Parasara Sridhar Duggirala's Blog

This book documents the journey of various ethic and national groups and their integration (or lack thereof) into the American way of life. The book is mainly divided into 4 parts: Americans from Europe, from Asia, from Africa, and from South America. Since the arrival of various groups occurred at different times, there is no uniform timeline for all of these arrivals. Naturally, since the major events in American history affected all of these groups, we can see the interactions between these groups. The various groups discussed in this book are Irish, German, Jew, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, African, Caribbean, Puerto Rican, and Mexican. For each group, this book discusses the origins, the reasons for arrival in US, initial stages, occupations, economic and social norms, barriers and advantages faced in the new nation, major achievements, and finally the present situation. Not all groups started uniformly, for example, the German immigrants were, from the very beginning, very hig...

I bought this book in the same bag sale (books sold by the bag) at our local library. Proving Fermat's last theorem is one of the most crowning achievements of 20th century Mathematics. Knowing a bit about mathematics and writing/teaching proofs for a living, I am familiar that the actual proof of the theorem is extremely complex. Even for an amateur Mathematician, understanding all the nuts and bolts of the proof itself would take several years. I was of the opinion that this book might be full of superficial pop culture mumbo-jumbo and was skeptical to pick it up. Of course, if one wants to write a book on Fermat's last theorem that can be understood by a layman, then everything has to be watered down, except for the statement. Once I started reading the book, I understood that this book was not just about the theorem, but more about the endeavor of Mathematics itself.  The book takes us through the journey of the origins of proof based mathematics (Greeks), to Fermat, to...

I bought this on a bag sale (books sold by the bag) at our local library. This book contains essays on War, Religion, Press, Fascism, and Intolerance. The essays are mildly interesting to say the least. I found the essay on Religion least interesting because the discussion was purely centered on Christianity and the conflict between Christianity and Atheism. Needless to say, Umberto is fairly sympathetic to the Christian cause and presents a few interesting arguments. I also found the essay on War to be a bit simplistic. Umberto is of the opinion that "intellectuals" should always be against war. Since this speech was given in 1991 post cold-war time, and given the end of history narrative that was in the air at that point of time, such a perspective is understandable. I am interested to know if Umberto changed his views given the developments in the past ~30 years. Having grown up in a Hindu school of thought, I think that, there are circumstances where a war can be justi...