Recently Mentioned Books

And that does not even get us to the main argument.  In the meantime, I would stress what a wonderful and splendid book is Francesca Lidia Viano’s Sentinel: The Unlikely Origins of the Statue of Liberty .  It is entirely gripping, and one of the must-read non-fiction books of this year.

Yes, I am continuing to read David Edgerton’s The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth Century History , and it is one of the must-read non-fiction books of this year.  Here are a few points I gleaned from my time spent with the book on the plane last evening:

All these points are from Jeremy J. Baumberg’s new and interesting The Secret Life of Science: How It Really Works and Why It Matters .

Joy Lisi Rankin, A People’s History of Computing in the United States appears to be interesting.  It tries to liberate the history of American computing from the usual emphasis on Silicon Valley, and offers greater focus on Dartmouth, Minnesota, and other less studied locales.

Cass R. Sunstein, The Cost-Benefit Revolution .  Not since the 1970s has cost-benefit analysis been as underrated as it is right now.

Laurence M. Ball, The Fed and Lehman Brothers: Setting the Record Straight on a Financial Disaster is a very serious and useful book.  The Fed could have saved Lehman Brothers and didn’t, partly because of political pressures, and partly because they underestimated the damage it would cause to the economy.  Ball documents what I have supposed from the time of the event.

3. Karl Ove Knausgaard, Inadvertent (Why I Write) .  92 short pp. on how he thinks about writing, consistently high in quality, the contrast between Kundera and Hamsun was my favorite part.

2. David Edgerton, The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth Century History .  I’m only on p.34, but this one is spectacular and I expect to read it closely all the way through.  You’ll probably hear about it more in future blog posts.  He takes on many myths about British postwar decline, for instance, arguing that British business actually did pretty well in the 1950s and 60s.  Right now it is out only in the UK, but the above link still will get you a copy.  Here is a good Colin K...

1. Gaël Faye, Small Country .  Short, readable, and emotionally complex, one of my favorite novels so far this year.  Think Burundi, spillover from genocide, descent into madness, and “the eyes of a child caught in the maelstrom of history.”  Toss in a bit of romance as well.

An earlier version of the work , with a different translation and less complete, was published in 1995.  By the way, here is the author’s Wikipedia page .

That is not blurb inflation.  Note that the book is long (734 pp. of stories), and the reading is slow, mostly because the narratives lack redundant information, not because they are clumsy or awkwardly written.  It also takes perhaps a few stories to get into the swing of things and figure out how the fictional yet not fictional universe works here.  But the content is entirely gripping, and full of social science.  You can buy it here .   A second volume from this translator will appear in 201...

That is all from p.1 of Christoph Mick’s study of L’viv .

That is all from the new and interesting The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids , by Alexandra Lange.

Ashoka Mody, Eurotragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts , has produced the best book yet on that “not quite yet in our rear view mirror” episode.

Eric Rauchway, Winter War: Hoover, Roosevelt, and the First Clash Over the New Deal considers Roosevelt’s early plans for the New Deal, before his election, and also how Hoover started laying the groundwork for opposition.

On herding and social influence, there is Michelle Baddeley, Copycats & Contrarians: Why We Follow Others…and When We Don’t .

Lincoln Ballard and Matthew Bengtson, with John Bell Young, The Alexander Scriabin Companion , the definitive treatment of its topic.  Bengston is also my favorite Scriabin pianist.

Elhanan Helpman, Globalization and Inequality .  A very well done survey of what we know about this issue, from a leader in the field.

Geoffrey B. Robinson, The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66 .  Hardcore excellent across both the factual and conceptual dimensions.  It is striking that as of 1965 Indonesia had the world’s largest non-governing communist party, until this episode that is.  At least half a million people were killed and “…the vast majority were felled with knives, sickles, machetes, swords, ice picks, bamboo spears, iron rods, and other everyday implements.”  Not so much high tech, ...

Jesse Norman, Adam Smith: Father of Economics . Written by an MP, impressive, though I remain closer to a traditional classical liberal view of Smith.

That is from Gerard N. Magliocca, The Heart of the Constitution: How the Bill of Rights Became the Bill of Rights .

Here is the longer list , via Adam.  You can order the book here .

I will be doing a Conversation with Tyler with him, no associated public event.  Here is his home page , and the About section .  Here is Wikipedia on Pollan .  Here is a Sean Iling Vox interview with Pollan , on his recent work on LSD and other psychedelics, and his most recent book is How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence .  Pollan is perhaps best known for his books on food, cooking, and fo...

Great Lakes region: this was actually good https://www.amazon.com/Great-Lakes-Africa-Thousand-History/dp/1890951358/

Those are all from the frank interviews with Arrow in On Ethics and Economics: Conversations with Kenneth J. Arrow , by Arrow of course and also by Kristen Renwick Monroe and Nicholas Monroe Lampros.  Interesting throughout.