Recently Mentioned Books

Jonathan Swift tried to exorcise ­Baconian Antichrist-worship from England. Gulliver’s Travels agreed with New Atlantis on one point: The ancient hunger for knowledge of God had competition from the modern thirst for knowledge of science. In this quarrel between ancients and moderns, Swift sided with the former.

I enjoyed Maxim Samson, Earth Shapers: How We Mapped and Mastered the World, From the Panama Canal to the Baltic Way .

Luka Ivan Jukic, Central Europe: The Death of a Civilization and the Life of an Idea .  I took this sentence to encapsulate the main lesson of the book, namely that this does not usually work: “Central Europeans were, as ever, masterfully adept at rearranging polities into new configurations.”

Peter Baxter, Rhodesia: A Complete History 1890-1980 .  The most complete history of the country I have been able to find.  Many of the other books contain a few dominant, non-false narratives, but one gets tired of that?  I say LLMs come especially in handy for learning this history.

Very well researched is The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao Shapes China , by Ruixue Jia and Hongbin Li, with Claire Cousineau.

Benjamin Wilson, Strange Stability: How Cold War Scientists Set Out to Control the Arms Race and Ended up Serving the Military-Industrial Complex is both interesting and has plenty of information on early Thomas Schelling and his precursors.

Matthew Bell, Goethe: A Life in Ideas .  A beautiful book, now in English we have Nicholas Boyle’s work and also this.  Bell is wise enough to understand and value Iphigenia auf Tauris , a good test for Goethe appeciation.  Although I had a library copy out to read, I went ahead and bought a copy of this one to own.

Marcus Willaschek, Kant: A Revolution in Thinking .  A very good book, perhaps the best introduction to Kant?  Though for me it is mostly interior to my current knowledge set.

By Avner Greif, Joel Mokyr, and Guido Tabellini. Due out in November , likely to be excellent.

Recommended, you can pre-order here .

That is the forthcoming book by Andrew Burstein, who is also author of the excellent Madison and Jefferson (with Nancy Isenberg).  I am sent many books on the founding and Founding Fathers, and while I find their average quality to be high, usually they do not grab my attention.  I have already read plenty in that area.  I also have consumed many books on Jefferson in particular,s Dumas Malone boring or magisterial?  But this one I read straight through, as it is simply…compelling.  Excerpt:

That is the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie, inspired by Pynchon’s Vineland .  I do not usually like Anderson’s films (apart from Magnolia ), but this so far is the best movie of the year?  It takes the “ Days of Rage ” themes and connects them to our current predicament, weaving them into a unified whole, where the world has some characteristics of the 1970s and some of today.  Some scenes are flawed, but overall the cast, soundtrack, and cinematography are the best I have seen in some while.  W...

I was very pleased to have read Steven’s new book When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life .

How Africa Works: Success and Failure on the World’s Last Development Frontier .

That is from Janet Radcliffe Richard, the widow of Derek Parfit.  Her fascinating spousal memoir is from the new and fascinating edited collection Derek Parfit: His Life and Thought , edited by Jeff McMahan.  Worth the triple digit price.  Derek would exercise on a stationery bike only, because that was the only form of exercise compatible with reading.  And he was a big fan of Uchida playing Mozart, as all people should be.

6. Michael Lentz, Schattenfroh .  About one thousand pages, it is receiving buzz as a new novel to master, some are calling it “the new Solenoid” (not a positive for everyone, I do understand).  I have tried parts in English and parts in German, but still I do not get it.  Does it have a plot?  Any humor?  For purposes of norming, I am a big fan of James Joyce’s Ulysses .  I will try it again, however.  At least the author was not complacent.

5. Jordana Pomeroy, Daring: The Life and Art of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun .  Both a book and a picture book rolled into one.  This new release is a very good introduction to her life, her art, and her role as semi-official court painter for Marie de Antoinette.  She remains an underrated artist.

4. Chuck Klosterman, Football .  An excellent and highly conceptual book about America’s favorite sport.  Could this be the best book on (American) football ever?

3. Arundhati Roy, Mother Mary Comes to Me .  Well-written, but at some point I started wondering why I should care.  OK, Mama was a pain in the ass, but then what?  You had to take care of her when she was old.  I guess I prefer whaling tales?

2. Dave Edmonds, Death in a Shallow Pond: A Philosopher, A Drowning Child, and Strangers in Need .  An engaging but also intellectually serious history of some strands of utilitarianism and effective altruism.  I was happy to blurb this book, you may recall Edmonds also wrote the excellent biography of Derek Parfit.

1. Mark Gilbert, Italy Reborn: From Fascism to Democracy .  How Italy built a democracy after WWII, more or less out of nothing.  An optimistic and good book.  De Gasperi was a great man, and essential to the building out of a democratic Italy, yet today his name is hardly known.

Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him soon.  Most of all (but not exclusively ) about his three recent books Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom , Manipulation: What It Is, Why It Is Bad, What To Do About It , and Imperfect Oracle: What AI Can and Cannot Do .

Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him soon.  Most of all (but not exclusively ) about his three recent books Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom , Manipulation: What It Is, Why It Is Bad, What To Do About It , and Imperfect Oracle: What AI Can and Cannot Do .

Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him soon.  Most of all (but not exclusively ) about his three recent books Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom , Manipulation: What It Is, Why It Is Bad, What To Do About It , and Imperfect Oracle: What AI Can and Cannot Do .

This excellent and neglected novel deserves a new look in our time.  As Christian Lorentzen points out in his useful introduction, if you are interested in (non-Submission) Houellebecq, this is the next place to go.  How exactly did we get on the Houellebecq sexual emptiness path to begin with?  This novel was published in 1960, and it shows the first steps toward the sexual revolution and the rise of more open sexual competition, with a nod in the direction of what the final results are going t...