Recently Mentioned Books

Statement : During the 1930s, a large number of New Deal Democrats admired the fascism of Mussolini’s Italy , and less commonly but still sometimes Hitler’s Germany in its earlier years.

That is the new Joel Mokyr book , due out in November, file under Arrived in My Pile.

Here is my short review of Michael’s big book on world literature : “If you measure book quality by the actual marginal product of the text, this is one of the best books written, ever.  Reading the manuscript in draft form induced me to a) write an enthusiastic blurb, and b) order about forty items through Amazon, mostly used of course.  The book is basically a comprehensive guide to what is valuable and interesting in recently translated world literature, a meta-book so to speak, with extensiv...

Thank you all for making the first day of The Complacent Class such a success; pre-orders were strong and according to one standard metric it was the #1 best-selling book for Monday .

Do read the whole thing .  You can order Glahn’s book here , it is one of my favorites of the year so far.

Philipp Ther, Europe Since 1989 .

Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson, Europe Isn’t Working .

Markus K. Brunnermeier, Harold James, and Jean-Pierre Landau, The Euro and the Battle of Ideas .

That is the new and excellent book by Kerry Brown .  Almost all books on China are either bad or mediocre, but this one is the best book I ever have read on the exercise of power in contemporary China.  Every page is good, here is a short excerpt:

5. Matthew D. Adler and Mac Fleurbaey, The Oxford Handbook of Well-Being and Public Policy .  A superb collection on contemporary welfare economics, and I usually dislike edited collections.

4. Marc Levinson, An Extraordinary Time: The End of the Postwar Boom and the Return of the Ordinary Economy .  There need to be many more books on this critical topic.

3. Lawrence Rosen, Two Arabs, a Berber, and a Jew .  A very fine work of anthropology about Morocco, focusing on the lives of four men, read this very good review .

2. Marc-William Palen, The “Conspiracy” of Free Trade: The Anglo-American Struggle over Empire and Economic Globalization, 1846-1896 .  On how free trade debates reshaped America’s political parties and also how free trade and anti-imperialist views were connected.  Interesting in parts, but too dependent on concepts such as “neoliberalism.”

1. Gareth Stedman Jones, Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion .  I am not right now looking to read 595 pp. on mid-19th century Marxism, but this is a high quality Belknap book which should be of great interest to some.

This excellent book by June Teufel Dreyer has the subtitle Sino-Japanese Relations, Past and Present .  Here is one short bit:

That is William G. Clarence-Smith in the new, excellent, and self-recommending The Economics of Chocolate , edited by Mara P. Squicciarini and Johan Swinnen.

That is from the forthcoming Work, Power and Status in the Twenty-First Century , by the always worth reading Ryan Avent.

At least in some sectors, there are reasons to believe that the productivity gap dates at least as far back as the late nineteenth century, when Britain lost a good deal of ground to Germany. The debate is murky , but it is wrong to think of this as a recent problem, try here and here .

That is from T.M. Devine’s new and useful Independence or Union: Scotland’s Past and Scotland’s Present .

That is the new book by Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan , with the subtitle How People Shape Them — and They Shape Us .  I have not had it in my paws during my travels but everything they write is good.

She also has written two excellent books: The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code , and Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals About the Mind .

She also has written two excellent books: The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code , and Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals About the Mind .

Here is her Paris Review interview .  Read her also at Creative Non-Fiction .  Here is a $2.99 eBook of selected obituaries .  She is funny, that is funny ha-ha, the other funny I could not say.

6. Peter Parker, Housman Country: Into the Heart of England .  A lovely book, and what a wonderful opening summary bit: “My principal intention has been to investigate what I have called ‘Housman Country’, an English sensibility in which literature, landscape, music and emotion all play their part, and which finds one of its most perfect expressions in Housman’s poetry.”

5. Lyndal Roper, Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet . Due out in February , the UK edition is already out.  Substantive and delightful on every page, this is one of my favorite non-fiction titles of the year so far, an excellent book all around.