Our Last Innocent Moment

Ponesse, Julie

History

Brownstone Institute

Mechanisms of Harm: Medicine in the Time of Covid-19

Weintz, Lori

Life after Lockdown

Tucker, Jeffrey

Divided Legacy: Volume I: The Patterns Emerge: Hippocrates to Paracelsus

Coulter, Harris

Divided Legacy: Volume II: Progress and Regress: J.B. Van Helmont to Claude Bernard

Our Enemy, the Government: How Covid Enabled the Expansion and Abuse of State Power

Thakur, Ramesh

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Fear of a Microbial Planet, a wonderfully accessible book on the Covid era published by Brownstone institute, offers desperately needed clarity and science on the organization and management of individual social life in the presence of pathogenic infection. It can be read as a definitive answer to expert arrogance, political overreach, and population panic. 
For three years following the arrival of the virus that causes Covid, the dominant response from governments and the public has been to be afraid and stay far away through any means possible. This has further mutated into a population-wide germophobia that is actually being promoted by elite opinion. 
Steve Templeton, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute and Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Indiana University School of Medicine - Terre Haute, argues that this response is primitive, unscientific, and ultimately contrary to individual and public health. 
If a public health response is like an immune response, then consider this book as immunization against germophobia, politicized science, a self-defeating safety culture, and misplaced faith in experts. Dr. Templeton is our guide to helping us gain a new and more robust understanding of the relationship between the microbial kingdom and our own lives. 
The pandemic forecasts in the United States were very grim. Experts were predicting that 60-70 percent of the population would ultimately be infected resulting in over 1.5 million deaths in just a few months. People on social media were in an absolute panic. Stories about empty shelves and runs on toilet paper were everywhere. Those who tried to refute these doomsday predictions were shouted down and eventually silenced. 
And yet, the science on the virus was very clear. Disease severity was age-stratified. Extreme measures would not drive it away and would cause a tremendous amount of collateral damage. Even if the worse-case scenarios were true, it was extremely important that we take measures based on evidence. 
But eventually, the cry to “do something” became overwhelming, and the costs no longer mattered. Trying to calm people with wisdom about infectious disease became nearly pointless. Germophobia swept through society and political culture. 
Hardly anyone wanted to hear the truth that microbes are everywhere, and they cannot be avoided. There are an estimated 6x10^30 bacterial cells on Earth at any given time. By any standard, this is a huge amount of biomass, second only to plants, and exceeding that of all animals by more than 30-fold. 
To live at peace with the microbial kingdom requires trained immune systems, as George Carlin said years ago. That means exposure and the protection of normal social functioning even under pandemic conditions with a new virus. 
Many books have been and will be written about pandemic response mistakes, and that’s a good thing. There can’t possibly be enough reflection on what went wrong, otherwise we will be doomed to follow the same path, or an even worse one, next time. This book argues that the safety-at-all-costs culture will continue to result in counterproductive policies until it is challenged at its root. 
How did people in our communities and around the world get to the point of hysteria over a pandemic with a clear age-stratified and comorbidity-amplified mortality? Why were young and healthy people with very little risk for disease and death treated as if they were a grave danger to others? 
It was always pointless to try to stop much less eradicate this virus. We’ve evolved with pathogens and need to learn to live with them without imposing mass psychological, social, economic, and public-health damage. 
Everyone who panicked to the point of meltdown needs this book as a corrective. And even if you did not, everyone knows someone who did, public-health officials above all else.

Fear of a Microbial Planet: How a Germophobic Safety Culture Makes Us Less Safe

Medical Books

Templeton, Steve

Basic Sciences

“An elegant and beautiful writer.” ~ Julie Ponesse, Ethics Scholar, The Democracy Fund\n"Funny, brilliant, and personal perspectives." ~ Jennifer Grossman, CEO, The Atlas Society\n"A wonderful summary of complex ideas with a beautiful personal tone." Zubin Damania, MD, host of the Internet's #1 medical news and entertainment show\nDid the Covid-19 lockdowns and mandates serve society’s best interests? Science alone can’t answer the question. Philosophers have important things to say about it. So do psychologists, economists, novelists, and lawyers. 
The 46 thinkers showcased in this elegant book by Gabrielle Bauer, drawn from a variety of disciplines and political persuasions, agree on one thing: the policies crossed the line and the world lost its way. Some are internationally famous, others merely brilliant. Together, they hone in on the social and ethical breaches of the Covid era, such as emotional manipulation, disregard for civil liberties, and a stubborn refusal to consider the harms of freezing society. 
The author also recounts her own efforts to make sense of the Covid landscape, from Zoom psychotherapy to a visit to lockdown-free Sweden. The book challenges us to survey the damage of the Covid-19 policies from diverse angles, its voices offering fresh perspectives on the greatest social upheaval in modern history.\n“Really nicely written.” ~ David Bell, Executive Committee, PANDATA, former coordinator of the WHO’s malaria diagnostics strategy\n“Honored to be included in this book.” ~ Aaron Kheriaty, Director, Program in Bioethics and American Democracy, Ethics and Public Policy Center\n“A compelling blend of down-to-earth storytelling and journalistic chops, and a perfect launching point for reflecting on the fallout of the pandemic response. Bauer collects the voices of a wide range of insightful people who should have been part of the conversation about how to manage Covid.” ~ Yvon Wang, associate professor of history, University of Toronto\n“A well-written account exploring important questions about the pandemic.” ~ Zeb Jamrozik, bioethicist, Monash Bioethics Centre & University of Oxford\n"Many of the people featured in this book have had their views and values caricatured in media coverage of Covid policy. Gabrielle Bauer captures them with respect, accuracy and nuance as a basis for properly informed debate." ~ Robert Dingwall, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Nottingham University\n“I especially empathized with the author's feelings during the anti-lockdown demonstrations.” ~ Ehud Qimron, Professor, Clinical Microbiology and Immunology, Tel Aviv University\n“A superb read.” ~ Sanjeev Sabhlok, economist, Executive Director, India Policy Institute\n“Flattered and honored to be part of the book.” ~ Lucy McBride, internist and mental health advocate, Washington, DC

Blindsight is 2020: Reflections on Covid Policies from Dissident Scientists, Philosophers, Artists, and More

Politics & Social Sciences

Bauer, Gabrielle

Philosophy

This is one man’s chronicle, at times indignant and at others reflective, of an extraordinary moment in the history of the world, a moment of crisis whose eventual resolution will have far-reaching consequences for our children and their children. 
The author is Professor Thomas Harrington. His primary field of study is Hispanic culture and history, with a focus on Catalonian language, history and nationalism. With a deep knowledge of the life of a particular region and language group, he cultivated a keen insight into the difference between what is authentic and organic to a social order and what is exogenous and imposed by a ruling-class structure. He has a particular curiosity about the latter. His profound awareness of this power in operation in world events allowed him to see what so many others missed: namely he knew something was very off about the Covid response from the beginning. 
It’s to the eternal disgrace of so many elites in the political, economic, cultural, and academic world that so many participated in the “great reset” and, further, that so many who did not participate remained silent even as essential social, market, and cultural functioning was systematically dismantled by force with the full participation of the commanding heights of society. 
Privileged people, whose educational background putatively provided them with greater critical thinking skills than most, and hence an enhanced ability to see through the barrage of propaganda, fell immediately and massively into line. 
Not only did we see them overwhelmingly accept the government’s repressive, unproven and often patently unscientific measures to contain the Covid virus, but watched many of them emerge online and in other public forums as semi-official enforcers of repressive Government policies and Big Pharma marketing pitches. 
They mocked and ignored world-class doctors and scientists, and anyone else who expressed ideas that were at variance with official government policies. They told us, ridiculously, that science was not a continuous process of trial and error, but a fixed canon of immutable laws, while promoting, on that same absurd basis, the establishment and enforcement of medical apartheid within families and communities. 
In the name of keeping their children safe from a virus that could do them virtually no harm, they greatly impeded their long-term social, physical and intellectual development through useless mask-wearing, social distancing and screen-based learning. And in the name of protecting the elderly, they promulgated medically useless rules that forced many older people to suffer and die alone, deprived of the comfort of their loved ones. 
Many of these people, who by dint of their educational backgrounds should have found it more easy than most to go to the primary sources of scientific information on the virus and the measures taken to lessen its impact, chose in large numbers—with doctors being very prominent among them—to instead “educate” themselves on these important matters with curt summaries derived from the mainstream press, social media or Pharma-captured agencies like the CDC and the FDA. 
This, paradoxically, while millions of intrepid and less credentialed people with a greater desire to know the truth, often became quite knowledgeable about the actual state of ’the science.” 
This devastating case of class abdication—which essentially turned the old adage about “To whom much is given, much is expected” on its head—is a central focus of this book. It was the treason of experts.

The Treason of the Experts: Covid and the Credentialed Class

Harrington, Thomas S.

Historical Study & Educational Resources

This book was written in the Before Times. Looking back through it, I’m reminded of what I cared about before the world fell apart with lockdowns, mandates, and the ensuing existential crisis of civilization itself.\nI wondered at first if this book mattered anymore but now I’m sure it does. My theme is meaning. Not big meaning but meaning in small things. The meaning of everyday life. Finding friendship, mission, passion, and love in the course of working out one’s life in the framework of a commercial society, which should not be narrowly construed as only a way of paying bills but rather should be seen as the instantiation of a life well lived. We were not doing a good job of that, so my thinking was to inspire people to come to love what we take for granted.\nThis is why this book is in a second edition. The purpose is to illustrate what it means to fall back in love with life, including its arts, professions, creations, challenges, excellences, friendships, uncertainties, mysteries, and dreams. These are all matters of the heart – the individual heart. There is no escaping them. No grand project dictated to us by government, media, and Big Tech can substitute.\nMy only discomfort with the book is the title: the use of the term market. I like it but I’m aware that it might come across as too centered on economics alone, narrowly construed. That is not what I mean. My purpose here is to say that markets and life cannot be separated. Abolish one – we ended up trying that – and you radically diminish the other. The CDC and Twitter are not replacements for a life well-lived.\nThis book also serves as a good goal for me too. The pandemic response changed us all. We cannot help that. It’s fine if it makes us wiser and less naive. What we do not want is to allow them to gut us of joy and optimism. Rebuilding is in fact possible. There is a sense in which this book might help point the way forward. It is dedicated to my mother because it is she who has always done that for me.\n~Jeffrey Tucker, September 2022

The Market Loves You: Why You Should Love It Back

Business & Money

Business Culture

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