Episode · The Ben & Marc Show · 2023-08-02
Books mentioned on Oppenheimer & the Catastrophe of Communism
Marc Andreessen recommended The Odyssey, When Reason Goes on Holiday by Neven Sesardic, The Red Decade by Eugene Lyons, The Man from the Future by Ananyo Bhattacharya, and The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick and others. Ben Horowitz discussed Tempest by William Shakespeare.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The Odyssey
The Odyssey by Homer is an epic ancient Greek poem that follows Odysseus on his long, perilous journey home after the Trojan War, remaining one of history's most influential foundational narratives.
Recommended“There's actually this great book; there's an economist named Alexander Field who's done this; he's done a pair of great books in the 1930s and 1940s, but he talks in great detail about how the American military production machine basically spun up in 18 months.”
Where to get it
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When Reason Goes on Holiday
When Reason Goes on Holiday by Neven Sesardic is a nonfiction book exploring how brilliant scientists and high-IQ individuals can hold radical, misguided, or seemingly irrational political and social views.
Recommended“there is a new book out that goes through this called when reason goes on holiday and uh it goes through in detail uh Einstein's statements in the 20s and 30s in particular”
Where to get it
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The Red Decade
The Red Decade by Eugene Lyons is a historical examination documenting the extent of communist enthusiasm and intellectual sympathy among American cultural and political elites during the 1920s and 1930s.
Recommended“right which was basically and there's I'll recommend another book here called red decade uh which was written by an American journalist Eugene Lyons who kind of figured this out early and wrote this book basically about the 1920s and about the level of sort of communist enthusiasm in the United States the 1920s”
Where to get it
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The Man from the Future
Ananyo Bhattacharya's The Man from the Future chronicles the visionary life and monumental scientific contributions of the polymath John von Neumann.
Recommended“so so there's this great book that that Ben and I've read this I think it's called The Man from the future the Van Norman book and so I think it does a very good job of telling telling about Norman's side of the story”
Where to get it
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The Man in the High Castle
Philip K.
Recommended“Also, there's this great book that Ben and I have read called The Man from the Future, the Von Neumann book, and it does a very good job of telling Norman's side of the story.”
Where to get it
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Tempest
Tempest by William Shakespeare is one of the celebrated playwright's final masterworks, exploring themes of magic, betrayal, illusion, and reconciliation on a remote island.
Discussed“Whitaker Chambers tells this amazing story in his book about how he tried to out himself to the U.S. government as a Soviet military intelligence recruiter and it took him six years to be taken seriously by the FBI and the Justice Department.”
Where to get it
