Recently Mentioned Books

Julia Voss, Hilma af Klint: A Biography .

Peter Loftus, The Messenger: Moderna, the Vaccine, and the Business Gamble That Changed the World .

Anthony Beevor, Russia: Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921 .

Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin, How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Economic Growth .

Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross, Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creators, and Winners Around the World .

Mancur Olson, reprinted new edition of The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities .

Mark Bergen, Like, Comment, Subscribe: How YouTube Conquered the World .

Caroline Elkins, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire .

Paulo Scott, Phenotypes .

Paradais , by Fernanda Melchor, Spanish only.

Hervé LeTellier, The Anomaly: A Novel .

There is much more at the link.  And I liked Ken’s new book Our America: A Photographic History .

The author is John Higgs, and the subtitle is Bond, the Beatles and the British Psyche .  I loved this book, and reading it induced me to order the author’s other books, the ultimate compliment.  It is not for everyone, nor is it easy to describe, but imagine the stories of The Beatles and James Bond films told as “parallel careers.”  After all, “Love Me Do” and Dr. No were released on the same day in 1962.

The subtitle of the book is An Artificial Intelligence Answers Life’s Biggest Questions .

The author is Ha-Joon Chang, and the subtitle is A Hungry Economist Explains the World .  This is an economics of food book with a Korean emphasis, and arguing in favor of protectionism and industrial policy, in line with the author’s earlier works.  Here is one excerpt:

You can pre-order here .  Hayek, by the way, is an interesting polar case for any talent search algorithm.  He was first interested in botany, and didn’t do anything in economics until he was 30 years old.

That is from a new paper by Lukas Althoff and Hugo Reichardt. Althoff is on the job market from Princeton, Reichardt is a third-year student from LSE.  Also a reminder that Garett Jones’s new book on Deep Roots, The Culture Transplant , is about to come out…

12. I see the Swiss Enlightenment as centered in Albrecht von Haller , a mid-18th century poet ( Die Alpen ), scientist, polymath, and naturalist.  I see the Swiss Enlightenment as focusing on two themes: a) coming to terms with a naturalistic rather than theological understanding of the beauties and world around them, and b) constructing an idealized narrative about Switzerland itself and its history and lifestyles.  See also Salomon Gessner and Johann Jakob Bodmer .  Can you count the Rousseau...

That is from the new and very good Jon Hilsenrath book on Janet Yellen .

Yes the author is Bob Dylan, and I give this one a thumbs up.  You can buy it here .  Here is one bit:

The author is Jon Hilsenrath, and the subtitle is The Trailblazing Economist Who Navigated an Era of Upheaval .  I very much enjoyed this book and read it straight through without stopping, and so I am happy to recommend it heartily.  Most of all it is a wonderful account of the economics profession and its evolution over the last few decades.

I don’t regret having spent more than $100 on these five CDs (could have been fit on two discs!), but Coase’s theory of durable goods monopoly was nonetheless foremost in my mind.

Roger D. Congleton, Solving Social Dilemmas: Ethics, Politics, and Prosperity is a good book on classical liberalism and how it is embedded in stories of the historical evolution of cooperation.

Michael Pritchard, FRPS, A History of Photography in 50 Cameras is very useful and very good, exactly what it promises, good photos too (better be good!)  I think of photography as one of those innovations that started 20-30 years earlier than I might otherwise have expected, had I not known the historical record.  1839 for basic daguerreotype , that is impressive.

Peter H. Wilson, Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples Since 1500 .  I thought I would love this lengthy tome (913 pp.), and it is quite a catalog, and impressively objective to boot.  Yet something is missing, and I skipped around and ended up putting it down with few regrets.