Recently Mentioned Books

This is an unofficial, non-commercial translation of Morris Chang’s memoir , shared for educational and entertainment purposes only. Full disclaimer below.

That bit is from Julian Jackson, A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle , a good book.

Eventually I wrote a whole book on the economy and polity of Oapan, and on the lives of the amate painters.  It was published with the University of Michigan Press under the title Markets and Cultural Voices: Liberty vs. Power in the Lives of the Mexican Amate Painters .  It has sold the least well of any of my books, by far, but it is one of my favorites and it is quite unlike all the others.

By Joseph Torigian, this could easily end up as one of the twenty or thirty best biographies of all time.  It is about Chinese history, and is a biography’s of Xi’s father.  The subtitle is The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping .  The dense (and fascinating) exposition is difficult to excerpt, but here is one bit of overview:

That is the new book by John H. Cochrane, Luis Garicano, and Klaus Masuch, and the subtitle is Challenges, Evolution, and Future of the Euro .  Excerpt:

That is from Keach Hagey’s The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future , which I very much enjoyed.  I am not sure Robin’s supply of parties has been increasing out here in northern Virginia…

I will not soon have time to get to Joseph Torigian, The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping , but it looks excellent.

5. Tom Arnold-Foster, Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual Biography .  With so many forms of liberalism in semi-collapse, Lippmann is suddenly relevant again.  He had faith in experts, and also was not crazy.  But somehow is not deep enough to hold my interest?  Still, this book is very well done.

4. Renaud Camus, Enemy of the Disaster: Selected Political Writings .  Interesting enough, and if you can read the French lefties why not this guy too?  That said, he could be more specific on “the Great Replacement.”  The most likely scenario is a France that is about twenty percent Muslim, wracked with periodic ethnic issues, but doing more or less OK.  In any case you should not be afraid to read this book, even though for a while it was considered cancel-worthy .

3. Philip Shenon, Jesus Wept: Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church .  A very well-written and useful book, I cannot say I have a stance on the issues per se .  It is one of my defects that I cannot care enough about the politics of the Catholic Church — I feel there are already too many separate countries with their own politics.  Nor do I feel close to either “the liberals” or “the conservatives” in this debate.  I do think the current American Pope — who seems “pilled...

2. Futurism & Europe: The Aesthetics of a New World , Fabio Benzi and various editors.  “By their aesthetics ye shall know them!”  What were the aesthetics of the futurist movement in the early 20th century?  Should we approve of those aesthetics?  This book is a good starting point for asking that question.  Nice color plates.

1. Eric Ambler, Cause for Alarm .  Are all his books so good?  So far yes.  With very simple means he redefines what it means to be a good writer of thrillers.  Very English, written and set in Italy 1937, with a foolish Englishman who could be out of a Hitchcock movie.  They still called it Laibach back then, the menace of the pending war casts the proper shadow over the whole novel.

6. Lamorna Ash, Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever: A New Generation’s Search for Religion , coming out in July.

That is an excerpt from Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Buddhism: A Journey through History , an excellent book.  Maybe the best book on the history of Buddhism I have read?  And one of the very best books of this year.

There is a new book by Tom S. Clark, Adam N. Glynn, and Michael Leo Owens, called Deadly Force: Police Shootings in Urban America .  Here are a few of the conclusions:

You can buy it here on Amazon .

Recommended.  And I am happy to also recommend Ken’s new book Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead .

I very much liked her book Nuclear War: A Scenario .  Do read the Wikipedia entry for a full look at what she has written.  So what should I ask her?

You can order the book here .

You will find the (very interesting) tech segments all over the rest of the dialogue.  And I am happy to refer you all to the new paperback edition of Chris’s new book Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet .

COWEN: Of course, yes. Plato’s Dialogues; Quine, Word and Object ; Parfit, Reasons and Persons ; Nozick. Those are what come to my mind right away.

My notion of who is a philosopher has broadened extensively over the years.  I think of Patrick Collison , Camille Paglia , and the best Ross Douthat columns (among many other examples, let’s toss in the best Matt Y. sentences as well, and the best Peter Thiel observations), not to mention some art and architecture and music critics, as some of the best and most important philosophy of our time. The best philosophy of Agnes Callard (NYT) does not look like formal philosophy at all.  I know it is...

Other early philosophy readings, in high school, were Popper, Nietzsche, and Doseoyevsky, at the time considering Karamazov a kind of philosophy book.  Some Sartre, and whatever else I could find in the library.  Lots of libertarian philosophy, such as Lysander Spooner’s critique of social contract theories of the state.  I also read a number of books on atheism, such as by Antony Flew and George Smith, and a good deal of C.S. Lewis, such as God in the Dock.  Arthur Koestler on the ghost in the ...

5. John Cassidy, Capitalism and its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI .  John Cassidy of course is the New Yorker writer on economics.  Comprehensive and clearly written, I predict this book will find its audience, and no it does not discuss Nick Land.

4. Nick Land, The Dark Enlightenment .  There is plenty one can say about this book and these views, but most of all I am struck how negative “the new Right” is about American institutions.  Even at whatever you might think is their most decrepit state (which year is that again?), they are some of the best institutions the world has seen.  Call that a low standard if you wish, but it is not an irrelevant standard.  Here are some other examples of people becoming far, far too pessimistic about th...