 The Great UN-Reset
By Constantine Du Bruyn Published in March 2023 242 Pages Thibault’s Score: 2/5 This strange little book sums up many of the conspiracy theories about the “Great Reset” as promoted by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The book is well written, and easy to understand. The big picture is mostly correct, but it gets so many details wrong, that I cannot possibly recommend it in good faith. I am in a very good position to access many of the claims. My day to day work has led me to extensively interact with people from groups like WEF, the WTO, UNCTAD, and UNIDO. My historical work has repeatedly led me to study the history of groups such as the Jesuits, Templars, and Milner’s Kindergarten. I have many family members with deep ties to both US intelligence agencies and big tech. In many ways, I would likely be considered by many (perhaps by Du Bruyn himself) to be an insider. I want to start with a few of the things that Du Bruyn gets right. First, there is a plan to create a global centrally planned economic system. This system will have the long term goal of becoming a world government. UN SDGs are one of the most prominent tools being used to build this system. It has its evolutionary origins with the Milner group in Edwardian England, and eventually evolved into the United Nations. However, Du Bruyn gets a lot wrong. I would just like to point out two small, but very annoying mistakes that he made. None of these mistakes, on their own, would detract from the book. However, they are so frequent that they are a big problem. First, Du Bruyn incorrectly claims that Lord Alfred Milner started the Round Table Journal. The journal was started by Lionel Curtis, in 1913. Curtis was a member of the Milner Group, and was mentored by Milner. Curtis also started Chatham House. Milner only became involved in both later, although he may have supported their creation. I wish that Du Bruyn had instead written something along the lines of “Milner’s associates created the Round Table journal.” Second, Du Bruyn says that the Knights Templar established a banking system to manage the finances of the crusaders in the Holy Land. The Templars did not have any banking in the Holy Land. The Templars actually established trusts to manage the affairs of knights in Europe while they were away crusading in the Holy Land. Once again, this might not seem like a big difference - but it's one of the many small mistakes that he makes throughout the book. A lot of the information in the book is disjointed. There is no direct line of succession in between the Templars, the Jesuits, the Freemasons, the Milner Group, and WEF. These groups are sometimes evolutionarily connected but are not centrally run. For example, Cecil Rhodes who helped found the Milner Group was a Freemason. Likewise, the Freemasons claim descent from the Templars, but this relationship is shaky. I don’t think that discussing these groups is prudent, because to a reader who doesn’t already know the history it might discredit the central arguments in the book. My lived experience contradicts many key points. I got to WEF events, and have met a handful of WEF YGLs. I don’t think that the YGLs are going to become world leaders At the end of the book, Du Bruyn covers a number of possible solutions. I really like this chapter. He does not focus on politics. Instead, he suggests using cryptocurrencies, homeschooling children, and building local communities. The book is quite well written, and easy to follow. The sentences are short, clear, and well constructed. It is a very pleasant read. The good writing makes this book even more dangerous - and makes its frequent factual mistakes more dangerous. I would not recommend this book. This book would be very off putting to someone who isn’t already aware of the issues discussed. It isn’t rigorous enough to stand up to serious historical scrutiny. The challenge that Du Bruyn has is writing a short book. I would instead make it more narrowly focused on a smaller number of issues - perhaps focusing more closely on a specific group like WEF or the UN SDGs. This book feels like a failed opportunity. It is almost really good. However, I think it is Du Bruyn’s first book. I would be very open to reading other books written by Du Bruyn in the future, to see if he can overcome these challenges.
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 The Ancient Celts
By Barry Cunliffe Published in 2018 496 Pages Thibault’s Score: 3/5 Barry Cunliffe is one of my favorite historians; but I find the celts to be a boring civilization. The result was a great book that I didn’t find very interesting. Writing history is hard. You can easily slip into a number of common mistakes such as refuting other historians who the reader doesn’t know or care about; over-flavoring and accidentally writing historical fiction; including too much historiographic detail and writing a phone book; including too little historiographic detail and writing a conspiracy book; or narcissistically focusing on your own historical journey that nobody cares about. Barry Cunliffe always manages to walk the fine line. The book starts with a discussion of the broader history of celtic studies. The Celts themselves had no or little concept of being Celtic - the very term is a later historiographical error. The word comes from a Roman description of the people of what is today France and Northern Italy. Interestingly enough, the Romans wrote that the Irish and Britons were similar to the Celts but were not themselves Celts. Weirdly enough, today the word “Celtic” often refers to Britons such as Welsh or Scottish, the Irish, and a handful of continental people like the Galicians and Bretons. The Celts were a savage and noble people. Although Cunliffe tries his best to collect many Celtish accomplishments such as long distance trade, complex social organizations, and art - the picture he paints is ultimately of a savage and primitive people. They had no writing, no large scale states, no math, built no buildings that have survived, and ultimately contributed little to the intellectual progress of humanity. I was a little bit disappointed. I hoped to find some sort of secretly advanced civilization that equaled the Romans but has been neglected. Instead, I found exactly what I expected, and that made me feel a little bit sad. Many of my ancestors were French Celts, and the Romans were not. One always hopes to learn that one’s ancestors achieved civilization without the help of foreign conquerors. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the celts, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone that doesn’t already have that specific niche interest.  Scotland's Hidden Sacred Past
By Freddy Silva Published in November 2021 343 Pages Thibault’s Score: 2/5 I’m not sure what the book’s main point is. This book is a haphazard mishmash of facts, myths, and speculations about the history of ancient Scotland. The facts are not well organized, and don’t amount to anything. History books can be written in one of three ways. The first, and worst, way to write a history book is to argue for something. The second, most reliable, way to tell history is to compile a well organized chronological account of events. The third way to write history - to tell a story - is most difficult but the best if well executed. This book does neither, and is fairly chaotic. The author speculates about a wide range of possibilities concerning ancient Scotland such as that the standing stones are some sort of ancient hard drive which stores information using vibrations, that the Armenian language is directly related to Scottish, and that giants used to live on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. The historiography is sketchy. He draws a lot of radical conclusions from limited evidence, without ever providing plausible alternatives. As anyone who reads my book reviews knows, I am very open to ideas about the Younger Dryas, Atlantis, or visitations by extra-terrestrials - however, I set the bar for evidence very high. If you are making these bold claims, then you need to at least explore alternatives that are more mainstream. Finally, the book is full of melodramatic accounts about the author’s misadventures. As someone who has traveled internationally, none of these misadventurers stand out as remarkable or interesting. For example, at one point, he falls in some beachside rocks, scratches himself, and bruises his arm. He then proceeds to write about the incident as if it was a life-and-death struggle for survival. However, he doesn’t go to the hospital. Instead, he has a beer, and takes photos of his arm for Instagram, and proceeds with the adventure. Either he is a big baby and the incident itself is cringy because it wasn’t severe, or the passage is poorly written because it doesn’t do justice to the injuries the author actually sustained. I’ve read many worse books, and it definitely has its fascinating moments. Despite the positives, I would not recommend this book. |
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