Recently Mentioned Books

The author is Anna Keay and the subtitle is Britain Without a Crown , of course covering the 17th century British interregnum without a king.  Here is one relevant bit:

5. Elizabeth Bowen, Eva Trout .  Bowen has to be one of the most underrated writers of the twentieth century.  No human ever has told me to read one of her books!  Yet this one is a subtle knockout.

4. Joseph Sassoon, The Global Merchants: The Enterprise and Extravagance of the Sassoon Dynasty .  A fun read, I had not known the family was Iraqi-Jewish, or so heavily involved in the opium trade in 19th century China.  The author, by the way, is a distant relation to the main family tree, but it turns out he can read all the relevant languages for deciphering the family archives (and hardly anyone else can).

3. Elizabeth Popp Berman, Thinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy .  A useful book, and many people should read it, that said I have some caveats.  Was “equality” ever the standard?  Why isn’t there more public choice/political economy analysis in here?

2. Christopher Prendergast, Living and Dying with Marcel Proust .  Unlike most of the secondary literature, this book actually makes In Search of Lost Time sound like it is worth reading.

1. Charles Clover, Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism .  An excellent look at all the icky ideas that have been circulating around Russia for the last few decades.  This book also brings the relevant characters to life, for better or worse.  Recommended.

Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy elicited this blurb from me: “How does the concept of intangible capital help explain some features of what has gone wrong in our world? How is the concept of intangible capital key to fixing what has gone wrong and improving our world? This is the go-to book for those and other critical questions for boosting economic growth.”

There is also Penelope J. Corfield, The Georgians: The Deeds and Misdeeds of 18th-Century Britain .

John Davis, Waterloo Sunrise: London from the Sixties to Thatcher is mostly a social history.

I liked Meghan O’Rourke, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness .

3. Stanislaw Lem, The Invincible .  One of the better Lems, reminds me of a Star Trek episode, with shades of gray goo hypotheses and an East Bloc ending.

2. Barbara Bloemink, Florine Stettheimer: A Biography .  A revelatory book that proves Stettheimer’s reputation deserves to be upgraded to the top tier of American artists of her time.  The color plates are wonderful.  I hadn’t known of her inspiration coming from Ballet Russe works.  For those who care, definitely recommended, deserves to make the best of the year list.

4. Geoffrey Hosking has written (by far) the best book on Russia I know .

The author is Oded Galor and the subtitle is The Origins of Wealth and Inequality .

The author is Terry Martin of Harvard, and the subtitle is Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939 .  This is an excellent book for understanding how some of the current Russia vs. Ukraine issues are rooted in Bolshevik times.  Here is one excerpt:

A good book, think of it as a more general (non-technical) economic history of wheat, authored by Scott Reynolds Nelson.  The sad thing is the book’s subtitle: “ How American Wheat Made the World ” — yes it covers America, but a lot of the book, and I would say its best parts, focus on Russia and Ukraine.

The obsession with ideas and also with history is a longstanding tradition from earlier leadership. For instance, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin held an extensive library , amounting to about 19,500 books, which he used as a personal, working archive. Stalin was known for his extensive marginalia and for leaving greasy fingerprints on the book pages. Marxist politics, economics and history were prominent in the library, and after Lenin, the most heavily represented authors in the library were Stal...

Recommended.  And again, here is Chuck’s new book The Nineties .

I will be doing a Conversation with him, noting that he is my co-author on Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creators, and Winners Around the World .

The author is Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, and the subtitle is Popes, Kings, and the Birth of the West .  Here is the main thesis:

The most painful part of writing The Case Against Education was calculating the return to education.  I spent fifteen months working on the spreadsheets.  I came up with the baseline case, did scores of “variations on a theme,”  noticed a small mistake or blind alley, then started over.  Several programmer friends advised me to learn a new programming language like Python to do everything automatically, but I’m 98% sure that would have taken even longer – and introduced numerous additional error...

Do note he has a new book coming out A Brief History of Equality .

1. Stoker was Anglo-Irish and favored the late 19th century industrialization of Belfast as a model for Ireland more generally.  He also was enamored with the course of progress in the United States, and he wrote a pamphlet about his visit.

I will be having a Conversation with him, rooted in his forthcoming book Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace .  Though not only!

There is much more at the link, and I am very happy to recommend Sebastian’s new and very good book The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future .