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Cover of The Confusion. Volume II of the Baroque Cycle

The Confusion. Volume II of the Baroque Cycle

Neal Stephenson

926 pages

A gloriously chaotic, globe-spanning romp that treats the birth of modern economics and science as the ultimate swashbuckling adventure.

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What it feels like

Reading this book feels like being strapped to a runaway carriage careening through the late seventeenth century, with a brilliant, slightly mad professor as your guide. It is a gloriously sprawling, intellectually demanding experience that demands patience for its meandering pace, rewarding the reader with a dizzying blend of high-seas piracy, courtly intrigue, and deep dives into cryptography and metallurgy. The mood is exuberant and chaotic, capturing the messy, violent birth of the modern world. The prose is dense and witty, unafraid to pause a sword fight to explain the mechanics of a new currency. It is a feast for the deeply curious reader who loves massive, immersive historical epics where the flow of global capital is just as thrilling as a pirate raid.

Mood
  • sprawling
  • chaotic
  • intellectually stimulating
  • adventurous
Tone
  • wry
  • erudite
  • irreverent
  • epic
Pace
meandering
Themes
the birth of global capitalism · science versus alchemy · survival by wits · the interconnectedness of history
The writing
Exuberant and densely researched, blending period-accurate jargon with sharp, anachronistic wit and philosophical tangents.
The arc
A chaotic, globe-trotting scramble for survival that slowly coalesces into a triumphant mastery of complex systems.
Who it's for
History nerds and systems thinkers who delight in massive, digressive epics where pirate battles and economic theory are given equal weight.
Content notes
  • violence
  • slavery
  • torture
  • sexual content
  • disease

About the book

Continuing the epic adventure begun in the bestselling QUICKSILVER!In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves -- including one Jack Shaftoe, a.k.a. King of the Vagabonds, a.k.a. Half-Cocked Jack, lately and miraculously cured of the pox -- devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues, rife with battles, chases, hairbreadth escapes, swashbuckling, bloodletting, and danger -- a perilous race for an enormous prize of silver... nay, gold... nay, legendary gold that will place the intrepid band at odds with the mighty and the mad, with alchemists, Jesuits, great navies, pirate queens, and vengeful despots across vast oceans and around the globe.Meanwhile, back in Europe...The exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, master of markets, pawn and confidante of enemy kings, onetime Turkish harem virgin, is stripped of her immense personal fortune by France's most dashing privateer. Penniless and at risk from those who desire either her or her head (or both), she is caught up in a web of international intrigue, even as she desperately seeks the return of her most precious possession -- her child.While...Newton and Leibniz continue to propound their grand theories as their infamous rivalry intensifies, stubborn alchemy does battle with the natural sciences, nobles are beheaded, dastardly plots are set in motion, coins are newly minted (or not) in enemy strongholds, father and sons reunite in faraway lands, priests rise from the dead... and Daniel Waterhouse seeks passage to the Massachusetts colony in hopes of escaping the madness into which his world has descended.

Description from Open Library.

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