Join 📚Jof’S Book Highlights
A batch of the best highlights from what Jophin's read, .
We not only see ourselves through how others see us based on what we consume, but we see ourselves through experience, regardless of how that experience complements or detracts from the wider social context in which we operate. The ideological impact of consumer capitalism is thus extended by a move away from the momentary consumption of products towards the more intensive and extended process of consuming a number of products and services, experientially.
The Experience Society
Steven Miles
But the essay is also noteworthy for a commendable insight: Mill’s admission of how little English authorities actually knew about India. He makes his remark on the last page of the essay, where he expresses concern over the East India Company’s actions in India, and calls for a ‘much more profound study of Indian experience, and of the conditions of Indian government, than either English politicians, or those who supply the English public with opinions, have hitherto shown any willingness to undertake.’ This statement is remarkable for a number of reasons, not least the fact that __the foremost authority on India for much of Mill’s life was his father James, who published a history of India in 1817 that was widely hailed as the definitive history of the continent, and which secured James a position as a senior manager in the East India Company.__
The Unknowers
Linsey McGoey
The Congo Basin became an early flashpoint, with Belgium, Portugal, France and Britain staking rival claims to the same region. To prevent such conflict escalating, European statesmen agreed to adopt a common policy on Africa that would minimise misunderstandings. __In 1884 they gathered for a series of meetings known as the Berlin Conference, during which they drew borders across the continent, set guidelines about which powers could lay claim to which regions, and established rules for what counted as effective occupation of a territory.__
...catch up on these, and many more highlights
Readwise