How the World Made the West: A 4,000 Year History (Josephine Quinn)

Josephine Quinn's How the World Made the West: A 4,000 Year History is a wonderful thought exercise into the origins of Western culture and how societies evolved over a 4,000 year period. Much of our thinking has centered around how "West" and "East" were distinctly different cultures that occasionally interacted through trade. Quinn's book challenges that narrative in a powerful way.

The West (Europe) borrowed extensively from innovations from the Middle East, the Far East, and India. Irrigation, legal codes, sailing, scholarship, and metalworking all had origins outside of Greco-Roman and Western European society. Quinn's argument is that globalism has helped advance both West and East at varying rates over the millenia, with trade, warfare, and human travel helping to shape and share ideas and force technological advances along the way.

How the World Made the West is a brisk walk through several millennia of world history, and Quinn astutely points out the contributions of globalism to advancing civilization.

MY RATING: 4.5 

Bourbon Land: A Spirited Love Letter to My Old Kentucky Whiskey (Edward Lee)

Edward Lee's Bourbon Land: A Spirited Love Letter to My Old Kentucky Whiskey is equal parts Bourbon 101, cookbook, and Kentucky story that will have you racing to book a flight to Kentucky for a flight of bourbon as soon as you're finished reading it.

Bourbon is arguably one of the few American items that has European Union-levels of strictness of definition. However, within the families of bourbon, one can find quite the variety, such as sweet tastes, savory notes, and hints of many different elements. Lee explains how these differences came about in good detail. He also walks the reader through Kentucky's bourbon industry and introduces a host of individuals who mix great drinks, taste delicious bourbon, and manage the distilling process at places that range from Jim Beam to startups in Downton Louisville.

Lee also provides over four dozen bourbon-infused recipes like marinades, sauces, and desserts and includes pro tips on how to properly reduce bourbon without getting zapped by fire (good luck!). All told, Bourbon Land is an ode to American ingenuity (and drinking) and Kentucky's creative economy and a well-crafted story of bourbon's impact on life within the Bluegrass state.

MY RATING: 4.5 

Liberty's Grid: A Founding Father, a Mathematical Dreamland, and the Shaping of America (Amir Alexander)

Many people who have flown over the middle United States have noticed the nearly perfect grid of country roads, properties, and towns that generally run north to south and east to west. This expansive grid was the brainchild of Thomas Jefferson, and Amir Alexander's Liberty's Grid: A Founding Father, a Mathematical Dreamland, and the Shaping of America is the story behind the gridded nature of America's rural and urban landscape.

Alexander notes that gridded landscapes and roads that roughly follow compass directions are not unique to America. The Romans designed arrow-straight roads that, for first and second century standards, were roughly designed to the north-south, east-west compass. Japan and the Netherlands have property features that generally align to grids in rural areas. Jefferson used the idea of grids to help carve out land in much of the United States. Starting in 1784, areas west of the Appalachian Mountains were subject to surveying and the development of square mile grids (and subsequently smaller sections of those square miles) came about as a result. 

Alexander pivots slightly with a few chapters on the grid of Manhattan. While this grid follows the  countours of the island, it isn't perfectly aligned to the directional compass as Jefferson's grid is throughout the country. One missed opportunity here is not discussing how Manhattan's grid provides the opportunity for "Manhattanhenge" to take place in May and July at sunset each year. This is when the sunset aligns perfectly to drop down within the streets of New York's grid, similar to Stonehenge in rural England. While the designers of New York's grid were likely not thinking about tourist opportunities, the result of their grid eventually became one.

MY RATING: 4.5