The Year in Review (2021)

"The World is a lot Poorer without You": a tribute to the great minds we lost in 2021... Jazz cellist David Darling Rock producer Phil Spector Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti Jazz keyboardist Chick Corea Orchestra conductor James Levine Jazz drummer Milford Graves US novelist Larry McMurtry French poet Philippe Jaccottet New-age composer Constance Demby Rock composer Jim Steinman Georgian puppeteer Rezo Gabriadze Indian actor Dilip Kumar US director Monte Hellman Classical music composer Louis Andriessen US director Richard Donner Italian essayist Roberto Calasso Ethiopian humanitarian Abebech Gobena, the "Mother Teresa" of Africa US singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith Rock drummer Charlie Watts Sleep scientist Allan Hobson German architect Helmut Jahn Reggae/dub producer Lee "Scratch" Perry French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier Italian songwriter Franco Battiato Spanish poet Francisco Brines Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis Ballet dancer Carla Fracci Musical composer Stephen Sondheim Avantgarde composer Alvin Lucier US writer Joan Didion Composer and trumpeter Jon Hassell China historian Jonathan Spence Sociobiology's founder Edward Osborne Wilson South African human-rights activist Desmond Tutu British architect Richard Rogers Genetic algorithm pioneer Ingo Rechenberg Landscape artist Bonnie Sherk Classical composer Sylvano Bussotti Recommended Books: Marie Favereau: "The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World" M.R. O'Connor: "Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World" - navigational skills are closely connected storytelling skills Philip Ording: "99 Variations on a Proof". A cute little book about the way mathematicians think when trying to prove a statement. Tony Saich: "From Rebel to Ruler: One Hundred Years of the Chinese Communist Party" Nicole Perlroth: "This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race" David Graeber & David Wengrow: "The Dawn of Everything - A New History of Humanity" - a completely revised history of prehistory which undermines the very foundations of popular theories by Jared Diamond and Yuval Harari Chiara Marletto: "The Science of Can and Can't". An Oxford physicist discusses the laws of "counterfactuals". Anna Ploszajski: "Handmade". A London-based material scientist explores the ancient roots of material science. Jordan Ellenberg: "Shape". A mathematician discusses the ubiquitous importance of geometry. Camilla Pang: "Explaining Humans". British biochemist Camilla Pang examines human behavior. Winner of the 2020 Royal Society prize. Jennifer Ackerman: " The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think". Frank von Hippel: "The Chemical Age: How Chemists Fought Famine and Disease, Killed Millions, and Changed Our Relationship with the Earth". A book that shows how chemists have been simultaneously responsible for famine, pandemics, chemical warfare and pollution. Richard Lipton and Kenneth Regan: "Introduction to Quantum Algorithms via Linear Algebra". Quantum computing explained in terms of elementary linear algebra, requiring no background in physics. Kathryn Stoner: "Russia Resurrected" Sean McMeekin: "Stalin's War - A New History of World War II" Yu Ruxin: "Through the Storm". A colossal retelling of China's Cultural Revolution Niall Ferguson: "Empire - How Britain Made the Modern World" Desmond Shum: "Red Roulette - An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption and Vengeance in Today's China". A Chinese tycoon explains how business works in Xi's China. Three books on Trump's terrifying last days in office and his quasi-Hitlerian madness: Michael Wolff's "Landslide", Carol Leonnig's and Philip Rucker's "I Alone Can Fix It", and Michael Bender's "Frankly We Did Win This Election". Click here for many more Articles: Click here for many more Events in USA China Europe Indian subcontinent Covid pandemic Latin America Sub-Saharan Africa Arab world and Israel Japan Russia Britain ...others Tech and Science The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility achieves a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules (MJ) in nuclear fusion, proving that fusion ignition in the lab is possible NASA launches the James Webb telescope An important step towards speech neuroprosthesis was achieved in 2021 by Eddie Chang's team at UC San Francisco: they implanted electrodes into the brain of a patient who had lost the ability to speak and picked up signals from motor processes linked to the mouth, lips, jaw, tongue and larynx whenever the patient tried to say a word. The signals were then interpreted by a language-prediction algorithm and turned into sounds. Several covid vaccines are administered around the world Orca, the world's first large-scale carbon dioxide removal plant, opens in Iceland Best films: See http://www.scaruffi.com/cinema/best21.html Best jazz albums: http://www.scaruffi.com/ratings/2021.html Best classical music recordings: Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos 1, 14 & 15 (Boston Symphony Orchestra / Andris Nelsons) Mahler: Symphony No 7 (Bavarian State Orchestra/ Kirill Petrenko) Brahms: Piano Concertos (Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/ Andras Schiff) Mozart: Piano Duet Sonatas K497 & 251 (Ferenc Rados + Kirill Gerstein) Mahler: Symphony No 4 (Anna Lucia Richter + Bamberg Symphony Orchestra/ Jakub Hrusa) Hindemith: Wind Sonatas (Les Vents Francais/ Eric Le Sage) Franck: Organ Works (Petur Sakari) Pergolesi: Stabat mater (Giulia Semenzato + Lucile Richardot + Ensemble Resonanz / Riccardo Minasi) Good news of the year: See http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/goodnews.html Heroes of the year: Maria Kolesnikova, Belarusian political activist who has been sentenced to 11 years in prison Somali journalist Abdiaziz Mohamud Guled, a vocal critic of Islamists who was killed in a suicide attack ( Current events)