What I Just Read

Short, simple biography of the famous sixth century Irish missionary who brought Christianity to Scotland. This 1919-era book, the sort of book you might find on the shelves of a modest church library, is free in the public domain . Columba was also known for his pride and short temper, conquering these personal flaws only after a long, long struggle. It took a series of events (see Chapters IV and V) that both traumatized him and caused him to be exiled from his home, but these events also set him on a lifelong road of atonement and self-conquest. We can all see the distance between how we are and how we wish to be, but how many of us make real progress on that journey? Not even the saints make it the whole way. Finally, I had the privilege of travelling to Iona, the island that served as Columba's primary base of operations in Scotland. It's worth visiting!  [A quick  affiliate link to Amazon  for those readers who would like to support my work here: if you p...

Thorough albeit endless biography of Peter the Great, with bonus extensive background on 16th and 17th century geopolitics across Europe and Asia Minor. Extremely useful despite its length.  If you can make it through this 900-page book you'll become a minor expert on Peter, but more importantly you'll have good context on the major European leaders of Peter's era: Charles XII of Sweden, Louis XIV of France, William of Orange, Augustus II of Poland and Saxony, Leopold I of the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick I of Prussia and more. These were the giants (and runts, depending) who shaped European history--and because history rhymes, their actions can help explain and even predict what's happening in Europe today. For a blatant example: we all know that Hitler would have done well to better note Napoleon's catastrophic war with Russia. But Napoleon would have done well to better note Charles II of Sweden's similarly catastrophic war with Russia a century earlier. Swe...