What are you reading?

[Faded Float Coat]

I enjoyed a lot of Gladwell's earlier works, but Bomber Mafia (IMO) was not very well done; some fairly basic factual errors and some....peculiar conclusions, but I'm willing to give this one a shot - thanks for the tipper.

Annie Jacobsen's book on "Area 51" should be avoided at all cost.

I just finished this after listening to a podcast interview with the author. It's well researched, provides a good run down of post-revolution Iran, and (without spoiling it) makes one think that, perhaps, this guy would've never turned if Viagra had been invented a few years earlier......

 

[Gatordev]

I ask/write the following because I'm curious about the broader subject...

Annie Jacobsen's book on "Area 51" should be avoided at all cost.

What story does a book about Area 51 tell in 2026? I'm curious why you say this. I'm not arguing with you, just curious about your thoughts. I didn't know who Annie Jacobsen was until you posted, but I've always been interested in the broader subject of the complex...specifically just how well it seemed to have worked for so many decades while also keeping its secrets so well.

There's a very recent documentary about Bob Lazar that I watched recently (Netflix maybe?) that included multiple current interviews with him and his friends/family. At first I wasn't really interested in watching it because I thought it was just going to be about aliens, but it actually reveals quite a lot about the machine that is the security infrastructure at the site(s).

At the end of the day, it's a sad story. He really was done in by his own naivete (and some really dumb security decisions on his part). I don't think he was working on "alien technology," but I believe he believes he was.

 

[Faded Float Coat]

It was a fine-enough history of the available information and details, but comes completely off the rails in the final chapter.

//Spoiler Alert//

According to Jacobsen, Josef Mengel (yes, that Josef Mengel) sent deformed children - large heads, big eyes - to Roswell to be planted among fake UFO wreckage in an attempt to cause panic in the US.

 

[number9]

Is it the same Annie Jacobsen that wrote the post-9/11 "dry run" story? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/25/usa.september11

 

[Griz882]

I liked Gladwell initially, but have heard some fairly damning criticism about the veracity of some of his work. He will sometimes state his hypothesis, then cherry pick anecdotal evidence to support it rather than hard data. I've also heard this about Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs & Steel, etc), whom I do really like. Unsure whether this can be chalked up to academic criticism of these two's more popular writing style and approach.

You are actually right on both counts. Gladwell specifically, and Diamond more broadly, are prone to ignore evidence that tilts against their hypothesis yet both are very good writers capable of presenting complex ideas to a general audience. That makes some academics nervous because if you are required to communicate with the “illeratti” they might figure out you are doing worse.