Recently Mentioned Books

2. Juan Goytisolo, Juan the Landless .  It's odd that such a splendid author is read so little in this country.  Beware, though — this one lies in the territory somewhere between Ulysses and Finnegans Wake . It is very powerful for those inclined in this direction and now I can see why his name in mentioned in connection with a Nobel Prize.

1. R.W. Johnson, South Africa's Brave New World .  In the U.S. there is only the Kindle edition, but I ordered a British edition through the library.  This is a comprehensive political history of the country since the fall of apartheid; I thought I wouldn't finish it but I did.

The subtitle is Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System and the author is (?) Henry M. Paulson, Jr.

For the pointer I thank Lawrence Rothfield, author of this excellent book .

Here is my previous post on Menand's new book .

Anyway, that's the proposal in the new Louis Menand book, The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University .

I also recommend the new book Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea , by Barbara Demick.  Excerpt:

This is a very interesting book about the ideologies behind North Korea.  The author is B.R. Myers and the subtitle is How North Koreans See Themselves — and Why it Matters .  Excerpt:

There is another new book on the Industrial Revolution, namely Robert C. Allen's The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective .  It's all about how the British had high wages and cheap energy, a kind of Heckscher-Ohlin approach to why we're not eating mud cakes.  It's good enough on its own terms, but it's a) question-begging in parts, and b) startling what a small role ideas play in the basic story.  Indirectly, this book is proof that Mokyr's contribution is an important one.

The subtitle is An Economic History of Britain, 1700-1850 and the author is Joel Mokyr.  This is now the most comprehensive and indeed the currently definitive history of the British Industrial Revolution.  Here is a short excerpt:

Some of you may recall the third and fourth sentences in my book Creative Destruction: How Globalization is Changing the World's Cultures (now on Kindle by the way):

9. Best Haitian rara collection : That's the noisy. discordant music they play leading up to Carnival. This would be my pick.  Overall it's a vibrant genre.

7. The most comprehensive historic collection : Alan Lomax in Haiti , 9 CDs, of highly varying quality but always interesting.

3. The best Haitian collection : the Konbit! CD .  The voodoo-linked Rhythms of Rapture is quite good, as is the more acoustic Haitian Troubadours .

1. The best song to start with : Buy Wyclef Jean's Welcome to Haiti .  "Ou Marye" (track 8) is my single favorite song these days, sadly I cannot find it on YouTube but you can download it.  Start there. This one also has strong Haitian influence.  This is a kind of Haitian rap , with a good video.  Here's a super-fun mix of ragga and compas , with Buju Banton and T-Vice.

All this is from the truly excellent new book Red Cloud at Dawn: Truman, Stalin, and the End of the Atomic Monopoly , by Michael D. Gordin.  Here is one very accurate review of the book .

It's still a book I mostly disagree with.  You can buy the book here ; too bad it isn't on Kindle yet.  Reviews are here .

That's about Clinton State Prison, built in 1845 and the anecdote is from Timothy Gilfoyle's A Pickpocket's Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York .  Here is my previous post on the book .

That's from Timothy Gilfoyle's excellent A Pickpocket's Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth Century New York .

I don't buy into the genetic explanations but still I view "family structure which encourages an obsession with education" as very hard to replicate through policy.  Emmanuel Todd's The Causes of Progress has many problems, but it is an under-mined book when it comes to the causes of both liberty and economic growth.

Coming out in paperback, March 2010, for only $20. You can pre-order now .

The book is now out and yes it does add to her blog .

That's from the 21 December issue of Variety .  One difference, of course, is that the best-selling album of this decade — but not the 1950s — was by The Beatles .

5. Peter Singer Under Fire: The Moral Iconoclast Faces His Critics .  The critics include Bernard Williams, David Schmidtz, Jan Narveson, Michael Huemer, and myself'; Singer responds to each essay.

4. Scott Berkun, Confessions of a Public Speaker .  If you get only one good tip from this book, it's worth it.