Khrushchev by Edward Crankshaw

I don't know why I started with this one but I think this might have been mentioned somewhere, and got stuck in my head.

Anyways I finished it, and the first thought is that this is a bit biased. This doesn't mean that I'm in favour of Khurshchev but this put the other world leaders in a brighter light which was a bit far from the truth.

As the name suggests, anybody who follow a global politics, and trend will know that this is about Nikita Sergei Khrushchev. This is not really a biography, and more like a commentary of his career. The rise and fall of Khurshchev, and the conditions of Soviet Empire in the first half of 20th century.

The narrative moves around the Khurshchev's rise from a child of peasant to become a close aide of Stalin, and eventually surpass him in taking up the highest power in contemporary Russia.

He took up various roles, and successful or not he did take the advantage of the situation to get whatever he could to advance himself. Given the situation in Russia at that point of time where Stalin was changing the whole Russia. and everybody who was part of the apparatus was trying to grab as much as they can, he was not very different from his peer.

There are a lot of instances where he is portrayed as a mastermind who was plotting unimaginable things but I think that he was more like a person who stood up when he saw the opportunity, and took his chances, and came out successful. Given the history was bloody, marked with many purges but immensely significant, he could have been simply written him off but he made his place as a statesman who ushered his country in a new age which he himself could not witness.

Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini

Science is believed to be the best field given it's strong basis in logic, and proof of subjects.

It is the fundamental block of everything that we understand, and it puts the rationality in all the discussions.

However, as it evolved it grew into multiple branches and each of these branches started defining their own rational. This was largely due to the inexplicability of few aspects which were more qualitative in nature, and can't be measured in exact numbers/logic.

There was nothing wrong in it as the whole phenomenon was still developing but this give way for a lot of people pushing their own ideas to be approved as science.

The problem started when some of these people started propagating their hidden agenda in the name of science. That's how race science came into the picture. Something which started as to identify the differences between different cultures and nationalities ended up being the science of proving which one is better than other.

This was more like an anthropology or biology but the largest of the voices came up to prove their own justification or claim to genetically or otherwise inherited greatness.

The scientific community which was true to it's founding principles opposed any such deviation but there were a lot of powerful people involved to prove the things otherwise.

I believe that calling such differences in the name of science had more to do in terms of building that myth, and creating the acceptability of such ideas. This has nothing to do with logic, and reason. Somehow people ended up believing that if their ideas get some credibility as scientifically accepted truth than they can put some rationality in their stupidity.

Time and again they were proved wrong but they keep coming under different names. I don't see this stopping in the future given the line between the real and fake/made-up getting blurred day by day, and it will depend on the rationality of the people who choose to be or not be driven by these.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

This is one I picked after I heard about death of Toni Morrison last year.

I was planning to read this and "Tar Baby" next but it took too long to finish this one.

The primary reason for the delay was that this one was a bit difficult to read. Not that the plot is difficult to follow or the language is cryptic. This is a story of African American slave, and her hardships in life after she got her freedom.

This is a real tragic one, and leaves you with the thought of what slavery did to those "Sixty Million and more" people. It was over but it left the scars that even time can't heal. You can be anybody but you can't leave your past behind you. It stays with you, and reminds you what you have been through. This makes you who you're today.

Specially, the bad things in life are difficult to forget. The best thing is to learn how to live with them.

Sethe could never did it but by the end you wish that Denver will turn out to be better than her about the things you can or can not forget.