Joseph Tainter, Collapse of Complex Societies and Paul Cooper, Fall of Civilizations.

  The first book is well grounded in scientific facts, reflects author's own original research and hardly readable, at least by a layperson. The second book is eminently readable and mostly grounded in Google searches. No wonder that the second book is everywhere on Amazon, while the first book is hidden and unpopular. 

Robert Sapolsky. Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will.

     Sapolsky, a titular genius, wrote a book denying a free will entirely. Interestingly, in my old age, I begin to believe in the absence of the free will more and more because during my life I made the same mistakes in absolutely similar situations. So, I got to assume that my behavioral failings were conditioned by my genetics and upbringing. Sapolsky's outlook on the culpability of the criminals and a possibility of punishment in the absence of the free will is decidedly odd, the chapter is called "Fun of punishment" or something like that. So he suggests to replace penitentiary system and ritual by private vendettas and retribution? I think, not.  

    However, from both philosophical and scientific point of view, Sapolsky's argument, as much as I solidarize with his statement does not seem to be very convincing. From the philosophical point of view, he did not define correctly what the "free will" is. He implicitly means by that the actions, which are not conditioned on heredity, past history and the current environment. But these must be completely random as it was already clear to Jean Buridan (c. 1301 - c. 1359). 

    My definition of the "free will" would be as follows. Whether it is possible to predict human actions (in a strong form, infinitely long into the future) knowing everything about the individual that is allowed, in principle, by physics, chemistry and biology? I cannot find a plausible argument why it is. 

    The "in principle" clause is important because our current knowledge of the mind and its working is incomplete. Yet, the thought argument, in which we copy someone's brain with molecular precision and then attach it to the robot -- is possible. Would this organism behave exactly like the person whose brain was copied? I very much doubt that. 

    Too bad, I cannot talk directly to Sapolsky and have to restrict myself to talking to my landlord's dog. 

P.S. I heard an interview with Dr. Sapolsky on NPR. I was negatively surprised that he treats the absence of the free will not as a conclusion of his scientific observations but as a foundation of his philosophical identity. While I am sympathetic to his ideas, science is about proofs, not convictions. 

Jeremy Eisler. Time's Echo.

  The book tells a story of contemporary classical music role in forming the narrative of the Holocaust, the Shoah. Jeremy Eisler is a brilliant stylist, verbally penetrating into music like few others. His book has passages, which are literary masterpieces in their own right. 

    Of course, I cannot question the author's choice of key figures. There are only four in the pages: Richard Strauss, the conformist; Arnold Schoenberg, Dmitry Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten. JE is little too fond of neo-romantic music for my taste. There is a incomplete list of composers and producers of music annihilated in the Shoah: Victor Ullmann, Peter Kein, David Beigelman, Paul Haas, Hans Krasa and Gideon Klein. Some survived: Karel Berman and Hans Adler. 

    However, he is right to the point that Schoenberg and Shostakovich worked out a musical idiom of the unspeakable even before the word "Holocaust" was coined.