»Heather Cox Richardson (born October 8, 1962) is an American historian who is a professor of history at Boston College, where she teaches courses on the American Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, the American West, and the Plains Indians. She previously taught history at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Richardson has authored seven books on history and politics. In 2019, she started publishing Letters from an American, a nightly newsletter that chronicles current events in the larger context of American history. Richardson focuses on the health of American democracy. As of July 2025, the newsletter had over 2.6 million subscribers, making it one of the most popular Substack publications.«

> For the rest of us, if we want democracy to be better than authoritarian Communism, then we actually have to do the "be better" part.

Only problem is that the current reality of authoritarian capitalism in the US isn't helping democracy at all.

The mentioned book "First Contact" at the Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/firstcontact00conn

The documentary movie related to that book:

https://archive.org/details/firstcontact_201602

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Contact_(1983_film)

Video by Farya Faraji, a Canadian-Iranian musicologist, documentary filmmaker and public educator dedicated to fostering a deeper appreciation for the authentic traditional sounds of the world’s musical cultures.

By putting the music in their larger historic context the author manages to convincingly deconstruct the illusionary borders between eastern and western culture.

If you can't beat them, blame them for your own failure.

Soylent Green?