Recently Mentioned Books

My Danish host, Nicolai Foss, has a blog on archtop jazz guitar .  Here are his posts on the best of jazz guitar .  I’ll nominate Joe Pass’s Virtuoso album , any number of Django Reinhardt collections, the Jim Hall-Sonny Rollins album , and the Wes Montgomery live album Smokin’ at the Half Note as my top picks.  George van Eps and the old Kress and McDonough recordings are particular favorites as well.  John McLaughlin is not to be neglected, and there is also the incomparable Bola Sete from Bra...

1. Esther Boserup : A female economist from the 1970s, she revised Malthus and her book argued that population pressures stimulated technological progress in agriculture.  She was a precursor of Julian Simon and also a pioneer of work on economics and gender .

3. Novel : Smilla’s Sense of Snow , by Peter Hoeg; lovely and mysterious, yet driven by plot.  His History of Danish Dreams I find too baroque.

3. Novel : Smilla’s Sense of Snow , by Peter Hoeg; lovely and mysterious, yet driven by plot.  His History of Danish Dreams I find too baroque.

2. Short story : "The Caryatids, An Unfinished Tale," by Karen Blixen [Isak Dinesen], in Last Tales .  This one shows the influence of the now-sadly-taken-for-granted Hans Christian Andersen; read it.

1. Movie : A strong category for this country. Babette’s Feast used to be one of my favorite movies, though it now strikes me as sentimental.  I much prefer The Celebration , or the recent After the Wedding . The Best Intentions , with a Bergman screenplay, is directed by Dane Billie August.  Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc is technically a French movie but the director is Danish, in any case it is one of cinema’s greatest achievements. Ordet has splendid shots but I can’t bear the ending.  ...

1. Movie : A strong category for this country. Babette’s Feast used to be one of my favorite movies, though it now strikes me as sentimental.  I much prefer The Celebration , or the recent After the Wedding . The Best Intentions , with a Bergman screenplay, is directed by Dane Billie August.  Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc is technically a French movie but the director is Danish, in any case it is one of cinema’s greatest achievements. Ordet has splendid shots but I can’t bear the ending.  ...

1. Movie : A strong category for this country. Babette’s Feast used to be one of my favorite movies, though it now strikes me as sentimental.  I much prefer The Celebration , or the recent After the Wedding . The Best Intentions , with a Bergman screenplay, is directed by Dane Billie August.  Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc is technically a French movie but the director is Danish, in any case it is one of cinema’s greatest achievements. Ordet has splendid shots but I can’t bear the ending.  ...

1. Movie : A strong category for this country. Babette’s Feast used to be one of my favorite movies, though it now strikes me as sentimental.  I much prefer The Celebration , or the recent After the Wedding . The Best Intentions , with a Bergman screenplay, is directed by Dane Billie August.  Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc is technically a French movie but the director is Danish, in any case it is one of cinema’s greatest achievements. Ordet has splendid shots but I can’t bear the ending.  ...

1. Movie : A strong category for this country. Babette’s Feast used to be one of my favorite movies, though it now strikes me as sentimental.  I much prefer The Celebration , or the recent After the Wedding . The Best Intentions , with a Bergman screenplay, is directed by Dane Billie August.  Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc is technically a French movie but the director is Danish, in any case it is one of cinema’s greatest achievements. Ordet has splendid shots but I can’t bear the ending.  ...

1. Movie : A strong category for this country. Babette’s Feast used to be one of my favorite movies, though it now strikes me as sentimental.  I much prefer The Celebration , or the recent After the Wedding . The Best Intentions , with a Bergman screenplay, is directed by Dane Billie August.  Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc is technically a French movie but the director is Danish, in any case it is one of cinema’s greatest achievements. Ordet has splendid shots but I can’t bear the ending.  ...

It is a must for all lovers of Bombay.  Here is information on the author , who was an anarchist, escaped criminal, and heroin dealer before hitting it big.  Most of this tale draws upon his life.  Buy it here ; if you think you might like it you will.

Here are obituaries .  Chandler’s The Visible Hand filled in the historical boxes of how large firms developed by learning to control their immediate economic environments.  He was a father of modern business history.  His writings were sometimes dry but he had an extraordinary sense of the newness of large-scale corporate organization and the importance of new preconditions for its emergence.  His Strategy and Structure integrated managerial theory and economics.  Much of his work brought toget...

Here are obituaries .  Chandler’s The Visible Hand filled in the historical boxes of how large firms developed by learning to control their immediate economic environments.  He was a father of modern business history.  His writings were sometimes dry but he had an extraordinary sense of the newness of large-scale corporate organization and the importance of new preconditions for its emergence.  His Strategy and Structure integrated managerial theory and economics.  Much of his work brought toget...

Here are obituaries .  Chandler’s The Visible Hand filled in the historical boxes of how large firms developed by learning to control their immediate economic environments.  He was a father of modern business history.  His writings were sometimes dry but he had an extraordinary sense of the newness of large-scale corporate organization and the importance of new preconditions for its emergence.  His Strategy and Structure integrated managerial theory and economics.  Much of his work brought toget...

3. Film, set in : Hatari! , with John Wayne, isn’t bad in a jokey sort of way.  It is, after all, directed by Howard Hawks.  Hatari, by the way, means "danger" in Swahili.

1. Music : Opt for Taarab , the Arabic style from Zanzibar, start here . Bongo Flava: Swahili Rap from Tanzania is above average for its genre.  By the way, the Rough Guide Tanzania music CD is a bit lame.

1. Music : Opt for Taarab , the Arabic style from Zanzibar, start here . Bongo Flava: Swahili Rap from Tanzania is above average for its genre.  By the way, the Rough Guide Tanzania music CD is a bit lame.

It is by Erik Reinert, How Rich Countries Got Rich, and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor ; here is a home page for the book .  The title is misleading and sounds too monocausal.  Reinert’s well-written book in fact revives the arguments of Friedrich List, Henry Carey, and the 19th century protectionists.  In his view many forms of manufacturing are increasing returns to scale activities and help support civil society in the longer run.  Agriculture and the sale of raw materials are "Malthusian" sect...

That is from Roger Scruton’s over the top but nonetheless fascinating England: An Elegy ; he portrays the English as a people who have substituted morale and teamwork for intimacy.  If you are looking to understand why so many parts of the world find it difficult to adopt either capitalism or free political institutions, this is one of the very best places to start.  The English recipe is by no means the only way to go, but from Scruton one gets a good sense of just how much cultural background ...

That is from Arnold Relman’s A Second Opinion: Rescuing America’s Health Care .  I read Relman as offering three major arguments:

This book is academic substance, beginning to end, and for that reason it won’t be a fun read to everybody.  But with that caveat, and noting the $60.00 purchase price, it joins my list ( Sacred Games , The Savage Detectives , Prophet of Innovation ) of must-reads for the year.

This book is academic substance, beginning to end, and for that reason it won’t be a fun read to everybody.  But with that caveat, and noting the $60.00 purchase price, it joins my list ( Sacred Games , The Savage Detectives , Prophet of Innovation ) of must-reads for the year.

This book is academic substance, beginning to end, and for that reason it won’t be a fun read to everybody.  But with that caveat, and noting the $60.00 purchase price, it joins my list ( Sacred Games , The Savage Detectives , Prophet of Innovation ) of must-reads for the year.

Kevin Lang’s Poverty and Discrimination is marketed as a text but it is far more.  Imagine a first-rate labor economist sitting down to tell us what he knows about the topics at hand.  This includes who is poor, does economic growth still eliminate poverty, how much does family structure matter, does changing neighborhoods help a family, what have been the effects of welfare reform, how strong is labor market race discrimination, and many others.  Lang’s discussions are consistently smart and in...