Recently Mentioned Books

That’s the new Simon Winchester book and it concerns Joseph Needham , who wrote the famous series on the history of science in China and focused the attention of the scholarly world on the question: why no capitalism in China?  This books offers a love story, a story of a quest, a story of science, a tale of politics, and did you know that Needham (unwittingly) was the guy who taught the Unabomber to use explosives?

I really, really do.  All perfume, and yes that means yours too.  But I loved the book Perfumes: The Guide , by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez.  If you are rating this book along the single dimension of how skillfully it informs the reader, it is one of the best non-fiction books I have read, ever.

5. 1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die .  One of the best books for browsing I have seen, though don’t expect much from the index.  I was most surprised by the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center in New Caledonia, have any of you been there ?

4. Philip Bobbitt, Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century .  A lengthy and thoughtful volume on how WMD are *the* problem of the future, though I found it didn’t get me further to thinking through my views.  A good start, however, for those who don’t buy the premise.

3. The Monetary Policy of the Federal Reserve: A History , by Robert L. Hetzel.  This is a very serious treatment of what is, from a historical point of view, an understudied topic.  Recommended; note that while the monetarist point of view is not heavy-handed, it may not appeal to everybody.

2. Apples are from Kazakhstan: The Land that Disappeared , by Christopher Robbins.  A substantive travel book about you-know-where; it is both fun and full of substance.  Recommended.

1. Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights , by Bill Ivey.  The concrete discussions of cultural issues are consistently interesting and thoughtful; the overall talk of cultural rights which frames the book is not even well-developed enough to be called absurd.  The book is best on copyright and least interesting on the NEA, which Ivey once ran.  Most of all the book reflects a creeping horror that the internet will make its entire series of debates irrelevant.

Alternatively, the best collections from the 20s and 30s are mind-blowingly good; for instance try American Primitive on John Fahey’s Revenant label, or the Harry Smith collections .  That’s some of the best American music period though in some ways the blues shouts are closer to rock and roll than to country.

Alternatively, the best collections from the 20s and 30s are mind-blowingly good; for instance try American Primitive on John Fahey’s Revenant label, or the Harry Smith collections .  That’s some of the best American music period though in some ways the blues shouts are closer to rock and roll than to country.

Arguably the best songs of Ryan Adams (alas they are scattered but "Amy" and "La Cienega Just Smiled" are two places to start; does anyone know a more general sourcing?) are as good as anything in the genre.  I like Lucinda Williams as well plus Shelby Lynne, most of all I Am Shelby Lynne .

3. Louvin Brothers, Tragic Songs of Life (some call it bluegrass), Dolly Parton, Dock Boggs, Patsy Cline, the essential Johnny Cash (there’s lots of it), and the country/gospel of Elvis Presley.  Dylan’s country music is good but is not his strongest suit.

2. The Byrds, Sweetheart of the Rodeo , The Flying Burrito Brothers ( the first two albums ), plus Gram Parsons’s Grievous Angel .

2. The Byrds, Sweetheart of the Rodeo , The Flying Burrito Brothers ( the first two albums ), plus Gram Parsons’s Grievous Angel .

2. The Byrds, Sweetheart of the Rodeo , The Flying Burrito Brothers ( the first two albums ), plus Gram Parsons’s Grievous Angel .

That’s a typical question from the new Princeton University Press book by Lawrence Weinstein and John Adam .  The title is Guesstimation and the subtitle is: Solving the World’s Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin.

That is from James Cuno’s excellent Who Owns Antiquity: Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage .  The book criticizes nationalistic identity politics, calls for measures to broaden international access to antiquities, and argues that museums should again be allowed to acquire undocumented antiquities.  In other words he favors a cosmopolitan, property rights approach.  Here is the book’s web page .  Here is an interview , with incisive questions.

A few of you asked me for more commentary on this linked article . Will is on board but I think it is provocative but unconvincing.  Here are a few points: oddly, the author doesn’t mention the strongest argument against such a tax, namely that the Chinese and others may not follow suit.  I don’t worry much about one-time compliance costs if energy improvements bring a sounder long-run state of affairs; admittedly a big if.  The side deals from a tax will be bad and I expect an inefficient versi...

Addendum : I am reminded of Borges on Veblen : "When, many years ago, I happened to read this book, I thought it was a satire.  I later learned it was the first work of an illustrious sociologist."

I think of his mid-career work as being most important, such as his The Formation of National States in Western Europe .  In any case America has lost one of its leading social scientists.  Wikipedia offers good links .  Here is Tilly on how to do social science work , recommended.

James Joyce, Ulysses , Kindle edition , $3.19.  Free shipping, too.

An alternative strategy is to find — today — the eighty-year olds who are still fascinating and run your new ideas by them.  Most of them will gladly receive you.  I used to fly out to Ann Arbor occasionally to meet with the great Marvin Becker , but in general I haven’t done much of this in my life.  Call that my failing but it’s another reason why so many eighty-year-olds don’t bother to appeal to Young Turks as a constituency.

I remain a fan of Richard Posner’s book on old age , one of his best.  I ask Bryan: would he still take the advice that his 12-year-old self might have taped to a door?  Neurological changes aside, the elderly simply have less incentive to be deferential and to court their younger colleagues; Aristotle knew this too.

Princeton University Press ran a small ad for my book last Sunday in the New York Times book review. I was curious if it would have any effect on sales, so I ran a little experiment.  I checked the book’s sales ranking in amazon.com at periodic intervals starting on Saturday afternoon.

That question is from Larry Bartels’s Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age .

2. Paradise with Serpents , by Robert Carver.  The only question is whether this is the first or the second best book on Paraguay in the English language; here is the other contender .