Well, that was an irritating read. Every sentence felt manipulative, and the ones I knew something about mostly seemed misleading or wrong. I highly recommend

Well, that was an irritating read. Every sentence felt manipulative, and the ones I knew something about mostly seemed misleading or wrong. I highly recommend JR Saul's Voltaire's Bastards, which is (among many things) a history of reason and rationality, from about 1800 to the late 20th C. (Rationality isn't the good guy here that you might expect) One of the best books I've ever read. It's also about Paoli, technocrats, Nazi science, military strategy, democracy, and 50 other things. His next books after it are an attempted solution to the problems described. If it sounds dry, it's not at all. Very dark, thrilling, mind-blowing - wonderful writing.