Murder by Injection
By Eustace Mullins
Published in 1988
317 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 2/5

Murder by Injection is a history of the American Medical Association. The author is a conspiracy theorist who argues that the AMA is a corrupt organization that lobbies to approve dangerous medicines while also lobbying to restrict useful ones.

The book is very old and feels out of date. Mullins writing style is very weird - his chapters are disorganized and go into a bunch of irrelevant tangents. It is full of unsubstantiated opinions mixed with useful and interesting historical research. The physical book that I read was full of typos and misprints.

Despite this, I generally agree with most of the information presented. It aligns with my own in depth research.

I wouldn’t recommend this book because it is old, and presents a case that I agree with in a chaotic and disorganized fashion. 

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A Farewell to Virology
By Dr. Mark Bailey
Published in September 2022
131 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 2/5

What a strange book.

The story about how I even found this book is quite funny. I was at a farmer’s market in Lausanne, and there was a booth that I can only describe as a “conspiracy theorist booth.” The booth had all sorts of weird books about WEF, the New World Order, and Edward Snowden. I like talking to conspiracy theorists, so naturally chatted up the guy at the booth. He insisted that I read this book, and gave me a free copy.

About a year passed and I forgot about it. For some reason, I had to wait, and brought a book to read. Because I was in a hurry I took this book at random from my book shelf.

This book argues that viruses don’t exist. It points out the lack of various pieces of scientific evidence. It doesn’t propose any alternatives to virology to explain contagious disease, and instead just pokes holes at virological science. I have no scientific knowledge or ability to assess the validity of the arguments presented, so I kept an open mind.

Before reading this book, I didn’t even realize that there existed a fringe movement of scientists who deny the existence of viruses. The author doesn’t seem to deny the germ theory of medicine as a whole, because he talks about bacteria and includes photos.

The author argues that the evidence for virology is flimsy and that scientists don’t really know that photographed viruses from electron microscopes are actually viruses that cause disease. He also argues that even if viruses are proven to exist, which they might be, it is hard to prove that they cause disease - only that they correlate with it.

He points out that PCR tests are unreliable, which seems very plausible to me.

The writing style was confusing. He talks past the point of sale, and doesn’t explain the evidence to novices like me. He says XYZ test proves viruses aren’t real without explaining what XYZ test is to me. He also doesn’t propose any alternative explanations. 

I hold many fringe views. When making an argument that I know people will find unusual, I always try to imagine the obvious questions. For example when I argue that anarchist societies are viable I always assume that an intelligent person will have certain questions such as “Who will build the roads?” “Have there been anarchist societies?” “Do anarchist societies have any laws or law enforcement?” Even if I don’t immediately answer the questions, I acknowledge them. The author of this book doesn’t do that, and just ignores the obvious questions such as “If viruses don’t cause disease, what causes them?” He doesn’t need to answer them, but should acknowledge them. 

He also uses very hyper politically charged language. He repeatedly condemns the COVID lockdowns, which is a logical position to hold if you believe that COVID isn’t a real disease. I wish that he had stuck to the actual topic of the book.

I found the book completely unconvincing. But it might be a fun read if you want to learn more about people who believe that viruses aren’t real. If I ever meet Dr Bailey, I think we would have a really long and fun conversation.

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The Black Prince: England's Greatest Medieval Warrior
By Michael Jones
Published in May 2018
488 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 2/5

Edward The Black Prince was the son of the great king Edward III. Like his father, he was a warrior who was instrumental in the conflicts of the early days of the Hundred Years War. Most monumentally, he captured King John II of France, who was ransomed. Many in his day thought that the war with France was over with the capture of John and few could have predicted it would drag on for another century.

Despite being a war hero, the second half of the Black Prince’s life was marked by tragedy. Most of his family died from the plague. An unknown debilitating disease made him bed bound for most of the latter half of his life.

Edward the Black Prince was a good soldier, probably rivaling his father. But he wasn’t a particularly notable feudal lord. He was neither an administrative genius like Henry I nor a buffoon like Edward II, so nothing really strikes out.

In many ways, besides his early military victories, Edward the Black Prince’s post military life was quite boring and insignificant.

This book overlapped significantly with some other books I’ve read about the period. The only striking thing is that it was somehow worse, more boring. Maybe it's because the author goes into way more minute detail that I’ve now completely forgotten as I write the review. Maybe it's because he is less willing to entertain more fringe ideas like the survival of Edward II. Either way, I just enjoyed it less.

It's been about 10 days since I finished the book. I really can’t remember too much - which is telling. This is an average history book, neither good nor bad. I can’t say that I recommend it, but there was nothing that I found particularly bad about it.

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The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation
by Ian Mortimer
Published in 2006
560 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 4/5

The high middle ages is one of the historical periods that I am the most interested in reading about. I read the biography of Edward III’s father Edward II and his queen Isabella, and of his grandfather Edward I - so this book naturally came next.

Many biographers tend to have a major problem: they oversympathize with their subjects, and biographies often turn into polemic defenses.Edward III plunged England into the hundred years war, got England into significant amounts of debt, and expanded the state significantly. He was no Henry I. That being said, he is still one of the best kings of England.

Edward II left the kingdom in a complete state of ruin, and was eventually overthrown by his wife Queen Isabella. Isabella staged the coup supposedly in the name of Edward IIIl however her boyfriend Roger Mortimer essentially ran the kingdom.

Edward II was an incompetent idiot and a homosexual. His mother Queen Isabella was unfit to govern, and her boyfriend Roger Mortimer was a corrupt embezzler. As a result, by the time King Edward III came of age, the kingdom was approaching a state of financial ruin. Seeing a serious crisis in the future, Edward III staged a soft and mostly bloodless coup against his mother and Roger Mortimer. Roger Mortimer was executed, as were a very small number of his associates - but overall the affair was mostly peaceful.

Edward III established a chivalric court. When, in pop culture, we imagine the chivalric culture of tournaments, ladies, and chivalry we often imagine tropes that emerged during Edward III’s reign. He had a very competent and loyal corp of administrators who replaced the fools of Edward II and pennypinchers of Queen Isabella. As a result, he stabilized his kingdom’s finances and cracked down on corruption.

Problems emerged when there was an internal succession crisis in France. Because his mother Queen Isabella was the daughter of the former king of France, and the current king had no male heirs, Edward III had one of the strongest legal claims to the throne. He kept his claim dormant, neither endorsing nor challenging the French parliament when they elected a noble from the House of Valois as king. The situation boiled over when the French attempted to assert authority over England’s continental holdings, resulting in a full blown war. During the course of this war Edward III re-asserted his claims to the French throne.

Edward III proved to be a military genius. Unlike his feckless and cowardly father, he personally led troops into battle. He pioneered many new tactics such as the use of gunpowder and longbowmen. These tactics allowed him to win many great battles, occupying a significant percentage of France.

The war had a series of treaties that would hold for several years, only for the conflict to resume for one reason or another. During one of these bouts of warfare, his son the Black Prince captured and ransomed the King of France. This resulted in a durable peace treaty in which France made significant concessions. Edward III likely believed he had permanently won the war, establishing durable peace. If you had told an elderly Edward III that he had actually started what historians now call the Hundred Years War, he would not have believed you.

During the twilight years of his extraordinarily long 50 year reign, he devoted his time to building projects, art, anti corruption crackdowns, tax code streamlining, and legal reform. His later reign was successful and peaceful.

Over time, Edward III became senile. This tragically coincided with illness in his heir apparent Edward the Black Prince, who found himself wheelchair bound. He died roughly at the same time as his competent heir, leaving the kingdom in the hands of his 14 year old grandson Richard II. Richard II’s reign would prove to be chaotic, a tyrannical return to the bad times of Edward II.

Edward III was remembered as one of the greatest kings of England and a military genius. He is undoubtedly an excellent king in comparison to his predecessor Edward II and successor Richard IIl. However, despite what Ian Mortimer says, Edward III was not a perfect king. I would rank him below his grandfather Edward I and ancestor Henry I for several reasons.

First, he failed to establish strong institutions that could protect the kingdom in the event his heir died. He should have learned from history and from his own rise to power, and planned accordingly.

Second, he plunged England into the Hundred Years war.

Most damningly from my perspective, his economic reforms had a mixed legacy. On one hand his simplification of the tax code, and anti corruption crackdowns were effective. On the other, he significantly increased the tax burden of the middle class and plunged England into significant debt. In the world in which we currently live, our political system is completely dominated by a deep state of financial elites. This creep in England began under his father Edward II’s reign when he became heavily indebted to Italian and Jewish bankers. Edward III had the perfect chance to completely nip this corrupting influence in the bud; but due to his foreign policy, sold out his Kingdom to England. In the long term I think that this was by far his worst legacy.

The writing style is great, and really kept me hooked. Ian Mortimer perfectly walks the fine line between being too prosaic and delving into tangents. I thought he gave the perfect amount of context. His footnotes about topics such as the possible survival and exile of Edward II are also interesting. My only real criticism is that he is too forgiving of Edward III’s reign.

I don’t think I would recommend this book to most readers. It is only really interesting if you are studying the high middle ages - and at that if you already know a lot about the Hundred Years war. This book falls into a unique category of being a must read if you already know a lot about the period, but a must skip if this isn’t your niche. It was a great read for me, but probably isn’t a great read for you.

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Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England
by Alison Weir
Published in October 2005
528 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 3/5

Queen Isabella of France is one of the most important women in English history. She would lead a coup, which would ultimately result in major events such as the Hundred Years War.

Queen Isabella was the daughter of Philip IV of France. The great king of England Edward the First Longshanks negotiated a marriage alliance between his son who would later be known as Edward II and Queen Isabella.

When Edward I Longshanks would die, Edward II would come to the throne. Immediately, his rule was clearly a disaster. Edward II was a spineless homosexual, a horrible military ruler, incredibly unpopular, didn’t have his finances under control, was easy to manipulate, and when it came to diplomacy was a babbling buffoon. Nevertheless, the marriage between Isabella of France and Edward II which had been much delayed was pushed forwards, and the two were (unhappily) wed.

Neither Edward II or Isabella were enthusiastic about the marriage. Edward II didn’t have any real interest in Isabella, and instead preferred spending time with his homosexual boyfriend Piers Gaveston. Isabella was neglected emotionally, but more important, financially by Edward II and wasn’t particularly happy.

Edward II’s boyfriend, Piers Gaveston, used his position to embezzle significant funds and engage in corrupt activities. He also delighted in insulting the great lords of the land. Edward II was easy to manipulate, so Gaveston became the de facto ruler of England. Luckily, Edward I Longshanks had anticipated potential issues, so had appointed Lord Lancaster to oversee governmental affairs. Lancaster pressured Edward II to exile Piers Gaveston, and because Edward II was spineless, Edward II eventually agreed. For a while, things were running relatively smoothly. However, Edward II eventually called Gaveston back from exile. Gaveston used his influence with the king to start a campaign of vindictive humiliation of those who had exiled him. Eventually, Lancaster staged a soft coup (the first of many during Edward II’s reign) and had Piers Gaveston tried and sentenced to death.

Gaveston’s death sent Edward II into a sort of insanity. Edward II took power back, and started haphazardly imprisoning, exiling, or killing everyone who he perceived as an enemy. He came under the influence of the medieval equivalent of the military industrial complex known as the marcher lords who convinced him to engage in fruitless and bloody wars. He also borrowed heavily from Italian and Jewish bankers, who began influencing his court.

The later half of Edward II’s reign was completely unhinged. He lost significant battles against the Scottish. He diplomatically insulted the French. He drove the kingdom into a deep economic recession.

Eventually Queen Isabella and her small son by Edward II (future king Edward III) used the pretext of a diplomatic mission to flee to France. After spending some time in exile, she began plotting her own coup. 

While in France, she began cavorting with English exiles and political dissidents who opposed the regime of Edward II. During this time, she started an affair with a former marcher lord, Roger Mortimer. With Mortimer’s help, she raised enough funds to buy the support of a small army of Dutch mercenaries. These mercenaries crossed the channel, and overthrew Edward II’s regime.

Edward II was extremely unpopular. As a result, nearly the entire kingdom threw their support behind Queen Isabella’s coup. Edward III was nominated as king, with Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer acting as reagents during his minority. Edward II was imprisoned in a palace, and forced to agree to his own abdication.

Having a former king who had been deposed under house arrest was a dangerous and unsustainable state of affairs, because he could become a rallying point for political enemies. Eventually, Edward II disappeared. Exactly what happened is blurry and varies on sources. The least credible sources say that he was sodomized to death using a red hot iron by his jailers (possibly who were seeking revenge for atrocities committed during Edward II’s reign). Another version, which is viewed by historians as much more credible, is that he was suffocated in his sleep. There also is a conspiracy theory, which gained significant traction at the time, that someone else was killed in his place and that Edward II lived out the rest of his life as a tonsured monk in Italy. Letters discovered by historians seem to support this latter theory, but we will never know.

Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer’s reign during Edward III’s minority quickly became unpopular. Queen Isabella agreed to an extremely unpopular peace with Scotland. She also was very corrupt, and embezzled significant funds with her lover Roger Mortimer. Her misgovernment was so significant that it eventually was said that she had just replaced one inept tyrant with another.

Edward III, once he turned 18, realized that his mother couldn’t be left in charge of the Kingdom. He staged his own small mini-coup, where he deposed his mother. Her lover, Roger Mortimer, was tried for corruption and ultimately executed. His mother, Queen Isabela, was allowed to live a life of luxury, and also acted as his advisor. Edward III proved to be a very effective king, in the vein of his grandfather Edward II.

The facts and narrative of the book is very interesting. This is an interesting period, and because I’ve read a lot about Edward II’s predecessors, it fits really well into my reading. However, I find Alison Weir’s early 2000s feminism to be grating.

On one hand, Queen Isabella was clearly extremely intelligent and capable. She also staged a necessary coup, which saved England from the disastrous reign of Edward II. She also apparently did a good enough job at raising her son Edward III who became one of England’s greatest kings. On the other hand, Queen Isabella had many moral failings which Weird defends rather than condemns. Her rule during Edward III’s minority wasn’t particularly successful. If she hadn’t come after the imbecile Edward II, she would probably be correctly seen as a bad ruler by historians. She also cheated on her husband with Roger Mortimer, which Weird defends as an act of bravery rather than condemns as a breach of her marital vow. I wish that she had taken a more balanced view. I’ve often found that female historians tend to be overly forgiving and prone to defending female historical figures to the point of nearly distorting history, rather than being more neutral.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the period with some background knowledge. It probably isn’t particularly interesting for those who are not studying the period. Weir’s excessive sympathy and defense of Queen Isabella is also a bit annoying.

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A Great and Terrible King
By Marc Morris
Published in 2008
480 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 3/5

Edward “Longshanks” I is most well known, today, for being the villain in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. However, from a historical perspective, Braveheart is a terrible movie. In reality, Edward I was not a tyrant - he was a decent king.

Edward’s father, Henry III, was a decent albeit weak king. Henry III was emotionally scarred by his inept father King John’s early death. At 7, Henry III inherited a kingdom torn apart by civil war and on the verge of bankruptcy. His mother fled England, abandoning him. Luckily, he was adopted by an exemplary knight William Marshall who protected him, raised him as his own, and rebuilt England. As a result, Henry III tried his best to avoid the flaws of his own father King John and was a loving - even doting - father to Edward.

In Edward I’s youth, he was noted for being a jouster. Through his jousting, he became a celebrity. He used his celebrity to champion the cause of reform. Henry III’s reign was marked by a continuation of many of the bad and failed policies of King John. As a result, another civil war tore the kingdom apart. Painfully, Edward’s mentor Simon de Montfort joined the rebellion. De Montfort was another incredibly principled and honorable knight, who was a crusader. Edward was torn between joining his mentor, de Montfort’s rebellion which championed the very same reformist principles he stood for; or siding with the crown and his father Henry III. Ultimately he sided with Henry, and de Montfort’s army was crushed and de Montfort was executed.

To atone for his sins, Edward went on crusade. His crusade was useful, and allowed the remnant crusader states to survive for another few years.

After his coronation, Edward found himself at war. He fought two major wars - against Wales and Scotland. He won both, but at great cost. Edward was a great warrior and fighter, the first king since Richard Lionheart to actually be good in battle. This made him relatively liked and popular among his people. He also continued championing some useful reforms during his reign, cutting taxes and solidifying the strength of the Magna Carta.

This book was well written and interesting. For some reason, the late 2000s saw some of the best popular history books I’ve read. I enjoyed it. That being said, it's good but nothing special.

I wouldn’t recommend this book to most people because the topic is too niche. I enjoyed it because I’ve just watched a ton of videos about King John and Henry III, as well as the Magna Carta. It was great for me, but unless you are a specialist, it probably isn’t great for you.

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Jonathan Livingston Seagull
By Richard Bach
Published in 1970
144 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 2/5


Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an incredibly pretentious book. In the 1970s it was the darling of American left wing intellegencia; but the only people that have hear of it today are boomers who had to study it in school. I had never heard of it.


I found it because I was looking for books that didn’t have violence to read to my 3 year old daughter, that had animal allegories. It was completely boring, and also completely nonviolent.


The book has very, very, very long - interminable - descriptions of seagulls flying. Boring


In case you want to read it, I wont spoil the admittedly very surprising twists and turns in the plot. But there are many - and they are unpredictable. Its just that they’re boring.


I finished it, but my daughter had me stop because it was too boring. I’m reviewing this as a grown up book, not a kids book, and still don’t recommend it. This is the kind of book that’ll be completely forgotten in a decade or two once the last boomers who were forced to read it die.

UFOs & Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites
by Robert Lambert Hastings
Published in May 2017
598 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 2/5

This book is a mixed bag, but I do not recommend it.

This book is definitely extensively researched. (Note that I did not say that it was well researched.) It  is a collection of eyewitness accounts from various soldiers and military personnel who have witnessed UFOs and UAP surrounding various nuclear sites.

The author interviewed over 170 veterans and former officials. He then comes up with a grand theory about why so many UFOs are seen around nuclear sites.

My issues with this book are manyfold.

First, the book was written in the 2010s. However, it concerns events from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s entirely based on eyewitness accounts. I find that the methodology is sketchy by definition (even though the witnesses and accounts are credible). 

Second, the book is too polemic. The author spends a lot of time refuting refutations, and arguing with various opponents. He devotes a lot of ink randomly interjecting his theories, thoughts about a cover-up, etc… It’s tragic, because Hastings had a lot of meticulous fact based research that gets spoiled by his opinionating that is thoroughly mixed into the book.

Third, the book is too long. I only read about half, then put it down. The actual accounts of events are good; but the analysis and rebuttal of counter arguments makes for dry reading. It's also not hyper informative dry reading; it's hyper opinionated dry reading.

For example, halfway through the book he randomly says something along the lines of “Critics criticize me for taking paid speaking tours. They say I only write about UFOs for the money. But it's hard to earn a living doing this.” An author shouldn’t talk about themselves while arguing about external events. Also, nobody seriously believes that UFO conspiracy theorists make a lot of money; all serious critics understand that the money authors make from writing and speaking is very minimal. It's an argument that should be addressed on Twitter; not randomly in the middle of a book.

The author also spends much time on a supposed sighting he had as a teenage janitor in a military base. This also undermines his credibility. I would have mentioned it at the beginning the way he did which was interesting and explained his curiosity - but wouldn’t have returned to it time and time again. Once again, this would have made for a great blog post or Tweet that goes alongside the book but shouldn’t have been included.

The best books just lay out the evidence and let the readers come to their own conclusions. This book painfully spells out every obvious conclusion that doesn’t need to be explicitly spelled out. Mixing facts with speculation is not a recipe for success.

This book was a great concept, and the author clearly did some very serious research. But his presentation style undermines the credibility of his own arguments.

I think that this book is of almost no interest to average readers. It isn’t a skitzo conspiracy book; but it's not something that will convince anyone of anything. I might recommend it to another UFO researcher as a source for interview material for their own book or article; but wouldn’t to anyone else.

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Evolution of the UAE Armed Forces
By Athol Yates
Published in December 2020
380 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 3/5

This book is a very informative - if somewhat dry - history of the UAE’s military.

I bought it in the UAE a few years ago. It then lived in my library, where it gathered dust, unread, alongside countless other tomes. This year (2026 for future readers), Trump began military operations in Iran. Iran retaliated, hitting the UAE. This naturally created significant concern for me. When cleaning my library I found and remembered this book, and decided to read it to get some insights on the current conflict.


This book is written for a military audience. The author, Athol Yates, is an Australian born professor of civil security studies in Abu Dhabi. I am not sure exactly why he wrote the book, but it seems like he either was commissioned by the UAE government, and / or wrote it as training material for his students. The target audience is very specific - people from the UAE in the security industry.

I didn’t gain very much insight into the current Iran war. But some passages were relevant. For example, I learned that the US has refused to give the UAE superior quality weapons in order to artificially inflate Israel’s relative capabilities compared to Arab neighbors. This might explain why the UAE is so dependent on the United States. I also learned that Iran already has attacked the UAE several times - before the Iranian revolution when it seized some islands; during the revolution when it seized more islands; during the Iran Iraq war when it struck an Abu Dhabi oil facility; and numerous other incidents where it has harassed UAE vessels.

I gained tremendous insight into Emirati politics. The most interesting chapters of the book were the chapters where it describes the British controlled forces (the Trucial Oman Scouts) and the feudal levy style ruler controlled forces. I was shocked to learn that each Emirate had its own separate independently controlled army; and that several times these were used to manage internal inter-Emirate conflicts.

The fact that this style of Emirate controlled armed forces today is unthinkable shows how much progress the UAE has made in only a few decades.

Despite what many in the West say, I love the UAE. To me, its semi feudal political system is a major strength not a weakness.

I probably cannot recommend this book to anyone because I don’t know anyone who might be interested in reading it. But if you are interested in the UAE and doing a deeper dive, it might be worth buying and skimming. If you specifically are doing defense or defense adjacent work in the UAE, its a must read.

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King John
By Marc Morris
Published in October 2016
400 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 3/5

King John is a solid biography of England’s worst king.

The writing style was clear, the pacing was good, and I never got lost. This book was neither overly vague and simple; nor academic and pedantic. I always appreciate well written history books.

I recently read Dan Brown’s Magna Carta. If you wanted to learn more about the Magna Carta, I would point you to that book first. This book is about the same topic, and is quite similar. However, there is a major difference. Dan Brown’s book focuses more on the Magna Carta itself and its legal importance. On the other hand, this book focuses on King John’s family, life, reign, and non-Magna Carta consequences. If you want to learn more about the man, then this book is better.

Usually when trying to find information on King John, you only get information about the Magna Carta. This book covered the Magna Carta adequately, but managed to avoid focusing on it. In retrospect, the Magna Carta is clearly the most important consequence of King John’s reign. However, that would only become apparent centuries later. During King John’s own life contemporaries would have instead pointed to his loss of Normandy, inept financial management skills, or numerous military failures.

Like all biographers, Morris has some sympathy for his subject. But this book is not revisionist or apologia for John’s incompetent rule. It is a clear eyed history and analysis of King John’s life and reign.

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