Recently Mentioned Books

You can buy the eBook here .

It seems unlikely to me that we have reached a true peak, rather a temporary plateau with slower-than-average growth, until the next breakthrough in training, technique, genetic manipulation, or whatever.  Does that sound familiar ?

That is from Frank Dikötter's Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962 , which is one of the scariest books I have read.  Here is another passage, I am not sure how well it is sourced:

The data are from the new and interesting book Art of the Deal: Contemporary Art in a Global Financial Market , by Noah Horowitz.

Bill Viola's Eternal Return sold for $712,452 in 2000.  The rest of the top ten is all by Viola, Nam June Paik, Matthew Barney, and Bruce Nauman, with the #10 work going for $234,814.  I like video art, but to buy it…to me that is one very expensive movie ticket.  I did, however, shell out for a Netflix subscription, so at the margin I can watch Black Narcissus for nothing.

You can pre-order the eBook; the Amazon link is here , Barnes&Noble here , $4.00.  I offer further information on the book here .

The author is the excellent Douglas A. Irwin and the subtitle is Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression .  The book's home page is here .  Excerpt:

That is a new pocket-sized book by the excellent Daniel Drezner and it is indeed about zombies:

From the classics, there is Plato's Republic (a critique of tyranny in my view), Robert Michels Political Parties , Tocqueville's Democracy in America (politics as culture), and various Vilfredo Pareto essays, I am no longer sure which volume they are collected in (edited by Finer?).  The Federalist Papers are impressive, but are they impressive to read?

8. For understanding the U.S. system, I very much like David Stockman's The Triumph of Politics ; oddly the paperback is priced at four times the hardcover.

4. For "pro-government public choice," see Amihai Glazer and Lawrence Rothenberg, Why Government Succeeds and Why it Fails .  Also see my piece, with Glazer (an underrated public choice economist), "Rent-Seeking Promotes the Provision of Public Goods" (gated).

3. Bryan Caplan, The Myth of the Rational Voter .  On the democratic side of the equation. Anthony Downs is still worth reading as well, though it needs a cheaper edition than $75.  Also read Daniel Klein on The People's Romance .

3. Bryan Caplan, The Myth of the Rational Voter .  On the democratic side of the equation. Anthony Downs is still worth reading as well, though it needs a cheaper edition than $75.  Also read Daniel Klein on The People's Romance .

2. Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations .  The best applied explanation of the logic of concentrated benefits, diffuse costs.

1. Dennis Mueller, Public Choice III .  The best survey of the field, though this is an academic rather than a popular book.  On voting theory — an overrated area in my view – try Peter Ordeshook .

1. Dennis Mueller, Public Choice III .  The best survey of the field, though this is an academic rather than a popular book.  On voting theory — an overrated area in my view – try Peter Ordeshook .

That's the title and it's by me, the Amazon link is here , Barnes&Noble here .  That's an eBook only, about 15,000 words, and it costs $4.00.  If you wish, think of it as a "Kindle single."

4. Jean-Christopher Valtat, Aurorarama .  Think French steam punk, Inuit characters, a strange dark ship hovering over an ice-locked retro-futuristic town, and a plot which might have come from an incoherent Japanese anime movie.  So far I like it and it's also my favorite book cover in some time:

3. Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail .  An excellent book, based on a blockbuster combination of writer and topic.

2. Adam Feinstein, A History of Autism: Conversations with the Pioneers .  A lengthy and informative treatment of how thought on autism evolved, and most of all a tale of how badly science can misfire, even "these days."  I am not sure how much the portraits of researchers are intended as positive, but overall I take away from this book the message that many of them are arrogant and also partially incompetent.  It is possible that this is a better book (and for different reasons) than the author...

1. John B. Thompson, Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century .  By an order of magnitude, this is the best book on the economics of contemporary publishing.  It covers the UK scene as well.

There has been so much talk lately about ethics and economists and now there is a whole new book out it, the new and useful The Economist's Oath: On the Need for and Content of Professional Economic Ethics , by George F. DeMartino.  I was intrigued and surprised by the p.24 chart about where economists (as defined by title, not Ph.d.) work in the federal government, not counting the Federal Reserve System.

The author is Daniel Treisman and the subtitle is Russia's Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev .  Is this the first non-fiction book to be making my "Best of 2011" list?  Most of all, it argues persuasively that, rather than botching the transition away from communism, the Russians/Soviets did a remarkably good job, relative to what could have been expected.  It's also the best all-round book-length treatment of what the subtitle indicates and it is readable as well.  Excerpt:

A while ago I wrote a review essay on biography and economics .  Here's a challenge: if economics is so powerful, and MI is so persuasive, try writing a biography of a person, using economic tools, and see how much of that person's life you can explain.  It is a humbling and instructive experience and you can read my attempt here .

That is from the new and quite good book by James Rodger Fleming .  If you are wondering, Windisch-Feistritz is now in Slovenia and it is known as Slovenska Bistrica . It looks like this .