Recently Mentioned Books

Chris Mooney, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science — and Reality .

Ruchir Sharma, Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles .

Carl H. Nightingale, Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities .

Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent , by Edward Luce.   Here is his recent essay , related to the book.

Jonathan Schlefer, The Assumptions Economists Make .

With Ning Wang, it is called How China Became Capitalist , due out later in April.

You can pre-order the book on Amazon here .  For Barnes & Noble here .  For Indiebound.org here .  It is due out April 12.

And my favorite reading of all is the unabridged Boswell’s Life of [Samuel] Johnson . It’s my favorite thing because it’s interesting and has no import or forward narrative momentum. So you’re interested and edified but it doesn’t keep you up at night.

That is the title of an erratic but interesting book by Jacob Lund Fisker, and the subtitle is A philosophical and practical guide to financial independence .  Think of it as a study in “least cost living,” his web site is here .

The author is John Long and the subtitle is What Evolving Robots Can Teach Us About the History of Life and the Future of Technology .  Excerpt:

The author is Luigi Zingales, and the subtitle is Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity .  I know you have book fatigue, popular economics book fatigue, policy book fatigue, and books-with-subtitles-like-this fatigue, all at once.  But this book is really, really good.  It hits all the right notes, is clearly written, and refers to academics as the new crony capitalists.”  I agreed with almost all of it.

The authors are Angel Cabrera and Gregory Unruh, and the subtitle is How to Think, Act, and Lead in a Transformed World .  Cabrera is the incoming president of GMU, as of this summer, so of course I am keen to read this book, which arrived in my pile today.

The author is Peter Kaminsky and the subtitle is The Art of Eating Healthy (and Really Well) .  I enjoyed this book, here is one bit:

That is from Liza Mundy’s The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners is Transforming Sex, Love, and Family .  It is an interesting book, though it does not always focus on the questions that I would.  The core thesis is that women will learn to marry down and men will learn to marry up.

That is from the forthcoming excellent book by Lawrence H. White, Amazon link here .  The book is not mostly about India, but it is about the role of economic ideas in shaping economic outcomes.  The chapter on India is my favorite, however, and it is perhaps the very best place to start to understand the failures of India’s planning period.

Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty .  Not their only co-authorship, now out in paperback.

James K. Galbraith, Inequality and Instability: A Study of the World Economy Just Before the Great Crisis .

Jonathan Schlefer, The Assumptions Economists Make .

That is from Jon Gertner’s The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation .  Here is my previous post on the book , which I recommend highly.

That is a discussion from Justin L. Barrett’s new and interesting Born Believers: The Science of Children’s Religious Belief .  He gives more than equal time to how to raise your child to be religious, but we’re already pretty good at that.  Here are his atheism tips, noting that I am excerpting and paraphrasing:

By Edward O. Wilson, Amazon link here .  I am a big Wilson fan, but I didn’t find anything new in it, although for some readers it might be a good introduction to a variety of ideas such as eusociality.

The subtitle is America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It .  His policy conclusions are:

I loved this book and devoured it in a single sitting.  The author is Jon Gertner and the subtitle is Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation .  Here is one excerpt:

There is persistence to spending, although this study does not create a category for stimulus spending per se , however that concept might be defined. The work of Robert Higgs also provides a clear look at ratchet effects on government spending, control, and regulation, although Higgs focuses on war rather than spending.  State governments also seem to exhibit a ratchet effect, whereby good times bring about permanently higher budgetary demands, if only through endowment effects, lock-in, and st...

Contemporary American fiction faces an ongoing problem of what to write about.  Yuppie life in Brooklyn doesn’t have the gravitas, suburban ennui is long since overdone, and so much of American life — mostly  for the better — doesn’t face serious moral choices.  Sergio de la Pava has solved this problem by writing about the American legal system, set in New York City and with a Colombian immigrant public defender.  At first I was skeptical but at page 256 (out of 678) it is still getting better....