Book: Love and Ruin

A collection of "long form nonfiction essays" from the online magazine The Atavist.  Each of the essays, the introduction assures us, starts out with a small idea, a simple premise that gradually, inexorably blooms into a discussion of large and weighty matters.

The first essay, the title essay, is about an American couple who fall in love with each other and with Afghanistan, before the Soviet invasion in, what was it, 1979.  They strive to preserve artistic relics and cultural heritages, they set up a national museum of art & culture and start collecting and documenting 5,000 years of art, they become the revered elder curators of Afghanistan's history.

Then the Soviets invade.

Then ten years later they leave.  The Taliban fills the void.

Then the Americans invade.

Then they leave, and ISIS fills the void.

Then the Americans return.

It's a heartbreaking tale of trying to preserve a tiny corner of order among an overwhelming descent into chaos.  Because it is told on a human scale, you get a unique view of the politics on the ground that we Americans tend to only vaguely understand.

The second essay, which I've just started, is about a unique blue whale who sings his song an octave higher than any other known blue whale.  Nobody can figure out why.

The second essay, about the whale, was kinda inconclusive.  Not much is known about this whale, not even for sure his species -- could be blue, could be fin -- could be a hybrid even -- and since funding was cut off he's not being tracked anymore.  Nevertheless, his story got some press and he became known as "the loneliest whale in the ocean" and became some sort of folk hero among people drawn to that sort of thing.  Lots of profiles of lonely people who identify with 52 Blue.  Even some deaf people are claiming the whale might be deaf.

The third essay was more interesting, about a battle between Tlingit Indians and Russia in 1804, where rather than confront the Russians directly (who were much better armed) the Indians retreated and allowed the Russians to overrun their settlement.  The Russians soon tired of occupying a remote Tlingit village and went home.  The Tlingits reclaimed their settlement. Both sides claimed victory.  The question became, what constitutes victory in a war fought unconventionally, a war where casualties were few?  Is it really "war" if one side refuses to fight, refuses to lose, and simply waits out the invader?

The fourth essay is about a bizarre plan to import and raise hippopotamuses in America in the 1910s because of a meat shortage.  

The essays (so far) have been of such a standard that I have subscribed to The Atavist.

How could a story about this guy NOT be fascinating?

NoCoPilot wrote:

The essays (so far) have been of such a standard that I have subscribed to The Atavist.

The Atavist publishes one story per month, online only, with hot links and photos and audio samples and interactive graphics that that format permits. They've been publishing since sometime in 2011 so I have something like 72 essays to catch up on.

Each one is like 1/3 book length.

Good investment economically ($25/yr) but a HUGE investment timewise.

Yeah, excellent book. Just finished it. I'm not that easily impressed anymore but the quality of these essays was uniformly outstanding.