Recently Mentioned Books

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.

4. Robert B. Brandom, A Spirit of Trust: A Reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology .  I’ve only read the first forty or so pages in this one, and I will read them again.  I am not sure it makes sense for me to study this book further, given my priorities.  Yet it seems worth the $50 I spent on it.  If you wish to imbibe a truly impressive, line-for-line smart and insightful take from a contemporary philosopher, this 2019 book is exhibit A, noting that it serves up 757 pp. of text.  I’ll let you know ho...

3. Seamus Deane, Small World: Ireland 1798-2018 .  Deane passed away only last month , might he have been Ireland’s greatest modern critic?  Covering Burke, Swift, Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, Heaney, Anna Burns and much more, these essays are especially good at tying together “old Ireland” with “current Ireland.”

2. Julian Hoppit, The Dreadful Monster and its Poor Relations: Taxation, Spending and the United Kingdom, 1707-2021 .  A highly useful fiscal history, the book also has plenty on Ireland and those are often the most interesting sections.  There had been a formal union in 1801, but during the Great Famine there was no fiscal risk-sharing with Ireland.  At the time, the national government in London also much preferred spending in England to spending to Scotland.  At 223 pp. of text it feels short...

1. William Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1805 edition .  Many people who read “the Great Books” never touch this one, because it is a poem, and a long one at that (about 200 pp. in my Oxford edition).  Nonetheless a) it is one of the best poems, and b) the experience of reading it is more like reading “a great book” than like reading a poem.  I am very happy to be rereading it.  Highly recommended, and it is also important for understanding John Stuart Mill, the decline and transformation of classica...

That is from the new and excellent An Illustrated Business History of the United States , by Richard Vague.  How many of you really know everything that is in here?  In that same year Buffalo was the tenth largest U.S. city.  And the most valuable import around that time (1891-1900) was sugar, with coffee #2 and “Hides and skins” #3.

Matt Grossman’s How Social Science Got Better: Overcoming Bias with More Evidence, Diversity, and Self Reflection is both substantive and honest.

Steven Johnson, Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer , is a very good history of exactly what its title promises.

3. Kara Walker, A Black Hole is Everything a Star Longs To Be .  Mostly images of her drawings, no text to speak of (though many of the drawings themselves have text).  These 600 or so drawings will be on exhibit in a show in Basel that I hope to visit this summer, Covid conditions permitting.  I find her work a better introduction to “current race issues” than most of the recent well-known books on race issues.  Smarter and more powerful.

2. Andrew Steele, Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old .  I haven’t read all of the popular “anti-aging” books, but perhaps this is the best one?  It presents the diversity of problems involved, and the difficulty of solving them, while remaining ultimately hopeful about the possibility of progress.  Most of the meat of the book is in the middle chapters, which are also good for explaining how aging research relates to broader biological and disease-linked issues.

1. Marc Morris, The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England 400-1066 .  A pretty good book.  It has been criticized for focusing on “dead white males,” but isn’t this a history of dead white males in large part?  The photos are quite good.  My main problem is simply that I find the whole era inscrutable.  Still, if you wish to learn whether Aethelred the Unready was in fact…unready…this is one good place to go.

That is all from Egill Bjarnason, How Iceland Changed the World: The Big History of a Small Island .  I’ll say it again: single country books are underrated .  Maybe there are no great revelations in this one, but if you have been to Iceland, or are planning a trip, it is probably the first book you would want to pick up to cover the country.

You will note that Niall has a new book out Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe .

Again, here is Mark’s new book Value(s): Building a Better World For All .