Recently Mentioned Books

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 .

COWEN: I have some questions about other topics. You have some highly regarded books about hedge funds and about the Fed. In the late ’90s, the bailout of Long-Term Capital Management — was that a kind of original sin that just set us on a path of bailing more things out at higher and higher price tags? Should we have just let LTCM fall?

And that is with rights of free migration.  That is from Brendan O’Leary, A Treatise on Northern Ireland, volume 3, Consociation and Confederation , a very good series of books I might add.

That is all from my forthcoming book with Daniel Gross Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World .  Most of the chapter of course is devoted to how to get the most out of an interview.  Due out May 17, you can pre-order here for Amazon , here for Barnes & Noble .

3. Pavel Kolesnikov, Bach, Goldberg Variations .

2. Daniil Trifonov, Silver Age , two CDs of Russian music.

1. Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony, Beethoven Symphony number nine .

I have not had a chance to read Bruce Clark, Athens: City of Wisdom , a history of the city through the ages, but it looks good.

I agree very much with Tim Kane’s new pro-immigration book The Immigrant Superpower: How Brains, Brawn, and Bravery Make America Stronger .

My colleague lives his words, here is Todd B. Kashdan The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent & Defy Effectively .

Tom G. Palmer and Matt Warner, Development with Dignity: Self-Determination, Localization, and the End to Poverty is a good classical liberal short book on economic development.

Jing Tsu, Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern .  A little slow to start, but a good book on how China used technological innovation to adapt Chinese characters to the advent of the typewriter and the telegraph.  The danger to the Chinese language seems entirely to be past.