Recently Mentioned Books

3. Cass Sunstein, Sludge: What Stops Us from Getting Things Done and What to Do about It .  More people should write books about the most important topics.  Have you and your institution done a “sludge audit” lately?

2. Paul Atkinson, A Design History of the Electric Guitar . “Why is it that so many guitars produced today, not only by Gibson and Fender, but by competing companies, still hark back to the classic designs of the 1950s?  Why do so many manufacturers produce designs that are very clearly derivative forms of the Les Paul, the Telecaster, the Stratocaster, the Flying V and the Explorer?”  There is now a book on this question, and quite a good one.

1. Barnaby Phillips, Loot: Britain and the Benin Bronzes .  Among its other virtues, this book is an excellent “in passing” way to learn about British imperialism and also West African economic collapse.  One thing I learned from this book is that Nigeria already has one of the very best collection of these bronzes in the world.  It does not seem they are being stolen or ruined, but they are not deployed very effectively either.  Recommended.

Recommended .

That is a new and very useful book by Benjamin T. Smith , oddly it came out first in the UK .  Here is one excerpt:

That is from the new and noteworthy Anthony Fontenot, Non-Design: Architecture, Liberalism & the Market .

Paul Strathern’s The Florentines: From Dante to Galileo: The Transformation of Western Civilization is probably the best current, general interest book on its (very important) topic.

There is Emily J. Levine, Allies and Rivals: German-American Exchange and the Rise of the Modern Research University , on yet another understudied topic.

4. Mircea Raianu, Tata: The Global Corporation that Built Indian Capitalism .  No, this book does not “read like a novel,” and it could use more economics rather than plain history, but it is an entire book of full of content, meeting mainstream standards, on the still understudied topic of Indian business, one very major Indian business in particular.

3. Cynthia Saltzman, Plunder: Napoleon’s Theft of Veronese’s Feast .  Among other things, this book shows how clearly Napoleon understood the role of art in both reflecting and cementing power.  Nor had I known that Canova, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Napoleon all had a single intersecting story, revolving around the theft and return of art.

2. Elizabeth Bowen, The Last September .  A wonderfully subtle Irish novel about the Anglo-Irish elite in south Ireland right after WWI, how they self-deceive about the impending doom of their rule and way of life, and the diverse forms those self-deceptions take.  An underrated modernist classic.

1. Ivo Maes, Robert Triffin: A Life .  There should be more biographies of economists, and while this one does not succeed in making Triffin exciting, it is thorough and informative and shows there was more to the man than his famous dilemma .  I hadn’t even known Triffin was from Belgium.

Seven volumes, $200 in paperback, multiple editors, due out in July.  I just pre-ordered .  Much better than wasting your time reading about the debates du jour.

That is from her Wikipedia page .  She is an expert in the philosophy of biography and her new biography of Napoleon , which views his life through the medium of his involvement with gardens, has been receiving rave reviews.  And here is her home page , and her article on her Cambridge house .

That is from the new and “must read” From Rebel to Ruler: One Hundred Years of Chinese Communism , by Tony Saich.  Keep in mind that the CCP is the most important institution in the world today — have you ever read a book on it?

That is from Mill’s State of Society in America .  But is it true about China?

Here is the full story , exactly as I argued in my earlier book The Complacent Class .  Via Ilya Novak.  And from the study, don’t forget this:

That is from p.95 of the recent Edward Nelson two-volume set on Milton Friedman — one of the best books written on any economist!

Here is Scott Sumner on the book .  Highly recommended, here is the Amazon link , and volume II .

Here is Scott Sumner on the book .  Highly recommended, here is the Amazon link , and volume II .

A few of you have asked me to review this book , sometimes presented as a clinching case for climate contrarianism.  I thought it was fine, but not a great revelation, and ultimately disappointing on one very major point of contention.  On the latter angle, on p.2 Koonin writes:

The author is Jonathan Levy (U. Chicago) and the subtitle is A History of the United States , noting it is mostly an economic history from a left-mercantilist, nation-building point of view.  So far on p.95 I quite like the book, here is one excerpt:

Edward Slingerland, Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization is an argument that our capacity for getting drunk, and indeed the act of getting drunk, enhances creativity, trust building, and stress alleviation.  I mostly agree, but…

Michael Albertus, Property Without Rights: Origins and Consequences of the Property Rights Gap .  I have only pawed through this one, but it appears to be a highly useful extension of de Soto themes with better data and a more systematic approach.

Gene Slater’s Freedom to Discriminate: How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing and Divide America is a very good and useful book about the role of realtors and covenants in shaping residential discrimination.