After a looonnngg travel day, from Nanjing to Beijing and then Beijing to DC, I’m about to hit the gym. I managed to do some business planning and finish up some interesting books on the flights, including Abdelwahab El-Affendi’s eye-opening Who Needs an Islamic State? and Sheri Berman’s quite provocative and informative The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century, about both of which more later. (I recommend both quite highly.)
