This essay collection has taught me that there are better and worse times to read particular books for oneself, and tho I don’t blame Didion, and tho I liked quite a few turns of phrase in the first quarter of this book, I really didn’t come to it at the right time and found her choice of subject boring, her discursive style wearying.
This historical treatise has a lot of notoriety but I found it unnecessarily dense, and ultimately flawed, in that its focus on states and state power ignores a related discussion of capitalist power, such that altho there is a useful perspective to glean here about how a drive for social legibility can transform a society, I wouldn't recommend the book overall.
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