—are no less poignant, but they do strike far fewer of those chords for me. Nevertheless I can’t recommend this book enough, especially to my fellow millennials and the younger Zoomers who simply have no idea how terrifying and heartbreaking the early days of AIDS actually were.
Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley (2016) by Antonio Garcia Martinez
If you ever wanted to get a juicy, pseudo-Hunter S. Thompson-esque look behind the curtain in Silicon Valley during the early 2010s, look no further than Antonio Garcia Martinez’s compelling memoir. Thanks to its aesthetic throwback to the mid-2000s “fratire” style/tone, this is one of those books that manages to feel skeezy, funny, and insightful, all rolled into one. No one—including Martinez—comes out looking all that great, and I suspect that’s the point; “look at this trainwreck of an industry,” Martinez seems to say, proudly standing off to the side, his own clothes singed by the conflagration of said trainwreck. “I may be a douchebag, but have you not been paying attention to who I’ve been working with?” There’s a lot of self-service in this, but that is the case with all memoirs. If anything, it allows us to understand the psychology of those involved in Silicon Valley—how they truly see the world—and how it’s not all cynical money-grabbing (though there’s certainly a lot of that).
The Best Essay Collections I Started in 2022
After reading and loving Wesley Yang’s The Souls of Yellow Folk last year (which I paired with a re-read of Christopher Hitchens’ classic Letters to a Young Contrarian), I started delving deeply into essay collections, especially after a nice haul arrived for Christmas of 2021. It’s worth noting that none of these are by any means complete; most essay collections are long (in some of these cases, very long) and aren’t well-consumed in single sittings. These will be on my shelf for years to come.
A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing (1982) by H.L. Mencken
For all of his personal issues (that weren’t really out of step with much of American society at the time, for what it’s worth), Mencken is the gadfly’s gadfly, the contrarian’s contrarian. For all the literary/verbal venom he produced in his life, there was always a disarming wink and a smile behind all of it; not to give too much insight into my motives, but this is something to which many of us “disagreeable” sorts aspire. And this collection of Mencken’s self-selected favorites provides one of the best samples/inspirations one can find who seeks to be against the grain at all times.
Out on a Limb: Selected Writing, 1989-2021 (2021) by Andrew Sullivan
Someone—I forget who—recently wrote that when Andrew Sullivan is wrong, he’s loudly wrong, and when he’s right, he’s loudly right; at least it was something to that effect. And in a way, that’s what this collection of Sullivan’s work from throughout his career proudly displays it. If there is a man in who the writing spirit of Christopher Hitchens lives, it’s Sullivan. For every essay that might have frustrated me, there are five that inspire me. I particularly like the ones that give a window into what political culture was like throughout the 1990s. But most of all, Sullivan’s selections tell a story about how his thinking evolved over the years (especially regarding things like the Iraq War of 2003-2011).
Provocations: Collected Essays on Art, Feminism, Politics, Sex, and Education (2018) by Camille Paglia
I was slow to get onto the Camille Paglia train, I admit. But there hasn’t a more interesting and compelling feminist voice that I’ve read since I first read Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema” about 15 years ago. Paglia, in a lot of ways like Mencken before her, is one of the most iconoclastic, contrarian writers alive, especially with regard to her taste in film (Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is “our generation’s greatest work of art”?! Like…really?? I mean granted, Disney’s stewardship of Star Wars has made this take age less like milk, but still kind of like a smelly cheese) and you can see this and more expressed in this amazing collection. I’ll be dipping into this throughout 2023, I can tell you.
United States: Essays 1952-1992 (1993) by Gore Vidal
The mighty do fall and Gore Vidal is most definitely not an exception, especially regarding his 9/11 and Bush administration takes, based as they are. However, if you want to experience Vidal’s political writing at its mighty peak, this essay collection will keep you busy for years (as it will for me; I finally nabbed this last year and I couldn’t even tell you how many pages I have left from its over 1,200 total). The ones that have particularly stuck out to me mostly have to do with the Kennedys, as well as his frequent barbs aimed at other writers—Norman Mailer, who he frequently savages in one of his essays about feminism, comes to mind.
Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays (2004) by Christopher Hitchens
I’ve made it a point to take my time with this collection by my favorite non-fiction writer of all time, far longer than his excellent wide-ranging collection, Arguably published a few months before his death, which I tore through as soon as I got it. This one is probably going to be one of his more interesting collections to work through since this is at his hawkish peak, where you can see the neocon brain rot truly set in, but still be stated with typical Hitchensian confidence and wit. One day I will have read all of Hitch’s work put to paper, and based on the delight I got from reading his savagery directed at Noam Chomsky, I believe this collection will stand above many.
The Fiction Book (Yes, Singular) I Read in 2022
I only read one work of fiction in 2022 (apart from starting to re-read the New Jedi Order series from the Star Wars Legends canon). As a writer of fiction, I have to admit that did hurt a little to write just now. The good thing is that the book was incredible; perhaps not start-to-finish incredible, but incredible, and right up my alley, nonetheless.
American War (2017) by Omar El Akkad
Having just finished this novel, I can confidently say that it’s not just the best I read in 2022—since the competition for fiction is basically non-existent—but it’s actually one of the best speculative fiction books I’ve ever read. It outlines—from the perspective of someone writing in the 2140s—the Second American Civil War of 2074-2095 from the perspective of a young girl who is first traumatized by the violence that took her family and then turned into a deadly weapon against the forces of the North, before the toll such a transformation takes—on more than just her—is ultimately revealed. It’s got a real slow start and you don’t know exactly where things are going outside of the incredible world-building, but if you make it to the second half, you will not be disappointed in the outcome. I can’t promise you’ll feel great when it’s over, though.
The Best Books I Read for History Impossible in 2022
Not every book I read for History Impossible is a great book, in terms of my enjoyment. This isn’t to say the rest of them I read are complete slogs (though sometimes they are). It’s just that I can’t recommend them to anyone outside of the historical podcasting or research context since, when it comes down to it, they’re the kind of thing that turns people off of history. They don’t make me groan with frustration, but I’m not most people. However, the books listed here are the exceptions; these are books that I believe anyone who loves a good book or a compelling story would enjoy. They help flesh out the stories I told, for sure, and have interesting details that I wasn’t able to cover—either here on Substack or on the podcast proper—so I highly recommend you check these bad boys out.
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (1998) by Simon Winchester
Those of you who listened to the two-part episode of the Infinitesimal Impossibilities subseries where Molly and I covered the tale of the Oxford English Dictionary and the two major minds behind it will recognize a lot of the text in here. I think it might be one of the most extensively quoted sources I’ve ever used in any episode of History Impossible, and it’s because this book is, well, incredibly written. The flowery language is appropriate given the subject matter and the descriptive powers of Simon Winchester on display are undeniable. You’ll have a blast reading this very-inspiring-yet-incredibly-sad tale and come away blown away at the endeavor creating THE dictionary of the English language actually was.
Hitler’s Religion: The Twisted Beliefs That Drove the Third Reich (2016) by Richard Weikart
Amusingly, this book is the hardest for me to recommend thanks largely to its author’s reputation as a creationist who, previously, tried to tie Nazi beliefs to that of Charles Darwin, completely missing the point of difference between Darwinism and social Darwinism. However, despite this and perhaps ironically, Weikert is the only scholar—and yes, he is a legitimate historical scholar—who I’ve read who seems to get not just Nazism’s relationship with religion correct, but also Hitler’s own. I have yet to find any other claims regarding Hitler’s religious beliefs more compelling than this one (and no, do not cite Holy Reich by Richard Steigmann-Gall; Weikert, to his credit, painstakingly dismantles all the primary claims made in that book that clearly set out to make Nazism into a “Christian” enterprise).
In the Shadow of the Sword: The Rise of Islam and the Birth of the Global Arab Empire (2012) by Tom Holland
No, not that Tom Holland. This Tom Holland, i.e. the one who wrote my favorite book of 2019, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, probably one of the most influential historical books I’ve ever read. This is admittedly the densest work on this list, but Holland is a masterful epic storyteller and manages to keep the insanely complex history of the formation of Islam condensed into something clear and understandable. It managed to spark some controversies when it was first released ten years ago—namely with Holland’s supposed sin of not speaking Arabic—but it’s a challenging historical narrative, one that highlights the reality those of us looking for earthly evidence of the original prophets are often hit with: the fact that there actually isn’t any concrete evidence that Muhammad existed. Nevertheless, Holland makes a compelling case for how such a powerful faith—arguably the most powerful for a good chunk of human history—managed to emerge from warring desert tribes over a thousand years ago.
Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany (1999) by Hans J. Massaquoi
This was the main source for my “feel good” episode of the year (I try to have at least one). There’s not much I can or want to say here that I haven’t already said in the 5-hour History Impossible episode about growing up black in Nazi Germany, but I do recommend everyone who enjoyed that episode to find the time to read this incredible memoir, especially to get the details I was unable to cover in the episode itself (especially Hans’ account of living with his father in Liberia after the war). The tale is haunting, for sure, but it’s also insanely inspiring and I can’t recommend it enough.
Masochistic Nationalism: Multicultural Self-Hatred and the Infatuation with the Exotic (2021) by Goran Adamson
For those who forgot, I had a very nice chat with Goran Adamson toward the beginning of 2022 to discuss this very book, so I recommend that anyone who missed that to go check it out. We discussed his thesis—which builds masterfully upon George Orwell’s theories of negative and transferred nationalism—and I was able to share my thoughts on how masochistic nationalism manifested strongly with the Nazis. His work helped immensely in my research and attempt to pull together the strange beliefs held by Savitri Devi, Hitler’s masochistic Hindu priestess and understand something so unhinged. His book is concise and offers personal anecdotes to help illustrate the philosophical concepts he’s playing with, and provides a nice window into the challenges faced by many European cultures today.
War for Eternity: Inside Bannon’s Far Right Circle of Global Power Brokers (2020) by Benjamin Teitelbaum
Oh boy. This book might be one of my favorite reads of the last couple of years. Not only have I gotten a chance to speak to Ben Teitelbaum a couple of times, but it queued me into the very real and very serious ideology underpinning what we might call certain parts of the “New Right” or “dissident right” or even the “alt right.” Teitelbaum delves brilliantly into the old philosophy of Traditionalism, as well as the modern figures—including Steve Bannon—who have made it their mission to spread around the world (to obviously not great results). It also gave me and host of the Eastern Border podcast Kristaps Andrejsons something to geek out about, namely Aleksandr Dugin. But if you want to understand why this network of people is worth taking seriously (but not entertained), I can’t recommend this book enough. It also helped me parse out the philosophies espoused by the aforementioned Savitri Devi.
Great and interesting list!