Recently Mentioned Books

That is the new forthcoming book by Jay Belsky, Avshalom Caspi, Terrie E. Moffitt, and Richie Poulton, which will prove one of the best and most important works of the last few years.  Imagine following one thousand or so Dunedin New Zealanders for decades of their lives, up through age 38, and recording extensive data, and then doing the same for one thousand or so British twins through age 20, and 1500 American children, in fifteen different locales, up through age 15.  Just imagine what you w...

I’d like to do something a little different in this talk from what is usually done. Typically, someone comes and they present their book. My book here, Stubborn Attachments . But rather than present it or argue for it, I’d like to try to give you all of the arguments against my thesis. I want to invite you into my internal monologue of how I think about what are the problems. It’s an unusual talk. I mean, I think talks are quite inefficient. Most of them I go to, I’m bored. Why are you all here?...

The author is Ashley Mears and the subtitle is Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit .  I loved this book, my favorite of the year so far.

That is all from Atul Kohli, Imperialism and the Developing World: How Britain and the United States Shaped the Global Periphery .  The book is quite good.

Also new and notable is Lily Collison, Spastic Diplegia–Bilateral Cerebral Palsy: Understanding the Motor Problems, Their Impact on Walking, and Management Throughout Life: a Practical Guide for Families .

There is also Sidney Powell and Harvey A. Silverman, Conviction Machine: Standing Up to Federal Prosecutorial Abuse is a frank and brutal documentation of why you should never trust a prosecutor or speak to the FBI.

A wonderful book if you care about the lost pianos of Siberia and indeed I do: “Roberts reminds us in this fresh book that there are still some mysterious parts of our world.” (link here )  Also of note is Varlam Shalamov, Sketches of the Criminal World: Further Kolyma Stories , the first third being remarkably moving and incisive as well.

6. Sophy Roberts, The Lost Pianos of Siberia.

5. Gabriel Said Reynolds, Allah, God in the Qur’an .

4. Cheryl Misak, Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers .

4. Simon W. Bowmaker, When the President Calls: Conversations with Economic Policymakers .

3. I was happy to write a blurb for Michael R. Strain’s The American Dream is Not Dead (But Populism Could Kill It) .

2. Samuel Zipp, The Idealist: Wendell Willkie’s Wartime Quest to Build One World .

1. David Nutt, Drink? The New Science of Alcohol + Your Health .

Here Ilya provides basic information about the book .  Here you can pre-order it on Amazon .

There is much more at the link, an excellent Conversation.  Here you can order Garett’s book 10% Less Democracy: Why You Should Trust the Elites a Little More and the Masses a Little Less .  You can read the introduction to the book on-line .

That is the new book by Daniel A. Bell and Wang Pei .  It is perhaps not so novel to students of Jean Bodin and medieval political thought, or say Chinese history, but still the book crystallizes a moment and I consider its publication a matter of note.  Here is one short bit:

That is the new, forthcoming Joe Henrich book, due out September 1, pre-order here .  Here is my 2016 CWT with Joe Henrich .

That is a Lydia Davis short story (yes, the whole thing) from her excellent book Samuel Johnson is Indignant .

John G. Matsusaka, in his new Princeton University Press book Let the People Rule: How Direct Democracy Can Meet the Populist Challenge , calls for the introduction of referenda at the national level in the United States.  For instance he favors advisory referendums called by Congress, advisory referendums called by petition, advisory referendums required for specific issues, binding referendums for required issues, or called by petition, and constitutional amendments, proposed by petition (but ...

Fred Kaplan, The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War , is not a secret history, but it is a good general overall introduction to its chosen topic.

John Took’s Dante is the book to read on Dante after you’ve read all the other books (an interesting designation, by the way, I wonder how many areas have such books?  In most cases, if you’ve read all the other books you shouldn’t bother with the next one!).

Neil Price, A History of the Vikings: Children of Ash and Elm .  I have only browsed this book, yet it appears to have much more information about the Vikings than other books I know, yet without getting squirrelly.  That said, I find it difficult to connect books on the Vikings with the broader conceptual narratives I know, and thus I do not retain their content very well.  So I am never sure if I should read another book on the Vikings.

Laurence Louër, Sunnis and Shi’a: A Political History of Discord .  Captures the complexities, and in fact pulls the reader away from the usual tired dichotomy.

1. Lane Kenworthy, Social Democratic Capitalism .  A very smart, well-written, well-argued book, and an argued book indeed it is.  As the title suggests, Kenworthy tries to persuade the reader to embrace social democratic capitalism, but with an emphasis on what government can do, not the market.  One rebuttal: responding to the Swiss experience requires far more than the two short paragraphs on pp.105-106, and furthermore Switzerland has done very well in many sectors above and beyond being a f...