Recently Mentioned Books

3. I fear what I call “ the James C. Scott dead end ,” namely that many territories will develop strong enough “state capacity-resistant” units that further Chinas and Romes will be difficult to achieve in terms of the size of the political unit.  Imagine a world like Laos or northern Thailand.  You may think that is a “mountains effect,” but neither the Great Plains nor Africa developed a China or Rome equivalent in earlier times, or much in the way of a very large or effective political unit. ...

3. I fear what I call “ the James C. Scott dead end ,” namely that many territories will develop strong enough “state capacity-resistant” units that further Chinas and Romes will be difficult to achieve in terms of the size of the political unit.  Imagine a world like Laos or northern Thailand.  You may think that is a “mountains effect,” but neither the Great Plains nor Africa developed a China or Rome equivalent in earlier times, or much in the way of a very large or effective political unit. ...

The author is Richard Rothstein, and the subtitle of this excellent and important book is the apt A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America .  The upshot is that twentieth century segregation had a lot more to do with government restrictions — and not just government toleration — than many of us had thought.  Here is one bit of many:

Chris Twomey, XTC: Chalkhills and Children .

Johnny Rogan, The Byrds: Timeless Flight Revisited, The Sequel , get the full-length edition, not the much shorter 1980 volume.

1. My Cato podcast on The Complacent Class .  And Ben Sasse on how to raise an American adult .  I am excited to read Ben’s forthcoming book .

Shahab Ahmed, Before Orthodoxy: The Satanic Verses of Early Islam , “…the early Muslim community believed almost universally that the Satanic verses incident was a true historical fact.”  Ahmed, a brilliant scholar at Harvard, passed away in 2015, here is a short appreciation .  If they wrote books for me, someone would be working on “Islam and Strauss” right now.

After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality , edited by Heather Boushey, J. Bradford DeLong, and Marshall Steinbaum, collects many essays on the Piketty book and also on the topic more generally.

Hugh Nibley, Approaching Zion , is a series of essays on society and theology from one of the Mormon “grandmasters.”

Stephen Ellis, This Present Darkness: A History of Nigerian Organized Crime , is one of the better books on that country: “…there are even private colleges in Lagos offering courses in credit card fraud and advance-fee fraud.”

4. Duff McDonald, The Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, the Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite . “In the early 1920s, HBS was still without its own buildings at Harvard, faculty were crammed together in cramped offices, and classrooms were scattered around Harvard Yard.”  This is a remarkably clear and engaging survey of its subject matter, the main drawback being it never explains the rise of HBS in terms of…management, as HBS itself might do so.  There is thus...

3. Richard A. Posner, The Federal Judiciary: Strengths and Weaknesses .  This is a grumpy book , but I don’t mean that in a grumpy kind of way, as I like many grumpy books: “The dominant theme of this book has been judicial standpattism — more precisely, the stubborn refusal of the judiciary to adapt to modernity.”  By the end, Posner gives the federal judiciary a grade between B and B+, I was surprised it was so high.

2. W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice, Letters from Iceland .  More of a mutual travelogue, with alternating contributions, than a series of letters, one learns that even in 1936: “There is little stigma attached to illegitimacy.  Bastards are brought up on an equal footing with legitimate children of the family.”  Furthermore, “All chocolate or sweets should be bought in London.”  During the trip they run into Goering, yes the Goering.

1. Michael J. Klarman, The Framers’ Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution .  Excellent author, the chapters on the time period before the Constitution are good enough to make the “best books of the year list,” the rest is a much above-average summary and distillation, but of more familiar material.  At 880 pp. of clear, limpid, and instructive prose, it is a winner in any case.

Third, individuals should read and cultivate Stoic philosophy in themselves, whether explicitly or as they might pick up from a best-seller . More self-reliance and less dependence on social cues for doing the right thing will increase economic performance.

The author is Rob Sheffield and the subtitle is The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World .  So far this year this is my favorite book, in part because it stretches genres in a creative way.  In addition to being a study of fandom, celebrity, 1960s history, “how boys think about girls,” and of course the music itself, it is most of all a splendid take on small group cooperation, management, and the dynamic between John and Paul.  I enjoyed every page of this book, and learned a great deal, ...

Here is the link .  Here is the Amazon link , you can request to be emailed when it becomes available.  I thank Peter Boettke for the pointer, and I look forward to reading the book.

The author is Richard E. Ocejo, and the subtitle is Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy .   Here is one summary bit:

4. Andrew Marr, We British: The Poetry of a People .  A good introduction to its topic, most of all for the mid-twentieth century, with plenty of poems reproduced.  Here is a Louis MacNeice poem, Snow :

3. Edward T. O’Donnell, Henry George and the Crisis of Inequality: Progress and Poverty in the Gilded Age .  This focuses more on George’s connection to social and labor movements, and less on George as an economist or land theorist, than I would have liked.  Still, it is an information-rich narrative that most of all brings the times and movements surrounding George to life.

2. Karan Mahajan, The Association of Small Bombs .  A novel about the consequences of a Delhi terrorist bombing that is both deep and compelling to read, full of surprises as well.  Here is a useful NYT review .

1. Édouard Louis, The End of Eddy .  LitHub wrote: “Even in the wake of Knausgaard and Ferrante it is hard to find a literary phenomenon that has swept Europe quite like the autobiographical project of Édouard Louis.”  I don’t know that I enjoyed this book very much, but it was an effective fictional experience.  Most of all it scared me that such a tale of poverty and abuse could be so popular in Europe these days.  Recommended, but in a sobering way; I would rather this had been a bestseller i...

Early in his career, he was accepted into mainstream American intellectual life and hung out with elites, rising to the top through the State Department and Wall Street.  As the 1930s passed, he became more extreme and the center became more hostile to fascist and semi-fascist ideas, especially if bundled with tolerance for potentially hostile foreign powers.  His career had a long downward trajectory, and during World War II he was tried for sedition, though he got off and later died in obscuri...

Dennis was actually the first stagnation theorist I read, at about the age of eighteen, due to a recommendation from Walter Grinder.  His strength is to tie stagnationist claims into the political economy of war.  This is from 1940 (book link here ), I hope it is no longer relevant:

That is from the new book by Michael Breen, The New Koreans: The Story of a Nation , a very good introductory treatment to that part of the world.