Recently Mentioned Books

That is the new book by David Colander and Craig Freedman , here is one short bit:

Buy the book here .

That is from the new and excellent Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking with Destiny .  It is true of course that the fifty years prediction was off.  Here is the Churchill essay .

Jacy Reese has a new book The End of Animal Farming: How Scientists, Entrepreneurs, and Activists are Building an Animal-Free Food System .  It is overstated, but still better than the near-unanimous ignoring of these issues which goes on in the economics profession.

Adam Zamoyski, Napoleon: A Life I read only some parts of, and found very well-written and entertaining, but it wasn’t sufficiently conceptually innovative to hold my interest.

Daniel S. Hamermesh, Spending Time: The Most Valuable Resource is a good introduction to what economists know about the allocation of time, both evidence and theory.

3. Daniel Walker Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs .  An excellent history book in its own right, this is also one of the best sources for understanding the 19th century roots of our current dilemma.  Reading everything by Daniel Walker Howe is in fact a good algorithm for proceeding in life.

2. Timothy Larsen, John Stuart Mill: A Secular Life .  Covers the evolution of religion in Mill’s life, and stresses that toward the very life he turned back to a religiously-oriented world view.  Arguably all of the (< 12) people at Mill’s funeral were Christians.  As a side benefit, the book has an illuminating treatment of the romance with Harriet Taylor.  I’ve since ordered four other of Larsen’s books, the ultimate compliment.

1. Richard A. Arenberg, Congressional Procedure: A Practical Guide to the Legislative Process in the U.S. Congress .  You know, this stuff matters a lot more than it used to.

That is from Arnold Kling reviewing Martin Gurri’s forthcoming The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium .

That is from the latest issue of American Economic Journal: Economic Policy , “ Discounting Disentangled ” by Drupp, Freeman, Groom, and Nesje.  You will of course find a lengthy discussion of these issues in my own Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals .

Just type in “ Gulliver’s Travels, ” and the first page will not show any editions you actually ought to buy.  And there are so many sponsored ads for mediocre, copyright-less editions.  If you type in “Gulliver’s Travels Penguin” you eventually will get to this , a plausible buy for the casual educated reader.  And wouldn’t it be nice if someone told you the $156.31 Cambridge University Press edition is by far the best choice? — full of marginal annotations!

Just type in “ Gulliver’s Travels, ” and the first page will not show any editions you actually ought to buy.  And there are so many sponsored ads for mediocre, copyright-less editions.  If you type in “Gulliver’s Travels Penguin” you eventually will get to this , a plausible buy for the casual educated reader.  And wouldn’t it be nice if someone told you the $156.31 Cambridge University Press edition is by far the best choice? — full of marginal annotations!

That is the forthcoming book by my excellent colleagues Noel Johnson and Mark Koyama, due out next January, you can now pre-order here .

6. Charter city > caravan .  And again, here is Reihan’s new book on immigration .

I thank all of you buyers and reviewers for making the opening week of Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals such a success.

That is from the new David W. Blight biography of Douglass , outstanding in every way, appearing to rave reviews , and slated for the top tier of the year’s “Best of 2018” non-fiction list.

5. Camille Paglia, Provocations .  At first I was discouraged by the notion of a recycled Paglia compilation, but the quality of these pieces is often high and many of them are not readily available elsewhere.  The now-classic Sexual Personae is still the best introduction to her work, but if you think you might be tempted by this one, you should buy it.  I would put the hit rate at about fifty percent (who else will give you running commentary on the main cinematic adaptations of Homer’s Odysse...

5. Camille Paglia, Provocations .  At first I was discouraged by the notion of a recycled Paglia compilation, but the quality of these pieces is often high and many of them are not readily available elsewhere.  The now-classic Sexual Personae is still the best introduction to her work, but if you think you might be tempted by this one, you should buy it.  I would put the hit rate at about fifty percent (who else will give you running commentary on the main cinematic adaptations of Homer’s Odysse...

4. Michael Tomasello, Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny .  How does human psychological growth run in the first seven years, in particular how does it instill “culture” in us?  Tomasello address this question in a Belknap Press book by comparing us to chimpanzees and bonobos.  Most of all, how does the capacity for shared intentionality and self-regulation evolve in people?  This is a very thoughtful and also important book, but I’m not sure it finally succeeds into tying up all the pieces in...

3. Robert Alter, The Art of Bible Translation .  Alter is one of today’s most important doers, and his forthcoming Hebrew Bible translation is likely to be definitive and the most important act of publication this year.  This short volume presents his perspective on what he has done, most of all focusing on how to turn Hebrew into English.

2. Tom Miller, China’s Asian Dream: Empire Building Along the New Silk Road .  A good look at the new conflicts between China and its southeast Asian and central Asian neighbors.  Clear enough to be a good introduction, detailed enough to be useful to those who already know something about the topic.

1. Catherine Clinton, Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom .  I hadn’t realized that so much was known about her life, or that she spent so much time in Canada, or that she fell into such obscurity during the early part of the twentieth century.  She died the same year Rosa Parks was born.  I liked this book very much.

That is the forthcoming Raghuram Rajan book, due out February 26, 2019 .

Here is the full story , via the excellent Benjamin Copan.  And if you don’t know his performances in The Killer , a John Woo film, now is the time to check it out.