Recently Mentioned Books

Yaffa Assouline, Avant-Garde Orientalists: Tribute to Igor Savitsky .  One of the largest collections of Russian avant-garde art is in Karakalpakstan in northwestern Uzbekistan — you can view the work here, recommended.

William R. Cross, Winslow Homer: American Passage is a definitive biography with wonderful photos, maps, and images.  Not a “picture book” but a book with amazing pictures.  And text.

3. Gregory Forth, Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Humanoid .  The claim is that the Flores mini-humanoids may have existed on the island until quite recently, or possibly even still today.  I am not persuaded (for one thing the villagers promote too many other ancillary hypotheses about these creatures, for instance they fly), but at the very least this is a fascinating take on how to interpret eyewitness evidence.  And the author is a credible authority.  They ...

2. Marc F. Bellemare, Doing Economics: What You Should Have Learned in Grad School — But Didn’t .  A sober and very useful book, covering topics such as “Navigating Peer Review” and “Finding Funding” and “Doing Service.”  The advice offered is on the mark.  Yet the book as a whole makes economics (academia?) as a whole come across as a grim and dysfunctional profession.  You won’t find much on “generating new ideas” or “influencing policy” or “inspiring students.”  I guess they taught all those ...

1. Dervla Murphy, A Place Apart: Northern Ireland in the 1970s .  Imagine a single Irish woman in the 1970s bicycling though Northern Ireland at the height of The Troubles.  Charming and perceptive throughout, and remarkably well-written.  Murphy is in general an underrated figure, and note she is still at it, recently in her 90s she did a Lunch with the Financial Times .

Interesting throughout.  And I am very happy to recommend Chris’s new and important book Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Path to Peace .  And here is my earlier 2018 Conversation with Chris .

The author is Bryan Caplan and the subtitle is Essays in Demogoguery.  “How Evil Are Politicians? collects the very best of his EconLog essays on the vicious use of political authority.”  Just out, good price, you can order on Amazon here .

This is a well-known novel, especially in Ireland, and often it is considered the best Irish-language novel of all time.  But I’ve never heard people telling other people they ought to read it, and in that sense it doesn’t seem so very well known in the United States at all.  This is the translation I have been enjoying .

Not just good, they are very good .  I picked up two new ones yesterday at the Arlington Library, and I am excited to spend time with both.  The first is Doris Behrens-Abouseif Metalwork from the Arab World and the Mediterranean , and the second is Salma Samar Damluji The Architecture of Yemen and its Reconstruction , only $17.97 for that one!  Here are some summary reasons why picture books are so underrated:

Not just good, they are very good .  I picked up two new ones yesterday at the Arlington Library, and I am excited to spend time with both.  The first is Doris Behrens-Abouseif Metalwork from the Arab World and the Mediterranean , and the second is Salma Samar Damluji The Architecture of Yemen and its Reconstruction , only $17.97 for that one!  Here are some summary reasons why picture books are so underrated:

His new book is Being Good in a World of Need , and most of all I am delighted to see someone take Effective Altruism seriously enough to evaluate it at a very high intellectual level.  Larry is mostly pro-EA, though he stresses that he believes in pluralist, non-additive theories of value, rather than expected utility theory, and furthermore that can make a big difference (for instance I don’t think Larry would play 51-49 “double or nothing” with the world’s population, as SBF seems to want to ...

She is Rene Girard’s biographer , and has other interesting books as well, including on Czeslaw Milosz and Joseph Brodsky, and she is an expert in poetry and the humanities more broadly.  Here is one biography (how can she not have her own Wikipedia page?).  Here is her blog .  Here is Cynthia on Twitter .  To her credit, she has done all this without the benefit of a formal, tenured university post.  She also runs her own “conversations,” and is working further on Girard.  So what should I ask ...

James Kirchick, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington also serves as a better than average general history of the city.

Rainer Zitelmann’s Hitler’s National Socialism is a very thorough, detailed look at Hitler’s actual views.

Matthew Continetti, The Right: The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism is interior to my current knowledge set, but clear and I suspect for many readers useful.

John E. Bowit, Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia’s Silver Age .  The early twentieth century, basically.  Beautiful plates, good exposition, and if nothing else a lesson in just how far aesthetic deterioration can run.  A picture book!

Paul Sagar, Adam Smith Reconsidered: History, Liberty, and the Foundations of Modern Politics considers the broader implications of Smith’s thought from a “freedom as non-domination” perspective.

4. Kevin Lane, The Inca Lost Civilizations .  Short and readable and with nice photos, maybe the best introduction to this still underrated topic?

3. Olivier Zunz, The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville .  A self-recommending biography of one of the greatest social science thinkers.  Easy to read, and good for both the generalist and specialist reader.  Note that it is a complement to reading Tocqueville, in no way a substitute.

2. Declan Kiberd, Irish Classics .  One of the very best books on Ireland and Irish ideas, and more broadly I can recommend virtually anything by Kiberd.  Do note, however, that much of this book requires you have read the cited Irish classics under consideration.  Nonetheless there is insight on almost every page, recommended.

1. Susanne Schattenberg, Brezhnev: The Making of a Statesman .  Can you have an interesting biography of a life and man that was fundamentally so… boring ?  Maybe.  He ruled the world’s number two power for eighteen critical years, so surely he deserves more attention than what he has received.  “Nevertheless, Brezhnev had dentures and only stopped smoking in the mid-1970s because his doctors told him his false teeth would fall out at some point if he didn’t.”  And “Analysis of why Brezhnev’s ch...

The main title is Barred , and the author is Daniel S. Medwed.  The book has many interesting points, here is one excerpt:

The author is Mark Bergen and the subtitle is How YouTube Conquered the World .  This is that rare (only?) case where “conquered the world” in the subtitle actually is true!

That is from the new and excellent Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success , by Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan.

Circa 1941, that is from the very good Catherine Merridale, Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945 .  Do not arrive too readily at conclusions about the current situation in Ukraine!  And Merridale books are in general a good place to read about Russian history.