thunderstruck -- Erik Larson

I recently finished reading Thunderstruck, Eric Larson's latest historical crime thriller. As in The Devil in the White City, Larson uses the true story of a notable crime to paint a much broader picture of social history. Some random thoughts:

• All people are broken--successful business leaders, brilliant inventors, national leaders, murderers, ordinary men and women. None of us is quite normal.
• Even the most cold-blooded criminal is a sympathetic figure when viewed from a certain light.
• For some crimes, capital punishment is absolutely appropriate.
  
• Society owes a large degree of its success in technological advancement to ego.
• Society suffers a large degree of its failure in relationships because of ego.
• People living today have no idea how much slower the world moved prior to the era of electronic communication.
• Eric Larson has a genius for taking simple history and turning it into a book that I can't put down.
• I really need to read Isaac's Storm.