Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs

By Camilla Townsend

History of the Aztecs (or the Triple Alliance as apparently is the more correct term now) based on their own xiuhpohualli, or annals, recorded contemporaneously. Fascinating look at the rich political life of the various city-states in central Mexico both before and during the Spanish conquest. Interesting in that it contradicts accounts I’ve seen in the past (most notably in Charles Mann’s 1491) that smallpox was the primary weapon deployed by the Europeans in their conquest of indigenous peoples. In Townsends account, it was both the superior weapons and armor of the conquistadors and preexisitng political and ethnic divisions among the existing city-states (alteptl) which allowed Cortes to establish Spanish colonial rule.

The Problem with Everything

By Meghan Daum

Familiar criticisms of Nth-wave feminism from an older feminist writer. The arguments will be familiar to anyone whose read Camille Paglia but overall I thought it was very impressionistic and didn’t really engage with the actual substantive claims of the “woke” crowd. Very engagingly written though.

Ecstasy and Terror: From the Greeks to Game of Thrones

By Daniel Mendelsohn

Collection of essays and cultural criticism. He covers a multitude of topics, the most interesting of which was _The Robots are Winning! which traces the two main genres of “robot fiction” back to their roots in Homer, all by way of reviewing two exemplars of each: the films_Ex Machine and Her.