Recently Mentioned Books

3. Marie Favereau, The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World .  The subtitle is maybe misleading, because this is the book that corrects all the other books with subtitles like “How the Mongols Changed the World.”  Yes they were somewhat globalized and also religiously tolerant, but Favereau fills in the rest of the details, and furthermore outlines the concept of “the horde” as a mode of governance.  I am hardly an expert in this area, but this seems to be the recommendable book on the Mongo...

2. Zachary Karabell, Inside Money: Brown Brothers Harriman and the American Way of Power .  A very useful treatment of an undercovered institution, and one spanning many different eras of American history.  Lots about early 20th century Nicaragua, plus this is the private investment firm that stayed private.

1. Honor Moore, Our Revolution: A Mother and Daughter at Midcentury .  An excellent book on “what it was like back then.”  Plus the daughter-mother memoir often is neglected by male readers, and this is one place to start.  The mother ends up diagnosed with cancer at age fifty, and furthermore her war hero and Bishop husband turns out to be actively bisexual.

The subtitle is A New Monetary History of China , and the author is Jin Xu.  This is the first book this year to go straight to my “best books of the year list,” here is one excerpt:

You can pre-order here .  Here is further information , and a link to audiobook information.  Via Michael Rosenwald .

Benjamin Friedman has been a leading macroeconomist since the 1970s, whose accomplishments include writing 150 papers, producing more than dozen books, and teaching Tyler Cowen graduate macroeconomics at Harvard in 1985 . In his latest book, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism , Ben argues that contrary to the popular belief that Western economic ideas are a secular product of the Enlightenment, instead they are the result of hotly debated theological questions within the English-speaking Protes...

4. Bryn Rosenfeld, The Autocratic Middle Class: How State Dependency Reduces the Demand for Democracy .  When is it the middle class that contributes to the resilience of autocracy, rather than its breakdown?  A very interesting book, highly relevant to China among other places.

3. Avi Loeb, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth .  The Oumuamua book, by the former chair of the Harvard astronomy department.  I am not able to judge the scientific claims about comets, light refraction, travel spin, and the like, but too much of the book felt like “argument from elimination” to me.  “Well it can’t be this, and can’t be that, and thus it is likely to be…”  That works well for phenomena we understand!  But it can lead you into dangerous traps when ...

2. David M. Carballo, Collision of Worlds: A Deep History of the Fall of Aztec Mexico and the Forging of New Spain .  I never tire of books on this topic, but that should tell you something about the topic, right?  This one is written by an archaeologist, and you can think of it as unearthing the different layers of Aztec culture more effectively than most competitor books.

1. Danielle Dreilinger, The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live .  A pathbreaking book that unearths and presents part of the “hidden” history of economics, in this case as practiced largely by women, and often black women at that.  Think of it as the science and craft of Beckerian household production but with a managerial emphasis.  If you like books on paths not taken, this one is for you.

That is from the new and important The World Turned Upside Down: A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution , by Yang Jisheng, who himself participated in the Cultural Revolution.

That is from Charles Kenny’s new and excellent The Plague Cycle: The Unending War Between Humanity and Infectious Disease , which was started well before Covid.

That is the new, forthcoming book from Deirdre McCloskey.  Due out in April, Amazon link here , home page here .  The introduction and TOC is here .

He was an indigenous, Nahuatl-speaking Mexican painter in the “Naive” tradition, working on board, amate paper, and ceramics.  Some of you will know that I was his biographer , along with his two brothers Marcial Camilo and Juan Camilo, both painters as well.  I spent many hours interviewing Felix Camilo (and his friends and relatives) about the events of his life, so it is especially sad for me to see such a tragic final episode, namely death by Covid in his mid-sixties.  He simply was not able...

3. Lara Lee, Coconut and Sambal: Recipes from my Indonesian Kitchen .  Yes, I have been learning how to cook Indonesian food, a natural extension of my previous interest in cuisines from India, Malaysia, and Singapore.  This is an excellent book for several reasons, and a better book yet for a pandemic.  First, you can fold it open easily on the kitchen counter.  Second, the pages can take some wear and tear.  Third, the key ingredients are readily storable.  Galangal, turmeric, and narrow red c...

2. The Letters of T.S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 .  It is striking how quickly in his life Eliot is corresponding with very famous people, including Bertrand Russell, Ezra Pound, Conrad Aiken, Julian Huxley, Herbert Read, Wyndham Lewis, and others, all before Eliot himself is renowned.  I also enjoy the 23 March 1917 letter to Graham Wallas where Eliot boasts about his new job at Lloyds, praises the extraordinary nature of banking work, and roots for a salary boost.  Later Hermann Hesse and Jam...

1. Jan Golinski, Science as Public Culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760-1820 .  One of the best books on the history of Enlightenment science, in addition to the core material it focuses on how the leading researchers went about creating public audiences for their investigations and for the scientific questions that interested them.  Indirectly, it is also a good book for understanding the importance of social media today.  And unlike many books of science, it properly places th...

That is the new book by Tim Harford , due out February 2.

And here is Sarah on Twitter .  Here is her very useful bio page .  Here is her book Archaeology from Space: How the Future Shapes the Past .  So what should I ask her?

6. Emmanuel Kreike, Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare as a Crime Against Humanity and Nature .  Might this be the most important topic that most smart, very well educated people have never read a book on? And this treatment is excellent and engaging, covering the attacks on Dutch water systems in the 17th century, various Spanish attacks on indigenous American environments, the late 19th century conquest of Aceh, Indonesia, the colonial conquests of Angola and Namibia, and more.  Recommended...

5. Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin, and Simon Bunel, The Power of Creative Destruction: Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations . A good and clearly written look at that approach to growth and macroeconomics.

4. Chinmay Tumbe, The Age of Pandemics: 1817-1920, How They Shaped India and the World .  Across 1817-1920, India lost an estimated eight million lives to cholera.  In 1907 alone, India lost an estimated one million lives to the plague.  So there should be many more books on this topic. In the meantime,this is a good introduction to the basic outlines of what happened.

3.Allan Chapman, England’s Leonardo: Robert Hooke and the Seventeenth-Century Scientific Revolution . Of all the books on Hooke, this one seems to be best (most of what I’m reading I never cover on MR ), most of all for showing the unity of his contributions and situating them within the 17th century English milieu.  Microscopes and air pumps and chemistry and barometers and the motion of bodies and helping to rebuild London, and more!

2. Jonathan Cohn, The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage .  This is the book by the person who should have written this book.  Whether you will choose to read a book on this topic, at this point, is perhaps the question. But if you do…

1. David M. Friedman, The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrell, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever .  This book doesn’t seem so well known, but it should be essential reading for those obsessed with life extension.  It helps explain why the idea has not been historically popular for some time, and why it might stand in tension with certain liberal values.