Wednesday, February 18, 2026

The Good Kings by Kara Cooney

This book’s full title is The Good Kings, Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World. I did learn about some Egyptian history from this book. I picked it up for that.

In reading the last bit, Kara Cooney obviously knows little about hunter gatherers societies. They were very diverse in how power was structured, but they were also could be very violent. There was fighting among tribes. If a tribe on their travels met a lone person, they would probably kill that person. Although some tribes had a relatively peaceful society and some had a relatively more violent society with everything in between.

Kara Cooney has her own website promoting her books.

There is an interesting and good review by Book Visier on Good Reads. I must admit that I was looking for a book on Egyptian history and did not fully understand at first about this book and Kara Cooney’s politics. I also understand where Scott D reviewer is coming from. This second review is very favourable to the book at a site called Jathan and Heather and is written by Jathan Fink. There is an interesting discussion on this book at the UCLA site.

Jordan Galczynski has an interview with Kara Cooney. Interesting, but can you really use what happened in Egypt to how the rest of the world works in modern times? There is a virtual author talk at MC Public Library by Kara Cooney.

Reading what Kara Cooney thinks about the world, I thought about what the economist Walter E. Williams said “Capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering, and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man”.

I read Assyria by Eckart Fahm and Land between the Rivers by Bartle Bull. These were marvelous books. This one, not so much.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Thursday, January 15, 2026

Assyria by Eckart Frahm

This book’s full title is Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Empire. This is an absolute wonderful book. I know about the Assyrian as I have read a lot of history, but I had never just read a book on them. I do love history. This book is well written and a pleasure to read.

Steve Donoghue’s review on Open Letters gives you a good feel of what it is like to read this book. William Peace on his blog gives a good overview of this book. This last items is an interview by Susan Gonzalez with Eckart Frahm.

Eckart Frahm for MV Public Library discusses his book. It not always easy to listen to as he seems to drone on, but it does cover all the points in the book. In this video, Eckart Frahm is interviewed on MoAn Inc about this book.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.