
“We learn from history that we do not learn from history.” -Georg Hegel
Back in March, I was reading everything I could find about COVID-19 and about pandemics. Eventually that tapered off. But this week I decided that it was time to go back and learn a lot more about the 1918 Spanish Flu.
I've just ordered John M. Barry's 2004 book called The Great Influenza. Bill Gates wrote about it over the summer -- after he reread it -- and said that it will teach you almost everything you need to know about the influenza. He also said that it's never been more relevant.
Despite happening over 100 years ago, there are no doubt lessons that we can learn from this great influenza. The most important being that leadership and honesty, of course, matter a great deal during a time of crisis.
Barry also argues that the 1918 influenza was responsible for altering the flow of history. He makes the claim (convincingly according to Bill) that it was a contributing factor in the rise of Hitler and the start of World War II.
So I'm looking forward to receiving my copy later this week. If you'd like to purchase your own, you can do that over here. And if you've already read it, please let me know what you thought in the comment section below.

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat recently published an interesting report called, New York: The Ultimate Skyscraper Laboratory.
The money shot is this image here:

It is a timeline of all tall buildings (over 100 meters) completed in New York since 1908 when the Singer Building

“We learn from history that we do not learn from history.” -Georg Hegel
Back in March, I was reading everything I could find about COVID-19 and about pandemics. Eventually that tapered off. But this week I decided that it was time to go back and learn a lot more about the 1918 Spanish Flu.
I've just ordered John M. Barry's 2004 book called The Great Influenza. Bill Gates wrote about it over the summer -- after he reread it -- and said that it will teach you almost everything you need to know about the influenza. He also said that it's never been more relevant.
Despite happening over 100 years ago, there are no doubt lessons that we can learn from this great influenza. The most important being that leadership and honesty, of course, matter a great deal during a time of crisis.
Barry also argues that the 1918 influenza was responsible for altering the flow of history. He makes the claim (convincingly according to Bill) that it was a contributing factor in the rise of Hitler and the start of World War II.
So I'm looking forward to receiving my copy later this week. If you'd like to purchase your own, you can do that over here. And if you've already read it, please let me know what you thought in the comment section below.

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat recently published an interesting report called, New York: The Ultimate Skyscraper Laboratory.
The money shot is this image here:

It is a timeline of all tall buildings (over 100 meters) completed in New York since 1908 when the Singer Building
The gray bars represent the total number of buildings completed each year. And the colored dots represent specific completed buildings and their asset class (office, residential, mixed-use, hotel, and so on). It’s interesting to see the dips. During World War II, high-rise construction basically stopped.
Check out the full report if you’d like to see a bigger version of the graph.
The gray bars represent the total number of buildings completed each year. And the colored dots represent specific completed buildings and their asset class (office, residential, mixed-use, hotel, and so on). It’s interesting to see the dips. During World War II, high-rise construction basically stopped.
Check out the full report if you’d like to see a bigger version of the graph.
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