My mother is from New Zealand so therefore I’m half Kiwi. This book explores some of the Maori Myths and legends that existed mainly in oral tradition before the arrival to Aeteorora of the White European Pakeha settlers. The Maori history goes back to their ancient homes in other Polynesian…
This book, edited by one of my literary heroes, Graham Hancock, is a collection of stories focussed mainly on the expansion of consciousness by the use of psychedelics, especially the Amazonian, ‘Vine of the Soul’, Ayahuasca. The authors range from Hancock himself to the well-renowned Dennis McKenna, to British social…
View More Review: The Divine Spark – Psychedelics, Consciousness and the Birth of Civilisation – by Graham Hancock
Graham Greene is a classic early twentieth century English novelist. I remember studying Brighton Rock for my school GCSEs.The Third Man is set in the murky underworld of post World War 2 Vienna. The Austrian capital has been quartered into four allied zones: English, French, American and Russian. A front…
View More Review: The Third Man and The Fallen Idol – by Graham Greene
This book is an academic study of two of the major opponents of Western governments today. It examines both Narcotraffickers and Cartels and also Terrorists, mainly Islamic terrorists. Not only does it cover the methods and practices of these two criminal enterprises in their working practices, the book also examines…
View More Review: From Pablo to Osama – Trafficking and Terrorist Networks, Government Bureaucracies, and Competitive Adaptation – by Michael Kenney
Poverty Safari is a winner of the Orwell Prize in 2018. The author, Darren McGarvey offers us a biographical account of his life in working class Glasgow suburb Pollok. Darren is a rapper who does extensive community work and is also a socially conscious intelligent man with his finger on…
View More Review: Poverty Safari – Understanding the Anger of Britain’s Underclass – by Darren McGarvey
love Jim. The Doors are my most favourite band and I’ve read a lot of material that has been released about them since their emergence in the 1960s rock movement out in Los Angeles, USA. This is probably the most definitive and largest biography that I have yet encountered on…
View More Review: Jim Morrison – Life, Death, Legend – by Stephen Davis
This is the second book that I have read by David Kilcullen. The author is a former Australian soldier and a senior advisor to the US Military in addition to being a leading theorist of modern warfare. This book looks deeply at the fundamental Islamic terrorist state ISIS. ISIS grew…
View More Review: Blood Year – Islamic State and the Failures of the War on Terror – by David Kilcullen
I am an ayahuasquero and regard myself as a shaman. This book is a study on Ayahuasca, the Amazonian ‘Vine of the Soul’ and one of the most ancient medicines known to man. The authors enthusiastically explore the history and tradition of this potent hallucinogenic plant brew, looking at traditions…
View More Review: When Plants Dream – Ayahuasca, Amazonian Shamanism, And the Global Psychedelic Renaissance – by Daniel Pinchbeck and Sophia Rokhlin
This is an exciting tale from the turn of the twentieth century of an eccentric man of the world who encountered directly some of the most important global events of that era. It is a biography of Frederick Bruce Thomas or Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas. He was born to former plantation…
View More Review: Black Russian – by Vladimir Alexandrov
Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui are from a new generation of Chinese People’s Liberation Army soldiers. They have mused upon the situation of modern military affairs and developed this theoretical book on war to describe the status quo as it was around the turn of the Millenium. The book is…
View More Review: Unrestricted Warfare – Wake Up, America! China’s Master Plan to Destroy America
David Kilcullen is an experienced Australian military professional. He is a senior advisor to the US Military. In this book, Kilcullen describes the recent Western conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq as relative anomalies in the progress of future wars and conflict. He focus on the Urban, networked littoral. Giant coastal…
View More Review: Out of the Mountains – The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla – by David Kilcullen