Recently Mentioned Books

3. Pete Seeger, The Complete Bowdoin College Concert 1960 .  Some people think of Seeger as a “right place, right time” sort of guy, but that does him an injustice.  He was one of the most talented American musicians of his generation, and this live two-CD set shows him at his versatile peak, as a kind of walking human jukebox of American musical traditions, with lots of world music too.

2. Bwati Kono , by Lobi Traore, raw electric blues from Bamako, hypnotic, Jimi Hendrix of West Africa stuff.

1. Bahamas: Goombay 1951-1959 .  I listened to this CD last year more than any other.  It’s also some of the wittiest music I own, and it has plenty of economic themes.

Thomas O. McGarity, Freedom to Harm: The Lasting Legacy of the Laissez Faire Revival .

Coolidge , by Amity Shlaes, and

The subtitle is The Global Expansion of Britain .  The book received strong reviews in the UK and these are justified.  Here is the bottom line: I started it Wednesday, have read parts of it every day, and I am still reading it .  There is interesting and fresh material on almost every page.  Think of it as a selective history of the building of the British empire.

That is from Martin Wolf .  Wolf’s piece also raises the question of whether the Basil Moore /post Keynesian view of endogenous money is essentially correct in a world of IOR, but that is a topic for another day…

That is the new and much awaited book by Gavin Wright, with the subtitle The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South .  Here is one small bit, reflecting some of the book’s main themes:

That is from the new and excellent book London: A Social and Cultural History, 1550-1750 , by Robert O. Buchholz and Joseph P. Ward.  This book was much fresher and original than I was expecting it to be and I can give it a strong recommendation.  I, too, was thinking I didn’t want to read another tired book about the history of London.

By the way, Fritz Machlup considered related arguments in his 1940 book .

The author is Paul Kennedy and the subtitle is The Problem Solvers who Turned the Tide in the Second World War .  This is an excellent look at the managerial and logistics side of the war.  My main regret — not really a criticism — is that the central role of economists was not given more attention.  Haven’t you wondered how it was possible that say the American role in the War was started and finished in less than five years’ time?  These days it can take that long to design, approve, and build...

That is the new book by Jonathan Last , which I liked very much.  Last recently wrote “In the end, demography always wins” and you will find that view writ large in the book.  He also wrote “Global demographics, not domestic policy, will control who comes and who goes.”

8. I consider her Hunan book to be her most significant and original achievement, but Every Grain of Rice is the most useful single all-purpose Chinese cookbook she has written.  It is especially good on the vegetarian side.

I am pleased to have shared a meal at A&J Manchurian restaurant, in Rockville with the charming Fuchsia Dunlop .  You may recall that Fuchsia has written what I consider to be the very best Chinese cookbooks in English and indeed some of my favorite books of all time.  She was in town to speak at Georgetown University and to promote her new book Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking .

The quotation is from Elizabeth L. Cline’s Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion , which I quite enjoyed reading, despite some glaring weaknesses when it comes to FDI, wages, and foreign development.  I now understand the affordable yet fashionable clothing stores in Tysons Corner Mall, and how they have changed over the last fifteen years, and I can thank this book for that.

That is from the web site of Nancy Hanrahan , who teaches sociology and critical theory and music at George Mason.  Just recently I was talking to a Polish man whom I met standing in front of The Village Vanguard, and who claims to own 20,000 jazz LPs, and he told me that Nancy is married to Kip Hanrahan , the esteemed yet still underrated jazz musician, start with Desire Develops an Edge .

Two of Fuchsia’s previous books Revolutionary Chinese Cooking: Recipes from Hunan Province and Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking , are two of my favorite books of all time.  Not just two of my favorite cookbooks, but two of my favorite books period.  They offer much more than just a series of recipes.

Two of Fuchsia’s previous books Revolutionary Chinese Cooking: Recipes from Hunan Province and Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking , are two of my favorite books of all time.  Not just two of my favorite cookbooks, but two of my favorite books period.  They offer much more than just a series of recipes.

That is the new book by Fuchsia Dunlop and the subtitle is Simple Chinese Home Cooking .  The first recipe I tried (tonight), the vegetarian tofu, was an absolute knockout.

A longer book, edited by Bradin Cormack, Marthua Nussbaum, and Richard Strier will be coming out as well, Shakespeare and the Law , containing this piece among others.

That is the new eBook by Richard Posner and Charles Fried , and I just bought my copy and expect I will be adding it to my Law and Literature syllabus.  The book’s home page is here .

I am a big fan of The Triumph of Politics , for its understanding of American government, but in this book I disagree with too many of the key points.  The author likes “sound money” and dislikes “easy money” yet this position is never really argued for.  Fiat money is responsible for a very large number of ills but of course financial crises and bubbles are hardly new.  Consistently, the author knows to vilify Milton Friedman.  He is an explicit liquidationist of the kind you thought Brad DeLon...

The author is David A. Stockman and the subtitle is How Crony Capitalism Corrupts Markets and Democracy .

Here is the proposal .  It is better than nothing, if only to show that something can be done.  The “no path to citizenship until the border is secure” is simply kicking the can down the road, as that standard never will be met.  In the meantime, lots of money will be spent and in due time drones will dominate the border; cult midnight showings of Blue Thunder will increase.  U.S. universities will go crazy inflating the size of their graduate STEM programs , and it will become harder to flunk t...

Addendum : Also arrived on my desk from PUP is Peter Temin and David Vines, The Leaderless Economy: Why the World Economic System Fell Apart and How to Fix It .