Recently Mentioned Books

That is the new and forthcoming book from Richard H. Thaler , due out in May.  It is excellent and fascinating, and yes even if you have read all of the other popular books on behavioral economics you should read this one too.

Gernot Wagner and Martin L. Weitzman, Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet .

Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas, Party in the Street: The Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party after 9/11 .

The 1943 Bengal famine has been cited by Amartya Sen and others as a classic example of market failure.  But in his new (and excellent) book Eating Dead People is Wrong, and Other Essays on Famine, Its Past, and Its Future, Cormac Ó Gráda devotes an entire chapter to that episode and comes away with a different impression.  Here is a summary sentence:

I found very interesting the new book by Joseph Coleman, Unfinished Work: The Struggle to Build an Aging American Workforce , which deals with some related issues though not primarily in the academic context.

This is a theory of teaching that is based on the inter-subjective relationship between teacher and learner. This theory posits that teaching does not, as is commonly assumed, take place via instruction from teacher to students, but rather through a process of selection in the learner’s brain, stimulated by materials and activities utilized by the teacher. In this theory, the mechanism that drives the selection process in learners’ brains is co-regulated emotional signaling between teacher and l...

I had never heard of this novella , and yet it is a splendid and and indeed frank exhibit of Hardy’s rather brutal and tragic view of human psychology.  It is explicitly a version of the Romeo and Juliet story, except the pair end up marrying rather than dying.  What happens then?  The story is full of behavioral economics and rational choice dilemmas.

It is also notable how few of you picked entertainers or sports figures, as such individuals have figured prominently on such lists in the past (see my What Price Fame? ).  In 1971 a lot of people would have said “John Lennon,” and in his day Ted Williams placed high in such surveys.  These days, for better or worse, the tech world and politics seem to exercise a stronger hold on our imaginations, all the more among MR readers I suspect.

That is from William Giraldi , who is reviewing Scott Timberg’s Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class , an interesting book which I hope to cover more soon.

That is the new and notable book by Jacob T. Levy.  Here is one overview bit:

By the way, Werner Troesken at the University of Pittsburgh will be publishing a new book on how American freedoms have allowed infectious diseases to spread , or so sounds the description.  It is from University of Chicago press, due out in May.

That is the new eBook from my colleague Philip Auerswald and Anthony JoonKyoo Yun, you can buy it here .

3. I am very happy to see my former Ph.D student, Shawn DuBravac, who recently finished his degree, at #10 on the NYT non-fiction bestseller list .  His book Digital Destiny is here .

Rafael Yglesias, The Wisdom of Perversity, a novel .

Andrew Levy, Huck Finn’s America: Mark Twain and the Era that Shape His Masterpiece , looks quite good on first glance.

Jeffrey A. Frieden, Currency Politics: The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policy , somehow this is oddly relevant these days.

Arnold Thackray, David Brock, and Rachel Jones, Moore’s Law: The Life of Gordon Moore, Silicon Valley’s Quiet Revolutionary .

The author is Ian Bostridge and the subtitle is Anatomy of an Obsession , and of course it focuses on Die Winterreise .  This is the first book published this year to make it into my 2015 “best of the year list.”  Here is one good review of the book .

That is all from Sam Van Schaik, Tibet: A History .

4. Naipaul and Theroux bury the hatchet . Sir Vidia’s Shadow is another of my all-time favorite books.

One obituary is here , more are here .  The book is here .

That is from Clay McShane and Joel A. Tarr, The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century , an excellent book from 2007.  I am sorry it took me so long to discover this work.  It has wonderful sentences such as:

The article offers other points of interest, mostly about how special interests have undermined entrepreneurship.  I have recently pre-ordered Bessen’s forthcoming book on this theme .

That is from Water: Asia’s New Battleground , which is actually one of the most interesting political economy books published in the last few years.

5. Philip Klein’s Overcoming Obamacare is a very useful and well-written guide to alternatives to ACA, although I am not sure the reader comes away especially heartened or optimistic.  Aaron Carroll reviews the book , mostly positively (though he disagrees), Veronique de Rugy has coverage also .