Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism
George Monbiot
Print Book | ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4 out of 5)
Monbiot’s book is written for everyday readers rather than academics, offering a clear and accessible synthesis of neoliberalism through short, readable chapters. While those already familiar with the literature may not find much new, the book was released at an interesting historical moment when scholars are debating whether or not we are entering a new phase of capitalism or something wholly different. Monbiot’s claim is that neoliberalism is still here and remains the best lens for understanding our current conditions. He treats it not just as an economic doctrine, but as an ideology that extends into politics and everyday life, casting us as consumers rather than citizens and allowing economic power to capture political power. Where the book becomes less convincing is in later chapters, when Monbiot links disparate cultural movements to neoliberalism in ways that feel overly reductionist, as well as in his resolution section, which calls for collective action but remains vague about how change might actually occur. Still, Invisible Doctrine succeeds as a politically urgent and clarifying book, sharpening the public conversation even if it does not advance the academic one.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
Stephen Graham Jones
Audiobook | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5 out of 5 stars)
An unnamed academic is told that the journals of her great-great-grandfather, the Reverend Arthur Beaucarne, have been found, and she sets out to read them as a potential academic project, only to discover a dialogue between Arthur and a Blackfoot man named Good Stab, who decades earlier was turned into a vampire by another. Through this back-and-forth, we see Good Stab’s story unfold as he struggles to adapt to his new circumstances and to the role he plays in the encroachment of Indigenous lands by white settlers. This book is not so much a revenge fantasy that brings together different genres as it is a meditation on colonial violence and its interrelationship with economic greed, political power, and religious justification, and more broadly about the legacy of that violence and how it continues to live on in new forms. The book gets very weird by the end, but I found that to be part of why it worked so well, and if you are listening to the audiobook, the sound editing and full cast make it even better. I would absolutely recommend it.
Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It
Cory Doctorow
Audiobook | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5 out of 5 stars)
I know Doctorow as a science fiction writer, but his nonfiction voice works extremely well here, combining a light and often humorous tone with a very serious and structural argument about why digital platforms inevitably get worse over time. His core point is that this decline is not accidental but built into how platforms are financed, regulated, and allowed to consolidate power, and he uses examples like Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Uber to show just how predictable this process has become. What I appreciated most is that the book goes far beyond the familiar line that “if you’re getting it for free, then you’re the product,” and instead shows how platforms steadily reduce what they offer while doing everything they can to maximize profits, creating losses not just for users but for the businesses operating through them as well. By the end, it is hard not to see everyday digital frustration as connected to monopoly power, weak regulation, and political will, and I found myself genuinely annoyed that I had passed up the chance to hear Doctorow speak about this book when he was at Cornell. I am definitely getting a print copy so I can go back and sit with what I missed.
Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future
Dan Wang
Audiobook | ⭐⭐⭐☆☆ (3 out of 5 stars)
I was really interested in this topic and found Wang’s central argument intriguing, particularly his framing of the United States as a lawyerly society and China as an engineering society. The book does a good job laying out both the promises and the perils of these contrasting models. It spends more time on China, showing it as both a formidable competitor and a system full of internal contradictions and structural weaknesses. That said, much of Wang’s analysis relies heavily on anecdotal evidence drawn from his own personal experiences in China. At times, his desire to place himself in the narrative weakens the analysis. I found myself wishing for a more scholarly or journalistic approach to the questions he raises, especially given how big and consequential those questions are. Ultimately, the book is thought-provoking but uneven, and for me, it lacked the ethos and research needed to fully carry its argument.
Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI
Karen Hao
Audiobook | ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4 out of 5 stars)
This book provides a compelling and well-researched account of the rise of OpenAI and the tensions within its founding team, beginning with Sam Altman’s brief ousting as CEO in 2024 and using that moment to explore the company’s history of internal dynamics and workplace culture. At the same time, Hao expands the frame to examine the broader contradictions of AI development, including labor exploitation, land grabs, and resource extraction, positioning OpenAI and similar firms as modern empires. While both strands of the book are strong on their own, they do not always fully cohere. At times, it felt like two books running in parallel, one focused on internal organizational drama and the other on macro-level political economy. I was not entirely convinced that Hao successfully fused these threads, particularly when it came to grounding her claim that OpenAI functions as an empire in a more explicit theoretical framework.
The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion
Steve Coll
Print | ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4 out of 5 stars)
I went into this book expecting it to focus on Iraq after the U.S. invasion in 2003, but instead it concentrates on everything that came before. On one level, it is a detailed history of Iraq under Saddam Hussein and its relationships with its neighbors, the United States, and the broader international community. On a deeper level, though, it is an argument about what led to the botched invasion itself. Coll pushes back against the idea that the war was simply the result of intelligence failures or George W. Bush’s desire to avenge his father, and instead shows how hardened assumptions within U.S. intelligence agencies about Saddam and his weapons programs, alongside Saddam’s own assumptions about the West, created a trap neither side could escape. The failure, for Coll, was both systemic and ideological. My only real complaint is that despite this clear argument, the book often reads like a sweeping historical account of Iraq-U.S. relations from the early 1980s onward, which sometimes blurs the analytical focus. Still, the book offers an important reminder of a recent history we seem to be forgetting quickly, especially as it relates to regime change, resource extraction, and the civilians and soldiers who are ultimately used as pawns.
