Recently Mentioned Books

And John T. Cunningham, This is New Jersey, from High Point to Cape May , dates from 1953 and thus is intrinsically interesting.  Hudson County really is remarkably densely populated, and back then it was a big deal that baseball was invented in Hoboken.

Philip Kitcher, On John Stuart Mill , is a nice short introduction.

4. Deborah E. Harkness, The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution .  A big and neglected piece of the puzzle for the breakthrough of the West, focusing on Elizabethan times, skill in symbolic manipulation, and the origins of the scientific revolution.  Recommended.

3. Geoff Emerick, Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Spent Recording the Music of the Beatles .  If you want a book sympathizing with Paul McCartney as the guy who made the Beatles tick, and portraying George Harrison as a suspicious, less than grateful whiner, this is for you.  And so it is.  By the way, contrary to some very recent accounts, Emerick affirms that “Yellow Submarine” is basically a McCartney composition.  He even notes that Lennon cut some demos of it , which has led some recen...

2. Jerry Saltz, Art is Life: Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night .  Art reviews from the New York magazine guy.  Fun to read, mostly sane, and helps the reader understand the ascent of Wokeism in the art world.  It is not that so many art buyers or curators are racist.  Rather, art is super-hierarchical in the first place (try telling the market that a great textile should go for as much as a famous painting), and that, in unintended cross-cutting ...

1. Greg Berman and Aubrey Fox, Gradual: The Case for Incremental Change in a Radical Era .  A good book for sane centrists, and they claim to have been partly inspired by our subheading “Small Steps Toward a Much Better World.”  Did you know that putting in the “much” was Alex’s idea?  At first I resisted but clearly he was correct.

This argument is also a theme in my much earlier In Praise of Commercial Culture .

I wish such books would spend more time discussing whether dense urban areas are simply a fertility trap.  Nonetheless excellent work, and everyone interested in urban economics (or parking) should pick this one up.  Due out in May, you can pre-order here .

Dalibor Rohac, Governing the EU in an Age of Division is a classical liberal take on its topic.

And a new libertarian memoir, Murray Sabrin, From Immigrant to Public Intellectual: An American Story .

There is Owen Ullmann, Empathy Economics: Janet Yellen’s Remarkable Rise to Power and Her Drive to Spread Prosperity to All .

Pretty good is Jon K. Lauck, The Good Country: A History of the American Midwest, 1800-1900 .

There is the interesting Plato Goes to China: The Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism , by Shadi Bartsch.  Here is my very good CWT with her , in which we discuss the topics of the book a bit.

Jamieson Webster, Disorganisation & Sex .  Lacanian, yet readable.  Recommend to those who think they might care, but it will not convince the unconverted.

Nicolai J. Foss and Peter G. Klein, Why Managers Matter: The Perils of the Bossless Company , is an interesting defense of corporate hierarchy, based on economic reasoning and also a dash of Hayek.

Newly published is Daniel B. Klein, Smithian Morals , Amazon link here , some of the essays are with co-authors.  Free,  open access version is here .

Ahmet T. Kuru, Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison is one of the best books on why Islam fell behind Western Europe.  I don’t think it solves the puzzle, but has plenty of good arguments in the “rent-seeking” direction.

Rodric Braithwaite, Russia: Myths and Realities .  Perhaps a little simple for some readers, but probably the best place to start on the topic of Russian history.

Keiron Pim, Endless Flight: The Life of Joseph Roth .  Gripping throughout.

Andrew Mellor, The Northern Silence: Journeys in Nordic Music & Culture .  I will read this one again.  It assumes some knowledge of the Nordic countries and also some knowledge of classical music, but it is exactly the kind of book I hope people will write.  It explains at a conceptual level how those countries built up such effective networks of musical production and consumption.

and Olivier Guez, The Disappearance of Josef Mengele , excellent and easy to read in one sitting.

Alessandro Manzoni, The Betrothed , translated by Michael F. Moore.

Ovid, Metamorphoses , translated by Stephanie McCarter.

You can buy it here .

5. Cecile McLorin Salvant, Ghost Song .