Recently Mentioned Books

In the last two weeks I’ve heard the new George Harrison box set mentioned so often on channel 26 Sirius satellite radio — accompanied by the playing of Harrison songs — that I’ve concluded some form of payola is going on.  In its early days, satellite radio was critical of the mainstream radio stations for this practice, but now it’s jumped on board.  And you know what — no one cares!  Even on the internet, there is hardly anyone complaining .  Hard to believe, I know, but that is maybe one ind...

The author is Gary Kasparov and the subtitle is Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins .  I am honored to have had the chance to write a blurb for this book.  It is everything I wanted from this author and title, and it also contains the inside scoop — with some truly interesting and deep revelations — about the match with Deep Blue.

One of the most rewarding parts of preparing for my chat with Malcolm Gladwell earlier this week was discovering the autobiographical memoir of his mother , Joyce Gladwell, published in 1969.  It covers growing up in Jamaica, women’s rights and recognition, a mixed-race marriage in the England of the 1960s, and a Christian journey through this world.  The most striking passages are the account of a sexual assault on a ship and a stranger in the street hurling a racial epithet at her and her sons...

Shahab Ahmed, Before Orthodoxy: The Satanic Verses in Early Islam , “…the early Muslim community believed almost universally that the Satanic verses incident was a true historical fact.”

Nathan B. Oman, The Dignity of Commerce: Markets and the Foundations of Contract Law .  An interesting blend of “moral foundations of capitalism” and analysis of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice .

After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality , edited by Heather Boushey, J. Bradford DeLong, and Marshall Steinbaum, is a very useful collection of writings on Piketty-related themes, including Solow and Krugman.

4. Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers .  Compelling throughout, and worthwhile reading for anyone interested in media and media policy.  Ellsberg, of course, was closely connected to Thomas Schelling and made significant contributions to the theory of choice under uncertainty.

3. Helen Hardacre, Shinto: A History .  I’ve read only about a fifth of this 720 pp. book, but it seems to be a highly useful history on a topic hardly anyone knows anything about.

2. Arundhati Roy and John Cusack, Things That Can and Cannot Be Said , Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden are part of the book too.  The two main authors conversing with Snowden is in fact the strongest argument against Snowden I’ve seen.  Maybe he is just being polite, but it’s the only time I’ve heard him sound like an idiot.

1. Ian McEwan. The Children Act .  The main story line pretends to revolve around a Jehovah’s Witness who won’t take a blood transfusion, but I think it was meant as a book about Islam and he was afraid to say so.  The resulting mix doesn’t quite work.

You can buy the book from Barnes&Noble here , Amazon here , signed edition here , Apple here .  Amazon reviews are welcome too!

“Matchers gain, strivers lose,” he [Cowen] writes in a new book, “ The Complacent Class .”

Stephen D. King has a new book coming out on the reversal of globalization, namely Grave New World: The End of Globalisation, The Return of History .

There is also a new Deirdre McCloksey festschrift, Humanism Challenges Materialism in Economics and Economic History , edited by Roderick Floyd, Santhi Hejeebu, and David Mitch.  It appears to be a very fine tribute.

5. Joseph J. Ellis, The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789 .  Ellis is consistently excellent as an author, and this book is best on tying the intellectual evolution of the Founding Fathers to the troubles of the Articles of Confederation period.

4. Peter Leary, Unapproved Routes, Histories of the Irish Border, 1922-1972 .  Soon there may be one again, so I decided to read up on the background, a tale of Derry being severed from Donegal.  This informative, easily grasped book also has a chapter on the fisheries border, a sign of the imaginativeness of the author.

3. The Maisky Diaries: The Wartime Revelations of Stalin’s Ambassador in London , edited by Gabriel Gorodetsky.  Paul Kennedy called it the greatest political diary of the twentieth century.  One of the best windows on the coming and arrival of the Second World War, and I don’t usually like reading the diary form.  It’s also a very good look into how such an impressive person could be Stalin’s ambassador.  By the way, why is the hardcover about a quarter of the price of the paperback?

2. Noo Saro-Wiwa, Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria .  More or less a travelogue, but also one of the best introductions for thinking about Nigeria, and it does stress the different regions of the country.  Both informative and entertaining.

1. Jean-Yves Camus and Nicholas Lebourg, Far-Right Politics in Europe .  A very good and extremely current introduction to exactly what the title promises, with plenty on earlier historical roots.

The review very well captures the spirit and content of the book.  Here is Barnes&Noble , here is Amazon .  Here are signed first editions , here is Apple .

That is the new and excellent book by Jonathan Buchsbaum , offering the first comprehensive history of the debates over free trade and the “cultural exception,” as it has been called.  It is thorough, readable, and goes well beyond the other sources on this topic.

And again, here is David Wolpe’s most recent book David: The Divided Heart , which was the centerpiece for the first part of the discussion.

Yes, the survey of “works of reaction” will continue, at what speed I am not sure.  I picked up Julius Evola , in particular his Revolt Against the Modern World , because of a recent NYT article claiming Evola’s influence over Steve Bannon.  I don’t consider the cited evidence for a connection as anything other than tenuous, but still the book was only a click away and Evola was a well-known Italian fascist and I’ve been reading in that area anyway (read in areas clusters!).  I read about 70-80 ...

I had heard and read so much about Dugin but had never read him.  The subtitle is Introduction to Neo-Eurasianism , and here were a few of my takeaway points:

That is the 1936 book by British fascist Oswald Mosley , and it is arguably the clearest first-person introduction to the topic for an Anglo reader, serving up less gobbledygook than most of the Continental sources.  Mosley actually makes arguments for his point of view, and thinks through what possible objections might be, which is not the case with say Marinetti.  Beyond the basics, here are a few points I gleaned from my read: