A friend recently recommended Bernard Lewis’ The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. Before I could find a copy of it, I found Lewis’ What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East. This short volume (161 pages) provided a very interesting history of Islam from the 1500’s to […]
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I first learned of Jennifer Michael Hecht’s newest title, The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think Is Right Is Wrong , via D.J. Grothe and his interview with her on the Point of Inquiry podcast. I highly recommend listening to the interview before reading the book. It gives a very good feel for Hecht’s personality […] At TAM5, in response to a question to a panel of speakers regarding their suggested reading list for us right now, Christopher Hitchens recommended Matt Ridley’s The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation. Hitchens said it was a good book about how humans came to have a moral sense derived from […] The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, by Edward Tufte This 28-page booklet is a great place to start to learn about all the evils of bullet-driven PowerPoint presentations. Tufte describes several reasons why most PowerPoint presentations are terrible and then shows some examples, including a great send-up of the Gettysburg Address in PowerPoint. Reading this […] The Visual Display of Quantitative Information,by Edward Tufte Starting with Dr. Denman’s and Mr. Swiss’ presentation on “Information and Misinformation†at TAM4, I have been hearing and reading a lot about Edward Tufte’s works on statistical evidence and information design. Having read a few Tufte-quoting books, it was time for the prime material. […] |
